The Manolo Matrix by Julie Kenner Page A

be a waitress forever. One of these days I’m going to win a Tony award.”
    “Good luck,” he said, and I didn’t think he was being facetious. “But that’s not a mystery.” He turned his head toward the massive mahogany entertainment center. And right there, above the television on the center shelf, stood the familiar statuette. I think I started to whimper.
    “You have a Tony award?”
    “Got it when I was thirteen,” he said. “That was my seventh production, I think. Second nomination.”
    I swear I had to manually shove my jaw back into place. “You were on Broadway when you were a kid? Holy shit.” I was gaping at him, but that was just too damn bad. “Wait. Wait a second.
    Devlin
    Brady. Of course! I just never made the connection. Oh my God! Oh. My. God.”
    He just stood there staring at me. I had a feeling he’d been subjected to the gushing fan thing a few times before. I wasn’t a gushing fan so much as an envious wannabe. But I could still see why Devlin wanted to keep his distance.
    I cleared my throat and tried to calm down. “So why do you work for the FBI?” I couldn’t imagine quitting Broadway. Not in a million years. And especially not if I’d won a freaking Tony award.
    What kind of planet was this guy from?
    “I wanted a low-stress career,” he said.
    “Ha ha. Seriously, why—”
    But he cut me off with a wave of his hand. “We can discuss the pressures and foibles of a career in theater after we keep you alive. Right now, all you need to know is that Broadway musicals fit my profile, too. Except, of course, I never submitted a profile.”
    I blinked. “You must have.”
    “Nope. I’m not into computer games. And after I landed the case, I wasn’t inclined to jump on the PSW
    bandwagon, you know?”
    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    “But I saw it!”
    “Fake. I entered one in the course of the investigation in order to access the game, but no legitimate information was used. Second of all, even if I had submitted a profile, I would never have included my address and phone number. I may be fucked up, but I’m not stupid.”
    He had a point, actually. I know I hadn’t put that kind of information on my PSW profile. For that matter, I wasn’t even sure the profile form had asked for those kind of details. Except it must have because that’s how I got Devlin’s address and phone number.
    I lifted a finger. “Just hang on a second.” My tote bag was at my feet, and now I rummaged inside and pulled out my laptop. I started it up, cursing it softly to try to make it boot up faster.
    Since that wasn’t happening, I shifted gears, moving on to other things while the computer warmed up. “And here’s something else that’s off. Don’t you think it’s a little freaky that I’m involved in this game? You, too.”
    “I’ll bite,” he said. “Why?”
    “Because we know the score. We know that Mel and Matthew actually won. Plus, we know about that lawyer you guys suspected for a while.” By “you guys” I meant the FBI. Since Devlin was nodding, I
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    figured he knew that.
    “Thomas Reardon,” he said.
    “That’s the one. I can’t believe you didn’t arrest him.”
    “No proof,” Devlin said.
    I snorted. From what Mel had told me, Archibald Grimaldi’s attorney had been at the very end of the game she’d played. And somehow—I’m not quite sure how—he’d been the catalyst for both Mel winning her prize money and for calling off the assassin. That seemed to me to be proof enough.
    I guess my disbelief showed on my face, because Devlin kind of half-smiled. “We had no proof that the attorney was doing anything except holding materials for Grimaldi. Since Grimaldi is dead, if he’s behind all of this, then obviously someone else was helping him. It might be Reardon, it might be someone else.
    We just don’t know. And we can’t arrest without sufficient evidence.”
    “Fine,” I said. I wasn’t a