The Falls [05 Diving Universe] 2016

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  He was frowning at her, and she finally realized why. She was smiling.

  “We have two ways to bring her back here,” Virji said. “The maintenance mode, and that anacapa drive.”

  “I thought people got lost in foldspace,” he said. “I’ve heard stories—”

  “And they’re all true,” Virji said. “If we can’t locate her, then she’s lost. But if her anacapa drive is functioning, and if she’s anywhere within range of this sector base, then we can pull her back here.”

  “I assume you mean ‘if she’s within range and not inside foldspace,’” he said.

  Virji nodded. “Remember, she’s smart. She knows the dangers of foldspace as well as the rest of us. The more time she spends there, the more danger she’s in. She’s been gone now for hours. No one remains in foldspace that long if it can be avoided. All she wants to do is escape, not travel incredibly long distances.”

  “You’re making it sound like you know what she’ll do,” he said.

  Virji smiled. “I’ve spent decades studying her, Gian. She’s organized, smart, and efficient. She’ll take the logical route unless her emotions overtake her. And they generally only seem to do that in the presence of a lover. We know she’s alone.”

  “What if she’s trapped in foldspace?” Nicoleau asked.

  Virji’s smile faded. “Then we don’t get closure. We’ll never know exactly what happened to her….”

  She let her voice trail off. She wasn’t sure she could live with that. Especially if she had been this close to Everly, and she had let Everly slip through her fingers.

  Again.

  FORTY-TWO

  HRANEK SAT ON a chair in his office, pulling on his boots. He tried not to hurry—hurrying would only make him slip up and forget something.

  He had lost track of time while performing the autopsy on the unidentified woman. Her body had been an eloquent indictment of her killer—and he had found it all fascinating.

  The dead woman had been in good health before someone targeted her, so everything wrong with her body, as far as he could tell, was tied to her death.

  She had not drowned. She had no water in her lungs at all. Her jaw was broken, which might have been the injury that incapacitated her. Then she was suffocated, probably by a strong hand covering her mouth and something else pinching her nose closed.

  That kind of murder had to take a lot of strength. Someone unconscious would wake up—it was one of the body’s automatic reactions—and start to fight. He found no evidence that the dead woman had been tied up or forced down in any way—nothing on the wrists or ankles.

  There had been nothing in the lungs, either—no fibers, no nanobits, nothing to show what had been covering the mouth and nose—which was why he was assuming the killer had used a gloveless hand.

  The killer had known what a death investigator would look for, which was probably why the mouth had been smashed in and the body tossed into the water. Water destroyed more evidence than it preserved, even water as cold as the water at the base of the Falls.

  He suspected, but he couldn’t prove, that the smashing of the face had more to do with a visual identification than with any attempt to conceal evidence. The killer had known that someone would try to identify the body from the clothing, build, and hair color.

  Part of him hoped that the killer hadn’t thought he would make such a mistake. And then he had smiled at his own hubris. He was worried about what a killer thought of him.

  It was always best when killers underestimated him. He had to remember that.

  He stood, grabbed his slicker so that he wouldn’t get wet near the Falls, and scrounged for his kit. He had to focus on bringing the right equipment to the diving scene. The YSR-SR had recovered one body there without his observation, and that body turned out to be the unidentified body of a murder victim.

  He had to assume the second body was, as well.

  He hadn’t touched his kit since the last time he’d been called to the Falls, nearly three weeks before. When he got back, he always replaced, replenished, and cleaned his equipment. He should have trusted himself, but he never did.

  Because he might have been distracted (as he was this morning) or he might have forgotten a detail. It was always best to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything before he left, rather than become irritated with himself after he arrived.

  Someone knocked on his door and then it creaked open. Mina Ansari peeked her head inside. She was his second-best assistant, after Okilani. She was small, with hair that she dyed a light pink that set off her light brown skin.

  He hated Ansari’s timidity, but he couldn’t seem to force her out of it. And this morning wasn’t going to help because he had no time for the niceties when he was running late.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I needed to tell you that we have an identification.” Her voice was soft. She sounded almost hesitant and he knew, if he pushed her, she would apologize for bothering him even though he had told her that he wanted to know the identity of the victim the moment she figured it out—if she figured it out.

  But he had also instructed her to remain with the corpse, clean it, and finish the small details of the autopsy. Either she had done that already (he doubted it) or the DNA hit had come in and she believed he needed that immediately.

  “I’m assuming this is the woman we were working on all night?” he asked, as he set his kit on the chair. Because if it wasn’t that woman, he was going to yell at Ansari. Any other identification could wait until he returned.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He slipped on the slicker. “Well?”

  “It just came through from Ynchi City,” she said, backing into the information because she was so nervous. She was clearly trying to explain why she didn’t have the information sooner.

  “I’m in a hurry, Mina,” he snapped.

