by R S Penney
His wife rose in one fluid motion and made her way around his desk. She stopped at the window with her back turned, looking out on the street. “Why am I not surprised? Once again I have to listen to your sanctimonious crap.”
“Della…”
“You owe me a chance to see my daughters.”
“How's that?”
“Maybe you haven't been keeping track,” she muttered to herself. “I completed my last counselling session last week. We agreed to revisit the issue of custody when I did; so, I want the girls to live with me.”
“Absolutely not!”
Harry felt his face redden as he stared down at the floor. Scrunching his eyes tight, he tried not to tremble. “You are not fit to be a parent, Della! A few months of counselling won't change that.”
Spinning around to face him, Della lifted her chin to fix him with a frosty glare. “I thought you might say that.” The menace in her voice made his stomach writhe. “Such a shame. But you can't say I didn't warn you.”
“Warn me?”
Covering her mouth with her fingers, Della closed her eyes and giggled. Giggled! What the hell did he ever see in this woman? “You better lawyer up, Harry,” she mocked. “Not that it'll do you much good.”
She gestured to the desk, pointing at a thick manila envelope that had been left on its wooden surface. An icy jolt of fear passed through him when he realized what was likely inside. Divorce papers?
For months, he had been anticipating this moment – looking forward to it, actually – but now that it was finally here, all he could feel was…numbness. He wasn't sure what to make of it all. How did you redefine reality so that the person you had once thought of as “the one” was now a villain who wanted to take away your children?
Della glided around the desk.
She smiled and looked up to meet his gaze. “I believe the expression is 'you've just been served,' ” she said frigidly. “Just remember which one of us has the funds necessary to sustain a protracted legal battle.”
With that, she stormed out of the room.
“And one more thing, Harry,” she called out from the hallway. “If Missy and Claire stay with me, they'll be living with a person of means. In a few short months, you will not be able to say the same thing.”
Harry clenched his teeth, then buried his face in his hand. He let out a low painful groan. A person of means, he thought to himself. But without a soul. And what will you raise them to be?
He dropped into the chair that Della had vacated, his body suddenly unbelievably heavy. As though someone had cranked up the Earth's gravity knob. What was he going to do now? Della was right; he didn't have the funds to sustain a legal battle. Just about every cent he made went toward the girls.
How could she be so cruel to do this to them? Couldn't she see that ripping away his finances only harmed her own children? No, she can't, he told himself. She never had to live without anything; everything she ever wanted was there before she even realized she wanted it.
“Detective Carlson?”
When he looked up, a young woman stood just outside the doorway to his office. Dressed in a black skirt and white short-sleeved blouse, she tilted her head to the side as she studied him. Her copper-skinned face was framed by long auburn hair that fell to her shoulders. “I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir,” she began, “but I have Mr. Pennfield at my desk asking to see you.”
Massaging his eyelids with the tips of his fingers, Harry let out a grunt. “Send him in, Teresa,” he replied in a rasp. “And there's no need to apologize. I was just distracted for a moment there.”
The man appeared a moment later. Tall and slim, Wesley Pennfield wore a well-pressed gray suit with a pristine white shirt. His face was incredibly pale but also incredibly plain – unremarkable in every way except for a thin pair of glasses. “Detective Carlson,” he said, “I'm pleased to finally meet you.”
“I should hope so,” Harry replied. “You've been ducking me for over a week now.”
The man folded his arms, lifting his chin to stare down his nose at Harry. “My most sincere apologies, Detective,” he said in clipped tones. “Certain internal matters required my undivided attention. You understand.”
Harry felt a smile bloom. Closing his eyes, he nodded slowly. “Yeah, I suppose that I do,” he murmured to himself. “So, what brings you down to my office today? Have you got something new to show me?”
“You might say that.”
Wesley Pennfield walked past him to the desk. He set his briefcase down on its surface, then undid the snaps. “We've managed to recover some footage from the security cameras,” he said softly. “You'll want to see this.”
The man retrieved a photograph.
When Harry took it, he found himself looking at the glossy black-and-white image of a young blonde woman in the middle of a hallway. She was a pretty girl – barely more than twenty unless he missed his guess – and a little overdressed. That long coat of hers wasn't appropriate for late spring.
Tapping his lips with a single finger, Harry squinted at the photo. “This cannot be the suspect,” he said, shaking his head. “Your guards described a woman who 'handled them like a kid playing with toys.”
“You believe her incapable of it?”
“This…child is barely more than five feet tall.” Harry said. “You expect me to believe that she took out three armed guards who were all twice her size?”
“I expect you to do your job, Detective,” the man replied. “No more than that. And if you are unable to do so-”
Craning his neck, Harry fixed a smouldering glare on the other man. He narrowed his eyes. “Let me make one thing incredibly clear,” he said, standing. “I am not one of your employees.”
Standing toe to toe, Harry was almost as tall as the other man and yet somehow he felt very much as though he should shrink away. Something in the way Wesley looked at him through those lenses…Harry could almost see the calculations.
