Great, that would give me a new hobby.
“Chase always tells me I buy too many frivolous things, but…” I trailed off and shrugged. “A girl needs what a girl needs, right?”
“That is so true.”
Speaking of Chase, he knocked softly on the door. “Our pilot just messaged. He’s five minutes out.”
Phew.
I’d never admit it to Jez, but I didn’t regret the trip. It had helped me to put one of my past demons to bed. For years, I’d regretted the way my friendship with Nolan had ended, and while seeing him again had been awkward—I mean super awkward, what with the dick video and all—I’d survived. Now I didn’t have to lie awake at night wondering what if? We’d both moved on. He had Marielle and the vineyard; I had Chase and a multibillion-dollar web services company, the largest still in private hands. Although I found it difficult to get excited about global expansion the way Jay did, I was proud of everything we’d built together.
“Marielle, it was lovely meeting you.” I stood and closed my laptop, then slid the device into its travel case. “Good to see you too, Nolan. Au revoir.”
I hadn’t been lying about buying property. Right after I arrived back in Vegas, I headed to my lawyer’s office to finalise the purchase of a ski-in, ski-out chalet in Aspen, Colorado, plus I signed my part of the paperwork for the acquisition of land in Maine that would one day house a new data centre. The chalet wasn’t a home, and I didn’t even like snow, but it would make a good investment. Chase did enjoy skiing, so maybe we’d spend a couple of weeks there at some point.
Had I tried settling down in a permanent residence rather than out of a suitcase? Yes. But every time I stayed in one place too long, I got twitchy, and nowhere I’d tried living so far felt right. The closest thing I had to a home was in Las Vegas, a suite of five rooms in the basement of Casa del Gato—the Cathouse—also known as the Choir’s base of operations. One room housed my more sensitive servers, the second was my workroom, and then there was my bedroom with its en-suite. The last room, I used to store anything that wouldn’t fit into my suitcase. Chase borrowed a bedroom on the second floor—he preferred having windows.
When Chase took time off to visit friends or family or make his annual pilgrimage to the dojo he trained at in Japan, this was where I stayed, accompanied by Marcel, Dice’s menagerie of snakes, and an excellent security system. Sin’s dogs lived here as well, but she’d trained them to keep well away from me.
This evening, they watched from the doorway as Chase unloaded the car.
“Echo, ma chérie.” Marcel gripped my arms lightly as he leaned in to kiss me on both cheeks, French-style, even though he’d been born and raised in the USA. We’d hired him to cook and clean, but he’d claimed the title of “estate manager” and stuck his nose in everywhere. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“I need peace and quiet to plot world domination—same old, same old.”
“Then you’ll have to eat properly—I’m making beef bourguignon for dinner.”
“Great, is Jez here?”
“She was earlier, but she had to pop out.”
“Pop out where?”
“Libya, I believe.”
“Does that mean there’s an extra helping of beef bourguignon going spare?”
“That depends on whether you say ‘please.’”
I rolled my eyes; I couldn’t help it. “Fine. Please can I have extra dinner?”
We played this game every time I stayed here. Marcel pushed my buttons, and I did the same in return. Quite literally, on occasion. My latest trick involved hacking the smart TV in his bedroom and changing the volume just a smidgen, enough for him to wonder whether he was losing his mind. So far, he’d gotten through three “faulty” TVs and had his hearing checked at the hospital, and he still hadn’t worked out what the real problem was: his uppity fucking attitude.
But his beef bourguignon was really, really good, so I more or less put up with him.
“I’m going to take a swim,” Chase announced. “Unless you need me for anything else right now?”
“No, I’m good.”
There were three items on my to-do list, enough to keep me busy this evening. I had to catch up with Jay ahead of next week’s board meeting, make some alterations to Marielle’s website, and continue tracking Dark Descent. Plus I’d have to deal with today’s episode of the Nolan show when it popped up, and then there was my ongoing side project—the devil lurking at the back of the red room. He called himself GutterMuse, and he bragged that he sold access to the best torture porn on the dark web. Or the worst, if you happened to be one of his victims. So far, I’d spent two years looking for him, and although I’d worked with the FBI to get several of his clients arrested, GutterMuse himself remained stubbornly out of reach.
Hmm, where to start… I opened my custom-built messaging app, but before I could call Jay, a notification popped up.
Nolan
What is this?
Ah, he’d finally spotted the new icon on his phone screen. Took him long enough.
