Page 33 of Sinful Embers

Nikolas sighs on the other end. "Keep me posted."

The call ends, and I fix Sabrina with a glare. “Her knows about your travel guide.”

“Yeah, I thought he did,” she says breezily and shrugs.

Oleksi groans from the doorway. “I need sleep,” he mutters and turns toward the office door. “Jet lag is a bitch. Wake me when you have something.”

I nod as he takes his things and leaves just as Syd walks back into the office with rolled up sheets of paper in her hands. I didn’t even realize she’d left the office.

“Clyde just brought you these.” Syd hands them to me. “They’re the plans for the Ice Man Industries head office in Manning Towers, Fenchurch Street.” She looks from me to Sabrina. “If you need anything else just give me a call. I have to head out, but Clyde is around if you need him.”

With that Syd leaves Sabrina and I standing awkwardly in the office for a few seconds.

“Should we check out the plans?” Sabrina’s eyes fall on the rolled up sheets I’ve put on the desk.

“Why don’t we freshen up first,” I suggest, needing a bathroom break and a cup of coffee. “Get some coffee and something to eat first.”

“Or…” Sabrina counters. “We can freshen up, look at the plans and then go out for coffee..” She grins. “Maybe around or near Manning Towers. That way I get to see a bit of London and we do some recon.”

“Good idea.”

Manning Towers, Fenchurch Street,

London

Sabrina and I blend seamlessly into the crowd of business professionals moving in and out of the towering glass building. Dressed in dark, neutral clothing, with hats and sunglasses, we look like any other person grabbing coffee in the attached café after having browsed through the hi-end boutiques installed in the small mall beneath the building.

Sabrina slides into a seat near the floor-to-ceiling window, her “travel guide” in hand. The dust jacket is a perfect disguise for the real book hidden beneath.

I settle across from her, scanning the lobby. There are no obvious threats except for the usual security camera’s that we skillfully avoided. As far as I can tell we weren’t followed and I’m hoping Dmitri and Carlos haven’t somehow been alerted to our arrival in England yet. I know if I’d stolen from him I’d have clocked him the moment he boarded the plane to go to America. So I’m pretty sure he’s on the lookout for me.

Sabrina flips to a marked page in the journals and taps the paper. She keeps her voice low as she runs her finger over a list of symbols and abbreviations. “Vivienne abbreviated all her victims first and last names.” She points to one of them. “Usually when we abbreviate a name we used SC for Sabrina Craft for instance.”

“Yeah.” I nod and sit straight when a server approaches.

Sabrina closes the book and gives the young woman a big smile. “Can I have an almond mile caramel latte please?”

“Sure,” the young woman smiles and turns to me. “And for you, sir?”

“Just a black coffee,” I reply.

“I’ll be right back with your order.” She leaves. Sabrina opens the book once again.

“Vivienne abbreviated her victims using the last letter of each name. So my name would be AT.” She turns the book to show me.

“Victims?”

“Her words not mine.” Sabrina shrugs. “Blackmail Victims is what she’s labeled the page as, so she wasn’t very subtle.”

“No wonder you didn’t like the bitch.”

“No one did,” Sabrina assures me before continuing on about the journal. “Look here, beside each name, there’s a symbol—it’s a reversed Greek alphabet letter, followed by a Greek numeral, an English number, and then an EM dash to either GM101, GM307, or GM409.”

I frown. “And that means?”

Sabrina exhales and shakes her head. “I don’t know. But maybe we could call one of her blackmail victims as she’s listed the phone number using Greek numerals as country codes, Roman numerals as area codes, and Russian numerals as phone numbers.”

“Jesus,” I mutter. “She really was a complicated bitch.”

---