Ethel Grieves knows people don’t really see her. Not past the limp, the freckled nose, the coke-bottle glasses. In the boardroom of Carmichael Holdings, she is just a secretary. The mousey little thing who files reports and pours coffee for men who sit in chairs too expensive to belong to them.
She watches their hands.
“Never let crime lords get bored,” Ethel instructed her cat, Fresco.
The fluffy feline blinked his blue eyes. “Why?” a robotic voice projected from the small box attached to his collar.
“They always want more.” Her brain pieced together the words as if she were setting type, her raspy voice printing them out once
The operational excellence awards leer at me as I creep through the executive suite lobby, a satchel slung over one shoulder of my gray business suit. I pause before a door with the words “Robert Burgle, Undermine Global CEO” before pushing my way inside.
Burgle, a powerfully built man, slouches in an ergonomic swivel
“For too long, the pigs have slammed the door on us wolves. They’ve got us by the chinny-chin-chin!” Burly gray wolf Bigsby Badham paces the stage in a huff before a towering jumbotron showing the rotating logo of his company, Wolf Works. “But this is the year we blow them away!”
The auditorium erupts
Zai looked at crowds below his dingy second-story window, factory workers heading home after timebells sounded the day’s closing. Though his window faced west, the tall buildings across the road rarely let a ray of sun into the small living space.
He sighed and turned from the window. Work had been slow over the
I punched the Mustang into gear, tires squealing down the unlit county highway.
The sudden acceleration pressed the man beside me back in his seat. He made no move to grab the door handle for support. Probably because I’d zip-tied his wrists behind his back.
“I thought your orders specified not to harm me.”
One hundred seventy hours. That’s it between me and flying somewhere beyond Inteltech’s reach.
I tug my sleeve over my tracker cuff, wishing my sentence for “reckless flying” could disappear so easily. No matter how hard I pleaded my case, Inteltech refused to listen.
Grivo, my cyborg overseer, adjusts his position atop a graffiti-covered
Zai’s blood pressure skyrocketed at the sight of the woman sauntering into the restaurant, her golden hair wound in a coronet, a faint sneer marring her otherwise perfect face. One look was all he needed to recognize Viola Gill, the galaxy’s most notorious slave trafficker.
He was bussing tables at the Perfect Plate
When I took this bounty, I didn’t think it would be this boring.
During the last five parties hosted by high-ranking officials in this region, rare items had disappeared. As if fading into thin air.
Zaivar stifled another yawn behind his hand.
The hypnotic dancing had almost lulled him to sleep more than once.
“Celia Downing was one gutsy lady,” my partner told our suspect. “The 9-1-1 operator asked who’d attacked her. Her last word was, ‘Kytt.’” Ed pointed at Kytt Windthorn’s childlike face.
Windthorn folded her arms. Her right eye was the same shade of blue as the interrogation room’s walls; her left, the same avocado green
I had promised my wife, Olivia, I would be home at five, yet as the clock ticks past seven, I still haven’t left my office. But I can’t help it, I love my job. I would tell you exactly what I do for a living, but it is quite classified. Lucky for me
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Chasing Joe Enza was like trying to catch smoke. Just when I thought I had him, he’d slip through my fingers, leaping into another timeline—another reality. It was maddening.
But this time, he was still in sight—at least for now.
I tucked a long strand of my auburn hair behind my ear
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