And that question is what sent me on the warpath.
I never meant to drag Gray, Leo, and their friends back into this. I never meant to bring fire and screams back to Heart’s Edge twice.
That little town just happened to have the misfortune of being a pit stop on the way to my answer.
And right now, Tim Rook is in my way.
When I raise my hand, he flinches, well aware that the next time I cause him pain, there’s going to be blood.
Probably a lot of it.
“I’m looking,” he gasps, a tremor rolling through him. “I’m looking, give me a minute, please!”
Still making those absolutely repellent sounds in the back of his throat, he rattles through screens, search windows—then pulls up a personnel file.
There’s a single photograph of a man with a strong jaw, a dark trimmed beard, those rakish bourbon-brown eyes I remember looking at me with a mix of tenderness and dry, cynical amusement.
In the photo, he’s wearing a suit, the fabric stretched stiff over broad muscles. Even with the very best tailors, it always seemed like his jackets were a size too small.
Like no clothes ever crafted could contain the sheer wild energy and strength of that man.
His hair is jet-black, just barely touched at the temples with a splash of early grey.
I wonder how he’d look now.
I wonder if he’d still smile, with those honey-sweet eyes softening just for me.
Oh, Oliver Major.
I...
I hate how the terrible knot of diamond in my chest where my heart should be actually tries to beat again at the sight of him.
But it hardens again the second I scan over the thin skim of information there.
Date of birth, some fifty-odd years ago, but the date of death I’m looking for?
Conspicuously absent.
“Where’s the rest?” I ask, nearly panic swallowing what’s left of my second hard candy of the night. “His dossier, cause of death, everything? The report on the assault?”
“Attached in the files in his profile, but...” Rook wobbles his lips, darting me a fearful look. “They’re encrypted. Only accessible to one biometric profile.”
“Whose?”
I know the answer even before he says it.
Because I just have that kind of luck.
Rook closes his eyes, whispering out in a nasally tremor, “Um...Leland Durham’s, ma’am.”
Well, fuck.
I don’t—I can’t—
Oliver’s not my priority.
He’s an adult who can take care of himself, and if he’s still alive somewhere...it’s been too long.
He doesn’t belong to me anymore.
It’s enough to know he’s probably out there, and Galentron had their reasons for faking his death and covering their tracks.
This is about my little girl.
She needs me, wherever she is.
I prod Rook’s shoulder. “My daughter.”
“That’s going to be harder to find without a first na—”
“Don’t.” I clench my jaw. “You know what kind of data to look for. I don’t need to tell you the company forced every Nightjar to receive all medical care in-house. You know how our records were tracked. Find the damn information.”
Something flickers in Rook’s eyes.
Then he just nods like a deflated doll, bowing his head obediently and raking his fingers over the keyboard.
A moment later, he finds a file saved only by number, in the four-dash-six-dash-two sequence used for numbered Galentron personnel files.
There’s no name inside.
No photo.
Just another number.
Mine.
And a date of birth, a gender.
A daughter.
Data confirmation. Truth, however brief. Something more than the lying words of the cold, impersonal doctor who barely spoke to me when I was reeling in a drugged-out haze.
But that’s it.
The day I was wheeled into that sterile lab and left to suffer through labor for hours, and for nothing.
It’s also the only thing I get. There’s just nothing else there. No other data.
I frown.
That’s not normal, even for a stillbirth.
This kind of deliberate omission tells me one thing.
There’s something to hide.
Like the fact that I’d bet my life that my daughter’s still alive.
And I’d give anyone else’s life to find out where.
So I catch Rook by the back of his polo shirt, knotting it up in my fist and yanking back hard. The open V-neck hitches up under his chin and digs into his throat, choking him and half lifting him out of the chair.
“Where is it?” I demand in a seething hiss, rolling my candy from side to side between my teeth and lips. “Where’s the rest of the data? What happened to her?”
“It—gglk—it’s locked—it’s locked!” he screams. “Biometrically encrypted, like I told you! Th-the only one who can open the file is D-Durham!”
Mercy. The hoops I have to jump through.
I breathe in a slow, deep hiss.
Let it out on a count of three.
My white-hot rage still doesn’t dim in the slightest.
With a furious sound under my breath, I fling Rook out of the chair and against the table. His head bounces off it, and he goes slithering to the floor, gasping messy words I can’t be bothered to digest.
Fine.
I guess all of this Durham body double business just became my problem after all.
I’ll just have to pry the CEO’s bioprint off his cooling fucking corpse.
Ignoring Rook, still flopping on the floor, I settle in the chair and slip a thin card-sized drive just like the one the boys gave me back in Heart’s Edge into the specialized reader.
Galentron doesn’t play around with security. They use entire private systems of drives and readers that can only be accessed by each other, and no other device in the world.
Lucky me, I’ve got sticky fingers and just happened to be wearing a very stylish and roomy Vera Wang coat with several extremely large pockets on the day I walked out forever.
I quickly copy over the data on my daughter and, just for the hell of it, Oliver Major.
Then I swipe a few other things that may or may not be useful in the corporate espionage game later down the road. A lady’s got to pay her bills, after all.
I’m not in the line of work where I can show a resume in anything other than extremely valuable trade secrets and/or a trail of dead bodies that also count as evidence.
It’s a hard knock life for an espionage expert with a dangerous luxury fashion habit.
Once I’m done, I stand, glancing around the room for something handy. I come up with a nice heavy gooseneck lamp with a pretty silver filigree globe holding the bulb at the end.
Which I promptly smash across Tim Rook’s knee.
There’s blood. Howling. Tears.
Quite an impressive bit of mayhem, if I do say so myself.
But he won’t be following me or trying to pull anything cute as I leave.
Just to be sure, though, as I saunter out into the brisk sea air with the night stars glowing over me and the drive in my pocket, I casually pick up one of the harpoon guns ever-so-conveniently mounted on the wall.
Now for the fun part. Even I can’t help smiling.
I swear, every wealthy yachter has one of these harpoon gizmos. I guess because they want to spear a swordfish in the middle of the day or whatever else these assholes do while I’m out handling all of their dirty laundry and staining my hands with blood until I’ll never be clean again.