Deja Ortega: Oddsbreaker Read online

  “You like dares, do you? Isn’t curiosity like this”—the chef made a motion to encompass Deja and the conduit—“a dangerous hobby for an oddsbreaker?”

  Aww, crap. She knows who I am.

  So…Glass was either Famous Foodie or at least the activist’s loyal acolyte. “Curiosity? More like self-preservation,” Deja said, narrowing her eyes. “I didn’t sign up to put a judge in the dirt, just make him eat it.” Several of the power nodes in the tunnel picked that moment to start humming. The sudden noise did nothing to change where the stupid blaster was pointed. And yet… Deja thought she detected regret soften the corners of the chef’s mouth and eyes.

  “Well, life is often unpredictable,” Glass said, dismissive. “This needn’t end badly for you, though. Give me what you found. It’s not your concern any longer.”

  Well, this wouldn’t do. First, if Deja gave up the toothpick, the little bargaining power she had might go poof. Second, if she couldn’t bait the chef into asking for the toothpick more directly, the nifty micro-recorder in her vest, which she’d just activated, wouldn’t capture anything truly incriminating.

  Furrowing her brow, Deja paused. “Ah, you mean the encrypted data I swiped from his PalmStar?”

  Her opponent smiled a thin smile. “No, something considerably more…flashy.”

  “I snatched some cuff links, too, Chef Glass,” Deja lied, shrugging a shoulder.

  At that, the woman leaned forward, her grin widening into one of those “I know something you don’t know” smiles. “Keep them. I’m more interested in the item we both know is the culprit. Oh, and you can call me Famous Foodie.”

  Exhaling, Deja tried not to smile in triumph. At last she knew who Famous was. But what if Boyar was involved as well?

  At the moment, she was more concerned with escaping from Famous. At least Geoff wasn’t in danger. Yet.

  Slowly, Deja raised her gloved hands and turned them palm up. “You may be in luck. Except, I don’t like leaving empty handed. Or with blood on my hands. Or being dead for that matter,” Deja said, her voice frosting over. “So how does giving you what you’ve asked for keep me alive and off the hook for murder? Or perhaps you’re just going to stick to the ‘Bylaws of Foodie Felons’: flambé both enemy and accomplice alike?”

  “Yes, that does sound practical, though unimaginative,” Famous replied, using her free hand to draw something out from inside her crisp jacket. “You think I lack imagination, Ms. Luck Goddess?”

  “No,” Deja snorted with actual amusement. “Sanity? Oh, yeah.” She eyed the shiny object the chef held, now realizing what it was. The recognition didn’t reassure her any.

  “Enough,” said the activist. Maybe questioning the sanity of the blaster-toting radical wasn’t such a great move. “Place this around your neck with the node at the base of your skull. Now. Or I will take the unimaginative route.” Famous placed the collar-shaped device on the floor and slid it over to Deja.

  “A sleek, new iDose! Spared no expense, I see.” The iDose could be loaded with anything. Meds, recreational drugs, viruses, poisons—or all of the above.

  “Just. Put. It. On. Slowly.”

  “Fine.” Plucking the device from the floor, Deja examined what might end up killing her. An anti-tamper model often used with violent criminals or patients, it featured a remote trigger. Lovely. The securing strap unspooled from within one side of the iDose. Made from an unbreakable, cut-resistant material, the strap would lock into a slot on the opposite side. As Deja worked to put on the unwanted gift, she felt more bitterness than fear. But the fear was catching up.

  “Now, Luck Goddess, what is your real name?”

  “Deja Ortega,” she sighed. “Now what?”

  Shadows shifted across the foodie’s features as the woman lowered the blaster. “Now you give me your PalmStar and the item I asked for earlier. Don’t pull any stunts,” she warned, tucking the blaster in a shoulder holster beneath her chef jacket. “That collar you’re wearing contains several choice substances. It also has a voice-activation feature, not to mention the remote itself.”

  Oh, spectacular, she thought. Deja reached inside her own jacket to retrieve her data pad. “What I don’t understand,” Deja continued, giving the PalmStar a gentle shove across the floor, “is why you even came here.”

