Bump … bump, bump, bump, and a smooth patch of knits pulled from the scarf, and then bump … bump, bump, bump again, the knots thumping like dots and dashes.
Shit. Peri froze, recognizing the Morse code end symbol knitted into her scarf. Panicking, she looked at the yarn spilled on her lap like the wasted message it was. She’d knitted herself a message in Morse code in case she drafted, like writing a message on her palm. And like an idiot, she hadn’t recognized it. She’d never done that before. At least, not that she remembered.
This is wrong. Pulse fast, she looked up. Impatient businessmen and parents wrangling toddlers fought for the chance to preboard. The two security stooges across from her were oblivious, one stretching as he looked for Allen, clearly anxious now that the area was getting busy. Suddenly, she didn’t want to get on that plane.
Her mouth went dry, but her fingers moved smoothly as she carefully put the needles back on what was left. Three lines. Three out of nine.
Exhaling, she ran her fingers across the first row of knits and purls, feeling the sporadic purls as dots and dashes.
HARRY LENORD
Harry? She knew him. He worked out of the Seattle office.
GINA TRECHER
Shit, that was Harry’s drafter. It was a list, and most of it was gone.
BILL IS CORRUPT.
Peri’s breath caught, and it was as if the world turned sideways. Bill is corrupt? My God, her world was falling apart, and if she couldn’t trust Bill, she couldn’t trust anyone.
Slowly Peri pulled the last three lines of the message out and into oblivion. Fingers winding it back on the ball, she sent her eyes over the terminal as options flashed through her. Were they people to contact? Avoid? One thing was sure: she wasn’t getting on the plane.
Giving her security detail a bland smile, she stuffed the needles and yarn into her carry-on and took out her phone. Her first delight at the new glass technology had waned somewhere between trying to find her address book and the look the saleswoman had given her when Allen had shown her how to use the purchase app. She thought it ridiculous that she could change her car’s color but didn’t know how to access her voicemail.
Muscle memory would eventually triumph, though, and she scrolled through the dialed numbers to see whom she’d been talking to. Her brow furrowed when she realized her mother’s number wasn’t on it. Allen had said she’d called her Friday. Her frown deepened at an odd exchange, and wondering if her mother had moved, she hit callback, flicking her short hair out of the way as she looked up at her and Allen’s security. They weren’t here to keep her safe. They were here to keep her from running.
“Top of Charlotte,” a pleasant but recorded voice came through Peri’s phone, and her focus blurred. Silas mentioned Charlotte. “Hours are four thirty p.m. to ten a.m., seven days a week. To make a reservation, please leave a callback number.”
Pulse quickening, Peri hung up before the beep. Silas had said she’d been on a task. Her black eye put it about two days ago—Jack’s and her last mission. She wanted to retrace her steps without Opti—without Allen. If Opti didn’t know she’d guessed the location of her last task, they wouldn’t look for her there right away. Maybe.
Peri exhaled, casual as she shoved her phone in a pants pocket, not her purse. She was ditching the bag, but the phone she’d keep a while longer. Her wallet was already in her back pocket. She’d miss her purse, but walking off with it would raise red flags.
Eyes scanning the terminal, she quickly marked three women. All were her size, traveling alone, and at different gates. And thanks to the airline cramming too many flights into too little space, they’d all be boarding within thirty minutes of each other.
She wasn’t getting on that plane. Allen wasn’t her anchor. Her anchor was dead. A snarky alliance operative named Silas had more answers than she did. Charlotte might tell her something, but first she had to get them looking everywhere but where she was going.
An announcement came over the speaker that her flight would preboard in twenty minutes. Peri looked at her clean palm, fingers curling over it. She’d left her necklace pen at Allen’s, at his insistence. The trip was supposed to be downtime, not a task, he’d said. I’m a trusting idiot.
The security guard chatting across from her brought her head up, and she smiled at Allen as he wove through the scattered luggage, two cups of blessed caffeine in his hands. Allen had been a perfect gentleman last night, sleeping on his couch and making her breakfast when she got up late. He might not be her anchor, but he’d been someone’s—he had the pampering down.