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Three

    “Ms. Belle, I’m Special Agent Jacob Book, Homeland Security. The doctor indicated that you might be up for a few questions now.” The special agent stood in the doorway to her hospital room.
    Correction, he filled the doorway to the hospital room.
    Cassie had set her scene well, choosing the chairs next to the window. Helcyon obeyed her instructions without voicing the questions that flickered in his eyes. Image was what the Fae hired her for in the first place.
    The gray slacks were quiet, understated, and complemented by the simple white top. The tank top was better for the appearance of the burns. Cassie wanted to project an air of injury but not weakness. Convey vulnerability but not vulnerable. She knew precisely how to produce the desired impact.
    Cassie took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and met the special agent’s gaze. Her seat at the window didn’t allow her to escape the impact of the agent’s presence. She couldn’t if she’d wanted to. Book’s squared jaw held just the faintest cleft in it and highlighted the intensely masculine face. His raw maleness seemed almost primal when compared to Helcyon’s more refined and delicate features.
    Cassie exhaled, counting mentally to reorient her focus. The world around her shimmered, like heat bleeding up from summer pavement. Inside, her world tilted hard to the left. The uneven vertigo shivered, as though one too many shots of tequila swam in her system.
    What the hell?
    “Ms. Belle?” His deep voice sounded like warm whiskey poured over ice.
    “I’m sorry. I thought I was ready for this.” The words trembled, quivering, like Jell-O on the end of a spoon. Helcyon moved forward, his hand dropping on her shoulder. She reached up for his fingers, an instinctive, unconscious need for comfort. Get a grip, Cass . It’s probably just a side effect of the Brownie’s healing.
    “I can come back tomorrow. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.” The agent’s tone reflected equal parts concern and solicitation. He spared a brief look at Helcyon, but his attention oriented on Cassie. “The sooner we do this, however, the more helpful you can be.”
    “You are so certain I can be helpful?” Cassie wished she shared the agent’s sentiment. The drive to leave the hospital, to start digging and investigating, crunched under the fist of grief that choked her. “I don’t even really know what I remember or what I can tell you.” Both were true. She’d focused on not thinking about the explosion. Not seeing Billy’s face. Not feeling the heat. Not experiencing the pain.
    And there was much more she couldn’t tell him. Regret slipped in under the grief, stealing through her defenses, and souring her stomach. She didn’t want to lie to the agent.
    But she couldn’t tell him the whole of the truth, either.
    “Let me be the judge of that.” Book smiled. It was a kind smile. The kind directed at recalcitrant children and stubborn old women. The kind Cassie employed when she wanted to cajole someone around to her way of thinking. Book gestured to the chair near hers. “May I?”
    “Of course.”
    The agent’s behavior intrigued her. He ignored Helcyon, and it went beyond just polite disinterest in the man in the room. Book barely even acknowledged that Helcyon was there. If not for the flicker of his gaze earlier, she would have thought that Helcyon was trying to glamour himself out of the equation. It would save on unnecessary explanations.
    Cassie resisted the temptation to glance at Helcyon. He remained at her back, casual and relaxed. The hand on her shoulder was warm, comforting, and a physical reminder that he was there, even if she didn’t turn her head and look up at him.
    Is he glamoured, though? Can Book see him or not? He looked at him. But he didn’t introduce himself. Do I ask? Do I ignore it?
    “As I said, I’m Special Agent Jacob Book. We’re investigating the bombing in Grant Park.” He held out a slim leather wallet,