by K. C. Finn
“I haven’t even unlocked the other doors yet,” she says in a light but nervy tone. It is strange to see her in an ordinary skirt and blouse after the colourful array of sequined frocks she wears at night. “But I suppose it’s just as well. We don’t want anyone wandering in, do we?”
“I never did get to ask you about your attack,” Cae points out as he and Kendra follow the proprietor into the grand casino hall.
“I was hit from behind, Caecilius,” the lady reminds him, “I have no idea who by. All I can tell you is that the attacker knew what they were doing. It was just the right part of my head to put me out of action without any lasting damage.” Cae watches as one of her slim hands goes up into her hair. He follows her fingertips to a space where some heavy bruising is still showing in the roots of her sprightly blonde curls.
“So not a random attack,” Kendra states.
“Precisely Chief Nai,” Lady Locke answers. Cae can’t see her face, but he can hear the anxiety making her voice tremble.
“So what do you have for us now?” Cae asks.
The lady does not reply, but leads them through the hall to the bright double doors of the VIP Lounge. She retrieves her own key from a pocket in her skirt and opens the doors to the sound of excited scuffling. Lady Locke rushes over to Cara’s tank to placate the little beast.
“I’ll feed you again soon,” she promises, pawing the tank wall to match the feline’s motion. “She’s due any day now you know,” she adds with a proud smile.
“Then you’re about to become a very rich lady,” Kendra observes, her voice laced with suspicion.
“One can hope,” Lady Locke replies politely.
She crosses from the tank to the fabric covered wall on the far side of the room, pulling back the swathes of luscious cloth to reveal the secret safe behind them. Kendra moves in for a closer look just as Cae remembers the other important things that Lady Locke keeps hidden in that same safe.
“Whoa, that’s one big stash of narcotics you’ve got there,” Kendra admonishes, her face contorting into surprise and disapproval.
Cae comes to join Kendra, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Which we’re going to forget we saw,” he suggests in a measured tone, “because I’m sure they wouldn’t be here next time even if we did call the station in to investigate.”
Kendra grumbles something under her breath as Lady Locke gives Cae a grateful look. The safe is large enough to house a smallish child and it is indeed packed rather high with little white bottles bearing various labels. But amongst the bottles are other objects. Some bundles of cash, a few lock-boxes that jangle when Lady Locke moves them, even some of the elegant lady’s jewellery is sitting at the very back of the space. But it is a simple sheet of paper that Cae receives from within the safe, a long, curled-up printout of various numbers and locations.
“Is this a bank statement?” Cae queries as he unfurls the scroll.
“This is the bank statement, darling,” Lady Locke says, that familiar gleam coming into her brown eyes, “My brother had this account number from when he was paid by you-know-who for the trafficking business. He gave it to me, I gave it to a friend with a very powerful computer, then he gave me this.”
“This is The Face’s bank account data?” Kendra asks, coming to look at the list.
“And it’s recent too,” Cae remarks, noting the date is only a few months old on the topmost transactions. He beams at Lady Locke with his pale face, even touching her shoulder gently. “Thank you Calista.”
“Am I interrupting something?” Asks a silky voice from the doorway.
Cae abruptly stuffs the roll of data into the inside pocket of his coat, turning to find the sleek form of Zerafina Xiao entering the lounge. She is smiling politely, but that usual hint of playful disdain hangs around her dark eyes.
“And you would be?” Kendra begins.
“Ah,” Cae says, stepping forward between the women, “this is Zerafina, the illusionist I was telling you about. Zerafina, Kendra Nai is the resident Chief of Police.”
The oriental beauty does not appear impressed by the news. “Then perhaps she can tell me what happened to my trinket box after I was taken ill?” Zerafina demands, “It was my grandmother’s, you know.”
Cae feels a little flush creep into his cheeks.
“Um, actually I have that,” he begins, finding it hard not to stammer as she turns her gaze on him, “Well it’s at a friend’s house actually, for safekeeping.”
