Chapter 76

[ 1,316 words ]

Julian’s POV

Zane dropped the folder on my desk at 8 AM without knocking, which he knew I tolerated and which he did specifically because he knew I tolerated it. He had a coffee in his other hand and the expression he wore when he had done something thorough that he was proud of and was waiting for me to acknowledge.

I looked at the folder. Then at him.

“Catwoman,” he said.

I pulled the folder toward me.

It was comprehensive. That was the first thing, not a page of notes or a summary, but a full compiled file, tabbed and indexed, the kind of work that took days and the kind of contacts that most people didn’t have. Zane had both. It was one of the reasons I kept him close and one of the reasons he occasionally made me want to throw things.

Race appearances first. Dates going back four years, which was as far back as reliable documentation existed. Before that there were rumors and forum posts and secondhand accounts that Zane had included in an appendix marked “unverified but consistent.” The verified appearances numbered thirty-one. Thirty-one races in four years, across three locations only: New York, Dubai, and Monaco.

I read that twice.

Three locations. In four years. Thirty-one races. Never anywhere else, not London, not Tokyo, not any of the other cities where underground racing had an established circuit and where Catwoman’s times would have drawn the kind of invitation that was impossible to ignore. Three cities. The same three cities, cycling through on a pattern that looked, when you laid the dates out the way Zane had, less like a racing schedule and more like something built around something else.

Lap times next. I read through them with the attention I gave race data when I was still competing, not looking at the numbers themselves but at what the numbers said about the driver. Catwoman’s times were not consistent in the way a driver who had found their ceiling was consistent. They improved. Every year, across every circuit, the times came down. Not dramatic fractions of seconds, but the kind of improvement that only happened when someone was doing serious, structured, deliberate work between races.

You didn’t get that from racing thirty-one times in four years. You got that from training constantly and racing occasionally. Which meant wherever Catwoman was between races, she was still on a track. Which meant she had access to a track.

I turned to the bike specifications. Three different bikes were documented across the appearances, all high-performance, all maintained to a standard that suggested either significant personal wealth or access to a professional facility. No registered ownership found on any of them. Clean paperwork, clean plates, always different. Always.

“She’s thorough,” I said.

“Extremely.” Zane sat down across from me, coffee in hand. “The New York appearances are the most frequent. Eleven of the thirty-one. Every borough except Staten Island. Never the same venue twice in a row.” He paused. then went on. “And here’s the thing I find interesting p>

He reached over and opened the folder to a page he’d tabbed with a red marker. A calendar grid, Catwoman’s race dates plotted in red, and beside it, another calendar in blue.

“IG Technologies public event schedule,” he said. “Board meetings, press events, product launches, and conference appearances. Everything on public record p>

I looked at the two calendars side by side. The red dates and the blue dates.

They didn’t overlap. Not once. Not in four years.

I looked at the calendar for a long time.

“Could be coincidence,” Zane said, in the tone of someone who did not believe it was coincidence.

“It’s not coincidence p>

“No.” He sipped his coffee. “The New York appearances cluster around weekday evenings and weekends. Late starts, midnight or after. The Dubai appearances are always during the 24 Hour Race week, which is also when WEG typically hosts VIP events.” He paused again, letting that land. “Monaco appearances are always during the Grand Prix weekend p>

I sat back in my chair.

Dubai. Monaco. The same weekends WEG hosted events in both cities. The same weekends that, as a vendor partner, IG Technologies would have a reason to have their CEO present.

“You’ve been building this file for how long?” I asked.

“Three weeks. Since you started asking questions after the bridge p>

“And you’re only showing me now p>

“I wanted to be sure before I showed you something that would make you do something stupid.” He looked at me steadily. “Are you going to do something stupid p>

“I don’t know yet p>

“Honest answer.” He looked at the folder in my hands. “There’s a Bronx race from two nights ago. Unverified, but three separate sources on the forums. And—” He reached over and turned to another tabbed page. “A man with a professional camera was seen filming at the exit point. Not the race. Just Catwoman p>

I looked up. “One of ours p>

“No. I checked. Not any of our contractors either.” He paused. “Someone else is looking p>

I set the folder down on the desk and looked at the two calendars again. The red and the blue. The way they moved around each other without touching, a choreography so precise it couldn’t be anything except deliberate.

Thirty-one races. Three cities. Not once during an IG board meeting.

“You have that look,” Zane said.

“What look p>

“The one you get when you’ve decided something but you haven’t said it yet.” He tilted his head. “Actually, no. It’s a different look than that. It’s—” He stopped. Something shifted in his expression. “It’s the look you had in Vegas,” he said. “When you decided to race that girl p>

The room went quiet.

I remembered Vegas the way I remembered everything from that week, in fragments, partially reconstructed, the edges blurred by whatever Zane had put in our drinks that night that neither of us had ever fully accounted for. I remembered the circuit. The lights. The sound of an engine I didn’t recognize taking the inside line at a speed that had made me question my own data. I remembered losing. The half second of pure disbelief before the finish line told me what had happened.

I had never lost before that night. Not once. Not in three years.

I looked back at the file.

Three cities. Thirty-one races. Calendar dates that moved around IG Technologies like they knew where it was going to be.

“Julian,” Zane said carefully.

“I heard you p>

“What are you thinking p>

I closed the folder. I placed my hand flat on the cover. I thought about the Bronx two nights ago. A man with a professional camera at the exit point. Not one of ours.

“I’m thinking,” I said, “that someone else found the pattern before we did p>

Zane went still.

“And I’m thinking,” I said, “that whoever that is, is a problem that needs to be resolved before they get anywhere near her p>

The word sat in the room between us. Her. Not Catwoman. Not the alias. The person underneath it.

Zane looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded once, the way he did when he understood exactly what I meant and had decided not to say everything he was thinking about it.

“I’ll find out who the camera belongs to,” he said.

“Today p>

“Today.” He stood and picked up his coffee. At the door he stopped. “Julian p>

“Mm p>

“The pattern in the file.” He looked back. “You already knew, didn’t you? Before I showed you. You already knew p>

I looked at the folder on my desk. The red dates and the blue dates and the thirty-one races in three cities across four years that never once touched an IG board meeting.

“Go find the camera,” I said.

Zane left.

I opened the folder again and looked at the calendar for a very long time.

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