Page 149 of Night's Fall
“All the fucking time.”
Ugh.
“What’sTimothee’srating?”Iqueried.
“Twenty-two.”
That made sense, and actually,Ithought it was on the high side.
Aleksei continued sharing. “Errolis at twenty-nine.Momis seventy-nine.Dadis seventy-one.Aleeceis eighty-three.”
I smirked. “Seemsthe people of theFalldon’t have a problem with me throwing myself in front of a beam for you.”
It wasAleksei’sturn to frown.
“Don’t worry, baby,”Imurmured. “Thatwill never happen again.”
At least,Ihoped not.
“My meeting was with the task force,” he announced.
NowIwas interested in our conversation.
“Oh my gods, are they making headway?”
He did more staring at me, then he pushed up so he was reclining beside me, crossed his ankles and stole my tub of blobs.
“How much of this do you want to know?” he asked carefully.
“All of it,”Ianswered firmly.
He tossed some blobs in his mouth.
“Aleksei,”Iwarned.
“They foundFarlay.He’sdead.”
My stomach dropped.
“Shot in the face with aPR60, full beast stun,”Alekseicontinued.
“This is…not good,”Ireplied.
“They already disposed of the female they used for gallery access, so it’s theirMO.Whenno longer of use, destroy.Theyput time into recruiting her.Inspectionof her comms say she met the assailant three months ago, just after your attack, which did not have the end they wanted.Theywasted no time putting a new plan into action.Itwas a full-frontal love bombardment, except obviously, he didn’t love her.Flowers.Gifts.Attention.Talkof marriage.Pushingto move in together.Hewas well funded, those gifts he gave her were all high cost.Jewelry.Anew vid screen for her flat.Along weekend at theElysiumHotelatBlackBeach.Shehas no history of any run-ins with law enforcement, save some docking tickets.Friendsand family are stunned she was part of this, at the same time stunned he was too.Theycalled it true love.Asclose to mates as you can get without being mates.Theteam is theorizing she had no idea what she was doing when she let them in, outside getting them into the hottest ticket in town to seeTerrinton’swork and hobnob with the rich, posh and trendy.”
“Who faked her résumé?”
He shook his head. “Noclue.Itwas faked so deep, they haven’t gotten to the bottom of that yet.Butit was uncovered he was the one who pushed her to go for it.Before, she worked as a dress minder at a boutique and lived in a flat with three roommates, and only two bedrooms.”
I didn’t know their rate, but my guess was, dress minders, who restocked the automated rods after customers tried on clothes, didn’t make a whole lot.
I could see being dazzled by jewelry and theElysiumHotel.
ButIcouldn’t think on her very long, especially now thatIknew she was an innocent victim in all this.
Her family and friends must be out of their minds.
I reached for more blobs. “AnythingonBuildloreandFitzgerald?”
