 
# EVERYWHERE IT'S YOU

# C.B. Salem

## Everywhere It's You

## Published by Existence Press at Smashwords

## Copyright 2015 C.B. Salem

##  IF YOU LIKE THIS BOOK

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#  CHAPTER ONE

The red urgency beacon that lit up over her soundproof door told Kristina that this would be bad.

She'd gotten into work early, even after a late night working at The Velvet, so she could sit with a fresh cup of coffee and collect the results of her investigative efforts into a report. With the door closed, people without urgent business wouldn't come in to bother her, and very few of the attorneys, and paralegals at Dunn-Brantley had seen her come in anyway. She kept the lights off, as she often did, preferring either natural light or the hollow glow of screens, so a quick glance under her door still wouldn't show she was in. The small window out to the hall was left opaque. She even kept the aero pharmaceuticals coming from the vent over the window to their low, default level. She'd always preferred the pick-me-up of natural caffeine in coffee anyway.

To know she was in her office, someone would have to check the building security for her ID, and that meant whatever they needed was urgent. Using the beacon made it even worse. Urgent for an investigator meant a huge pain in the ass and long hours because the alternative was shoddy work. She hated urgent.

She sighed and checked her tablet to see who had initiated the signal. It was Richard Brantley. Equal parts annoyed and concerned, she unlocked the door from her tablet.

His bald head shone under the fluorescence of the hallway, casting him in an eerie glow against the relative darkness of her office. There wasn't a wrinkle on his face or his head, causing an effect she found disconcerting but he seemed to like. The black collar on his starched up suit came up to his chin, the rest of it a sheer, uninterrupted line to the waist.

"Why did you lock your door?" he asked.

"I'm working." she said, more coolly than she felt. "Old habit. Is everything okay?"

Brantley's nostrils flared. People described the two name partners of Dunn-Brantley as fire and ice. Brantley was the fire. "No, I personally came to find you because everything is just as it should be. We have a situation we need to get on top of. ASAP."

"What is that situation?"

"Victoria is in my office. Come now."

Kristina checked her coffee mug and found it was empty. "Let me brew myself a cup of coffee and I'll be right there."

"I already made you a cup, and it's getting cold."

Resigned, Kristina followed him down the hall to his corner office, passing paralegals working quietly with what looked like plastic rings hanging from their noses. She thought they looked like septum piercings, though they were called breathers and let someone add an extra pharm to their mood while still being able to take it out whenever necessary. It was a new technology, but a lot of firms covered it as part of a benefits package. Anything for more productivity.

She hated them. She hated most of the things about this place, except for the steady money. Steady money was good.

When she stepped into Brantley's office, she found the firm's other name partner, Victoria Dunn, waiting patiently. Dunn had her trademark clear-framed glasses off and resting on Brantley's desk. She was rubbing her eyes as Kristina entered, the lines around her eyes showing signs of needing another Ambrosia treatment.

Kristina took a deep breath. If Dunn was shaken up by this, it was serious.

She took the seat next to Dunn, maneuvering the chair so she could see both partners at the same time. Brantley took his seat at the desk, opposite from Kristina and Dunn.

"So," Kristina said. "What happened?"

Silence hung in the air. Both partners looked at each other, then back at Kristina. She took a sip of coffee, which wasn't that bad, and waited.

Finally, Dunn cleared her throat. "We received a communication from Tatum Pharmaceuticals today. A call, in fact. It appears Mr. Tatum is missing."

Kristina's eyes opened wide and she set the mug down. That _was_ serious. Landon Tatum was Chicago's youngest billionaire, the brightest star in the Pharma Boom. His company was Dunn-Brantley's biggest client.

She'd seen him last night.

"Missing?" she said, her mind still catching up with her mouth. "That's impossible!"

One of Dunn's thin brows arched up. "Impossible?" She straightened up in her seat and put her glasses back on. "Why do you say that?"

Kristina's cheeks warmed as she remembered the previous night. She'd been undercover at an event at a strip club. He'd been in attendance, shockingly. Things had gotten a little...intimate for work conversation. She looked between the two partners and took a deep breath.

"Last night I was doing a surveillance op on Fordelli regarding antitrust with the city," she said. "It was a birthday party at The Velvet. About an hour in, Tatum showed up."

The pair of them exchanged a wide-eyed glance, then turned back to her in synchrony.

"Were you planning on sharing this information?" Brantley snapped.

Her shoulders tensed. "Yes," she shot back. "I was planning to do so today, after I had done some poking around this morning to see if I could figure out why the hell Tatum would hang around there. Obviously, this morning has already been different from what I expected."

Silence filled up the space in the room. Heart pounding, Kristina pressed her lips together and did her best to compose herself.

She'd never sworn in front of Brantley before. Part of the training her brother had given her when she was coming up in his security company as a private investigator. Sometimes you had to deal with people who pissed you off. Cost of doing business. She took another sip of his coffee.

"Thank you for telling us now," Dunn said finally. She would be the one to break the silence. Brantley was still fuming, his face red. "Hopefully that information will be useful in your search for him."

It was all Kristina could do to not spit the coffee out on the desk. She put the mug down. "My search?"

Dunn put her glasses back on. "Correct. You will search for him on behalf of Dunn-Brantley."

"Have the police been notified of this disappearance?"

Dunn shook her head. "No. The protocol we drafted for Tatum last month in case of his disappearance states they not be contacted for at least forty-eight hours."

Kristina sat up straighter. "He had a protocol drafted last month and now he's missing?" She narrowed her eyes. "Sounds very lucky."

"We admit the coincidence," Brantley said.

Dunn readjusted her glasses. "That same protocol states that our firm should conduct any searches internally," she continued. "In fact, Tatum specifically requested you lead the search."

Kristina took a deep breath. This was getting stranger by the second. She'd never even met the man before last night...and that barely counted.

"Doesn't he have a security force?" she asked. "A man like that must."

Dunn shook her head again. "Not one he feels he can trust, in any case. He was adamant it be an internal firm investigation and that you would lead it."

Kristina nodded slowly, at a loss for words. How were they being so cool about this? It was nuts!

Why would a man like Tatum put an investigation like this in her hands when they hadn't even met at the time? It sounded like either a scheme or a weird case of paranoia.

"It goes without saying that Tatum Pharmaceuticals is our biggest client," Brantley said, leaning forward with his forearms planted on the desk. He looked toward Dunn briefly before turning his attention back to Kristina. "If your search proves unsuccessful, that will be a big problem for the firm."

Kristina blinked. If she lost her job at Dunn-Brantley, she would be back to square one with her private investigation business. The world of freelance was a hustle she'd been glad to leave behind.

"I understand," she said, keeping her voice steady. "Is there anything else?"

Both of them shook their head.

"I'd better get to work then. Please have a copy of that protocol sent ASAP."

"It's already there," Dunn said, standing up. Kristina and Brantley followed. "Is there anything else you need from us?"

Kristina shook her head. What the hell was going on?

***

Returning to her office brought its own relief.

The space was small, sparse, and highly functional: ivory-colored walls, pristine white desk, and a black ergonomic chair was about as simple a color scheme as she could manage. There were no decorations but a picture of her with her two brothers and an antique mechanical clock. A lone guest was stationed chair to her right side when she was seated at her desk. She kept a small gunmetal safe behind her.

She cleaned it herself regularly, on top of whatever the cleaning people did. It was important to her to have a minimalist space to think. Cluttered spaces made for cluttered minds, and most of what she dealt with was messy enough as it was. The only items she kept on her desk were her tablet, her coffee maker, and a mug for the coffee. She flicked the hall window to transparent with a switch on the sill and brewed another cup.

Coffee had fallen out of favor for many people ever since companies had started pumping in stimulant aero-pharms to improve workplace productivity, but Kristina still preferred her morning jolt the old-fashioned way. Like she'd done it growing up, before there were aeros everywhere you went.

It was one of her favorite features of so many of the old, classic movies. People in diners, drinking coffee. Taking coffee outside in the bitter cold and sipping at it as its steam billowed out above. It looked so...quaint. A different time.

Her lips tight, she took her fresh mug back to her desk and swiped her tablet out of sleep. The device flashed, and she navigated from her report on the previous night to her mailbox.

The doc she'd requested was already waiting, just as Dunn had promised. _Tatum Disappearance Protocol, June 22 2046._ She raised her brows. That was five weeks ago. This thing was brand new.

Following her hunch from earlier, she did a quick search through the database to see if it was replacing an older version. The search came up empty. So he'd had this done right before he disappeared. Almost like he knew he would go. Either he was planning to do a runner, or his paranoia had been vindicated.

Strange. She'd pegged him for a bit eccentric, but not paranoid. Something seemed off.

She scanned the doc, swiping down the pages quickly. Most of it was legalese, but on page four she found her name. _Such a search will be headed by Kristina Andersen, Director of Investigations at Dunn-Brantley_.

She sighed. This was very, very strange. But the partners had been right. Whatever the reason, he'd wanted her.

The beacon over her door shone, but as it wasn't locked it opened a moment later. She looked up in time to see a bubbly mess of blonde curls pop in.

"How was your night as a stripper?" Anna asked.

Kristina rolled her eyes. Anna was her closest friend at the firm by a long shot, but her energy in the morning still could be a little much. She used her ditzy demeanor to her advantage in negotiations, though. People under-estimated her, which was a mistake. The woman went to Georgetown and was sharper than most of the people she met across the table.

"Not a lot of stripping," Kristina said. "Shut the door."

Anna's brows shot up, but she did as requested and sat down at the lone guest chair against the wall. "Someone's crabby," she said, once she was situated.

Kristina chewed her lip. "Partners got a call this morning. Landon Tatum is missing."

Anna's mouth dropped open. "How long?"

"Since this morning. Not at home. Comm's off. According to the protocol I just started reading, that counts as missing."

"Jesus. Did they call the police?"

"Protocol says the firm needs to look for him for a minimum of forty-eight hours before the police are called. More specifically, I need to."

Anna shook her head. "What protocol is this, exactly? I haven't heard anything at all about it."

"Something the firm drafted up for him a few weeks ago," Kristina answered, taking a deep breath. It felt even stranger to say it out loud. "Without my knowledge, in fact. I think Dunn handled it herself."

"Sounds fishy."

"Right." Kristina picked up her neglected mug of coffee and took a sip. "And here's the thing," she said, once she was done. "I saw him last night at the party."

Her friend's jaw dropped again. "Landon Tatum at a strip club? And The Velvet at that?"

"Correct."

"Doesn't seem like his kind of place. What was he there for?"

"I was working a party for Geno Totti. Fordelli was there along with some of the usual types. Just charting some interactions and stuff. Not sure about Tatum's connection at all."

"And now he's gone," she said.

"That's what they said."

"Wow. That's bad."

Anna leaned back. Kristina could practically watch the wheels in her friend's head turning.

"So back to the important stuff," Anna said. "Did he check you out when you were doing your undercover stripper moves?"

Kristina shook her head. Something passed across her vision.

She spun back and looked out the hall window in time to see the tall, charcoal-suited frame of Landon Tatum walking down the hallway.

Kristina shot out of her seat, threw her door open, and peeked her head out in time to see him disappear around the corner. She scurried out of her office and down the hall. When she got to the corner she saw the men's room door close.

Was she seeing things? She couldn't just stalk the door awkwardly, could she? Footsteps came from behind her and she spun around. It was Anna.

"What the hell was that?" Anna asked. "Did you see a ghost?"

Kristina rubbed her eyes again and then did her best to stare her friend down. Must be lack of sleep. Nothing she couldn't fix with more coffee. No way was he here. She was imagining it. Someone would have said something to the partners, right?

Kristina rubbed her eyes. "I really need to get to work," she said. "Dunn told me it was either find Tatum or lose my job. Never mind a bunch of other people here getting laid off."

Anna studied her for a minute, decided to let the issue drop. "Jesus. What's your first step?"

She took a deep breath, trying to get on top of her spinning mind. There were so many things to follow up on. The most important was taking another look at the party from last night. If there was a connection, that was a big step to figuring out what had happened. If not, then she was no worse off.

"I think I need to call my brother Tom," she said. "Set up a Recall."

# CHAPTER TWO

Tom worked in the Pharmaceuticals unit of the Chicago Police Department Crime Lab. That meant he had access to all kinds of pharmaceutical aids not available to the public. One of those—the most common—was a pharm called Recall.

It allowed someone to relive a memory, as if it were a video from their own eyes. By reliving the memory, a subject could more easily recall details, give more accurate descriptions, and otherwise contribute to an investigation. It had cut down on false-positive identifications along with convictions.

A false-positive wasn't what she was worried about, though. She'd missed something at the party, she knew it. Tatum must have done something or interacted with someone that could give her a clue about where he'd gone. If she could have Tom arrange a Recall for her, she would have another chance at what that would be.

He picked up before the second ring.

"What do you need?" he answered breathlessly.

Kristina pictured her overweight brother hurrying across the room to answer his comm. He hated any sound that signaled a machine was trying to get his attention.

"A favor," she said. "Set up a Recall for last night between the hours of one and three a.m."

A pause on the other line. "Another private use of City resources?"

She rolled her eyes.

"If you're not too busy," she said. "It's for an investigation. I'll share whatever I find out with any CPD investigations."

"What investigation would that be?"

She knew Tom probably didn't care what this was about, but he also had to cover his own ass. "Put down that I'm investigating some improper financial dealings by Ricardo Fordelli."

Tom grunted. "Try again. That will get flagged from here to the mayor's office."

"Why?"

"Atlas Pharmaceuticals has had the pharms contract for the department since the start of the year. Plus a whole bunch of other shit that means he has connections from the police chief to the mayor's office. Any investigation into him will put a bull's eye on my ass I don't need. You have anyone else?"

Kristina tucked this new information away in her memory bank. "How about Geno Totti?" she tried. "General surveillance in connection with organized crime in the city."

A sigh on the other end. "It's lame, but so long as it's not Fordelli I'm good."

"So you can do it?"

"Yeah. Drop by the lab at one."

He hung up before she could even thank him.

Despite that, she smiled. Even though she hated doing Recalls, or anything that involved heavy pharms, it was an important step to getting somewhere on this search. After another sip of coffee, she got back to work on her tablet. The mechanical clock on the wall continued to tick away the time. There was a lot to do before lunch.

***

She spent the rest of the morning reading through the protocol in her office and drinking enough coffee for an average week. Much of the protocol dealt with financial information and had cross-references to his will, which made for even more reading. By the time lunch rolled around, she was left where she'd started: this was her mess to clean up and none of the factors surrounding Tatum's disappearance made any damn sense at all.

At twelve-thirty, she realized she would need to delay lunch and headed out for the CPD Crime Lab at Dearborn and Van Buren. On a normal summer day, she would have walked and enjoyed the weather, but this was anything but a normal day. As such, she decided to take the subway.

She walked up to the familiar sign for the Red Line and descended the steps. The familiar bombardment of glowing advertisements hit her as she went down into the station. Every single one was for pharms, many for Tatum Pharmaceuticals products.

"Erase Wrinkles From Within"

"Theia: For Your Career. For Your Life."

"20/20 Vision in 20 minutes!"

All of them with TATUM written in a big, block font. The man loved his name, that was for sure.

Each sign had a localized aero hovering around, giving a sense of calm satisfaction. Homeless people would sometimes sleep under the ads at night for the sense of well-being they provided. Even during the day, sometimes they would stare into them for hours, having nothing to do and nowhere to be. Legislation had been passed to counteract this, calling it blight, but so far the law had proven largely unenforceable.

Foot traffic was light for downtown at this hour. Buttoned up professionals in black and gray littered the sidewalk, clashing with students and tourists in neon yellows and greens. She passed a few hackpunks who used an interface that projected a hologram screen inches from their eyes at all times, but they were few and far in between. It was a new technology, and something she didn't care for. Made her nauseous, blending her worlds to that degree.

After swiping her comm for entry and going down to the tracks, she got old workhorse of a train and had a quick, uneventful ride. The trains were light traffic-wise this time of day. When the train got down to Jackson, she got off, went through the underground tunnel and past a band of kids in bright sarongs playing old-fashioned Indian music and dancing Bollywood style, and came up at the Blue Line station.

From there it was brief walk from the station to the lab's tall, menacing building. It was shaped as a triangular prism, with modernist slits for windows in light brown stone. It looked more like a fortress than anything else. Probably because it had originally been designed as a prison, nearly a hundred years before.

She walked in the hulking door nearest the street, past the security body scanners, and up to the front desk. The prison was even more minimalist than her office. Stark, smooth gray walls that looked metallic. Shining, lacquered navy floor. Dead silence, save for the echoes of her footsteps. It was like a museum.

Kristina walked up to the front desk. When she was a foot away, a metallic woman's kicked in.

"Welcome to the Chicago Police Department. Please state your business."

This was the greeting system, creepy as she found it.

"Visiting Dr. Thomas Andersen in Pharmaceuticals."

"Is Dr. Andersen expecting you?"

"Yes."

"Please swipe your communications device for identification."

Kristina did so, waving her comm over the black box on top of the desk.

"Please hold. Paging Dr. Andersen now."

Kristina waited while the system confirmed her visit with her brother. It was strange, talking to a system without even a fake body or face to address. She just spoke to an empty desk in a place where a human receptionist doubtless used to be, like there was a ghost or something.

"Your visit has been confirmed," the voice said. "Please consult your communications device for directions to Dr. Andersen's office. Be advised, if you—"

"If I stray from my authorized areas I could be subject to arrest," Kristina finished for the device. "I know."

