One More Day Read Online Free

hardly think he’s gonna miss it,” I told her.
    “That’s not the point. What, are you still robbing houses, too?”
    “No.”
    “But you’ll steal from StrikeForce.”
    “I’m not stealing from StrikeForce. I’m stealing from Alpha, and Alpha is definitely fucking not StrikeForce.”
    “You’re splitting hairs,” she said.
    “I’m not planning to keep it.”
    She gave me a look that told me she wasn’t buying it.
    “I’m not.”
    “Giving it away to charity doesn’t really count either. It’s still stealing. And then there’s the whole separate issue of wondering if you really think I’m that stupid, that I wouldn’t notice thousands of dollars going missing every week.”
    “I don’t think you’re stupid. There are a lot of accounts there. I figured you or Portia would figure it out eventually, but I didn’t think you’d trace it back to me so quickly.”
    “I didn’t trace it back to you. It was a hunch,” she said. She turned the movie back on.
    “Jenson, what do you think is going to happen to the team once Alpha finally gets transferred to international custody?” The plan was to gather enough evidence to be able to turn him over to the international tribunal that dealt with powered people. There was the obvious, the way he’d kept several of us jailed and dampened to use as his own private army against our will, but Jenson was sure that some encrypted files she’d found after our takeover would prove that there was even more to the story, and David and Jenson were working on cracking them.
    “Once he’s in custody, we lose all of this,” I said, gesturing around, indicating StrikeForce Command in general. “No building. No fancy mini jets. We lose access to all of the computers and communications systems in this place, let alone the joy of having people cook and clean for us all the time. What happens to StrikeForce then?”
    “We’ll figure it out.”
    “With no money, and nowhere to operate from, how long do you think this team will stay together? We’re hanging on by a thread here as it is.”
    She kept looking at the screen. “So you were stealing from Alpha to try to support StrikeForce?” she asked dubiously.
    “Yes. Don’t be so surprised.”
    She turned the movie back on and we watched it in silence for a little while. “As a plan, it’s not a terrible one. It’s still stealing, though.”
    “Yeah.”
    She sighed. “It’s finished now, though. And, I don’t know, maybe trust me enough to tell me when you’re doing something like that?”
    “Would you have said ‘yeah, Jolene, go ahead and embezzle money from Alpha. That’s a great idea!’ No. You wouldn’t have.”
    “I might have, if you’d explained what you just told me,” she argued. “Have a little damn faith in me. I backed up your plan to overthrow Alpha. I was with you every step of the way, and you still want to hide crap from me.”
    “We argue like a married couple,” I muttered.
    “No. We argue like friends who should actually give a damn about one another. I felt like an idiot when I realized what was happening, that you did it and didn’t even think twice about me stumbling across it.”
    We fell into silence again. “I’m sorry. Okay?”
    “Fine. Next time we do a movie night, you’re grabbing Chinese food, though.”

Chapter Two
     
    The next morning, Caine and I made it through our patrol shift without much trouble, and then I spent the afternoon informing Luther (the little old Polish lady who was also the best fence and con woman I’d ever known) that our little game with Alpha’s money was off. She wasn’t entirely thrilled with me.
    I was on my way back to Command, replaying a nightmare I’d had the night before, after Jenson had left, about my face-off against Maddoc. In the dream, I was back there again, struggling for my life, Maddoc’s hands around my throat, his face a mask of rage above me, and no matter how hard I struggled, hit, scratched, kicked… no