Tempest - Kris Michaels Page 0,77

put it on the market immediately. The humidity and heat were ever present, save a handful of days in the middle of winter where one could breathe without feeling as if they were drowning in water. Pilar's things would be removed tomorrow. Her assistant had seen to it.

She mounted the stairway en route to her office. Two was due to call in a few hours. They needed to nominate candidates and start the scrub to appoint another to the council. A shame, the former Three was just becoming tolerable. Regina shook her head in disdain. The fat bitch had choked to death on a chocolate, of all things. A horribly apropos reckoning.

She moved into her office and glanced at the report on her screen. The ship the tracking device was found on wasn't the ship Pilar had chartered. The surveillance and photos taken of the blonde woman on the boat had been of a sixty-year-old banker's new trophy wife, which meant they had no intelligence as to where Pilar had been during her absence. The only conclusion which could be drawn was her daughter had help in removing and transplanting the tracking device. The oaf of a butler had been relieved of his duties––permanently, as had the previous chauffeur. One for being an imbecile, the other for getting too close to the person he was required to monitor. Two would need to order those two eliminations. The chauffeur first, and then the butler. Pilar should never have been able to detect the tracker, yet it was removed from her luggage and placed on another ship. What was she hiding?

Her eyebrows pinched together as she stared at the report. Whatever she was concealing, her deceit was intolerable. She would no longer invest time or effort into the ungrateful foundling she'd agreed to raise. Yet another strike against her predecessor’s edicts and way of doing things. Pilar's upbringing and education had been directed by the Fates before her and they had been superseded. She'd been interested to see if the elder Fates' incompetence in administering the rest of their programs would carry through into this effort. Of course, she'd been proven correct. Pilar was unacceptable.

The woman's recent change of mind had been too sudden, and in hindsight, she could see Pilar had used her malleable stance as a ploy to get her way. Very inventive and probably directed, although who was directing Pilar's recent actions had yet to be seen. Speculation at this point would be useless, however, she would find out. Eventually. Two would not give her any problems as far as disposal of the now useless asset. The law office would close; the house would be sold; and all records of Pilar Grantham would disappear. Before she did, however, the woman would tell her exactly what she wanted to know. There were drugs which would hurry the disclosure of information, but why deprive her interrogators of a reward? They did deserve a fresh candidate, and it had been a long time since they'd been given a woman on which to practice.

Regina minimized the report and logged into the Darknet email account. Two had not provided her updates, but that was not uncommon when they had scheduled telephone calls. She handled the minutia of her legitimate business and had her assistant bring her a fresh cup of coffee as she waited for the call from Two.

Her ire hit its limit when Two was thirty minutes late calling. The woman really needed to be replaced. This show of disrespect was appalling. One clicked on the icon and hit send. She was going to tear the skin off the woman, verbally of course. She'd never get her hands dirty. The call rang through. And rang again. And again.

One disconnected the call and switched screens.

A chat box popped up. One typed in her query to the person she had on the inside of Two's inner circle, the trusted security team's leader.

>Is she doing this on purpose?

The guard would answer when he could, usually within minutes, sometimes as long as ten. When twenty minutes elapsed, she leaned back in her chair. Three was dead and Two? Where was Two? Where were Two's guards? What would cause both Two and her guards failure to answer? She tapped on another screen and previewed world events. Nothing which would preclude Two from initiating contact.

One spun in her chair and gazed through the window to the rolling tide. Precautions had to be taken. If Two was dead, it would