She walked away before she received any more lectures from the AI.

***

The CPD's sterile white walls made everything look the same, but she knew her way around from previous visits, just as she'd said, and soon she walked into a door marked _Crime Lab: Pharmaceuticals Section._ Under that, it read _Dr. Thomas Andersen, Assistant Director_.

She knocked once and walked in. As she came into the room, Tom's ruddy face was buried behind a host of screens, his tie knot loosened under his white coat as he typed at a keyboard. His office, while still having the feel of sterility that pervaded the place, was messy, with devices and papers scattered across various surfaces, each alternately covering the other. It was a miracle he ever found anything in here. Just being around this mess for a few minutes made her chest tight with anxiety.

Somehow he and Kristina had inherited different genes when it came to their preferred environment. And a million other things, but especially cleanliness.

"Just getting your Recall set up," he said. "Almost done."

"Hi to you too," Kristina said. She sat down on what looked like it would be a doctor's table were it not in black leather. At least this looked clean. "Thanks for getting me in."

Tom waved his hand absently. "No problem. Mind if I ask the actual reason for the Recall?"

She blinked. It was strange for Tom to be asking details about something like this. He wasn't one for small-talk.

"Any reason you want to know?" she asked.

Her brother froze and looked at her, eyes wide behind his glasses. "Any reason for the hostility? I'm helping you out here, you know."

She blew out a long breath. "No. This is all coming from a surveillance op last night. Birthday party for Geno Totti at The Velvet. Bunch of mobster types there. Should have been watching someone else, though."

"And this is the part where you tell me who."

"Landon Tatum. Guy freaking walked in like it was natural and he was there to have a hell of a time."

"Holy shit." He stopped typing again. "That's a rough spot for a guy like him. Think he was slumming?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. Big issue is now he's missing. Cops don't know yet. Document my firm drafted says I have forty-eight hours to find him before the police are notified."

"Other than me," he said with a smirk.

Tom had always loved a good secret. Even if his line of work had been different than Kevin and Kristina—especially Kevin—that, at least, was a weakness they all shared.

She locked eyes with her baby brother. "I don't need to say—"

"You don't," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Lips are sealed on this end."

"I mean it."

"I know."

They both sat there for a minute before Tom remembered himself and went back to his keyboard. He tapped the keys, programming the pharm that was about to go into her arm.

It had been the big breakthrough in pharmaceuticals, twenty years ago. The ability to use nano-chips to synthesize pharmaceuticals on a molecular level. Combined with concurrent advances in scientists' understanding of the brain, the result was the ability to create finely-graded effects on people's minds through the magic of chemistry.

"Alright," Tom said, after another few moments. He moved away from the keyboard and over to a shelf against the wall. "Just going to need to get the CAP on you for a minute and then we'll stick an IV and have you set up."

She settled back on the doctor's table. Tom came over with what looked like a winter hat and put it on her. The CAP, or Cerebral Activity Placement device, contained a bunch of little sensors stitched into the fabric of a garment people could wear comfortably on their head. It let the operator fine-tune a pharm before injecting.

Tom returned to his desk. After a few more key strokes, she heard a humming from a machine behind her that signaled the pharm was being synthesized. Her brother stood up again.

"Alright," he said, walking over. "Hold your arm out and we'll get you set up with the IV."

She did as he asked. "I don't understand why you can't put this thing in a pill or something," she muttered, as he readied the line. "You would think by now we would be over needles.

"Too hard to control intake level," Tom said. "And frankly not worth it."

She closed her eyes as he found a vein in Kristina's left arm. A small pinch, and then he backed away. She kept her eyes closed.

"Alright," Tom said, as he headed back to his desk. "You're going under in five. I'll keep an eye on your vitals."

She took a deep breath.

# CHAPTER THREE

She exhaled after a few seconds and opened her eyes. A gauzy, low-lit room surrounded her. Brushed metal lockers dotted bubble-pink walls, with a few black chairs scattered around. She was in the dressing room. A digital clock projected on the wall read 1:00 in icy blue digits.

Tom had dropped her in perfectly.

As she took in what was happening a bout of nausea rose in her stomach, then into her throat. This was Recall.

She'd always hated the dissociated sensation of the pharm, ever since she'd had to take it for her first case when she was eighteen. Her head felt like she'd dunked it underwater and then tried to watch a movie slowed down just a little bit. The movie was her memories. Specific memories. All kinds of déjà vu.

She pushed her stray thoughts away and tried to focus. Her last-night's-self was checking out her look for the night. Red wig, _epic_ amounts of makeup, and a skimpy black dress provided by the club—all straps and sequins, coming down to just a couple inches below her butt.

Jeez, her thighs were...maybe a little too much muscle? Maybe it was the lights. The pushup bra she'd been wearing made her boobs look pretty great, at least. Guess that was the idea.

She exited the dressing room a moment later.

She wasn't stripping, just handing out drinks. Teddy—the manager of the place who was helping her out thanks to a favor he owed from back when she worked for her brother Kevin's security company—had helpfully called the job "drink wench work." In case she got any crazy ideas about this being something respectable.

It was crazy how men found ways to be shitty sometimes. People in general, really, but especially men. Or at least strip club owners.

From the dressing room she made her way to the bar to pick up a tray of drinks and from there out to the private lounge. The room was still empty, just as she'd remembered. She circled around, hugging the wall.

The grungy decor lent a dark, dated look. Velvet curtains hung down from exposed steel beams, with the walls behind a treated aluminum that maintained a good sound while looking like the inside of a shipping container. The tables were lacquered black wood, each of them containing an inset that popped up with recreational pharms of both the stim and X variety. To one side of the room, there was an area for the guest of honor complete with three red leather arm chairs and a crystal tumbler of cognac. The leather even looked real.

Above it all, the pounding bass of something half-industrial, half New Organic Synth music. She didn't like it.

Her last-night's-self walked to the front of the room, balancing gracefully on very high heels as the first guest arrived. Then another bout of nausea washed over her, fogging her mind. Her eyes had to be lying.

Landon Tatum had just entered the room.

This was wrong. He'd come in later, she knew it. Fifteen minutes before the birthday boy, maybe twenty. There had been more than a dozen people there. Even Fordelli, the man she had come to watch, had arrived first. She'd been watching very carefully and this wasn't the kind of thing she'd forget. It was impossible.

He wore a black suit, black shirt and a silver tie. That wasn't right either. But the clean-cut, brown hair, the thin-lipped mouth, the dark eyes, they were as she'd remembered. He had sharp cheek bones with a slightly crooked nose that looked like it had been broken in a fight once and never fixed. It was strange for a scientist to not also be a pretty boy.

She breathed shallowly. This was wrong.

She watched herself approach to offer him a drink. Then the next guest came in, to the right of where her eyes had been focused.

Tatum again. Sharp cheeks. Slightly crooked nose. Dark, perceptive eyes.

Another black suit, black shirt, but this time a blue tie. She flicked her eyes between the two of them. They were both there. She was seeing two of him.

Her stomach dropped. Something had happened. Her Recall was wrong.

What the hell was going on? Even for Recall, she felt terrible. Had Tom messed up somehow? Was she hallucinating? Too much stress and not enough sleep? How did she abort a Recall, anyhow? She'd never needed to before, but if there was ever a time this was it. Tom had to see her vitals were going crazy.

Like being stuck in a bad dream, she continued to watch her previous night. They came in packs. Some black suits, some with pinstripes, some with colorful ties, but all versions of the same man. A clone army descending on her. She wished again she could wake up.

How was she going to learn anything when everyone looked like him? Especially when it was, of all people, someone she was finding herself strangely _attracted to._

Reeling, she surveyed the scene again, trying to keep her mind clear. No sense in feeling sorry for herself. If she was stuck here she would make the best of it.

When she looked harder, there _were_ differences. The skin, the face, the outfit, those were all the same, but the builds—weight, height, posture—were slightly different. They weren't quite clones. More like a blend between Landon's build and that of the original body. Or rather, a whole bunch of different bodies.

The postures in particular were different. She had noticed this before, but it had never stood out so much as when everything else looked almost exactly the same. The arch of the back, the weight on one foot or the other, the lean. There was information there, if she could just remember who it was attached to and keep all the people at the party straight in her head.

She was just there waiting for one man. If she could identify and keep track of him, she could deal with the hallucinations when she came out of Recall.

The next ten minutes was more of the same. Guests continued to filter in, all very slightly misshapen versions of the same. Eventually, a larger, more portly version came into the room, wearing a silver suit with a black bow tie. That would be Fordelli, the man she had attended the party to watch. He was immediately preyed upon by a very aggressive, very tall brunette stripper. So aggressive, she wondered if she shouldn't look into the woman a little more.

Because Fordelli had been her intended focus on the night, it was where her eyes had been focused. Meaning the room around was slightly blurry. It was one frustration with Recall: you could only work with the sensory detail available to your brain. If your eyes hadn't focused on something before, you couldn't reverse that in Recall. You just had to deal.

Because of this, people who knew they were going to have to do a Recall after an event trained themselves to shift their focus around frequently, but she'd yet to become very proficient at that trick. She would have to work on that in the future.

A few minutes later, everyone in the room had their attention shift at once, including her last-night's-self, as if they were following a stage direction. Then she saw him.

Landon Tatum entered the room wearing no coat, and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to reveal a watch that probably cost as much as her condo. The shirt was paired with tailored midnight blue slacks that accentuated his long, thick legs.

When had he gotten that muscular? Had she not paid attention before? She preferred muscular, working class guys she met at the gym when she let herself think about guys at all. Here was this guy who worked in an office all day and he had a serious ass on him.

She caught her breath in Recall. Focus.

Even when everyone else in the room looked like some version of him, he stood out. His posture signaled ease with the world around him, as if it only existed with his permission. Vivid, controlled expressions met everything he took in.

His smile lit up as he entered the room and was approached by a pair of party guests, both of them eager to please. Near-clones or not, nobody else in the room had anywhere near his gravity.

A moment later her last-night's-self had been back to focusing on Fordelli and the brunette stripper. Tatum became a blur at the periphery of her vision.

She kept an eye on that blur, though, as the night progressed. Watched him move from near-clone-guest to near-clone-guest, politely turning down multiple strippers' attempts to get him into a private booth. A skeptical smile, those dark slashes of brows arching up, and they would leave. It was like telepathy.

The party shifted again. She wracked her brain; this had been when Totti had arrived. Guests came over to greet him; performers came over to have the first crack at giving him a lap dance. As she drifted over with her drink tray, she tried to keep her eye on the blur of the real Tatum. The industrial, grungy music continued around her.

Soon, a stripper in a pink wig approached him and said something to him at the group's periphery. His brows arched and he gave her a quick nod. Then she was gone like the others.

Kristina's breathing became shallow, each breath ending high in her chest. That had been different. She cursed silently—that is, she thought of a curse—as she watched herself run out of drinks and go back to the bar for more. What had that been between Tatum and Ms. Pink? She would need to keep an eye on her as well.

When she came back from the bar and circled the room again, everyone had shifted into a new configuration. The brunette stripper was still in the corner with Fordelli, who seemed to have not moved even when Totti the birthday boy came into the room. But other than that, everything had changed. Three men occupied the leather chairs in the guest of honor area, with one man—she presumed it was Totti—getting a two girl lap dance right there in front of everyone. Two men in the area laughed. Someone in the corner lit up a cigar—something technically illegal. Nobody batted an eye as the pungent scent of the old world filtered around the room.

Tatum approached in the maelstrom of the party and came to a stop in front of her. She winced inwardly as she remembered what was about to happen.

"Can I offer you a drink?" she asked, raising her tray up to him.

His brows shot up, and she got lost in his dark, searing eyes. Eyes like black holes, with a source so hot the heat still, somehow, escaped.

He cracked a small smile. "You can, thank you." And he took one from her, but did not turn away. Nor did she. She couldn't. Last night or now.

Keeping his eyes on hers, he took a brief sip of the champagne. "Have I seen you before?"

She shook her head. "I don't believe so, Mr. Tatum."

Even knowing it was coming, her breath caught in her throat. Listen to that. _Mr. Tatum_. Like she was a nervous English servant. What was the matter with her? Her brothers would have laughed until they cried. Hell, Anna would have laughed in her face.

"You know my name." It was a statement, not a question.

Her last-night's-self licked her lips and shrugged. "I suppose so."

"That seems unfair." He leaned forward almost imperceptibly, closing the gap between them so she caught the briefest trance of his scent. She was more into this than she wanted to admit. "What's your name?"

And here— _thankfully—_ she'd loosened up. She said the words in her head as she heard them aloud. "Do you want my stage name or my real one?"

That wasn't a bad line. She'd snapped out of it quickly enough, anyway. Tatum smiled full-on now, and the effect was half charming, half-titillating. "I didn't realize the women wearing your outfit got on stage."

"Not tonight," she bluffed, her voice low and throaty. She'd been getting into it, hadn't she? More people needed to watch themselves flirt in Recall to see how ridiculous they were. "But maybe if you come back another night you can see me up there."

"Is that so? You know, I don't make my way to this club often. Do you do private shows?"

She bit her lip. "I do a lot of things, depending on how badly a man wants it."

_Good lord_ , Kristina thought. She hoped Tatum didn't recognize her from this night whenever they met again. If they met again.

His eyes narrowed as the corners of his mouth turned up. Then they left to look at something over her shoulder. It was only an instant, but something shifted in him. She saw it even more this time.

"We'll see how badly I want it later," he said, raising his glass. "For now, maybe I'll see you in a little while for another drink. At the very least. In the meantime you can decide which name to give me."

"I'll do that," she said.

He turned away and was gone.

She breathed in and out deeply, resetting her equilibrium.

Her eyes had focused on Fordelli again at the time, but she paid attention to Tatum in the Recall as best she could. He popped in and out of the edge of her vision, but even when he was mostly a blur she was able to keep track of him pretty well.

After another few minutes, Ms. Pink approached him, her hands by her side. Their bodies brushed together, with Ms. Pink's hand right at pocket level. It moved.

Kristina's heart rose. It was out of focus, but that had looked like a handoff.

Tatum walked away and patted his pocket once. Kristina smiled inwardly. He may be the richest man in Chicago, but he wasn't the smoothest operator when it came to street moves. At least, not for someone who knew what to look for. Someone trained. Come to think of it, anyone else in the room who had been watching probably noticed the same thing. She scanned her vision quickly to see if it looked like anyone was paying particular attention to Tatum, but nothing jumped out.

A little while later, Fordelli left, and Kristina followed. She felt a tug at her shoulders as she was following. She was slipping out of Recall.

As she came out, she had one thought on her mind. She needed to talk to Ms. Pink as soon as possible. This was the kind of lead she'd been looking for.

# CHAPTER FOUR

She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, the disorientation of coming out of Recall swirling in her head. Whatever had happened in there with her hallucinations, it hadn't stopped her from doing her job. She'd found the drop: Ms. Pink. This was it.

The sterile, over-bright lights of Tom's office caused her eyes to water. She rubbed them and sat up, trying to adjust. The IV from her Recall was still in her arm, the CAP still on her head. The spot where the needle went into her arm felt tender and sore. It would probably be sore the rest of the day.

After a few seconds her sense of reality came back and she turned toward Tom's desk to ask him if he could take it out.

Sitting where Tom had just been was Tatum. Again. But wearing the white lab coat that Tom had just been wearing moments ago. It even still had Tom's nametag at the breast pocket.

A cold dread crept through her stomach. She gasped. It was still happening.

"What the hell is going on?" she cried. Her heart was absolutely throbbing in her chest.

Tatum shot up out of his seat, his eyes opened wide with panic. "Jesus, Kris, keep it down. What's the matter?"

Her breath came in short bursts. Her mind was on a runaway treadmill, running through one thought again and again and again: it was happening outside of Recall. Whatever had happened hadn't worn off when she woke up.

"Tom," she gasped. "It's Tom, right?"

Tom/Tatum nodded nervously, his face white as if he'd seen a ghost. It felt like she was watching herself watch him. Even worse than the effects of the Recall pharm on a Recall newbie. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears like soldiers marching in step, its reverberations coursing from her chest to her throat to her temple.

She took a deep breath, trying to get a grip. "I think I'm hallucinating, Tom."

Her voice was unsteady, and she wasn't even sure if she'd actually said the words or just imagined she said them.

It was a relief when she got a response. "What do you mean?"

She looked around her brother's office, saw all the equipment. The IVs. The pharms in their bags and metal canisters. Everything so sterile. Messy, but just as Tom had left it. This was real. She wasn't dreaming all this, as much as she wished she could feel a tug at her shoulders and wake up. This was something she would have to deal with.

"In the Recall," she said breathlessly. "They all looked like Tatum."

"What do you mean, 'they?'"

"The men," she said impatiently. She caught herself and reigned in her tone. Good lord, she was wound tight. "At the party. Strip club. They all looked like Landon Tatum."

He ran his hand across his face, a gesture characteristic of her brother that looked strange when it was Tatum. "Shit."

She stared at him, trying very hard not to panic.

His eyes flew around his office quickly, seemingly searching for what tool to use next. He settled on his tablet and took a deep breath.

"Okay," he said. "When did this start?"

She closed her eyes again and tried to steady herself against the dizziness that was starting to settle in. "Maybe this morning?"

Her voice sounded distant to her even coming from her own mouth. Still, she pressed on.

"I thought I was just imagining things," she continued. "It came in full force during the Recall, though. For sure. I don't know why."

