“Oh, my. You’ve been naughty, haven’t you?” He picked up the emerald necklace. “Such a pity. Far too recognizable to leave intact. It will have to be broken up.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “How did you stumble across this?”
“Stumble is right,” I said. “I did a B and E to plant a cyber bug, and this was in the bedroom safe.”
My dad, Jason Bouchard, was the former Chief of Security with MegaTech Corporation. He taught me martial arts, weapons, wall climbing, and how to crack a safe. He’d retired six years earlier, but he still had his contacts. Sometimes he brokered contracts for me and fenced anything I might need to sell.
“Do you mind my asking who the mark was?” he asked.
“Kahlil Carpenter.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Yes, it definitely needs to be broken up and probably sold on a different continent. I’ll do some research to find where he bought it.” He sorted through the other pieces—rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces—mostly diamonds, but a couple of nice rubies. “The rest of this shouldn’t be too difficult.”
He fixed me with his patented you’ve-disappointed-me expression and held up the emerald necklace. “Why did you take it? Surely you could see how difficult it would be to move.”
“Because it’s so incredible. How many times in your life do you have a chance at something like that?”
He hadn’t put the necklace down, stroking it, letting it slide through his fingers.
“Well, that’s true. I probably wouldn’t have passed it up, either. I hope you don’t expect a quick payoff.”
I shook my head. “I already got paid for the B and E. This is all gravy.”
“Good. Come here.” He had unclasped the necklace and was holding the ends apart. I walked over to him and crouched. He put his arms around my neck, and the weight of the necklace fell on my breastbone. “There,” he said as he finished clasping it. “Stand up and turn around. Ohhh, yes. My God, Libby. It’s too bad you can’t keep it.”
I walked into the foyer and scrutinized myself in the mirror. The necklace was large, but I was very tall. The white gold and emeralds were stunning against my black turtleneck. And if I wore it anywhere in public, Carpenter would bury me. I took it off and carried it back to the table.
“I don’t need twenty million around my neck,” I told him. “I might as well paint a target on my shirt.”
Chapter 2
I didn’t have any food in the house, or at least any substantial food, so after snacking all day I went out to dinner. I’m usually a jeans-and-a-t-shirt kind of girl, but I felt like eating at a nice restaurant to celebrate the successful job the previous night. I dressed up a bit, a black waist-length jacket over a red shirt and tight black stovepipe pants. I even brushed my hair out and put on some jewelry and high heels.
I was in a bit of a mood, some indefinable itch going on, and after dinner, I wandered down to The Pinnacle, the biggest, sweatiest, hippest dance club in town. The crowd was usually young corporate types and corporate scions, with a sprinkling of hot-chick gold diggers and wannabes. I always thought of myself as being in the “wannabe a hot chick” category.
I really fit in better in the mutant bars where looks and impressing people weren’t that important. Sometimes beauty wasn’t even skin deep. There was nothing like going home with a handsome mutie and discovering he was covered with scales except for his face and palms. Or he grew fur and acted like a wolf when the moon was full. Or he liked to suck a little blood with his sex.
My mutations weren’t visible, or revolting, but there was a difference in attitude in the mutie places. A harder edge, and I was really not a soft girl, though I cleaned up pretty good.
I usually went to The Pinnacle, though, because my two best friends worked there. I walked in and realized how early I was. The band hadn’t set up yet, and the club was three-quarters empty. I could even get a table by the stage if I wanted to.
“You’re a bit earlier than usual,” Paul Renard said when I leaned against the bar.
I shrugged. “Just thought I’d drop by after breakfast and see how you’re doing.”
He laughed. “You need a hangover cure?”
“Nope. Cold sober last night. I was working.”
For public consumption, I was a security consultant. I actually got quite a bit of work, and if I made the effort, could probably make a good living at it. But I could work my ass off for two months or more to earn what I made off that job the night before—not counting the jewelry.
