I frown.
That’s not normal, even for a stillbirth.
This kind of deliberate omission tells me one thing.
There’s something to hide.
Like the fact that I’d bet my life that my daughter’s still alive.
And I’d give anyone else’s life to find out where.
So I catch Rook by the back of his polo shirt, knotting it up in my fist and yanking back hard. The open V-neck hitches up under his chin and digs into his throat, choking him and half lifting him out of the chair.
“Where is it?” I demand in a seething hiss, rolling my candy from side to side between my teeth and lips. “Where’s the rest of the data? What happened to her?”
“It—gglk—it’s locked—it’s locked!” he screams. “Biometrically encrypted, like I told you! Th-the only one who can open the file is D-Durham!”
Mercy. The hoops I have to jump through.
I breathe in a slow, deep hiss.
Let it out on a count of three.
My white-hot rage still doesn’t dim in the slightest.
With a furious sound under my breath, I fling Rook out of the chair and against the table. His head bounces off it, and he goes slithering to the floor, gasping messy words I can’t be bothered to digest.
Fine.
I guess all of this Durham body double business just became my problem after all.
I’ll just have to pry the CEO’s bioprint off his cooling fucking corpse.
Ignoring Rook, still flopping on the floor, I settle in the chair and slip a thin card-sized drive just like the one the boys gave me back in Heart’s Edge into the specialized reader.
Galentron doesn’t play around with security. They use entire private systems of drives and readers that can only be accessed by each other, and no other device in the world.
Lucky me, I’ve got sticky fingers and just happened to be wearing a very stylish and roomy Vera Wang coat with several extremely large pockets on the day I walked out forever.
I quickly copy over the data on my daughter and, just for the hell of it, Oliver Major.
Then I swipe a few other things that may or may not be useful in the corporate espionage game later down the road. A lady’s got to pay her bills, after all.
I’m not in the line of work where I can show a resume in anything other than extremely valuable trade secrets and/or a trail of dead bodies that also count as evidence.
It’s a hard knock life for an espionage expert with a dangerous luxury fashion habit.
Once I’m done, I stand, glancing around the room for something handy. I come up with a nice heavy gooseneck lamp with a pretty silver filigree globe holding the bulb at the end.
Which I promptly smash across Tim Rook’s knee.
There’s blood. Howling. Tears.
Quite an impressive bit of mayhem, if I do say so myself.
But he won’t be following me or trying to pull anything cute as I leave.
Just to be sure, though, as I saunter out into the brisk sea air with the night stars glowing over me and the drive in my pocket, I casually pick up one of the harpoon guns ever-so-conveniently mounted on the wall.
Now for the fun part. Even I can’t help smiling.
I swear, every wealthy yachter has one of these harpoon gizmos. I guess because they want to spear a swordfish in the middle of the day or whatever else these assholes do while I’m out handling all of their dirty laundry and staining my hands with blood until I’ll never be clean again.
Well, at least this pretty little boat will never float again.
Because I stand in the middle of the deck, plant my feet wide, and fire that harpoon gun baby straight down.
It’s got more of a punch than I anticipated.
And I actually have an ungraceful moment, tottering backward for half a second. A hollow whoomp of release pressure slams me back with a recoil. It’s like being kicked by a horse.
The harpoon gun’s barbed, high-powered spear goes crashing right through the deck boards and drills at an angle that sends it jutting out, clawing through the hull from inside, creating a hole that dips just below the water line.
When my senses return a second later, I hear the rushing, angry roar of the flood.
Perfection.
Timmy won’t have any choice, now.
Head back to land in the runner, and with an anonymous phone call to the cops…
He’ll end up rotting in the same Federal Supermax where Durham—the real Durham—should be.
I won’t be around to see it, though.
I’m already striding over to the railing, vaulting over the side into my little speedboat. I can’t risk getting caught myself.
I don’t have time to wait around here. Don’t have time to waste.
There’s only one day, maybe less, for me to find Leland Durham. Rook said he’s on the verge of flying the coop.
If I have to rip his hand off to decrypt these files, I will.