Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1) (8 page)

The older man’s drooping head came up. “Uh—in Lydia’s safe,” he said dully. “The rest of us only held codes for the six prototypes. Lydia kept the rest. That was our security strategy. We agreed on scattering all the various pieces of the puzzle so that no single one of us could ever—”

“Like I give a fuck.” Mark vaulted back up into the cargo bed of his truck, and hoisted the colossal safe he’d taken from Lydia Bachmann. He put it down in front of the general. “Recognize this? Open it for me. Or you get to watch your grandson die real slow.”

Kitteridge’s horror and despair were clear in his sig. The man was beaten.

“I can’t.” His voice shook. “I never knew Lydia’s image sequence. Kill me if you want, but please let Joey go. He never hurt you.”

“If you can’t open it, who can?” Mark demanded.

“Lydia’s GodsEye coach could,” the general said eagerly. “Caroline Bishop. When you can work the interface, you’re supposed to re-key with a new sequence of images. But Lydia was so bad with the interface, she tripped security and burned a safe! I doubt she re-keyed the training sequence, just for fear of never getting back in.”

“Did you know Caroline Bishop personally, General?”

“Ah . . . ah, no, not personally. Dex Boyd, the GodsEye biometrics designer, sent her to us because she was the best coach—”

“Tell me about her,” Mark directed. “What else do you know?”

“Well, ah, only that she’s an artist. She gave me an invitation once to a gallery opening. Masks, I think. Dragons, griffins. Not my thing. I didn’t go.” Kitteridge turned to look at his grandson, who was groaning. “Joey? Are you OK?”

Mark’s AVP rage blazed up, hot and maddening. Caroline Bishop, the GodsEye coach who had taught Lydia to use her fucking safe. The only other person on earth who could open it.

He’d been hunting her ever since he’d first heard her name. Now that he thought about it, Caroline Bishop’s name had been the last coherent words that Lydia had ever spoken.

So he hired GodsEye himself. Requested Caroline Bishop as his coach. His intention had been to force her to open Lydia’s safe and then dispose of her.

Then he saw her with his own eyes, at their first training session.

Her sig made his mouth water. And he, with his visual mods, was the only man on earth who could truly appreciate it. She was meant for him.

He’d changed his original plan. Organized a scenario that would explain away Bishop’s disappearance. Framing people was an art form, and he excelled at it.

He’d done all four of the training sessions. He’d asked her out, called her, emailed her, texted her. Dreamed of wallowing in that luxurious haze of shifting colors as he fucked her. Drinking them up.

And after a few drinks and a few coffee dates, the dumb bitch had run away. It must have been seeing that fucking sapphire brooch along with all the other jewel-encrusted crap he’d intended to shove into his new GodsEye safe and forget about. The damn thing had gotten too much press. She’d recognized the piece, and panicked.

She had dared to judge him. She had no fucking idea.

“Joey is innocent. Let him live.” Kitteridge was pleading again.

The man’s quivering voice spiked Mark’s rage. He had to release it or he’d explode.

Over the years, he’d developed tricks that were unique to him, as far as he knew. Siphoning was his favorite. It left no trace. Just a dead body with no outward signs of violence. And it was intensely pleasurable to him. He hadn’t had a really good one since Dex Boyd. It had been a long time since then.

The teenager was obviously preferable to his grandfather. Mark kneeled and pressed his mouth to the younger man’s throat, pinning him to the ground. Joseph arched, bucking under Mark’s weight.

He’d synced to Joseph’s vital energy and started to suck the boy’s light greedily into his own body. Joseph writhed but there was no escape. Mark didn’t break the skin or rupture a single capillary, but on some level the boy knew he was doomed.

Mark faintly heard the general trying to bargain, offering himself, then at the end, hoarsely screaming. He paid no attention. Once Mark started siphoning he never stopped until he was done.

When he lifted his head, Joseph’s light was out. Mark had taken it all.

A glance at the general showed him slumped forward, still tied to the stool, no longer breathing. The shock and horror of what he’d witnessed had stopped his heart.

A good night’s work. He’d taken out an Obsidian insider, gotten into one of the main vaults for the weapons stash, and replenished his energy. No need to remove the corpses.

