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“Did you give the address and social security number to them when they asked?”
“They threatened me!” the woman shrilled. “Don’t call us again. We’ve thrown that girl’s file away. We do not have her data. We never want to hear from her again, or from Clemens and Associates. We never heard of any of them. Goodbye!”
The connection broke. I let out a sigh. Nicole had all of Kat’s data. Of course.
I ignored Jenn’s sour face on the way to Canlis. Too much to think about. When we got to the restaurant, I trotted out my autopilot default persona, the one that covered for me in the public sphere while my private life was falling apart. That persona had gotten a lot of practice since the disaster at Ready Line, with Shane abducted, and three Unredeemables, all good friends for over a decade, killed. Jed’s apparent betrayal, too. For months, I’d been convinced that one of my best friends had sold us out.
Thankfully, that turned out not to be true, but I paid for that, too, with those horrible days in which I thought I’d lost my little sister. But Freya got through it.
It occurred to me that Freya was going to like Kat. They had a lot in common. Both were no-bullshit, regal warrior queens.
I psyched myself up for being charming and impressive with the senator. I had set this up weeks before. I wanted to persuade Senator Eleanor Brickell to vote yes on a bill regarding carbon capture tax credits that was about to come before the Senate, but I had to cudgel my brain to remember why I cared so much.
Oh…yeah. The fate of humanity, biodiversity, safeguarding the future, the oceans, all that good stuff. The continuation of life as we knew it. Right. Of course.
Fortunately, my default persona always performed. It said all the right things at the right time, even while the rest of me was howling in the dark. And the hefty sums which I’d contributed in the past to her House of Representatives and Senate campaigns definitely helped.
But the disconnect made my teeth grind. I had no business being here, doing this. I had other things to focus on. This would be my last professional engagement until I fixed this problem that was stalking my family.
I smiled and joked and charmed and cajoled Senator Brickell, but I walked out of the restaurant with my brain on fire, heightened senses cataloguing every detail around me. I had to start carrying a gun again. I felt naked without one. I had felt this way back in Afghanistan, on combat missions. Buzzing at a high frequency at all times.
Jenn slid into the car, smiling. “Thank God, we salvaged that one,” she said. “Senator Brickell loves you. Now on to the ribbon cutting at that new STEM Academy, and we can—”
“Not today. I’m canceling all public appointments and appearances for the foreseeable future.”
Jenn’s jaw dropped, horrified. “You’re…no! You’re joking!”
“I have security issues, Jenn,” I said. “They’re not getting better. My presence does not make the people around me safer. It did not make the senator safer, either.”
“But we have the launch of the Fire Glass coming up in two weeks!”
“We’ll delay the launch,” I said.
Jenn looked as if I had blasphemed. “But…but that would be a disaster!”
“We’ll lose money, yes. Too bad. My family’s safety is more important. I’m not giving the opening speech for the Emory Summit, either. It’s just not happening.”
“And I suppose the hot blonde you’ve got sequestered at the Mountain House is also important? Ethan, now is not the time to let yourself get distracted!”
I gave her a look. Jenn’s face reddened. Her gaze dropped. “Shit,” she whispered. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. Listen up, Jenn. If you heard about the hot blonde, then my loose-lipped security goons are blabbering. Did they tell you how I met her?”
“Ah…just that there was an attempt made in the elevator—”
“Yes. Eight guys with batons and stun wands got into an elevator in the Fletchley Building. With me and this blonde. Not in a dark alley at night. Not in an abandoned junkyard. Not under a bridge. This was a shiny, high-end skyscraper in downtown Seattle during prime morning working hours. I’m only alive because the blonde happened to be a seasoned martial artist, so between the two of us, we got out of there with some bruises and a nosebleed. Instead of dead.”
“Ethan, I didn’t mean to—”
“Suppose it had been you in that elevator with me, Jenn? How do you think that encounter would have gone?”
“Ahh…”
“Spending time with me is not safe or healthy for you right now,” I told her bluntly. “I pay my security staff to put themselves in harm’s way for me, but that’s not what I pay you for. It’s not fair to put you in that position.”
“Ah…” She swallowed, blinking rapidly. “Okay. Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I’m not doing this to mess with your head. I just don’t want to get anyone else killed. Manage things as if I’d been taken out of commission for a few weeks by an illness or an injury. I don’t like looking over my shoulder for assassins while I’m having lunch with the senator.”
