“Yes,” he said. “Why?”
“Because as I went through that rift, energy lashed at me. It left me with cuts similar to the scars Penny bears.”
His gaze slid down. The small hairs on my arms rose, as if touched by electricity. Everything about this man, even his damn gaze, seemed to cause a reaction in me. “You don’t have scars.”
“No, because I heal quickly thanks to my shifter half. Penny should have the same healing abilities, and yet she bears scars.”
He hesitated. “We suspect the drug program she and her family underwent might have made changes to her physiology.”
Perhaps, but there was more than that going on with Penny. But I guessed I could understand his not wanting to tell a stranger, even if that stranger was someone he wanted to use. Or, at least, his boss wanted to use.
“The rift is the reason I was in Central. It spat me out into the basement of a brothel called Deseo on Twelfth Street.”
“A brothel?”
“Yes. And you have to admit it’s the perfect place to hide something you don’t want anyone to find. It’s not as if Deseo’s customers would be too interested in exploring the premises when they’re paying good money for other services.”
“Yes, but surely the owners—”
“The owners,” I cut in, “were scared to death of going into the basement. But they were being paid to ignore it, anyhow.”
“And you know all this how?” He
studied me critically. “Via your seeker skills?”
I shook my head. “I had to smash the scanner to get out. The owner and a guard came to investigate. Apparently several people are renting the basement. You and Nuri need to uncover who those people are.”
“As a seeker, you might be better placed to—”
“Sorry,” I cut in, “but my skills lie in fixing old electronics and talking to ghosts, and that’s as far as I’m willing to go.”
For now, at least. What happened if Sal managed the impossible and got me a job was another matter entirely.
“Even if,” Jonas said, “it might make the difference between saving those other kids or not?”
“Even if,” I snapped back. “And that is a dirty card to play, ranger.”
His smile held little in the way of mirth. “But it is nevertheless the truth.”
“You and Nuri have resources I can only guess at. You’re far better placed than a nobody living in an old military bunker to trace who Deseo’s owners might be in contact with, or to place electronic surveillance on the brothel.”
“Not electronic,” he murmured, expression thoughtful as he drank some coffee. “Most businesses in Central do regular sweeps, even those on Twelfth. Information is a valuable commodity and can be bought and sold for vast sums.”
And a brothel would be a perfect place to garner such information—especially for someone with seeker or reader skills. Was that how Sal had come to own a brothel on First? “Then how?”
He raised an eyebrow. “By placing someone inside, of course.”
Of course. There was no better way than to garner secrets during the sexual act—it was what we lures had been designed for, after all. “Would that be Ela? The brown-haired shifter in the bar?”
He raised his eyebrows. “For someone who was only in that bar a few minutes, you seem to have done a very thorough sweep of its occupants.”
“I’m a seeker,” I said bluntly, “but in that particular case, anyone with half a brain would have sensed the tension in the air and taken note of who was where in case a fight broke out.”
And now that I was actually thinking about it, that tension had been rather odd. If Nuri had been expecting me, believing I could help her, why had the shifters kept their hands close to their weapons—and even closer once I’d arrived?
“Who were the other people in the bar that day?” I added, “Were they from Central?”
“Yes.” He half shrugged. “They were potential clients, but we got into something of a disagreement just before you arrived. It happens.”