Rough Edges by Shannon K. Butcher

Author:Shannon K. Butcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-one

“Where is she?” Randolph asked the second Lila answered her phone.

“What?” she asked, sounding confused.

“Where is Bella? You were supposed to be keeping tabs on her.”

“I tried. I told you she doesn’t tell me where she goes. It’s early. She’s probably home asleep.”

“Wrong. I checked. There’s a man in her house, but she’s not there.”

“Oh, right,” said Lila. “I heard something about a rotating detail to watch her house. I guess someone broke in while she was gone.”

That someone had been him, but he saw no reason to enlighten the woman. “Does she have a boyfriend? A lover?”

“Bella? Not that I know of. She doesn’t have time for a social life.”

“Then where the hell is she?”

“I’m trying to do what you want. I really am, but my hands are tied. There’s a system that tracks the locations of everyone who works at the Edge, but I don’t have access to it.”

“Who does?”

“Bella does. So does Mira Sage. Maybe one or two others, but I don’t know who they are.”

Mira was the brains that ran the tech at the Edge. From what Randolph had heard she wasn’t much use in a fight, but put her at a keyboard and she was a devastating force. “I want you to steal Mira’s access information. Codes, passwords—whatever it takes to break into that tracking system.”

“I can’t do that without getting caught.”

“Your son needs you. Find a way, Lila.”

A sob tightened her voice. “I swear I would do it if I could, but there’s no way. Mira is always in her office. Whenever Adam Brink isn’t looking for his brother, he’s with her. Even if Mira doesn’t see what I’m doing, he will. That man misses nothing.”

“There’s got to be some way to break into her office when she’s away.”

“Even if I did, how would I find what you need? I doubt she has all of her passwords written down on a Post-it note by her keyboard. And even if she did, I wouldn’t know how to use the system. It’s a live tracking system, which means that I’d have to have constant access to it. I know Mira would be able to see that I was logged in as her.”

Randolph couldn’t risk losing an asset like Lila, not until she’d come to the end of her usefulness. But it had been too many hours since Bella had last been dosed with the drug that would be her undoing—the one Stynger had developed all those years ago to subdue Bella’s aggression, making her obedient and afraid. It was supposed to be absorbed through the skin, activated through heightened emotional states. She needed only three or four doses to do the job. That’s why he’d put it in her hot water tank. Was it too much to ask a woman to shower at home every day? He didn’t think so.

Frustration rode hard on Randolph’s heels, making his words clipped. “I need to find her.”

“I can call around and see if anyone’s seen her, tell them she has an urgent call.

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