It was hard to forget, given the circ.u.mstances under which he"d died. A tremor ran through me. G.o.d, I still had nightmares about those watery spiders, and Misha being eaten alive from the inside. I licked my lips, and said, "He gave us the name of the fifth clone-Claudia Jones. But he didn"t know the alias she worked under at the Directorate."
"We"ve since discovered she doesn"t actually work for us-though she does visit several times a month."
The glint in his green eyes suggested amus.e.m.e.nt, but for the life of me, I couldn"t see why. I mean, there were thousands of people who visited the Directorate every month, all of them for legitimate reasons.
"She"s not one of Alan Brown"s wh.o.r.es, is she?" Rhoan said, a note of incredulity in his voice.
"Yes."
I glanced at my brother. "How the h.e.l.l did you jump to that conclusion?"
He just grinned and tapped the side of his head. "Brains, dear girl. Brains."
I snorted softly. "I wasn"t aware that"s where you kept your brains."
"Enough." Jack touched a b.u.t.ton on the keyboard, and the com-screen sprang to life. On it was a picture white haired, white skinned woman. She was extremely pretty and yet oddly ethereal, and there was an unearthly sense of power in her luminous blue eyes. "This is Claudia Jones."
"She looks like I did-well, except tor the eyes." I looked across at Liander. "When you made me up for the raid into Brown"s office."
He nodded. "She seemed to be one of his regulars, so we thought it would be less suspicious if you looked like her."
"Of course, we weren"t to know that she was Gautier"s contact." Jack pressed another b.u.t.ton, and the woman"s picture gave way to p.o.r.no-Brown f.u.c.king Jones in his office. As far as lovers went, the man had no finesse whatsoever-just got it out, shoved it in, and pumped away. Which was probably why he had to rely on prost.i.tutes to relieve his s.e.xual needs.
Jack froze the picture at the point of Brown getting his rocks off, and pointed to the screen. The image shimmered slightly as he touched it, then settled. "If you look at this hand, you"ll notice her fingers have slipped under the desk. If I enhance the picture- " He did so, until the woman"s hand dominated the screen. "You"ll notice the silvery dot on the top of her index finger."
"And that is?"
"A microdot," Rhoan said. "Latest in storage media, and incredibly resilient."
Jack nodded. "The desk has a small hole drilled into it. The disk was placed into a container fitted into the hole."
"So Gautier just strolled in afterward and collected the container?" I asked, even as Jack dropped the close-up and sped up the film.
Brown did the dirty with the woman several more times, then both of them left. Nothing happened for a while, then Gautier wandered in, checking the office and walking past the desk in the process. He collected the container from the desk in a smooth, slick movement that would have been easy to miss, then left.
"So when Gautier sprung me and Quinn in Brown"s office, he was actually going to collect a drop-off?"
"We think so."
"What made you suspect this was happening?" Liander asked. He was sitting on the arm of the sofa, behind Rhoan"s chair.
"The fact that we could find no moles in the Directorate other than Gautier." He hesitated. "The only A.D. hiding secrets was Alan Brown, so we took the risk of reading him. You know he"s being blackmailed?"
I nodded. Rhoan had told me that much ages ago.
"Gautier"s behind it. Every Directorate decision is being relayed through Gautier to Deshon Starr. That madman knows what we"re going to do before we even implement it."
"Which is why his cartel has managed to stay two steps ahead of the Directorate for so long."
Jack nodded again. "Of course, we then had to find out how Gautier was pa.s.sing the information, which meant watching his every move, not only within the Directorate, but on missions as well. Four nights after the incident we just watched, Gautier strolled into Brown"s office, this time before Brown arrived with Jones, and even though he wasn"t actually on watch that night.
That"s when we finally realized what was going on."
"And she retrieved the disk?"
"Yes. And undoubtedly pa.s.sed on a detailed report of all the going-ons in the Directorate for the coming week."
"So how is Brown getting the information to Gautier? He couldn"t risk being seen with him at the Directorate."
"No. But Brown likes the greyhounds, and is severely in debt to the bookies. Gautier meets him there every Wednesday night."
"Wednesday being the day the board generally meets," I muttered. They were organized, no doubt about that. But then, this mob had been operating for well over fifty years-though Starr"s takeover had only been relatively recent.
"Have you pulled in the prost.i.tute?" Rhoan asked, leaning back in his chair. "Questioned her?""No, though we did follow her. Brown drops her off in Fitzroy Street, St. Kilda. Five minutes after he"s left, a limousine picks the woman up and drives her to a large house in Toorak."
