by Dena Christy
Xander shoved his shoulders back and bent to the task of prepping his drugs. She made a noise of disgust and he looked up at her.
"What do you want me to do? The client is dead. I can't exactly bring him back to life." He chopped the drugs with a small, thin blade and moved them into separate lines.
"The dead client isn't the crux of the problem. I uploaded the information and I need to get rid of it."
He dropped the blade and straightened. "You have the information?"
"Yes, and I need to get rid of it. I need the password."
He looked uncomfortable for a moment. "I don't have the password."
"I know that. But you can get it. Tell the buyer that the information is way too hot, and you need the password to put it on a device safer for transportation."
His eyes shifted away and he bent, picked up a straw and snorted a line of Joy. He rubbed his nose and a shudder went through him.
"It's going to take me a while."
Something wasn't right. He wouldn't look at her, and a weird look had crossed his face when she mentioned him talking to the buyer to get the password. A cold wave washed over her and she closed her eyes for a second.
"There is no buyer, is there? You stupid asshole. You've completely fucked me, do you know that?"
"What is your problem? If you don't want to carry the device with the information, give it to me and I'll hide it until I can find a buyer."
She took a deep breath and looked at him. "You can't take it. It's an imbedded chip."
Remy was the only one who knew that she had an embedded chip. He'd tried to warn her that the risks far outweighed the benefits of having it, but she hadn't listened. She should have.
The only way she was going get out of this mess was if he obtained the password. Which he didn't have because he didn't have a buyer who could have been given the download password from the client. He had no experience in this sort of thing so wouldn't know that Xander should have arranged for a buyer before she was to meet with him. And now that client was dead and couldn't give the password he'd set for the download to anyone.
"There must be a way to get it off? That information is worthless to me if it's stuck on your chip."
And that was all that mattered to him. He wouldn't be able to get any further funds from this particular transaction because who in their right mind would want to buy information that couldn't be unlocked. It didn't matter that as long as she carried the information inside her body, she was a target.
"The biggest mistake I've ever made in my life was agreeing to take you on as my handler, you incompetent fuck." Cheria's lip curled as she raked her gaze up and down him. He moved toward her with his hand raised, and she didn't flinch away. "Go ahead, and I will scream this office down. And I'm willing to bet that Broge will not let you get a second hit."
He made a sound of frustration, because he knew as well as she did that the only reason Broge guarded him was because he paid well. And Broge's fondness for her would far outweigh any amount of money Xander could offer him.
"Why don't you go to your precious Remy then? I'm sure he will have lots of ideas of how to break into your chip."
That wasn't a bad idea, except that Remy was in Tusko M'Kedi so going to see him would not be a quick trip. And there was the small problem of the bounty on her head, whose issuer was also in Tusko M'Kedi.
"What exactly was your plan in all this? Why would you agree to take on this job without first having a buyer secured?"
"I was told that this information was so explosive that every media outlet on this planet would be salivating to get their hands on it."
Media outlets? That didn't make any sense. Normally buyers were corporate officers interested in obtaining business secrets of their competitors. They arranged with handlers like Xander to be matched with sellers with exactly the sort of information they were looking for. Before any transaction with a courier took place, everything would already have been arranged between the buyer and the seller.
The only logical explanation for why Xander had done this was the money involved. And his greed has screwed her over, because no matter what the information was, without knowing exactly what it was the media representatives would have no interest in buying it.
And he was going to be of no help to her. She was going to need to disappear, and figure out a way to either get the information off her chip, somehow, or have her chip removed. And to do either of those things, she needed to see Remy.
"We're done. You know as well as I do that there is no way you are going to find a buyer. And I am keeping the ten percent commission you were supposed to get from this job." She looked at him just as he was picking up his straw again and her mouth twisted as she turned her gaze toward the window of the night club.
The club was starting to fill up now and she wished she could be as carefree as the people having a good time down there. Her eyes swept over the crowd of people and came to a stop when she saw a face she'd hoped never to see again.
Her mouth went dry as she saw the man who'd murdered her client moved toward the bar.
How the hell had he found her so fast?
* * *
Fear made Cheri's body go cold. She shoved it away. She had eluded him once, she could do it again. It didn't matter how he'd tracked her here, what matter was that he wouldn't find her here.
"I have to go. The guy who killed the client is downstairs."
Xander looked a little sick as his eyes darted to the window.
"You stupid bitch. How could you have led him here?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "That's real helpful. I'm in this mess because of you and your fucking greed. But why don't we figure out how I'm going to get out of this instead of pointing fingers at each other."
His mouth tightened for a second as he hurried to the door and motioned for Broge to come in. Cheria got up out of the chair, hitched the strap of her duffle bag over her shoulder and moved over to where the big bodyguard was standing.
"There is a man downstairs in the bar. He has blonde hair, icy blue eyes and he's looking for me."
