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my Sayer again was plant a big wet one right on his lips. Then I was going to tell him exactly how I felt about him. And I was going to do both of those things because it wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be. I would see Sayer again.
     
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    I had the file. And I’d made it round trip without falling to pieces. The question was, what the heck was I supposed to do with it? This had always been more of Sayer’s side of things. I got my sticky fingers on classified orders and canoodled bogus death certificates from Ballard, but it was Sayer who dealt with the human side of the mission. He knew all of the contacts, interacted with them, knew the plan beyond the gathering phase I was party to. I wondered now if that was for my own safety, but at the time I’d been so wrapped up in my part, I hadn’t given it much thought.
    All I knew was that he said he started with the victims in the file and went from there, so I went back to square one. In the relative safety of my fungal-ridden hideaway, I flipped through page after page of phony causes of death until I found a ‘next of kin’ I felt comfortable approaching. Jaz Marril. Her brother, Sazar, had died . . . falling off a bridge? Seriously? Where did they come up with this stuff? Anyway, she was female and about my age, which put me at an advantage—thanks to my training—if she was decidedly less like her brother than I hoped. And she didn’t live far, which was good since the solar reader on the transport unit I’d hijacked from the hospital parking lot was jacked.
    The frosted glass walls to her single story complex let through just enough light to leave no doubt she was home. Whether or not she was alone remained to be seen. There was only a single unit in the drive and it looked like one body moving around inside, but I wasn’t about to take that chance.
    Pressing the buzzer, I stood back and waited until a lean woman with long, platinum hair answered the door. “Yes?”
    “Hi. I . . . um . . . I’m looking for the man of the house?” What a dumb thing to say. Clearly I’d been spending way too much time in crappy hotel rooms, watching crappy television from the crappy past.
    “Well, you’re stuck with me. This is my house.”
    “There’s no one else home?”
    Jaz did not look pleased, and I couldn’t really blame her. If I were her, I’d want to smack me, too. “Sorry to disappoint.”
    Darkness shifted over me as the door swung closed in my face, but I managed to wedge my foot against the jamb before she could shut me out entirely. “No. Wait. I was hoping you’d say that.”
    Her face appeared in the slot where my toes were quickly growing numb, looking more terrified than angry anymore. She turned and fled deeper into the house and I followed her inside, cursing my stupidity.
    “ Wait! Jaz, wait! I’m not with the Legion. I’m not going to hurt you.” At least I had one question answered. Only an insurgent would run from a Legion officer. I stalked through the elegantly decorated home, searching for her, but the girl was impressively skilled at hide-and-seek. Time to pull out the big guns. “Sayer sent me. Sayer Cane. He told me about you.” A risky lie since he’d never actually mentioned any of his contacts by name. “He’s in trouble, Jaz. He needs our help.”
    A narrow closet door at the end of the hallway I was standing in eased open slowly. “Sayer sent you? Really?”
    I nodded and she stepped out of the tiny closet. “He’s my partner. I’ve been helping him gather evidence against the Legion.”
    “Au-Auralia?”
    “He told you about me?” I knew that wasn’t true, which left me the suspicious one. Or maybe I was just being paranoid.
    “Your face is all over the news. I didn’t recognize you at first with that hood.”
    Of course it was. I tugged back my hood and let her get a good look at me, which seemed to ease the deer-in-headlights thing she had going on.
    “You said Sayer’s in trouble? What kind of