  “Right,” she said, and made that half-smile, half-grimace she always made when he snapped at her. “Her name is Sallie Sumption. She’s from Ynchi City. She came here on vacation and had rented a cabin near Fiskett Falls. She came alone. She was going through a divorce, so no one thought it weird that she didn’t contact them, until a week went by. Then they found out she never spent a night at the cabin, even though she brought in food and her stuff. So they sent out DNA last night—”

  “And you got a hit,” he said. “Excellent. Are you working with the Ynchi City’s police department?”

  “I am,” she said. “And the family.”

  “Have you told them she’s dead?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I came to you first.”

  “Good. I’ll take care of it, after I finish at the death site. We might have more information then.”

  “Shouldn’t we let them know that she’s dead?”

  Of course Ansari would ask that. She was the most soft-hearted person on staff. She hated telling people that their loved ones had died or had died badly.

  Hranek only let her handle cases where a few tears would improve the interaction the family had with the death investigator’s office—and that wasn’t very many.

  “We’re not going to let them know yet,” he said. “The last thing we want is some liaison from Ynchi City to show up and the family to start interfering with our investigation.”

  “But they’ll know we ran the DNA,” she said.

  She worried about the strangest things. He really didn’t care what the police in Ynchi City knew and didn’t know.

  “Yes, they’ll know.” He put on his slicker and then slung his kit over his shoulder. “But they won’t know what we compared it to, and they won’t know the result. We can stall for a few hours.”

  Which was all he needed to oversee the dive before getting back here to work on the second corpse. At that point, he might be willing to release the information to the girl’s family.

  Or he might not. But he wasn’t in the mood to decide now.

  “Should I get someone to investigate what happened t
o her?” Ansari asked.

  He stopped. There were so many ways that someone could screw up that investigation.

  “No,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “But—”

  “Finish up with her,” he snapped. “I have to get to the dive.”

  Ansari sighed heavily, letting him know she didn’t approve without saying a word. Then she stepped away from the door.

  “All right,” she said.

  He resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he passed her. The one thing he couldn’t instill in his people was that the dead didn’t care about anything. They didn’t care if their families found out this afternoon or next week. They didn’t care if their murderer was caught or their body helped contribute to some weird scientific discovery.

  The only urgency in anything to do with the dead came from the living, and as the death investigator of the entire Sandoveil Valley, he could control that urgency in most cases.

  He could control parts of it in this case.

  The rest, he was going to try to control as best he could, which was why he was heading to the dive site now.

  He pushed open the exterior doors. The sky had lightened over the mountains. His clock said it wasn’t dawn yet, but it would be in just a few minutes. And he hoped to hell that the YSR-SR kept to their promise that they’d dive at dawn and not before.

  Once he got in his van, he would let them know he was on his way. Nothing in Sandoveil was more than fifteen minutes from anything else, so he wouldn’t be that late.

  The body had been underwater for hours, maybe days. It could wait a few more minutes.

  His van was parked haphazardly at the edge of the parking lot, not anywhere near his usual spot. He hadn’t been paying attention when he returned last night.

  And there weren’t a lot of other vans in the lot. Most of his staff took public transportation. Three of the death examiner vans were still in the lot, but the fourth was out. Apparently, Okilani was still gathering evidence.

  He started toward his van when a woman called his name.

  He almost didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to continue the argument with Ansari.

  But he did turn, because she had to know that arguing with him about procedure was not a good idea. He was formulating his argument when he realized she wasn’t behind him.

  Bassima Beck was.

  She looked tired. Her usually crisp uniform was rumpled, and her hair stuck out in clumps.

  It took him a moment to realize that nothing had happened to her—just that she had been working as hard as he had, and apparently, she cared as little about appearances as he did.

  “I know where Glida Kimura is,” Beck said.

  It took him a moment to figure out what she was talking about. He had forgotten that he had assigned her to track all the images coming in and out of that office near Main.

  “You know where she is right now?” he asked.

  “I think so,” Beck said.

  “Think isn’t good enough,” he said. “And I’m late. So when you know for certain—”

  “I can’t know for certain,” Beck said, “and neither can you.”

  That stopped him. He could know anything he wanted. He had the best security clearance in the city. She had probably forgotten that.

  “Why not?” he asked, hearing the arrogance in his tone and deciding he didn’t care if she heard it too.

  “Because she went into the sector base hours after she left the downtown,” Beck said. “Her vehicle is still there. And I’ve looked at everything I can. As far as I can tell, she hasn’t come out.”

  He let out a small breath. Could it be that easy? If so, why would Kimura go to such lengths to fake her own death?

  Beck’s news was so surprising he wasn’t sure how to handle it at all. There had to be more to this.

  “Could you link Kimura to the bodies found at Fiskett Falls?” he asked.

  “Bodies?” Beck asked.

  He forgot. She didn’t know about the second one, and he didn’t know if the second one was related to this case. Just because it was there didn’t mean it was dumped at the same time as that fake Kimura body.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Body at Fiskett Falls.”

  “Not yet,” she said. “Glida disappeared for a while, though, right in the proper timeframe. There’s just not a lot of public footage for me to go through.”

