Moving Target. Lori May A.

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СКАЧАТЬ who were aware of how well she made her living, however, kept a keen eye out and rooted for whatever persona Beth presented in any televised games.

      It was a rush, imagining the sort of life Beth must lead, though Chesca knew all too well there was a good deal of personal vendetta involved. With Beth’s father dying the way he did, at the hands of someone who had been dealt a bad hand, it had become Beth’s personal crusade to bring down known cheaters, but she’d never herself succumbed to the dangerous lifestyle that no doubt tempted far too many a player in Vegas.

      “Giambi and Arachne,” Chesca said, getting to the point. “Who’s blackmailing who?” It was half asked in earnest and half as a mockery of what these foolish criminals imagined they could get away with.

      “You know the meat,” Beth said. “Giambi’s been making some hefty deposits to a bank account in Puerto Isla on a monthly basis for years. Quite the coincidence he’s also been spared by the IRS, don’t you think?”

      Opening the driver’s side window just enough to let in some air on the damp spring afternoon, Chesca turned the volume up a notch on her earpiece. She didn’t want to miss anything Beth had to offer.

      “And, I have it on good authority,” Chesca said with a smile, “Giambi came forward to the FBI to cover his assets.”

      “You got it. But, Chesca, listen up.” And she did. As her friend took on a more solemn tone, she wanted to pay extra attention to any helpful bits of information. “He needed to do so for serious protection. Whoever was sent to attack him was doing a pretty good job. His car was blown up, for one thing, and that wasn’t the only attempt made on his life. So,” Beth warned, “whatever you’re up to, make sure you watch your back.”

      “Will do. And Beth, am I right in this? Giambi referred to his blackmailer as the Queen of Hearts?”

      “You’re right,” Beth offered, letting Chesca in on a bit more of Giambi’s background. “He was suspected of trying to firebomb an Arizona prisoner back in 1968, but walked away from the charges. It’s not impossible that prisoner was the Queen of Hearts and Arachne.”

      To take down some notes and give Beth her undivided attention, Chesca took an off ramp to stop for a moment in a safe location. “But Giambi had bigger problems.”

      “Right. According to him, in his confession of sorts, he admitted the prisoner was his blackmailer and he tried to kill her, but that’s not all.”

      “Go on.”

      Chesca’s pen was writing as fast as her friend could speak. Amongst the details Beth shared with Chesca, one thing stood out amongst the rest. “Giambi suspects his blackmailer may have been a CIA agent.”

      Making a mental note to run this information by Delphi, Chesca was reeling.

      If what Giambi confessed was true—though Chesca had known more than one criminal to say anything to get a safe haven—this mercenary, this Queen of Hearts, could have been intrinsic to the many attempts against Athena Academy.

      Was it really possible one individual could have so much power, so many connections, as to be involved in such a conspiracy?

      Chesca let the thoughts formulate in her head as steady traffic flowed by her on the expressway. She was parked securely off to the side, tucked into a carpool parking lot away from the chaos of the road, but the rumble of the cars couldn’t compete with the traffic in her mind.

      What a history of corruption, Chesca thought.

      For Giambi to try and kill his rival way back in 1968 meant their relationship went back even further. And he was still running from his blackmailer. Chesca had that gut feeling deep within her that whoever was capable of taunting someone for so many years would be capable of so much more.

      She was beginning to get a sense of what she was up against.

      But she was never one to tremble in the face of evil. Chesca had seen evil minds at work before, and this wouldn’t be the last she would encounter in her career.

      “Thanks for the info, Beth. You’ve been a great help.”

      As Bethany James wished her success in her investigation, Chesca returned to the road, eager to get her game on in uncovering the truth about Arachne and the Queen of Hearts. She’d put an end to the question: Are they one and the same?

      It would only be a matter of hours until she arrived in Boston. There was so much to do, so many things to sort out. She took a moment to just breathe the air filtering through her window, letting the damp cool spring air refresh her senses.

      It seemed any road trips Chesca embarked on were work-related, and for a moment she wondered what it would be like to just take off from work, abandon all sense of responsibility, and travel the countryside with her hair in the wind, music blaring, and nowhere in particular to go.

      She laughed, thinking it was impossible for her hair to blow in the wind, with the very short, and very—thankfully—low-muss, no-fuss closely cropped style she preferred. Not one to primp and spend hours of time in front of the mirror in the morning, she had long ago let go of the notion that there was a style to her dark brown hair. The look had grown on her to the point that she became annoyed when even an inch grew in before she had time to make a stop at the barber down the street from her apartment. A barber, for sure, when she discovered she could get the same cut there for a third of the price at one of the fancier salons in the downtown core.

      And that whole notion of shooing off responsibility? A road trip might be something she would enjoy, but Chesca was never one to leave work that far behind her.

      Perhaps it was the hard-core academic training she’d received prior to joining the Athena Academy. Or perhaps it was the discipline she’d honed while studying amongst the nation’s best. But Chesca prided herself on her ability to focus, set her goals, and go after them with the voraciousness on which her reputation had been built.

      Really, she had only ever had one slight pitfall in her academic career, and that had nothing to do with learning or taking on a scholarly challenge. But it had everything to do with why the Academy had recruited her at that time.

      That memory had already crossed her mind more than once since receiving this assignment from Oracle.

      Returning to her hometown of Boston caused her stomach to turn with mild anxiety, and it wasn’t only her scandalous family that caused her to react as such.

      There were other memories there that Chesca preferred to keep in the past. But the past had a funny way of catching up with the present, Chesca knew all too well.

      Despite making every attempt to have a normal childhood amongst a family focused on greed, popularity and materialistic gain, Chesca didn’t have it quite so easy as her schoolmates might have thought.

      Never would she deny that she’d had every opportunity afforded to her that money could buy, and for most of what her parents could provide for her, she was extremely grateful. She knew well enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and she was fully aware she had it pretty darn good compared to some of her schoolmates.

      Between being raised by emotionally vacant parents and not having any siblings to count on around home, Chesca had been unprepared for some of the social life she experienced outside of the formal dinners and fancy parties of the Thorne residence. It was difficult for her to connect with “normal” СКАЧАТЬ