Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

“I don’t know anything,” Smith blurted out, tears streaking out of his eyes. “I really don’t.”

Aden knew no further persuasion would be needed. As Zaira had realized, Smith wasn’t a criminal mastermind—he was a bit player who’d been given just enough power to feel useful and not question his masters. “Tell me how and when this all began.”

“Um.” Smith wiped his face with his knuckles, his expression eager to please. “Eight months ago, I received a letter—an actual, printed letter—asking if I’d like to be part of a networking group designed to connect business owners together in a mutually beneficial way. It said I’d been chosen because of my innovative advertising techniques.”

Smith swallowed convulsively again. “My business wasn’t doing so well, so I thought, why not? I figured I might find someone who could maybe help me get a few more contracts.”

Eight months ago, Vasic said inside his mind. Same timeline as the BlackSea abductions and months before the fall of Silence.

The cracks had begun to appear to anyone who was paying careful attention. Aden had noticed, known those cracks were permanent. Psy or non-Psy alike could’ve read the signs.

“Did you keep the letter?” he asked the pajama-clad man in front of him.

He shook his head. “Later, they told me to get rid of it.”

Aden decided to follow up on that instruction later. “What did you do after deciding to join the group?”

“I RSVP’d to the number included in the letter and got a recorded message saying I’d soon be sent another letter with further details.” Smith looked up, the whites of his eyes now red with burst blood vessels. “I don’t know why I’m here.” His voice was a plea. “I just did a favor for a friend.”

“Finish your story.” Aden made no threat, his tone even, but Smith trembled.

“A week after that first contact, I received another letter. It listed the names of three other businesspeople in my area who were interested in the networking opportunity. We contacted one another, got together. I figured one would be the person who’d started the group in the first place, but no one copped to it.” Smith shrugged. “I didn’t really worry too much about it—the others were good people and we made an agreement to help each other where we could.”

“Your business improved,” Aden guessed.

“Yeah.” A shaky smile. “I suddenly started getting more contracts. Nothing huge, but enough to bring me out of the red. When I was sent a third letter four months later saying that the organization that had brought us all together and ensured our prosperity would like a favor in return, I called back on the number provided and left a message saying yes. I figured I owed them.”

“What occurred?” Aden said when the other man paused and looked to him as if for further instruction.

“I got a letter thanking me for my assistance and asking me to pay for a couple of apartments. But first, I had to follow instructions to set up a shell corporation and all that.” Smith sighed and seemed to slump in his chair. “Soon as I saw the shell corporation stuff I knew something was hinky, so I ignored it . . . and my contracts started falling away.” Shoulders shaking, he began to cry. “I have kids, a wife. I can’t go bankrupt. I did what they asked.”

“Where did you get the money for the rents?” Smith had paid for a full year in advance, and Venice rentals weren’t cheap. If there had been a money transfer, Tamar might be able to track it.

“I was overpaid a couple, maybe three times on invoices, and since the letter said the money would be provided, I figured out quick that the extra was for the rent.”

Aden had already made sure Tamar had full access to Smith’s files. Now he questioned the older man in detail about the specific contracts that had brought him the money, and telepathically alerted Tamar to push those forensic investigations to priority status. “Did you ever hear from your benefactors again?”

Smith shook his head. “When I heard about what happened in Venice—about the suicide—and I realized it was from one of the rentals, I called the number I had, but it was disconnected. I talked to the others in the group to see if anyone else had an e-mail or something, but the others had the same number.”

And had no doubt been asked to do small tasks of their own. It turned out Smith knew the basic gist of those tasks, but Aden would get the details from the others. When he did a few hours later, he saw why Hashri Smith and his associates continued to breathe. All knew only a minuscule detail at best, and none of those details led to anything but dead ends.

Also interesting was that all four reported a gradual downturn in business over the past two months. Used up and discarded, Aden thought. Nevertheless, he released the terrified businesspeople with the coda that should they be contacted again, they were to alert the squad. “I don’t believe they’ll be contacted,” he told his team of senior Arrows late that afternoon. “Smith and his cohorts played their roles and have now been written out.”

Their opponent was not only smart and sly but ruthless and calculating. If it was a human or changeling, they had to have high-level Psy support or the ability to hack into secure Psy databases. Aden’s bet was on the former—all the conflict-causing “tricks” to date that had to do with the Psy had been too well designed and targeted to have been thought up by an outsider.

It had to be someone who had deep knowledge of the PsyNet and the politics within it.