Page 164 of Tracked and Taken

Her fingertips are blue.

Not Korrhai blue. Ink blue. The blue of a human female who has been writing with a fountain pen in the last hour and has not, in the time since, washed.

Flossie has the brown notebook. The female has, just now withdrawn a brown notebook from her side pocket with fingers stained the color of writing by hand. Two notebooks. Two pens. One office. One Korrhai male whose teacup has stopped at four o’clock.

When does the betting pool open?

“I’m Charlie Park.”

“Flossie Knight, lovey. Tea. Sit. Tell me what you lost.”

Charlie sits and tells us.

Six months of investigative work into a corporate front company. A shell for something she had not, at the time of the intercept, finished researching. Names. Transaction codes. Supply-chain mapping. Photographs. Something criminal.

Eleven days ago. Mid-transit between two relay stations through unaffiliated space. Three operators. Cargo-bay grab. Professional. They knew the route, the cargo, and her.

A pause.

Charlie sets her tea down.

“They are not done.”

Flossie’s pen stops.

“Define not done, lovey.”

“I had a tail at the Velar Three relay station five days ago. Human. Male, civilian kit, professional. He cleared the platform when I clocked him. I picked up a second tail at the Junction Two transfer on the way here, and I have spent the four days since I docked telling myself I lost him at the ring.”

“And do you believe yourself, lovey?”

“No. I do not trust that I lost him.”

“Have you been to your quarters?”

“My quarters are at Velar Three.”

“And you cannot go back to them?”

“Not yet. Not without a bodyguard or something within three meters of mine for the duration. And I do not have a bodyguard.”

She lets the sentence sit.

She does not look at Thane.

She is not asking for a bodyguard.

Junction One Customs refused. Unaffiliated space, not their problem. SRS quoted her a fee she could not afford. Junction One Security has no jurisdiction outside the docking ring.

SNAG was the last name on her list.

She finishes. Picks up her tea.

Her eyes finally go to Thane.

She’s holding off on the second look. She has briefed the room and now the briefing is over and the female who walked into this office expecting Petra to walk her back out is sitting in a chair across from a six-eight Korrhai whose teacup has not, since she walked in, moved.

She looks at him directly.