Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [34]
Assuming he’d figured it out by the time he woke up, that gave her a full day’s head start on his mad-on. If he only twigged midday, she was in for a meltdown.
“Was your trip today not a success?” he asked.
She did an instant Sergei-translation in her head: Are you okay? He was tired, pissed…but not angry. Not anymore. All to the good. Sergei angry was impressive unless it was you he was angry at.
“Wiped our most promising suspect right off the chart.” Wren-translation: I’m fine, the day was a bust.
“Well, that’s a success of sorts, I suppose,” he said. There was a pause while they both processed the information, then he circled right back to the question at hand. “Why do you believe you might be losing your touch?”
Wren hated having to admit to a screw-up. But better to get it done, and move on. He wouldn’t let up until he got it out of her, anyway.
“I let possibilities distract me from the probabilities,” she admitted. “I took the most likely suspects instead of the most logical ones.”
“Which were…?”
“That you were right. Nearest and dearest having the motive with the mostest.”
Sergei shook his head sadly, letting Wren know that her theory was about to get shot down in multicolored flames. He put the mug down on the counter next to her and shrugged out of his coat. Wren caught the collar, holding it for him as he slid his long arms from the sleeves. It was buttery soft, sleek enough to sleep under, which Wren had done on a few notable occasions. Much nicer than her own battered and scarred bomber jacket, but hers could stand up to abuse and shake it off, while his, she suspected, would go into a pout if there was so much as a scratch inflicted on it.
He took the coat back, going back out into the hallway to hang it up in her tiny closet. “At the level of employ where they would presumably know about the protection spell, they’re all fiercely loyal to their boss—almost illogically so.”
Sound traveled well, and she could hear him clearly as he came back into the kitchen.
“Certainly enough that he hasn’t lost anyone to a competitor in fifteen years. Even our Mr. Margolin checks out. He was approached three months ago by InterLox, a rival corporation, offered twice his current salary to come over. He refused. They rise up through the ranks, and they stay within the ranks, disgruntled or no.”
He paused, tilting his head in thought. “I wonder…”
Wren sighed, all too aware of the way his brain worked in matters like this. “It’s none of our business. Nobody’s paying us to snoop interoffice politics.”
He grinned. “Yet. Never turn down the chance for some potentially lucrative blackmail material, Zhenechka.”
But Wren wasn’t appeased by the Russian diminutive of her name. His occasional pirate tendencies made her wonder how horribly overpriced the art he sold actually was. Then a thought occurred to her, and a pained expression settled on her face, creasing the skin between her eyebrows. “So if your boys are above suspicion, and mine aren’t panning out…we’re out of home-grown information. And you know what that means, don’t you?”
Sergei’s look was a sympathetic one. “We have to go to the Council.”
“Not we.” Wren shook her head decidedly. “You.”
six
It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. That’s what Wren told herself, anyway. Normally she tossed the postcards that arrived like clockwork and proved that whatever mailing address one gallery knew about every other one did, too. She was