Page 71 of Off Her Game
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Tori padded to the refrigerator, unable to sleep. Quan sat on the futon. He wasn’t watching TV. “Late night?”
“Why’re you up?” Quan glanced up from his phone.
She shrugged.
“I didn’t ask questions about the flash drive you handed me, but I did check it out. As if I wouldn’t. No reason for you to back up your life unless you were worried that gaming freak was about to fuck you over. I warned you.”
Tori turned on the kitchen light, which didn’t flood the apartment with light like she’d hoped, but made it less dim. “What do you want to hear? You were right? I’m fucked. You’ll probably hear I was found dead next week.”
“You need help.” He hadn’t moved, remaining stiff with his arms crossed.
“Got so muchhelpI don’t know how to deal with it.” Her stomach churned at the lie.
His eyes narrowed. “Come with me. I’ve got something to show you.”
“I’m exhausted. Can this wait until tomorrow?”
“No.” He marched to his bedroom door and held it open for her.
Quan had transformed the room into an electronics lab with a futon. Clothes littered every vertical surface. He flicked on his sound system, which emitted a high-pitched screech.
“Ow.” She cuffed her ears.
“Put these on.” He handed her a pair of noise-canceling head phones with a microphone.
“Better.” No more ear piercing pain.
“This is a conversation I don’t want monitored by anyone. Tell me what’s really going on.”
Quan knew something, which meant he knew a lot, probably everything. “Why don’t you tell me what you know and what you figured out?”
“You’re smart, but my IQ is about fifteen points more than yours.”
She rolled her eyes. “You better not be basing that off the online Mensa quiz we did last year. I wasn’t even trying.”
He scowled. “Trying to pull shit over on me is stupid. Let’s start with you and Noah Harrison. Him messing you up at the competition that his gaming company supported made no sense. I mean, hell, him making a public appearance made no sense. Then him dating you? Bizarre.”
“You don’t think I’m good enough him?” She crossed her arms and bit back a list of defensive arguments.
“Oh, you’re plenty attractive and smart. There’s not a gamer man alive who wouldn’t think you hot as hell. But you’re too prickly for a man like Noah Harrison to handle. I don’t mean that in a bad way so don’t get your feathers ruffled. Him noticing you at his competition in what was a dark room 99 percent of the time? Nope. Him having the cojones to hit on you with your bitch warrior armor on? Oh hell no. This man won’t even talk to reporters, not even online interviewers.”
“I admit it was a set up for the FBI to find out about Symphis. Them liking my game, though, had nothing to do with all this. It was a positive side effect. Conjur acquired it. NJ Legacy just bought Conjur. It’s a future.”
“Which you’re not going to live to see the way your life’s going.” He rocked his head back and forth. “Congrats on the game. You deserve that, but what really happened?”
“I met Noah in jail last week when I got hauled in during a police raid on the Stadium right before the D.C. competition.”
“Yeah, I matched up arrest records. Seemed too coincidental with you there and him there. So, I called a friend of mine in the NSA to find out what he knew about any operations going on out here with any government agencies. With Noah Harrison’s brother dying in weird circumstances and then him caught in the gaming raid… I can put two and two together. Someone’s using you. Now I know for sure it’s the FBI.”
“I don’t think Noah intended for us to meet in jail. That I think was coincidence.”
Quan’s face scrunched up in a sarcasticreally?“Someone could’ve manipulated him to be there. Or maybe he wanted to be there to meet you. You thought about that, right?”
Maybe if someone gave him the offhand information on the next location of the Stadium he’d have been tempted to go. Someone could’ve tipped off police and then made sure they got discharged together. Could be done electronically. Maybe Noah was involved in “handling” her more than she thought. Tori pulled her nail away from her mouth when she realized she’d been chewing. “What’d your NSA friend say?”
“There’s one FBI sanctioned operation against a video gaming ring in New York run by an agent who’s gotten into trouble for running civilians instead of agents in the past. People…civilians died twice during his ops to bring down gambling rings. Then one of the two authorized agents who was on his team showed up dead in the Bronx the other day.” Quan tilted his head as if waited for her reaction.
