“We need to let them make a petition before we deny it,” Restrepo said.
“There is no rule that states such a thing,” Kreise said.
Restrepo stood. “Then I’ll invent one. Because I declare this meeting over. I will not converse with you people again until I hear Döbryn’s speech—whatever it is.”
And she stalked out of the room.
“Someone get her,” Kreise said. “We must continue this.”
“I don’t like considering things without all the evidence,” Foltz said. “I’m particularly intrigued by Ambassador Uzval’s statements and the Ambassador’s rather twisted logic about history. I’d like to see the evidence Ambassador Uzval mentioned and hear more from the Nyyzen ambassador. Perhaps an informal gathering would be possible?”
Kreise let out a small breath. She had lost control of this meeting from the moment the Ambassador appeared. And she didn’t know how to regain that control.
“First, let me speak to the city,” she said. “Then we can all decide how to proceed.”
Especially her. She needed a time to come up with another plan of her own.
Thirteen
Nitara Nicolae stood beside the stove, looking at the mushrooms in garlic sauce that she had created especially for the ambassadors. The entire lunch ruined because no one had informed her that the meeting would only last an hour.
Bread filled with her own blend of meats and spices was still baking, and a berry cobbler, made with berries grown in Armstrong’s greenhouses outside the dome, cooled on a side table.
When she had poked her head into the meeting, she had been startled to see that her tables had been moved. The ambassadors were closer than she had expected them to be, and they were disinterested in any type of food.
She also did not see Anatolya Döbryn. The woman was supposed to be addressing the ambassadors, and she wasn’t even present.
Nicolae would have to start over. She would have to find something to do with this food, first of all. Her fists clenched, and she turned around and around in the badly designed kitchen.
She had already dismissed her staff for the day. She didn’t want them to see her losing her temper, and she was very close. She wasn’t sure what she should do next—confront Mayor Soseki, who had wanted her to represent Armstrong and its cuisine, speak to one of his deputies—the one who had told her that the meal service would be part of the meeting and she should act accordingly—or talk to the ambassadors themselves to see if they even cared.
She was half-tempted to have the food delivered to their hotels, but she wouldn’t do that. Instead, she would contact one of the centers for the poor. The indigent would have an excellent meal this afternoon.
All of that took care of her food issues. But they didn’t deal with her pride or her reputation. She was a renowned chef, and she had been treated like a cook.
She hadn’t been a cook since she had left the merchant ships, and she hadn’t been subject to someone else’s bidding since she had opened her own restaurant.
Still, she wanted to be here. She wanted to look on the face of Anatolya Döbryn, to see how the Butcher of Etae would look just before she died.
Fourteen
DeRicci’s aircar stopped two blocks away from Flint’s office. The dang thing landed with some fanfare in a parking lot marked Private, and refused to go any farther. When she tried to disconnect the autonavigate, the car informed her links that she was not allowed to do so—she didn’t own the thing, after all, and it was subject to the laws of Armstrong, which she should consider before trying to violate them.
She damn near started to argue with the car, then realized the ridiculousness of it all, shut the vehicle down, and got out. She stood in the lot, feeling grimy from her hours in the Lahiri apartment, and stretched, letting the annoyance of losing her vehicle to rules slip away.
Then she stared at the car, which looked ungainly as it sat on its airjets on the dirt-covered permaplastic, and smiled almost involuntarily. How ridiculous her life had become. Not only did she worry about her new clothing and keeping her new apartment and not hurting the status of her somewhat dull job, but she was also at the mercy of a car.
She shook her head, then walked toward Flint’s block. When she reached the cross street, she waved. At some point along this route, he had set up perimeter alarms. He would be watching her approach. She always liked to let him know she was aware of his spy techniques.
She fingered his card in the pocket of her blazer. She felt the small piece of paper there, as if it were twenty times heavier than it was. She felt almost guilty about it, partly because she was walking away from a crime scene with evidence that the techs and her so-called partner didn’t know about.
When she had come out of the master bedroom, she had almost told Cabrera about the card. But then he went on some tear about the collectible law books. He thought looking around them a waste of his precious time.
When he started that, any ideas she’d had about sharing her Flint discovery vanished. Instead, she had sent Cabrera back to the detective unit to discover all he could about the Lahiris—especially the stuff not on the mainstream databases—and she had come here, leaving the techs in the apartment to gather the last of the evidence and, with luck, discover who the mystery corpse was.
DeRicci stepped onto the ratty sidewalk outside Flint’s office. If anything, the place looked more decrepit than it had a few months ago. The dirt clung to it, creating rippled lines in the ancient permaplastic.
She reached for the doorknob and heard it click open. The door swung back. Flint was leaning against his desk, his long legs crossed at the ankles. When he saw DeRicci, he waved.
She grinned and he grinned in return. At least he looked better than he had when he was on the force. Then his face had been lined and he always had shadows under his eyes. Now his skin had more color to it, and his blond curls seemed even lighter than they had before, almost like a halo of hair. His eyes were a radiant blue, and when he grinned, like he did now, he had a cherubic handsomeness that belied the ruthlessness she had come to rely on.
