I grab a pen and a legal pad off his desk and jot down a script. “This.”
He scans it, then looks at me skeptically. “No way is this going to work.”
Quirking an eyebrow at him, I dial the phone and hand it over. “Trust me.”
Seven watches me, phone to his ear. “Hello, yes, my name is Michael Murphy and I need to change the email address on my account, only I can’t do it online because my wife found my profile and closed my other email account and phone number. Yes. Uh-huh.”
For fuck’s sake, he sounds too formal and uppity to be a Flutter regular. I pick up the legal pad again and write in giant lettersLie Better!!I underline it three times.
“Yeah, I’m in hot water here,” Seven says, this time sounding far more like an American trucker. “Just need you to update the email. Yeah. Sure, I can verify my identity.” He glares at me in alarm.
I shift the folder in front of him and point at Michael’s home address and social security number. He had to provide them to get into Dragonfly since we are a sovereign government. Seven rattles it off along with the new email. I hear the person on the other end of the line say a few words, and then he simply says, “Thank you.”
He hangs up.
I smile wider. “Told ya.”
Seven looks absolutely baffled. “No security questions. No two-factor authentication.”
I sigh. “Flutter doesn’t make its money from keeping people from using its site. They try to make it easy for their customers.” I click the link to reset Michael’s password, navigate to my new email account for the reset link, change it to something I’ll remember, and voilà, we’re in.
“Gods, you did it,” Seven says, perusing Michael’s profile.
Michael is what Flutter calls aFrequent Flyer. An icon in the corner of his profile sports an FF inside a silver set of wings. There are dozens of hookups. I grab the mouse from Seven and click on his last match. A picture of a blond, blue-eyed pixie with the handle Wing_Gurl pops up.
“Do you recognize her?” Seven asks.
I glance toward the color printer on Seven’s credenza and press print. Laser. Nice. “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. A pixie like her would use illusion.”
Seven grunts.
“The thing about pixies though is that we often use the same illusions again and again. It’s exhausting coming up with new faces. I bet if I ask around town, someone will know who this is.”
“Great idea,” he says. He blinks at me, and then points a finger in my direction. “And the best place to start is with a visit to the Dragonfly Club. Ask around. See if anyone has anything to say about Michael Murphy.”
“I would have thought you’d already tried that,” I say incredulously. If he knew Michael Murphy frequented the club, why wouldn’t he have accessed the security tapes and interviewed his regulars?
Seven flashes that crooked smile. “We’ve tried, but you know as well as I do that pixies clam up around leprechauns, and everyone clams up around Godmother. I need someone who can change their appearance and blend in, get the other pixies to trust them.”
Many of the pixies that frequent the club work in the sex trade. Prostitution isn’t illegal in Devashire, and their ability to look like anyone makes them particularly desirable by humans. But a pixie wouldn’t admit to it openly, especially not to someone outside their kind. Even among other pixies, it’s considered immoral and reprehensible.
“That’s why Godmother assigned me to this case, isn’t it?” It finally clicks in my brain. If anyone has a chance of getting the pixies at the club to talk, it’s me. I know how they think. My punishment isn’t just a punishment. Godmother needs me.
Seven nods his head. “Yup.”
I plant my hands on my hips. “Couldn’t you just use luck? I mean, walk into the club and flex a little juice, and the person you’re looking for will fall into your arms. Be a lot faster than me trying to pry information out of some poor pixie about this guy.” I wave the printout of Wing_Gurl’s face.
Leaning back in his chair, Seven tries to remain impassive, but I see a hint of frustration twitch a muscle in his jaw. If I didn’t know him as well as I do, I might not have noticed.
“Oh my gods!” I grip the arms of my chair. “You’ve already tried, and it’s not working.”
He rolls his pen back and forth on the desk again. “Luck has to be directed toward something. There has to be focus and intention. I’ve tried various things, but nothing has worked. Godmother has tried magic. Whoever did this… they covered their tracks.”
“And you’re hoping I can uncover them the old-fashioned way.”
“Yes. Turn on that friendly charm of yours and see what you can find out.” He smirks.
There’s nothing friendly or charming about me and never has been. I was born snarky and have fully embraced my sarcastic superpowers as an adult. “Right. I’m a people person.”
