GhostWalkers 10 - Samurai Game

They have that chocolate volcano thing I love.”
    “Dessert is fine,” Sheila agreed. She signaled the waiter who was hovering just to make certain Frank and Azami didn’t cause another scene. “It’s important what you do, Melanie, you know that, don’t you?”
    Melanie smiled at her. “I know. Don’t worry, I’m notthinking about getting out. The money’s too good. I get paid a good salary and Whitney has my retirement set for life. One thing about working for him, he pays better than anyone I know.”
    “You
really
have to be careful,” Sheila reiterated, afraid Melanie wasn’t listening to the warning. “We’ve lost a few people recently. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Maybe you should lie low for a while, not contact us.”
    “I’m not in any danger,” Melanie said. “I work in a secure building and live in one. I don’t go out that often, and when I do, it’s usually to meet you. We’re friends. That has nothing to do with Whitney.”
    “I just think it would be a good idea for you to take a few precautions,” Sheila warned. “It’s not like I have a lot of friends and now that Violet’s back in the fold, things aren’t going to go well for me. She doesn’t like women and she’s absolutely fawning over Whitney these days, like she’s mad crazy in love with him.”
    “There’s always been something off about her,” Melanie said. “And you’re right to watch your back. She has a way of making people she doesn’t like disappear.
Don’t
get on her bad side. She’s all kitten cute to men, but pure ice and nasty with women, even in Washington, but people love her.”
    “It’s her voice,” Sheila said. “I think that’s part of her enhancement. She’s one of them, you know, and for some reason, Whitney treats her differently than the others.”
    “He can use her ambition,” Melanie pointed out. “But she’s dangerous, Sheila. More dangerous than Whitney. He skates around the law for the sake of advancing science for humanity and his country. Violet simply wants power. She won’t tolerate any woman around Whitney if she’s set her sights on him. Seriously, Sheila, she’s poison.”
    Sheila ducked her head. “She killed the senator. She had him living like a vegetable all those months in the hopes of saving him and then she just went into his room and yanked all the equipment off of him herself. I used to feel sorry for her. I thought she really loved that man.”
    “I thought so too,” Melanie said with a small frown. “I used to watch her with him and she was totally into him. She never looked at other men unless he told her to flirt with them, which, just for the record, he did. I heard him once at a party. He said to ‘go make nice’ with another senator. He wanted her to make certain the other senator sided with him on some issue. She trotted off all smiling and had the other senator eating out of her hand.”
    Melanie clearly was the dominant in the relationship. Azami had studied Sheila Benet and had rarely seen her so animated with anyone. As a rule she was cool and aloof, rarely engaging even in small talk. She was Whitney’s main go-between, and Azami had hacked her computer and phone, had been in her posh apartment numerous times—even stood over her while she slept in the middle of the night.
    The woman had money, but she spent little of it on anything. She wanted to belong desperately, and she’d found that belonging and sense of purpose working for Whitney. But she clearly wasn’t working for Whitney solely for the money. She wanted to keep and solidify her connection to Melanie.
    Azami wondered idly how Sheila would react if she told her Melanie was already dead. There was no saving her now. Whitney and Sheila would have to recruit someone new to help murder an elite team of soldiers.
    She enjoyed the salad, ignoring Frankie’s threats. The man’s head was definitely spinning now. Most of the time he just propped it up with his hands and moaned. His groin was on fire, a relentless ache that wasn’t going away any time soon and would definitely slow him down when he tried to make his move on her. She considered kicking him hard under the table and walking off, but she needed to play the entire evening out. There were a dozen escorts in the room. She might be remembered, but no one would connect her with Melanie’s death. Most likely, no one would connect the evening with Melanie’s death.
    “Are you seeing anyone?” Sheila