“To what do I owe this visit?” he asked her.
“You don’t think this is a social call?” She stepped inside. The air was cooler here, and fresher. She wondered if he had some illegal filters. The interior air should match the air in this part of the dome, for better or for worse.
“Not the way you’re dressed. Don’t tell me. Gumiela put you on a case because you’re new, it’s political, and she can fire you if things get out of hand without worrying about any interdepartmental backlash.”
None of that could have been in any database. Flint obviously guessed some of it because he used to work in the department, but the rest was just an example of how intuitive he was.
“Nonsense.” DeRicci started as her links shut off. There was an unnatural hum in her ear, then a white line ran across the bottom of her vision. Finally she got a system malfunction warning before it all faded away.
Usually she remembered to shut down her links before she came into Flint’s building. But this was the first time she had come here since that command to keep her emergency links on.
And the comptechs in the department had told her that nothing—not court, not anything—could shut down those emergency links.
Obviously, those techs hadn’t encountered Miles Flint.
His grin widened. “You know better than to come in here with your links on.”
Damn his observative nature. “Forgot,” she said.
The door had shut behind her, leaving the office in that dim light that Flint seemed to prefer. She suddenly felt uncomfortable, and realized, for the first time, how his clients felt when they stepped into his office.
“You were telling me why my guess was nonsense,” he said.
She made herself smile and walk over to him, shaking off the unease. “Haven’t you been following the news this past year? I’m a hero. Heroes can’t be fired.”
Only Fli
nt truly appreciated how ambivalent DeRicci felt about the Moon Marathon. She’d seen a lot of death that day. He’d seen a lot too, and hadn’t been comfortable with his role either. They’d actually had a few dinners together in some of Armstrong’s more private restaurants, talking about how unhappy that case had left them.
Those conversations were the only time the two of them were able to talk about the case. Because of the traumatic nature of the whole thing, DeRicci had been required to go to a departmental shrink—which she had—but she’d only talked about superficial stuff, and the shrink, not nearly as intuitive as Flint, hadn’t even noticed.
“Yeah,” Flint said, “that hero stuff lasts for the rest of your life. But jobs under Andrea Gumiela don’t. I would’ve thought she’d be jealous of you.”
DeRicci shook her head. “She’s relieved. I saved her ass.”
“Which’ll only get you so much currency for so long.”
“I know.” DeRicci walked to the other side of the desk and grabbed Flint’s chair. “Mind if I sit?”
“Be my guest, so long as you move the chair away from my desk.”
She carried the chair to the center of the tiny room. Flint watched her, making no move to help. Then she set the chair down, pulled off her stupidly expensive and wonderfully attractive shoes, and rubbed her aching feet.
“Sorry,” she said. “They’re not made for standing.”
“The feet or the shoes?” Flint was in a good mood. He must not have been working on a case. Although his mood had improved considerably in the years since he had left the force.
“Don’t make me chose,” DeRicci said. “The feet and the shoes have become one.”
Flint laughed appreciatively. DeRicci felt her own mood lighten. She liked him so much better now that they were no longer partnering. Maybe she was the kind of cop who wasn’t made for a partner. Maybe, no matter who the partner was, she would find fault with him.
Flint’s smile slowly faded, and he looked her over. “You’re not dressed for field work.”
“You’re beginning to make it sound like I’m not dressed for anything,” she said.
He stood and lightly brushed her arm. She looked at the sleeve of her blazer. A streak of blood ran from the hem to the elbow. She had touched those pools of blood after all.
“Damn,” she said. “This is new.”
“You can afford it.”
She sighed. She would have liked to let the banter continue a few moments longer. Maybe she should spend more time with her friends, talking to them and relaxing with them. Maybe she should get a few friends—at least ones who weren’t work-related.
“Noelle?” Flint returned to the desk. “Did I say something wrong?”
She shook her head, slipped her hand into the pocket of her blazer, and removed the card. Holding it between her index and middle fingers, she handed it to him.
He took it, ran his thumb over the edge where the numbers were written, and frowned. He clearly recognized the card.
“You didn’t find this with the blood, did you?” There was an edge in his voice. If DeRicci hadn’t known better, she would have thought it fear.
“You ever hear of the Lahiris?” DeRicci asked.
Flint looked at her, his blue eyes no longer sparkling. “Just tell me where you got the card, Noelle.”
“Gumiela gave me a case with three corpses in an apartment. Two of them are very prominent citizens: Dr. Mimi Lahiri and her husband, Judge Caleb Lahiri. We can’t identify the third.”
Flint continued to watch her, his expression unchanging. She couldn’t read him. He didn’t used to be that good at covering his emotions. He had learned a lot in the last few years.
“I found this in the master bedroom, in a woman’s blazer. I recognized the card and brought it to you. No one else on the force knows about this, Miles. Everything we discuss will be off the record.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.”
