Cleopatra Radella's house was charming, with a wide, welcoming porch and lacy curtains in the windows. Great pains had been taken to make the front inviting, but he'd scouted the whole area on foot under the cover of dark and knew that the back had been left to fade and peel under the blazing Florida sun.
Appearances were apparently important to Radella.
"I found her," Flint told the woman on the phone.
"What do you think? Good guy or bad guy?" she asked.
Marvel Manning was a tech genius, a germaphobe, and a total chatterbox. While he appreciated her loyalty, ability, and work ethic, he did not want to get drawn into her conversational black hole.
"Don't know yet," he said. "She could have no shards at all."
"When will you know?" asked Marvel.
"These things take time. It's not like she has the answer stamped on her forehead."
"Starry told me to tell you to hurry. We're way behind on bringing in the strays."
Flint suppressed his irritation. He owed Starry his life and would gladly repay her in full if she called on him to do so, but there were some things that were beyond his ability.
"Tell her it will take as long as it takes," he said. "I need to be sure before we send her to Eden."
Marvel sighed. "Yeah. I figured that's what you'd say. Problem is, my new program is spitting out names faster than we can find them. This Cleopatra chick has been out there for almost three years on her own. And if I can find her, so can the Vires."
Flint caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman through a window in the back corner of the house, in the kitchen. His vantage point wasn't great, but his eyes were good, and that little flash of movement was all it took to make out the features of a young woman: Average height, chin-length, straight blond hair, pretty features.
He couldn’t tell more than that about her appearance, but her movements gave away much more to a man like him.
She was terrified.
The light in the kitchen winked out. A few seconds later, a light in an upstairs room came on. A shadow passed over the closed blinds, moving with jerky hesitance. Then she went still for a moment before her shadow shrank as she approached the window.
The cheap plastic blinds parted as she peered out and looked right at his car.
Flint froze.
He was good at staying hidden. People rarely noticed him, even when he wasn't using the magic coursing through his blood to enhance his ability to blend in.
Still, the blond woman looked right at him, as if able to see through the pre-dawn gloom, past the glare of streetlights hitting his car window, and into the shadows of the sedan's interior. He could feel her gaze on him, almost as if she'd known he'd be here.
He barely moved his mouth to speak to Marvel. "This fancy program of yours…what does it tell you about the people it finds?"
"Not much. Most of the data is a bust. It's all based on obituaries. I set it up to track the people who have lost a parent or older siblings, and see if any weird news reports about them hit the 'net."
"Weird how?"
"You know, like manifestations of magical mojo—proof that they might have inherited shards."
Cleopatra's eyes stayed fixed on Flint's window as she squinted.
Cleopatra. What a ridiculous name for an American blonde.
"Does it tell you what abilities they might have?" he asked.
"Not really. I mean, we get hints sometimes, based on their parentage, but you know how fickle shards can be. The mix matters. This one time, I knew a dude whose dad could bench press a truck, but when he inherited the shards, he couldn't even—"
Flint cut Marvel off before he could be swept into her conversational vortex. "What about this woman? Does your program know what she can do?"
"Sure. She's a psychic. She lives with another psychic. Has a website and everything. You should check it out."
Flint relaxed. This woman was a charlatan. A con artist. Nothing more. He didn't have to worry about supernatural psionic blast rays coming from her eyes or a scream that could melt lead, like the last man he'd found.
Cleopatra Radella was simply a normal human preying on the gullible.
Too bad. For a thief and a liar, she was kind of cute. He just bet that had brought in more than one man for her to prey upon.
Her eyes disappeared as the blinds snapped back into place. Her shadow moved through the room, still jerky and unsettled, but she didn't appear to be coming out to see why he was sitting here, watching her house.
Like everyone else, she'd looked right past him and didn't even know he was there.
"Where's my next assignment?" Flint asked.
"You know the rules. I can't tell you until this one is done. No jumping ahead."
"It's done. There's nothing here. Time to move on."
"Are you sure?" asked Marvel, sounding disappointed. "The algorithm gave her a ninety-two percent chance of having inherited shards. That's unusually high."
"No one advertises that they have shards. That would be insane. She's just one more liar trying to make a buck by feeding into the delusions of the desperate."
Now Marvel's voice pitched up with irritation. "For the love of Odin! So, you're simply guessing that she's not one of ours based on pre-conceived notions?"
"Based on experience," he corrected.
"I don't have time to deal with your stubbornness. Hang on."
Flint was left with no choice but to wait for Marvel to send him his next target. As he did, he drove out of the aging neighborhood and headed toward a diner he'd spotted down the highway. He hadn't eaten in almost twenty-four hours—since before his hunt for Cleopatra had started—and he was starving.
The voice that came out through his headset was not the young, high-pitched voice of Marvel Manning, but instead, the low, sultry purr of another woman.
"Marvel tells me we have a problem," Starry Mandrake said.
Tattletale. Running to the boss because Marvel didn't like his decision was juvenile. Then again, she was young. He doubted she was even old enough to drink.
"No problems," Flint said. "Simply a difference of opinion."
Starry's voice had a bit of gravel in it, like Marvel had woken her from a deep sleep. "She says you're guessing that this woman has no shards, rather than being sure."
"She has a website hocking her wares. If she had shards and the ability to see into the future, she sure as hell wouldn't be stupid enough to tell the world what she could do."
"While your point is valid, you're missing one vital piece of information."
"Yeah? What's that?"
"Not everyone who holds shards knows what they carry inside of them."
"I know that. I've been doing this job for two years now."
"And I've been doing it for twenty."
"I'm not a novice," he insisted as irritation grated beneath his skin.
"No? Then why are you acting like one?" Starry asked. "The Flint I hired doesn't guess. He knows. You're one of the best scouts we have because you take nothing for granted. You're careful. Thorough."
Flint felt a ripple of pleasure at her praise, even as the shame of the truth killed it.
He was guessing. He hated liars, and his assumption she was one was clouding his judgment.
He let out a long sigh and pulled the sedan to the side of the street. "I'll go back. Make sure."
For Starry, he'd do anything. He owed her his life. Maybe more.
"Thank you," she said. "And if she is a vessel, I need you to bring her to Eden."
"That's not my job. Send Garrick or Wade."
"They're both busy."
"I'm a scout. I find them and verify that they have shards. That's all. Someone else can do the people stuff. I'm no good at it."
"I need you to figure it out, Flint. We're short-handed. It's time you got a promotion, anyway."
"I don't want a promotion. I like what I do."
"Then learn to like the touchy-feely stuff, too, because
&nb
sp; we need you to do this. I need you to."
And like a sucker, that was all it took to get Flint on board.
He breathed for a moment until his teeth unclenched enough for him to speak. "Any pointers?"
He could hear the smile of victory in Starry's voice. "Be friendly. Trust your instincts. If she has shards but doesn't want to play nice, then call and we'll figure out our next move. But you at least have to try. A little sweet talk might be all it takes to convince her to come in. If she's one of ours, we need her."
"And if she's one of theirs?"
"You were issued one of Marvel's guns, right?" Starry asked.
"Yes."
"Then use it."
Books by Anna Argent
The Lost Shards
Shards of Blood and Shadow
Shards of Light (a novella in The Secret She Keeps)
The Whisper Lake Series
The Longest Fall
The Sweetest Temptation
The Biggest Risk
The Taken
Taken by Storm
Taken by Surprise
Taken by Force
The Stone Men
Made Flesh
Heart of Stone
Blood Bond Page 31