  “She went to the sector base after she went to Fiskett Falls,” he said, trying to process that.

  “Yes,” Beck said. “If she did go to Fiskett Falls.”

  He was preoccupied. Because he normally didn’t make misstatements like that.

  Nor did he make rookie mistakes, and yet he had. He never thought to check Kimura’s place of employment to see if she was on the job. He had assumed she wasn’t.

  “I’m assuming you didn’t check to see if she was at work?” he asked.

  Beck straightened. “I didn’t want to tip her off.”

  Which was a no. Beck hadn’t checked Kimura’s place of employment before crossing paths with Hranek. He wasn’t the only one making rookie mistakes.

  “Well, don’t tip her off now,” he said. “But make sure she’s there.”

  Beck nodded. “I thought I’d tell you first. I’m going to arrest her, though, if she is. I have enough just on the footage to hold her on suspicion of murder.”

  He frowned. Such charges didn’t always stick. But charging criminals was not something that he always had control over, unless he had direct proof from his own investigation. He wasn’t far from that now.

  Rather than tell Beck to stay away, he would slow her down.

  “You realize you might have to work with Sector Base Security,” he said.

  “No ‘might’ about it,” she said. “I will have to work with them.”

  Then she gave him a knowing look.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be discreet.”

  He hoped so.

  His skepticism must have shown on his face because her expression grew fierce.

  “I liked Taji Kimura,” Beck said. “She didn’t deserve to die, especially at the hands of the person she loved. I won’t do anything to harm the investigation or an arrest.”

  Hranek nodded. The light in the morning sky had grown brighter. Now he was late, and he hadn’t contacted the YSR-SR. He would have to.

  “You’ll have to trust me,” Beck said.

  “Yes,” he said drily, wishing there was another way. “I suppose I will.”

  FORTY-THREE

  BRISTOL ALMOST DIDN’T hear them enter her lab. In fact, she wouldn’t have heard them if she hadn’t set a small vibrating alarm, on the bracelet she wore on her wrist, to notify her when something changed.

  She had programmed that first, because there were still people in the storage room, doing whatever she had assigned them—work she had deliberately put out of her mind. She hadn’t wanted to lose complete track of them, but she hadn’t wanted to monitor them either.

  And she had known she was going to get lost in numbers and charts and logistics and all the wonderful things she loved about research—the reasons she had started working with anacapa drives in the first place, even though they made her terribly nervous.

  When her bracelet alarm went off, Bristol looked up, saw all the uninvited people in her lab, and felt a surge of anger. Captain Virji stood in front of one of the consoles, with five people that Bristol did not recognize.

  Bristol had invited none of them. She had thought the lab invaders were done now that everyone had been assigned their various tasks.

  Apparently, she was wrong.

  These people, none of whom she recognized, were obviously Someones, because if they hadn’t been, Virji wouldn’t have gotten them past all the heightened security. But it would have been nice if one of the Someones had contacted Bristol.

  Virji was consulting with another woman, who was gesturing at the various consoles. Some of Virji’s people were scattering to the other
consoles.

  Bristol opened her mouth to stop them, then remembered just in time that she was dealing with a captain of the Fleet, one of the Elite. But just because someone was elite didn’t mean she could just barge into Bristol’s lab without permission.

  “Excuse me,” Bristol said, using as much bite as she possible could. “This is my lab.” So much for diplomacy. “What are you doing?”

  Virji looked over at her. “Ah, Ms. Iannazzi. Excellent. I was hoping you’d be here.”

  As if Virji hadn’t seen Bristol when the group barged into the lab. As if Bristol wasn’t standing in the very middle of it.

  “This is my lab,” Bristol repeated. “Of course I’m here. And I’m working. We all are.”

  Virji didn’t seem to notice Bristol’s distress, or if she did, she was ignoring it. Then Virji smiled, a cold smile that made it very clear she was the one in charge here, not Bristol.

  Which just made Bristol angrier.

  “Please stop whatever it is you’re doing,” Virji said. “We’ve figured out how to recall the runabout, and we would like your assistance.”

  Stupid way to ask for it, Bristol nearly said.

  “No,” she said, no longer caring about her job. “You cannot come in here and think you know how to deal with that runabout. It’s—”

  “I’m sorry,” said the woman Virji had been consulting with, her tone as clipped as Bristol’s. “You’re just a tech, right? Yes, this is your lab, but it’s in a sector base—”

  “I am not just a tech,” Bristol snapped. “I am an engineer. More importantly, I am this base’s expert on anacapa drives, and on the way that anacapa drives work here, in this sector base, underground. I don’t know what you think you know, but I can guarantee that it’s wrong.”

  “I am Ionie Fedo, chief engineer of the Ijo.”

  Well, hooray for you! Bristol had to bite back that comment too. She was angrier than she had been in a long time. Some of that was due to her exhaustion, some of it due to her distress at all the violations that had occurred in her lab, but much of it was due to the disrespect she suddenly found herself faced with.