To Wesley Pennfield, this was all just one more variable in an equation that would stretch on for pages. It was hard to say just what the man considered important, but Harry was fairly certain the opinions of a second-class detective in Ottawa's Police Department weren't high on that list.
“Apologies, Detective,” Pennfield replied in a voice drier than Arctic air. “I will leave you to your work.”
Through the polished window, Denario could see a field of skyscrapers, and in the gaps between them, a river that sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. More city stretched on across the other side, but from what he had been told, the people there spoke a different language and followed different customs.
His own faint reflection stared back at him: the face of a man just into his middle years with creases in his brow. He didn't even realize he was smiling until he saw it in the window pane.
Clasping his chin in one hand, Denario closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. “So you spoke to the local constabulary,” he inquired, “and set them on the trail of our dear little Anna.”
He turned around.
The office was sleek, sterile and devoid of anything that would distract from work. A leather chair was tucked underneath a thin white desk in the shape of a kidney. He saw no pictures there, no ornaments. Gray carpets stretched across the room to a pair of couches that faced each other on either side of a glass coffee table. No works of art on the walls, no plant life of any kind. This was a place of business.
Wesley Pennfield stood just inside the door.
Crossing his arms in frustration, the man frowned down at the carpet. “I tried to set them on her trail,” he said in perfect Leyrian. “Detective Carlson did not put much stock in the video records.”
With a grin, Denario looked up at the ceiling. He squinted, shaking his head. “You cannot expect your people to defeat a Justice Keeper,” he mused. “Chemically propelled bullets and bi-weave armour?”
“What of it?”
Denario waved a hand. “You may as well attack her with sti
cks!” he said, turning back to the window. Somewhere in this city – this barbaric, haphazard, poorly planned city – a Justice Keeper was trying to locate him. If she found him, she would put a slug through his skull.
With any luck, Anna Lenai had been far too busy trying to locate food and adequate shelter to bother tracking his movements. Common sense told him he should breathe a sigh of relief, but experience warned that doing so would be premature. She had chased him all the way through Dead Space, long after anyone else would have given up.
He paced around the desk.
Wesley stood in his place by the door, stiff as a statue, and watched him through the lenses of his glasses. “The danger is minimal,” he said softly. “Lenai has managed to keep a low profile, but she will slip eventually.”
“Lenai is only one of my concerns,” Denario said. “I've brought you the Nassai. Now you had better pay me.”
Wesley lifted his chin, sunlight glinting off those lenses. He shook his head ever so slowly. “I do not take kindly to threats,” he replied. “You would do well to remember that you are a guest in my home.”
Grinning like a madman, Denario squinted at the other man. “This is the part where you try to intimidate me?” He cocked his head to the side. “How well is that working for you so far?”
He turned his hand up to check the force-field generator embedded in his palm. The little device blinked at him, indicating a full charge. “It doesn't matter anyway,” Denario went on. “I'm going to kill our dear Anna.”
“What did you say?”
Denario felt his mouth tighten, then looked up to study the other man. He narrowed his eyes. “I'm going to kill Agent Lenai,” he said, nodding. “I'm going to put an end to her meddling once and for all.”
“That would be most unwise.” Wesley marched past him, past the desk, and went to the window. He stood with his back turned, staring out at the city. “Agent Lenai will be dealt with by the local authorities. Pursuing her yourself will only put you at risk and possibly implicate me.”
“I don't care about you.”
“You should.”
The man looked over his shoulder, his mouth a thin line as he watched Denario. “I am the one providing you with the new life you want.” He nodded toward the surface of his desk. “Look.”
Only then did Denario notice the simple brown folder tucked under the corner of the other man's keyboard. Had Wesley Pennfield finally managed to fulfill the terms of their agreement?
Opening the folder revealed a series of forged identification documents with text that Denario could not read. He would have to remedy that if he planned to live among these savages. The situation left him at a most uncomfortable disadvantage. There was no way to verify what those documents said or whether Wesley Pennfield had actually provided the monetary compensation that he had promised. Denario was not the sort of man to put much faith in the generosity of other human beings.
“As you can see,” the man began as if it were all as plain as day. “I've provided you with a substantial amount of money in exchange for the Nassai. In addition to the initial five million, I am quite happy to manage your portfolio so that you may retain the benefits of a comfortable lifestyle. You will be able to live out your days in peace, and I assure you that the Justice Keepers will never find you.” There was a slight pause while the man chose his next words. “All you need to do is exercise prudence.”
Clenching his teeth, Denario looked up to snarl at the other man. “You don't tell me what to do,” he said, backing away from the desk. “You don't dictate my actions.”
Framed by bright sunlight that came in through the window, Wesley Pennfield was a shadow with his back turned. “So long as your actions affect my interests,” he began. “I most certainly do.”
Once again, Denario found himself staring into his own palm. The blinking LEDs on his force-field generator gave him pause. One thought and he could hurl the arrogant fool out the window.
“Do it.”
Denario froze.
Wesley Pennfield stood there with hands clasped behind his back, not bothering to turn so much as an inch. “Activate that tawdry piece of technology,” he went on in a dry voice. “See what it gets you.”
