He nodded.
“How is little Roger?”
“Smart as a whip.” Vance laughed. “Sharper than his old man.” Yeah, I believed that.
I drove to Alejandro’s estate with Vance in tow. When I was a few blocks from the mansion, I got a call from Elle. I knew she was concerned about me, but this wasn’t the best time to talk. Nevertheless, I always made time for my sister, so I pulled to the side of the road and took the call.
I started by bringing up something I’d forgotten to mention the other day. “Hey, happy birthday, sis. Big one coming up.” Elle was turning twenty-one in just five days.
“Yeah, yeah.” She was plainly disinterested in her new adult status. “Listen, I have big news for you on the parent front.”
“Oh, no!” A nervous jolt shook me. Elle had promised to find my birth parents, and in a moment of weakness, I’d let her. Now I was about to be confronted with their identity. A tiny part of me was curious, but the bulk of my being still didn’t want to know. “You found them?”
“Yep. I could have gone through regular channels, but that would have taken months. So instead, I let the hacker on my crew handle it. She got into the adoption system and found your info. I’ll send you the details. But get this! When she probed the agency, she noticed that someone else had pulled the same information a few hours earlier. Was that you?”
A tight knot welled up in my throat, and I had to swallow it down. I felt certain that Bea had done this. She already had Vance following me. Now she was gathering more dirt so that she could guarantee my obedience. More than ever, I needed to find those fingerprinted drugs.
“No,” I whispered. “It wasn’t me. Can you tell who made the inquiry? Could it be our dear, sweet F.M.?” A nervous laugh broke through my defenses. “She’s been really controlling ever since I got here—even has Victory Vance following me. Maybe she’s planning something.”
“Maybe she’s planning something? Are you nuts? She’s always planning something. And by the way, I spoke to her yesterday. She told me that you two are in the middle of a big con.”
I groaned in defeat and took a long hard breath. “Yeah, she talked me into one more con. We’re close now, ready to set up a deal.”