"The Russian assassin?" Saffron asked, startled. She frowned. "Whoever hired them must be powerful. And wealthy."

Kelly told herself she didn't want to know four times before saying dryly, "So you guys can get the guy who killed her, but not protect her from being killed? Right. Remind me not to go into witness protection with you."

"I've never heard of anyone stopping Tesseract before," Saffron murmured, fiddling with the pencil. "At least, not without circumstances themselves being untenable. Can I help with anything else?"

She sounded more eager than she meant, if her startled expression was any indication.