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“Did you notice that she wasn’t dancing, either? She was just behind us on that video that Jones showed us.”
“She might have been shielded by our spell,” Rod said.
“There were people dancing between us and her,” I said. “Matilda looked like she was doing a spell, but I can’t tell when it started, whether she was just doing a spell to shield herself or if she was already doing magic before the dancing began.” I pulled up the footage on the laptop I’d borrowed from work. The wizards leaned close to study it as it played.
“Looks like a spell,” Owen confirmed. “But I’m not seeing enough of it to know exactly what she’s doing.”
Feeling somewhat vindicated, I continued. “But there’s more. Her family’s business took a big downturn after we busted up the Collegium. They’re selling off property to make ends meet.”
Rod rubbed his chin as he thought. “You think they want to go public with magic?”
“It would open up new markets for them. We’ve been looking at this as an ideology thing, but maybe it’s a simple case of follow the money.”
“And if it’s some magic watchdog group that busts the secret open, the Mayfairs don’t get the blame,” Owen concluded. “Even better if they can pin it on me.”
“Oh! I didn’t think that they might be doing that deliberately,” I said. “Do you think she’s targeting you?”
“A lot of these incidents have happened when I was present. That’s one thing Jones is right about. I know I’m not doing it, but it might not be a coincidence.”
“That really complicates things,” I said. “I’ve already been warned to tread lightly and have rock-solid evidence before I speak up, even within MSI.”
“How do you plan to go about getting evidence?” Owen asked.
I sighed heavily. “That’s the tricky part. But it does get easier if they’re targeting you. Then we’ll know to keep an eye on you.”
“You’re using me as bait?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, when you put it that way …” I teased. “Maybe we could also trace who’s sending the information to Carmen, the reporter.”
“If I know anything about these people, they’ll cover their tracks. They may not be as wealthy as they used to be, but they still have plenty of cash to throw around,” Rod said. “They’re probably not getting their own hands dirty. Mattie may have been at that concert, but I doubt she’s been physically present anywhere else.”
“I’ll have to check on that,” I said. “When I was studying footage from other events, I hadn’t met her yet, so she’d have just been a face in the crowd.”
“Maybe I should get in touch with her,” Owen said. “She gave me her card, so she’d be expecting to hear from me.”
“I wonder what that’s about if she’s framing you,” Rod said. “I doubt you’d have even suspected her if she hadn’t approached us at the festival.”
“I wouldn’t have had the slightest idea who she was,” I said. “But getting in touch with Owen would make it easier for her to know where he’s likely to be. She’s been lucky so far.”
“Really lucky,” Rod said, frowning. “How has she known where you’d be?”
“To and from work is easy,” Owen said.
“Yeah, but not the schedule,” I said. “You’re pretty erratic about that. But there was the scuffle at the nightclub—I saw those people who might have been linked to this at the magical club, so it would have been easy for one of them to follow us away from there and start something when we were present. The bike incident in the park and the festival would have been harder to set up.”
“The disappearing car had nothing to do with me, and I’m sure there have been plenty of other incidents where I wasn’t present,” Owen said. “I think it’s more likely to have been a coincidence than a deliberate targeting.”
“Maybe it was, but that may be why she approached you now,” I said. “She may know you’ve been suspected, and now they want to pin it on you. If you meet up for drinks, coffee, or whatever, you can pretty much bet that there will be a big public display of magic nearby.” I gasped as I got an idea. “And it would be interesting if that reporter got called to the same location. That might give us something to go on.”
“So you are using me as bait,” Owen said with a grin.
“The idea of you,” I corrected. “You don’t have to show up. You have some kind of crisis along the way and are running late.”
“It’s still not real evidence,” Rod said. “It might confirm your suspicions, but we’d need to find a paper trail or catch her red-handed, with multiple witnesses and no other good explanation for what they see. And make sure those witnesses can’t be bought. There’s a good chance their stories would drastically change before any hearing.”
“Well, do you have any ideas?” I snapped in frustration.
He shrugged. “Not really my job. You’re the investigator.”