Broge's jaw tightened for a moment and a serious look descended on his face. "I'll make sure that he doesn't get any further than me. You go on home where you'll be safe."
"Unfortunately that's out of the question." Not with a bounty hunter who knew where she lived, assuming that he'd regained consciousness by now.
Broge reached into the top pocket of his shirt and pulled out a key card. He handed it to her and Cheria looked at him in confusion.
"It's to my place. Xander can give you the address. Go there and wait for me. It will buy you some time until we can get you somewhere safe. I'll come when we're done here. The code is 2461." She hesitated for a second and he smiled at her. "I have an extra card, so don't worry about me being able to get in."
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Xander roll his eyes, but he refrained from saying anything since Broge could break his skinny body in half.
Ignoring Xander, she opened her arms and hugged Broge tight around his middle. He didn't have to offer his home to her but she was grateful that he had. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Broge took a step back and a flush colored his cheeks.
"If you're done, perhaps we might want to make a move. Or are we just going to wait for the killer to walk through the door?" Xander's biting sarcasm had Broge flushing dark and he moved away from Cheria. He went back outside of the office and closed the door. Xander went to his desk and wrote Broge's address on a piece of paper.
"What will you do?" She didn't want to think about the killer getting into Xander's office because that would mean he would have to take out Broge.
"I'll land on my feet like always. Come on." Xander led her over to the back wall at the far end of the office. She had to squint, but she thought she saw some sort of seam in the wall. Xander pushed against it and a hidden door opened. "This will take you down and out to the alley at the back of the building. Do you n
eed a weapon for protection?"
"I have a stun gun." She looked at him for a second. She wanted to yell at him, to demand to know why he'd let his greed and stupidity get the better of him. But she didn't have time and she didn't think it would make any difference. "Goodbye, Xander."
And with that she walked through the door that would hopefully lead her to her eventual safety.
Chapter 6
Her scent led Rone to a nightclub and he walked in. The place was jammed with people, but he was not deterred by the sweaty bodies writhing around him to the primitive beat of the thundering music. His brain was locked to her scent, and while he was hunting her, it would not allow him to register the scent of the people around him. He followed her scent to a set of stairs at the back of the room.
Up he went, and was relieved that no one cared enough to stop him. He wanted to collect her without drawing any undo attention. A woman as slippery as her might used her smaller size to her advantage and pretend to be a victim of the big alien brute. He had no doubt that he could subdue anyone who thought to come to her rescue, but it would be for the best if it didn't become necessary.
There was a door at the top of the stairs, and he went through it and followed the trail she had unwittingly left for him down a corridor and around a corner.
His steps faltered for a moment when he saw a large man slumped in front of the door. The man was still and as Rone approached the man didn't move or make a sound. He didn't bother checking for a pulse, since the deep wound in the man's throat clearly showed he was dead.
How had a woman of Cheria's stature managed to kill a man of this size? Perhaps she'd used her feminine trickery to get close enough to the man to strike. There was no sign the man had put up any resistance and her scent was all over him.
It made him wonder if he had not let the woman's sex cloud his judgment if this man might still be alive. In her apartment she hadn't struck him like a killer, but this was the second dead man in the vicinity of Cheria Warders. It begged the question of why she'd let him live? Perhaps she didn't want to leave a dead man in her home, where it could be linked directly to her.
While he hoped that he would have fought against her if she attacked him, he was reminded that she had managed to pull a weapon on him and used it before he'd had a chance to disarm her. Whatever her reasons for sparing him, the important thing was finding her and making sure no one else fell victim to her.
Her scent didn't go any further than the door, and he prepared himself for what he might face on the other side. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and the excitement of matching his wits against hers moved through him. One thing was certain, as much as he'd been reluctant to hunt a female, it was by far the most challenging hunt he'd ever been on.
He reached up and back to the hilt of the blade whose sheath rested between his shoulder blade sand hid out of sight under his coat. It felt like an extension of his arm as he grasped the handle and braced himself to go through the closed door.
He had no idea what awaited him on the other side of the door and while he didn't want to use the weapon against her, since the bounty would only pay out if she was alive, the body slumped near the door illustrated the folly of facing her unarmed. Perhaps she would be so intimidated by the sight of a Thonaxian blade that she would surrender and come quietly.
He snorted to himself as he tested the door knob. Nothing he'd observed about her so far showed him that she would become docile at this juncture.
The door was unlocked and it creaked as he used the tip of his blade to push it open. With his weapon in a defensive position and his senses on high alert he entered the room. It was a large open space with windows that looked out over the nightclub.
There were several chairs facing the window and a thin, male arm dangled against the side of one. There was no sign of Cheria, although her scent was all over this room. The arm didn't move as he walked toward the chair, and he sheathed his weapon when it was apparent no one was going to stop him from approaching.
