FORTY-SEVEN

Billy said, “Do you believe what they said?”
On foot, they were well past the city wall, halfway through the shantytown buffer that led to the collection of soovie parks at the outer rings of DC. Orchestrated by wind that stayed as an aftermath of a rainstorm too brief to conquer the dust that rose and fell in small funnels, small pieces of litter danced with the same rhythm.

“Have to believe. Phoenix will be safe as long as we report to them from the soovie park. He gave me a phone that only calls to one number. We see or hear anything about people getting together to fight Influentials, wer’e supposed to call.”

“Influentials or government people don’t kill little girls,” Billy said. “They’ll find a place for her.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Theo said. “I just pretended to believe his threat. So we could get out of there.”

“Still want to go west?”

“Yeah,” Theo said, indignant. “As soon as Caitlyn meets us.”

“Could be an easy job, helping the government, protection and all.”

“You don’t mean it.”

“No,” Billy said. “Just making sure you still want what I want.”

“Freedom for Caitlyn.”

“That’s something else,” Billy said. “The government finding us. Don’t you find it strange? Think of all the places we could have gone from Lynchburg. All the hundreds and hundreds of shantytowns and soovie parks.”

“Almost like they tracked us,” Theo said. “Remember the Factory in Appalachia? How they put chips in each person?”

“I remember you dug it out of your arm. With a knife. But when the government talked to us in Lynchburg, those guys didn’t do anything to you or me.”

“I’d have fought them,” Theo said. “Couple quick kicks in the tender parts, and down they go.”

Billy smiled. “You did wrestle the one guy.” Billy’s smiled faded, to be replaced by a look of concentration. “Theo, remember? The one guy started shaking you for no reason. You fought back. Your glasses fell off.”

“He was sorry he messed with me. Apologized like crazy. The other guy made sure…”

Billy nodded. “Made sure to check out your glasses, like he was sorry he might have broken something.”

“… and could have easily tagged my glasses with a tracking device.”

Billy continued to nod. “You’d never notice because when you take your glasses off, you see like a bat. And I’d never have a reason to check your glasses because they’re on your face.”

Theo had already taken off his glasses. He held them out for Billy to take.

It took Billy only a couple of seconds to find the tracking device.

“Theo,” Billy said. “They know exactly where we are. Right now.”

“Sneaks,” Theo said. “Now I sure wish I would have kicked them in the—”

“No,” Billy said. As always, he spoke slowly, allowing time to be thorough as he thought. “This is good. Really good.”

From a chair in the corner of the penthouse of the Pavilion, holding coffee he’d poured univited from a nearby carafe, Pierce watched Holly and Everett interact. It was as if Everett considered her about as interesting as an old piece of furniture.

Maybe that was Everett’s style. Boredom.

Maybe he simply never had any interest in a hot-looking woman in her late twenties to early thirties. Wearing a dark shirt and dark skirt.

Either way, Holly wasn’t cracking him with her questions. Pierce wasn’t going to step in either. That would make it look like the boss was tired of the underling doing a bad job. Short term, in this room, he doubted that would get results with Everett. Long term, it would hurt the team. Pierce did have confidence in Holly and wanted her to know it.

Besides, she hadn’t yet asked Everett about the knife wound.

“Just to clarify,” Holly said. “You have no knowledge about the girl in the photograph.”

From the Enforcer video and the video shot from the hidden camera in Melvin’s wheelchair, they’d been able to come up with several good choices for a closeup of Caitlyn’s face.

“I’ll have to take your word for it that she worked here.”

Holly had already confirmed this with the head of staff at the Pavilion.

“How about your health?”

Everett showed no reaction to the sudden change in questioning tactics. “You’re in the medical field too?”

“Knife wound,” she said. “In the belly. Let’s talk.”

“Sure.” Utterly nothing changed on his face. “If you start making sense.”

“In general,” Holly said. “I imagine something like that would hurt.”

“What?”

“A knife wound in the belly.”

“I imagine it would.”

Holly glanced at Pierce. “I’m done. Anything for you?”

“Nope,” Pierce said. As he stood, he knocked his coffee over. Shrugged at the sight of it ebbing into expensive carpet. Didn’t get much petty pleasure from it, as Everett’s face remained bored. “Lunch sounds good.”

Holly stood.

Everett remained seated. In keeping with his style, he didn’t bother to wave or acknowledge their good-byes.

In the elevator, Holly said to Pierce, “That went well.”

“Not really. That coffee was the best I’ve had in months. He’ll snap his fingers. Carpet will be scrubbed clean in the time it takes me to get another cup.”

“My sarcasm was directed toward the lack of information we possess. Not at your pitiful attempt to be the alpha dog by knocking coffee on his floor.”

“What do you expect?”

“That’s exactly what I’d expect from you.”

“From Everett. He’s a lawyered-up Influential.”

“Maybe you should have been asking the questions.”

“Wouldn’t have been near as pleasant for all involved, me showing the amount of leg that you felt necessary to put on display.”

“Accident, skirt riding up like that when I sat.”

“My conclusion too,” Pierce said. “And note my skill with sarcasm.”

“Really,” she said, irritated. “It was an accident. I don’t need to show leg to make a good impression. I don’t stoop to that.”

“My apologies. By the way, nothing I could have done would have had a different outcome in there. And I liked the way you ended, not pressing him further on the knife wound thing. You got it across that we know about it. Maybe it will make him nervous.”

“Probably not,” she said. “But it was all I had.”

“Not quite all you had. Accident or not, your legs did make a good impression.”

Against agency policy, this kind of talk. But Pierce had a good defense. She’d started it.