  Famous sighed. “You know what I came for. And although you swiped it first—”

  “No,” Deja said, cutting in. “I mean, why you even came to this planet. At all.” With a mocking smile tugging at her mouth and eyes, Deja took her time rolling down the cuff of the glove that held the toothpick. “You had all the ingredients ready to go. The contest. The oddsbreaker. The dirt. The judge. And, of course, this.” Deja withdrew the slender toothpick, holding it aloft as though showing off a precious heirloom. “The murder weapon: a seemingly innocuous toothpick with tweaked nanos.”

  “The why doesn’t matter. We’ll talk about that part later. Now, slide the toothpick here. You have three seconds,” Famous ordered, her face just a touch paler. Or maybe it was just the crappy lighting in the conduit. Deja sent the toothpick rolling toward its original owner. Sheesh. What’ll it take to get under this blasted woman’s skin?

  The blasted woman picked up the toothpick and then the PalmStar. Both disappeared into the chef’s white coat. “Good. Now turn around and take a left. We’ll reconvene our tête-à-tête in a friend’s quarters. I believe I shall invite your inquisitive sous chef too.”

  Equal parts fear and wrath sizzled through Deja as if she were a fire-kissed ortoo steak. The heat of her emotions caught her off guard, and she almost flinched. In that moment, Deja knew she was really in trouble now. Somehow, she’d lost her slagging heart to Lt. Col. Geoff Thorne. That dare-crashing idiot! That fork-tongued dolt! If he hadn’t barged in on her business, she wouldn’t have gone nosing around.

  Forcing herself to breathe normally, she bit back an angry comment. Darned if she was going to let the crazy foodie see how much she cared for a supposed rogue. Instead, she shrugged. “Fine,” she agreed in her best heck-if-I-care voice. “He only started snooping around ‘cuz I paid him to. Unlike me, he doesn’t care if that pompous judge bites the dust.” Here she smiled at her bad pun. “If you want my partner to disappear and forget all about you, just slip him some creds. Much easier than disposing of a body.” With that, she turned around and began crawling. Famous made no reply. A good sign. Maybe. And Deja left it at that. Never oversell the lie. Or the truth, for that matter.

  For all her bravado, Deja permitted herself to clench her teeth as she scuttled down the narrow passageway. Time and opportunity. That’s all she needed and Famous would taste Deja’s version of justice.

  She steeled herself for whatever ordeal lay ahead. The faint sound of their movements mimicked a low whispering, a foreboding murmur impossible to understand.

  “Ah, here we are,” Famous announced from several feet behind the oddsbreaker. Peering ahead, Deja saw that the panel sealing off the conduit had already been removed. This particular tunnel opened into quarters much like her own, but with a nautical theme. A view of an underwater mural peeped through the square opening. “Now,” Famous continued, “when you are free of the tunnel, Ms. Ortega, make no sudden moves. My associate awaits us.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Deja grumbled. Associate? Blast, the odds of her surviving this dare had just plummeted once again. Perhaps Chef Boyar really was a part of this whole scheme.

  After wriggling out of the small space, Deja looked to her left. A familiar, porcine face greeted her. Startled and irritated all at once, she glared at Chef Gaskón, the pink-skinned, tusked Orinkk who had pretended to be a friend, not just a competitor. “Et tu, Porky?” Deja exclaimed.

  Gaskón snorted, something he did well, being so piggish. “As if I haven’t heard that one before, dearie.”

  Famous took over. “Just move to the far wall, Ms. Ortega. Kneel, hands behind your head. Interlace your fingers, cross your ankles.”

  S
ighing, Deja did as she was told, kneeling before a lush scene of violet seaweed. “So,” she asked while Famous made her way clear of the conduit, “what do you get out of this, Chef Bacon?”

  “Nothing personal, I assure you,” huffed the swine-ish fellow. “I didn’t want anything to do with—”

  “Quiet, Gaskón. Just get her trussed up,” Famous ordered. Oh, ho! thought Deja. Here at last was a weak spot she might be able to exploit. If she lived long enough. Gaskón approached and locked her wrists and ankles in restraints. Her skin itched where the backs of his bristly hands touched her.

  “Good,” Famous said, addressing Gaskón. “Did you order the food cart?”

  “On its way.”

  “Excellent. Trot out to the main room and wait for it to arrive.”

  “Fine,” he grumped.

  “Make that ‘Fine, chef,’” insisted Famous, “or I’ll rescind our agreement.”

  Gaskón amended his prior statement.

  “Now, close the door. When the cart arrives, wheel it in here, and load her up.”

