Free Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair Page A

the auxiliary systems and communications backup panel recessed in a small storage closet just before the holds. He decoded the lock, careful of tripping any alarms. Then it was a good half hour’s worth of work, aided by the pilfered datalyzer, before he was into the ship’s primaries.
    All her illegal customizations floated before him. Trilby Elliot’s handiwork. He didn’t know if he was more surprised by the sophistication of her methods or just her downright crazy creativity.
    There was a talent there. The brash little air sprite had a real knack. Had she been raised in the Empire, schooled through the Imperial Academy, she probably could have run circles around half the chief engineers he knew.
    He could learn a few things about wogs-and-weemlies from her, though he doubted she’d want to teach him. But he should be able to find some answers in her Master Program Templates. It might be interesting, later, to run her patch methodology through the
Razalka
’s computers.
    He tapped at the pad, trailed down a datafeed to her personal files, the most likely place for her templates to reside.
    But found the
J
files first. It took him a few minutes to understand
J
was for Jagan Grantforth. Grantforth Galactic Amalgamated. The Empire had taken enough of their ships that he recognized the ID stamp in the transmission code. What tugged at his curiosity was the regularity of the entries over the past year and a half that had ended abruptly about four months ago.
    Grantforth was a well-heeled outfit. New money, it was true, but then most of the Conclave was built on new money. Not like the long clan heritage of the Zafharin.
    He couldn’t imagine why a high-profile export firm like GGA would utilize a short-hauler like Trilby Elliot. Or why she hadn’t profited from the relationship.
    Except the relationship hadn’t been business. He discovered that as the messages scrolled by on the small screen. And his real reason for accessing the
Venture
’s primaries, as well as Trilby’s intriguing patch templates, slid from his mind.
    Wealthy, influential Jagan Grantforth had thoroughly bedazzled, and seduced, an unsuspecting, gullible Trilby Elliot of Port Rumor.
    He watched Jagan’s vid transmissions with growing distaste. The well-tanned blond-haired man on the screen dished out compliments with a sugary sweetness. A few later transmissions were also the same; only the last two were obviously different.
    “But, Trilby, little darling,” Jagan’s miniature image said on the screen. “You know I adore you; you know no other woman can make me feel what you do. But there are differences in our lives and that can’t be ignored.” The image looked down at the half-empty wineglass in his fingers for a moment, then back at the vid lens. “Sorry you had to find out about my engagement to Zalia that way. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But there’s no reason why we can’t keep on with this beautiful relationship we have. You just have to understand I’m going to marry Zalia out of . . . well, duty. Her family’s wealthy, well connected. And I am, after all, one of
the
Grantforths.”
    The final transmission was a bit more heated. Jagan still pleaded that he wanted her, but there was an anger there as well. Evidently Trilby had given him his walking papers and he didn’t like having his sweet little setup so peremptorily disrupted. And, judging from his closing remark, she had also been less than diplomatic in her ending of their affair:
    “Mother was right.” Petulance clouded Jagan’s handsome features. “You
are
nothing more than low-class trash from Port Rumor.”
    An unexpected bolt of hot rage shot through Rhis’s chest. With surprise he realized that had Jagan Grantforth been standing in front of him at that moment, he would’ve gladly flattened the man against the nearest bulkhead.
             
    Trilby glanced at Rhis as he strapped himself into the copilot’s seat and saw shadows under his eyes. It was