He came around to the front of the chair and his mouth tightened when he saw the arm's owner. A thin man was sprawled in the chair with his sightless eyes staring out the window. The silken robe he wore had fallen open, revealing his naked body and blood from the wound in his neck stained his skin red. Had she pretended to want to share her body with this man only to cut his throat once he was in a vulnerable position?
Rone turned away in disgust. He needed to find this woman before anyone else died. It begged the question of what the hell was going on? Why was she wanted by a corporation and not by the authorities? Surely murder held more weight than corporate theft.
Perhaps the corporation who held the bounty had made arrangements with the authorities that they would turn her over once they'd retrieved their information. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter to Rone. His job was to find her and deliver her to Tusko M'Kedi. And he was certainly earning the fee they would pay him.
Now the question was, where the hell had she gone? It was possible that she had retraced her steps and had gone back through the club. But it would be a pretty brazen act because cutting two throats would have showered her in blood, and even if the crowd downstairs didn't notice in their grinding against each other, surely the staff would.
He walked around the office, hoping to get some clue about where she might have gone. There was a room off to the side that held a toilet and sink, and he flicked the light on. There was no sign that anyone had tried to clean any blood, let alone the amount that would be covering her. And her scent was no where present near this room. He went back to where the man's body sagged in the chair and closed his eyes.
He moved with the scent and when he opened his eyes he found that he was at the back of the office and there was a wall facing him. He growled in frustration. She wasn't a spirit, couldn't walk through walls, so why did her scent cluster here and go no where else.
There had to be a reason, so he put his hand on the wall and closely examined it. Running his hands over it he found a seam. The corner of his mouth pulled up when he pushed on it and part of it popped toward him, revealing it was a cleverly disguised door.
"Found you, woman."
Inky darkness greeted him beyond the door. He reached in and felt inside the wall until he felt a small button. He depressed it and a weak light came on revealing a set of stairs. It was a path that would lead him to his quarry.
Rone went through the door and when he let go of it it shut behind him with a long creaking sound. The dimly lit stairwell felt close and tomb like to him. It had also not been built for someone his size. His shoulders brushed against the walls on either side as he walked down the stairs and came to a door.
He pulled his blade out of its sheath and pushed the door open at the bottom. It emptied into an alley.
Cheria's scent was down here too. Good, he was going in the right direction. And he was relieved to discover that the alley was empty. Thankfully if anyone had seen her come this way, she had not felt it necessary to kill them to eliminate them as a witness. The weight of guilt over two bodies pressed in on him, and while he knew that she was the one who'd chosen to wield a blade, if he'd captured her at her apartment, she would not have been able to come this far and do this much damage.
He paused for a moment, inhaling deeply to determine what direction she'd gone once he was out of the alley. He returned his weapon to its sheath as he walked forward. There was no necessity of carrying the weapon if she was not in the vicinity and it would only draw unnecessary attention to himself. He already stood out with the color of his skin and the size of his body. There was no reason to add carrying a vicious looking blade to the catalogue of characteristics that could be used to describe him.
He followed her scent to the right at the mouth of the alley. This job was becoming more complicated by the second and he wondered what Angis had gotten him into. So far three dead men had followed in this woman's wake, and the big question was why. He got the same feeling from her
that he had when he looked at her picture the first time. She didn't strike him as a killer.
But the evidence against her was damning. And it wasn't his place to decide. He was being paid to take her into custody, take her to Tusko M'Kedi and hand her over to the bounty holder. The need to do so was more urgent now, because this woman was clearly a menace that could not be left roaming free.
His steps picked up speed as he followed her scent. A pit developed in his stomach with the thought that the trail of her scent might lead to yet another body.
Her scent led him to a short, squat building in a row of identical buildings on a small side street away from the main thoroughfare through the downtown area. There were very few people on the street, and he walked into the building like he had every right to be there.
If anyone stopped him all he needed to do was pull out his government issued ID, which indicated he was a licensed bounty hunter and that would be enough to make the person go about their business.
He followed her scent down a dingy hall until he got to the door where her scent stopped. The difference between this building and the one she lived in was stark. Perhaps she used this as a hide out.
It didn't matter because she wouldn't be staying here for long.
The door was locked with a key card and pin pad set up. It would take no time to bypass it. He took out his bypass equipment and efficiently found the PIN number for the door and keyed it in. He opened the door and walked inside with his body on high alert as he drew his blade from its sheath. The door closed behind him and he stood there in the hall, breathing deep of the scent of her.
And he braced himself for what he must do if she came at him with a blade of her own.
* * *
The longer Cheria had to wait in Broge's apartment, the harder the ball of nerves in her stomach became. No matter how many times she told herself that he was tough and would be able to handle a confrontation with the killer, the more worry clawed at her stomach.