Her back pocket buzzed again, and as she took it out to glare at Sir’s number one more time, the elevator doors opened.
“Oh. Hey, Cheyenne.” Matthew Thomas smiled at her from the other side of the doors, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his navy slacks. “How’s it goin’?”
“Swell.”
“Do you need to get out?”
“No.” She pressed her lips together and lifted her phone, giving it a little shake. “Thought I left my phone until I found it, so we’re good. Going down?”
“Yeah.” Her neighbor chuckled and stepped into the elevator with her.
Cheyenne leaned against the wall and punched the button for the lobby. The doors closed, and the elevator descended.
“You headed to class?”
She looked at him for a second before staring at the wall over the button panel. “Not today.”
“Oh, okay. I just thought, you know, with the backpack?”
“Yeah, it’s just a big purse. On my back.”
Matthew nodded slowly and stared at the elevator wall on his side. “How’s Ember?”
Of course. “She’s fine, I guess. You haven’t stopped by to ask her yourself?”
“No. Had a full morning of conference calls, and now I’m needed in person for more meetings, apparently.”
“About dabbling, right?”
He chuckled again. “Something like that.”
The elevator reached the ground floor with a little ding and opened onto the huge lobby of the Pellerville Gables Apartments. Cheyenne gestured for the guy to step out first, and he gave her a crooked smile.
“See ya, neighbor.”
She forced herself not to roll her eyes. “Have a good one.”
Matthew shot her the winning smile that apparently worked very well on Ember. Not so much on the half-drow.
That guy’s got way more going on than he’s told either of us. Welcome to the club, I guess.
Cheyenne waited for the elevator doors to close, then her phone buzzed again. With an irritated jerk, she snatched it out of her pocket and accepted Sir’s call. “Is somebody dying?”
“Keep ignoring my calls and it might be you, halfling. You need to get down here.”
Stepping slowly out of the elevator, Cheyenne glanced around the empty lobby. “What happened?”
“What happened? Are you kidding me right now? L’zar Verdys is on the loose, running around doing only Eleanor Roosevelt knows what, and you’re the only goddamn person I know who can make sense of the steaming pile of rhino shit spewing from that bastard’s mouth. You’re coming in for questioning, and I mean now. If your ass isn’t down here in an hour, I’ll be knocking on your front door.”
“Fine, but you really need to stop with all the yelling.”
“If I feel like yelling, Cheyenne, I’ll goddamn yell as much as I want to! I’ve got a fucking drow thorn in my ass, and you’re gonna come pull it out for me. Go sob to someone else about your sensitive little halfling ears. I don’t have time for that shit.” The receiver slammed down and ended the call.
Cheyenne fought the urge to throw her phone across the parking lot the second she stepped out of the lobby and shoved it back into her pocket instead. Great. I get to go be interrogated by the FRoE’s finest raging lunatic. This’ll be fun.
Chapter Seven
Forty minutes later, Cheyenne parked the Panamera beside the long line of black FRoE Jeeps and vans and utility vehicles at the base. Despite her reasons for having been called here, when she pressed the automatic lock button on the key fob and her car let out that soft, high-pitched chirp, the halfling smirked. It’s the little things.
She stalked up to the front doors and wasn’t surprised to find the lobby empty. When she headed right toward the short hall leading into the common room, someone cleared their throat on her left and made her stop.
Sheila stood there in her full six-foot-ten ogre glory, her mop of yellow hair hanging down between her eyes until she tossed it aside. “This way.”
“Right.” Cheyenne shot a final glance at the empty hall and the disturbingly quiet common room, then crossed the lobby full of empty cubicles to join her apparent chaperone through the base. “We’re not having this meeting in the training room, are we?”
Sheila cast her a sidelong glance and smirked. “He wouldn’t last ten seconds in a padded room with you.”
“That’s what I thought.” They headed quickly down the hall, and Cheyenne squinted at the closed doors of the training room when they passed it. I don’t want to get shut up in there again anyway.
The ogre woman led her down more corridors in the huge FRoE compound and past a long row of smaller offices until they stopped at double doors at the end of the hall. “It’ll be faster if you just tell them what they want to know.”
Cheyenne spread her arms. “I’m an open book.”
Sheila glanced at the ceiling before opening both doors at once. She stepped inside and held one door open for Cheyenne to step through while the other one swung closed again beside her. Then the ogre woman took two sharp steps sideways and stood against the wall, her hands clasped behind her back in a way that looked eerily like Rhynehart’s go-to stance.
The halfling gazed at the huge conference table that took up most of the room. In it sat four FRoE officials she hadn’t met yet, and of course, Sir was there too. He glared up at her, swiping his hand across his salt-and-pepper mustache before sitting back in his chair and folding his arms. “Sit down already so we can get this over with.”
The other door closed softly behind her, and she glanced at Sheila. The ogre woman stared straight ahead and didn’t move. Without a word, Cheyenne took the empty chair at the head of the table and scanned the faces and hands of the four other officials. No rings. No masks.
