The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) by Brad Magnarella (best business books of all time txt) 📕

put a little healing energy into both without Meredith seeing, then watched her work the pedals, having already taken note of what she’d done with the gear shift. My wizarding aura had knocked out the dashboard computer and GPS system, which would keep us cloaked.

“The inner roadway’s clear,” I said, pointing at the lane running beside the train tracks. “How about a little pedal to the metal?”

She hesitated, then depressed the accelerator. The cruiser jumped forward, plunging into the tunnel of scaffolding as the bridge lifted us up. When Meredith leaned over the wheel, something on her face told me she was starting to enjoy this. If nothing else, I was giving her permission to bend a few rules.

Five minutes later, we found the street, and a minute after that, the address. Meredith cruised past Vega’s skinned-up sedan and pulled in front of the modest-looking apartment building.

“I want you to drive straight home,” I told her. “Park the cruiser wherever but leave the keys in the ignition.” A straight-A student like Meredith would never be suspected of boosting a police cruiser, I figured, but if someone else stole it afterwards, so much the better.

Her eyes staggered with disappointment. “What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” I got out of the car, then turned around and stooped to the open door. “Thanks for your help.”

“See you in class tomorrow?”

The hope in her voice made me hesitate. “You bet,” I said. “See you in class.”

I closed the door and slapped the roof of the cruiser twice. She wheeled around and took off the way we’d come. I was gambling that Dempsey and Dipinski were still debating whether to call in their stolen vehicle, given that Dempsey’s missing keys would suggest negligence, not to mention gross stupidity.

I hustled up the stone steps to the apartment. Like many buildings in the current era, an entrance that had once likely consisted of swinging glass doors now featured a steel monster. I tugged the handle. The door didn’t move, its bolt guarded by a thick metal plate.

I looked around. At this late hour, there was almost no chance of anyone showing up for me to pull the “hey, mind holding the door? forgot my keys” routine. Given my bloody state, I was far more likely to send them screaming in the other direction.

I dug through the spell items in my pockets until I found the vial of dragon sand. I sprinkled some into the palm of a hand, then used a licked finger to lift the dark granules and press them into the keyhole.

When I was done, I whispered, “Fuoco.”

Smoke curled from the keyhole followed by the hiss of white flames. Within seconds, the locking apparatus sagged in like a half-baked cookie. When I yanked the door, it swung open, the melted bolt plopping to the ground.

I stepped over the threshold and into an anteroom. A locked set of glass doors separated me from an empty lobby. A buzzer panel to my right listed the apartment numbers in two tall columns, with the punch-out of a speaker underneath. Almost immediately, the speaker began to crackle and buzz. Sometimes all these systems took was a little hexing, and for that I wouldn’t need a spell medium. As a wizard, I was that medium.

I pushed a little more energy into the metal panel, then tried the door. The magnetic lock gave up its failing hold, and I was inside.

I consulted my notepad before hitting the half-lit stairwell. Vega’s unit was on the third floor. Fatigue weighed down my legs as I climbed, making me think of the exhaustion I’d observed in Vega’s eyes the morning she drove me to the cathedral. Twice now, I had glimpsed something else in those eyes. Some deeper knowledge.

And then the obvious slapped me upside the head.

At her door, I pressed an ear to the cracked lacquer paint. No shrieking or sounds of struggle. I raised a fist, took a second to review what I was going to say, and knocked four times hard. When twenty seconds passed, I wiped the sweat from beneath my nose and knocked again, heart pounding in anticipation.

“Drop the cane, and lock your fingers behind your head.”

Not in anticipation of that, though.

I did as Detective Vega said and turned slowly. She was approaching from the staircase I’d arrived by, both hands on the grip of the nine millimeter she was aiming at my head.

“Will you at least let me talk this time?” I asked.

Though she was wearing dark jeans and an untucked white V-neck, Vega was all business. She eased beneath the dim lights of the corridor in a practiced approach, eyes level with her line of fire. Her bottom lip swelled out, and she blew a loose strand of hair from her left eye.

“Face the wall,” she said. “Get on your knees.”

I turned until I was looking cross-eyed at a pattern of cheap wallpaper. I thudded to one knee, and then the other.

“I imagine someone in Homicide sees a lot in this city,” I began, working out the epiphany that had hit me in the stairwell.

“I didn’t say you could talk.”

“And some of it, maybe a good amount of it, you can’t explain. Not to yourself, and certainly not to your higher ups—they want cases cleared, period. Start going to them with things that don’t conform to that goal, much less reality?” I gave a rueful laugh. “Next thing you know, you’re standing in traffic with a whistle between your teeth, right?”

Detective Vega, who had begun a search of my pockets, didn’t respond. I heard her set my wallet and keys on the carpeted floor behind me, the blackberry scent of her shampoo mingling with the sour smells of my sweat and blood.

“So you shut away the things you’ve seen,” I said, “the things you know to be out there. And it’s not because you’re a bad detective—far from it. It’s because you’re not given a choice. You believe in the mission on your shield, and you can only