Close Liaisons (The Krinar Chronicles 1)

nbsp; Why else would Korum leave so abruptly today? He knew exactly where they were. There was no reason for him to wait any longer. The ambush – if it hadn’t occurred yet – was about to take place.

Without waiting a second longer, Mia touched the little device on her sleeve and was immediately transported back to Korum’s office. Waving her hand as she had seen Korum do, she nearly collapsed with relief when the action actually worked and the map winked out of existence. Quickly taking off the sweater, she hung it on the back of the chair, making sure that no stray hairs from her head remained anywhere on the fleecy fabric. Then she positioned the chairs back to how she remembered them being and ran out of the room. Last minute, she remembered the pillowcase and grabbed that too, dropping it back in the laundry pile on her way out of the apartment. Two minutes later, she had her purse and shoes and was getting into the elevator.

She needed to contact John, right away.

Pulling out her old-fashioned pocket cell phone, Mia shot an email to Jessie, writing ‘Hi’ in the subject line. In the body of the text, she mentioned that she would be home tonight and asked if Jessie wanted to have a girls’ night in. That should put John on alert, she thought, if he was indeed monitoring Jessie’s account. Now all she could do was hope and pray that she was not too late.

Wanting to get home as quickly as possible, Mia hailed a cab. It was a wasteful extravagance, but if there was ever a good reason to hurry – this was it. Climbing in, she gave the driver her home address and leaned back against the seat, closing her eyes.

Thoughts and ideas zoomed around her brain, jumping from one topic to another. How did Korum know where they were meeting? He had to have bugged the fighters’ house without their knowledge . . . But John had reassured her that he could tell if a room was bugged or not. Either John had lied to her or Korum was ten steps ahead of whatever knowledge John’s crew thought they possessed. That last part made sense to her. Humans could never hope to win against the K technology. If Korum wanted to watch the Resistance, he could obviously do so without their knowledge.

The full danger of the game she was playing dawned on Mia. Depending on how long Korum had been spying on them, he could know all of their plans by now . . . and he could know about Mia’s involvement, limited though it had been up until today. At that thought, Mia’s stomach turned over and she felt a sickening cold spread down to her toes. She had never seen Korum truly angry, but she had no doubt it would not be a pleasant sight.

Arriving at her destination, Mia paid the driver with cold, clammy fingers and walked up the five flights of stairs to her apartment. Jessie wasn’t home, and Mia enviously thought that she was probably out enjoying the beautiful day with her friends. Either that or studying for finals – and both options sounded amazing to Mia right about now.

She settled in to wait.

About a half hour had passed, and Mia had nearly worn a hole in the carpet pacing up and down the living room. Finally, just as she was about to go out of her mind with frustration, the doorbell rang.

John and one of the young women from the meeting were at her door. The girl’s hair was a sandy shade of brown and cut short, almost like a man’s. She also looked very athletic. If it hadn’t been for her elfin features, she could have easily passed for a teenage boy.

“Mia, this is Leslie,” said John. “Leslie – this is Mia, the girl I was telling you about.”

Mia nodded in greeting and let them into the apartment.

“John,” she said without a preamble, “I just learned that you’re in danger.”

“No shit,” Leslie said sarcastically. “We had no idea.”

Mia was taken aback. This girl had no reason to dislike her, yet her tone was almost contemptuous. She felt her own hackles rising. “That’s right,” she said coolly. “You obviously had no idea . . . else you wouldn’t have had that meeting where Korum could get a nice video of you all – including you, Leslie.”

John’s eyes widened in shock. “What are you talking about? What video?”

“I’m not even sure if video is the right word for it. It’s really more of a virtual reality show –”

She relayed to them exactly what she’d seen today. By the time she finished, John looked pale and Leslie’s arrogant smirk had been wiped from her face.

“I don’t understand,” he said slowly. “How did he know where to find us? All of our regular meeting places get swept for bugs and tracking devices daily. We all get regular scans too –”

“It’s obviously not enough,” said Leslie. “Either that, or we were betrayed.”

They looked at each other in dismay.

“How are you even doing this?” asked Mia. “How do you even know what to look for when you do your scans? They can hide their tracking devices in anything. You even told me I have them in me . . .”

“That’s true,” John nodded, “but we can still find them –”

“Usually,” said Leslie.

“Right, usually, because we’re not just relying on our own modern technology –”

“John,” said Leslie warningly.

“Leslie, Mia should know. She clearly risked a lot finding this information for us tonight –”

“But how can you trust her? She sleeps with him every day!”

“She has no choice in the matter! And how else would she have come across this today? You should be kissing her feet that she risked her life like that –”