Zerafina smiles again then. “How thoughtful of you Cae,” she adds sweetly, “then I trust you’ll return it to me soon?”
“Soon,” Cae replies, finding he too is smiling, “I promise.”
As Zerafina nods approvingly, Cae catches Kendra watching him in fascination. The chief of police grabs him by the elbow sharply.
“Well that’s settled then,” she blurts, “We’ve got things to do right now, but Cae will see you later for guard duty, I’m sure.”
And with that she yanks him out of the lounge and all the way to the waiting car.
27.
“I have never seen such a ridiculous display in all my life,” Kendra chides as she clicks in her seatbelt, “Honestly, one pretty Chinese girl in a catsuit and you melt into the floor.”
“I did not melt into the floor,” Cae insists, his ears reddening, “she just caught me off guard.”
“Oh sure,” Kendra snaps back.
“What?” Cae protests, looking down at the floor of the car. “Am I not allowed to find anyone attractive?”
“Not victims from crime scenes, no!” Kendra completes.
A small moment passes.
“I don’t meet people anywhere else,” Cae says quietly.
Kendra explodes into laughter at that, hanging her chest on the steering wheel as she thumps the dashboard. The throaty chuckle becomes contagious until Cae is laughing too. He watches as Kendra throws herself back against her seat, her eyes creased with humour over her gas mask. She takes in a deep breath to regain composure.
“So, are we going back to the station to take a look at that statement?”
Cae shakes his head, feeling his mask drip with condensation from his laughing fit.
“No I want to see Angelica first,” he explains, “the hospital said she’d be awake again by three.”
“Alright,” Kendra agrees, starting the ignition again. “I assume she’s got Miss I’m-So-Pretty’s trinket box too?” Cae nods. “Then maybe we can grab a key and get the damned thing back to her.”
“Actually,” Cae begins sheepishly, “I already have a key to Angelica’s place.”
The car slows down a little as Kendra adjusts her hands on the wheel. “What on earth has happened to you lately?” She muses. “I leave you alone for two weeks and you turn into some polo-necked Casanova?”
“It’s not like that,” Cae insists in a much more serious tone, “I didn’t ask for a key. She just trusts me, that’s all.”
“Oh really,” Kendra says with an overemphatic nod, “Well you just remember that woman’s on a bed-hopping journey to the top of the career ladder, alright?”
Cae sighs inwardly, knowing Kendra will never let Angelica’s past exploits go. “Alright,” he agrees quietly. He watches the smoggy road for a moment. “Do you think there’s somewhere we could stop for chocolates?”
The sudden question throws Kendra almost as much as his revelation about the spare keys. “What the heck do you want chocolates for?”
“Angelica nearly died because of me this morning,” Cae begins again carefully, “I just thought it would be nice to show up with something she likes.”
Kendra scoffs into her mask, her eyes grinning again.
“I actually did die for you, you know,” she says with a laugh, “And what did I get? I got to be your decoy, surrounded by ruthless gunmen with no hope of escape.”
“In all fairness, I bet you enjoyed that better than a box of chocolates,” Cae suggests.
The chief lets out a
n extra hearty man-laugh. “Actually I did.”
Dartley General Hospital is a sterile, bright kind of place. The staff are always on some directive or other to be as friendly as possible to both patients and visitors and today is no exception when Cae and Kendra check in their masks. Cae breathes in the clean air eagerly, enjoying the artificial scent of fresh flowers that the hospital likes to add to its filtration.
“I guess you must’ve spent a lot of time here with those burns,” Kendra says as they follow a nurse’s directions to find Angelica’s ward.
Cae clutches a box of strawberry creams in his hand, nodding. “And a fair few times since,” he adds. They pass a familiar looking ward where Cae was housed after his lucky escape from Jack Lacroix; for a moment he thinks of the traitorous Damian Jobe walking these same halls. “This town has too many memories in it, really.”
“I guess you must have some good ones too though, from when you were a kid and stuff.”
