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15
Naomi
Naomi ran as far as she dared without risking that the call would be sent to message holding.
She couldn’t risk Gage hearing her, if this call was about what she thought it was. Or anyone else, for that matter.
“Oberon, confirm privacy mode,” she hissed.
“Privacy mode confirmed,” Oberon said as her bracelet shivered for the fifth and final time.
“Hala?” she gasped, darting behind a palm tree and leaning against it to catch her breath.
“Naomi,” Hala whispered. “Are you okay? Where are you?”
“Um, a fertility spa,” Naomi remembered to say.
The Midsummer Fertility Center, and the agency who sent her here, made her sign NDAs, agreeing not to disclose that she was here or what she was doing.
They suggested she tell anyone who asked that she had been at a fertility spa, so that if her first clinic treatment after returning home worked, no one would be suspicious.
“Right,” Hala said sympathetically. “I hope it works out for you.”
As Naomi’s desk mate, Hala had been privy to Naomi’s many attempts at the fertility clinic back on Terra-58. The woman was practically a saint for listening to Naomi mourn her failures again and again. Hala herself had two teens and a set of overactive triplet toddlers at home, making her own life hard in a different way. But she always sympathized with Naomi.
“Anyway, what’s going on?” Naomi asked. “Do they know?”
“Oh, they know,” Hala said. “Bud Bulgaro came bursting into the corporate offices screaming that someone alerted the Intergalactic Environmental Bureau that there were lowland wolves on the land he was going to develop. And he said he knew someone at the firm had ratted him out.”
“Damn it,” Naomi breathed. “The firm will figure it out, and I’ll be fired.”
“Fired?” Hala echoed. “That’s nothing. Bud Bulgaro says when he finds the rat, he’s going to kill them and everyone they love.”
Naomi’s blood seemed to freeze in her veins and the edges of her vision darkened.
“Naomi?” Hala said. “Are you there?”
“He couldn’t have been serious,” Naomi hoped out loud.
“I looked into it, and the Bulgaros are connected,” Hala said. “People who cross them have a way of disappearing.”
“Lowland wolves are endangered animals,” Naomi breathed. “It wouldn’t have been right to let him just kill them.”
“You think it’s better for him to kill you, huh?” Hala asked. “I begged you not to do this.”
“I know you did,” Naomi said. “And thank you for giving me the heads up today.”
“What are you going to do?” Hala asked, her voice soft with concern.
“I’m not really sure,” Naomi admitted. “But I’m out of town for another week, so I have some time to think.”
“If there’s any way I can help—” Hala began.
“No,” Naomi told her. “I would never want you involved more than you already are. You probably shouldn’t even be calling me, though I’m really grateful you did.”
She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked out over the ocean, wondering what she was supposed to do next.
“Do you have family I can alert for you?” Hala offered.
