Free Convergence Point by Liana Brooks

winner.”
    â€œMe?” Mac laughed. “What if I win?”
    â€œYou’re not. I’m right.”
    Clemens shook her head. “I’m going to go with accidental, nonerotic death.” She blushed. “I like taking the long shots.”
    S am walked Clemens out to the parking lot as Mac and Edwin got ready to leave for the swamps.
    Clemens stopped beside the rental. “Nice car. I guess bureau pay isn’t as bad as everyone says.”
    â€œIt’s a rental,” Sam said. “I usually drive the Alexia Virgo, standard-­issue car of lower-­middle-­class workers everywhere.”
    â€œWhat happened to it?”
    â€œSomebody bashed it up in the parking lot. It’s in the shop until they can get all the parts in to fix it.”
    â€œWow, I hope the other guy had insurance.”
    â€œDon’t know. Whoever rammed my car into something didn’t stop to leave a number after their joyride. Just a nice, cryptic note and a two-­hundred-­dollar copay.”
    â€œDid you report it?” Clemens asked, sounding angrier than Sam felt.
    She shrugged. “Two officers came in and took my report. They said they’d look at the security video from the street cams, but they haven’t gotten back to me.”
    â€œDo you remember which officers you talked to?”
    â€œHadley and Ranct.”
    â€œThey’re good ­people,” Clemens said. “Good officers. I’ll talk to them and see if I can’t get them to give your car some priority attention.”
    â€œYou don’t have to,” Sam said. “I don’t need special consideration, and I don’t want favors I can’t repay.”
    Clemens rolled her eyes. “Your drive-­by vandalism is the second biggest crime in this town in weeks. If the patrol officers haven’t gotten back to you, it’s because someone in the tech department is too busy playing video games to check their in-­box. I’m not doing you favors by reminding someone to do their job.”
    â€œGood for you, throwing weight around like that.”
    Clemens smiled. “I’ve got to start somewhere now that I have weight to throw around. Now that I’m a real person . . .” She shrugged. “I want to be a real person, you know? I want ­people to know I’m more than a vacation trinket created in the lab.”
    Sam knew exactly how she felt.
    H enry’s address, according to the lab employment records, was 12B Basilwood Loop, part of an apartment complex that catered to singles and young ­couples.
    Sam knew where it was only because she’d run across it during her apartment hunt and remembered how out of place the Basilwood Apartments felt. Most apartments in Florida were cement blocks with stucco texturing and tropical colors. In fact, cement blocks were the preferred design aesthetic anywhere hurricanes were a common occurrence. Basilwood was synthetic wood with cuckoo-­clock embellishments. She half expected to see a little woman in wooden shoes carrying tulips popping out of the arched windows of the main building as the clock struck the hour.
    She drove around the loop until she found building twelve and parked in a vacant, unmarked spot. Two spots were marked 12B. Presumably one for Henry and one for his roommate. Lucky her, the roommate’s car was sitting where it belonged.
    Taking the stairs two at a time, she went up to Apartment B and rapped her knuckles on the door. From inside she heard the unmistakable sound of the soundtrack for War of Wars, a first-­person shooter that was being advertised on every radio station and Internet site in the Commonwealth. Fake gunfire rattled inside. She knocked again, louder. Someone swore, and the music stopped.
    â€œWhat do you want?” a lanky man with brown hair demanded as the door swung open. He glared at Sam, looked her up and down once, then changed his frown to a sleazy smile.