by Kris Delake
“To go freelance,” the scruffy guy said.
“You think she’s going to come after us?” the second man said.
“You want to wait to find out?” the scruffy guy said.
Skye frowned. Rikki Bastogne. Why did that name sound familiar? She would have to check it as well—and not just because Jack seemed to know her well.
“She can’t take on all of us by herself,” the second man said.
“Probably not,” the scruffy guy said. “But she can go after some of us one at a time.”
“He’s just afraid she’ll come after him,” the third guy said to the second.
“I am not,” the scruffy guy snapped. “Just get rid of Hunter. He’s a problem.”
“Get rid of?” the second guy said. “Are you serious? I’m not killing one of us.”
“He’s not one of us, don’t you get that?” the scruffy guy said.
“He is to me,” the second guy said, then pivoted and left.
“You going with him?” the scruffy guy asked.
“Naw. I figure there’s money in this. You gonna pay me to take out Hunter?” the third man asked.
“Only if you manage it here,” the scruffy guy said. “Otherwise, I’m bringing in real experience.”
Skye’s breath caught. She pressed her hand on the door frame and let herself inside the empty room. She wanted to flee Upscale Reservations and warn Jack, but she didn’t dare—not from the antechamber, anyway.
If she registered again with the hotel part of Krell, she could leave from the back.
She forgot her resolve to get a new room. It would take too long. Instead, she went to the desk. A woman appeared. She was a hologram. Apparently the day was too slow to bring in a real person.
Skye asked to extend her reservation, noting with satisfaction that her voice remained calm as she did so. She had no idea what Jack was into, and she didn’t really care.
She liked him. And that was enough. She would warn him about these men.
And Liora.
She wondered what Liora’s involvement was. Had the Guild sent her? If so, why would she hire someone else to take out Jack? Liora was an assassin. She could easily kill someone. Liora could have killed Jack as she walked past the open-air part of the Starcatcher, and probably not have gotten caught. She was that good.
Skye didn’t know what was going on, but she would figure it out.
She would warn Jack, find out what he knew, and get him out of here.
After that, he was on his own.
Chapter 11
Jack picked up the napkin that Rikki had knocked off her chair when she left. She had hurried away, anxious to leave Krell. Not that he blamed her. She hated it here. She usually worked jobs where she was more comfortable—her last was on a cruise ship.
And that had gotten her into the worst mess of her life.
He crumpled the napkin in his right hand and stared at the remains of the burger on his plate. Having two of those gut-busters in less than twenty-four hours wasn’t good for him. He probably should have had the special soda and nothing else.
He sighed. Rikki had left him shaken. She rarely got upset. Never, really, not since they were children.
She had met a man on that cruise, an assassin with the Assassins Guild, and had fallen for him. She swore she hadn’t, but Jack knew Rikki.
For the first time in her life, she was in love.
And if what she told Jack was true, she had fallen for the worst man she could possibly have found.
He set the napkin down and smoothed it out. She had asked him for his help. He wanted to do more than vet the guy.
Jack wanted to punch him. Just for upsetting Rikki.
Jack would find out everything he could about the man, even if it put him at odds with the Assassins Guild. He was already at odds with the Rovers. What would it matter if he offended the other large group of assassins in this sector?
He smiled without humor and started to stand, when a hand caught his left shoulder and forced him back down. He started to worm away, but the grip got tighter.
“Don’t move,” said a familiar voice he thought he would never hear again. “Pretend like you’re happy to see me.”
That wasn’t hard. He was. He had to exercise great control over his face to keep from grinning like an idiot.
Skye stood next to him.
He turned, grabbed her by the waist, lifted her, and stood up all at the same time. He brought her close, hugging her like she was a long-lost girlfriend.
He had thought she was lost, just not that long ago.
Her body remained stiff for one half second, then she wrapped herself around him, burying her face in his neck, like she had done the night before.
When she had been naked.
He was instantly aroused and he knew she could feel it.
But to his surprise, she didn’t look at him and grin. Instead, she wrapped one hand around his head, holding it in place.
“I just overheard something,” she said. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s a man on this station who wants to kill you. He’ll get paid if he does it here and soon.”
She spoke so softly no one else could have heard it.
And he couldn’t lean back to see her face. So he kissed the spot behind her ear instead, then whispered, “How could you know this?”
“I overheard it,” she said. “You have a ship?”
“Yeah,” he said, his heart sinking. Was this some kind of scam?
“Let’s go there. It’ll be safe.”
“Not if someone is after me,” he whispered.
“I want to show you an image of who is,” she said. “I have no idea who he is.”
Jack’s heart rate had increased and not just because he held Skye. “Show me now.”
“I can’t,” she said. “He might track the information.”
“I have a jammer,” Jack said.
