Page 45

CHAPTER 45

M ax finally texted from his satellite messenger that they were on their way back, with no treasure in hand. I was working on Dottie’s mask, thinking about what she knew and how I could get it out of her, when there was a knock on the shop door. When I saw it was Lionel, acting furtive, I opened the door. Max had said that Lionel had asked for help and if he needed help, I might get something out of him. Like who Dottie was talking to. “What’s up?”

Lionel was looking left and right and then he handed me a package and slid into the doorway, furtive as all hell. “I did what Max asked. Put the Eye on Alexei Dmitri.”

“Do you want to come in?” The cold air was pouring into my nice warm shop while he played spy.

“I’ve got to get back,” Lionel whispered. “Dottie thinks I’m delivering the last of the packages.”

“What are you afraid of, Lionel?” I said. “Who is Dottie talking to?”

He looked at me as if I were an idiot. “Herc, of course.”

“Beyond keeping the feed open? She’s giving him information about the town?”

“She’s selling him information,” Lionel said, disgust in his voice. “I had to do the Dmitri search when she wasn’t there.”

“Okay,” I said. “What did you find out?”

“Dmitri was sent to the Gulag after what happened in Afghanistan with Pike and Oz. And then he went dark, presumed dead.”

When he didn’t say anything else, I said, “And after that?”

“That’s it.”

“And his friend? Tanke?”

“Nothing.”

That wasn’t very helpful.

Lionel shifted his feet. “Herc’s been telling us where to send our drone. Tell Max there’s nothing we can do to stop that. Well, we could, but Herc would kill us, so Dottie keeps sending it up whenever and wherever he tells her to. Then we land it back on the roof and recharge it. It’s up now.” He looked around. “I gotta go.”

“Thank you, Lionel,” I said. “Do you know anything about Herc possibly retiring here?”

Lionel’s eyes got big. “What?”

That was answer enough.

“What do you know?” Lionel demanded. “Herc is coming here?”

“Just a rumor,” I said.

“Oh, God,” Lionel whispered.

“You’ve been a great help,” I said, but he was gone before I got to the last part. He went into Ecstasy next door, probably to get a mocha for an alibi.

I went back inside and looked at the package he’d given me. It was for Cover Stories, so I’d have Oxley or Hermione in here asking for it if I didn’t take it over soon. I’d really rather have kept working on the mask that was Dottie’s, a red cardinal with Dottie’s sharp, beak-like nose and scowling shape. I could stick some stamps on her, but that was about all I knew about Dottie, except that she’d sold Norman information he’d used to kidnap my Poppy and she hated Louise. And she sold information to Herc. She was basically a survivor, screw everybody else.

Hard to make a mask out of that.

Well, no, there were the knives. Dottie was big on knives.

I stuck some American flag stamps on the mask along with one of the black lace eye masks to show she was a former spy, and then dug some knives out of the jewelry stuff that Ozzie had—we were running low on knife earrings for me to destroy, I’d have to start rationing those—and on an impulse, I stuck on a cheery daisy like the one on Dottie’s pith helmet.

It still wasn’t enough. The thing about Dottie was that she was bad-tempered—well, she was married to Lionel, that would do it—and impulsive—she really was going to gut Louise one of these days—but mostly she sat and watched. And I remembered that she’d called their surveillance feed The Eye, like it was the Eye of Sauron, staring balefully at everyone. So I hunted down two small creepy eye charms for the eyeholes and then one big one for the center of her forehead, and then it did look like Dottie, mad as hell and watching everybody.

And selling information to Herc.

Yeah, I needed to find a way to get Dottie on our side and away from Herc.