Quid Pro Quo
myself."
    "On my dime." I caught her with a pointed stare.
    "Your dime? I'd like to see these phantom paychecks."
    I frowned. "You're not getting a check?"
    She shook her head. "I'm here on my Daddy's dime, technically."
    "I thought—"
    "Nope. The lady in human resources told me this position was unpaid. I didn't argue with her." Her
    shoulders bounced. "Like I need whatever crummy salary you pay interns."
    I grunted in agreement. She probably spent in a week what we paid the interns in three months. The
    thought of her living on an intern's salary was laughable.
    I turned the page and read another comic panel from the deposition. "These are good." I wasn’t blowing
    smoke. They truly were. Apparently, this was Skye's true talent. "This is what you're planning to study in
    college?"
    Skye shook her head. "I applied for the printmaking major. It fascinates me."
    "Printmaking?"
    "The college I'm going to has one of the best programs in the world."
    "And what are you going to do with that?"
    She smiled coyly. "Make good art."
    With her family's deep pockets, she had the luxury of chasing that dream and developing her talent
    without worrying about paying for food or rent or supplies. I scanned the comic panels and stopped short
    when I spotted the bold lettering in one of them. Liar !
    "What's this?" I turned the legal pad toward her and tapped the panel. "Who lied?"
    She looked at me as if I were dumb. "The guy giving the deposition."
    I recalled the accuser's statements. Nothing struck me as obviously false. "How do you know?"
    She reached for the file on my desk and started to flick through the pages in it. "He says he's a
    whistleblower who spotted the company accepting illegal hazardous waste from another company in
    January of this year, right?"
    "Right." I wondered where she was going with this. "The company's contract and permit to accept and
    process hazardous waste expired in December. He has pictures snapped from his cell phone to prove they
    were accepting waste in January and illegally profiting from it."
    "I call bullshit."
    I snorted with amusement. "You've seen the pictures in the file. They have time and date stamps on
    them."
    "Cell phones can be hacked, Linus." She pulled out one of the glossy photographs from the file. "But
    this?" She tapped a bit of graffiti on one of the warehouse walls behind the sinister looking hazardous waste
    drums. "This can't be faked."
    I sat forward and stared at the picture. "What am I looking at here?"
    "This tag?" Her perfectly manicured fingernail circled a bit of graffiti. "I know the guy who uses it."
    "You know a graffiti artist?" I couldn't believe it. Miss Trust Fund slumming it with a some gangbanger
    tagger? Never.
    "Know? I used to run in his crew."
    "What? You ?"
    She laughed. "Don't look so surprised. I'm not exactly a goody two-shoes, Linus." She hesitated. "Linus,
    you know I've been in trouble before, right?" She must have seen the shock on my face. "I got pinched for
    graffiti when I was fourteen, fifteen and seventeen. I've never been officially arrested or books but I've paid
    a shit ton of fines or, rather, donations to beautification projects around Houston."
    I wasn't surprised she'd never been officially picked up or booked. Her father's money had probably
    greased enough palms to keep her out of trouble. "What does your criminal past have to do with this case?"
    "Criminal past? Yeah, because tagging is so hardcore, Linus." She grinned and shook her head. "But,
    seriously, you've got nothing to worry about in this case. This piece here," she touched the picture, "was removed and painted over by a bunch of church volunteers over Thanksgiving weekend last year. In
    November. Four weeks before this company's contract expired. When it was still legal to accept and process
    hazardous waste."
    I let her words sink in. "So this whistleblower who is suing our company is full of shit."
    "Maybe," she said. "I mean, I wouldn't doubt that Jack Perillo's company is

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