Chapter 28
ROGUE
The thing about bad news is that it almost never knocks. It creeps in through a side door wearing somebody or something else's face, and by the time you recognize it, it's already sitting down and helping itself to your coffee.
In this case, it comes wearing two faces, which is how I know it's serious.
Kade and Mara find me in the operations room a little after noon, and they come in together.
That's the first thing I notice. Not one trailing the other.
Together. Mara's got her arms crossed, and Kade's wearing the face of a man who'd rather be anywhere else.
Whatever this is, they've already discussed it without me.
Terrific. Love being the last to know.
"Tell me," I say.
"The spy made contact," Kade says. "With me."
"When?"
"This morning, by the old food court. He didn't sneak up on me. He clearly wanted me to see him coming. You should have seen him, strutting through the hallway with a cheesy smile on his face. I’m surprised he didn’t pull out his dick to show me how big it was."
Mara snickers.
Kade continues. "He knew my name, Rogue. He knew I'm the one who pulled the address out of the trash can where some idiot dumped it."
Well, ain’t that a kick in the ass? But I keep my expression blank.
Nobody outside our group is supposed to know about that find, which led us to the city’s north side.
So either we've got a leak, or somebody's been watching us a great deal longer and closer than we know.
Neither option is going to help me sleep.
"So what did he want?"
"A meeting. With whoever ‘runs the room’—his words. He says he's got something to trade, and he'll only put it on the table once, to the right person."
"And he came to you to set it up," I say.
"He came to me because he knew I'd bring it to you." Kade lets that sit. "He's not guessing. He knows what he’s doing.”
Mara still hasn't weighed in, and Mara always weighs in, so I turn to her. "You believe him?"
"I believe he's not afraid of you, or anyone here in the Rot," she says.
"Which is new. Everybody's a little afraid of you guys.
It's sort of your whole brand." She uncrosses her arms, then crosses them again.
"This dude strolled up to Kade in broad daylight and asked for a meeting.
That's not a man who thinks he's cornered.
That's a man who thinks he's holding the better cards. "
She's not wrong. I'd enjoy this a lot more if she were wrong.
Here's the problem with giving the spy his meeting: he picks the ground, sets the terms, and gets to watch our faces while he does it.
Here's the problem with refusing: I've still got a man in my building who’s snooping around looking for Fischer, which is why I suppose he wants to meet. The question is, what’s in it for me? For us?
I think about taking this to Armen and Sting first. I think about it for all of three seconds. Then I don't, because this thread's been mine since I first heard about the spy, and because part of me wants to be in the room when he finally talks, before I hand any of it to anybody.
Especially before I hand it to Vi.
It happens that night, in a dead storefront off the south concourse in an old shoe place, shelves still bolted to the walls, the outline of the logo bleached on the back wall, the corners filled with dusty unmatched sneakers that someone swept out of the way long ago.
The attraction? There’s one door. I pick it for precisely that reason.
I'm leaning on the shelving when he comes in, and Kade takes the corner where he can watch the door and the man both.
The spy looks precisely like he did when I was watching him through the panel a few days ago. Average height, brown hair, the kind of look you forget about in seconds. The kind of look you lose in a crowd. He stands the way he stood the first time I saw him, with his weight even and chin level.
Something wakes up in the back of my skull and starts scratching at the same door it's been scratching at all week. I know that stillness from somewhere, and I still can't dredge it up. The frustration, like having something on the tip of your tongue, infuriates me. I’d like to take one of my fists to the shelves lining this shop, but I’m not stupid enough to fuck up my hand.
"You wanted a meeting," I say. "You've got one. Talk."
"Fischer," he says. No warm-up. "You hand him to me. In exchange, I give you a location."
"A location."
"You know the one." His eyes don't drift off mine.
"There's a woman in your building turning the place upside down for it.
North side of the city. Initials in a margin.
You photographed the page." He serves up a patient little pause.
"I can give you the man those initials belong to. Where he is. Right now. Today."
And there it is, set down on the figurative table between us as casual as a man laying down a winning hand he's been holding all night.
The man those initials belong to. Yeah, I know what he’s talking about.
He doesn’t need to elaborate. Fucker can be as coy as he wants.
He’s talking about Renner. Vi's father. Rothwell’s former mayor.
The thing Vi’s been chasing since before any of us knew her name, since before she ever wandered into the Rot.
This asshole's just offered it up like he's reading off a lunch menu.
I don't move. I've spent years getting good at not moving in the exact moment everything in me wants to.
I let the silence stretch, my favorite tool, the one that never lets me down.
He doesn't rush to fill it either. Of course he doesn't. That would be too easy, and nothing about this man wants to make my life easy.
"You're telling me he's alive," I say. Flat. Bored, nearly. Like we're debating the weather.
"I'm telling you I can prove it."
I shrug one shoulder. "Then prove it. You don't get Fischer just based on your word. You don't get him on a name and a nice smile. But you know that. You’re not stupid." I smile and push off the shelf, slow.
"We’ll want proof of life. Recent. Real. You bring me that, we'll talk about Fischer. Not one second before."
Something crosses his face that's nearly approval. "I thought you'd say that."
"Starting to think I'm predictable."
"I'll have it for you by tomorrow night." He turns for the door, then stops with a fifteen-degree turn of the head. "She has his eyes," he says. "The woman. You'll want to decide how she hears this. Before somebody decides for you."
Then he's gone, swallowed by the dark of the concourse.
He never raised his voice. Never pushed.
Didn't have to. He set the one thing Vi would trade the world for down on the table and strolled out knowing we'd be the ones chasing him by tomorrow night.
I ran this meeting, so why do I feel like I just got played in my own building?
Smug son of a bitch is holding the one card Vi would burn this whole place down for, and he's going to make us dance for it.
Worst part? We'll dance.