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He sounds so confident that I smile at him, rubbing my foot up and down his strong leg again. “Okay. Thanks, Jamef.”
Jamef just nods, but he also wraps his tail around my ankle, as if trying to reassure me, and turns back to his work on the flight charts. I turn back to my boring footage, wondering how many hours a day a woman can spend on fixing her damn hair.
To my surprise, on-screen-Rhonda leaves the room and goes to Bethiah. I check the date and this is from a few days ago. I watch, my jaw hanging open, as she goes into our living quarters and confronts Bethiah…
And then I watch as my mate grabs Rhonda by the throat and chokes her with a furious look on her face. “Jamef,” I breathe. “Did you see this?” I turn my monitor and play the vid back a few minutes, then let it roll for him.
He’s silent as he watches the interplay, and then glances at me when it’s finally done. “She never said anything to you?”
“Neither of them did.” I watch as Rhonda rubs her throat and glares at Bethiah’s back. “That might be the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Jamef snorts, his tail slowly unfurling from around my leg.
“Seriously. I shouldn’t be turned on by violence, but god, I love that woman.” I want to reach through the screen and kiss Bethiah for being so trustworthy, even when no one was watching. Not that I doubted her, but it’s nice to see things like this play out on screen. It’s nice to know that Bethiah truly has zero hang-ups over Rhonda other than a soft spot for humans.
On screen, Rhonda moves to one of the walls and presses her hand against it, and I make a mental note, pausing the vid feed. “I think I found another bug.”
“Bug?”
“Oh, that’s what they call them back on Earth. Listening devices. Bug. Whatever.” I pause, shrugging. “At least, I think so. How’s your hunt going?” I get to my feet and wrap my arms around his shoulders, carefully dodging the dangerous horns that arch back from his head and tucking my chin against his neck. I eye the screen he’s working on but it just looks like a lot of calculations and nonsense. “What’s all this?”
“A credit trail from a gambling satellite.” He strokes one of my hands absently. “According to Lord Nerit’s banking account, he withdrew a large sum two days ago. I’m not so sure I buy it, because if someone was cleaning him out, they’d pull out a large sum, too.”
“So are we heading there to check it out?”
Jamef taps my hand. “No. At least, not right away. The gambling station is in a remote sector and it’s going to take a hefty amount of fuel to head in that direction. Right now, I’m trying to hack into the station’s vid feed to see if his face shows up anywhere. Then we’ll know he was there and can proceed.”
“Huh.” I press a kiss to his ear, watching as he taps at one of the controls again. “Is there a hotel there?”
“Probably. Why?”
I shrug against him. “He doesn’t strike me as the most crafty sort. If he’s really in hiding, he wouldn’t be using his credit account, right? So we have to assume that he’s not in hiding. If that’s the case, then wouldn’t he check into the hotel? Wouldn’t they have records of who’s a guest there?”
Jamef turns his head and stares at me.
I straighten and stand upright, grimacing. “Let me guess, ‘stupid idea, Dora, let me handle things.’”
“No,” Jamef says slowly. “It’s an excellent idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”
“Because you like to make things too hard for yourself.” I tell him, planting a kiss on his cheek. “You think everything in the universe has to be a struggle, but it doesn’t always have to be. Sometimes people are just obvious.”
He grunts, and I’m not sure if that’s agreement.
One Hundred Seven
JAMEF
For someone without a lot of memories, Dora has some great instincts. Sure enough, I’m able to tap into the casino’s guest records and Lord Nerit il’Aiven’s name is there, clear as day. He’s staying in an expensive suite near the central hub of the casino itself, which means he won’t be easy to extract.
Then again, I’m not sure we have to extract him, just reunite him with Rhonda. It’s an odd situation, and I’m far more used to grabbing petty criminals and hauling them before the courts for low-end bounties. I normally don’t greet my bounty and leave him (or her) there.
It makes me think about what Dora said—how I make everything more difficult for myself. Is that true? If so, why? Am I punishing myself for some unknown reason? Or do I just assume the universe is going to shit on me and make things harder?
