How many people have I killed? How many hostages have I delivered? How many impossible tasks has he sent me on, and I've still completed them? I may not be my father, but I have never needed the damn backup doctors, either.
I'm insulted.
He wasn't praising me in the summoning chamber when I returned from blowing up the lab. He was mourning that his genie is the weakest link.
Fuck him.
“Six months after I started work at the mansion, a group of men visited my home.” Patricia goes back to her nails. “They told me about the genie and offered a substantial amount of money in return for a couple of vials.”
My head lolls back on the couch, and I groan. “Okay, I know that one won't work. There needs to be a master bond.”
“They were doctors, scientists, researchers. They had heard about the vault, somehow. They were curious.” Patricia stares at me. “They wanted to see what … ”
“I am,” I say for her, because I know exactly what she's talking about now. Patricia and I might as well be married. “They want to know what I am.”
She nods. “Normally, I wouldn't violate a job like that, but I had seen so many terrible things at the mansion. If I turned Karl in, he would come after me. I thought if I snuck out the DNA, something good might come of my horrible contract there. So, one night after fixing up a particularly … unhealthy … hostage, I grabbed three vials from the vault and stuffed them in my pocket. I dropped one, so I cleaned it up and disposed of it.
“Karl caught me on the way out.” She sighs, sounding exhausted. “We fought, but he managed to pry the vials from me. Of course, he didn't know I had broken one, and I didn't tell him. He thought it was already out of the mansion.”
I stare at her, but she continues to avoid me. “I still don't get why I wasn't sent to kill you.”
“He has no idea where that vial is. What research has been done. What reports have been written.” She shakes her head. “I think he fears if we start turning up dead, someone will blow it all open. So he's looking to discredit us instead. I mean, how hard would it be to make researchers claiming the jinn are alive today look off their rocker?”
“Did they find anything?” I turn my attention to my cup of water, still clutched in my hand and resting on my knee. For some reason, I can't look up as I ask, “Is the genie DNA different?”
“There are no reports. No tests. They never got a hold of the DNA. I broke one vial by accident before Karl discovered what I was doing, and then he confiscated the other two. He kicked me out of the mansion. I was terrified for the next months, trying to figure out what to do.” She inhales a deep breath. “Then ER patients began accusing me of malpractice, one case after another, and my hospital did nothing to defend me. The records had clearly been altered.
“It didn't take long for me to realize someone was screwing with me. Eventually I had to face the board, but what was I supposed to say? That a millionaire in the desert is framing me because he doesn't want anyone to know he has a jinn? They wound up revoking my license, and I ran here to Virginia. Looks like he finally paid up his end of the deal with them.”
“He goes to great lengths to protect the incompetent pet,” I say.
I'm just bitter now.
“I don't see the point.” Silvia flutters her eyes. “Why do they care what his DNA looks like?”
I frown, mulling over the situation.
“It's not so much about why they care, but who?” I look up at Patricia again. “Who was bribing you to steal from the vault?”
Patricia tilts her head, studying me at length. I get it. I look human. And an apparently un-intimidating one at that.
“I'd never heard of him before. His name is Phil Ballantyne.”
I jerk forward, nearly spilling the glass of water. “Speech conference Phil?”
Patrica scowls. Then she looks like someone pulled a plug and all her color is swirling down the drain. She must have figured out Phil and I had our rendezvous.
“Yeah, I don't think Karl is as scared as you think he is,” I say.
“Did you kill him?” Silvia sounds a little too excited by the prospect. “Which assignment was that?”
I hold up my hand. “It doesn't matter, Silv.”
The room grows silent. We all just stare at each other.
Finally, I set the glass of water on the end table and pull to my feet. “I think we should get going.”
Silvia is at my side in an instant.
Patricia stares up at me, awe and fear vying for her expression.
“Good luck.” I try to smile.
She nods, but we both know that when Karl sends me for her, I will snap her neck.
Chapter 8
Silvia lights a cigarette, takes a puff, then taps ashes out the car window. “I don't understand something.”
I focus on the road ahead. “Why your dad couldn't afford a lock for the vault?”
“Hmm. No.” She takes another puff. “I don't understand why we're going to Greensboro. I checked the map. It's south, and we should be going west.”
“Congrats on learning how to use your phone. We're flying back to Phoenix.”