He went to his tablet and began tapping and swiping silently. She opened her eyes and watched, trying to come to terms with what was happening. Something had gone terribly wrong somewhere, and she had gotten caught up in it.

Tom cleared his throat, stirring her from her thoughts. She blinked and turned toward him.

"You said there were a bunch of mobster types there, right?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes."

Another deep breath. "Okay," he said. "Might be a street pharm. Might be an implant they hit you with without you knowing. I'm going to need to take a vial of blood from you and then get it analyzed. Could be a while before I'm done. There's definitely been some run with some illegal pharms lately that exhibit characteristics similar to what you're describing to me now."

Kristina closed her eyes briefly, trying to come to grips with Tom's words. It wasn't just an after-effect from the Recall. Tom's computers hummed as she thought. The ventilation fans turned on, choking to life. She wondered what kind of aeros the management ran in a police department building. Maybe nothing.

She'd been drugged or implanted, as unlikely as that seemed. Now she was talking to her brother in Landon Tatum's skin, when she was supposed to be searching for Landon Tatum. If she didn't find Tatum, she was going to lose her job.

Someone was seriously messing with her and making it personal. Her jaw hardened. That wasn't something she appreciated.

With a deep breath, she opened her eyes saw her brother was in front of her. She gave him a short nod and held her arm out. Tom, in Tatum's skin but with her brother's characteristic careful, quick motions, took a few drops of blood from her other arm in seconds. She barely registered any feeling at all.

"Did you find anything in the Recall?" he asked, as he took the vial away. "Anything that will help, even with this...handicap?"

"Kind of." She bit her lip. "I need to go back and talk to one of the performers."

"Stripper, you mean?"

She glared at him. "Yeah. Or maybe drink girl, I'm not sure. Does that bother you?"

"Just curious." He shifted on his feet. "Well, let me just recommend driving and staying away from crowds if you can. If it's the kind of pharm I'm thinking it is, the disorientation can get nasty. Might lose your lunch."

"I haven't had lunch."

"Breakfast then."

"I'll do my best," she said, already contemplating the train ride she was going to have to take. Hopefully it wouldn't be as bad as he said. "Just let me know when you have more info, okay? And come up with something good about Totti."

He blinked and nodded solemnly. "Of course."

#  CHAPTER FIVE

They were everywhere.

She looked around the train from where she stood, near the doors, and gripped the vertical pole running from floor to ceiling tighter. The world went topsy-turvy. Nausea washed over her, stronger even than it had been in the lab. It was all she could do not to throw up.

So many versions of Landon Tatum. All around her. Sometimes, it felt like he was closing in. She'd never felt claustrophobic before this moment, but now it was overwhelming.

It was worse than it had been in Recall. She'd never had to think about the gender split on the average Red Line train in Chicago before, but here it was presented starkly. So many men. In clumps, it seemed. Dressed in monochrome suits or brashly colored street clothes. Reds, yellows, greens and blues. Strong, primary colors, garish patterns. Too many logos for her to deal with in that moment: HITACHI. SAMSUNG. BAYER. TATUM. FORD. APPLE. BEETEL.

A man by the other train car door wore a white tank top and green shorts that showed off the lean muscle of Tatum's legs. It felt like a violation to see his body like that without his permission. This would be distracting.

A fresh wave of sickness crashed over her body and she looked down at her black shoes. Tom had been right. She absolutely should have taken a cab.

Finally, the train came to her stop and she hurried off. The station wasn't much better. A big crowd surging for the exit. She stopped to look at a Tatum Pharmaceuticals ad and breathe in the calming aeros, just for a minute while the crowd thinned out a little bit. The ad was for headache relief. Sounded pretty good right about now. She wished her situation could be fixed by just taking a pill. For all she knew, maybe Tom would tell her it could. She didn't know how long she could put up with these hallucinations.

Once her stomach had settled and the crowd wasn't quite as overwhelming, she left the soothing pharms of the ad and exited the station. As she popped up into the relatively fresh air at street level, she looked up at Chicago's strong, powerfully designed buildings and began to settle down.

Cars flew by almost silently, both those driven by humans and the automated cabs that had been introduced a few years ago. A wave of some enticing aeros wafted her way from a bakery door, promising her fulfillment if she would just come in and have a croissant. Maybe she smelled the croissant and attached that feeling to the aero. It was hard to separate sometimes. Either way, she could practically feel its flaky, buttery goodness in her mouth.

She hurried away and the feeling was gone. As she walked, she dug her comm device out of her pocket and called her brother Kevin.

Kevin had come back from the marines when she was fifteen after leaving six years earlier. He was nine years older than her, the lone offspring of her dad's previous marriage. Technically that made them half-siblings, but Kevin was the closest thing to a role model she'd ever had in her life. Without him, she would have been even more lost than she ended up being.

When she graduated high school, she began working for him as a private investigator while she went to community college to take classes toward her degree in criminal justice. She'd worked for him full-time after she graduated, until she'd landed the job at Dunn-Brantley. That had been five years ago, to the month.

He picked up within seconds. "My favorite sister," he said, though she could hear the tension in his face. "Everything alright?"

"Not really. I was hoping you could look into something for me."

"I'm listening."

She licked her lips and watched another version of Tatum walk by, this one wearing a bright red tank top with bright white piping and navy blue, mesh athletic shorts. Those were some strapped arms he had. Good lord.

"I need to know if anyone else worked that party I did last night," she said, turning away from the eye candy walking by. "Undercover, I mean."

"At The Velvet?"

The screaming siren of an ambulance approached as she came to the street corner opposite her office. "Yeah," she said, plugging her other ear. "Particularly a tall brunette. Something weird is going on and I'm trying to get an idea of what it is before it gets too good an idea of me."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Just keep it quiet. I'm going to talk to Teddy in a little while."

There was a pause on the other end. "This too sensitive for me to drop a line to him? I know him better. Might be a little easier for me to get what you want."

She considered his proposition. He had a good point. The walk sign lit up and she stepped off the curb and crossed the street. The screaming ambulance and gradually faded the noise level returned to its previous level. "Yeah, try that. Just keep it vague, okay?"

"Won't be hard with what you've given me. I'll be in touch."

The call over, she continued her walk back to the office, doing her best not to look at people's faces. It was hard, though, when she saw so many of a face she recognized.

The city she'd lived in her whole life felt like a different place. A different world, even. The residue of her time in Recall wouldn't quite leave her, coloring everything she looked at. Even when she wasn't seeing near-clones of him, he seemed to be there. When she looked at a green street sign hanging over a traffic light, or even down at her comm. Everywhere.

By the time she walked into her building, past a variety of Tatums in business professional mingling with female colleagues who looked just like they would any other day, she was ready to spend some alone time with her tablet and some legalese. Anything for a distraction. It had just become too overwhelming.

She entered her sterile, orderly office and froze. Her entire body clenched up, practically shriveled up from the inside. There was someone sitting in her chair.

She was blonde, much like Kristina, but with her hair in a short bob as opposed to Kristina's long waves. Her eyes were an almost impossibly bright green, and she looked to be around sixty, though it was hard to tell with the pharms people took these days. She sat, legs crossed, wearing a cream business suit that stood out among the charcoals and grays at the firm. It looked very, very expensive. Her twisted mouth betrayed an almost comical level of exasperation.

"I was thinking you would never come back from lunch," she said, her voice high like a tinkling bell.

Kristina gathered herself, trying not to show her annoyance just yet. Suits that expensive usually expected to get away with things like this. "You must have some good reason for being in my chair. Can I help you?"

"I'm beginning to doubt it, but you might."

Kristina bit her tongue and composed herself. "How about you try me?"

"My name is Jenna Bruman," she said, blinking so quickly she was practically fluttering her eyes. "I'm Landon Tatum's executive assistant, and I called earlier today about his disappearance."

Kristina shut the door and rechecked her demeanor, trying to be certain she was portraying herself as well as possible. "Hello Ms. Bruman. The partners told me about your call. What brings you here?"

"Desperation," she said, uncrossing and recrossing her legs. "I am shocked you haven't contacted me yet."

Kristina took a deep breath to tamp down her annoyance. "I've been following other leads."

"Oh?" Her plucked brows arched up. "Have they led to anything?"

Kristina held the assistant's gaze. "We'll see. These things take time. Do you have information pertinent to the investigation beyond what you gave the partners this morning?"

Ms. Bruman pursed her lips and ran a long blue nail on Kristina's desk. "How long have you been doing this, Ms. Andersen?"

"Doing what, Ms. Bruman? Working at Dunn-Brantley?"

She waved her hand absently, then looked away. "Investigating."

Kristina bit her bottom lip and tried to keep herself under control. It had been nine years, but that wasn't her business. "Do you have some questions as to my capability?"

The assistant's eyes flashed. "Of course not," she said slowly.

"Good," Kristina said, blowing by the insinuation. "Now do you have anything else for me?"

Bruman locked eyes with Kristina again before reaching into the huge purse at her feet and removing a crisp manila envelope. "This was part of the protocol Mr. Tatum established in the event of his disappearance," she said crisply. "It was to be done personally, because I have Mr. Tatum's utmost confidence."

She held the envelope out to Kristina, who stepped forward, took it, and set it on her desk. "Thank you."

Ms. Bruman waited with her hands folded in front of her. "Well? Aren't you going to open it?"

"When I'm alone." Kristina cocked her head and smiled. "Client confidence, of course. If anything contained in the envelope requires further assistance from you, I'll be in touch as soon as necessary."

Her green eyes narrowed, and Kristina braced herself for a confrontation. Thankfully, before she could open her mouth further, Kristina's door eased open.

It was Anna, and she was carrying two white paper bags of what Kristina guessed was lunch. Her stomach growled.

"Oh, am I interrupting?" Anna asked. She glanced quickly at Kristina, making eye contact for a second before looking back at Ms. Bruman. "I'm so sorry. I can come back."

Kristina silently thanked whoever was up there for her friend's interruption. "I believe Ms. Bruman was just leaving."

Ms. Bruman stared daggers into her, but stood up from Kristina's chair and took her purse in her hands. "Indeed I am." She pursed her lips again. "Please don't make me come here again, Ms. Andersen. I expect an update as soon as possible. You must know people are already growing suspicious."

Kristina stood aside to let her through. "Of course," she said, motioning toward the door. "I will stay in touch."

With one last icy look, she walked through and was gone. It was like a cold chill had left the room, and the sun had begun shining down.

Kristina turned to her friend. "Good timing. I was worried she would make me lose my cool." She motioned toward bags in her friend's hands. "Is one of those for me?"

"You know it." She pulled out a sandwich hermetically sealed in a composite box. "Turkey and Swiss on toasted rye from Weismann's!"

Kristina smiled. A lunch from her favorite vending machine. "You're a saint," she said happily.

They ate without talking until their sandwiches were just about done. Kristina hadn't realized how hungry she was. Everything that had happened since last night had consumed her. After a few minutes of eating, her mind was spinning in a million different directions, poking and prodding for the best place to launch her investigative efforts.

Why would someone want to kidnap the richest man in the city? Who would have both the audacity and the ability to pull it off? Had it even been pulled off, or was Tatum in hiding? She was leaning toward the latter, but what would make him bolt like that?

She shook her head. None of it fit.

"So I take it she was with Tatum?" Anna asked, once they were just about done.

"Yeah." Kristina finished her sandwich, wondering idly where it had been made. "I think she might be stressed."

Anna smiled. "Guess I would be too. Speaking of, how was your Recall?"

Kristina grimaced. She had almost forgotten. "Recall didn't go as planned."

"Why? Tom mess up prepping it or something?"

"Not sure. He—" Kristina took a deep breath. "He thinks I might have been _drugged_ or something but can't know until he gets some test results done on my blood."

Anna's eyes opened wide like a couple of old watch faces. "Holy shit. Why does he think that?"

Kristina hesitated. This was kind of tough to explain. She looked down at her comm device to buy time and saw there was a message from Tom. Perfect timing.

Pharm's called Agent Smith. Look it up.

She looked back up at her friend, her brows already up in challenge. "Ever hear of a pharm called Agent Smith?"

Anna shook her head.

"Me either. But apparently it's in my blood."

Anna whipped out her comm device. "Better figure out what it is," she said.

Soon they were both swiping and tapping in silence. Kristina on her tablet, Anna on her comm. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock on the wall and the sound of fingers—and fingernails, in Anna's case—tapping at screens.

A minute later, Anna looked up from her device. "Wait, you're hallucinating?"

Kristina looked up from her own search. "Yeah. I was just about to tell you about that."

Anna narrowed her eyes. "Why didn't you say so?"

Kristina took a breath. "Like I said, I was going to tell you. It's kind of hard to explain what it's like, though."

She watched as Anna studied her for a few seconds before her mouth dropped. She'd always been able to read Kristina so well.

"No way," Anna said. "You're hallucinating Landon Tatum aren't you?"

Kristina nodded. Nobody could say her friend was stupid, no matter how ditzy she seemed.

"That sounds...distracting."

Kristina shrugged. "Whatever. The point is these hallucinations make my job harder."

Anna shrugged and went back to reading on her comm. Soon, her eyes opened wide. "Wow, this pharm sounds exotic. Any idea who did it?"

Kristina looked up. "Someone who doesn't want me to find Tatum, I'm guessing."

"Guess so. Still, they would need to have some serious resources."

"If they successfully went after Tatum, I'm guessing they would."

Anna looked back down at her comm and read some more. Kristina did the same on her tablet, finding an article in the Tribune from five months ago about the drug.

A few seconds later, Anna's comm buzzed, stirring Kristina from her search. Her friend grimaced. "I have to get back. Dunn sounds like she's about to have an aneurysm." She held up her comm. "Did you see this article on your new pharm on Tribune?"

"Was just about to read it," Kristina said.

"It sounds pretty crazy." She stood up. "Let me know if I can help, okay?"

"You got it."

***

Once Anna was gone. Kristina got settled in with the piece from the Tribune. The article was about a group of partygoers who had taken Agent Smith in an old mansion down in Hyde Park. Apparently, dealers had begun selling the pharm as parts of "Experiences" they would orchestrate for groups. In this case, the partygoers had paid quite a bit to engage in an Experience that replicated a recent blockbuster movie with a hot leading couple.

Men and women were given drugs that made them appear to be the male and female leads of the movie, respectively. Combined with costumes—also provided by the dealer—and role play, it let people indulge wild fantasies, usually sexual as couples paired off. Part of the effects of the drug was additional arousal toward the person being hallucinated. Partygoers had thought the police were part of the experience when they came and asked them to join in.

Kristina shook her head in wonder. This stuff had gotten a lot more sophisticated since the pushers she'd known in high school.

She read on. The drug had originated in the German defense department a few years ago as a tool for espionage. It quickly moved into the recreational market once it had been deconstructed, and from there had spread to America. These days, it was one of the higher-end Post-Boom pharms that people indulged in.

The reason for its high price was the need for the DNA of the person that was to appear in the hallucination. Most of the time, this involved celebrities, which meant access was limited. A single strand of hair for an A Lister could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars for a dealer. The potential value had created a minor cottage industry of lowlifes scrounging up celebrity DNA like they were investigating a crime scene.

She sat back from reading. Maybe the drug was why she'd had such a strong attraction to Tatum during Recall. She'd known logically he was desirable before, but what she felt during Recall seemed like something different.

Maybe it had already been in her system when she was talking to him at The Velvet. She had thought she seemed a little coquettish.

She shook her head, trying to focus on more important matters. Who would have access to Tatum to get his DNA?

Her eyes drifted over to the envelope she had been given earlier. Something she had nearly forgotten after getting the text from Tom. After getting up and locking her door, she came back and took the envelope in her hand.

It was thick—stuffed seemingly full—and had large red print across its front.

DO NOT TAMPER

THIS ENVELOPE WILL SELF-DESTRUCT

"Well then," Kristina murmured to herself. "I guess I'd better figure out how to open you properly."

While it had the appearance of a normal manila envelope, the material was much tougher—seemingly indestructible. The seal, too, was no ordinary glue. It didn't even budge when she tentatively tried to sneak her finger under.

What the hell did Tatum expect her to do with this thing?

She examined the envelope again, turning it over in her hands. Finally, she saw some text she had missed earlier on the back. It was small, in blue ink, about a third of the way from the corner with the flap on what she supposed was the left edge.

*IDENTIFY HERE*

And below that.

Kristina Andersen

Dunn-Brantley

No further instructions. Just "identify here" plus her name and position. She'd never seen anything like it.

Tentatively, she put her finger over the text and gripped it there for several seconds, hoping it was some sort of trick. This envelope _had_ been meant for her. Maybe it was linked somehow.

After waiting several seconds for some sign she was on the right track, she tossed the envelope on her desk and reached for her comm to call her brother Tom. He would know what to do.

The seal on the envelope flew open with a quiet pop as it landed. She gasped and shot out of her seat as a stack of papers emerged.

At the top of the stack was a letter addressed to her.

# CHAPTER SIX

Kristina—

If you have received this correspondence, then my assistant has delivered it to you upon the event of my disappearance. Please be advised that the contents herein are to remain strictly confidential. I have chosen you for any potential investigation in part because of my trust in your discretion (which has been confirmed by an investigation I undertook in so choosing).

Enclosed you will find a chip you can use to access a safety deposit box located in the vault of the Chase Bank branch at the corner of State and Madison. The box contains some resources—cash, etc.—you may deem necessary in your search.

