The Takeover by Teyla Branton Page B

way her neural receiver was flashing, but something inside me relaxed at the words. Stella was my best friend, closer than a sister, and if anyone could find a needle in the proverbial haystack, she could.
    “What we need is to meet with Senator Ropte,” I said. “He’s Delia’s heir and the prime suspect, so what’s stopping us? All we’d need is a good connection to his network and a few minutes, and I bet we’d discover the families’ locations. I volunteer for the job.”
    Stella looked thoughtful. “It could work, if Patrick or I am close enough so you can channel our ability. Or if you can get me into his network remotely. It’ll depend, of course, on how well Ropte keeps his information guarded.” She looked at Ava for guidance.
    Ava stood at the head of the table, leaning over slightly, her hands resting on the mahogany surface, her gray eyes missing nothing. “With Erin and Mari working together, and the rest of you for distraction, that may very well be our best chance. Patrick should have the connections to make such a meeting happen.”
    Stella’s attention faltered slightly as she conferred over her electronic connection with Patrick. I imagined her mind flashing questions up on a screen faster than any human could type and Patrick answering in kind. In seconds, she had an answer.
    “Patrick says Ropte talked to him at a party last week and suggested another meeting, which Patrick didn’t take him up on at the time. Apparently, Ropte encouraged Patrick to speak out against his father’s proposals. He suggested that Patrick needed to think more of his own kind.”
    “Who is with Patrick now?” Ritter asked, tensing with the question.
    Stella gave him a smile. “Don’t worry. Cort has him on lockdown at the safe house where they’ve stashed him. In case you didn’t notice, Cort didn’t come back with the others.”
    “I noticed, but I want to be sure that Patrick doesn’t get any ideas about going to see Ropte on his own. Especially without Mari around to shift him out.”
    “The stronghold is completely secret,” Mari told him. “We drove to it once so I could fix its location, but from then on, we’ve only shifted in and out. He’s perfectly safe.”
    Ritter didn’t appear satisfied until Keene held up something from his pocket—a handful of keys. “I had the same thought, so I made sure there wasn’t any way to drive out. He’d have to walk miles first or blow the cover by calling in a taxi—if he could find one willing to go out that far.”
    Ritter’s laugh surprised me, and I realized that was because I’d heard it so rarely. The others also relaxed at the sound, grinning, Jace’s smirk the biggest of all.
    “Keep looking, Stella,” Ava said. “But the possibility of meeting directly with Ropte is promising, especially if he has no idea we’ve learned who he is. Naturally, he’ll suspect Patrick because of his nature and his refusal to join the Emporium, but he can’t know about Mari and Keene working undercover. The backgrounds we created for them are solid.”
    I caught a glance between Mari and Keene and again felt the connection between them. With Mari posing as Patrick’s mortal fiancée and Keene as her brother, they wouldn’t have found much free time this past month, but there was definitely something going on between them.
    “What’s the news from the Hunters?” Ritter asked Keene. “Have you heard from your sources?”
    Keene made the jumble of keys disappear. “The official word from the Hunters is that they aren’t responsible for what happened to Burklap. Or rather, the kill order didn’t go out from their leaders. But as you expected, they can’t vouch for all the new members who’ve joined in the past three months.”
    “It’s terrible what happened to Burklap,” Mari said. “We met him last week at an event. Such a vibrant man, and now he’s just . . . gone.”
    This interested Dimitri, who sat on my right side. “Can you recall