“Because I’m not a dog?” she said loudly. “If I find one again, I’m done. I’ve managed this long without a proper anchor.” Playing the wounded drafter, she put a hand to her mouth and stared at nothing. “Maybe I don’t need one,” she muttered.
She froze when Bill leaned forward and took her hand. Her pulse hammered, but she stayed carefully passive as he turned her hand palm up and rolled her fingers back. Her scrawl to return to Allen’s apartment hid Silas’s number. “Mmmm,” he questioned.
“I wanted to be sure I got home,” she said, sniffing as if embarrassed. “Working without an anchor isn’t an option.”
Her head tilted, and she didn’t need to fake her anger. “Then give me an anchor who knows his job!” she shouted, hoping Allen heard her. Bill arched his eyebrows. He was seemingly convinced, but about what she wasn’t sure. “I’ll talk to him.”
Exhaling, she tried to appear confident. “And no more butt bugs.”
“No more butt bugs,” he echoed, and her lips parted at his quick compliance.
“Really?”
Nodding at her disbelief, he reached behind his jacket to the inner pocket. “The alliance knows to look for them now,” he said as he extended a small baggie holding a capsule. “Welcome to the latest and greatest.”
Peri looked without reaching. “You want me to drop my pants and bend over?”
“I want you to swallow it,” he said stiffly. “It’s a low-dose radiation marker. It won’t harm you, but it will stay in your system for a year. We will know where you are and where you’ve been. Even those you’ve been in contact with, to a limited degree. It’s experimental, and only a team’s handler knows the signature.” He smiled. “You’re a ghost, Peri, the first Opti agent to get this. My best deserves the best.”
Radiation marker? Mistrusting it, she hesitated as Bill encouraged her to take it. It could be anything: drugs to knock her out, poison to kill her. She could wake up in Allen’s bed tomorrow having forgotten everything and she’d never know.
“You just happened to have one in your pocket?” she questioned.
He shrugged, not a wisp of guilt. “After your little walkabout this morning, I deemed it was time to take it out of research. You really cut that tracker out yourself?” he asked, laughing, and she hunched in embarrassment.
“It’s not funny,” she said, and after a last chuckle, his mirth ended.
“Take it.”
His tone was flat, demanding. She hesitated, not sure how much he knew or suspected. But realizing it was going to end up in her one way or another, Peri slipped the capsule into her mouth and swallowed.
Immediately Bill’s mood lightened. Smiling, he got to his feet, hand extended to help her rise. Her slim fingers looked tiny as they fitted into his, reminding her of him in the gym breaking boards and bringing down men. My God, his hands are huge.
“You’re my best drafter, kiddo,” Bill said, and she jumped when his arm landed heavily across her shoulders and turned her to the door. “That comes with responsibility. We’re not letting you out of our theoretical sight for even an instant.”
Great, she thought, stomach rolling. If she threw up, would he make her take another? “So do I get a new anchor?”
“No,” he said, and she drew him to a halt before they could leave. “I’ll talk to Allen,” he said in a fatherly tone. “Tell him to step it up. You worked well together before. I know you will again. He needs to find closure, too. He trusts you. Let go and trust him.”
Like that was going to happen. “Bill …,” she warned, and he put his hands in the air as if in surrender.
“Okay, okay,” he finally relented. “I’ll talk to Sandy and see what we can do. I’ve got someone in mind, so don’t mention this to Allen—just in case we can swing it. Deal?”
Eyeing him, she backed up from the door. “Deal,” she echoed him as her heart pounded in her ears.
“I’m proud of you,” he said softly as he opened the door. “You’ve come a long way.”
As in a long way in becoming his tool. “I only want to be my best.”
“You are already that,” Bill said as he ushered her into the living room.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
Silas’s friend’s seats at Comerica Park were in the sun, and whereas it was usually too hot, today Silas felt good, the early-spring air still holding the morning’s chill. Two hot dogs and bottled waters sat waiting beside him. He’d asked Peri to meet him here, and the thrum of anticipation running through his background thoughts ebbed and flowed with the noise of the crowd as the Tigers tried to bring the inning to a close.