You will also find instructions for how to enter my residence. I have taken the liberty of adding you to the DNA-triggered security system (through the same means by which I used your DNA as a key for this package). This should allow you unencumbered entry into the premises. I imagine the contents of my home may be useful for discerning where I may have (been) disappeared off to.

I have also included the security information for accessing my communications—both business and personal, voice and electronic. It is my hope that some useful evidence may be found there.

One more note: I have undertaken the task of creating this protocol because I have recently become suspicious of certain developments in my business dealings. These suspicions are, in terms of concrete evidence, mostly baseless at this time, and as such I do not want to cloud your investigations with them unnecessarily in case they are mere delusions. However, I have compiled a list, contained in the aforementioned safety deposit box, which you may access there in case your investigation comes to a road block.

Please do not share the contents of this delivery with anyone, except as needed with my assistant Ms. Bruman, who has proven her competence in working for me since my company started. I hope this does not put you in a difficult spot with your firm—the truth is, due to circumstances, I wish to limit the people I trust as much as possible.

Good luck on your search. I have great faith in your ability, Kristina.

—Landon Tatum

She read the letter over a second time and then fished through the contents of the envelope, finding the mentioned chip and instructions. Questions swirled through her mind.

How had he gotten her DNA? Why did he seem to have so much faith in her? What were his intensive investigations, and who did them?

Most importantly: what the hell did he expect her to do with this and where had he gone? Was this some kind of game?

She checked her comm to see if Kevin had gotten back to her. Nothing. Was he having trouble with Teddy? Restless, she stood up and paced her office. Even her uncluttered surroundings felt oppressive. The antique mechanical clock she kept on the wall ticked away. She had nothing but questions, and they weren't unwinding one bit.

Why would a man as successful as Tatum decide against hiring a big security firm to look into these concerns of his? Why her? What did he think she could provide? She had faith in her abilities, but she wasn't anything that unusual.

He must have thought he was in a very dangerous spot. Had he disappeared on his own, or had he been taken? She still didn't know.

She checked her comm again. Nothing. With a deep breath, she decided to go to Tatum's apartment and search there to see if there would be any context to add to the electronic communications she would find. There might be something obvious there. If not, she would come back to the office and get to work. Once she started that, it was going to be a long period of bunkering down.

She looked down at her pristine white desk and the envelope on its surface. _Shit_. What was she supposed to do with the contents of this envelope now that it was open? Tatum hadn't included any instructions for how to close it, but its contents were valuable enough that it needed to be closed up somehow.

Grimacing at the relative lack of security, she scooped up the envelope and its contents, removed the instructions for accessing his communications and the key to the safety deposit box, then put the rest in her office safe. She might have a chance to cross-reference some communications with items she found in his home, and the safety deposit box seemed like a good thing to be able to access in case of an emergency.

The rest could stay. It wasn't perfect, but then nobody except Bruman and Anna even knew she had received such an envelope. It should be fine in this safe.

With that done, she grabbed the keys to her car and exited her office, making sure to lock the door this time. This day had already delivered way too many surprises.

***

Roy sat on the edge of the bed in the cheap hotel room he'd checked into that morning and waited. Shifted in his suit jacket. Hadn't even bothered to take it off. He had to be ready at a moment's notice. The day had been that bad.

Problem was the boss was angry. This hadn't been the way the plan was supposed to go, and they had been working on it for months. If the boss worked on a plan for months, it worked. That was how it was. Plans were made to work. You didn't get a reputation like the boss had unless your plans worked.

They'd all been put on high-alert since this morning, when shit really began going down. Checked into the hotel and waited for word. Boss said to wait. Soon Jack-O, hired muscle Roy occasionally used for heavy jobs, knocked on the door and came in. Said he was sent by the boss. So even that was being covered for him.

He looked over at Jack-O now. Jack-O was sitting on the edge of the other bed, checking his gun to make sure it wouldn't jam. Vid screen was hung above the dresser and switched on, but the volume was down and neither of them was watching. Its light shone off Jack-O's shaved head in a cool, inorganic glow. A machine glow. New God, except for maybe pharms since the pharm boom.

Roy shifted nervously. "You know what it's all about, then? The hang up? What are they waiting for?"

Jack-O shrugged without taking his eyes from his gun. He had the demeanor of someone who made a virtue out of keeping things very simple and keeping himself in the dark. "Don't know," he said gruffly. "Don't think it much matters to me."

"All seems a bit mysterious, though, doesn't it? Keeping us in the dark like this. Heard nothing but plans and failures. Real general. Just seems strange. At the very least, _I_ would hear a little more, in most cases."

The bald man shrugged again. "If that's how they want it, so long as their money's good. Sounds to me like this is more your problem than mine."

Roy snorted, then pressed his lips together. At least the bastard was honest. This was the problem with random hired guns without any ambition to move up in the world. They didn't care about anyone but themselves.

He thought over the last few hours. How Tatum had gotten away, somehow, without him tailing. It was like he was a ghost. Rich bastard like that had no business being that slick. That slippery. Like an eel, he'd been. No car or anything, even. Didn't take the same car back that he'd taken in. Just gone without a trace.

Now they'd gotten word that he'd never shown up to work this morning. Which meant he'd been properly spooked. That was probably old Roy's fault. He'd really screwed the pooch this time. Wonder he wasn't dead already. By the boss's reputation, he ought to be. Put in a job on The Exchange and watch the result roll in.

The comm buzzed, just once for a message. He jumped and picked it up to read the message. The ID was from the boss.

"We're on," he said to Jack-O, standing up, after scanning the message very quickly. They were off to the car in minutes. He'd better not fuck up this time.

#  CHAPTER SEVEN

Tatum's city penthouse was on the north side of downtown, in a building that had a view of both the park and the lake. It was an old building, with elaborate stonework that had been the style in the beginning of the last century.

As Kristina stepped out of the cab, she couldn't imagine living in this neighborhood, never mind a penthouse she assumed cost ten times as much as she and her entire family would make in their lifetime. This kind of luxury didn't even seem like real life.

Throwing her shoulders back and trying to project confidence, she walked in the building's old-fashioned, gold-framed doors and up to the doorman's desk.

She guessed the doorman was an older gentleman by the way he sat, but he just looked like another Tatum. A Tatum dressed in in a cheap white dress shirt and a black tie that Tatum wouldn't be caught dead in, but a Tatum nonetheless. The fact he was human was itself a sign of luxury.

The doorman smiled at her frigidly as she approached the desk. "Can I help you?" he asked, half through his nose.

Kristina returned the smile as she scanned the desk to see if she could guess how the DNA scan worked. She could not.

"A resident here informed me that my DNA has been added to his security system," she said crisply, using her best professional voice. "Can you assist me with that?"

The doorman narrowed his eyes. "And which resident would that be, Ms . . ."

"Andersen. The resident's name is Landon Tatum."

The doorman smiled and gestured toward a minute device that had just popped up from the desk, right next to an old-fashioned silver bell. "Very well Ms. Andersen. In that case go ahead and authenticate in that device there. I should warn you, however, that the police will be automatically alerted should you fail to authenticate and you would be forced to leave the premises immediately or risk being arrested."

"I understand."

She held her breath and pressed her finger up against the pad. It turned green.

The doorman's eyes opened wide and he blushed, a combination that looked silly on Tatum's normally composed face. An elevator dinged open to her left.

"Which floor do I go to for Mr. Tatum's unit?" she asked.

The doorman picked his jaw up and shook his head, as if shaking off the shock. "That's his private elevator," he said. "Just hit the top button."

"Thank you," she said, walking to the door. She hit the button once she was inside and watched his smiling face—like Tatum's but eager to please instead of waiting to be pleased—as the door closed. Amazing what the right connections would get you.

The elevator was bereft of ads, something that seemed out of place. She couldn't detect any aero pharms either. Ironic that the one place in the city you could go to be free of ads and aeros was in the residence of the man who got so rich off both.

The elevator came to the top floor and the door opened. Kristina gasped. Landon Tatum lived in sheer luxury.

She'd been expecting something modern, cold and clinical, appropriate for a man who had made a fortune on products developed in labs. Instead, she found a home as warm and full of life as she could imagine.

Immaculately preserved old hardwood floors stretched out before her as she exited the elevator, hovered over by a ceiling at least eleven feet high. The elevator opened into a gorgeous foyer with a marble statue of the Greek god Hermes sitting atop a wooden table that appeared to be carved from a single piece of oak.

She turned past the foyer, already self-conscious, and entered the great room. A mezzanine with black metal bars surrounded three sides of the room, with dueling stairs on the side opposite where she'd entered. A dark, tufted leather couch took along with similar arm chairs provided ample seating, and a vantage point for an enormous vid screen on the wall immediately to her right. An enormous, colorful, highly intricate Turkish rug held the space together.

Above, on the mezzanine level, hung a trio of large abstract paintings. The bright colors provided a break from the dark walls and curtains. She was pretty sure the paintings were from the early part of the last century, just based on her trips to the Art Institute.

The other break from the dark curtains came from the stunning floor to ceiling windows, which provided gorgeous light. She walked up to one and looked out. The view of the lake and the beach made her feel like she was in the nicest hotel she'd ever stayed at. In her own city.

She shook her head and continued on, trying to keep her head in the right place and remember what she was there for.

From the great room she made her way to the kitchen. It was spotless. She opened the fridge and found milk, eggs, juice—all the containers varying degrees of empty. Not the fridge of someone who knew they were about to skip town and was preparing for it, in any case.

With nothing else of note in the kitchen, she continued to wander. Eventually, she found what she believed to be Tatum's bedroom.

The bedroom occupied a corner of the building and had floor to ceiling windows with the dark brown curtains half-drawn. She looked out on the lake on one side and the city sprawling south on the other. She could see Tatum had maximized the effect of his view every morning.

The bed, with its charcoal comforter and bright, crisp white sheets, was made without a wrinkle. Either a house keeper had come in this morning, or Tatum had never made it home last night.

There was nothing but an alarm clock and a control for the vid screen on the black nightstand. It matched the rest of the house—practically spotless. Perfect for coming home to. Awful for investigating.

From the bedroom she made her way to Tatum's walk-in closet, complete with a glowing shelf for his fine leather dress shoes and an array of suits and dress shirts. Still no clues. From there she searched his master bathroom—again, spotless—which, apart from some brief fantasies about an amazing glass-walled shower complete with multiple showerheads and a floor-to-ceiling window out to the city, was fruitless.

Frustrated, she exited the master suite and explored some more, until she pushed a heavy, intricately carved door open to a room with bookshelves on all sides and a massive oak desk in the middle. Papers were scattered everywhere.

This must be his home office, the only room in the house that was untouched. Bingo. She walked forward, eager to get started.

A comm rang out. She jumped, not realizing until that instant how quiet it had been in the empty unit.

She tapped her pocket, trying to fish her comm out for several seconds. Then she froze.

The comm in her pocket wasn't vibrating. The ringing wasn't her. Someone was calling a comm that had been left behind in the unit.

She searched frantically for the source of the noise and quickly realized it was coming from the desk. As it continued to ring out, she shifted papers around, searching for it.

Her own comm buzzed in her pocket. She froze again. This was her.

Heart pounding, she fished her comm out of her pocket answered. "This is Kristina Andersen."

"Kristina, thank god!"

She blinked twice before placing the voice. "Kevin?"

"Kris, where are you?"

The buzzing from the first comm had stopped. She sighed and turned away from the desk, her heart still pounding. Definitely Kevin. "I'm investigating a case, why?"

"Tatum?"

"How did you hear about that? Did you talk to Tom?"

"Listen, where are you?" He was breathing hard.

"I'm at Tatum's penthouse, actually. Kevin, what's going on?"

"Shit. You need to get out of there Kris. Now. Right now. Is there a back way out? They might be watching the building."

"What?" She peeked her head out of the office's doorway and scanned the hallway. "I don't know. Who's watching the building?"

"Get out of there Kris. Right now. This minute. Meet me at The Velvet. I'm driving there. Did you drive?"

"Took a cab."

"Good. Get another one. Right now. We need to talk to Teddy to figure out what the fuck is going on here."

Her heart thumped like it was trying to escape. She'd only heard her brother like this once before. "Kevin, you're scaring me."

"Good. Get over to The Velvet. Please. There's some bad shit going on, Kris."

She took a deep breath to steady herself. Adrenaline surged through her and she turned the corner, feeling a bit more in control. "Okay," she said. "I'm leaving now."

With one last longing look at the possible treasure trove that was Landon Tatum's home office, she left. Whatever was there would have to wait. 

#  CHAPTER EIGHT

Rose practically wanted to skip to work. Even a day later, she couldn't believe her luck. She mused on it as she walked to work from the train station. How much easier could fifty grand be than that?

All they'd wanted her to do was drop off a little physical drive to Tatum. Give it to him and make sure nobody saw. That was it. One little move and she got fifty grand. Get the drive from her locker, get it to Tatum discreetly. Easy.

With the fifty grand that had just shown up in her bank account earlier that day, she could pay off all her credit lines and even put some money away. Hell, depending on how things went, she might be able to stop stripping and go to school after this year. So long as she stayed away from heavy pharms.

She smiled. Dad gone, mom on the bottle, dickwad boyfriend who'd pumped all their money away into his arm—it was about time she caught a break. That was how life was supposed to work, right?

***

It took her about twenty minutes in a cab to get to The Velvet. Kristina used the time to run everything through her head. Over and over, from every angle she could think of.

Kevin could be paranoid—it was his job as a private security provider—but he sounded even more panicked than normal. This wasn't just professional concern. He was scared for her.

That meant she was looking over her shoulder and out the window constantly. The inability to distinguish faces made this harder, but she could still look out for cars. So that was what she did.

By the time her cab pulled up in front of the seedy strip club, she had been suspicious and relieved a half-dozen times. It looked like she hadn't been followed.

She paid and walked inside, expecting it to be quiet. But no, even at two-thirty on a Wednesday, she could hear the low bass of music blaring like it was two in the morning. Catcalling whistles came from the patrons for the performers on stage. Without outside light getting through the doors, time seemed to stop here.

She walked down the dim hallway, surprised there were no bouncers, and emerged into the main area. There she looked up at the stage and saw a woman she didn't recognize performing under blue stage lights. The spotlights swirled around as the woman took off her top to reveal silicone enhanced, perfectly round breasts and a tattoo down the middle of her cleavage.

Definitely not Ms. Pink, nor the brunette with Fordelli. A half-dozen men who looked like Tatum but definitely were not him splayed themselves around the room, mostly sitting alone at small cocktail tables and dressed in baggy clothes that looked optimized for comfort. A few of them sent her some catcalls. Kristina felt a surge of pity. Even the back room she had been in the night before was a far cry from this sorry display.

From the performing area her eyes drifted to the side wall where the bar was. There she saw two men seemingly arguing, standing in front of the bar. One of them was wearing her brother's trademark blood-red long-sleeve shirt and dark jeans. He'd made it the uniform of his company.

"Teddy, just please tell me you're not hiding anything," he said. His upright posture betrayed his military past. "This is my sister I'm talking about. You know if I had any option I wouldn't care about playing ball, but this is different."

That was definitely Kevin.

Teddy wore Tatum's skin too, but other than that he was just as Kristina had remembered him. His body blended with Tatum made him on the squatter side, as Tatum clones went, and he walked with a strut that looked like he practiced it in the mirror. His outfit—black cotton shirt, black slacks with a sheen, a white tie and cheap white faux leather shoes—completed the effect.

"Kev, I know nothing, okay?" Teddy wrung his hands together. "Nothing. I'm a businessman and I hosted a birthday party last night for clients who paid on time and caused no trouble. The girls were all happy and they made plenty of money. What do you want from me?"

Kevin opened his mouth to respond but then seemed to glimpse Kristina and rushed over. "You're okay!" he exclaimed. His big arms squeezed her in a tight hug. "Some bad chatter out there, Kris. I was just talking to Teddy about it."

"More like keeping me from operating my business," Teddy grumbled over Kevin's shoulder. "Do you have anything you want from me or can I go back to work?"

Kevin squared to the slightly shorter man. "I do, actually. What was she wearing last night?"

Teddy opened his eyes wide in confusion. "Kristina? I mean, do you want me to describe it for you?"

"No," Kevin said. "I mean where did it come from?"

She looked between the two men and Kevin's question clicked. He was thinking of ways she could have been drugged, and sabotaging a uniform would be a great way to do it. A little pin would be all you needed. Just a scratch.

Teddy looked between the two of them and wrung his hands together. "Same place as all the other girls," he said. "There was a generous donation from a patron. A gift, really."

She looked at her brother then back at Teddy. "So those were all new?" she asked.

Teddy smiled smarmily, a shifty expression that seemed to morph from one thing to another. "Patrons do this kind of thing all the time, especially for a big event. Want to get gifts for the girls, I mean. You know how it is. In this case it was new drink-girl uniforms."

Kevin took a step toward him. "But you don't know who did it?" he asked. "Sent them in?"

Teddy shook his head. "I don't exactly do background checks on my patrons when they offer gifts," he said. "In this case I came in, one of the girls told me they'd had these uniforms laid out in the locker room. I inspected her outfit, decided they were nice, and that was that. I have a lot of stuff going on, you know. Especially for a big event."

"Which girl was it?" Kristina asked. "And where are the uniforms now?"

"Uniforms are at the wash. And the girl was Rose. You might remember her. She had a pink wig on last night. Always wears one."

Kristina's face lit up. "Oh, perfect! That's just who I was meaning to talk to anyway."

Teddy nodded. "Very good! See, Kev, this is all getting squared away."