“Nellie’s singing tonight, isn’t she?” I asked.
“Yeah, Blues Revival is playing. Drink?”
“Sure,” I said. “Glass of white wine.” He gave me a dubious look. “I’m starting off slow, okay? You’re the one who said it was early.”
“Real wine, or chemicals?” he asked, even though he should have known the answer.
“There’s a difference? Wine, please. Hold the petroleum by-products.” I knew I should be careful or I’d wake up in Paul’s apartment in the club’s basement. That was usually what happened when I got too drunk. Unfortunately, I fell into the only sexual category Paul didn’t embrace—normal female. Pity, because he was very nice to look at.
I hung around and bothered him for a while, then bothered some of the other staff and regulars. That itch was getting worse, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. To my knowledge, I wasn’t precognizant, or at least I never had been before. In my business, it would have been helpful.
The band members filtered in and began setting up. Blues Revival played old-fashioned blues, R and B, and jazz, music from before the wars. They had a recording contract and their videos were on the infonet. There was even talk about a European tour in the near future.
Nellie showed up with her sugar daddy, Richard O’Malley. Richard was a vice president with Entertaincorp, the corporation that owned The Pinnacle and Blues Revival’s recording contract. Richard also owned Nellie’s apartment and Nellie’s time whenever he wanted it. She told me his wife and kids lived north of the city in a secure corporate compound. I hadn’t robbed any homes in that particular compound, but I knew the type of place—trophy wives and a social life centered around the country club, the kids enrolled in university preparatory schools. No one ever met or associated with anyone who wasn’t owned—body and soul—by the corporations.
Richard and I didn’t get along very well. An educated independent, disparagingly referred to as an indie, seemed to unnerve him. I was one of the rare people who could have a corporate lifestyle and its security, but spurned it. In his world, you were either kissing the ass of the person above you on the corporate ladder, or fighting off the people who were kissing your ass. He couldn’t comprehend someone with a grappling hook who just did whatever the hell she wanted.
From Nellie’s point of view, her relationship with O’Malley was a business transaction. Beauty was a tradeable commodity, and those born below the top levels of society didn’t start with much. Without her talent and looks, the best Nellie could have hoped for in life was a job as Richard’s housemaid.
He stayed through about half of the band’s first set, sitting in a mezzanine box next to the stage. The rapt expression on his face as he watched her sing told me that his feelings for her might go a little deeper than business. I filed that thought away, not knowing if it might ever have any value.
Nellie did have a spectacular voice—strong, sweet, and warm, with a smoky quality perfect for jazz and the blues. Nellie was also beautiful, petite and curvy, with long black hair and skin so smooth it always reminded me of buttered chocolate. She didn’t need makeup, but she usually did her eyes and lips. Sometimes I couldn’t contain myself and I’d reach out and stroke her skin with my fingertips, marveling at how smooth it was. I startled her the first time I’d done that, but afterwards she just smiled. She’d sailed through her teenage years without a single zit, and I’d been so envious.
When the band took its first break, she came to my table and sat down.
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“You’re sounding good tonight,” I said. She always sounded good. “I brought you a present.” I held out a pair of diamond studs. The earrings and their stones were unmarked and unidentifiable.
Nellie took them, held one up to the light, then turned wide eyes toward me. “These are real!”
“Of course they’re real.”
She shook her head. “Libby, the stones are huge!”
“Only a carat each. I wanted you to have them.” I handed her an envelope I pulled from my bag. “This is for Miz Rollins. Will you give it to her for me?”
I received a suspicious scowl, and then she peeked inside the envelope. “How much is on that card?”
“Ten thousand.”
“Oh, good God, Libby—” she started, but I put my fingers on her lips.
“I had a good month,” I said. “What am I supposed to do with it? Invest it in some corporate bank? They already have enough money.”
Amanda Rollins ran a sort of orphanage for mutant children. Mutations that were disfiguring, and often somewhat disabling. Her heart was far larger than her wallet or her common sense.
