He put the strip back in the envelope and placed it inside his jacket. Sam was frowning at the com-unit.
"What's wrong?"
"The unit won't read the disks."
He pushed the edge of the unit around until he could see the screen. Disk error, it stated. "You put them in the right way?"
Her look was pure irritation. "Nah, I put them in upside down for the hell of it."
"Then maybe they've been coded."
"Why would Jack bother coding data disks?"
He shrugged and leaned back. "Maybe for the same reason he hid them."
She shook her head. "It doesn't make any sense. Jack's a computer whiz. If he wanted to hide something, he could do it far easier than messing around with these things." She nudged a disk with her fingertip. "For a start, they're too easily damaged."
Maybe the information was too explosive to be held on any com-unit. No computer was safe — not from the government, not from any number of hackers. If Jack were a hacker himself, he'd be well aware of that fact.
"The SIU system might be able to decode them." And it had the added advantage of having trackers installed, so if someone did get interested, they'd get some warning. Not that that had stopped information leaks in the past, but right now, they had little other choice. "We should also go take a closer look at Jack's clone."
She nodded. "And talk to the two men who were trying to nab him."
"That too." Though he personally didn't hold much hope of getting any information out of them. As thralls — humans who were shackled to the life of their vampire masters, but not actually vampires themselves — they would die before they betrayed their masters. They had no other choice.
"When do I get to meet your friends?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Does that mean we have an agreement?"
Her hesitation was briefer this time. "Yes." She held out her hand.
Her fingers were long and slender and seemed to get lost within his. "Then you meet my friends tonight."
"And afterwards, you'll help me find out what Jack's up to?"
"And stop him."
Her gaze dropped to the table. "And stop him," she agreed softly.
Why was she so loyal to the bastard? And why did she cling to the notion that talking to Kazdan would solve anything? There was only one person in the world that Kazdan looked out for — himself. If she held any notion that the two of them were really friends, she was deluding herself.
"Let's go," he said, rising.
She nodded, gathering the disks and shoving them back in her pocket. He followed her out the door, wondering what she'd do when the time came to kill Kazdan.
Chapter Eight
The feeling hit the minute Sam left the elevator and walked into the lobby. A wash of heat, followed by the certainty that there was a shifter nearby, which was a given, considering these were the halls of the SIU. Except for one thing. This shifter felt bad. Like Suzy had felt bad. Like the thing that had attacked her on the rooftop had felt bad. She stopped and stared down the hallway to her right. It was in the labs.
"You okay?"
Gabriel's soft question made her jump. She stared up at him for a moment, then swallowed and nodded. "This is going to sound odd, but there's a shifter down in the labs."
"Could be anyone. There are over twenty shifters currently working for the SIU, you know." Even so, he stared down the hall, hazel eyes filled with concern.
"I know, but this feels ... wrong." So wrong it was beginning to leave a very bad taste in the back of her mouth.
His frown deepened. "Let's go take a look."