the truth is that Kori’s always been a little scary. I think that’s why he liked her.” Until suddenly he didn’t like her.
“She really worked for him?”
“Yup.” I knew better than to give her any new information, but I could verify what Kori had already said. “And she hated every minute of it.”
“She seemed legitimately surprised to see me.”
I sat on the edge of my grandmother’s desk, trying to look casual, as if I weren’t dying to interrogate her, to figure out how and why she fit into my notebook. And by extension, into my life. “As opposed to what?” Then I understood. “You still think I planned this.”
She shrugged and glanced at the nails I’d driven into the window frame. “You sealed all the exits. It’s kind of hard to believe you didn’t go to the Tower estate intending to take a prisoner.”
“Okay, I know that looks bad, but the doors and windows have been nailed shut for weeks,” I insisted, shoving my hands in my pockets. “I did that to keep everyone else out, not to keep you in.”
She looked like she wanted to believe me, but...
“If you can’t take my word for it, ask Kori when she gets back.” Or any of the others. I’d tell her to ask Gran, but I could never be sure what decade Gran was currently living in.
“If that’s the truth, why do you have such easy access to restraints?” She bent to pick up the severed zip tie.
“Those are for my job.”
“Are you a cop?” She studied me closer, as if that thought made her rethink her original assessment.
I actually laughed. “No. I...um...retrieve things.” That was half the truth. I couldn’t trust her with the other half. Not yet. Although if Gran kept slipping into the past, Sera would figure it out for herself.
“Things?” Sera may have been young, but she was a born skeptic. Not that I’d given her any reason to trust me.
“People, usually,” I admitted, and she opened her mouth to start shouting something that probably included a lot of I-told-you-so’s, so I spoke before she could interrupt. “I know how that sounds, but it’s legit.” Mostly. “I work part-time for a bail bondsman, doing the jobs his unSkilled employees can’t handle.”
Olivia had hooked me up with Adam Rawlinson, the man she’d worked for before Ruben Cavazos—the Towers’ biggest rival for control of the city—had snared her exclusive services via extortion and blood binding. Rawlinson served neither syndicate, and his clientele was mostly those who also wanted to avoid syndicate tangles. And could afford to pay.
“Bail bondsman?” Sera seemed to think about that. “So, you find runaway criminals?”
“No. His Trackers find them. I go get them and turn them in. Thus the zip ties.” I glanced at the one she still held. “But I also do odd jobs for private collectors.” Very odd jobs. For very private collectors.
Her gaze narrowed. “What kind of collectors?”
“Not people collectors, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Not anymore. Not since Micah, and the realization of just what I’d been aiding and abetting. “Just stuff the rich are willing to pay for, but can’t get their hands on through other means.”
“And that’s legal?”
I shrugged. “Not always. But it pays, and it doesn’t hurt anyone, and someone has to keep the lights on and the water flowing around here.”
“What, no one else here works?”
“Everyone here works. But most of that work goes toward accomplishing our higher purpose, rather than actually paying the bills.”
Ian helped me out when he could—the man could make darkness appear in broad daylight—and Kori had taken a couple of Rawlinson’s jobs, but they were both more useful to Kenley’s efforts than I was, so it was my mostly steady, mostly legit income that paid to rent and heat our hideout house while we slowly chipped away at the foundation of Julia Tower’s inherited power.
Sera looked as though she wanted to say something, and as if whatever she wanted to say might not be an insult to my moral fiber; but before she could do more than open her mouth, Ian called out from the hall as the floorboard in front of the empty closet creaked.
“Kori?”
“She went to get Anne,” I said, and a moment later Vanessa appeared in the bedroom doorway, with Ian at her back.
“Kenley?” Van’s forehead was lined in worry. She hardly even glanced at Sera.
“We haven’t found her yet,” I said, and I could see from Van’s wince that she hated hearing the words as badly as I