Cae turns his gaze to Kendra, who is looking ahead with her proud chin held up. She has nothing but wartime to remember. No childhood, no parents. Whoever she was before the BiAndro Project took her in is gone, those scientists made sure of that.
“Not if you had to grow up with my father,” he says with a chuckle, “he was a madman, even on his good days.”
“But your mother,” Kendra begins, still looking ahead as Angelica’s ward appears before them, “she was nice right?”
Cae feels a lump in his throat. “She was the best thing ever,” he mumbles.
28.
Arriving at Angelica’s room is a welcome distraction, and Cae is more than happy to push both his and Kendra’s maudlin trips down memory lane aside whilst he gives the patient her gift. Angelica’s usually beautiful face is covered up on one side by gauze and surgical tape where they have dressed the swelling and her surface wounds, she has managed to pull her blonde hair into a side ponytail away from the damaged part of her face.
“Chocolates,” she says in a weak tone, “I thought you weren’t that kind of guy.”
“He isn’t,” Kendra answers sharply before Cae can speak.
Cae rolls his eyes at her which makes Angelica smile faintly. He pulls up a chair beside her whilst Kendra throws herself into another one in the far corner of the little room.
“How are you?” He asks.
“I’ve been treated for shock more than anything else,” she answers in a quivering voice, “the rest is all surface stuff. Bruising mostly. A few cracked ribs.”
Cae feels his face falling. “I’m really sorry,” he says, dropping his gaze.
“We knew it might be coming,” Angelica soothes quietly, “Don’t worry. I’m just glad you got there in time. Both of you.”
At this she gives Kendra a smile too. From her corner the ex-sergeant shifts uncomfortably in her chair.
“Don’t mention it blondie,” she quips.
Angelica looks back to Cae, her reflective eyes catching the white colour of the hospital walls around her, shining brightly right at him. In spite of Kendra’s watchful eye he puts a gloved hand on top of one of hers.
“I hate to ask,” he starts, “but do you remember anything? Did you see anything important?”
The little blonde shakes her head fearfully. “They put a bag over my head and grabbed me right out my bed,” she explains, the words coming out in chokes. “And when I was tied up in the van they had masks on over their heads all the time.”
Cae nods, remembering the arrangement in which they had arrived.
“There was this one man that spoke to me, though,” Angelica continues, “he got right up in my face, I couldn’t see much of him, except for these horrible green eyes.” Cae feels her starting to tremble, and when he looks at her young face he sees her eyes starting to well up with water. “I’m sorry I can’t be more useful,” she whimpers.
“No, it’s okay,” Cae soothes.
“The van they left behind ought to give us some clues anyway,” Kendra says from her corner, and Cae is surprised to see her hard features looking a little more sympathetic than before. Angelica nods slowly at them both, sniffing.
“Listen Angelica,” Cae says softly, patting her slender hand, “I think it’d be wise for you to get out of town for a while. You’re at risk staying here, especially working at the prison.”
The blonde nods and swallows a few times before she speaks. “I’ll book some leave,” she agrees, “I’ve got people I can stay with up north.”
“Don’t tell anyone where you’re going,” Kendra warns, “We don’t know who’s listening in right?”
“Right,” Cae repeats, “And you can call me if you need me.”
“Thanks,” she says in earnest, her fingers shifting a little under Cae’s gentle grip.
He rises from his seat slowly with a kind smile. “We’ll leave you to rest,” he says, starting to walk away.
“Did you find out who the catnapper is?” Angelica asks as he reaches Kendra at the door.
Cae grins back at her. “Not yet, but I will.”
Angelica gives him a larger, much healthier smile.
“That’s right,” she says proudly, “You always get your justice in the end.”
It is late at night when Cae finishes a strangely normal shift at the House of Cards. Since the return of Lady Locke there have been no more random attacks; everywhere Cae looks for potential trouble he finds only the usual nightly running of the casino taking place. It has left him with a night filled instead with thoughts of The Face, most especially what the magnate’s next move will be in the little game that they are playing.