Masterful. Not a denial and yet not an affirmative either. As if he knew nothing.
“Miles,” DeRicci said, “if there’s one tie to you, there will be others. If one of those three people came to see you, someone will have a record of it, even if it’s on the public surveillance cameras scattered around the dome. And it might be in their links. Tech thinks one or two of the chips might be intact.”
Still no change in his expression.
“Miles,” she said, “you might have to talk to me or you might have to talk to a judge. It’s better to talk to me.”
“I don’t talk about my business to anyone,” he said.
DeRicci shook her head. “You know that’s not always possible in a murder case.”
His expression didn’t change this time either, but his body grew tenser. “You’re certain this is murder?”
“The Lahiris were murdered,” DeRicci said. “I’m not sure if the woman we can’t identify is a murder or a suicide.”
“Woman,” he muttered as he braced his hands on the desk.
“Does that mean something to you?” DeRicci asked.
But of course he didn’t answer. He lowered his head as if he were thinking about something.
She let him. Sometimes Flint made choices that no one expected him to make, but only if he wasn’t pushed into them.
His silence made her nervous. He didn’t move for the longest time. She wanted to shift position, but didn’t. She watched him, waited for some kind of change, and hoped she had enough patience to outlast him.
Finally, he said, “I can’t talk to you as a Retrieval Artist. Not about my life or my work or anyone who has come to this office.”
He didn’t say clients, which disappointed her. But she also knew he was cautious. The Lahiris or that woman might have been clients, and he wouldn’t tell her.
He wouldn’t tell anyone.
“However,” he said. “Retrieval Artists sometimes hire themselves out as private detectives. I’ll act as one in this case.”
DeRicci leaned back in his chair. She slipped her sore feet back into her shoes. “You know I can’t do that. The more I work with you, the more trouble I’ll get into.”
“That’s not your main reason, Noelle.” He said that with warmth.
“Well,” she said, “there is the budget. The City of Armstrong can’t afford you, Miles.”
“I knew that when I made the offer,” he said.
She swallowed, not wanting to state what he must have already figured out.
“Miles,” she said softly, “you know that anyone who had contact with the Lahiris is a suspect in their deaths. And if I find out that you had contact with them, I have to report that card, and I have to investigate you.”
“You can’t,” he said. “Conflict of interest. We were partners, once.”
“Two years ago. We’re already outside the rules. I’ll be required to investigate you.”
“And what happens when the department finds out you warned me?” Flint asked. “Retrieval Artists know how to disappear.”
A chill ran through her. He wouldn’t do that. Flint had integrity. He wouldn’t run out on her if he was involved in this case.
She said, “I know you better than that,” and was happy that her voice didn’t reveal the sudden doubts that she felt.
Did she know him well? She had discovered so much about him after he had left the department that it made her feel as if she hadn’t known him at all. But they had become friends in the meantime.
Hadn’t they?
Flint stood, the movement obviously the beginnings of a dismissal. “Run your investigation the way you always do, Noelle. Follow the leads; follow the book as best you can.”
She squinted at him. “Why are you saying that?”
“Because,” he said, “if you don’t hire me, I’ll have to treat you like I would any other authority. I can’t talk to you about anything I’ve done, anyone I’ve met, or anyone I haven’t met. No exceptions, Noelle. Not even for friends.”
She hadn’t hea
rd him be so harsh, at least not to her. Not to Paloma, either, his mentor. Something was changing for him. Something had made him different.
She wondered what it was.
“That single card can cause a lot of trouble for you, Miles,” she said.
He gave her a small smile. “I’m not worried.”
She stood, and extended her hand. “I need it back.”
He studied the card for a moment, ran his thumb along those numbers again, and then slowly, reluctantly, handed it back to her.
That surprised her. She hadn’t expected him to do so.
She took the card and slipped it in the pocket of her blazer.
“How’re you going to explain that?” Flint asked. “You didn’t report it at the scene.”
“It’s in my personal log,” she said.
She shouldn’t have told him that, but she felt that she owed him that much. As a friend, and a former colleague.
“You’ll get in trouble for coming here,” he said.
She shook her head.
“Think about it, Miles,” she said. “Consider cooperating with me.”
“Consider hiring me, Noelle.”
She handed him the chair. He took it and put it behind the desk.
“I hope we can settle this without bringing you in,” she said.
“Me, too.”
She nodded at him, feeling awkward, feeling like their friendship might have changed.
And then she let herself out.
It wasn’t until she was half a block away that she realized his words—his you’ll get in trouble for coming here—might not have been meant as friendly advice.
He had been warning her.
Not to watch out for her colleagues.
Flint had been warning her to watch out for him.
Fifteen
Flint watched DeRicci’s departure on all five of his main screens. He double- and triple-locked his doors, feeling as if he had somehow been violated.
The Lahiris were dead. The unidentified body—which obviously hadn’t gone through a DNA scan yet—was probably Carolyn. And Flint certainly hoped that the weapon used in the crime wasn’t the one he had given her.
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