Page 37
I glanced at Sparrow, comfortable against his shoulder, then met Seb’s eyes. “Don’t tell me I shouldn’t have danced.”
“I wasn’t going to. I should’ve asked before I came to watch.”
“You didn’t come near the stage afterward.”
“I wanted to.” His hand moved slowly over Sparrow’s back. “I didn’t know if you’d want me there at all.”
I remembered looking for him at the back of the room as I came offstage. I’d wanted to send him one of our old messages from the dressing room, to ask what he thought of Blondie. “I’m glad you saw her,” I said. “Next time, tell me you’re coming.”
Seb’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.
Sparrow pulled at his collar. He eased it free of her fist and looked at me again. “That’s the tip,” he said, after a bit. “It isn’t how I found you.”
“Meaning what?”
“Handful gave me Kettlewell, not your address. I still had to get past JW. I’d looked at them a year ago and believed the story Robin wanted me to believe. This time I looked at what JW has to file.”
“Go on.”
“The public filing named your benefits administrator,” he said. “I got into their portal. Your name was on JW’s health plan, and there was a dependent listed under it.”
Sparrow reached for his collar again. “That’s how you knew about her.”
“I knew there was a baby. I didn’t know her name or that she was a girl until you told me.”
“Who else can see that?”
“The administrator’s staff. And anyone who can get in the way I did.”
I brought Sparrow onto my lap. She grabbed at the buttons on my shirt, perfectly happy, while I thought about her existence sitting in a portal none of us controlled. “Show me.”
Seb opened the laptop he’d brought with him. He showed me the public filing and the field he’d used to find the administrator. I made him explain the part about the portal twice. Moff needed to know where to close it, and Seb knew I’d tell him.
At the clubhouse, if Seb couldn’t tell me about a job, he said so. He didn’t make up an answer to keep me quiet. I’d trusted that about him.
“Do you want to tell Moff yourself?”
Seb looked up from Sparrow. “You’d let me?”
“He’s going to want to hear it from you.”
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
“Why?”
Seb looked down at Sparrow before he answered. “He’s been tearing his systems apart since I arrived. I know because I would. I did. He won’t find this because it isn’t in his systems. I’d want to know if somebody got past me through a third party. And I’d want to hear it from the bastard who did it.”
“That’s one reason.”
“They’re very good,” he said. “I’d like to talk to somebody who understands just how good.”
I laughed. He looked pleased he’d managed it.
“They kept your location from me for twelve months,” he said. “I’m not being modest. I do this for a living. Nobody has ever beaten me, and five men in a boathouse did it with cover so clean I audited it twice and passed it both times.”
“You’re impressed.”
“I’m furious.” He looked at me. “And I’m impressed.”
