Skin Deep (Page 20)

I smiled, then made a quick exit. Liza watched me go from the doorway of her office.

Outside, I held up the flash drive, then began moving along the side of the building. I waved to Wilson, who was still in the car. Panos’s brother sat sullenly in the front passenger seat, drinking a glass of lemonade.

I rounded the building, aspects trailing, so we could get a good look at the exterior. It had small windows, maybe large enough to fit through. No fire escape. I approached a back door; it was locked tight. I gave it a good shake anyway.

“Someone impersonated a priest,” I said to the aspects, “and slipped in to inspect the body and place the tape. Then they came back at night to extract the corpse. So why didn’t they just take a sample of the body’s cells when they were first there, in the room with it?”

I looked toward the others, who all seemed baffled.

“I guess they didn’t know where on the body the modified cells were to be found,” Tobias finally said. “There are many, many cells in the body. How were they to know which place held the information they wanted?”

“Perhaps.” I folded my arms, dissatisfied. We’re missing something, I thought. A very important piece of all this. It—

The back door burst open. The security guard stood there, puffing, hand on his sidearm. He glared at me.

“I just wanted to check,” I said, inspecting the now-open doorway. Tape wouldn’t work here; the door had a deadbolt. “Nice response time, by the way.”

He poked a finger at me. “Don’t push me.”

He slammed the door. I continued on my way, rounding the corner into a little alleyway between this building and the next, looking for other entrances. I was about halfway down it when I heard the soft click behind me.

I spun, as did my aspects. There stood Zen Rigby beside a large trash bin, holding a paper bag with one hand inside of it, her posture innocent.

“SIG Sauer P239,” J.C. said softly, looking at the bag, which undoubtedly held a gun.

“You can tell the type of gun by the way it sounds to cock?” Ivy asked.

“Well yeah,” J.C. said. “Duh.” He looked embarrassed as he said it, though, and gave me a glance. He felt he should have spotted Zen sneaking up on us. But he could only hear or see what I did.

“Mister Leeds,” the woman said. Like last night, she wore a pantsuit and white blouse. She was dark and short with straight black hair. No jewelry.

I inclined my head toward her.

“I will need you to divest yourself of your sidearm,” Zen said. “With attention and care, please, lest an unfortunate incident result.”

I glanced at J.C.

“Do it,” he said, though he sounded reluctant. “She probably won’t try to kill us here.”

“Probably?” Audrey asked, looking pale.

I slowly slid my gun out, then leaned down and set it on the ground before kicking it away. Zen smiled, sack still carried in a way that would make it easy to raise and shoot me.

“You called me earlier,” she said. “A ploy which I must commend. I assume the purpose was to determine if I was following you or not?”

I nodded, hands at my sides, breathing quickly. I found myself in situations like this far too often. I wasn’t a soldier or a cop; I wasn’t cool under fire. I did not like having a gun pointed at me.

“Control the situation, Skinny,” J.C. said from beside me. “The people who end up dead are the ones who lose control. Don’t let your nerves determine how this plays out.”

“Now,” Zen said, “I’ll need that flash drive.”

I blinked. The flash drive . . .

She thought the flash drive contained the code to unlock Panos’s data. How must it look to her? I got hired by Yol, then spent the night working. I headed to the coroner as soon as possible in the morning, then walked out with a flash drive.

She’d guessed that I’d recovered something important. Ivy laughed, though J.C. looked concerned. I glanced at him.

“If she thinks she has what she needs,” he said softly, “we are in serious danger. If you give her the flash drive, don’t go anywhere with her.”

I backed away from Zen, hands still to the sides, until I was against the wall to the building. She studied me. Her gun was probably suppressed, but it would still make a sound. Relatively exposed as we were, she had to be worried about firing.

My heart beat frantically. Control the situation. Get her talking, perhaps? “Who did you get to impersonate the priest for you?”

She frowned. Then she raised her bag and the gun inside. “I asked you politely for something, Mister Leeds.”

“And I’m not going to give it to you,” I said. “Until I at least know how you pulled off the heist. It’s a quirk of mine. I’m certain you’re aware that I’m prone to those.”

She hesitated. Then she glanced to the sides.

Looking for my aspects, I thought. People did that, unconsciously, when they were around me.

“Good,” Ivy said. “Playing the insanity card does tend to throw people off their game.”

Think, think, think. I knocked my head back.

It hit the window behind me. I paused, then began slamming my head back repeatedly, rattling the glass.

Zen was beside me an instant later, grabbing me roughly by the shoulder and towing me away from the building. She glanced in the window—apparently saw nobody there—then threw me to the ground.

“I am not a patient woman, Mister Leeds,” she said softly.

I was tempted to give her the drive right then. But I held back, suppressing my worry, and my fear.

Stall. Just a little bit more. “You realize this is all pointless,” I lied to her. “Panos already gave the information away. On the internet. Free, for everyone.”

She sniffed. “We know that I3 contained his attempts to do that.”

He did? And . . . they did?

She pressed the gun down into my gut. Behind her, the window slammed open.

“Leeds!” the security guard shouted. “You crazy man! Do you want to die? Because I’m going to strangle you . . . Hey! What’s up?”

Zen met my eyes, then threw herself off me and dashed away around the corner. I leaned back as the security guard cursed, stretching out the window. “Was that a gun she was carrying? Damn it, Leeds! What are you doing?”

“Surviving,” I said, tired, looking at my aspects. “Move?”

“Now,” J.C. said.

We left the shouting guard and made for my car. I scooped up my gun as I passed, and once out in the open, I didn’t spot any sign of Zen. I climbed in the back of the vehicle and told Wilson to go.