Unawakened (11 page)

If I could infiltrate the police, he wouldn’t need to replace Lily—or keep many of his other hounds.

I swallowed back a lump in my throat and wondered if Kenneth had already eliminated the others as he had tried to eliminate me.

“He could clear out his operations. Get rid of most of his hounds. Find blackmail material on those in the force and get officers under his thumb. If he had someone in the police force, he’d need far fewer people working for him. It would let him hide and consolidate his operations. The databases alone would make it well worth his while.”

The hardest part of sharing my thoughts with Rob was confessing my fears of what would happen if the police found out what I was doing. He listened without speaking a word, though his eyes narrowed as I detailed the possibilities if I was arrested for conspiring with a drug dealer.

“How does this benefit us?” he demanded.

“The databases include pictures and information on everyone. I could find out the identities of those women and find out what connected them to Dean Lewis. He’s high enough in rank the police won’t touch him unless the case against him is significant. Without proof, motivation, and evidence, he gets away with murder.”

“We could just kill them both and be done with the problem.”

Killing both of the elite appealed to me for different reasons, but I shook my head. “He’s too high of a rank, and there’s no such thing as a perfect murder.”

No one would really care about the fact I had killed Lily; her caste wasn’t high enough to warrant much effort solving the mystery of her death. Even if someone accused me of her murder, the firearm license and a claim she had been carrying an illegal weapon would protect me.

Dean Lewis’s death would result in a frenzy, and someone would take the fall for his death; not even Rob’s status as an elite would save him from the twisted justice system.

I couldn’t let him be ruined, not like that.

It took me two hours to set up Rob’s laptop, and without the time or materials to disguise the origin of his power cable, I hid it under my couch to deal with later. His battery still held a twelve-hour charge, which I considered to be a technological miracle.

Mine had held a two-hour charge and had gone into its final death throes within a week of acquiring it.

Both of my dae companions fell into an exhausted slumber long before I finished installing the software and making certain the system worked. When I was finished, the only way anyone would know it was illegal would be if they located the charging cable before I had a chance to disguise its plug.

Satisfied with my efforts, I turned my attention to work I should have done weeks ago. With only a few hours before the meeting with Kenneth, I stayed awake, working through the backlog of school work I hadn’t finished.

If college did reopen, I would be ready.

The ease of the work still disappointed me, although I had gotten a taste of its simplicity before the Dawn of Dae. Mindful of the fact mediocrity and boredom would be my most dangerous enemies, I took my time with the assignments I had missed during my recovery. My worries over what would happen with the education system remained, but until I knew for certain what would happen, all I could do was wait.

“You don’t have an off button, do you?” Rob asked, perching on the arm of the couch.

I looked up from my tablet and stuck my tongue out at him. “I’ve pushed off schoolwork long enough.”

“It’s boring you out of your mind, isn’t it?” Rob slid onto the cushion beside me until he pressed against my side, peeking at my tablet’s screen. “You really use your tablet for your school work?”

“When I can; I do type things up on my laptop to help me remember, but on assignments like this, it’s just easier to work on the tablet. I’ve been using the college’s laptop as much as possible, though.”

“Makes sense. They haven’t asked for their laptop back?”

I shook my head. “The dean told me to keep it for the duration of my work with him. It’s loaded with every bit of government-issued spyware out there, which works in my favor; if he’s looking into my activities, all he’s going to see is a student doing her work and little else. That said, I did browse the police recruitment pages on it.”

“On purpose?”

I shrugged, saving my work to finish later. “If Kenneth wants me poking around, and I
do
end up trying to get recruited by the police, I need a paper trail. The pay’s good, and I can probably arrange it around my classes and work with the dean.
If
the dean is having my records pulled, and he’s trying to go around the system, he’ll likely want to use me in the same way Kenneth wants to use me. As a Bach student, I’ll have no choice in the matter, although I’ll pretend I’m nervous about what I’m doing, which the dean will expect. Who knows? If I play my cards right, he’ll enroll me for my Master’s.”

“That would work exceptionally well for you. He could also try to have you eliminated like those other women.”

The thought had crossed my mind, although I hadn’t dwelled on it for too long. “Possible, but unlikely. None of those women were one of Kenneth’s known associates—at least not ones
I
knew about, and I know most of the women Kenneth has working for him. The dean knows Kenneth has an interest in me, so it likely goes against his interests to have me removed from the situation. I think the two have been either working together or competing for a while. The dean seemed familiar with Kenneth’s interference when I saw him at the college.”

“Kenneth was ready and willing to get rid of you.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” I grumbled.

