He didn’t say anything, but her good brain was already working.
“You can’t follow me around all the time.” She said it like a conclusion.
“We’ll talk about it after work.” Rook gave her a quick once-over. “You ready yet? You’re really running very late.”
His joke didn’t make her laugh. Trouble was brewing in her eyes, the implications compounding. Finally she said, “Right. Let’s go.”
She kissed her sister, warned her on pain of death to be safe, and made certain that Mr. Conner—Coll—would see that she didn’t get into trouble. But Jordan was quiet on the drive over to her office—they took Rook’s car—quiet through the parking garage, and quiet up the elevator.
The elevator door dinged open, but before she stepped out, she asked, “Is there a point to my going into work today?”
Rook didn’t lie. “A show of normalcy until other arrangements are made.”
“Hmm,” she said, and strode out.
The meeting in question, of course, was with none other than Millions himself, who was waiting in the same glass-and-chrome conference room where Rook had met her yesterday.
“No, you can’t go in with me,” Jordan said before he even asked.
“He could have a weapon,” Rook countered.
“He doesn’t have a weapon,” she replied irritably, “and what could you possibly do if he did?”
Rook didn’t want to answer that—it was a little too far down the rabbit hole even for Alice—but he settled for watching the conference room door from the discreet vantage point of an empty office.
He didn’t want to scare Jordan with all the things he could do, but he made damn sure Millions got a look at him before he angled out of direct sight.
***
“You should call the police,” Vince said immediately after the door shut behind her.
Jordan really wished she hadn’t asked for help and allowed him to look into Michael Reese yesterday. “He hasn’t done anything,” she said. “I’m sorry I bothered you with it. We should get on with my presentation for SpiderSly.”
“Forget SpiderSly. That man has harassed you. Stalked you. How did he get you to let him accompany you to work?”
Putting a hand to her head, she searched for a plausible explanation. Sighed. Went with a version of the truth. “Apparently, it’s his job to watch me. He was hired to follow me to make sure I’m safe. And that’s all I’m at liberty to say.”
Vince wasn’t buying it. “Hired by whom?”
Jordan had no answer for that. It was a crap story and she knew it, but better that than talk about Chimera.
Vince grabbed his tablet. Lit the screen. “Because I did look into him as you asked. Broke one or two laws to make it quick.”
Oh no. She should’ve skipped work today and let someone else present to Vince. She could be in bed right now, skewered by Michael, not Vince’s information.
“And Michael Reese isn’t even his real name.”
Quite suddenly, Vince had her full attention.
Likewise, he made a sound of satisfaction. “I bribed the Envoi for their security tapes, then did a facial recognition search, which brought up sealed records—don’t ask how I got into those.”
Jordan felt Michael watching her from the other side of the glass. She could just make out the hulk of his shadow.
“His real name is Malcolm Rook, and he’s got a violent history, starting with the death of his little brother Joshua some eleven years ago.”
Malcolm Rook. Yeah, that suited him better.
Vince showed her a black and white picture of a young boy. A boy that Jordan recognized. Just last night he’d flipped her on her back, straddled her, and had been about to strike before Mich— no, Malcolm Rook yanked him off her.
The boy was his little brother.
Had Rook been involved in his death somehow? Because he hadn’t been responsible. That much she was sure of.
Michael or Malcolm, whoever the hell he was, might have killed people in his line of work, like that marshal had suggested, but he was not a killer. Not like that.
“It was written up as an accident,” Vince continued, “but the situation was sketchy. Lots of questions. After that your friend there, Mal—” Yeah, she got it, mal meaning bad. “—ran away from home and survived on the streets by stealing and dealing silver. And then two years later he’s connected to another mysterious death, that of another street kid, this time dealing in bootlegged Rêve. After that, nothing. He has no record, not so much as a driver’s license. He drops off the face of the planet, until now, when he drops into your lap. My investigator suggests organized crime.”