LITMIR.BIZ

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but it would take several hours before she would know the results. In the meanwhile, she still had to get the description from Rosen and talk to Aldo, then get her hands on the layout of the mark and…

      And somewhere in there she needed to do some food shopping. She had tried ordering online, but after the sixth or seventh time she crashed the system because she got frustrated at not finding what she needed, Wren had decided that the old-fashioned way worked better for her.

      Stopping in the bedroom-office, Wren grabbed the client info sheet off the floor. On her next pass down the hallway, Wren snagged the phone off the wall and dialed the number penciled at the top of the sheet.

      “Anna Rosen? Yes, I’m calling about the discussion we had yesterday.” Was it really only yesterday? Almost exactly yesterday, in fact. Twenty-four hours and all the chaos of the psi-bomb seemed to fade into happened-last-month. “I’m going to need a description of the item in question…you have a photo? No. All right, then.” And she grabbed a pencil and a scrap of paper out of the junk drawer, leaning on the counter to write more easily. “Could you describe it for me, please? As completely as you can.”

      Rosen clearly had studied the necklace at length—she was able to describe it quite well. A silver mask of a woman’s face, eyes closed and a slight smile—a smirk, Rosen said, but not an unkind one—surrounded by a silver-beaded headdress/cowl with tendrils off to one side, like a showgirl’s headdress. A small silver skull was set on a chain hanging from the headdress, over her forehead.

      All in all, Wren thought it sounded like a horribly gaudy bit of junk, the kind that Great-Aunt Hortense bequeathed to you and you sold at the rummage fair the week after, but the client clearly loved it enough to hire her to steal it back, so she wasn’t about to judge. Everyone had different levels of emotional attachment, God knew. Maybe it was a Null thing.

      Hanging up the phone, Wren looked at her notes, making sure everything was legible enough to read back to Aldo. She should have gotten all this from the client yesterday, during their meeting. Sergei would have. Sergei would have gotten the description, and the address of the target, and all the little things that yes, Wren could track down now but would have made life so much easier to have already.

      “And you decided to do this one on your own, why again?” The answer wasn’t as clear as it had been when the first nibble came in. The nightmare still jangled on her nerves, and the normally comforting vibes of her apartment, the thing that had made her decide the first time she walked in behind the Realtor that this place was hers, was just making her feel jumpy and twitchy now.

      She really, really wanted to feel the urge to brew tea that meant Sergei was walking up the stairs. Which, considering she had run from him—and the entire sense of being too-much-togetherness—this morning, meant that she was probably losing her mind.

      Speaking of minds, and details, and the slacking off on them, she should check in with Danny, see if he’d found out anything about that psych-bomb. If it was Council work, that was another thing to consider. The timing was odd…Jesus wept, if it were tied into the Rosen case, and not the general intimidation shit they kept trying to pull…

      “It would mean what, exactly?”

      The voice was hers, but the logic was Sergei’s.

      “Would it change what you’ve already decided to do?”

      “No,” she answered herself. “In which case, stop worrying, and get back to working.”

      She picked up the phone again and dialed a number, this time from memory.

      “Joey. It’s Jenny. I know you’re there, Joey, pick up. You really don’t want me getting annoyed with you while I’m on the phone.”

      All Joey Tagliente knew about Jenny Valere was that his electronics had a way of going bad when she was around, which was why she was restricted to call-ins and e-mail. And why she always got fast service.

      “Babe. So good to hear your voice. Tell me what you want and I’ll tell you what it costs.” He oozed, but it was a mostly harmless ooze.

      “The address for a Melanie Worth-Rosen.” She spelled the name out, just to be sure. “The real address, not a mailing drop or her bodyguards, or whatever well-to-do people are doing these days.”

      “You want the phone numbers, too?”

      “Sure. Why not.” The cost would all be added to Rosen’s invoice at the end of the job, anyway. What wasn’t covered by the retainer already sitting pretty in Wren’s account. And, since she brokered the deal herself, did she have to give the usual cut to Sergei? God, she hadn’t even thought about that.

      “Anything else?”

      “You got blueprints for that address, too?” Of course he did. Or he would, for the right money. He was an efficient little snoop, Joey was.

      “Maybe yes, maybe no. Two for the first, another five if I can come through on the second.”

      She could have haggled him down to four hundred, probably, but Sergei had taught her that it was better to overpay a little to the valuable people. Make them think of you fondly, not with a curse. You saved the haggling for the really detailed, expensive jobs, where a percentage point or two made a difference, and they were padding the bill, anyway.

      “How fast can you come through?” There was a sense of urgency riding her shoulders that Wren didn’t think had anything to do with the job itself; the storm clouds were building, and her core was pricking in response. But life went on, bills came in, jobs needed to be done…

      “The lady in question has two addresses. One in Martha’s Vineyard, the other in Manhattan. She is currently in residence in your fair city.” He gave her the addresses, plus the lady’s mobile phone number. Her main number, surprisingly, was publicly listed. Wren, used to folk who guarded their privacy, hadn’t even thought to look first. Trusting lady, Ms. Worth-Rosen. Or one with reason to let people contact her without prior arrangement. Wren not only wasn’t publicly listed, but she paid extra money every month to have her phone number “dropped” from the phone company’s system.

      The fact that this meant that the phone company had no record of her having a phone, and therefore never billing her, was a nice plus to the privacy, of course.

      “As always a pleasure doing business. I’ll drop payment later today.” For a guy who lived for his tech, Joey wasn’t much for banking, electronic or otherwise. Cash in a post office box, thanks much, and good manners got you twenty-four hours credit, like now. Her first year dealing with him, she had to pay in advance. That had given Sergei minor conniptions until Joey proved he was solid on delivery.

      Leaving the notes on the kitchen counter, Wren went around the corner into the bathroom and turned the water on in the shower, shedding clothing as steam filled the tiled room. Her shoulder-length hair was unbearably tangled and she brushed it out, wincing as she hit knots, until the water had reached the perfect temperature. Shampoo, soap, loofa, and all the while she was mentally rearranging her brain. Identifying herself to Tagliente as “Jenny” had solidified the vague thoughts about approaching Worth-Rosen. Risky, on several fronts, but it had a strange sort of appeal, too. Being someone other than Wren Valere—a nice thought: shedding the responsibilities to friends and Cosa, if only for a little while.

      Proving to Sergei that he wasn’t the only one who could change personas was part of it, too; she was willing to admit that as she rinsed the last of the conditioner from her hair. He was so damn good at what he did, it was a challenge to try it, too. Being able to say, “Look, I can do this, too” would…well, she had no idea what it would do. Probably nothing. But what was done was done, now.

      Not that you can tell him about it until you tell him that you took on a client without his knowledge…which you’re going to have to fess up to, you know. He’ll want to know where you are, what you’re doing. Where the money you’re going to deposit in his checking account came from.

      “Nag nag nag,” she muttered at the voice, turning off the water and reaching for a towel.

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