“Not at all.” Bethany stood gracefully—she did everything gracefully—and gathered her long dark hair into a quick knot at the nape of her neck. “I have plenty of work to keep me busy.”
As Evelyn and I headed toward the elevators, I decided that maybe I didn’t miss Carl so much after all. Mood Blaster had always been a bit of a black box for me. I had no idea what was going on under the hood—I’d just found a routine that seemed to work and stuck to it. Hopefully Evelyn could reverse engineer all the new changes and help me find my old standby again. That, or whatever dumb emoji was passing for it nowadays.
Evelyn might not be Carl, but I suspected she’d be reasonably good backup. Especially since I was only off to interview a mailman. But as we turned into the elevator bay that would lead us to the parking garage, I nearly collided with Jacob.
“Oh, I did catch you after all,” he said. “I had a quick look at the info from Records. It’s nowhere near as dense as it looks. Figured I might as well join you.”
His change of heart was no big shock. Jacob likes paperwork about as much as I like pretentious green tea.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Evelyn said. “I’d hate to be redundant, and if Agent Bayne doesn’t need me, I can review the data I’ve gathered while it’s still fresh in my mind.”
I’d hardly call her “redundant.” But since she was so eager to get back to her duties, I’d be a real jerk if I insisted she come along. Especially just for the sake of explaining an app to me that should’ve been simple enough for a child. Besides, before I could protest, she was halfway down the hall.
“Way to scare off the scientist,” I told Jacob.
His eyebrows shot up in alarm. “I just thought the three of us—maybe it’s not too late to convince her.”
“Relax,” I sighed. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to pick her brain before she heads back to DC.”
We climbed into Jacob’s car and rode to Sledge’s route in silence. It wasn’t that I was annoyed with him—it was the vehicle being bugged. Agent Garcia assures us this isn’t so, but Agent Garcia isn’t privy to the entirety of the FPMP organization. We try not say anything of import in the car. Or within hearing distance of our phones. Or anywhere other than directly in each other’s ears after a sweaty bout of between-the-sheets action…which we’re told is where most surveillance operatives tune out.
Unfortunately, given that we were a boring married couple, it would probably raise suspicion if we pulled over to engage in some heavy petting. So I pointed out a parking spot near a work crew busy jackhammering up some concrete. As we walked toward Sledge’s route, they provided me the cover to say, “I know what you were trying to do back there.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jacob asked, wounded.
“You’re stalking Evelyn.”
Jacob’s expression froze.
Hah, Isohad his number. “You want to get your hand on the SPECs. You figure that if they help me tune in the etheric, that maybe they’ll do the same for you. And like any good scientist, Evelyn would be delighted to double-check any results she gets from me on a control subject. What better control subject than a certified Stiff?”
There was a pause in the jackhammering. When it resumed, Jacob said, “You can’t blame me for being curious.”
“I know. But, Jacob, she’s National. And as much as we might like her, at the end of the day, we can’t risk you ending up on their radar.”
Jacob agreed. Grudgingly. But he did agree.
As the sound of construction faded behind us, our intel on Sledge proved good. His boxy mailtruck was within two blocks of where we expected it to be, and the man himself was just emerging from a courtyard across the street.
Sledge was easy to spot, what with the uniform, the bundle of mail in his hand and the bag slung over his shoulder. But if I didn’t have it in black and white that the guy was a real-life mail carrier, I would’ve figured he was en route to a strip-o-gram. His tan was natural, I supposed, but he wore it like he’d paid big bucks to have it sprayed on. His blue-gray polo shirt was so tight he’d fit in at a rave, with the sleeves rolled up to approximate a tank top—in October, no less. And the uniform shorts with the stripe down the side hugged his glutes in a way that left nothing to the imagination.
“Someone’s a big fan of the leg press,” I remarked.
Jacob gave me a startled look.
“What?” I asked. “Did I get the machine wrong?”
“No,” he said carefully.
“See? I do listen to all those dull stories about your adventures at the gym. Now let’s find out if yourbroover there remembers much about his last rental.”
We caught up with the studly mailman half a block later. “Zachary Sledge?” I called out. He paused and stiffened. I put on my bored voice. “We just need a minute.”
By the time he turned around, we were already flashing our badges. His expression was blank, but no one’s ever glad to be approached by a pair of credential wielding so-and-so’s unless they’ve just called 911. “It’s about your apartment on George Street,” I clarified.
His expression morphed into an easy, bored half-smile. He irritated me already. “Sure. What about it?”
“We’re currently looking into some statements about the property. You lived there for two years, correct?”
