Page 38 of Tempting Jupiter
“We’re on a 24-hour station. The tavern is always open.” She let the full measure of her annoyance chill her voice as she walked away.
She’d pulled her hair back in a loose ponytail. Her slacks, tunic, and coat were all worker-gray. She’d hoped the serviceable style would discourage men like that one from approaching.
It had been her only choice. She had no way to know which aliases Roma would have connected to her. Her own identity had been the only one she felt safe in.
Fee left the noise of the market’s main thoroughfare behind and strode quickly toward the next most popular lane on the station—the treasure handlers. She needed answers and her money, now.
She turned the corner and slowed. All of her senses screamed at her. Something was off. She walked forward eyes straight ahead until she’d passed Billy’s offices and reached a corner. She turned again and then stepped into the first doorway. A hungry-eyed money-lender sat behind a desk. Just beyond the middle of life, the woman had left her hair naturally gray despite obvious signs of other cosmetic treatments. A slender man, not more than 20, sat at her side and two burly enforcers lounged in ancient chairs, backs to a wall. The enforcers were the kind of big that came from popping cheap growth pills. She doubted either of them could get out of their chairs before she could get to their boss and put a blaster to her head. Not that she wanted to. She smiled. “How much to sit in one of your chairs for fifteen minutes?”
The lender steepled her fingers and smiled a smile that never went beyond her lips. “Name’s Celia Morris. No need to bring credits into it.” She waved a hand toward an empty seat near the door.
The man at Morris’s side froze, a pleasant expression gracing pretty features—a slender nose and a firm chin.
Feeona returned Morris’s smile. “I need fifteen minutes with no interruptions.”
Morris sat back more deeply into her chair. “Of course.”
Fee activated Bug with a thought. The small mechanical creature tickled as it uncurled from around her throat and launched into the air. She opened the door for Bug to fly out, then closed it and settled into the seat.
She closed her eyes and tapped into Bug’s vision. At least three men in the area near Billy’s place stood exactly where they’d been when she’d passed them. They were waiting for her. Damn. How had they gotten to her account so fast? She had dozens, all carefully protected and tied to different identities. How could they have found the one account she would use?
She waited until someone opened Billy’s door then Bug slipped inside. It flew over the heads of the tellers and down the narrow hall to Billy’s office. He was sitting with his feet propped on his desk, talking to a hologram standing in the space next to him.
Bug landed on the toe of one of his nice dress shoes. Billy froze for a moment then abruptly ended his call. Bug’s auto-safety features kicked in to keep it safely in the air when his feet dropped to the ground with a noisy clatter.
“Shit. You can’t be here.”
She landed Bug on his workstation and tapped into his speakers. “Strictly speaking, I’m not there.”
Billy scooted closer and lowered his voice. “As good as.” He poked a finger at Bug and the AI flicked Bug’s wings as a warning. “This thing can’t have that much range. Truth be told, if you’re on this station, you’re too damn close.” His voice had lowered word-by-word until it was a fierce whisper.
“I need my funds and the account is frozen. You’re supposed to be a strictly independent treasure. No government interference. Not Alliance, not planetary, not even the station government. That’s why you have my business.”
“This isn’t government interference. It’s Roma. And they have more money than any government. Money means power. You know that.”
A sudden heaviness hit her belly. “Are all the accounts frozen?”
Billy’s face scrunched and he tapped his fingers on his desk. “All the accounts I know about.”
That was it then. Billy had helped her put her protections in place. There was only one account he didn’t know about and that one never had more than a few credits.
His fingers tapped the desk again. “They have your electronic fingerprint. They own every piece of information about you. You need to get off this station and out of this sector.”
Stone and Barney must have talked. Damn them for not being good enough to get away. There was a limit to how much they knew. She didn’t trust anyone with everything, but Stone had known her a long time—he was an old acquaintance of Roland’s. But under one of Roland’s many false identities. She stopped a moment to consider Stone’s fate. Had he sold her out right away or had they hurt him to get the info. With the harm already done, she hoped he’d found a way to profit rather than get himself tortured or dead.
“To leave, I need funds.” The men in the hall hadn’t identified her. Had she ever been caught on vid as herself? Would they eventually make that final connection?
“Sorry. I can’t help you.” Billy sat back and sagged in his chair. “They say you have something of theirs and they want it back. They’re very determined.”
Her breathing accelerated and it got harder to focus on her connection with Bug. “That isn’t an option.”
“For God’s sake, Fee. Give them what they want. Or get the hell across the border with Gollera.”
She considered a dash for the border for a split second. They were at the ass end of human controlled space. There were two sector-borders in the vicinity: Gollera and Delvinci. But neither were an option for her. She had plans she couldn’t change.
“I can’t.” She had to find another way.
Billy scrubbed his hand over his face. “Nothing is worth dying for.”