This time, she rocked back and looked him in the face. Normal people did not carry jammers. Normal people had no reason to shut off any access to the various nets and webs and information flow that constantly swirled around them.
His gaze met hers. Her surprise seemed genuine. Or maybe she was just a good actress. Maybe she had known who he was all along.
“All right,” she said. “Is the jammer portable?”
“Yeah,” he said softly.
“Well, then,” she said with a smile. “I still have my room.”
That sentence should have made him happy. It didn’t. For all he knew, Skye was trying to isolate him. It was an Assassins Guild trick—pretend to fall for someone, get him alone, and then kill him.
But if Skye was using that trick, why hadn’t she killed him the night before?
He only had a second or two to decide if he could trust her.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to smile. “Well,” he said. “Let’s go back to your room. After all, I fit there.”
Her smile seemed genuine. “Yes,” she said softly. “You do.”
Chapter 12
Jack followed Skye to her room, deliberately hanging back just a bit. He had left his jammer on. He had two internal links, which was probably two more than he should have had. Most assassins and most Rovers had none.
Internal links meant that someone could receive instant communication. It also meant that someone could be tracked easily.
Unless he had a jammer.
Jack had lied to Skye. He had three jammers, one internal as an enhancement, and two that he carried with him. He had had only the external one on when he sat down with Rikki. As he made his way to Skye’s room, he turned on the internal jammer.
His heart pounded. He had no idea what she was about, but he had decided to trust her.
Even so, it felt odd.
She unlocked the door and pushed it open. The room looked no different than it had when he left it, except that dishes sat on one of the tables. Apparently, Skye had ordered some room service breakfast.
&
nbsp; He worked hard at not looking at that couch. It was too short for him, but he had liked it anyway—or at least, he had liked how they had used it.
Skye did not seem interested in using it at the moment.
In fact, she had moved far away from him, as if she were afraid he was going to jump her when the door closed.
“Still have your jammer on?” she asked.
He nodded.
She pulled out a tablet, then poked at it. He hadn’t seen many tablets outside the Guild. And Rikki had a few. Assassins seemed to prefer disposable communications methods to links attached to their bodies.
His heart rate increased.
Was Skye an assassin? Had she fooled him after all? He had heard about the Black Widow assassin, a woman who toyed with her prey before she killed them. She slept with them, and sometimes got deeply involved with them, then murdered them, and moved on.
It couldn’t be Skye. He would know, wouldn’t he? He was an information guy.
But then, he really hadn’t felt like he was in danger around her until just a few minutes ago.
He would know an assassin, right? Rikki had been one for years, and there was a part of her that was just a bit colder than the average person. Colder than he was, certainly. And she had always been that way. She could shut down part of herself, do something difficult for the good of others—or so she said—and then move on without it having an obvious effect on her.
He both admired that trait and feared it. He had certainly used it, growing up. Rikki had often defended him physically, even though he was always the bigger of the two of them.
He wished Rikki had links; he wished he could contact her now.
Skye handed the tablet to him. “You know him?”
Jack held her gaze for a long moment. He realized that he hadn’t played this right; he wasn’t acting surprised that someone was trying to kill him.
Of course, he wasn’t surprised. Not after all he’d done. But he had never told Skye who he was, never said what he did, never explained anything about himself.
And the average person (there that stupid phrase was again) was never afraid of being assassinated. Or killed. Or robbed, for that matter.
But then, the average person rarely showed up on Krell.
It was too late to hide his initial reaction. And she seemed genuinely worried. A small frown line had formed between her eyes, and her mouth was thin. He wanted to kiss the frown away, but held back.
Instead, he took the tablet and looked down.
His breath caught. The image on the tablet belonged to Filip Heller, the nominal—maybe the actual—head of the Rovers. He was sitting in a familiar setting—Jack recognized the wall behind him—but he couldn’t place it. Somewhere on Krell, obviously.
Heller had grown his hair out, and he had just enough of a beard to look like he hadn’t shaved in a few days.
It was one of those deliberately bad disguises that the Rovers sometimes used when they were on a job. They wanted to be recognized by their client, but not by the target.
Jack had always thought that strange, but then, most Rovers weren’t well-known among the general population. Hell, most assassins weren’t.
“This is the man who’s after me?” he asked, still looking down. He felt disconcerted. He had known he offended the Rovers, had known they might even try something drastic, but he hadn’t expected Heller to do it.
“He sent two men after you,” she said softly.
Jack looked up, his hand still wrapped around the tablet. She hadn’t moved. She seemed to know this was a delicate moment for him.
“One of them declined the job,” she said. “The other one has until you leave Krell to finish it.”
Jack nodded. If Heller was hiring people, then more than one assassin would come after him.
Rikki wasn’t affiliated with the Rovers—she hadn’t been for years—so she wouldn’t know anything about this. And given the turmoil in her own life, Jack couldn’t ask her for help.