Kristina ignored her brother's skeptical expression. "When can I talk to her? Or where. I'll visit her at home if it's possible."

"Rose should be coming in shortly, actually. She's scheduled to be on stage at three."

Kevin looked between his sister and Teddy, impassive. Finally, tiny smile cracked across his lips.

"You might be right," he said.

Three impossibly loud knocks came from outside, crashing through the booming music like a trio of divers into a choppy pool. The world shifted. Then she was down, Kevin's body between her and the front door. Her breath caught in her throat so that she couldn't even scream.

"Stay down!" Kevin boomed. He rose into a crouch now with a pistol in both hands. His head snapped over toward the DJ. "Get that fucking music off!"

The DJ quickly complied, and where there had been music a moment earlier there was now oppressive silence. Tables and chairs scraped belatedly on the floor. A few heartbeats passed. Kristina brought herself up to her knees and removed her shoes in case she would have to run. Her throat tightened.

Tires squealed outside. Then more silence. She looked up at Teddy and saw he was petrified, glued to the spot with his hands over his head. A quick glance at the performers and patrons outside revealed they'd reacted in the same way.

Kevin had his comm out and to his mouth. "Send an extra unit and have them scope out the back," he commanded. "Yes, The Velvet. One from the back and one out front. I have no idea what's out there. Surveying in five."

He tapped the device and put it back in his pocket before turning to Kristina. "I'm going out there to see what I can see. Someone might be hurt. You stay here."

"I'm coming with you," she said.

He shook his head. "You're very likely to be a target." He turned his attention over to Teddy, who was still planted where he stood. "You have any security here, Teddy?"

"W-what? Like cameras? Sure."

"Cameras are good, but I meant manpower. Or at least guns."

He shook his head. "It isn't necessary during the day," he said sheepishly. "Normal guy's out right now because his wife had a surgery."

"I suppose that's respectable enough," Kristina muttered.

"She got breast implants," Teddy said.

Kristina's lips formed a thin line.

"They met here," he continued, by way of explanation.

"Whatever," Kevin said, shaking his head. "I'm going out there."

He stood up, and Kristina followed. Kevin looked back at her, then shook his head and kept walking forward. "Hang back until I give the go-ahead that the coast is clear," he said. "My men will be here in a few minutes."

She obeyed and followed, past the stunned patrons and dancers, through the dimly lit hallway she had come through minutes earlier. Kevin checked his gun quickly and then eased out the door, his head on a swivel before he disappeared from the doorway. Kristina hung about ten feet back from the door, listening closely.

A few minutes later, Kevin returned.

"How many of the girls from last night do you think you could identify?" he asked.

Her heart sank. Someone had been shot. She took a deep breath to steady herself before answering.

"A few," she said quietly.

Kevin nodded.

"Let me see her," she said.

With another grim nod, he bent over and lifted the leg on his jeans, revealing a second gun holster. He removed the gun from its holster and offered it to her.

"Just in case," he said.

She took it from him, flicked the safety off, and then followed him out.

Even after only a few minutes in the strip club, the afternoon summer sun was nearly blinding, and it took her eyes a few seconds to adjust. When they did, she looked down at the body sprawled out on the sidewalk about ten yards away. She approached, her stomach churning.

The woman had been gorgeous and, Kristina guessed, young. A couple years younger than herself, at least. Her bleached blonde hair was splayed out behind her and to one side. Dead, blue eyes stared upward from skin even paler than it had been, almost white, save for the three circles of red at her forehead, throat, and chest. Blood pooled around her, thick and gritty with the sidewalk. Soon it would be brown.

Even without her pink wig and stage makeup, Kristina recognized her. This had been Ms. Pink. Rose, Teddy had said. She filled her lungs up as far as she could and exhaled, gathering herself, before turning to her brother, who was looking out with Tatum's eyes with an expression she had seen too often before on his own face.

It wasn't the first dead body she'd seen, but it was the first for a while.

She nodded to her brother, fighting back a wave of nausea. He held her gaze for a moment before wiping his hands over his mouth and turning away.

"It was a professional job," he said. He walked back toward the entrance. She hurried after. "Clean. She was definitely the target. We need to get Teddy to call the police."

She caught up and grabbed his arm. "You look relieved about this!" she said. "That girl's dead, Kevin."

He stopped and turned to her. "They weren't here for you. That's a relief."

"But she's dead," she said. Her hands felt clammy, her lungs tight in her chest.

"They came to get her. Not you. There's nothing I could have done for her."

He came to the door and opened it wide, stepping aside for her to come in. She followed, still steaming. Even if her brother was right, his ability to look coldly on death was disconcerting. She would never get used to it.

Back through the dimly lit hallway and then there was Teddy, wringing his hands. "What happened?" he asked. He locked eyes with her and grimaced.

Kevin took a deep breath. "Someone was shot. Kris says it was the girl from last night. Rose."

Teddy's face fell without a word. He turned away.

Kevin licked his lips and stepped toward him. "You need to call the police, Ted. Kris and I will be out of here in a minute. With those shots they might already be on their way."

Teddy continued to look down at his shoes for a few moments before his face twisted into an ugly rage.

"I'm sorry," Kristina said, trying to head it off.

He shook and then jabbed his finger in Kristina's direction. "You did this to her!" he cried. "You killed her. That girl was as sweet as they come! How could you do this to her? These are human beings! I should have never let you come here last night."

"I know," she said, not rising to the bait. Kevin inserted his body between them.

"We're leaving," he said, he put his hand on his sister's shoulder and turned to go. "I'm sorry about your loss, Ted. But this had nothing to do with us. I'll be in touch later."

With that, he strode for the front door. Kristina again followed quickly behind. Kevin was right. This had nothing to do with him. But she wasn't so sure about herself. Someone had died in a situation that involved her in a way she didn't understand.

She needed to understand fast before she became next.

# CHAPTER NINE

They walked back out into the harsh sunlight and were met by two men who she assumed were Kevin's employees. They were dressed in the same uniform he wore—red long-sleeve shirt over bulky, muscular torsos, dark jeans—and each was carrying a gun at his hip. With their upright posture and her hallucinations, they looked more like Tatum clones than anything else she'd seen that day.

"All clear?" Kevin asked.

The man on the right nodded. "We have backup coming in. This block is clear."

Kevin turned to his sister. "Kris, what's your plan for the rest of the day? I'm sending these two with you for protection."

She looked between her brother and the two men nervously and swallowed a lump in her throat. "Kevin, what's going on?" she asked. "You've been pretty vague."

His face hardened. "Intel coming through the vine. Your name's out there on the dark net. Intercepted communications. Something that's come up through regular monitoring. I don't know what it is, yet, but I don't like it. Worried about kidnapping or worse. I don't think your assignment is as much a secret as you do."

A shiver went down her spine. "Who are you worried is after me?" she asked.

"I don't know who it is, so I'm worried about everyone. Especially anything I can see that has a connection to your assignment."

She noted how he was refusing to say Tatum's name, even in front of his own men. He was definitely on high alert.

"Did you get anything on that brunette?"

He shook his head. "She's a ghost. Teddy didn't have shit. Likely she snuck in, or he's lying. My bet's the former."

She sighed, trying like hell to stay on top of her fear. So much for that lead for now. "Okay, well, I think I'm going to head back to the office to continue working on my assignment. Get through some communication logs. Not sure what I will do after that."

"Got it," Kevin said. He turned to his men. "You two, set up a perimeter around her building. Monitor anyone going in or coming out. Call in backup at the first sign of anything unusual."

Kristina watched on, her stomach churning. This was all actually happening. It had been a long time since she'd seen a dead body. Not so long since she'd feared for her life, but never from something as unknown as this.

Her brother put his hand on her shoulder. "These guys will give you a ride back to the office. I set up a hotlink between your comms, and that will patch through. Do not leave that building without letting me know."

"Kevin," she said, straightening up. "I'm not an idiot. I understand the situation."

He laughed, a big, unexpected laugh that unnerved her. "Of course. Stay safe. I'm going to go make some more inquiries and see if I can figure out what the hell is going on."

***

The ride back to the office with Kevin's employees was uneventful. Kristina didn't even bother to ask their names, knowing she would likely get fakes anyway. Besides, all of Kevin's men looked just about identical with Agent Smith, with their haircuts, outfits, and upright postures. Their commander would be proud.

At this point all her focus was on trying to calm down. Whenever she got herself a glass of wine, it would be none too soon. She needed it. Wished she could take some soothers to zone out on top of it. But it was going to be a while before she got that kind of break.

Her mind returned to her present task. Why had Ms. Pink—or rather, Rose—died? Had she been taken out by the same people who had taken Tatum, or at least made him go into hiding? And were they coming after her next?

Those questions were still running through her head when she got off the elevator at the Dunn-Brantley Building and made her way to her office. The halls were just as she'd left them, buzzing with quiet energy and shuffling steps under the ubiquitous fluorescent lights and sterile, modern office furniture. As she approached her door, she saw a man get up from the reception area. He had Tatum's dark eyes opened wide. She remembered the charcoal suit from earlier. Unless she was mistaken, this was Ryan the administrative assistant.

"Kristina!" he said in a rush. "There's someone here for you."

She came to a stop in front of him and closed her eyes for a second, wishing she could dig into Tatum's communications from the relative sanity of her office.

She opened her eyes. "Did you ask for a name?" she asked, in a tone that she hoped didn't betray her irritation.

"I think she said she's with the FBI," Ryan said under his breath.

Kristina's spine went straight and tingles ran down. What the hell did the FBI want with her? Was it all related?

As she tried to come up with a plan and compose herself, a woman stood up from the waiting area by Ryan's desk and approached them. She was tall—at least six feet—and model slim, with wavy brown hair and cheekbones that looked vaguely Slavic. Kristina had just seen her the previous night. That was the woman who had been hanging on Fordelli.

"Hello, Ms. Andersen," the woman said. Her blue eyes focused in on Kristina's.

Ryan put himself flat against the wall, obviously intimidated by the FBI agent's presence. She reached into her pocket and showed Kristina her identification. "I'm Special Agent Rachel Carter. Do you have a moment?"

Kristina took a quick breath to steady herself and then gave the agent her best smile. "Of course. Would you like to speak in my office?"

Agent Carter put her identification away. "That would be perfect."

Without further word, Kristina led the agent to her door. She tried the handle: still locked. Satisfied, she dug through the pocket of her slacks and pulled out the key.

"You're very careful," Agent Carter commented, watching her.

Kristina inserted the key into the lock and turned it open. "Old habit from having two brothers," she said. "Wouldn't want my journal read, right?"

Agent Carter smiled but said nothing.

They walked in. Kristina made a beeline for her safe, wanting to unload the safety deposit key and communications instructions. "Have a seat," she said over her shoulder, motioning to the lone guest chair she had against the wall. "I just need to put a few things away."

"I see you keep a spotless office," the special agent said, taking a seat. "Impressive."

Kristina smiled nervously as she did the combination on her safe. "You know what they say, cluttered spaces make cluttered minds."

"Of course," the agent said.

Kristina finished the combination to her safe, feeling the clicks of the mechanical machine in her fingers, and popped it open. The gray metal shelf inside was empty.

Empty.

The envelope she had put there hours earlier was missing.

She took a step back, her heart racing. What the hell had happened? Her door was locked. Nobody else knew anything was there. How could it be gone?

Agent Carter cleared her throat. "Is everything okay?" she asked. "You look preoccupied with something."

Kristina froze. No, everything was not okay, but she could not let this stranger know that or else she would ask questions. She shook her head hard, trying to get the cobwebs out, then put the safety deposit key and communication instructions into the box. After shutting it quickly she turned to her guest.

"Just a case," she said quickly. She walked back to her office chair and sat down. "So how can I help you, Agent Carter?"

"I have a few questions about your operations in the last twenty-four hours."

Kristina took a short breath. "I'm sorry?"

"You recognize me." She folder her hands in her lap. "Correct, Ms. Andersen?"

Kristina took a deep breath. Agent Carter clearly recognized her, wig and makeup be damned. Or else, she had another way of knowing. "Yes," she said, trying to project confidence. "You were at the party last night at The Velvet."

"As were you."

"That's correct."

"What was the nature of work your work at that party, Ms. Andersen?"

Kristina narrowed her eyes and stared into Carter's icy blue eyes. "What was yours?"

"As I'm working with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, I don't have to divulge that information. But I might if you give me your answer first. Otherwise we can go through the whole charade with warrants and court orders. Just trust me, if you want to go down that route, I'm going to be very pissed off."

Kristina smiled to herself and shook her head. "Whatever you say." She paused. "I was at The Velvet last night doing a routine surveillance operation on Fredo Fordelli as part of my work on a case here at Dunn-Brantley. The nature of that case is, of course, protected by attorney confidentiality, so I'm afraid I would have to make you go through the whole warrant charade for that information." She flexed her hand into a fist and then let it relax again. "As a side note, my operations were somewhat hindered by you hanging all over him for the duration of the event. Of course, I have no inkling as to the reason for your doing that."

She smiled for Agent Carter, who did not return the gesture. "And you're not going to. Was Mr. Fordelli all you had your eye on last night, Ms. Andersen?"

Kristina shrugged. "I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, did anything else catch your attention last night? Any other people of interest?"

"There were many people attending the event, Agent Carter."

"Of course. But surely, someone else in attendance must have piqued your interest beyond Mr. Fordelli. A large client of the firm, perhaps."

Kristina licked her lips, trying to understand what Agent Carter was getting at. How much did she know? "You must be referring to Mr. Tatum."

Agent Carter nodded. "I am."

"I noticed he was there, yes."

"But it didn't concern you?"

"Mr. Tatum has not, to my knowledge, talked with the firm about what he was doing at that party last night, and I was under no instruction to perform any kind of surveillance on one of our own clients."

"Well, I was."

A tingle rippled up the back of Kristina's neck. "Excuse me?"

"Your client is under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Ms. Andersen. You were curious what I was doing at that birthday party. I have just told you."

Kristina's heart pounded, and she shook her head. "Has Mr. Tatum been notified of this investigation?"

"He has not," Agent Carter said. A small smile played on her lips. "In fact, we have had a very hard time contacting Mr. Tatum today. Would you know anything about that?"

Kristina steeled herself and looked the agent right in the eye, studying its green hue. "No, I do not. Have you notified the firm about your issues?"

Agent Carter held her gaze. Kristina's heart thumped in her chest like she was being punched from inside. The agent's lips parted. "No. You will probably want to do that, of course."

She stood up and Kristina did likewise. The agent reached into her pocket and pulled out a card. "If you hear from Mr. Tatum, please give him this ID," she said, handing the card to Kristina. "Be advised that failure to do so could lead to charges of obstruction of justice."

"Of course," Kristina said, turning the card over in her fingers.

Agent Carter nodded and turned to the door. "I'll let myself out. Don't forget to call. I hate it when they don't call."

With one last withering look, she left.

#  CHAPTER TEN

Kristina watched her leave, then walked over and shut the door, her heart still thumping. She wiped her hands against her pants and took several steadying breaths. Somehow, this situation was getting even worse.

She stood up and walked over to examine her safe. The smooth metal showed no signs of tampering or distress. Not even a scratch. Which meant someone must have broken the code, somehow. Even for someone good, that would take at least twenty minutes.

Clenching her fists, she stood up and walked back to the door. She swung it open. "Ryan?" she called out.

His head—she assumed it was _his_ head—popped up from the pool of receptionist that made up the middle of the floor. "Yes, Kristina?"

She walked over to his station. "Did anyone go into my office while I was gone?" she asked.

Ryan shook his head. "Not that I saw."

"Were you at your desk all afternoon?"

He shook his head again. "I was in a meeting until about an hour ago."

She took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. "Do you know if anyone has been sitting here all afternoon with a view of my office door?"

He pressed his lips together and seemed to think for a moment. "I don't think so. Is something wrong?"

She gave him a fake smile. "Nothing wrong. Just being a little extra cautious today with the FBI around."

He narrowed his eyes, looking at her skeptically. Before he could ask any more questions, she turned heel and walked back into her office.

Something was going on. She looked down at the card Agent Carter had left on her desk. How much did the agent know? It felt like more than she was letting on, but there was no way to figure out anything more concrete.

She ran the card between her fingers. Felt at the corner. A little bump, nearly imperceptible. She smiled. Agent Carter clearly didn't trust her very much. That was a mic/sensor combo.

She threw the card on her desk, not wanting the agent to know she knew she was being monitored. If Carter was good, she would guess anyway, but there was no sense in giving away even the easy ones when she didn't have to.

She went back to the safe and pulled out the items she had dropped off minutes earlier. The safe deposit box key went into her pocket and the instructions for how to get at Tatum's communications went onto her desk.

She rolled her chair back, sat down, and swiped her tablet on. A man like Tatum must get a ton of communications a day. Sifting through them was going to take a long, long time. And she couldn't enlist any help because she was supposed to be keeping her operations on this case secret.

Hunkering down, she followed the instructions to log into his work email first, since it was at the top of the list. The screen showed 252 messages waiting to be read.

She looked up from the screen, then back down. Maybe she could research something else. She navigated to the website of Atlas Pharmaceuticals, which was owned by Fordelli.

They were a smaller company than Tatum's, founded only two years ago. She'd thought nothing of Fordelli attending the Totti party because of a distant blood relation she'd found in her search—he was still rich enough to have no business there, but he had a good excuse.

On a whim, she did a cross-search between Fordelli and federal government contracts, curious if the company supplied the FBI. Maybe there was a reason Carter had been hanging all over him at the party.