“Why are you so willing to go along with this idea about working with the police, then? He could ruin you just by telling them you work with criminals. He could set you up without risking himself.” Rob sighed and propped his feet up on the coffee table. “I don’t like it.”

“That’s true, but the risk is worth the potential gain, and the only way I’m going to get a positive identification on those victims is through the police. I might be able to ruin them both in one fell swoop. It’s worth it.”

“You better be right,” Rob growled through clenched teeth.

One way or another, I would be. Kenneth wasn’t the only one willing to stab people in the back, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to remain a victim of the system. It was one thing for Kenneth to eliminate a fringe rat with some education, but if they accepted me into the police, I’d enjoy certain protections. Maybe my drug lord boss would still target me, but at least he’d think twice about it first.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough for now.

Before I met Rob, I hadn’t owned a purse. My new collection of four amused me, and I picked the largest one. The only fashionable thing about it was the material; leather appealed to everyone, and it was black and shiny, which the dae assured me wouldn’t offend the delicate sensibilities of most elite.

I liked it because Colby fit inside and the straps didn’t kill my shoulder when I carried my roommate around. To make my bag look as normal as possible, I had purchased Colby a velvet bag for it to hide in, and my roommate squeezed inside without complaint.

“Does this work?” I demanded, turning in a slow circle so Rob could judge the clothes I had selected for the meeting.

I had no idea how much the jeans and black blouse had cost, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know. If I had let Rob help me pick my outfit, I’d end up wearing the only dress I owned.

It was blue and covered in tiny sparkling jewels. Rob’s reaction to the gown had been positive enough I hadn’t stripped off the stones and gotten rid of it after the evening out I had acquired it for. The dress had disappeared for a few days, and when Rob had brought it back, someone had altered it, adding silvery straps to the back. The reasons for the alterations were beyond my comprehension, but it didn’t matter much to me.

“It’ll work. Do you have a necklace?”

I did, but it matched the dress, and I hesitated to wear it. Like my dress, it had fallen prey to dae, who turned the cheap bauble into a work of art worth more than I was. “It goes with the dress,” I mumbled.

“Perfect. Grab it.”

I sighed, slipped into the bedroom, and grabbed the necklace. Like the dress, it was blue, white, and silver. The central stone nestled at the base of my throat while a fortune’s worth of small clear stones hugged my neck. “Isn’t this excessive?”

“It’s a statement. Smith needs to realize you are no longer from the fringe. You’re dressing the part. First, you work for me. Maybe that won’t elevate your rank officially, but given a year, it will. Your education shows you deserve it.”

“How the hell am I supposed to survive so many jobs?” I complained while checking over my gun and slipping into my shoulder holster. With my leather coat, no one would be able to tell I was armed unless I purposefully showed them the weapon.

“We’ll figure something out. The dean and I have an amicable enough relationship, and he knows I am interested in you. A little bribe money here and there and a few arrangements that benefit him, and I’ll have more of a foothold than Smith. Dean Lewis has exotic tastes, and I have exotic connections.”

“If you say so.” Although Rob had let me do some work for him, I had only done invoicing and product management—easy but important tasks.

It still amazed me how much Rob did for someone who hadn’t been to Earth—or Baltimore—very much. His network exceeded Kenneth’s by a notable margin, who kept his operations limited to our home city.

Rob’s empire stretched across the entire world, and I had no idea how he managed it. I had seen invoices for shipments scheduled to go to China, Russia, and even small countries in Africa. If the dean wanted something exotic, Rob could likely provide it through legal channels.

Some of the paperwork I had dealt with included tariff documentation to legalize the transference of goods, goods I had only heard about in hushed whispers of envious elite.

“One day you’ll explain just how you established such a massive operation, Rob,” I muttered.

“Magic,” Rob replied, winking at me.

I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.

Chapter Eight

Instead of going to Kenneth’s townhouse near the Inner Harbor, Rob took me to a condo in the downtown core not far from the Ivory Tower. A crystal chandelier dangling overhead lit the large central room, and prisms of color gleamed on the polished dark marble floor.

Tall tables and stools offered places to sit, and a bar stretched along the wall to wall window overlooking the city. A large piano in the corner drew my attention and held it. Unlike the rest of the room, which favored dark colors, the piano was white with golden inlays.

Instead of sitting at one of the many stools, Rob straddled the piano bench, grinning at me. “Like it?”

“This is yours?” I turned in a slow circle, wondering why anyone would keep such a space.

“It is. It makes a good place for social functions and private meetings. The walls are soundproofed. Unlike the Ivory Tower, no one gets in and out without direct owner approval. This is my place, and since you were with me, you weren’t questioned. The security here is far better than at most locations. Your ruse wouldn’t have worked here.”