As eager as she might’ve been to take the Academy assignment, there’s no way Casey was prepared for this. None of us were.
“You trust her?” Quintana asks, and Casey nods. I can only assume they’re talking about Trello.
He gets to his feet. “Then I guess we need to call it in and start bagging him up. Make it official.”
“James.” Casey opens her eyes and meets his gaze, taking a step closer. “Last chance. Are yousureyou’re on board with this? What I’m asking of you—”
“Is no less than I’d ask ofyou, Agent—to have your partner’s back. The fact that youkeepasking me… Hell, Case. At this point, it’s damn near insulting.”
“Fair enough.” Casey’s tone is all business, but her smile shines with relief.
I have to admit, my respect for Quintana just leveled up a notch too.
“Official story?” he asks.
“Anonymous tip. Reports of a disturbance in the library after hours.” She glances at her phone. “We cleared out the last of the students about fifteen minutes ago, so let’s wait another fifteen before we call it in. I don’t want the times overlapping—we can’t risk any of them contradicting the story.”
“Good call. Gives us more time to do another sweep down here. Far as I can tell, Trello didn’t leave a trace, but we should take another look to be sure.”
“Let’s pack up the essence and the personal effects first. I don’t want any of that mishandled or lost—not if there’s a chance we can still heal those students.”
“You believe it?”
“Trello seems to think so.”
“Again, I have to ask—”
“Yes, I trust her, James. I may not agree with all her methods, and I was slow to warm up at first. But after this, I believe—and I’m talking gut-level here—she’s got the students’ best interests at heart. She cares about them. Cares about her faculty too.”
“And your brother—”
“Is not on the list of approved conversational topics.”
I try not to take it personally. It’s not like I’ve been super eager to talk about her either.
“Should we take any photos before we box up the essence?”
“No time. We need to get this stuff back to your house in Red Sands—I’m thinking that’s the safest place right now. Once Trello makes contact again, we’ll figure out our next steps.”
“I’m on packing duty,” Agent Quintana says, heading for a bookcase stacked with file boxes. He grabs one off the top and dumps out the paperwork, then carries the empty box to the shelves holding the essence. “You deal with the stiff.”
Casey laughs. “You really need to work on your dead body issues.”
“Hey now. We made a deal in training, remember? I carry the heavy shit. You handle the stiffs.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Baz whispers next to me. “Get a room.”
I elbow him in the ribs, then shift positions, trying to prevent my legs from going numb. Unless we want to out ourselves, we’re going to be here a while—might as well get comfortable.
I send a quick text to Cass with an update on the situation, then Baz and I settle in for the long haul. Fortunately, Agent Quintana and Casey work quickly and efficiently, and by the time she’s cleared Phaines’s room of anything incriminating, Quintana’s got all the important jars and baggies of hair secured in a few of the file boxes, along with some spellbooks he found with the essence.
“Let’s take the boxes up to the main storage area first,” she says. “Put them somewhere out of sight. Then I’ll call it in and we’ll start taping off the area. We’ll need to seal off the entrances to the main building as well—I don’t want anyone accessing the scene.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He grabs two of the boxes and she takes another, following him up the narrow staircase to the next level.
Certain they’re gone, we get to our feet.
“What’s our move?” Baz asks. “Set Phaines’s dead ass on fire?”
