Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Pearl had put off making the call for as long as she could legitimately manage. Procrastination was nothing new to her. Once she and Ivan had learned the term “billable hours” from their boss, they’d quickly learned the fine art of stretching their time.
She ate dinner. She had her mandated eight-hour rest period. And then, after a bland, tasteless breakfast and a session in the physical health maintenance area, she squared her shoulders, shoved down all the screaming apprehension in her gut, and dialed the fucking comm.
It’s not personal. It’s your job.
The refrain that echoed in her head did nothing to calm her surging emotions. Putting her job ahead of everything else was the reason the damn call was giving her this much internal grief.
You don’t owe them anything.
Pearl was having a hard time buying the lie she was trying to sell herself on.
Maybe she’d left, but the reasons she had were completely separate from the multitude of reasons she had wanted to stay.
Conflicting loyalties had ripped her apart, and she’d chosen the path she always had — the one that kept her and Ivan together, safe for another day and paid well enough to flee at a moment’s notice.
She’d never had to live with the crushing weight of regret until she’d chosen to abandon the Dawn, and she had a sinking feeling that this call was going to spark another.
The communication connected, and a deep brown face looked back at her from the screen with absolute disdain. She could see stars streaming by behind Tariel as the Dawn rocketed through space, but nothing useful for locating their position.
She wondered if anyone was lurking outside the camera angle, listening in. Ivan was seated at his desk, not even bothering to pretend to do anything other than eavesdrop while she spoke to Tariel.
“Pearl,” he said, voice smooth as silk. “I didn’t expect to hear from you.”
“Tariel,” she said, nodding at him. “I figured you were the best point of contact.”
“What, since you broke his heart?”
She blew out, her lips fluttering in frustration. “Should I go call him?”
“Absolutely not,” he hissed, lowering his voice. “I don’t want to deal with another three-month ice cream and sappy movie binge.”
She took another deep breath as guilt threatened to overtake her. She knew this call was a bad idea, but she had made her bed, and she was going to have to lie in it. Alone.
“What do you want, Pearl?”
“I have a client that wants to get their hands on something you can move. They want to do the drop near 14 And.”
“And what do they want?”
“French bulldogs.”
Tariel quirked an eyebrow. “Seems like you’ve fallen a bit far. Does Ms. Kahn know you’re dealing in such lowbrow clientele?”
“Special circumstances. Favor for the kid of one of her clients. Look, I don’t want to be dealing with this either.” That part was true, at least. She felt like she was going to crawl out of her own skin. “Can you get one? If not, I have to make more humiliating comm calls.”
“I’ll ask around. I’ll be in touch.”
“Thanks. Hey. . . How is he?”
“We’re not discussing that.”
He terminated the comm. Pearl cringed as the screen blinked out, and she let out the breath she’d been holding. Tension ebbed from her shoulders, only to be replaced by nagging doubt. Contacting the Dawn had been more difficult for her than she thought it would be.
She’d have to have half a bottle of tequila in her to call him.
Pearl knew that from experience.
Tequila had been banned from their transport.
“That sounded awkward,” Ivan said. “But you did manage to stretch it out long enough for the tracer bug to activate. We should have a location within the hour.”
She turned around in her desk chair to see Ivan tapping at the controls of his data unit.
He finished his command and leaned back in his chair to peel an apple with the knife he was never without, a butterfly blade he flicked through his fingers when he was thinking through how best to hack difficult computer systems. She’d given it to him with the earnings they’d made from their first off-planet gig for Anika.
The sentimental attachment would have shocked anyone else had they known about it.
Ivan had gone to great pains to eradicate any semblance of his own humanity from the public record.
She shook her head and refocused on the task at hand. “I shouldn’t have called Tariel. He could tell I was full of shit. Nannette would have just screamed at me,” she said.
Ivan shrugged and kept working the peel off the fruit. “So he knows you lied. It’s part of your job description more often than not. The more interesting thing to consider is, did he lie back?”
Pearl leaned back in her chair and kicked her feet up onto the desk as she ran through the various tells Tariel had. He’d displayed none during their call. Her hands cupped the back of her neck as she stretched.
“He did not,” she said. “But he did get off the call as quickly as he could without avoiding answering at all.”
“We have to call this in.”
“To the client? Or the boss?” Pearl nudged an empty mug on her desk with the toe of her boot.
It almost toppled over before she removed her foot.
She did it again. Focusing on little things rather than the way that little comm call had just compounded the worst regret of her life was the only thing that would keep her sane.
It was a lot of pressure to put on a mug.
“You know Anika doesn’t care about progress reports. Just progress.”
“We should wait until the trace comes back. Hell, we should wait until we find them.”
“Agreed. But it’ll still have to be reported.
” Ivan finished cutting up his apple. He closed the knife with a complicated flourish Pearl couldn’t have managed without cutting off a fingertip.
She was more accomplished with blasters than blades.
Distance made the job easier for her. It made it less fun for Ivan.
“I just really hate this guy. He’s so smarmy.” The mug finally toppled over. Pearl removed her feet from the desk and righted it.
“I like the way he twitches when I stare at him.”
Pearl snorted. “You would. You can call him, then.”
Ivan tilted his head to the side, considered. “I don’t like it that much.”
Pearl shook her head as she realized he was trying to back out of their deal. She rose from her chair and walked the few paces to Ivan. “We can’t settle everything like this. It’s not sustainable.”
“Bullshit. You just don’t like your average.”
“That’s a factor in the sustainability of the practice.”
They both made fists, then bounced their fist on their flat hand three times.
“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”