Page 90 of Wicked Deeds

“How recently?” I really needed to find his source.

“On your Monday this week. Late in the day.”

The day I’d received my notification from the database. The day Jack would have, too. Telling him Gwen was back in the world—assuming he’d known she’d been out of it. Crap. I tried to keep the reaction off my face, but Usuriel wasn’t fooled.

“Not so sanguine, now?” he said. “I know something else happened that day. A few hours before the account was made.”

I gave him a flat stare. “If you’re waiting for me to ask you what, you’ll be waiting a while. I have no desire to be in your debt. So you can tell me or not.” I sent a few more inquiries though my chip, trying to see if I could slip into the back of Usuriel’s account. Usuriel might be a Fae lord, but I was the freaking queen of tech even before I’d met Damon, and working with Damon had only taught me how to be even better. And sneakier. I doubted Usuriel or whoever was helping him could get around me.

“May I share an image with you?”

Better than sending it through the mail like an old-fashioned stalker. I triple-checked the security on the space, deploying every defense the system had. Bad things could be hidden in image files. “Go ahead,” I said, hoping I wasn’t taking a gamble I was going to lose.

An image blinked into view a few feet from me, hanging in the air. It was somewhat grainy, but not so much that Icouldn’t recognize Jack. At a recharge stop. Like the ones that had replaced gas stations up and down the interstates. The background was too fuzzy for me to make out any identifying features. “Where was this taken?”

“New Mexico, I believe.”

Fuck. Too close for comfort. And right next to Mexico. Which still had a border less tightly controlled than the one we shared with Canada. Jack was smart enough to know Damon would be watching the airports and ports here. But he couldn’t cover every entry point to the country. I grabbed a copy of the image before Usuriel could snatch it away and shoved it into a secure storage file, locking it down. “And it’s from Monday?” Mitch’s team could verify that later.

“Yes. That is Jack Miller, is it not?” Usuriel asked.

“It is,” I admitted.

“And you cannot be foolish enough to claim he does not present a threat.”

“No.” I gritted it out.

“So it is interesting, is it not, that on the day he is first seen back in this country, the account who sought Gwen out was also created. I don’t know how you feel about coincidences, Maggie Lachlan, but I do not trust them.”

Me either. Thank God I’d dialed back the feedback from my avatar or my hands would have been shaking. “You think Jack is talking to Gwen?”

“Perhaps.” The eyes on his avatar darkened, as though his true nature was breaking through. I let my sight slide into the magic, trying to be subtle about it in case he was about to try something. There was the faintest hint of black smoke around the avatar, but nothing to suggest he was actively using magic. “Which makes me wonder, Maggie. Because we know he has been interested in you in the past. And your Damon. But why is he interested in her?”

Shit. Nope, this conversation was done. I killed the room and booted Usuriel from the system. I’d deal with the consequences of pissing him off later. Pausing only to trigger the admin version of Gwen’s kill switch, too, I wrenched myself out of the game and sat up in my chair, breathing hard.

Gwen sat up with a start, confusion clear on her face at the sudden interruption. “Maggie? Do you need me? Damn, I was hoping you’d join me. I worked out how to get out of the game. You know, the way you told me Callum can?”

I blinked at her, my brain not quite catching up. “You did?”

“Yes, want me to show you?”

I did but it would have to wait. “Not now. We need to talk to Damon.”

“Isn’t he at work?”

Crap. Yes. He was. “I’ll call him. Or Cassandra.”

She was starting to look worried. “Did something happen?”

“Don’t get mad, but I need to ask you a question.”

“O-kay.”

“Your username. Is it one you used before? Before you went into the realm, I mean?”

“Yes.” She looked confused. “I never closed my account and I was still paying for a link. I never intended to stay in the realm so long, so I didn’t shut down anything before I went in. I was in Halls, so I didn’t have a lease or a car or any other big regular expenses.”

I stomped on the big sister urge to lecture her about financial responsibility. It would be the pot calling the kettle black. At her age I’d signed up for a gym at one point in a fit of Nat-urged-on enthusiasm. I’d taken classes about a month, then ignored it for about three years before I cancelled my membership. And presumably her university would have stopped taking money when they decided she wasn’t coming back. I wondered howlong that had taken? Had anyone raised an alarm? Or had the tanai handled it somehow?

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