"To another client?" Liander asked.
"No. She lives there."
I raised my eyebrows. "She"s one h.e.l.l of a prost.i.tute if she can afford to live in Toorak."
Jack smiled. "She"s not a prost.i.tute at all." He pressed another b.u.t.ton, and the woman"s picture reappeared. "She actually goes by the name of Dia Jones, and she does psychic readings for the rich and famous."
Surprise rippled through me. I mightn"t read newspapers or watch the news much, but even I"d heard of Dia Jones. The woman"s predictions were supposed to be deadly accurate and, last I"d heard, the waiting list to see her was over a year long.
"Why in h.e.l.l would a woman like that play prost.i.tute for Deshon Starr?"
"If she is one of the clones, as Misha said, she may have no choice," Rhoan pointed out, then glanced at Jack. "And through her, Starr has a lot of access to the rich and famous, and possibly a lot of influence."
Jack nodded. "The house she lives in is owned by one of Starr"s companies, and every weekend she goes to Starr"s estate in Macedon. She"s there the entire week before the full moon, and apparently there"s also a lot of influential people in attendance at that time, too."
I remembered the estate I"d seen in one of the lab-made creature"s mind right before I"d killed him. That house had been large and surrounded by acres and acres of lush gardens. Only what roamed its grounds were not things of nature, but creatures who evolution had little to do with-black ghosts who possessed little in the way of recognizable human features, blue things with rainbow wings and deadly claws. Demons and monsters and G.o.d knows what else. How did Deshon explain away his horrors?
"So," Liander asked. "This woman has wolf in her?"
"We don"t know, but given all the cloning experiments at that time seemed to have involved werewolf genes, it wouldn"t be beyond reason to think so."
"Then why Macedon? Isn"t that a bit far out of the city to be running a crime syndicate?"
"In this day and age, no. Starr never actually leaves his estate, which is why we have never been able to pin any of his cartel"s crimes on him."
"That and the fact the minds of his people are burned away before we can fully question them," Rhoan muttered.
"Sounds a nice type," Liander commented dryly.
"Oh, he"s a charmer." Rhoan gave me a dark glance. "Which is why I don"t want Riley in on this."
"Hey, I"m not the one who"s planning to f.u.c.k the man, so stop worrying about me and start worrying about you."
"I"m not the one walking into this situation sans experience-"
"Enough," Jack said. "I need you both on this mission, and that"s the end of it."
He pressed another b.u.t.ton on the keyboard, and several more pictures came up, these taken at night and on the streets. They featured the same woman, only this time her pallid looks had given way to brown hair and soft makeup. In each picture she was talking to a different woman, and most of them were prost.i.tutes if the clothing-or lack thereof-was anything to go by. "A week before each full moon," Jack continued, "Dia apparently hits the streets for three nights on a recruitment drive. Last month, she signed up thirty women, though not all of them were prost.i.tutes. She gives them cards, tells them to show up at a legitimate job-placement business the next day, where, after a background and physical check has been done, they"re offered extremely large sums of money to provide s.e.xual services for Starr"s men during the full moon phase. We gather some do stay beyond that two week period, but most are returned unharmed to the streets the day after the full moon."
"Unharmed physically or mentally?" I asked.
Jack gave me one of his pleased-with-a-student smiles. "Physically, they"re fine. But someone has shuffled through their memories, taking away the finer details."
"Meaning even if they were abused or hurt in the period they were there, they wouldn"t remember it," Rhoan stated. "What about Starr? How does he pick his lovers?"
"From his security force." Jack hesitated. "We have someone in his estate already, and he"s managed to uncover details about the firm Starr uses. That"s how you"re going in."
Rhoan frowned. "Who have you got in there? Gautier would have pa.s.sed on Directorate photos, so Starr would recognize anyone we tried to get in there."
"But he doesn"t know Kade. Starr has a pa.s.sion for horses-he apparently doesn"t ride them himself, just loves watching them run around with naked women on them."
"I betting the women aren"t just riding them," Rhoan muttered. "From what I"ve heard, Starr loves watching others get it off. And the more dangerous the situation, the more he enjoys it."
Some people kept dogs as pets. Starr kept horses and lab-made nightmares, and, from the sound of it, combined the two interests s.e.xually. It said an awful lot about the man. Or rather, his weirdness.
"Are the other horses shifters? Or just Kade?"
"Just Kade."
Then poor Kade. Having naked women riding around on his back was going to be mighty frustrating for the poor fellow.