Nellie shook her head and took a deep breath. “You can’t give away everything you earn, Libby. You never know when your situation might change. You have to look to the future, girl.”
“I’ll worry about me,” I said. “I’ve never missed a meal in my life. Corporate brat, remember?”
She sputtered. “Lilith’s isn’t a corporation. It could disappear tomorrow.”
I chuckled. “So could Margrave Corp.” Khalil Carpenter was CEO of Margrave, one of the top ten employers in the city.
She froze with her mouth open as what I said filtered through to her. Leaning forward and dropping her voice, she asked, “What have you heard?”
“I wouldn’t buy stock in Margrave.”
A sly expression crossed her face. “Maybe I should short it?” Everyone in the lower classes had dreams of making a killing in the stock market.
“I wouldn’t do that either,” I told her. “Nellie, stay away from the corps. They aren’t ever going to do anything good for people like us. You want to invest in something, save your money and someday we’ll buy an apartment building together.” Real estate had done okay for my dad.
She reluctantly nodded. “I know. I just worry sometimes. Remember Galina? Real pretty blonde with the big boobs?”
“Yeah?”
“She got turned out of her apartment last week. Man had a younger girl in there as soon as the cleaning crew was done. What would I do if Richard gets tired of me?”
“You’re more than a pair of big boobs,” I said.
Nellie glanced down at her chest. “I certainly hope so.”
We both laughed.
“You’re talented,” I said. “You can sing, you write songs, and that won’t go away when you get old. Save your money. We’ll buy a place. Okay?”
She nodded. “Gotta go sing. You gonna stick around?”
“Yeah. I assume O’Malley went home to the wife?”
“Yeah.”
“I planned on walking you home.”
She gave me a thousand-watt smile. “I’d like that.”
The lead story in the following morning’s newscast concerned a new class of drugs flooding the Toronto area. The same drugs were appearing in Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, and Montreal. When drugs killed people in the poor areas of town, no one cared. But this seemed to be popular with prep school teens and university students. In other words, the children of the corporate elite.
Something about the story sounded off, so I did some checking online. Nothing in Atlanta or Portland or Edmonton. Nothing in Europe. A couple of news stories in Ottawa and one in Dallas. If I plotted the stories on a map, everything centered on Toronto.
That afternoon I got a call from Dad. “I’ve got a job for you,” he said. Since we were talking on the phone, I assumed it was a legitimate job. “Do you have a couple of weeks?”
“Sure. Who’s it for?”
“Maya Wellington. Her husband is Simon Wellington of Hudson Bay Exploration. She wants a security assessment and upgrade on their estate.” He chuckled. “They live about a half-mile from Khalil Carpenter.”
I pulled my motorcycle out of the garage, checked the charge and rode out to the Wellington estate.
I knew from my online research that their estate covered twice as much area as Carpenter’s. I arrived an hour before my appointment so I could look around. I blurred my form to blend in and checked the place from the outside. Twelve-foot walls with concertina wire, lots of cameras, and pressure plates outside the walls. Lights all over the place. Wellington had spent the money Carpenter hadn’t, and the security appeared pretty solid.
After a thorough appraisal, I presented my credentials to the guards at the gate, and an escort took me to the cute little fifty-room bungalow.
The place swarmed with servants. When you were the head of a gold-mining and petroleum company you could afford a lavish lifestyle.
Maya Wellington met me and showed me around the house. Tastefully but casually dressed, Maya was the ultimate corporate wife. Beautiful, charming, and witty. She immediately made me comfortable and gave me the impression of intelligence and competence.
After the quickie tour, she called her head of security, Aaron Fitzgerald, and he took me around the grounds. When we finished, I thanked him and said I’d be back the next morning to start evaluating things in depth.