She scanned the results, searching for the name.

Bingo. She'd been right.

More than right, even. Fordelli looked to have many lucrative contracts with the government. Enough that it was probably a good chunk of the company's business. It was a wonder she hadn't seen it before. Her investigation had been more focused on the man than his company, but at the moment she was thinking that was a mistake.

She slid back from her chair. Interesting. It wasn't proof of anything, but it helped clarify the picture with Carter. If Tatum was under investigation, it probably wouldn't break Fordelli's heart.

She swiped back to Tatum's messages, intent on seeing any communications between him and Fordelli. There had to be some lead to follow there. They were both in the same industry, right?

Almost involuntarily, she looked back at her safe. She just couldn't help it. How had someone gotten in?

She stood up and examined the lock on her office door. Again, no signs of damage. She thought to test it, but there was no need. She'd had to unlock it when she came in, so the lock definitely worked. If someone had picked it, it hadn't been damaged. But still. Someone had gotten in. Her office was not as secure as it needed to be.

She looked from her place in the doorway at her tablet, then at the card on her desk. 252 messages, and those were just the unread. This was going to take all night and then some.

Add to that, the card Carter had left was surveillance. She could dance around it, or she could just leave and work away from it.

With another deep breath—she'd had a long day—she packed up and do the rest of this from the comfort of her apartment. Preferably with a glass of wine as a pick-me-up at some point. And maybe some more coffee.

She grabbed her bag from its spot by the door and quickly shoved her tablet and comm in, along with the instructions for accessing Tatum's other accounts. When she turned around to leave, a man was standing in her doorway.

"Going somewhere, Ms. Andersen?"

She wracked her brain, trying to place where she had seen that suit earlier. Her guess was Brantley.

"Working from home for the rest of the day," she said. "It's going to be a late night."

His nostrils flared. It was definitely Brantley. "Ms. Andersen, I don't need to tell you how important this is for the firm."

It was all she could do to keep from rolling her eyes. "You don't."

"I have to say I'm disappointed. You don't seem to be taking this as seriously as I'd hoped."

Heat rose to her cheeks. She could kill him. "I assure you," she said instead, "I am taking this very, very seriously."

"Do you have any progress to report?"

She took a deep breath. "Strides have been made, but I have nothing concrete to report as yet."

Brantley narrowed his eyes. "I hope that changes soon. You should work from _here_ , Ms. Andersen."

Kristina met his gaze. "I will do what I think is best."

He looked back toward the work stations in the middle of the office then toward Kristina. "Another question, then. Ryan said there was an FBI agent here waiting to see you. What was that about?"

She swallowed, conscious of the business card on her desk. "Nothing related," she lied. "Some follow-up on another matter."

"Care to be more specific?"

"Not especially, no. I have another focus at the moment." She stepped forward. "Which, if you'll excuse me stating the obvious, you're keeping me from. Is there anything else you need?"

Brantley stood in place. "You had better not be hiding something from me, Ms. Andersen."

She tried to bite her tongue, but her mouth was open before she even realized it. "Or what? If I don't find the man responsible for two-thirds of this firm's billings, whether I'm hiding something from you will be the least of your problems. You'll be the laughingstock of the town. So if you'll excuse me, _Mr. Brantley_ , I'm leaving. Now."

Brantley's nostrils flared again, his face red. It was such a wrong combination to see on Tatum's features. "I'm going to enjoy firing you," he said. "After you find him."

"We'll see what Ms. Dunn has to say about that," Kristina shot back.

With a final glare, Brantley stepped aside. Kristina shouldered past him, waited for him to walk, then shut and locked her door.

She turned to Ryan. "Ryan, please keep an eye on my door for the rest of the day. I'll be working from home. Forward calls, okay?"

Ryan nodded and said nothing more. Shaking her head, Kristina headed for the elevator. On the way, she messaged the hot link Kevin had set up to tell him and his team she was heading home. Without waiting for a reply, she got into the elevator and headed for the lobby.

# CHAPTER ELEVEN

She'd parked her car in a garage about a five-minute walk from the office. The sidewalks were busy, but not as bad as she was used to during rush hour. Even with her hallucination, she was grateful to be out of the office.

Her eyes flicked back and forth, trying to spot the men Kevin had posted to watch her building. It would be a mistake for them to let her see they were there, and the Agent Smith coursing through her veins made it even more difficult, but she tried anyway. They were nowhere to be seen.

She checked her comm to see if Kevin had responded to her message. Nothing. Strange, but he said he was busy.

She made it to the parking garage and took the stairs up to her spot. As she walked to her car, she realized her heart was still pounding. Subconsciously, she was watching for any movement in the garage. She hitched her bag up higher on her shoulder. Even if she wanted to tell herself things would get slightly more relaxing, her mind would not let her believe it. Kevin would be proud, in his way.

Her black Mini Hydro was right where she'd left it. She smiled at the prospect of driving. Ever since she'd gotten her license, she loved being in her car alone, being able to listen to her music and go let a part of her brain zone out. Even with more people going AI every day, it wasn't something she wanted to give up.

After a quick peek in the back seat to make sure nobody was inside, she got in, turned the ignition, flicked through to her favorite satellite stream, and backed out. A few minutes later she was street level.

Her usual route home—at least this time of day—was to get over to Lakeshore and head north before cutting west to her condo in Ravenswood. She checked the traffic on her dash, having the route pre-programmed. Nothing major. In fact, the estimate rated it better than average. Shouldn't be more than twenty-five minutes before she was home.

She made her way east toward Lakeshore Drive. Traffic was light, exactly as her dash had predicted. She looked out her window at the lake. Even though she'd lived in Chicago all her life, she still savored the view. This drive was probably the nicest stretch of the entire city. Up there with some of the views around the river, anyway.

She checked her rearview mirror. A large black sedan with darkly tinted windows was three cars behind. Her intuition told her it looked off.

Hoping it was nothing, she accelerated past a few cars in front of her. It was one advantage of driving a Mini: they were incredibly agile in city traffic. After a few minutes, she had passed half a dozen cars.

She looked in her mirror again. The black sedan was still there. It had followed.

Heart pounding, she called Kevin over the car's comm integration. She was so distracted by the car in her mirror she had to keep reminding herself to focus on the road.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Kevin answered. "Kris?" his voice rang out in the car. "Everything okay?"

"I'm being followed," she said breathlessly.

"Shit," Kevin spat. "Where are you?"

"Lakeshore and Chicago Ave."

"On Lakeshore?"

"Yeah."

A brief pause. "I'm sending an intercept now. Who's following you?"

"Black sedan. Tinted windows. Looks like a Chrysler."

"Following at a distance?"

The exit for North Avenue flew by. "So far."

"Get off at Irving like you would normally. My men will cut them off. Stay on the line."

She took a deep breath, fresh adrenaline surging again. "Got it."

The exits flew past in tense silence. First Fullerton, then Belmont. Next was Irving Park. She was looking at the updated traffic when she heard tires squealing behind her.

Her eyes flew up to the mirror. The Chrysler had crept up right behind her. It accelerated. Her heart flew up into her throat. She hit the gas herself and swerved to the left, hoping to squeeze in before a pickup truck coming on fast. She just got in.

"They're going aggro!" she screamed. "I'm not going to be able to get off at Irving."

"Fuck!" Kevin yelled. "Where's your next likely exit?"

She checked in her rearview mirror. The black sedan was on her right and gaining on her. Gritting her teeth, she hit the brakes hard, let the sedan fly by, then gunned the engine and cut across three lanes of traffic to get in the right lane. Cars honked and rubber squealed on the road, but she made it. The black sedan braked hard but was caught up in the traffic and missed the exit.

"Getting off at Montrose," she gasped. Her heart threatened to pound through her chest.

"Are they following?"

Glanced up at her mirror. "Not yet."

"Turn for the beach. Sending a car there now. We'll need to ditch yours."

"Okay."

"Alright, got a geo-lock on you. Should be two minutes. When they get there, ditch the comm device."

"What? Why?"

"We'll get you a new one. I don't know if whoever is chasing you can trace the one you have, but they might."

She turned toward the beach and looked for an innocent place to park. It wasn't as parked up as it could get on the weekend, but she was surprised as how many people were out.

"Okay."

She looked in her rearview mirror. Nothing. She continued to look for an innocent spot. Found one. Another look. Nothing. She pulled in.

"You see where I am?" she asked.

"Got it," Kevin answered. "Incoming in two minutes. Turn off your comm."

She turned the engine off and waited. Turned off her comm as Kevin had instructed, no matter how vulnerable it made her feel.

And waited. She could have been killed back there. This day had been tumbling by, one twist after another, and could have ended with her car wrapped around a pole. Someone wanted her, maybe dead. It had been a long, long time since she'd had to deal with that.

Looked at the clock in the dash. A minute had gone by.

Checked her mirror. Still nothing. She waited. Rose had tried to give Landon Tatum something and now she was dead. Someone had broken into her office and then her safe. Carter tried to spy on her with a business card. Even Tatum's assistant Bruman seemed suspicious. Kristina had no idea where to turn next beyond Kevin. Every option looked bad. Maybe if she had time to look into Tatum's messages she would find something.

Tires squealed in the distance.

She sat up straight, looking for the source near the park entrance. Her hands unbuckled her seat belt before she even knew what she was doing.

Instinct kicked in and told her she needed to get out of the car now. Whoever was after her was closing in. She took one look at her comm, threw it under the passenger seat, took her bag and got out of the car.

A black sedan approached. Fifty yards away, maybe. She ducked down behind the row of parked cars, hoping she hadn't been spotted.

Gravel crunched from the direction of the squealing tires and Kristina's heart pumped hard. They had turned the corner to where she was parked. If it was the car from earlier, they would definitely recognize her car. She needed to get away.

She scanned the surrounding landscape. In one direction were the tall buildings of Lakeshore Drive. In the other was Lake Michigan. She couldn't let herself get pinned up against the water, and her clothes would not blend in on the beach. Why the hell had Kevin sent her here? Must have thought they would assume she was headed into the city. Maybe they had her comm tracked.

She scurried toward the sound of the crunching gravel, staying low to the ground and hoping to stay out of the sight when the sound passed her. Once they found the car, they would probably assume she'd run back into the beach. She hoped. At the very least she would see Kevin's men earlier if she was closer to the main entrance. Assuming they went in the main entrance. She wasn't even sure there was another way in.

Five vehicles down from where she'd parked, the sound of the oncoming car became close enough that she ducked and held still. Seconds passed.

The crunching sound came to a stop. Kristina held her breath. A car door opened out of her sight, followed by boots on gravel. Her pulse drummed in her ears. She wished she had kept her comm so she could update Kevin. She held still.

Muffled voices drifted over. She strained to listen in.

"It's her," a man's voice said. He spoke crisply and without an accent. Didn't sound like he'd spent much time on the street. Army, maybe. Fifteen yards away. "She's around here."

Her heart sank.

A brief pause. "Comb the area."

Panic coursed through her. She had to get out of there now. There was no way she could hide behind these cars for long.

Which way to run? She surveyed the area again and decided to make a break for a security house near the entrance, through the grass so they couldn't hear her. It was about a hundred-fifty yards away.

Staying low, she scurried forward along the grass just next to the gravel, listening hard. One car, then another. Every second brought her further from her potential captors. She held her bag close and kept going.

Another peal of rubber against road came from the direction she was running toward. She froze. Had they called in backup? Panicked, she turned back. Nobody coming yet. If she was lucky, she would have another minute. Getting lost in the city was her best hope if she couldn't find Kevin's men. Where the hell had they been when she left, anyway?

She pressed on toward the guard house, staying low and putting distance between herself and the people behind her.

Something whistled past her left ear. She broke into a run with her bag at her chest.

"Freeze where you are!" a voice called out from behind her.

She didn't dare to turn back again. Her only thought was to run. Dead sprint, as fast as she could. On a whim she weaved to her right, thinking from somewhere in the far recesses of her mind that someone might be shooting at her.

If she could get to the guard house that would at least ruin their line of sight. But then what?

Ten yards. Another ten. Dimly, she heard yelling behind her. Her lungs burned, but she was closing in on her goal. Another fifty yards to cross the road, and then she was there. There were cars approaching. A car, actually. Silver and sleek, like a Mercedes maybe.

She needed to get back amongst traffic.

Twenty yards. Even now, she could tell she was going to intersect with this car. Needed to go right or left.

Fifteen yards. A man was driving, of course looking like Tatum. Damn this hallucination. His eyes opened wide, and the window rolled down. Must be surprised to see her being chased.

"Kristina!"

That was her name. It hadn't come from behind her. She took another couple steps. The car had come to a stop in her way. The driver locked eyes with her.

Dark irises like nearly black holes. But they were panicked, this time.

Wait.

"Kristina, get in!" he shouted.

She came to a stop and a sting caught her left shoulder. Awareness tugged across her mind. It was him.

"Mr. Tatum?" she asked. Her vision was blurring.

She'd been shot. Shot? There wasn't much pain. Something was hanging from her shoulder. Not a bullet.

"Yes, Kristina, get in now!"

The back door of the silver car opened. She was fading fast. It was him. She knew it. She stepped into the car. A strong hand pushed her second leg in finally and then door was shut and they were moving.

# CHAPTER TWELVE

Landon hit the gas, jolting the car forward. He turned the wheel to one side until the car was on the grass and then spun it hard the other way, leaning into a U-turn with tires squealing. Two men in cheap black suits ran toward him across the grass, one of them waving his arms over his head. Landon couldn't tell if they had real guns or just the darts they'd shot Kristina with, but he wasn't going to stay and find out.

He completed the U-turn and pounded on the gas pedal again, racing out of Montrose Beach's parking lot. Looked in his rear-view mirror. Nothing.

At the on-ramp to Lakeshore, he went straight and stay on surface streets. Easier to get lost that way. No idea if those guys had backup. He'd have to ditch the car and get a new one, now that this one could be recognized. Get something cheaper that blended into the neighborhood, probably.

As he drove his mind churned through what had happened.

How the hell had they found out about Kristina? And this quickly? He'd counted on her being mostly free to work when he'd set this contingency in motion.

As he drove, he continued to check his mirror. Kristina's eyes were closed, but her chest was rising and falling normally. Almost certainly just a tranquilizer. He'd be furious if it was anything more. A dull rage bubbled up in his chest.

After a few minutes he pulled into a neighborhood off Foster and took side roads to get to the apartment he'd set up last month in case he needed it. Maybe they'd been identified. He couldn't be too cautious at this point.

A few tense moments later he arrived at the apartment. He would have to find a place to ditch the car after taking her up. It would be awhile before someone reported the car as abandoned. Hopefully by then his situation would be different.

And Kristina's situation. At least until they figured out who had shot her with a dart. If they had tracked her car, they likely knew where she lived. He'd been able to track her comm without too much trouble, and he wasn't even a professional at this. Surely whoever was after her could do better.

Whether she liked it not, she was probably stuck with him for a while.

It wasn't a prospect he found unappetizing. He'd only just set his eyes upon her in the flesh and yet there was something about her. As if he had seen her before, somehow.

He parked the car just down the street from the apartment. Turned back to check on Kristina. Her face was relaxed in what appeared to be a peaceful sleep, her blonde hair covering her eyes. Should be fine in a few hours. If not, he might need to find a lab to figure out what they had hit her with.

After a quick visual sweep to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything, he opened the door and stepped out of the car. Sirens sounded in the distance. Kristina sat slumped in the back seat.

He opened the door and removed the dart from her shoulder, pocketing it in case analysis proved necessary later. That done, he shook her by her other shoulder to see if she would wake on her own.

She continued sleeping as if nothing had happened, her long lashes still. He looked around quickly to make sure no one was watching, then hoisted her up out of the car and put her over his shoulder, holding her by the backs of her legs.

Walked up the stairs, unlocked the door with an old-fashioned key, then up again. Came into the apartment, into the dark living room with the hideous blue carpet, then over to the high-end, genuine leather couch he'd bought to make the place semi-palatable. Combined with the huge vid screen and the oak coffee table, someone who stumbled into this apartment would be forgiven for thinking it belonged to a street pharm dealer.

Which, to be fair, it sort of did.

He thought better of it at the last moment and brought her into the single bedroom. He could sleep on the couch. He set her down gently on the bed, pulled back the covers, picked her back up again to put her under.

She was still wearing the gray pantsuit she'd worn to work. He'd need to get her something else to wear when she woke up. Went to the kitchen to get her a glass of water and some painkillers in case she woke up while he was gone. He set those down by her side on the nightstand.

Once she looked settled, he left to go ditch the car and get some new clothes for Kristina. Her tastes seemed to trend toward classic even though she had the figure for a more fitted cut. Shouldn't be too hard to get her something she would like.

He walked out the door feeling energized. Even if it hadn't gone to plan, they'd gotten away. So long as they weren't traced.

He could take care of that, he hoped. Now it was time to set some pieces in motion.

***

She was standing by herself in a lounge.

Tatum sat in a tufted leather VIP booth in the corner of the room. Alone with a clear drink that looked like a gin martini. He wore a light gray wool jacket with thin lapels and a crisp white shirt. Classic. His brown hair looked recently cut, very neat and a clean. Like a soldier home for R and R.

She walked toward him.

He turned to her and their eyes connected on a singed line. A warm glow fluttered through her stomach and she stopped in her tracks. She was wearing heels. Tall heels. She broke the connection with Tatum and looked down at them. They were the black ankle strap Ferragamo pumps she'd had her eye on for months. When had she splurged? Had she gotten a bonus?

