"You made a deal with him?" Sydney must have really hated Russia. And Abe's influence must have really been deep if he could affect a human organization. "What did you give him in return? Your soul?" Making a joke like that to someone as religious as her wasn't very appropriate. Of course, I think she thought Moroi and dhampirs ate souls, so maybe my comment wasn't too out there.
"That's the thing," she said. "It was kind of an 'I'll let you know when I need a favor in the future' arrangement."
"Sucker," I said.
"Hey," she snapped. "I don't have to be doing this. I'm actually doing you a favor by talking to you."
"Why are you talking to me exactly?" I wanted to question her more about her open-ended deal with the devil but figured that would get me disconnected.
She sighed and brushed some hair out of her face. "I need to ask you something. And I swear I won't tell on you... I just need to know the truth so that we don't waste our time on something."
"Okay..." Please don't ask me about Victor, I prayed.
"Have you broken into any place lately?"
Damn. I kept my face perfectly neutral. "What do you mean?"
"The Alchemists had some records stolen recently," she explained. She was all business-serious now. "And everyone's going crazy trying to figure out who did it--and why."
Mentally, I breathed a sigh of relief. Okay. It wasn't about Tarasov. Thank God there was one crime I wasn't guilty of. Then the full meaning of her words hit me. I glared.
"Wait. You guys get robbed, and I'm the one you suspect? I thought I was off your list of evil creatures?"
"No dhampir is off my list of evil creatures," she said. That half smile of hers had returned, but I couldn't tell if she was joking or not. It faded quickly, showing what a big deal this was for her. "And believe me, if anyone could break into our records, you could. It's not easy. Practically impossible."
"Um, thank you?" I wasn't sure if I should feel flattered or not.
"Of course," she continued scornfully, "they only stole paper records, which was stupid. Everything's backed up digitally nowadays, so I'm not sure why they'd go digging through dinosaur filing cabinets."
I could give her a lot of reasons why someone would do that, but finding out why I was her number-one suspect was more important. "That is stupid. So why do you think I'd do it?"
"Because of what was stolen. It was information about a Moroi named Eric Dragomir."
"I--what?"
"That's your friend, right? His daughter, I mean."
"Yeah..." I was almost speechless. Almost. "You have files on Moroi?"
"We have files on everything," she said proudly. "But when I tried to think who could commit a crime like this and would be interested in a Dragomir... well, your name popped into my head."
"I didn't do it. I do a lot of things, but not that. I didn't even know you had those kinds of records."
Sydney regarded me suspiciously.
"It's the truth!"
"Like I said before," she told me, "I won't turn you in. Seriously. I just want to know so that I can get people to stop wasting time on certain leads." Her smugness sobered. "And, well, if you did do it... I need to keep the attention off you. I promised Abe."
"Whatever it takes for you to believe me, I didn't do it! But now I want to know who did. What did they steal? Everything on him?"
She bit her lip. Owing Abe a favor might mean she'd go behind her own people's backs, but she apparently had limits on how much she'd betray.
"Come on! If you've got digital backup, you have to know what was taken. This is Lissa we're talking about." An idea came to me. "Could you send me copies?"
"No," she said swiftly. "Absolutely not."
"Then please... just a hint of what they were about! Lissa's my best friend. I can't let anything happen to her."