He was frightened. And that realization startled him.
He hoped the fear didn’t show on his face.
“Who is that?” Skye asked.
She seemed genuinely interested, genuinely concerned. And he had never felt so alone or vulnerable in his life.
Of course, he had learned through countless investigations that when a man was alone and vulnerable, someone would always come around to take advantage of him.
But there was no point in lying about Heller’s identity. She had his image, and Filip Heller was in countless databases, as a wanted felon in a variety of cultures.
“Where did you overhear this?” he asked, hoping she would take the misdirection.
She opened her mouth, then closed it, and sighed. She extended her hand for the tablet.
“You don’t believe me?” she asked.
“Oh, I do,” he said.
“You just don’t know if you can trust me.”
A small thread of relief ran through him. Just that tiny bit of understanding made him feel better. He really was vulnerable. He braced himself. She was going to cite their night together as a basis for trust.
“I can understand that,” she said. “I haven’t told you who I am or what I do.”
She got that, at least. For all he knew, she was the Rover. He felt stupid now for failing to check.
A man deserved one night off, didn’t he? One night worth enjoying?
He still clutched the tablet. “Thank you for the warning,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
He needed a plan, and he wasn’t sure how to make it. Or where to make one. His ship was now compromised. He couldn’t stay on Krell either. And taking a transport seemed too risky.
He wasn’t used to thinking like this. He had been an investigator forever. He had gone somewhere, found information, and then he had left. Yes, people remembered him—how could they not, he was so tall!—but they never saw him as a threat, because he hadn’t been a threat. Not to them.
He glanced at the door.
“You’re going back out there?” she asked, and her voice was filled with concern.
“Yeah,” he said. Maybe he could risk getting on his ship. Maybe he could get away.
“These men,” she said, “they know what they’re doing, don’t they?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“And you don’t even carry a weapon,” she said.
It had been a point of pride for him. He had been affiliated with the Rovers, but he hadn’t been of the Rovers. He had been different, not a killer. Someone who prevented them from killing the wrong people, he used to say.
Until Heller took over. And then Heller would correct him: You’re just making sure we’re taking out the right people.
Even then, a few years ago, that sentence had bothered Jack. “Taking out” was not the way he wanted to think about the Rovers. And “the right people” meant that the people Rovers killed were legitimate targets.
Over time, there seemed to be fewer legitimate targets. Just people who deserved to die—according to the Rover who killed them.
“You have to trust someone,” Skye said.
He let out an involuntary laugh. “And you think it should be you.”
“We have that man in common,” she said, and it was Jack’s turn to frown in confusion.
“I thought you didn’t know who he was,” Jack said.
“I don’t,” she said. “But it seems he’s here to do more than one job. And I want to find out what the other job is.”
Job. People in his profession used that phrase for an assassination. It was a job. Nothing more, nothing less.
He felt his heart sink. So she was an assassin after all.
“You want to hook up with a man who’s being targeted?” Jack asked.
“Apparently, you forgot,” she said with a smile. “We’ve already hooked up.”
“I’ll never forget that.” Jack didn’t smile. He didn’t feel like smiling at all. “But I think it would be bette
r if we followed your original plan.”
“Because you’ve got a killer after you,” she said.
He nodded.
“Did you do something worth dying for?” she asked, and the question seemed to have a deep meaning for her. That frown had grown deeper.
“Clearly this man believes so,” Jack said, shaking the tablet.
She sighed. “You have no good options, you know.”
“Believe me, I know,” he said.
“I’m the best you’ve got,” she said.
“I’m not sure why you’re trying so hard to convince me,” he said.
She nodded once in obvious surprise. “You know, I’m not sure either.”
And that comment, more than anything else, calmed him just a bit more. If she were trying to con him, she should have continued to push. Instead, she admitted a weakness.
“Give me the tablet,” she said, reaching for it.
He still didn’t let go.
“You know I’m going to figure out who this man is the moment you walk out my door,” she said. “So let me figure it out now. Let’s see what we can do.”
Jack sighed. She was his best choice.
Hell, she was his only realistic choice.
He handed her the tablet, and took a step back, closer to the door. He liked the illusion of escape, even if he was heading into a more dangerous place.
She took the tablet from him, gave him a quick smile, then bent over it.
He should just tell her. But he didn’t want to. Better she find out for herself. He would see the change on her face as she reconsidered her offer. And then he could leave.
“Oh,” she said softly. “This makes no sense at all.”
And neither did her response. It wasn’t one he would have predicted. He didn’t move for the door—not yet. Instead, he waited—although for what, he had absolutely no idea.
Chapter 13
A Rover? Why would a member of the Assassins Guild hire a Rover?
It hadn’t taken long to get the information on that image at all, just a fraction of a second after Skye had activated the tablet’s search with the touch of a finger. She had done it as she got the tablet back from Jack.