“That’s a surprisingly common issue in my line of work,” Handshake said. “There are a few solutions. We could talk around the issue. We could meet in person. Or we could speak over a more secure method. There are a few systems online that are, for the most part, quite safe.”

“I . . . yeah, that might be for the best,” Emily said.

“You have a school email, right? I’ll send you a link. You should be able to open the site on your phone. If that’s all, I’ll talk to you shortly.”

“Right, thank you.” Emily pulled the phone away from her ear and hung up. A moment later her email client pinged her and she was navigating over to a strange site. There was a button to connect to a room with one other person in it called H-Shake.

She joined.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Hey there. So, this isn’t all that much better, but the communication is about as encrypted as it can be under these circumstances.”

“Okay,” Emily said.

“Is this about the offer I sent to you via Melaton?”

“No, no, it’s not that,” Emily said. “It’s about . . . do you know anything about a group of people called the Cabal?”

The line was silent. “Where’d you hear that name?” Handshake finally asked.

“So you do know something.” It was nice to have some sort of confirmation that something fishy was going on.

“I won’t pretend that I don’t know anything. Nor will I actually say anything about them. Not without compensation.”

She bit her lip and shifted to the side. She had almost forgotten that Handshake’s entire job was dealing with information. “Okay,” she said. “What about, uh, safe houses? Do you know a place where you could hide someone?”

“I do,” Handshake said. “Are you in trouble?”

“Not me. Look, I . . . I want to explain things, but I’m not sure if I should do that for free, not to you.”

“Ah, the age-old problem of context coming with a price tag. All right. How about I let you hear about a job I might have for you, and in exchange, I’ll tell you what I can?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Complicated Conversations

What’s the job?” Emily asked. She regretted asking the question even before it left her lips. But she didn’t see any loss in actually asking.

Handshake’s voice had a hint of laughter in it when he replied. “Nothing too complicated. I’m meeting with someone. Name starts with C. You took out one of his buddies?”

Cement. He was talking about Cement. Emily hugged her phone closer to the side of her head. “Okay? And you want me to . . . what?”

“I’m going to be meeting him alone. Which . . . let’s say I’m not all that confident about it. I bet you can imagine why. I’ve still got a bit of a limp, you know?”