  With a thud, Gaskón shut the door.

  “I wonder what poor Gaskón did to get on your radar,” Deja piped up. “Obviously, you enjoy getting others to do your dirty work.” She turned her head to stare at Famous.

  “Hardly surprising you see it that way,” the foodie countered, raising a sculpted eyebrow. She pulled out Deja’s PalmStar and began fiddling with it. “I specialize in performing true public service in the culinary realm, believe it or not.”

  “That’s one way to sugarcoat what you do,” Deja shrugged, barreling onward. “Of course, you’ve always orchestrated your ‘service’ projects from afar. But this time, you deigned to show up personally. That’s dangerous for a scummy murderer like yourself.”

  Swwaack! Glass slapped Deja in the face. Despite the pain, Deja wanted to laugh in triumph. Oh, she had found the right bone to pick with Famous. Too bad it had to be a painful discovery, though. A groan spilled from her lips.

  Famous grabbed Deja by her chef coat and jerked the oddsbreaker’s face close to her own. “Shut up,” whispered the foodie in menacing tones. “You know nothing. This isn’t even a murder. Inciardi chose his death. Just as you chose to be here.”

  Dizzy, Deja blinked. “Right, and how do you figure he wanted to die from a belly full of glass?”

  “That’s not what I said,” Famous retorted, bringing her face closer. “I never forced him to take the bribe that killed him. Although the toothpick was merely a small piece of that bribe.”

  “Whatever. You still gave it to him. And bribed him to do what, exactly?”

  A glint of cunning flashed in the woman’s eyes. “Why, to keep you in the run—”

  Just then, Deja put all her energy into headbutting her captor. Falling backwards as Famous lost her grip, the oddsbreaker landed with a grunt. Pulling her bound legs toward her chest, Deja readied herself to kick the stunned foodie in the solar plexus. But she wasn’t fast enough.

  “Sleep!” barked the activist.

  Darkness rolled in to claim Deja.

  The blow snapped Deja’s head to the side. Blood oozed from a fresh split in her lip. Turning to stare up at Famous, Deja narrowed her eyes. “No. We worked together before. But I had no idea my partner was a Coat. Not until he showed up and crashed my dare.” Well, he had butted in; that was true. A little truth always helped sell a lie. She paused to spit blood. “He threatened to lock me up. Or worse, turn me over to some lowlifes from my past.”

  Pain pulsed in her face and stomach. Aches rippled out from her bound wrists and ankles. Divested of her vest and everything but a tank top and undies, she sat on a chilly lavatory floor. Arms shackled around a pedestal-style sink, legs tied and linked to the restraints on her wrists, and the iDose strapped around her neck, Deja was in a lousy position to mount a counter-attack. And the situation was really ticking her off.

  Chef Gaskón had reported finding Geoff’s hidden stash of Coalition-issued gear. The interrogation had heated right up after that. Deja also wanted to smack herself when she realized she hadn’t secured her PalmStar. What good reading its message history had made for the gloating foodie. If Deja had remembered to log out properly, she could’ve fed Famous a failsafe password that would’ve triggered a complete data wipe. But now she was enduring all kinds of abuse to soften Geoff’s fate. Yep, love made you stupid.

  “We will see,” Famous said, wiping the small smear of blood from her hand with a towel. She tossed the towel into a corner where it landed on the pile of Deja’s clothes, including her vest. “You know, I once thought to recruit you, Ms. Ortega. I still might. A woman of such pluck and culinary talent could go far in my organization. But it all depends.”

  Deja eyed her tormentor. “Sorry, I don’t work for killers.”

  “Oh, but you do,” Famous countered. “Not long ago, you accepted sizable deposits to three of your accounts,” the chef said, motioning to Deja’s PalmStar, nestled in a pocket. “And then you booked several trips, both off-planet and on-planet, under various names. Just to make it harder for Lieutenant Colonel Thorne to track down his lawless associate.”

  “Wow, what a double-crossing minx I am,” Deja muttered, fighting a blurriness in her eyes. Tears, how pathetic. She’d just started to care deeply about Geoff, and now he might not ever trust her again. And since the Coalition had tabs on her father, she’d never be able to contact him without risking capture. Why not just throw in her lot with Famous for now? At least until she could escape and lick her wounds. Hovering on the brink of a painful choice, Deja swallowed hard but said nothing.

