She wasn’t sure why that mattered. If he left this room, he would probably die.
“And I thank you for the warning,” he said. He reached for the door.
“Wait,” she said. “I want to help you get off Krell safely.”
“Why would you want to do that?” he asked tiredly. “You don’t believe me, and even if you did, you think I’m ethically challenged. You Guild people are exceptionally judgmental for people who kill other people for a living.”
She supposed she deserved that. Still, she couldn’t help being defensive.
“I’ve never killed anyone,’ she said.
He raised his head. “Then how can you be part of the Assassins Guild? Are you a student?”
He seemed to know a lot about Guild customs.
“I’m unusual,” she said. “I didn’t test well on the assassin’s part of the study. I’m very good at investigation.”
“So am I. And yet here I am, rather surprised that I’m a target.” He sighed. “Right now, I don’t need investigators. I’m better off with an assassin. But barring that, I need a smuggler. I need a good way off Krell, and I don’t think there is one.”
The word “smuggler” made her smile. “You underestimate me, my friend,” she said.
“I’m sure I do,” he said tiredly, “but that really doesn’t matter at the moment.”
“It does matter,” she said. “Do you know how I got my name?”
“I didn’t even know what your name was until five minutes ago,” he said.
“Well, let me tell you a story,” she said. “And then we’ll figure out a way to get you off Krell for good.”
Chapter 15
Jack wasn’t in the mood for a story. He certainly wasn’t in the mood for a story as strange as the one Skye told him.
Her parents had been smugglers or pirates or, she said, “Just plain thieves with fancy credentials.” Her entire childhood had been a continual series of escapes from bad situations, usually caused by her parents. They were constantly on the run from this person, that community, or some government. They avoided all forms of law enforcement.
They named her “Skylight” because of their closest call. They’d been trapped in a building on some planet (she never found out which one) and it had a skylight forty feet up. Somehow they had managed to climb the walls and go through that skylight without tripping any alarms.
They’d thought they were going to die, and they didn’t. Then they discovered that Skye’s mother was pregnant, and they retired from their crooked life.
“That lasted until I was born. I was always being grabbed and pulled out of some place I had just settled.” Then Skye’s face clouded. “Until they figured I was old enough to stay behind.”
He wanted to find out about that, he really did. But not right now. His heart was pounding hard, because he felt that, with each passing moment, he would lose his own life.
“So,” she said, “let me get you out of here.”
What choice did he have, really? He was an investigator, a spy, an information guy. The kind of person who lurked in the shadows, observed too much, and sent those observations back to whomever had paid for them.
He’d never once had to escape from anything. Sure, he had to slip out of a room when a subject noticed that Jack was staring too hard, and yes, he’d had to dump some net accounts because a subject’s security systems had identified him, but he had never ever had to run away from some place. If he got confronted, he’d laugh and make up a story—he was good at that—and no one had a second thought about him.
Except maybe that the tall guy was a bad choice for a spy, so obviously he couldn’t be one. He was too memorable.
“What do you propose to do?” he asked. “I’m very recognizable, and they’ll be guarding my ship. Someone will remember if I get on a transport.”
“Yes, they will,” Skye said. “Do you have money?”
There it was. That was what this was all about. She was shaking him down. Heller hadn’t caught up to him after all. She was trying to get Jack to pay for her extravagant lifestyle.
“No,” he said so flatly that she looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“I don’t need it,” she said. “I just thought you might feel odd if I paid for everything.”
He was about to tell her that he would not give her anything, not for any reason, when he realized what she had said.
“Pay for everything?” he repeated lamely. “And then I’d pay you back?”
That would be the scam.
She shook her head. “The Guild covers all of my expenses, no matter how extravagant. They know I’m tailing high-end targets, so the Guild expects me to have a huge expense account. They pay me a base expense amount every month, whether I bill them or not. I have more money than I know what to do with.”
He frowned, trying to wrap his brain around that. He had clearly joined the wrong organization. Not that he’d had a choice. He hadn’t gone near the Assassins Guild, afraid that they’d turn him into a killer.
He had just floated along in his life. Researching the Rovers, then deciding to leave them was in some ways, the first time he had ever done anything for himself.
And he had felt off balance the entire time he did it.
Still felt off balance.
Of course, Skye wasn’t helping. She had surprised him on such a deep level, he wasn’t thinking clearly. Not that he had thought clearly about her last night either.
“You’d fund our escape?” he asked.
“It’ll be the most excitement I’ve had in years.” Then she grinned. “Except for last night, of course.”
In spite of himself, he smiled at her. “I’ve never met anyone like you,” he said.
“You said that yesterday,” she said.
“And I had no idea just how right I was,” he said.
Her grin faded. “I already have a plan. But you’ll have to trust me. If someone was watching you, they saw us hook up, but they probably don’t know you’re in this room. You’ll have to wait here while I set up our escape. I would understand if you don’t want to do that, but you’re so recognizable that it’ll be harder if you come with me on the initial rendezvous.”
He clenched his hands into fists, then made himself release them finger by finger. He knew she was right about being recognized. He also knew that she was right that he would have to trust her.
She had been the one to tell him about the threat. She had been the one to show him this room. The money still bothered him, primarily because her offer was so unusual.
“I need the image back,” he said.
She frowned at him, not understanding what he was going to do. Good. That meant she wouldn’t have time to prepare for it.
She handed him the tablet.
“Are there other images of Heller on here?” he asked.
“I took a few other shots,” she said.
He poked at the flat screen until he found one of the other images. Then he recognized the place. It was the interior of the bar where he and Skye had been the night before.
But he had no idea how long that interior had looked like that. He would wager it had probably looked like that as long as he was alive. She could have taken this months, even years ago. Or doctored the image.
This was where his investigative skills came in, however. He knew how to find out if something was doctored or old. He tapped on the flat screen, looked at the image, then examined it in great detail. Then, he glanced at the other images the same way.
They were from this morning.
And one of them had the back of a woman who looked like Skye on it. He moved through the images until he caught the side of the woman’s face. Not Skye. That woman he had seen earlier, the one who had the same general body type.