Her phone buzzed from its usual spot in her drawer. She dug it out, thinking it might be Maggie, that maybe a doctor needed something, or her husband, who could never keep track of which snacks Maggie particularly liked. An unknown number. The internal judgment was always the same: Probably a sales call. But possibly a new clinic. A new trial. Probably bad news, but possibly good.
Sharon brought the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“Sharon, it’s Parisa Kamali. I need you to look up someone in the Society’s tracking database for me.”
“Miss Kamali.” Sharon rubbed her eyes and sighed aloud. She hadn’t disliked the telepath, exactly, but even so, there were limits. There were rules. “As I told you once before, the Society does not—”
“I can save your daughter, Sharon.”
Sharon was quiet for a moment. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking. I just need one answer. I can save her without it,” Parisa added tonelessly, over the sound of a bus, the low din of a pub as she must have walked by. “But it’ll be easier if we do it this way.”
Sharon weighed her options.
No she didn’t. Fuck that. She said, “Who are you looking for?” and Parisa, predictably unsurprised, didn’t hesitate either.
“Atlas Blakely,” she said.
That sort of information was protected by miles of protocol, by forms upon forms of approvals that, as logistics officer, Sharon would have to responsibly seek. Ford had already threatened to do it several times, but Ford was up to his ears in spoiled Alexandrian outrage and Society board requests. Bureaucracy, as Sharon well knew, could so easily be a nightmare.
But it could also be a weapon. Or a gift. Sharon Ward may not have had the keys to the kingdom, but she had the administrative password. For the right door, that was close enough.
“Very well, Miss Kamali. Please hold.”