Mark hoisted Lydia’s safe into the truck and drove into the darkness, dreaming of the rush he’d get when he siphoned Caroline.

Chapter 6

Noah Gallagher flicked the lever on the door lock of his conference room. Finally, alone with him. The look in his eyes made her quiver with excitement.

He approached her, stripping off his jacket and tossing it away. Trapping her between his big body and the conference room table.

The cool edge of that hard slab of polished wood pressed her back.

She gasped as he hoisted her up and perched her ass on the table. He gathered up armfuls of her purple and lavender veils, pushing the sheer stuff up to her waist.

Cool air hit her bare thighs. She realized suddenly that she was naked. His eyes flicked up to meet hers. His knowing grin said that he saw all her secret desires. He knew them like he knew his own, and he meant to satisfy every one. He was inside her mind somehow, making her hot, making her mad, making her melt.

He pressed her legs wide, staring down with hungry fascination, and jerked open his belt—

The ringtone buzzing in her coat pocket snapped Caro out of it. The lurch and sway of the nearly empty bus, the blur of traffic lights and neon signs outside the rain-streaked window replaced the intensely vivid fantasy that had filled her mind.

She pulled the phone out, still addled by her fantasy. Her boss at Bounce. At this hour? She tapped the screen. “Hi, Gareth. What’s up?”

“Quick question,” Gareth said. “I got a call from that guy you danced for this afternoon at Angel Enterprises. Remember him?”

“Of course.” Caro’s legs went liquid. “What did he want?”

“You! He’s fixated on you. And I’ll tell you quite honestly, it creeps me out. I hate guys who think anyone they get a yen for is automatically for sale.”

Electricity raced, crackling along her nerves. “He said that?”

“Not in so many words. But I just want you to know I made it very, very clear that you’re not an escort, and I’m not a pimp.”

His indignation was almost funny. “OK.”

“But then he kept doubling the fee! He said all he wants is a dance, but in private this time. He got up to twenty-eight hundred before I hung up on him!”

Caro was startled. From what little she knew of the world’s oldest profession, that was actually much less than what a high-dollar hooker charged, but to her it was an unspeakable sum of money.

“You hung up on him?” she said blankly.

“Absolutely,” Gareth said. “The whole thing was very sleazy.”

“Ah . . . wow. Do you think he actually expected me to have sex with him?”

“He’d be an idiot, if so, but there’s no shortage of idiots out there. What on earth did you do to this guy?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Apparently it was a revenge gig. His sister booked me to punish him for being a humorless prick. His fiancée glowered the whole time.”

“Ah. I see. Well, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t . . . you know.”

She paused, puzzled. “Um, no, Gareth, actually, I don’t. That I wasn’t what?”

“Oh, sending mixed messages.
Getting too flirty with clients. Something like that would be incredibly bad for business.”

Outrage prickled up her spine like an electric charge. “I didn’t! I can’t believe you said that!”

“Don’t get offended,” Gareth said. “I had to ask. It’s my business at stake.”

“I behaved with the utmost professionalism! As I always do!”

“Well, good. I’ll see you tomorrow morning in the costume shop, then.”

Not likely, at this point. Caro ended the call, bristling with indignation.

Gareth knew only a carefully edited version of her life story. Just enough to justify her low profile and why she needed to be paid under the table. As far as Gareth knew, she had a jealous, violent ex-boyfriend on the East Coast, and an ineffective restraining order.

She’d left out the more colorful details, like being framed for grand larceny and first-degree murder and being on the run from a terrifying killer. Gareth had been patient with her limitations. He was a decent guy, and not naïve, but the whole truth would scare the shit out of him. Like he’d just said, bad for business. It would be good-bye and good luck if he found out how serious her problems actually were. She was sick of disappearing. It was exhausting. And expensive.

But given the pony-tailed guy following her, she’d have to do it soon.

It occurred to her, all at once, that twenty-eight hundred dollars would go a long way toward refilling her sadly depleted emergency flight fund.

A fizzy, whole-body thrill startled her. Oh, God. No. A private dance would be so dangerous.

Then again. She’d stabbed a guy in the throat. She’d witnessed a murder and barely escaped herself. She’d lived on the lam for eight months. Noah Gallagher was just a pampered bad boy who wanted to indulge himself. She could take him on with her hands tied. She could eat that guy for breakfast.

