glanced their way and paused, then seemed to focus on them too much for her liking.
“Have you seen enough?” Darrell asked, his bravado deflating as the vampire walked toward them. He put the BOW in gear and drove away, spinning the tires in his effort to put some distance between them and the Green Complex before Vlad got close enough to identify them.
She hadn’t seen enough. She still didn’t know which apartment belonged to Meg Corbyn and which belonged to Simon Wolfgard. But at least she had some of the information the special messenger would need.
And she needed to think about how a substance called gone over wolf had changed milquetoast to angry man, even if the change had lasted only a minute or two. A lot of things could be achieved in a minute or two if they were the right minutes. It might be worth another experiment, depending on whether she had to accept another date.
For now, she needed to finish this evening’s plans. So when they got back to the room, she was going to give Darrell the kind of sex he didn’t have balls enough to even dream about.
Asia watched Darrell for another minute before she slipped out of bed. There had been just enough gone over wolf left in his system to make him interesting once he got aroused, but twice was more than enough. The knockout drops would keep him under for at least an hour, and that was plenty of time.
She put on Darrell’s trousers, cinching them with a belt she had bought yesterday so that the scents of all the other people who had touched it in the store would still be fairly fresh. She put on his shirt, even his socks. She put on his winter coat. Pulling the wool cap out of one pocket, she tucked her hair under it. She transferred her camera and a small flashlight from her coat to his, then put on her own boots, because she didn’t want to risk a fall.
Her hand hovered above her overnight case. There were all kinds of ways this could go wrong. But when she succeeded, the payoff was going to be sweet enough to make her the hottest star in Sparkletown.
She selected a vial and slipped it into the coat pocket. Taking the keys off the bedside table, she let herself out of the room and made her way to the back door of the Liaison’s Office.
Three keys on the ring. One was for the room they were using. One was for the other abovestairs room. And the third . . .
Typical back room of an office. A table and two chairs, the pseudokitchen with its mini fridge and counters. A washroom, and a storage area full of bins of clothes, some clean and some just this side of ripe.
Nothing in the fridge that was useful to her plans. But in the cupboard under the counter, she found what she was looking for: a partially used box of sugar lumps.
Wishing she could turn on a light, Asia put the flashlight on the floor and took the vial out of her pocket. The crystals didn’t look any different from sugar crystals, and from what she’d learned about this stuff, it didn’t taste much different either, which is why it was so effective and the penalties for using it were so high. She tapped crystals over the top layer of sugar lumps, then gently shook the box to coat more of the lumps. She continued doing that until she poured the last crystals over the sugar.
Putting the empty vial back in the coat pocket, she replaced the box of sugar, picked up her flashlight, and went into the next room.
Not much to look at. Who could stand working in such a boring room day after day? There wasn’t even a stack of mail that would give her a few names she didn’t know from the bookstore and coffee shop.
She opened a cupboard and found boxes of dog cookies. For a moment, she regretted using all those crystals on the sugar, then realized it was just as well she hadn’t been able to give in to impulse. If anything happened to a Wolf, it could be seen as an act of war. But she had never heard of Others named Ponygard, which meant the stupid ponies were just animals. They would be a distraction, a way to stir things up, nothing but collateral damage in the overall scheme.
Opening a drawer under the counter, she stared at a sheet of paper for a long moment. Then her heart bumped with excitement. She had found a map of the Courtyard. Gates, roads, buildings—everything the extraction team would need.
Payday!
Pulling Darrell’s shirt over her hand, Asia picked up the map with two fingers and put it on the big table. Then she took out her camera . . . and swore under her breath.
A flashlight and the flash on the camera weren’t going to do it. If she wanted pictures that would be useful, she was going to have to turn on the lights, just for a minute.
No curtains on the window. Nothing she could use quickly to block the light.
Flipping on the lights, she hurried back to the table and took several shots of the map as the full page, then several more in zoom mode to provide more details. She put the camera in the coat pocket and the map in the drawer, flipped off the lights—and heard an Owl hoot.
She crept to the back room, put on her boots, opened the outside door, and listened hard. No feathers rustling overhead, no more hooting.
Slipping out the door, she locked it, then turned off the flashlight. Her foot was on the first stair when she thought about the empty vial in her pocket. According to Bigwig, the police presence and the speed in which they responded to anything involving the Others were unusual. That meant an empty vial could be as good as a confession if they found it on her.
Taking the vial out of the coat pocket, she walked a few feet from the stairs and shoved the vial into a snowbank as far as she could. Then she pushed the snow around to cover the hole, brushed off the coat sleeve, and hurried up the stairs.
Stripping out of Darrell’s clothes, she took the clothes she’d worn that evening into the bathroom, along with her overnight case. She had taken a shower with Darrell as part of the foreplay, using the soap and shampoo the Others insisted their employees use. Now she gave her clothes and body a light spritz of the floral scent the Others associated with Asia Crane because she
And that scent wasn’t in the Liaison’s Office.
She put everything away and slipped into bed, grateful for the trapped body heat. Darrell was still in a heavy sleep and didn’t do more than grunt and turn away from her when she tried to ease her cold body closer to his warm one.
An hour passed. Then two. She thought about that vial hidden in the snow, where it would hopefully remain until spring. She thought about the camera and the incriminating photos on the camera’s storage card. She thought about how to sever her relationship with Darrell.
She thought about what Asia Crane, SI, would do.
She slipped back out of bed, got dressed, gathered her things, and left. She didn’t give her car enough time to warm up, and she didn’t brush enough snow off the back window before she drove out of the Courtyard. It was late, and there was hardly any traffic. That didn’t mean a cop wouldn’t tag her.
She drove another block before she pulled over and properly cleaned off all the windows. Then she dug her mobile phone out of her overnight case and made a call, but it wasn’t to Bigwig.
“Hello?”
“I need one of your special messengers. Someone who can print some pictures and can also take more personal instructions.”
“He can be at your residence in thirty minutes.”
“I should be back by then.”
Asia ended the call, tucked the phone back in the overnight case, and drove to her apartment. She had chosen the university district because it was close enough to the Courtyard but not one of the neighborhoods that rubbed against the land controlled by the Others. It wasn’t likely that any of them had seen her, except when she visited the stores, so they wouldn’t know where she lived.
