?ω?ω?ω?
“Hello, lover. I hear you’re looking for me.”
“My moonchild managed to join me at the witching hour, I see. No fear, baby?”
“Of you? Please. I’m not a threat to you, and you know it. As a matter of fact, there is nothing about you or your—establishment, shall we say—that much worries me. What I am currently involved in is far outside the realm of your interests, so you should find me quite boring. If I find myself in Purgatory again, for any reason, it will be easy to ignore me, just as youhave always done in the past. Now, why did you want to see me?”
“Shall we play a game?”
“Ooh, how delicious. Is that why your handsome self lured me into a private room, so you can have your wicked way with me?”
“I’m not sure you will totally enjoy whatThe Shadowwill do to you when I catch you, my moonchild. But, for now, earning ten points in our game will be enough for you to escape me.Youwill earn one point for everyuntruestatement I make, whereasIwill earn one point for everytruestatement I make. Whoever reaches ten points first is the winner. Agreed?”
“How will you know if I am being truthful or not?”
“Frankly, I won’t. However, you don’t strike me as the kind of woman who lies just for the sake of lying.”
“And if I win, you will no longer make it your business to find out what I am doing? I’ll be free of you? Although I suppose that means that ifyouwin, you’ll expect me to come clean about everything I am currently doing.”
“Nothing so mundane. Yes, if you win, you no longer need to worry aboutThe Shadowor her associates on any level. But ifIwin? I have your permission to hunt you and take you down. And when I catch you—and you had better believe I will—then you will accompany me to my lair, where you will tell me every single detail about what you are involved in. Because I highly doubt my establishment and I won’t take an interest in what you are tangled up in.”
“You just gave me the shivers, lover.”
“I’ll ask again. Are we agreed?”
“I accept your terms.”
“Then let’s begin. First statement. Your interest lies in the illegal body brokering and trafficking racket currently taking place in the Tampa Bay area.”
“True.”
“Next statement. You weren’t particularly interested in the area body brokers until Rob Kilgore led you to them.”
“False. Perhaps Mr. Kilgore had his uses, but that wasn’t one of them as far as I was concerned. I had already been aware. That’s one point apiece.”
“The illegal body brokering business in west-central Florida is much larger than you knew.”
“False. There has never been any question of how large or how far the reach of some of those brokers is. The only surprise has been in the identity of the perpetrators. That’s two to one in my favor, lover. You really aren’t doing very well.”
“Your interest in the illegal body brokering and trafficking racket is recent, within the last year.”
“Hmmm…let’s call that one both trueandfalse. We’re hovering around the year mark, but I was twitchy for several months prior to that, for reasons. Are you sure you would like to continue?”
“Let’s cut to the chase then. You were twitchy because you suffered a personal loss that sent you on this particular pursuit.”
“True.”
“The dead body brokering and trafficking operations you’ve found since you first became cognizant they existed have been like nothing you have ever seen before, and it knocked you for a loop.”
A pause.“True.”
“There is an element of revenge in your current quest because of a personal experience you had.”
Silence.
“I’ll ask again. Is there a revenge component to your current mission because of your personal experience with illegal body brokering and trafficking?”
“Why are you doing this?”
