That seemed to be the story of this whole damn quest. I sighed and continued watching the images scroll across the screen as the time in the left-hand corner of the screen counted down toward the explosion at the storage place. At the twenty-minutes-before mark, my double strolled into view.
"Well," Stane said. "You were right."
Yes. And it was somewhat disturbing to look at the woman on the screen, knowing the face and body were the image of mine but someone else was inside the shell. Hell, she was even dressed like I was most of the time these days, in blue jeans and a tank top. My gaze skimmed down to her feet.
"Holy shit, the shoes."
I leaned forward so abruptly that coffee splashed over the rim of my mug and splattered onto my legs. I swore and jumped up, spilling yet more coffee. Azriel plucked the mug from my hand – thereby preventing more damage to either me or Stane's floor – while I quickly pulled the soaked dress away from my skin to prevent further burning.
"You okay?" Stane asked. "Do you want a cloth or something?"
"I'm fine," I said, flapping the dress a little to cool it down. "Just freeze the screen and enlarge her feet."
He did so. "I don't see anything special about the shoes, aside from the fact they're kinda ugly."
"What's special about them," I said, "is the fact I not only saw those same shoes on Genevieve Sands when we were talking to her outside the storage place earlier in the day, but in one of the boxes those shifters were moving out of Lauren Macintyre's wardrobe."
"Thereby confirming she is indeed our face shifter," Azriel murmured.
"I wouldn't call a pair of shoes a defining piece of evidence," Stane said. "It's not like a thousand other women couldn't have had the same bad taste."
"Agreed, but I just can't buy the coincidence factor in this particular case."
"But you'd think someone canny enough to be involved in the planning of this gate-creation and key-stealing venture would be smart enough to remember to change a pair of shoes when she was changing identity."
"Not if the decision to impersonate Risa and blow up the storage unit was a decision made in haste after we'd confronted her outside that building," Azriel commented.
"I still wouldn't bank my fortune on the evidence of one pair of shoes," Stane said.