I spent the next week checking out the systems, crawling along the walls, testing for vulnerabilities. I came out at night, blended into the shadows and watched the guards. When I finished my report, I asked for a meeting with Mrs. Wellington.
“I’m a little puzzled as to why you asked me to come out here,” I started. “Your equipment is state of the art and appears to be newly upgraded. Mr. Fitzgerald is very professional and his staff is well-trained and disciplined. I’ll run my findings past Mr. Bouchard in case I missed something, but I don’t think I have.”
She nodded, then took a deep breath. “That’s very good to know. What I’m really worried about is whether someone can get out.”
I mulled that over, then cautiously asked, “And who are you trying to keep in?” Slavery was banned under all international trade agreements, but some of the corporate execs considered themselves above societal norms.
“My children.”
I must have reacted in some noticeable way because she nodded. “Yes, I know how that sounds. My son Mark, primarily, but Susan also. They’re twins, you see. I’m afraid they’ve started experimenting with drugs. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a new drug called luvdaze that’s causing a lot of overdoses.”
“I’ve heard of it. One of the newscasts said it was popular among prep and university students.”
“Unfortunately, yes. One of our vice presidents lost his daughter last week. When we found out Mark was using it, we grounded him and upgraded the security. But he’s still getting out, and we don’t know how.”
I thought about it, then said, “Mrs. Wellington, you pay me to think outside normal boundaries. What I’m about to say isn’t meant to be offensive or judgmental.”
She cocked her head a bit to the side. “Go on.”
“Is it possible that Mark has a mutation? Even the best of families aren’t immune.”
“But, what kind of mutation could get him out through the security system?”
I took a deep breath. “Among other things, some people have shown the ability to disrupt electrical devices. Some psychic abilities might allow a person to walk out the front gate without being noticed. It wouldn’t have to be Mark, either. It could be Susan.”
Wellington stared off into space for well over a minute, then bent down and took off her shoes. I had noticed she had very big feet, but now I saw why. Her toes were very long with webbing between them. Like flippers.
“You’re correct, Miss Nelson. Even the best families aren’t immune. Susan and M
ark inherited my feet.” She chuckled. “We’re all excellent swimmers.” She put her shoes back on. “But if that’s the case, how do we figure out what it is, and more importantly, how to stop him? Susan has some common sense, but Mark has always seemed to think he’s invulnerable.”
“How old are they?”
“Seventeen.”
Yeah, kids that age were pretty stupid.
“Have you ever experimented with drugs?” Wellington asked me.
“No, I didn’t, but I knew kids who did. Both of my parents worked in corporate security, and they made it very clear what kinds of behavior they wouldn’t forgive.”
When Dad said he’d drop me off a cliff, I wasn’t inclined to test if he was serious. Even as a paraplegic, he was still the most intimidating man I’d ever met.
“Maybe we should have done a better job of that, but Simon has always indulged Mark.”
“Mrs. Wellington, I can try to catch him sneaking out, but the charges will be by the hour, and there’s no guarantee of success. Even if I do succeed, it may take a week or more.”
She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Obviously money isn’t a problem. What do you need from me?”
“Free run of your house and grounds. Passwords so I can get in and out. You know that I’m bonded up to ten million for any losses.”
She chuckled. “I went to school with your mother. I contacted her for this and she recommended Mr. Bouchard. I was rather surprised when he offered you for the job. I would have thought Lettie might have recommended you.”
“Mom’s specialty is cyber security. She defers to him for physical security. They both trained me, and I take referrals from both of them.”
“I’ll tell Fitzgerald to provide what you need.”
And just like that, I had the keys to one of the richest castles in Canada. Too bad I couldn’t do anything with them.
The first two nights I watched from outside the Wellington’s wall, I didn’t see anything. When I checked with Mrs. Wellington the following mornings, I discovered her children were home. The third night, I saw a car stop around the corner, turn out its lights and wait.
Chameleon Assassin (Chameleon Assassin Series Book 1) Page 2