After all. Every move she made put her in danger. Just belly dancing at all was dumber than shit, even covered with makeup and draped with concealing veils and all those chains. But she had to eat. Pay rent. Buy bus passes.

So since every move she made could be defined as a mistake, then why not just make more interesting mistakes?

A few passengers had gotten on, staying in the front of the bus where they couldn’t hear her. She pulled out the business card that Hannah Gallagher had given her, and stared at it for only a minute before she tapped out the number.

“May I speak to Noah Gallagher?”

“Who may I say is calling?” the receptionist asked.

She hesitated for a second. “Shamira.”

The line clicked open after a brief wait. “Noah Gallagher.” His voice was deep and resonant.

“Hi.” Her voice was too high, but she kept on. “I’m the dancer who came to your office today.”

Brief pause. He must have noticed that she wasn’t calling from Bounce. The company name would have come up on his caller ID.

“Hello, Shamira. I assume that’s a stage name.” His tone was affable. “Do you have a legal name?” No edge to that question, either.

“I don’t need one, for our purposes. Shamira is fine.”

There was another brief pause. “Your agency told me no,” he said. “Emphatically.”

“I’m not calling through the agency. Which you probably noticed.”

“Yes, I did.” He paused. “Will you come and dance for me?”

She inhaled, hardening her belly to steel. “Three thousand in cash, for a four minute dance, like the one I did this morning. No touching. None whatsoever.”

“Of course not,” he said. “I explained that to Gareth. However, I can understand why you might have concerns. If you like, I can arrange for a few admin staffers to stay late. They won’t mind the overtime at our going rate.”

“Good to know, I guess, but—”

“All women, by the way. And you’ll meet them. One is top-ranked in martial arts. She’d personally kick my ass to hell and back if I made one wrong move.”

How about that. But Caro hesitated.

“They’ll be right outside the office while you perform. It’ll be very safe for you. When can you come?”

“When do you want me?”

She could almost hear him smile. “Right now.”

The controlled sensuality in that voice made her toes curl inside her rain-sodden sneakers. Her dragging tiredness was magically gone. A feeling she could not name rippled through her, fierce and bright.

Hot, strong. Free. For the first time in so damn long.

She peered out into the darkness, disoriented. Tried to figure out where the bus was on its loop. From what she could tell she was on her way back toward the downtown area. “I’ll be there within the hour,” she told him rashly.

She sat there restlessly, electrified. And going nuts. Every leisurely stop, each time the door wheezed its rubbery flaps open to let people on or off, every red light made her belly clench with urgency.

After she got closer to downtown, she couldn’t stand the pace any more. She had just enough cash in her purse to cab it the rest of the way.

Phone check. The seemingly endless journey had taken fifty-six minutes. The downstairs lobby area was close to deserted. The dark, gleaming expanses of marble looked vaguely sinister. Besides security, there was only an elegant older woman at the marble counter, wearing a lightweight headset that Caro mistook for an accessory at first. Uh-oh. She would have to clear reception.

She looked up when Caro approached.

“I’m here to see Noah Gallagher,” Caro told her.

The woman’s discerning gaze flicked over Caro’s frumpy coat, hat and glasses, reminding her of the drawbacks of her disguise. It was fine on the street, a bus, a big store. But in a context like this it was memorable because it fit no category in particular. Aside from “all wrong.” The receptionist raised an eyebrow as she glanced at Caro’s duffel bag.

“I’m from Bounce Entertainment,” Caro explained. “He’s expecting me.”

The woman looked politely dubious. “May I check your bag?”

“Feel free.” Caro unzipped it on the counter.

Filmy purple veils exploded out. The woman poked at the contents: wigs, bangles, belt, jeweled headdress. “Let me
call up.” She punched buttons
on a wide console and spoke into the headset. “There’s a woman from Bounce Entertainment who says . . . . oh. I see.” Her expression became fractionally warmer. “Twenty-fourth floor.” Her crisp professionalism never faltered.

The office suite upstairs was quiet, but there were still people there. A white-haired lady in her sixties, glasses hanging around her neck, greeted her at the reception desk and introduced herself as Harriet Aronsen
.
Probably not the martial arts champ. But you never knew.