"Tonight," Jack continued, "Director Hunter will place Rhoan"s new ident.i.ty in the security company"s system and alter the memories of the three men who run the place. Tomorrow night, Kade will kill one of the current security force. Rhoan will, of course, be the recommended replacement."
"What about me?"
Jack glanced my way. "Dia began her recruitment drive last night."
I raised my eyebrows. "But the full moon is three weeks away, not two."
"Yes. And two nights ago, Dia left a message for Gautier saying the timetable has been stepped up to February fifth."
Which was one month away. "Do we know what timetable they"re talking about?"
But even as I said it, I knew, if only because of the premonition I"d had earlier. Gautier would try to kill Jack that day.
Which is exactly what Jack said. "And while we have no idea why the timetable has been stepped up," he added, "it means we have less than a month to stop Starr.""Is that going to be enough time?" Christ, Rhoan might know what he was doing, but I was a novice, and it would take me longer to uncover information for that reason alone.
"It"s going to have to be." Jack reached past the computer and gave me a folder. "Your new ident.i.ty."
I opened the folder and looked inside. "Poppy Burns?" I looked up at Jack. "Do I look like a Poppy to you?"
"You will by the time I"ve finished with you," Liander said, voice dry.
I poked my tongue out at him, and kept on reading. Poppy apparently was the result of a h.o.r.n.y werewolf and a human groupie encounter, with neither parent being intelligent enough to realize they were fertile at the time of their brief liaison. The mother didn"t want the resulting child, didn"t know where the father was, so poor Poppy was shoved onto various relatives until she ran away at fifteen. She"d had a mult.i.tude of jobs since then, but thanks to her temper and her att.i.tude, hadn"t been able to hold on to anything for very long. She supported herself in between with thieving, and the occasional spot of prost.i.tution. She"d gotten into Melbourne three days ago, after having ripped off the wrong house in Sydney and having the owners place a large reward for information on her whereabouts.
Charming. I"d just become a wanted criminal. "Poor Poppy"s had a b.i.t.c.h of a life, hasn"t she?"
Jack grinned. "Read that until you know her off by heart." He hesitated. "And make sure you start reflecting her att.i.tude."
I nodded. "I won"t have a problem with that part of it."
"Which is why we put that in. Liander, you want to start in on her? Rhoan, here"s your profile."
Liander grabbed my hand and led me into the bathroom. As he sat me down, I saw the scissors.
"How short are we going?" I said instantly.
"Very short."
"No," I said, my hands going to my hair. I loved it just the way it was-I could put up with it being dyed, but cut short? No way. I mean, I cut it to shoulder length every summer, but I didn"t really consider that short. Not in the sense Liander was talking about, anyway.
He sighed. "Darling, your hair is luscious, I admit, but it is so out of fashion at the moment. h.e.l.l, even your brother has more style than you, and that"s saying something."
"That"s because my brother raids the bank account to go shopping, and I"m the one that worries about where the rent and food money is coming from."
"Yes, but lack of money doesn"t excuse lack of style. I have been offering free haircuts for years."
"I like medium to long hair. Anything wrong with that?"
"Normally, no. But long hair doesn"t suit the shoes you"re stepping into. She"s trendy. With it." He flicked the end of my hair.
"This is not."
"I know, but-"
"Trust me," he said. "You"ll look divine. And your hair will grow back, regardless."
I blew out a frustrated breath, but gave in to the inevitable. I was being ridiculous and I knew it. Besides, I wanted my life back, and if doing that meant cutting my hair extremely short, then surely that was a small price to pay. "If it doesn"t look good, I"m going over to your place and destroying all your makeup."
He grinned. "Warning heeded. Now shut up and let the master create."
For the next three hours he had his wicked way with my looks, and I had to admit, the end result was startling. He"d dyed my skin a dark gold, covering the smattering of freckles scattered across my cheeks and shoulders, and giving me the rich glow of a sun worshipper. My hair was as short as I"d feared, the ends barely brushing the bottom of my ears, but had been layered so that it framed my face, giving me a cheeky, yet extremely s.e.xy, look. He"d also streaked it with blonde, which played amongst the natural gold highlights in my red hair and gave the overall effect of three-toned hair. Breathable, bright green contacts completed the transformation.
"Wow," was all I could manage to say. I didn"t look like me, even though he hadn"t changed all that much.
He gave me a pleased smile. "One more touch, and we"re finished."
"And what"s that?"
"Voice modulator."
"Ewww."