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Any patron Sasha is seen interacting with in footage is pulled for a private interview, any information they have on her dragged right out of them. I interview every last staff member, from bathroom attendant to bartender to bouncer.
Bit by bit, scrap by scrap, I compile my information.
It’s not easy. Sasha isn’t just a shadow; she’s also a chameleon. That sets us back for a good few months until Nadine, my head of security, points at the screen she’s glued to and says, “Hey, doesn’t this chick look a bit like your girl?”
It’s late in the night, and we’re sitting in front of our wall of screens in my office suite in Queensbridge. It’s only Nadine, me, and a couple of newer recruits, combing through footage. Nadine is picking at a takeaway with the tips of her chopsticks, sitting cross-legged in her desk chair, and when she talks, we all freeze and look up.
“Which one?” I ask.
Nadine points at her screen with her chopsticks. “The hot blonde talking to Oswald Forrenham.”
The two recruits wheel themselves closer to her desk on their chairs, but I stand, walking slowly over to Nadine and peering at the screen.
Sure enough, there’s a sexy blonde in the black-and-white footage. She’s sitting in Oswald Forrenham’s booth, curled up against his capacious side. She’s wearing a silver dress, and her hair is a river of golden waves.
In the footage, Forrenham leans to kiss her, and she turns her head to let him kiss her cheek, exposing her face to the camera. I reach over Nadine’s shoulder to pause the footage.
Pretty face, small chin, sharp cheeks, a heart-shaped mouth, and big oily eyes.
“Well, isn’t that interesting,” I murmur.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Nadine says, looking up at me.
I give a curt nod, but I can’t tear my eyes off the screen. Sasha’s mouth, in the footage, is pursed into a girlish pout, kissable and sweet, but her eyes are heavy-lidded, framed with sharp flicks of eyeliner. There’s a look of utter contempt lurking in her eyes, and I can almost see the poison-green of them even through the black-and-white footage.
“You alright, boss?” Nadine asks.
Tearing my gaze away from the screen, I look at Nadine, who glances down at my torso. I look down. Without realising, I’ve placed my hand on my chest, subconsciously caressing the cut still healing underneath my shirt.
For every time I’ve gone under the knife, this was the first time I was ever shaken by a blade to the chest. The scalpel never intimidated me, not even as a child. I suppose I never before felt in actual danger.
Until I met Sasha.
I drop my hand to my side.
“I’m fine, Nadine. Thank you.”
She nods but doesn’t look convinced, a spark of concern lurking in her dark eyes. No matter how worried Nadine might feel deep down, she won’t say anything. Like every staff member I surround myself with, Nadine remains a consummate professional above all things.
The morning she came to get me from the hotel room after the hotel staff called her, she didn’t raise so much as an eyebrow. She untied me from the bed, handed me the clothes she’d brought with her, and drove me in silence to my doctor’s to have my wound looked at. My doctor was more than displeased, but he didn’t ask questions either.
Maybe that’s the truest measure of power: never being questioned.
Nadine only asked me one question, later, when she personally drove me home from the doctor’s.
“What do you want us to do?”
“Find her,” I told her then. “Then I’ll decide.”
Now, we all stare at the screen, at Sasha in a different skin, with the long blonde waves and the silver dress. Even her body language is different in that footage.
“So… what does it mean?” one of the new recruits says, slowly wheeling himself back to his desk.
“It means we’re going to have to go through all the footage all over again,” Nadine says crisply.
“Oh no,” the recruit says, dragging his hand across his face.
“Oh, yes,” says Nadine. “And this time, we’re not just looking for a pretty brunette with long hair. We’re looking for a pretty blonde too.”
