Pierce knew that Leita loved sweets, especially chocolates, though she almost never got them. In fact, he had a two-pound box somewhere in the supplies he was bringing her. Now he might not ever get the chance to give it to her. A surge of protectiveness rolled over him and he watched with helpless rage as Leita was first drugged, then dragged to the back of the store by the oily-looking clerk with shifty black eyes. He couldn’t be sure because the stream was shaky and he only caught glimpses of his face, but he thought the weaselly little bastard looked familiar.
The kidnapper said something about no help coming for her and then the transmission ended in a blur of static as the watch-me was destroyed. Pierce clenched his hands into fists. Damn it, Leita, why did you go in there by yourself? Don’t you know the Galleria is full of slavers and organ snatchers just waiting to catch their next vic? He felt a rush of guilt. If he had told her who he was instead of keeping up the ridiculous charade until she found out on her own, he might have been there with her. Everyone knew the slavers looked for lone, unattached women who no one would miss. Leita had been a perfect target, despite her watch-me.
Schneider reappeared on the monitor, looking as grim as a furry-faced Tarbian could. “Do you think you can find her?”
“I don’t know.” Pierce sighed and slumped in the Jaunter’s pilot’s chair. “I need to do some checking and see what this Xander’s Chocolates outfit is a front for. Probably a slave ring of some kind.” He didn’t like to tell Schneider or admit to himself that if it was organ snatchers that had gotten her, she was probably already dead. In the back of his head, a memory tickled. The man who had kidnapped Leita—where had he seen him before?
“I told her I didn’t like her going on her own.” Schneider’s high piping voice sounded truly anguished. “I usually go with her just in case. But this time she left me here to baby-sit that idiot Companion until the drone ship comes to pick it up.”
“She’s sending it back?” Pierce asked, somewhat surprised. Despite the thing’s irrational behavior, he’d assumed it was what Leita wanted—it was after all what she had ordered in the first place.
“It’s insane,” Schneider said, laying his ears flat against his head again. “It’s ruined most of the furniture and broken our vacuum as well. I think Leita scrambled its brain when she shot it with the tazer.”
“Good thing she didn’t scramble mine,” Pierce muttered. “Listen, Schneider, I have to make some calls before I go superlight. I’ll be in touch, though.”
“Just bring her back, Pierce.” Schneider’s wide golden eyes looked suspiciously wet but that might just be a coincidence. Pierce didn’t know if Tarbians could cry or not.
“I’ll do my damnedest,” he promised and clicked the call off. He sat musing for a moment, then reran the vidstream frame by frame until he got to the shot where Leita had reached for the first chocolate. Her wrist had been up, almost at eye level to take the sweet from the tray and it offered the best view of her abductor. Pierce stared hard at the monitor, eyebrows pulled down in a frown of concentration.
Suddenly he sat up straight in his chair. Yes! That was it—it had to be! The last time he’d seen those shifty black eyes they’d been topped by a tangle of long white-blond hair. It was the hair that had thrown him off. But this was the man—the one he’d been looking for before he ended up with Leita. The bastard who had kidnapped Leita was the same man who had passed him the bad extensor chips for Dal.
Pierce knew what he had to do. Putting a tracer lock on the monitor, he typed in the Pteregoid crime boss’s contact coordinates and waited until Dal’s slimy, tentacled face appeared on the screen.
“Well, Pierce,” Dal burbled through the blowhole in his throat that served as a mouth. “I did not expect to hear from you until some enterprising bounty hunter brought you in to collect the reward I posted for your return.”
“I didn’t take your chips but I know who did.” Pierce frowned at the monitor.
“You have said as much before but I have seen no proof.” Dal’s bubbly underwater voice sounded skeptical.
“I can get you proof,” Pierce told him. “As much proof as you need. But first I need some information.” Inwardly he prayed that the Pteregoid was in a good mood. Dal could be surprisingly malleable if he was bored enough and looking for entertainment.
“Very well,” Dal burbled after a long pause. “What is it you wish to know?”
Pierce breathed a sigh of relief. Dal would deal. And hopefully he’d be able to find Leita’s whereabouts in time to save her. If she was still alive…