King of War Tech novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Fourth Key

"Pool house," Imogen said. "Nine o'clock. Don't make me come looking."

She walked away before I could answer.

At 9:10 she knocked.

It was not the knock of a woman who owned the place, though she did.

It was the knock of a woman who wanted to be let in.

I opened the door.

She came inside in a long camel coat, her leather folder under her arm.

She locked the door behind her and turned the lamp on.

"Sit," she said.

I sat on the bed.

She stayed on her feet.

"You said six words to a mop handle," she said.

"Then a man with a doctorate fixed a rig that has been broken for two months."

"I've mopped near that rig a lot."

"Don't."

Her voice cracked on it, just a little.

"Three years, Wesley. Three years I have watched you take everything this family threw at you, and I have never once seen you flinch."

"Today you did something."

"Tell me what."

I should have lied again.

I had a good lie ready, and it had worked for three years.

But she had stood in that hall with her eyes on my mouth, and something in her face made the lie taste like ash.

"I wrote the code," I said.

She didn't move.

"All of it. Ridgeback. The tracking, the targeting, the sensor chain."

"Clyde was the commander and the one who talked to generals."

"I was the one in the trailer."

"The King of War Tech was always two people, and one of them was always going to be me."

Imogen laughed.

It was a thin, ugly laugh, and her eyes were wet.

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