“Yes, sir,” Sean answered back, his tone weary but still anxious to serve. “Would you like me to order something in?”

Priceless, Bill thought. “Might not be a bad idea. Whatever you want is fine. Could you run a check on Dr. Silas Denier for me as well? Same depth that you gave me for Peri. I may be going about this wrong.”

“Yes, sir. Michael is here to see you.”

Michael? Bill’s eyes flicked first to the early evening, then the papers on his desk. Michael never came to him. It was always the other way around. Except when Helen is involved.

Focus blurring, Bill calmed himself. Perhaps it was the endgame. “Send him in.”

He bent to his papers, shuffling them into order and pretending indifference as Sean opened the door. “Michael!” he called cheerfully as the tall, swarthy man edged in around Sean’s distrustful stance. “Come in. I’ve been getting a bead on Peri. This was easier when I had an entire team.”

“Did Peri get something other than Evocane?” Michael said point-blank, still standing just inside the door. “Either when she stole the original supply or with what we gave her in the arena?”

Truly surprised, Bill looked up, noticing he’d shut the door behind him. “No,” he said carefully. “My intent had been that she accelerate herself. Giving her fake Evocane would be counterproductive. Why?”

Silent, Michael sat in one of the overstuffed chairs. An ankle went atop a knee, his focus becoming distant.

This is not like Michael, Bill thought, and then a wash of heat took him as he realized that the reason he couldn’t find Peri was that Michael and Helen had her already. They had her, and hadn’t told him. They were cutting him out. Fortunately for him, Michael couldn’t read her, even with the drugs they’d probably been pumping into her. She’d said or done something to get the man confused, and he’d come to Bill to figure it out.

It was time.

Bill’s pulse quickened. With one swipe of his hand, he pushed the papers on his desk into the wastebin. “I’ve got Peri’s phone pinging towers all the way to Cleveland, and then nothing. Damn dead zones.”

Michael said nothing, fingers steepled and covering his lips in thought. His hands dropped and he took a breath. “Did you know how easy it was to duplicate Evocane?”

“It isn’t.” Bill hid his confusion, aiming for irritation instead. “Did Helen tell you that? Getting it to balance with the accelerator is almost impossible. She only thinks it’s easy.”

He could hear whispers of Peri’s plan in Michael’s questions, the way he was puzzling through it. Second-guessing Peri was usually a losing proposition. It was better to give her a goal and let her work it the way she wanted, but his life was in the mix this time. Perhaps she wanted Michael to believe she had a supply of it and was willing to share the accelerator she’d stolen in return for her life. But even Peri had to realize that Michael could achieve the same ends by simply killing her, riding out Helen’s wrath for the ultimate goal.

Unless upon gaining Peri, Helen let it slip that Michael would never be accelerated. Bill’s tension rose until he hid his agitation behind a sip of that cold, overly sweet coffee Sean kept pushing on him. If Helen had her, there was a danger that Peri would be wiped. But he knew his girl. She’d never cave. Not for pain, not for love. Not for anything.

He needed more. “What is this about, Michael?” Bill prompted, and Michael pulled himself out of his thoughtful stare.

“Nothing. What do you want me to do with Harmony and Jack?”

Interesting topic shift. Perhaps Peri had offered Michael her original vial of accelerator, telling him she had a ready supply of Evocane to go with it, and she needed someone to fetch it for her. If so, it wouldn’t hurt to further Peri’s aim and confuse the man a little more.

“Why don’t you move them into a more permanent installation?” he said lightly, wanting to give Peri the help she was asking for. “We can’t trust Jack anymore, and it’s time to start thinking about the possibility that Peri isn’t going to come around. Hell, Michael,” he said with a chuckle. “At this point, if I had any accelerator, I’d be tempted to give it to you myself.”

Michael’s frown deepened, and a secondary thrill rose up in a whirlwind through Bill. Giving Michael access to the accelerator she’d stolen was exactly what Peri had offered him. If Bill could verify that she had the only viable stash, Michael would act on it. Taking on a bland look, Bill took another sip of cold coffee to hide his rising excitement. “Helen confiscated my entire store of it when we shut down the med wing. I got nothing, Michael, and that’s likely not going to change. She’s turning me into a damn administrator.”

Michael didn’t move, and Bill spun his Opti ring, stopping when he realized he was doing it. It had been the right thing to say. And now a layer of bullshit to hide the poison pill, he thought. “Speaking of which, I want your help tomorrow. I’ve got Peri’s location narrowed to a hundred-mile circle, and I need feet on the ground.”

“Where?”

Bill stifled a smile at the hint of angst in his voice. He had made these gods, and they were his to control. “I’m sending you to Buffalo,” he said, putting the search far away from where Helen had probably stashed her. “She’d go where she could duck over the border if she needed to.” Which was a lie, but Michael wouldn’t know that.

Michael’s sudden disinterest hit Bill like a slap. “Sure,” the tall man said, his subtle shifting as telling as the incongruity of Michael coming to see him at all. “You want me to move Harmony and Jack tonight so I have tomorrow free?”

How cooperative of you. “If you like. I’m in no hurry.” He stood to force Michael to stand as well. He wanted him out. Out and gone so he could put his own plan into action. “Sean is bringing up Denier’s info. It might help narrow her position down.”

“Sounds good,” Michael said, but the usual cocky man was hunched slightly, and Bill’s jaw clenched. Son of a bitch. Helen had Denier as well. If Peri didn’t take care of this in twenty-four hours, he’d be dead in forty-eight. But he didn’t think it would come to that. He was betting his life on it.

“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow,” Michael said, jerking Bill out of his thoughts. “I’ll be on the road if something comes up between then and now.”