  “As tough as bajalla scales, I see,” whispered the hateful chef. “Seems like you care more about your pride than your life. But what if I were to threaten the life of your lieutenant colonel?”

  Tired and hurt as she was, Deja managed to cloak her sudden terror in a sneer. “Oh, kill him and frame me for that too, huh? Well, I may’ve thought he was a friend,” she said, scrunching her eyebrows in seeming anger. “But when it came to getting a shot at nailing your hide to his wall, he wasted no time in ‘recruiting’ me. So,” she bluffed, “if you’re going to stick me with two murders, go ahead. However, if you want me to take your job offer, I’d like to choose my own targets. Deal?”

  Gray, unblinking eyes searched Deja’s face. Famous shook her head, wisps of silver hair swaying across her face. “Why, you are good. I can’t quite tell if you speak true or not. Let’s try something else.” With a brisk movement, Famous fingered a button on the white iDose remote. Amazing warmth stroked away all Deja’s pains and fears. Even consciousness slipped away.

  Snick. Jolted awake, Deja blinked in the dim light. All her muscles hummed with energy. Happiness bubbled beneath her skin. Her thoughts drifted this way and that, untethered to anything in particular. Lying on some kind of cot, Deja tried to stretch, but found she couldn’t move much. What did it matter? She felt fantastic. Distant worries tickled the back of her mind, but she shooed them away. So foolish to be worried about anything. She knew that now.

  Reveling in the floaty happiness, Deja smiled when she noticed the striking older man leaning against the door. Trim and clean-shaven, he stood with his arms crossed. He wore an immaculate GJC uniform: dark gray slacks and jacket with silver piping. The epaulets on his collar marked him as a…her thoughts drifted. Yes, a corporal. The holographic glyphs on his jacket read “W. Kellch” in Common. His long black hair was swept into a queue at the nape of his neck. Shadows played across an odd birthmark on one cheek, and his gray eyes drew her attention. She felt she ought to know him, but her brain was foggy.

  “My, my,” she said, admiring the view. “Why must the handsome ones always be out of my reach?” she teased. “I can’t seem to move, but maybe you can loosen me up, handsome.” Just looking at him made her heart speed up. For some reason, she also felt a little ill. But she couldn’t think why.

  “Er—” the man spluttered, a flush spreading across his tawny
complexion.

  “Oh,” she chortled. “I just love the innocent ones. Are you just going to stare at me? Or are you going to come get me, Corporal Kellch?”

  The corners of his lips twitched as the black-haired fellow considered her words.

  “But don’t you remember who I am?” he queried.

  “Um. Not really. But I know you look delicious enough to eat. And you can even speak in full sentences!”

  Another blush warmed his face. “Yes, but that’s not much of a talent.”

  She grinned. Seriously, she wanted to eat him up. And yet…why did a wave of disgust freeze her stomach for a minute?

  At last, Kellch walked over and crouched beside her. He smelled of crushed wereth spice and fresh bread. That was strange for an officer, wasn’t it? But who the heck cared? She breathed him in.

  “So,” he cleared his throat, “how are you feeling?”

  “Hot,” she insisted, unable to stop herself from a giddy laugh. Everything was so funny. And fun. All those nasty emotions like fear and anger and guilt had no hold on her now. If only the corporal would stop wasting time and have a little fun. “Very hot,” she added.

  “So I see,” he said. Lightly, he reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. She leaned into his touch and closed her eyes, waiting for the kiss, her heart pumping ever faster. But instead, a cool, damp cloth came to rest on her forehead.

  “Ohh,” she sighed. “That feels good. But you know that’s not what I meant, corporal.”

  “Hmm,” came his halting reply. “But what of Lieutenant Colonel Geoff Thorne? Have you forgotten him already, Deja?”

  Deja paused. That name. “Oh. Him. Of course not,” she said, eyes sliding open. “How could I forget the upstanding Coalition officer who thought I was worth his attention?” She babbled onward, unsure where she’d stop. “Didn’t take me long to fall for him. Didn’t take long for me to screw it up, either. So sweet, so honest, so stubborn, so handsome. And there’s me…an oddsbreaker doing what I do. And I, well, I drink far too much. I mean, come on,” she laughed at her foolishness. It seemed like another person had experienced all those things, not her. “I’m sure he wants to forget all about me. Now, why don’t you help me forget him?”