Free Rebels and Lovers by Linnea Sinclair Page A

shrugged. “Probably both. Or could be gambling again. Nula’s done work for Orvis before.”
    The woman said something low and harsh that Devin couldn’t hear, then the pair moved away.
    Barthol took their place. “Any sign of Master Trip?”
    Devin shook his head.
    “Chances are good,” Barthol said, dropping his voice, “that whoever is after him will not chance a public confrontation. Master Trip is not like them.” He jerked his chin to the scene below. “People here know who belongs here and who doesn’t. In that lies one of our best chances of finding him.”
    “We don’t belong here either.”
    “In that lies one of our biggest problems.” He touched Devin’s arm. “We should return to the hotel now, before the price for accommodations climbs any higher. Or before that rather unsavory fellow leaning against the pylon—no, please don’t look—erroneously decides we’re easy marks and tries to relieve us of our duffels. I believe this area has had enough excitement for one day.”
    Devin had a feeling the kind of excitement he’d just witnessed happened more than once a day on Dock Five. He followed Barthol. It was time to check Trip’s accounts again and try to pin down where his nephewwas accessing his money. That would mean hacking into the bank’s datagrids—something he’d never done.
    But he had designed security programs to prevent exactly what it was he would attempt to do, so all he had to do was outsmart someone like himself. And pray that someone smarter than he was wasn’t watching.
    As she moved around the edges of the crowd gathered at the escalator, Kaidee caught a glimpse of the morgue personnel in their light-blue biohaz suits, sealing the shiny black body bag around Gudrin’s corpse. A chill ran up her spine like a warning. She didn’t know Gudrin Vere personally, but she’d heard of the itinerant navigator—and her gambling problem—only because any mention of that kind of thing caught her attention these days. She didn’t know Nula either. At least, she didn’t know the name. Not everyone on Dock Five used their real name, though, and as the reported shooter was no longer on the scene, Kaidee didn’t know if her face might be familiar. But Kaidee heard enough in the conversations around her to note that Frinks’s and Orvis’s names were mentioned along with Gudrin’s and Nula’s.
    That made her close her fingers around her L7 and quicken her pace past the crowd, including a pair of robed Englarian nuns whose heads were bowed in prayer—for the dead, she guessed with fair accuracy. The Englarians had been busy lately. Orvis was collecting his debts, and she could feel her name rapidly inching its way to the top of his list. It made her palms sweat and the back of her neck prickle.
    And made her rethink the wisdom of trying to find Trip Guthrie. Being associated with Captain MakaidenGriggs, ex-wife of Captain Kiler Griggs, might not be the safest option for him at the moment.
    Better she get back to the
Rider
and see what else she could sell. A galley table and chairs, maybe. They were in decent condition and deck-locked with only a latch system, not bolted. She loved the small overstuffed couch in the captain’s cabin, but, hell, maybe she could get a few hundred for it.
    After a quick check over her shoulder to be sure her Takan shadow wasn’t following, she cut down a side service alley. At its end was a set of lesser-used stairs that led to freighter docks two levels down on Orange.
    Two human women in yellow shipsuits were leaning against the bulkhead by an open office door, talking and laughing. They glanced disinterestedly as she passed, their voices fading as a coverall-clad balding man and a wheezing AG pallet approached.
    Kaidee sidestepped out of the way, her mind refusing to let go of the problem of Trip Guthrie. She could at least send his father a transmit that she’d seen the kid on dock. She still had Jonathan Guthrie’s office comm code. Devin