Spy to Die For

But every time she either thought of leaving Jack on his own to face the Rovers who wanted to kill him or trying to convince him to take the ship and run, she remembered the conversation they’d already had about it, the look on his face as he said he couldn’t do that, and the conviction in his voice.

What she believed now was that he might lie to her. He might actually tell her he was running away, just to keep her safe.

He would never vanish, not as long as the threat remained. And she couldn’t leave him alone in more ways than one. Yes, she wanted him in her bed every chance she got. But she also knew he needed help so that he could survive this Rover threat.

Whatever that meant.

Still, she was enjoying these quiet days where no one interrupted them. She had never enjoyed any time more.

And she tried not to think about how much that worried her.

Chapter 42

They spent days in the same pattern. Making love, researching, making sure they were alone. Jack thought it the most perfect two weeks of his life. He had never experienced anything like it before.

Skye didn’t mind that he researched privately in the cockpit and he didn’t mind that she did the same in the master suite. They often compared notes, and they helped each other as much as possible.

They set up one research area for joint research, and decided—together—to plunge into the Guild files. The joint area was in what would have been the entertainment room, had there been a crew to entertain.

But there wasn’t. Just a few consoles, mostly to access parts of the cockpit if necessary, several gaming tables, and too many couches.

Jack and Skye tried out all of the couches. They even tested a couple of the gaming tables, and discovered only one that didn’t hold their joint weight.

Skye had laughed as the table collapsed and they landed in a pile of plastic, felt, and chips. At least we own the ship, she had said. No one’s going to dock us for destroying it.

Or ask us how we damaged it, Jack had said. He had laughed as well, even though the reminder that they owned the ship caught him. He had almost forgotten that she had paid for it.

Jack mostly let Skye dig into the Guild files, but he had some research to do on his own, and not just research about Skye. He did that when she wasn’t around, and he did as little of it in the Guild files as possible.

What he had found confirmed what she told him: she had been left at their doorstep, she had been a scholarship student, she had flunked a lot of classes, and she then disappeared off everything except their student registries.

He didn’t think she had tampered with any of that information, but he didn’t know for certain.

So to make a comparison, he looked for Mikael Yurinovich Orlinski, the man that Rikki had asked him to research. Jack found a lot about Orlinski, things that unsettled him and would upset Rikki. Apparently Orlinski and Rikki had more of a history than Rikki remembered. Jack checked and double checked and triple checked.

Then he sighed, and waited a few days before contacting Rikki, just because he knew how much the information would bother her.

He used those few days to explore the Guild files under the guise of looking for more information on Orlinski, whom everyone seemed to call Misha.

The man was the straightest of straight arrows. He seemed to revel in rules, which was the opposite of Rikki. But that, and the earlier part of the history, made him sound like less of a problem than Rikki said he was.

The information also squared with everything Skye had said about Orlinski, that he was a good man so far as she knew, and she would trust him with her life.

In researching Orlinski, though, Jack found more about Liora Olliver, the woman who had hired Heller. And she didn’t seem like such an upstanding citizen. She’d gotten in trouble with the Guild from the beginning, and she seemed to like chaos.

When asked about her, Skye had said that she had never liked her, but she hadn’t thought about her much until that day on Krell.

Jack finished what research he could. He still hadn’t found everything he had been searching for, but he found enough to make him wary.

He knew he and Skye needed to do some more digging, but he also had one other thing he had to finish. He had promised he would contact Rikki as soon as he had information.

He had already waited a few extra days, mostly because he didn’t want to have any contact traced back to his location. He could just make the contact, and take the risk that nothing would happen, or he could confide in Skye and take the risk that she might veto the contact altogether.

For the first time, he saw the downside of a team.

Still, he figured it wasn’t fair to just contact Rikki without warning Skye.

He waited until they were doing some joint research in the entertainment room.

He swiveled his chair toward her. “Skye,” he said, in his most serious voice.

She raised her head just a little. He recognized the movement. She was preoccupied.

“Skye, this is important.”

She sighed and turned toward him. She wasn’t wearing much—a tank top and some shorts that revealed her toned legs. Her feet were bare.

They had both taken to wearing as little as possible because more often than not, the clothes just came off at the most unexpected times. (Then he smiled to himself. The clothes didn’t just come off. They got removed, often in the heat of a very hot moment.)

“I’m following an unusual trail,” she said. “Can we wait an hour?”

She must have recognized the look on his face and known what he was thinking about.

“Actually,” he said, “I just need to talk with you for a minute.”

She looked just a bit surprised. Then she blinked and frowned, clearly wrenching her mind away from whatever research she had been doing.

“Remember when I told you about Rikki?”

Skye nodded.

“I promised her that I’d let her know about your friend Orlinski as soon as I had information on him. I’ve had information for days, and it’s bugging me—”

“Anything I should know?” Skye said.

“Just that he seems even more honorable than you made him out to be.”

She smiled a little. “You sound disappointed.”

Jack smiled at himself. “I might be. I don’t like the idea of Rikki being involved with someone I don’t know.”

He didn’t like the idea of Rikki being involved with anyone, truth be told. He knew there would never be anyone good enough for her, at least not in his opinion. No matter how straight up the guy was. Or how honorable.

“You’re that close?” Skye asked.

He nodded. “She’s family, remember?”

“I do,” Skye said. “But you should remember that my experience of family isn’t a good one.”

His breath caught. He hadn’t thought of it in those terms.

“I rely on her,” he said by way of explanation. “She relies on me. We saved each other’s lives more than once, first as kids and then as adults. We—”

“You don’t have to justify the relationship,” Skye said.

Was that what he was doing? Maybe. He wanted Skye to understand that his relationship with Rikki was