She looked back up to where he was seated. He'd stood up while she was admiring her shoes. Now he walked toward her. A shiver went down her spine and spread out around her skin. She was here to ask him questions, she reminded herself. Where had he been? Why had he set her up with this? Had he?

He came to a stop in front of her, so close she could feel the heat from his body against her bare arms. She licked her lips, waiting for him to speak, but he held his silence.

"Where have you been?" she asked at last.

He brought a large hand up and rested it casually on the back of her arm. Her body leaned instinctively into the warmth before she pulled back. When had she become this attracted to him? Every inch of her skin felt on edge.

"I could say the same to you," he replied. "I've been looking everywhere."

"You've been looking for me? But that's impossible. I'm pretty easy to find."

He cracked a sly smile. "Are you?"

She looked away from his searing gaze. Where had this dress come from? It was a midnight blue cocktail dress she'd seen in a boutique by the train station she got off at to go to work. But it was way out of her budget. Practically a whole month's pay.

She turned back up, back into his deep chocolate eyes. "I'm not the one who disappeared without a trace," she breathed.

"Not yet." He pulled closer, so that their feet were locked like two dancers. "You never know what the right circumstances can bring out of a person."

"Why did you run?"

He bit his lip, his white top teeth tugging, digging at the skin until the final release snapped it back. "Did I?" he murmured.

A crowd around her, from somewhere. The buzz of the bar. It had been absent before.

She leaned forward, into his space so that her face was inches from his chest. He smelled like a combination of musk and juniper. She breathed his scent in deeply, feeling his body's heat. His lips parted and hers matched reactively. He closed in and her fists clenched at her sides as she felt the heat from his breath.

They moved together until the space between their lips was a third skin, not there before. Suddenly his hands were on each of her arms, firmly, but he was not kissing her, he was lifting her and his breath smelled minty and fresh but she was off her feet and not wearing heels and there was a surprising dull ache.

***

She woke suddenly and grabbed at her left shoulder. It throbbed beneath her touch, still tender. Wincing, she sat up in bed. The room was nearly completely dark. She held the sheets between her fingers. These weren't her sheets. Too smooth and fine. Like a high-end hotel. Egyptian cotton, probably. She had no idea how to figure a thread count just by feel. Or any other way, other than looking at the package.

Wait. What had happened? Where was she?

Her memories rushed back, messy and polluted. She'd been running at Montrose Beach. From someone. Two men. She wasn't quite sure who, but they had tried to run her off the road before. Two men chasing her in her car and then across the grass. She'd been shot in the shoulder but she didn't think it was a bullet.

With her mind still chugging through gummed up gears, she swung her legs around and got out of bed. She'd seen Tatum at the last minute. The real Tatum. She'd been sure of it. Maybe he'd brought her here. Maybe he was here now. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. He probably was here, right? Or else he'd just dropped her off and gone away to do billionaire stuff somewhere else. Make her a concubine or something. Seemed unlikely.

Flickering light came from the doorway, maybe from a vid screen in the next room. She followed it tentatively.

She was in a living room, and there was a huge vid screen on the far wall. Screen was displaying financial news from Asia. Two commentators worried about a weakening yen, each dressed way too flamboyantly to ever step foot in a Wall Street firm. She turned away.

To her right, Landon Tatum had fallen asleep on what looked to be a brand new leather couch. The screen's uneven glow danced on his face. He wore a thin navy t-shirt that showed off a surprisingly muscular chest and gray worsted wool slacks draped snugly around his long legs. She'd checked out his arms earlier in the day, walking back from her experience at Tom's office, but the real thing was somehow even better. She loved a strong pair of arms on a man.

He was here. He'd found her or she'd found him. Maybe both. He must have set this place up around the same time he'd set up the protocol that sent her on this wild chase. Maybe even more recently than that. Decided he needed a safe house way out of the way in the city. That was what she would have done, anyway.

What was his plan from here though? He wasn't kidnapping her, unless she'd misjudged him and he was in fact a total idiot. He needed her help. She wasn't sure for what, but she was going to find out soon.

Then it hit her. Kevin would be worried sick after what had happened. Probably combing the city for her. She patted her pocket for her comm. Empty. Of course, she'd left it in the car on Kevin's orders. She scanned around the room for Tatum's comm. It sat on the table in front of him, next to his keys and wallet.

She picked it up and tried to swipe it on. Locked. An old-fashioned number code. No idea what it might be. No way to contact Kevin through that. She eyed his keys and wallet. Snatched both up, relieved him of two-hundred dollars.

She would pay him back, but she needed to buy a comm device to contact Kevin. If she could find a 7-11 around here, she could buy one. At the very least, she ought to figure out where in the city she was. If she couldn't find a comm, maybe at least she could send a message via a tablet or something. If she could find one of those.

Moving quietly to avoid stirring Tatum from his sleep, she eased open the front door of the apartment and let herself out.

#  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Outside, humidity hung in the still night-time air. The street was eerily quiet. She turned as she exited the building and looked up at the street number, committed it to memory. 5723. Wow. She was a long way from downtown. Tatum had hidden himself deep in the city. What was he running from?

She took off walking, hoping to hit a major road soon so she could figure out where she was and find a place to buy a comm device. Neither car nor pedestrian were out on the street she was walking on, and she didn't see a street sign until she got to a four-lane road.

She was at Foster and Washtenaw. To her left, across Foster, she saw a 7-11. A lone car was parked in front of it, but the store looked open. She smiled. Perfect.

After looking both ways, she hurried across the road, but came to a dead stop when she got to the sidewalk.

Seated in front of a big vid screen advertisement on the brick wall of the building was a trio of homeless men. All of them, of course, with Tatum's face, bathed in electric blue light from the ad. On the screen, a looped vid advertising mascara. Those long, dark lashes curled over and over, the three of them watching enraptured.

They looked up, legs crossed, like they were listening to a sermon. Faces placid, they appeared to be nearly dreaming. Part of her wanted to enter the cloud of aero pharms that were obviously surrounding the ad just to see what these men were experiencing. It looked like a numb contentment if not bliss. Like another world.

She tore her eyes away and walked into the store. A quick turn to the right took her to the rack of pre-paid comm devices. She chose quickly and went to the register to pay, ignoring the pangs of hunger in her stomach when she glanced at the hotdogs that had been rotating under a heating lamp for who knows how long. The last thing she needed was food poisoning.

Behind the checkout counter an older Indian woman watched her sleepily, her lids half-drooped over her chestnut eyes. Unsafe, Kristina thought, for a woman to be working by herself late like this. Store must have a great security system.

Kristina put the comm device on the counter. "Do they always come here?" she asked, motioning outside with her chin as her item was scanned. "They look so peaceful."

The woman's round eyes opened wide. She looked nervously around Kristina, then at the door.

"Sorry," Kristina said, seeing the woman's distress. "I was just asking."

The woman scanned the store again, then pressed her blood-red lips together. Finally, she leaned forward conspiratorially.

"I turn up the degree of the aeros," she said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "So they come to be soothed." She leaned back. "The poor souls need relief, I think. In this life, nobody thinks of them but trouble."

"Won't the police give _you_ trouble?" Kristina asked.

The woman shrugged and went back to her duty at the register. "The police don't care here." She looked at Kristina cynically. "Only in the rich areas do they worry about the aero levels. Here they are happy if there is no killing and everyone is quiet. It is only the city inspectors that are a problem."

She handed Kristina her comm device along with her change. Kristina took the device and gave the woman a small smile. "I guess that makes sense. It's very kind that you do that."

She shrugged and her face fell. "It is mercy," she said quietly. "There is too much need for it here."

Kristina gave her another nod and left without a word. The warm summer air enveloped her and warmed up her skin, which she only now realized had gotten cold in the air-conditioned store. She clutched her new device to her chest.

Maybe she could find a place still open to grab a bite to eat before she went back to Tatum's hideaway. She turned to the trio of men watching the ad on the building's wall, but they hadn't moved. Nor would they the whole night, she figured. Probably best not to ask them what was open.

Footsteps rushed behind her, approaching rapidly. Her heart raced and she froze, torn whether to bolt back into the store or run down the street. Instead, she dropped the box containing her newly purchased comm device on the ground and spun to face her attacker, fists clenched.

Tatum came to a stop just two feet in front of her, eyes opened wide. He still wore the fitted navy t-shirt she'd seen when he was on the couch, his hard chest rising and falling with each breath. In the light now she saw his five o'clock shadow had come in thick, and his hair had pressed up to one side of his head as evidence of sleeping.

"There you are," he gasped. "I thought you'd gone."

She let her fists loosen by her sides. "You scared the hell out of me."

"You scared the hell out of me!" He stepped forward. "Leaving without telling me? Before we've even talked? What were you thinking?"

Blood rushed to her face. "I was coming back," she said. She dug into her pocket and held up the key she had stolen minutes earlier. "Obviously, seeing as I have this."

She looked down at her newly purchased comm device. The box was dented, but it looked not too much the worse for wear. She bent down and picked it up, clutching the device to her chest again. "I just needed to buy a comm to call my brother and let him know I'm alive."

"You should have woken me up," he said, though his breathing had slowed down. "I shouldn't have fallen asleep, but you should have woken me up."

"I was only going to be gone twenty minutes. Hardly worth you getting up for."

"I'll be the judge of that."

She squared up to him. "I know you're used to running things, but you aren't my boss. Back off."

"You don't know what's out there."

"I don't think you do either!"

He stepped forward, his back straight so that he stood to his full height. She was a good head shorter than him. "I have a better idea than you."

She took a step back and made to go around him. "Listen, however worried you just were, my brother Kevin is that times a thousand. Now do you mind?" She motioned back toward where she remembered the apartment being. "I'd hate for whatever budding partnership you have planned to get off to a bad start."

He held her gaze for a moment, his dark eyes boring into her and sending a shiver through her body. Whatever attraction she'd had for him in The Velvet—and in her dream—it had carried over. She would need to get on top of that before she made an ass out of herself.

Finally, he turned and led the way down the street. She hurried after to catch up.

"You need to eat something," he said as they walked. "There's no way you've had anything since lunch."

They came to the main road. Kristina looked back at the glowing blue ad before answering. "I'll be fine," she said. "Nothing edible open at this hour anyway."

"There's some food at the apartment. I'll make you something while you call your brother."

She stopped and looked up at him, a smile on her face before she even knew it. Having the richest man in the city make her a meal was not how she'd expected to end this day. "If you insist," she said, her earlier frustration thawing by the second.

"I do. I'll warn you, though, that the only meal I can do at all is breakfast. So it's going to be an omelet."

She narrowed her eyes, though the smile wasn't completely gone. "Why breakfast?" she asked, half-guessing the answer.

They came to Washtenaw, the street they needed to turn down to get to the apartment. He put his hand on the small of her back firmly, seemingly to make sure she turned. "Perhaps you'll find out."

"I don't think so," she said, turning on him. "I don't know what else you have in mind, but it's not going to be like that."

His sharp brows shot up. "Like what, Kristina?"

"Don't play dumb with me, you big oaf."

He smiled, his lips drawing back to expose perfect white teeth. "Call me Landon, please."

She sighed. "Okay, Landon. I just ran for my life a couple hours ago. If you try to get in my pants, I'll have to tell my superiors you were murdered."

He laughed. "Your point is taken. We'll talk at the apartment and I will fill you in on what I know there."

He turned and led the way without another word. Kristina followed closely down the dark street, and soon they were in front of the apartment. It was a two story brick building that appeared to have four units. They walked up some stairs to their spot in the front second floor apartment.

He turned to her at the door. "The key, please."

She complied wordlessly. After a brief battle with the lock, he opened the door and stepped aside for her to enter.

Landon came in behind her and turned on the lights. For the first time, she got a good look at the apartment.

It was like many of the places she and her friends had lived in as soon as they moved out. Beige, almost institutional walls. A horrendous dark blue carpet that probably hid stains well. Cheap light fixtures in the ceiling.

The bones of the place were in stark contrast to how it had been furnished. The fine leather couch and oak coffee sat opposite from the huge vid screen looked like they belonged in another place. Tatum hadn't been creative, but he hadn't been cheap either.

She looked around for a place to sit, but there was just the couch in the living room and some stools beside the gray laminated counter-top. She went for a stool and opened her box on the counter. Landon immediately went to the fridge and got to work on her omelet.

"What are you going to tell him?" Landon asked, as he cracked some eggs into a bowl.

She looked up at him, her jaw tense. His sharp cheek bones looked particularly pronounced in the kitchen light.

"Just that I'm alive and okay," she said.

He looked up from his work, his sharp, dark eyes flashing. "Are you going to tell him you found me?"

She took a deep breath. He had a point. Kevin was going to have follow-up questions.

"I ask," Landon started, "because if you decide not to work with me, I would very much prefer you not divulge that information."

Her back went straight and her cheeks warmed. She looked up at Landon with a hard gaze. "Is that a threat?"

He waved his hand dismissively, defusing the situation, though his dark eyes had narrowed and pulled out a brand new cutting board. "Merely a request. Hear me out before you tell him you found me."

She considered. If she was Kevin, she would want the news he was okay as soon as possible. Strangers or near-strangers be damned.

"Okay," she said. "I'm going to call him. But I'll cut him off when he asks questions and tell him I'll be in touch again shortly. In between you can tell me whatever it is you're planning."

He took some more ingredients out of the fridge. "Very well," he said. "Though if you don't mind, Kristina, I'd rather you have the conversation here."

"So you can eavesdrop?"

"It doesn't sound like a long conversation. And my life is at stake. Along with many, many more lives." He put the ingredients for the omelet—cheese, ham, a red bell pepper, and an onion—on the counter. "Plus, I'm making you breakfast."

Not wanting to argue, she got back to the business of unpacking and then activating the comm device. Landon set to work cutting up the pepper without bothering her any further.

By the time she had the device activated, Landon already had the omelet cooking. Toast had gone in the toaster. The smell intoxicated her senses, but she took a few steps away to get some privacy. She entered her brother's device ID from memory and hit _Call_.

He answered on the first ring. "Who is this?" he asked.

"Kevin!" Kristina cried, her heart racing. "It's me."

"Kristina? Holy shit! Where are you?"

"I'm safe," she said. "Sorry I took so long to get a comm device and call you. I ditched mine in the car like you said."

Silence on the other line.

"Kevin?"

"You found him, didn't you?"

It was amazing how fast he was at deducing something like this. "Kevin, what are you talking about?" she lied, knowing he would spot her out even as she did it.

"Tatum. You found him, somehow."

It was her turn to be silent. No need to lie any further.

"Listen, I guess you probably can't say, but just be careful around him. There's a lot of chatter going both ways about him and the FBI. Something big happening, Kris. Not sure what side of it he's on, but you might not want to be on it if you can help it. Might be best to let this whole thing blow by."

She took a deep breath and looked over at Landon, who looked about ready to plate her food. "Okay," she said. "I'll call if I need anything. Stay safe."

"You too."

The call ended. She stared at the sleek, blue comm device as its screen went dark, then put it in her pocket and went over to investigate her omelet. Landon slid it on a bright white plate as she approached, pairing it with two slices of buttered toast. The smell made her stomach growl.

"How was your call?" he asked, offering the plate to her.

She took it hungrily. "My brother is very relieved."

"Good. Does he know you're with me?"

She shrugged and took her plate and a fork to the counter. "He might be suspicious, but I don't know for sure."

It was at least mostly true.

Landon's eyes burrowed into her, but the moment passed and he looked away. "Eat up and we'll talk."

She picked up her fork and took her first bite of the omelet. It was fluffy and perfect. She smiled and continued to eat, the gooey cheddar oozing in her mouth with every bite. The crunchy buttery toast provided a satisfying change of pace.

Even though she hadn't realized it, she'd been starving. Not caring what it looked like, she ate ravenously, finishing her food before Landon had even finished the washing the pan. It had been a hearty omelet; Landon might not cook much, but his specialty was damn good. He looked over at her from the sink and laughed.

"Looks like I was a success," he said.

She nodded and took her plate over. "You were. Thank you."

He took the plate and wiped his hands on a dish towel. When had he had time to outfit this place? Outside of the cheap carpet and counters, it looked like an actual home.

"So," he said, once he was done. "You probably want to know what you're doing here."

"Something like that."

"Or what I'm doing here, more accurately." For the first time, his face softened slightly. "And why you're involved."

She took a deep breath. "That sounds accurate."

"Good," he said, leaning back. "We should move to the other room for this."

# CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Roy paced back and forth in his hotel room, his heart pounding. He ran his hand over his buzzed head. The room's beige walls felt like they were closing in, the matted red carpet reaching up to hold him still. It had been an absolutely, unequivocally terrible day.

He looked over in front of the vid screen at the glass of whiskey he had poured moments earlier. By all rights, he should stay away from liquor and stay sharp. He turned away.

Somehow, his men had missed the investigator after staking the building out all afternoon. She'd had a lot of help they weren't counting on. More than they could deal with, somehow. She'd gotten away, and the trace they'd been doing on her comm led them to her car. Meaning she'd ditched it, probably on purpose.

Boss has been furious. Told him to wait in the hotel room for a call. When he got it, it was his last chance. Either complete this mission successfully or make himself disappear. The time for blaming failure on others—even if they deserved it—had come to an end.

He flopped down on the bed. Wherever the boss sent him next, he was going in hard and doing the job himself. Like he had with the stripper. That was the only thing that had gone right in over a month.