It’s then that Cae remembers the bank statement. When he gets home just after midnight he sits down in his cold, silvery kitchen, fumbling with his gloved hands until he retrieves the paper scroll from his pocket. The extent of The Face’s investments is clear from the data. There are payments to Dartley Prison personnel, mysterious donations to various businesses and individuals that Cae doesn’t know, plus payments travelling much further afield, in the rest of Europa and beyond.
Something called The Animus Project in the great Northern Citadel catches his eye. The Citadel is an hour or so away by car from Dartley, further inland. It might be a fair place to start casting a wider net to catch the master criminal. But then another project further down the list sends Cae reeling. BiAndro.
Kendra’s project.
The project that saw an innocent girl ripped out of her life and turned into a memoryless, military experiment. And The Face footed the bill. Questions rise sharply in Cae’s mind as he struggles to recall what Howard Fowler had told him about The BiAndro Project. Did Fowler know that he was being funded by a dangerous criminal? Did The Face have a direct motive for having these super-soldiers created?
Cae searches the page for names and addresses, and once again everything leads him straight to Lachrymosa in the East Atlantic. Whatever connections The Face has to Dartley, he has just as many to Kendra’s old home base. If there was ever an opportunity to take him by surprise, perhaps it involved a visit there.
The phone rings and Cae leaps out of his seat, suddenly shaken by the sound. He picks up the receiver in a flurry, but before he can say anything a distorted voice comes on the line.
“Listen,” it says in a whisper, “there’s going to be a town-wide power outage tonight at two a.m.” Cae strains to hear the voice on the crackling line, but he doesn’t recognise its hoarse tone. “Be in your office at the station when the lights go out. I think I can tell you what you need to know.”
29.
“What the hell happened here?”
Kendra’s voice is faint as Cae slowly comes back to conscious thought. Bright sunlight is streaming in somewhere above him, but Cae trembles, his body is stone cold. Kendra is still talking at him, but his head is full of thoughts clogging up his brain like cobwebs.
“Cae? Are you okay?”
His heart thumps rapidly in his cold chest as he tries to process the situatio
n. He shifts his aching head, feeling the carpet rub against his hair. He looks to the side of him to see the shiny legs of his chair and desk. He is in his office. He squints painfully back up at the whitewashed ceiling and the bright window. It is morning.
“Cae can you hear me? What happened to you?”
As he tries to shift forward he feels the terrible ache of his sore skin cracking and lies back down with a groan. With his eyes closed the young detective runs a hand up to his chest to feel for the trickle of blood. His bare chest. He opens his eyes again, deeply confused. He looks down to see Kendra’s smart suit jacket thrown over his hips. No clothes. No clothes at all.
“What?” Cae says, finding his voice is strained and hoarse. Kendra crouches down beside him, taking his ruined shoulders in her hands gently as she tries to help him to sit up. He winces in pain as she props him up against the drawers of his desk.
“I said what happened to you?” Kendra asks again, holding his face in her hands as she inspects his eyes.
Cae tries hard to focus on her. “I don’t remember,” he slurs.
“Are you drunk?” She presses, coming close enough to smell his breath for tell-tale signs.
“No,” Cae eventually replies, “this isn’t a hangover. I…I feel ill.”
“Let me try to find your clothes,” Kendra says, leaving Cae to shiver as he curls up his legs under her jacket.
With his head elevated things become a little clearer, at least where his vision is concerned. He watches Kendra as she goes around the office picking up the various items of clothing he must have been wearing the night before. She brings him a white vest which he quickly puts on, then mercifully she finds his black trousers and his underwear. When she moves to the far side of the office to continue the clothes hunt, Cae scrambles into the first few garments to make himself decent.
He tries then to get fully onto his feet, only to collapse against the desk, impossibly weakened. Kendra helps him into his chair where he sits, breathless and straining to recall anything. She looks him over with concern, her eyes eventually falling to his red, ruined arms and his now-covered chest.
