until the door was closed, then got to work on her hair. She took the box of hair dye from its bag, read the instructions, and went to the bathroom sink to get to work.
An hour later, she was drying her hair with an impossibly plush white towel she’d only seen previously at the kinds of hotels she couldn’t afford to stay at. She’d chosen a cloudy gray for her makeover, like clouds that weren’t white but didn’t quite threaten rain either. More of an overcast color. It had been very trendy among celebrities and women in their early twenties in the last year.
A bit unlike her, but that was the point.
She did her eyebrows next, tweezing them thin and accentuating the arch slightly, since she didn’t have the tools to try to fake anything thicker. Decided against any tanner since her skin was neutral enough to be unremarkable. She was going for the opposite of what she’d done with Landon. Blend in. She knew from experience it was pretty easy for her.
From there, the makeup. She was quick and efficient, taking very little time in transforming herself with a bolder palette than she would normally use, including very red lips that stood out starkly against the muted pallet of her skin and hair. By the time she was done, the face looking back in the mirror was her own, but not quite.
It should be enough.
Her thoughts drifted to the office as she blew her hair dry. They would realize she had no-call, no-showed by now. Maybe the partners would be worried. For her safety. For the success of her investigation. Something. If nothing else, the people who worked around her office might be talking and wondering what was going on.
Or maybe the partners were angry. Brantley may have even tried to fire her by now, based on yesterday. It was hard to tell with them, sometimes. Dunn was just about unreadable and Brantley was constantly saying and doing things he didn’t mean. Which amounted to just about the same. Never knew where you stood.
For all that, he had seemed on edge yesterday. The way he’d stopped her as she was trying to leave was prickly even for him. Maybe the stress was wearing him even thinner than usual. Maybe the stress had more than one source.
She looked at herself in the mirror. This disguise was fine. On to something else. Deep breath. She needed a plan.
Without a better idea, she went to her bag and got out her tab and keyboard. Set herself up on the couch with the coffee table as a desk. Began making her standard profiles of all the possible leaks that needed investigating. Dunn, Brantley, and Bruman to start.
She needed to treat this like a normal investigation, as strange as it was. This was something she knew. Something she had to know. It was why Landon had trusted her to help. Even if she was blinded by everything going on—the chase, the pharm in her veins, her brothers, him —none of it really changed the process she would need to follow to get results. It was always the same.
And step one was get the lay of the land. So she tapped out profiles for every one of the people on their list. Birth dates, educational history, work history, media clips. Taking information out in the world and shaping it into something digestible, something she could own. Seeing potentials emerge from the web. It was a map as much as anything. Something digestible for her mind to work through with more handholds than a cloud. It was another way of doing the same thing people always did with their lives: adding labels, rearranging, considering, turning over in the mind like the teasing of a toffee machine at the fair.
Construction of those maps is what she had been learning to do her entire professional career. She was very good at it. With enough time, she would find a breakthrough.
CHAPTER 5
Landon turned down the first alley he saw, then made his way to a residential street running parallel to Western. Didn't even catch the name. From there he walked north to Addison and grabbed another cab. Had it take him
An hour later, she was drying her hair with an impossibly plush white towel she’d only seen previously at the kinds of hotels she couldn’t afford to stay at. She’d chosen a cloudy gray for her makeover, like clouds that weren’t white but didn’t quite threaten rain either. More of an overcast color. It had been very trendy among celebrities and women in their early twenties in the last year.
A bit unlike her, but that was the point.
She did her eyebrows next, tweezing them thin and accentuating the arch slightly, since she didn’t have the tools to try to fake anything thicker. Decided against any tanner since her skin was neutral enough to be unremarkable. She was going for the opposite of what she’d done with Landon. Blend in. She knew from experience it was pretty easy for her.
From there, the makeup. She was quick and efficient, taking very little time in transforming herself with a bolder palette than she would normally use, including very red lips that stood out starkly against the muted pallet of her skin and hair. By the time she was done, the face looking back in the mirror was her own, but not quite.
It should be enough.
Her thoughts drifted to the office as she blew her hair dry. They would realize she had no-call, no-showed by now. Maybe the partners would be worried. For her safety. For the success of her investigation. Something. If nothing else, the people who worked around her office might be talking and wondering what was going on.
Or maybe the partners were angry. Brantley may have even tried to fire her by now, based on yesterday. It was hard to tell with them, sometimes. Dunn was just about unreadable and Brantley was constantly saying and doing things he didn’t mean. Which amounted to just about the same. Never knew where you stood.
For all that, he had seemed on edge yesterday. The way he’d stopped her as she was trying to leave was prickly even for him. Maybe the stress was wearing him even thinner than usual. Maybe the stress had more than one source.
She looked at herself in the mirror. This disguise was fine. On to something else. Deep breath. She needed a plan.
Without a better idea, she went to her bag and got out her tab and keyboard. Set herself up on the couch with the coffee table as a desk. Began making her standard profiles of all the possible leaks that needed investigating. Dunn, Brantley, and Bruman to start.
She needed to treat this like a normal investigation, as strange as it was. This was something she knew. Something she had to know. It was why Landon had trusted her to help. Even if she was blinded by everything going on—the chase, the pharm in her veins, her brothers, him —none of it really changed the process she would need to follow to get results. It was always the same.
And step one was get the lay of the land. So she tapped out profiles for every one of the people on their list. Birth dates, educational history, work history, media clips. Taking information out in the world and shaping it into something digestible, something she could own. Seeing potentials emerge from the web. It was a map as much as anything. Something digestible for her mind to work through with more handholds than a cloud. It was another way of doing the same thing people always did with their lives: adding labels, rearranging, considering, turning over in the mind like the teasing of a toffee machine at the fair.
Construction of those maps is what she had been learning to do her entire professional career. She was very good at it. With enough time, she would find a breakthrough.
CHAPTER 5
Landon turned down the first alley he saw, then made his way to a residential street running parallel to Western. Didn't even catch the name. From there he walked north to Addison and grabbed another cab. Had it take him
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