His comm buzzed in his pocket. He sat up and dug the device out, then put it to his ear.

"Hello?" he asked. He ground his teeth and waited for the response.

"I've located her help," the boss's voice said, after a short delay. "This should have been done before. Her brother runs a private security company. Ex-military. Her first employer."

Roy swallowed and realized his mouth was dry. He eyed the glass of whiskey on the table, drawn to it almost by gravity. He pressed his lips together and stood up from the bed. "Understood. I'm sorry that got missed earlier."

" _You_ missed it, Roy. Take responsibility. Recent failures have been your fault. And mine, for giving you these duties. I'm beginning to have real doubts about our future together."

Roy walked over to the table, took the whiskey in his hand, and swallowed a large mouthful. It burned deliciously in his throat. He'd needed that. "Understood," he said. "It won't happen again."

"Further failure will not be tolerated."

"Understood."

The boss's voice hardened. "There will be nowhere for you to go. You will be hunted, and you will be killed." A pause. Roy took another drink. "Or you can bail now. Last chance. Can you actually make this work, this time?"

Roy swallowed hard. He knew that wasn't a real option.

"Yes," he said gruffly. "Just tell me what to do and consider it done."

A deep breath on the other line. "I'm sending the details over now. Take him alive, and don't fuck this up. I'm not in the mood to kill you today."

The call ended, Roy threw his comm on the bed and finished his whiskey. None of the boss's tough talk had him particularly worried. He'd known this was the deal going in. It was how things were in the city. If you entered into the world of kill-or-be-killed, you didn't get to leave.

He put the glass down and resisted pouring another. Went to the comm on his bed. Swiped the screen on. Opened the most recently sent message. A ruddy, blonde face in a lab coat stared back at him. Bastard looked like some kind of scientist.

#  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Kristina leaned back into the couch and gaped at Landon, who was seated on the other end. He looked back at her easily, his dark eyes alert yet relaxed, his t-shirt stretching around his broad shoulders when he sat up straight.

She licked her lips. This would never work if she kept gawking at him like a zoo animal. "So you're saying someone wants you dead because you're friends with a senator?"

"Because I support Senator Kekua. Through intermediaries."

"You pay him to do what you want."

Landon shrugged and ran his hand through his hair. "Not quite, but I do contribute to his campaign. And he listens to my opinions."

"And this Senator Kekua heads up the armed services committee, which means he can and plans to stop this...what was it again?"

"Class of pharms that my enemies think don't constitute war crimes. I do, at least until we do more thorough testing."

"And so does he?"

"Right."

"Is one of those enemies Fordelli?"

One brow shot up. "Why do you ask?"

"I was doing some research earlier and saw Atlas has quite a few contracts with the government."

He nodded slowly. "Impressive. I'm not sure what Fordelli has to do with this. Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. He has a lot of contacts in the government, so if there's something that big going on he would have an inkling."

She nodded. It made sense, she supposed, at least as much as anything in politics made sense. "Why don't the people who want this thing passed through just go after Senator Kekua? Seeing as he's the senator."

Landon pressed his thin lips together and looked to one side, considering. "Politicians come and go," he said. "They go after him, he gets immediately exposed in the media through a leak from someone like me, and they lose their leverage."

He took a sip of water from a glass he'd poured earlier. "But the money behind him lasts longer. They know if I switch my position then he or his successor will end up coming around."

"You don't sound like you have a problem with this."

"With what? Politics?"

She threw her hands up. "Fairness. Justice. I don't know. This all sounds pretty cynical."

Landon's jaw worked for a moment before he shrugged again. "It is, but it's also how a lot of things get done."

She shook her head. The way he could casually dismiss this was something she would just have to get over if she wanted to play in the big kids pool. If she kept going, he would probably find her naïve.

"So what are the effects of this drug you think is a war crime to deploy?" she asked.

He took a deep breath, his flat stomach rising and falling beneath the fabric that clung to it. "There are some variations between what we've developed and what our competitors have, but in essence they control the desire of the person affected."

"The desire?" She sat up straighter. "Like love or anger or something?"

He shook his head. "Even more intense than that. It's a powerful pharm. Potentially a huge government contract, but I just can't see it deployed on people without more testing to understand it better. It could just be an unmitigated chemical weapon."

She studied him carefully. His brown hair still showed signs of bedhead, and he still had scruff, but he looked more relaxed than he had before. More alive. Solving problems and talking through solutions seemed to enliven him.

But still, the dismissive way he talked about love gave her pause. Did he know how out of control it could make even the most logical person feel? Or could he just compartmentalize in the way she had never been able to?

"Kristina?"

She jumped in her seat. His nearly black eyes were watching hers with interest. "Sorry," she said, her cheeks hot. "I think I'm still a little out of it from that tranq dart."

Landon nodded slowly, brows arched up. "You can rest if you want. That dart had you out for longer than I thought you'd be."

"It's okay." She shifted, suddenly feeling like she was on stage. It was time to get the conversation moving again. "What's so bad about controlling people's desires? It sounds a lot better than blowing them up."

He shook his head slowly, still with an eye on her.

"Not at this extreme," he said. "These pharms turn people to animals. Those affected could have their brains force them to tear each other limb from limb. The bloodlust is unbelievable. You should have seen the studies that were done on rats." His eyes found hers again. "Or you shouldn't. It was awful. The pharm could also be programmed to cause mass suicide. Et cetera. You can't do that to people and still have a civilized world."

A shiver emanated around her skin at the image of a very bloody rat cage. "How long does it last?"

"Long enough." He sat up straighter and leaned toward her. "When you work with pharms, you realize how delicate the balance of what 'normal' human behavior is. The spectrum of our desires can make us essentially feral very easily. Worse than feral, with our intelligence."

"But we're essentially animals at our core, right?"

He froze, then pulled his lips back in a small smile. "In a way, yes. That's why the pharm works."

She returned his smile, hoping to lighten the mood and get the images of the rats out of her mind. "It sounds kind of like Agent Smith. The desire-control, I mean."

His smile faded. "Been reading the news?"

Kristina bit her lip. She'd already gotten so used to being around the real Landon, she'd nearly forgotten that every man she saw looked pretty much like that.

"No," she said. "Well, kind of. I actually think I was drugged with it last night. At The Velvet."

His head jerked back in surprise. "Last night at The Velvet? When were you there?"

Her cheeks burned. Somehow she'd thought he recognized her. She looked down, trying to think of how to explain.

Recognition dawned on his face before she could open her mouth. "The drink girl," he said simply. "But you were a red-head!"

She shrugged. Her face had to be as red as her wig the previous night had been she was blushing so hard. "Wigs can be pretty convincing. I had a lot of makeup on too."

He shook his head and laughed shortly. Her stomach dropped. One day she might see the humor in this, but not at the moment. For now it was all kinds of awkward.

"Sorry," he said, gathering himself quickly. "I had just been thinking it felt like we'd met before."

"Well, I guess we had. Kind of."

He wiped the smile from his face. "Why do you think you were drugged?"

She was glad he at least moved on quickly. "I've been hallucinating. My brother does blood work for the CPD. He took a sample and said that's what's in my blood."

Landon pressed his thin lips into a line, brows knit. "And who is the object of your hallucinations?"

Her jaw worked, her teeth grinding together before she could stop herself, and her cheeks felt like they were under an island sun. "You can probably guess."

#  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Landon looked up at the ceiling and sat back. A rare feeling rose in his chest. So they had gotten to her last night, when he wasn't even expecting her to be there.

His plan had been foiled. For now, he had failed.

"Damn it," he said under his breath. He ran a hand through his hair. How could they have gotten to her? It seemed impossible. He had been very careful. Careful to the point of paranoia. There was a leak somewhere vital and he needed to find where it was fast.

They were both silent for several minutes. He looked up at Kristina as she sat on the couch. She seemed to study him, her pale blue eyes watchful and active. Her blonde hair fell casually down her shoulders and chest. She was still wearing the same jacket she'd worn earlier—apparently she either hadn't seen or didn't care for the clothes he'd laid out in her room.

"Can you fix it?" she asked, breaking the silence. "Some kind of antidote, maybe?"

He shook his head, happy to be in the realm of certainty again. "That stuff is military grade. We've been working on counter-acting its active agent, but so far we have nothing reliable."

She nodded, seemingly expecting that. Another silence followed.

"Why did you choose me?" she asked, finally. "And why all the hoops with the protocol and stuff? It seems complicated."

He breathed in as deeply as he could. "It was supposed to be a smoke screen," he said. "I set up a security system on my penthouse so it would notify me when you went into my office. The plan was to make your search short but seem long and gradually leak out to see who is after me."

He smiled as her mouth dropped open. "The comm on your desk!"

"So you heard it," he said. "Why didn't you pick up?"

She bit her lip. "I got a call from my brother. He said my name was out there on the dark net. Worried I was going to get kidnapped at your apartment. Like maybe they were waiting for me."

His brows furrowed. "What do you mean, your name is out there?"

"Chatter, my brother said. I don't know exactly how it works but I think it means some of the people who are after you found out about me and wanted me kidnapped. I think they think I knew something I didn't."

"Which is where I was?"

"I think so."

"I thought it would take them longer to get onto that," he said.

She nodded. "How did you end up finding me?"

He swallowed hard. "After you didn't pick up, I tracked your comm to find another way to meet you in person."

She nodded, seemingly unfazed by his admission of basically stalking her. After he saw nothing else forthcoming from her on the subject, he switched gears to thinking about the problem at hand.

Where could the leak be? Either the firm or a leak from her side. Or someone guessed from somewhere else. Maybe The Velvet. He was still coming to terms with that.

"You didn't answer the second part of my earlier question," she said, her long body curled up into a flexible ball. "Why me?"

He licked his lips and locked eyes with her. He'd spent a long time researching her to see if she would be a good fit for this. Longer and more thoroughly than she would want to know. "Because you're trustworthy, and there was almost no way you would be traced back to me."

"Almost." She narrowed her eyes. "I _was_ traced."

"I know," he said with a nod. "And that leaves very few options for who could have leaked that information and gotten people after you so fast."

"What's your plan to deal with whoever it was?"

"I'm working on that," he said. "Whatever it is, it will start tomorrow."

She studied him for a while with those clever blue eyes and then nodded wordlessly. A silence hung between them, and he knew what he wanted next but not if the time was right. Not yet. He would know soon from her, he knew it. The way she looked at him spoke of something hidden just beneath the surface, bubbling up like lava under a volcano. She'd told him not to play games, but even now he didn't think this would be playing.

"You're up to your neck in this," she said, stirring him from his fantasies. "And I'm not totally convinced you know what you're doing."

His eyes flashed open. He swallowed hard. No, this wasn't playing at all.

***

Kristina pressed her lips together until her teeth dug in and waited to see how Landon would react to being called out. His attitude toward how poorly things were going to this point seriously pissed her off. She hated arrogance when it wasn't earned.

"I've had a setback," he said evenly. "That's all. We'll figure this out."

"You sound confident for someone who just learned his entire plan is in shambles. This isn't a science lab."

He smiled easily. "I've made a habit in my life of bouncing back from short-term difficulties."

She scoffed. "It's made you cocky."

He laughed a rich, throaty laugh. "It's also made me very wealthy. Don't count me out just yet."

She took a quick breath and decided to switch gears. "Why don't you have a security team, anyway?" she asked. She sat up straight. "Speaking of wealth, I mean. Not to sell myself short, but this seems a little above my pay grade."

"I have security at my home and for my business, but not for myself, no. The idea is oppressive."

"Seems like it wouldn't be a bad idea around now."

His dark, mischievous eyes locked with hers. "I have faith in you, Kristina."

He stood up from the couch with glass in hand, turned, and slid past her, his gray wool slacks maybe a foot from her face. A ripple of warmth echoed through her chest, his mere proximity unsettling her. He held out his hand for her glass.

"Refill?" he asked.

She shook her head, her skin warm.

He came back a moment later with a notebook to go along with his glass. "So what's Agent Smith been like?" he asked, taking a seat next to her. He set the notebook down on the coffee table. "I'm guessing you're not too much into street pharms normally."

She pressed herself up against the arm rest, away from his pull. "Distracting," she said honestly. "Especially when I was supposed to be looking for you."

"I imagine. Did you do a Recall from last night? You said your brother did work for the CPD."

"I did."

Memories of that ridiculous little dress rushed back. Her flirting with him. She didn't want to relive it a third time.

"Did you get anything from our conversation?" he asked. He was close enough now that she could feel warmth from his leg next to hers.

She realized she was biting her lip. "No. Just what an ass I made of myself."

"I thought it was rather attractive," he said, his voice low. "Couldn't you tell?"

"I—" She tried to swallow, but found her mouth bone-dry. Where had all her attitude gone? She felt herself being played and yet couldn't resist.

Another deep breath. She licked her lips and tried again. "What's with the notebook?"

He opened it and dug a pen out of his pocket, leaning into her briefly as they did so that their arms brushed together. Her breath caught in her chest, and she began to pull away. She couldn't let this happen, knew it was a bad idea for her to entertain anything romantic with a man she needed to work with. A man who set her on fire like this.

Then she left herself there, in the space of his touch, because she wanted it in that moment and that was as far as her mind could go.

"I think we should make a list," he said, seemingly ignoring the contact between their bodies. "Write down everyone who could even potentially be a leak. I prefer to write down my thoughts on problems I'm working on before bed. Sound good?"

She nodded wordlessly.

"Good." He picked up the pen. "I'll start."

He wrote three names: _Brantley, Dunn, Bruman_. She nodded when he looked up at her. His writing was small and precise, like he was more used to writing on graph paper than regular lines.

He turned to her, brows arched. "Any from your end?"

She pressed her lips together and took the pen from him, her face hot. Their fingers brushed in the exchange and sent a fresh charge every nerve in her body. She added three more names in her bubbly, girlish writing. _Anna, Kevin, Tom._

"Anna's your friend at work, correct?"

She took a deep breath. Of course he would know about Anna if he had done any research at all. "You did your homework," she said. "I doubt she is a leak of any kind, though. No way she knew about it before today."

He nodded his agreement. "It's not looking good for the partners at Dunn-Brantley then, is it?"

She shook her head. "It's not, no." Something flashed across her mind. "There is one other name, though I have no idea how she works into it."

She picked up the pen again and leaned forward to write. Landon watched over her shoulder. _Agent Rachel Carter_.

She leaned back. "She came to visit me," she said, ignoring the heat rising to her skin as she turned to face him so closely. "I don't know what she knows. You might have seen her at the party last night. Very tall brunette. Like model tall."

He nodded and looked at her curiously, his eyes studying her. "I doubt it."

"Why do you say that?"

A silence fell between them. His gaze locked with hers. "My eyes were elsewhere," he breathed.

Then his hand was on her arm. He leaned in close, and a kiss hung there, in the inches between their lips. Her face hot with desire, she put her hand squarely on his hard chest to push him away. Except she didn't push. Maybe it was a fatigue, or maybe she had just lost her mind, but she leaned in.

His soft lips met hers and coaxed the kiss along gently, taking it deeper with each beat of her pounding heart. He dipped his tongue into her mouth and soon they were exploring each other instinctively, first with tongues, then more. Her hands plunged through his hair and his teased at her hips. His skillful fingers slid just under her tucked in shirt so that skin was on electric skin. The sensation sent a delicious warm buzz through her torso and toward her core.

A comm rang out in the distance. No, on the table. A vision of her worried brother peeked through the haze of her desire.

She broke the kiss and turned away in a rush. "I have to get that," she said suddenly, his breath on her neck. The realization of the only person with that ID was like cold water in the face.

She stood up before he could protest and walked over to her comm. Yup, it was Kevin. "Hello?" she answered.

"Some muscle just came by and roughed up my office. Company's going underground."

Her back went rigid. "What? What muscle?"

"Men. Four of them, with guns. I don't know but my guess is it's the same guys who came for that stripper."

A shiver rippled through her body like countless little pinpricks just under her skin. There was silence.

"Kris," Kevin said, his voice cracking. "I can't contact Tom. Since this afternoon. I'm worried they went after him too."

Her face felt numb. This couldn't be happening. "Can't contact?" she asked.

"I think they're trying to get to you through us, Kris. This thing is huge. Are you with Tatum?"

"I...yes. Yes. We were just working out our next steps for smoking out who's after him."

"Got it. Well keep this comm handy. I'm going under after this call. We'll need to arrange another way to be in touch. You may have to ditch the one you have before too long."

She looked over at Landon, who was watching her with interest, his rumpled hair in contrast to his serious face. "I understand. What are we going to do about Tom?"

"I'm doing my best to handle it. You need to get on top of this thing, Kris. It's blowing up and there's going to be more collateral damage soon."

She closed her eyes tight, trying to steady herself. "I will."

"Hang in there. I'll be in touch when I can."

The line went dead. Tatum stood up from the couch and came toward her, arms open. She bit her lip and took a deep breath, trying to steady herself and refusing to fall into his arms. This wasn't a time for hysterics, especially with a man she'd just met.

She looked up into his questioning eyes. "Oh my god," she said quietly.

#  LIKE WHAT YOU READ?

First off, _thank you for reading!_

Until It's You, the thrilling conclusion to this story, is out now on Amazon!

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#  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C.B. Salem lives, writes, and dreams in Chicago. When not reading or plotting the next scene, C.B. enjoys cooking and having quality cuddles with two dogs: Murphy and Oliver.

C.B. has a website! Check it out at www.cbsalem.com.

