He pressed his hand against the table. The sensual grain of wood made him think of the dancer’s hair. That sexy fanning flare it did as she dipped and spun.
Play out your pathetic fantasy right here on the conference room table if you want. Simone’s words unleashed vividly erotic images. Lust shocked his unstable AVP into action again. Enough. He’d never analog dived to stall a sexual fantasy before, but there was a first time for everything.
When he had himself more or less together, he stepped out of the conference room and into an unnatural silence. Everyone in the place who had an office with a door that closed was behind it. The ones assigned to cubicles hunkered down and made themselves small while he stalked through the place.
Hannah stood in the corridor by his office door, obviously worried.
“Noah?” she asked.
He shook his head and went into his office. Tossed Simone’s ring on his desk. He looked out the floor to ceiling glass window at Mount Rainier, towering in the distance. Barely visible in the fading light of the afternoon.
His office door opened silently. He turned to find Hannah gazing at the ring on his desk. “If a four minute belly dance could break your engagement, then it really needed to be broken,” she said flatly.
“Thanks for the advice. Like you know what you’re talking about. Your last relationship was over in less than a week.”
“So?”
He ignored her mulish look. “So what the fuck did you think you were doing? Was this your idea of a joke?”
“Oh. Well, actually, no,” Hannah admitted. “We had a very good reason for calling her. The belly dancer was one of Mark Olund’s mistresses. Maybe.”
Noah stood there, speechless. He couldn’t process that info. The warm, vivid woman he’d just seen. The ice cold killer Mark Olund, formerly of his rebel Midlander group. Those two didn’t go together in the same breath. Or even the same thought.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he demanded.
Hannah sighed. “Remember a couple years ago when you told Zade to keep track of all the women Mark hooked up with?”
“Of course I remember,” he snapped.
“Well, Zade did. He has bots tracking them, using facial recog,” Hannah said. “And the belly dancer was one of them. Zade called me this morning and told me one of Mark’s girlfriends was cruising around Seattle within a mile of Angel Enterprises. So we decided to check her out more closely.” Hannah shrugged. “I suppose we should have told you. But we thought it would be more interesting this way.”
Mark had once been one of them, years ago. He’d undergone the same Midlands brain stim program as Noah. He and Noah were the only two of the Eyes Guys to survive the rebellion.
They had parted ways years ago, when Mark chose another path. A darker one.
“I can think of a lot of reasons why not,” Noah said. “And not one good reason to keep me in the dark about it.”
“I wanted you to look at her, preferably with AVP,” Hannah said. “But she ran away too fast. Skittish. Not that I blame her, if she’s had anything to do with Mark. Did you catch up with her outside?”
“No. She was already leaving.” He shot Sisko an accusing look.
Sisko threw up his hands. “No clue,” he said hastily. “Not my idea.”
“This girl showed up on the surveillance vidcam that Zade planted on Bea McDougal’s sandwich truck,” Hannah told him. “Zade tailed her. Saw her do a belly dancing gig last night. We thought, great. Your birthday was all the excuse we needed.”
“Without clearing it with me.”
“Clearing it my ass.” Hannah’s voice was defiant. “We knew exactly what you would say. Grit your teeth. Wait and see. Be patient. Fuck that, Noah. We need leads to find Luke. If Mark sent her to spy on us then she already knows who we are. And you’d know a lot about her right away if you just AVP scanned her.”
“You know that I can’t take off my shield specs in front of outsiders.”
“Outsiders?” Hannah snorted. “Oh, you mean, like, the woman you were about to marry? That outsider? The one who can never be allowed to see your real irises?”
“Hannah,” Noah warned. “Don’t push me.”
“We have to start somewhere. You could’ve organized to see her—”
“In front of my fiancée. Yeah, I can see it. Hey, girl, loved your sexy dance. What do you say we meet for coffee after you put your clothes back on, just us two? Sounds like a genius move, Hannah.”
“I was trying to speed things up,” Hannah said, annoyed.
“Don’t,” he said. “It was stupid. And it puts us all in danger.”
“You think everything puts us in danger. You have to relax.”
“Really?” He laughed harshly. “After a stunt like this?”
“Well, it got weird really fast, when you tore out of the room,” Hannah admitted. “And why on earth did you kill the Batello deal? Without even giving us a heads-up?”
Noah pulled Asa’s message up on his display, and handed the phone to Hannah.