A chill went through Denario: a sudden shiver that he decided not to examine too closely. The implications of Wesley Pennfield's…insight into the inner workings of his mind were not something that he wanted to consider. But Bleakness take him if he was going to let this man tell him what to do.
Leana Delnara Lenai was a threat, and since they were both stuck here on this backward little planet, the sooner he eliminated her, the better. Fortunately, that wouldn't be too difficult. The poor dear was probably unaware that her multi-tool was sending a distress signal through SlipSpace.
It had started shortly after their arrival on this Companion-forsaken rock, no doubt the result of her pilot activating a distress beacon before their shuttle exploded. After all, if Anna had known about the signal, she would have silenced it. Catching him would be impossible so long as her multi-tool was alerting him that she was closing in.
Of course, Wesley would say this was all the more reason to simply let matters attend to themselves. So long as the multi-tool was broadcasting, Denario was safe from Anna's wrath. Honestly now, he told himself, you were expecting logic from a primitive like Mr. Pennfield?
The tool's power-cells would run dry eventually, but Leana Lenai would pursue him until her dying day. Better to be rid of her now, while he could find her. The little bitch had earned a bullet through the skull. No one got in Denario's way.
No one.
“Do what you want, Pennfield,” he barked. “But I guarantee you, Anna Lenai will be dead by morning.”
Chapter 5
Darkness slowly faded into a haze of colours that bled together, blues and grays and whites swirling together in a whirlpool. Half a moment later, objects solidified in his field of vision and he realized he was looking at the ceiling of a hospital room with daylight coming in through the window.
Jack felt his jaw drop. He turned his head, mashing his face into the pillow. “Oh, God, what the hell happened to me?” he whispered. “Or maybe I need to ask the devil.”
The girl from the thrift shop was sitting in a chair at his bedside. “I had the oddest dream,” he went on, “and you were there! The Scarecrow and Tin-Man too! Although the presence of Ronald Reagan remains a mystery.”
Anna. That was her name.
She flashed a smile, a flush creeping into her cheeks. Closing her eyes, she bowed her head to him. “Well, it's kind of a long story,” she began. “You see, I needed a date to my cousin's wedding.”
“Right…”
“And lacking social skills of any kind, I decided to corner you, knock you out and then drag you to the banquet hall.” Anna hunched up her shoulders like a turtle shrinking into its shell, hiding the grin on her face behind the tips of her fingers. “Then it occurred to me that you wouldn't be a good dancer in that condition, so I brought you here. I'm not a total monster.”
Sitting up on the mattress, Jack pressed a palm to his forehead. He winced and let out a groan. “A date to your cousin's wedding,” he murmured. “That's quite a lot of work for arm candy.”
“I didn't say I was smart.”
Jack chuckled. “Good thing I'm a masochist.”
“It's very convenient for me.”
When he glanced over his shoulder, the girl was staring at him with her lips pursed, her big blue eyes practically glistening. “You stood up to a drug dealer,” she told him. “A rather nasty man. And you did it to protect some poor junkie.”
Jack clenched his teeth, his face suddenly on fire. He shook his head in frustration. “Yeah, that's me,” he muttered under his breath. “Always doing the stupid thing and then suffering for it.”
“Stupid?” she replied. “Try brave.”
Anna wore the most serene expression as she studied him, blinking as though his words left her confuse
d. “It was truly remarkable,” she said, nodding to him. “You were willing to put yourself in harm's way for a total stranger.”
Hearing that only made his embarrassment deepen. Jack Hunter was a bit of a goof and a whole lot of screw-up, but the word hero had no place on his résumé. Besides, the only thing he did was take a beating.
A true hero – not that he had the audacity to assume Anna would call him as much – would have stopped the crime rather than just defy it. Which, got him thinking…how exactly did he get to the hospital?
Glancing over his shoulder, Jack frowned as he studied her. He squinted, thinking the matter over. “What happened to the drug dealer?” he asked at last. “Did you frighten him off with your puppy-dog eyes?”
“No, I just flashed him.”
Clamping a hand over his mouth, Jack squeezed his eyes shut. He trembled as a fit of laughter went through him. “I see…” he said into his palm. “How very…innovative of you. I would have never thought of that.”
Anna grinned into her lap, her cheeks painted red. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I keep telling you,” she said in tones of mock annoyance. “Men are all helpless under my thrall.”
“You wanna make with the truth?” Jack inquired. “Because I'm pretty darn sure you Vampire Slayered that guy into the next century.”
“Vampire…what?”
Well, there was a shocker. How did a girl with such rapier wit not appreciate the all-consuming awesomeness of Buffy Summers? There was something about her, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Jack was about to bring up the point when the sound of a man clearing his throat brought an end to their conversation. A pity. He was really starting to think he could like this young woman. True, she was leaving town, but there was this magical thing called Skype that could solve that problem.
A doctor stood in the doorway to his room. Tall and slim, he wore a white lab coat with pens in his pocket, his sun-darkened face matched by brown hair that he wore cut short. “I hope I'm not interrupting,” he said, striding into the room. “I wanted to look in on you, Mr. Hunter.”
