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“Mr. Hart.”
I stood and plastered on a fake smile of my own. “Mr. Garcia.” I held out my hand, and he shook it, holding just a little too tightly for a little too long.
He was definitely magic.
Which meant that, as far as I was concerned, hehadto be Culhua. Sure, he didn’t actually have to be, but the likelihood that he wasn’t was so fucking low that I would not only eat my shirt, but also my pants and shoes if he wasn’t.
“Please, step into my office.”
“Thank you.” I can be polite if I have to. I don’t like it, but I can do it. “How are you today, Mr. Garcia?”
“Oh, just fine, thank you. Just fine. What brings you here to Deepwater Hephaestus, Mr. Hart?” His tone was pleasant enough, but he wasn’t about to let me stall him out on pleasantries.
I followed him back into his office, where—thank God—the beige gave way to some darker browns, maroon upholstery, a carpet that had multiple wide stripes of color, and—
Well, his wall art was pretty clearly all Aztec.
Around the office were various tiles of Aztec gods. I picked out both Xipe Totec and Xolotl pretty quickly, although I didn’t know the other gods. A snake-looking thing and a leopard-guy.
I’d ask Taavi later, assuming—
I’d ask Taavi later.
And then I saw it, and my blood went completely cold.
Sitting on a little wooden display on Garcia’s desk was a single rifle shell, the surface of its casing a tangled pattern of tiny sigils.
A casing that was way too fucking similar to the ones we’d pulled out of Lilian Harrod’s closet and Victor Picton’s pocket.
Apparently David Garcia was fuckingOrdo.
And if he saw me recognize that bullet, I was so very fucked.
So I plopped myself down in one of the much more comfortable chairs facing his desk and tried really hard to scrub all expression off my face before he turned around, sitting with his fingers interlaced on the desk in front of him.
“Well, Mr. Hart?”
“I’m a private investigator, Mr. Garcia,” I replied, trying to make my voice light and pleasant. “And I can’t help but notice that a lot of folks in the business world—” I wasn’t about to give away what we knew about Julian Vidal. “—seem to be dying. Since you’re a prominent businessman yourself, I was wondering if you had any thoughts about that.”
Garcia frowned, the expression carefully studied. “That’s concerning,” he replied, but I wasn’t hearing concern in his voice. I was hearing conceit. Smugness.
“It should be,” is what I came back with. “Tell me, Mr. Garcia, did you know a Richard Bazan?”
I knew he did.
He wasn’t stupid enough to deny it. “I do—did? Has something happened to Richard?” He was good, I’ll give him that. It wasalmostbelievable.
“He was killed at home. He was apparently shot.”
“How horrible.”
“Can I ask how you knew him?” I examined my fingernails casually, although my heart was trying to beat its way out from behind my sternum.
“He did some work for us.”
“Us?”
“Deepwater Hephaestus. I believe he was recommended by a colleague. I did not know him particularly well, although I am sorry to hear of his… passing.”
