by M. D. Cooper
Trey said via their Link as she reached the top of the stairs.
He nodded.
She gave him a head start. If anyone was going to get shot, it should be him. Not that she wished him ill, but he’d be better suited to take the damage and keep functioning.
Having a modded partner had turned out to be kind of handy. Reece shouldn’t have been so resistant to the idea.
Trey disappeared from the top of the stairs and, Reece heard grunts and the unmistakable sounds of a fight. She ran out to the right to keep the pair he’d mentioned from joining the attack on Trey.
She didn’t see the other two attackers anywhere, then caught a glimpse of a dark head of hair moving toward Nizhoni’s personal quarters. Reece squeezed off a pulse shot, but her target had moved around a corner and she wasn’t sure if she’d gotten him. As most, he’d be winged a little.
Tearing off after him, she was brought up short by a woman flinging herself into Reece’s way.
Ah, there’s the other one.
No time for that. Reece throat-punched her opponent and the woman fell to the ground making ghastly noises. Reece gave her a light hit with the pulse pistol to make sure she stayed down.
Now to find the guy creeping through Nizhoni’s home. Why would he go back there? The only thing that made sense was that they were looking for Nizhoni. But did they want to threaten, abduct, or kill her?
Reece wasn’t going to let any of those things happen. The H&P whiskey would keep flowing if she had anything to do with it.
She hurried down a short hallway, then eased around the doorframe, pulse pistol ready, to look in.
Nobody in the bathroom.
She moved on down the hall. A small study and a combined kitchen and dining area were empty.
She pushed on to the end of the hall. He had to be in that back room.
Sliding around the doorframe, she saw someone with their back turned to her, rifling through a bedside table.
“Turn around slowly,” Reece said. “Hands up.”
Suddenly her hand went numb and her pistol clattered to the floor. Stunned, she realized someone had been in the adjoining bathroom and had hit her outstretched arm with a pulse blast. Reece leapt back out the doorframe to make herself less of a target.
They’d hit the place on two fronts.
This was bad.
Reece’s right hand was useless. With her pulse pistol on the bedroom floor, she had no choice but to draw her left Rikulf Special.
She edged toward the door to get a look into the room when she sensed someone coming at her.
She resisted the urge to shoot before she could get a visual on the person.
Taking a step back, she gave herself an extra moment to take careful aim. Then a face she didn’t recognize came around the corner, and she shot center mass.
The person dropped, but Reece knew there was at least one more enemy in there.
Letting her useless right hand dangle at her side, Reece entered the bedroom, keeping an eye on the bathroom entrance.
Empty.
Whoever had entered through the back entrance had apparently gone out the open window.
She let him go. No sense chasing him down when Trey might need help. She hurried back to where she’d last seen him.
Two prone bodies were bound hand and foot, and Trey stood over the third person who sat on the floor, hands tied behind him.
“Are there more?” he was asking the prisoner as Reece came a stop just behind him.
“I’ve got one unconscious, one dead,” Reece said. “A third went out a window.”
Trey straightened. “I’ll go. You see what you can find out from this one.”
He paused, looking at her right hand, still hanging awkwardly at her side. “You okay?
“Fine. Go.”
He didn’t make her say it twice.
“Who are you working for?” Reece asked the bulgy-eyed fellow sitting on the floor in front of her. He appeared to be in his late twenties and had the dull stare of someone who wasn’t very smart.
Though that might only be the aftereffect of the walloping from Trey.
He stared at her wordlessly.
Reece gestured to the back hallway. “There’s a dead guy back there. Whoever sent you here is responsible for his death. Are the Big Four involved, or is this something more personal?”
His eyes followed her gesture and he looked less certain of himself.
Reece accessed Rexcare’s facial recognition database. Not many people knew about it, but she’d found it wildly helpful in cases like these.
Within seconds she had a match. “I know you, Kaddox,”
The man’s eyes went wide. “How do you know me?”
“How do you think?” she asked sarcastically, hoping he’d put together some upsetting scenario.
“Did…did Matty send you?” he asked, his voice thin with fear.
“Of course,” Reece lied. “How else can he be sure the job gets done?”
Kaddox flushed. “Why would he double-book the job? We had this handled.”
She shrugged. “I don’t ask questions. Did you get what you came for?”
“No. You guys showed up too fast.”
She sighed. “I guess we’ll have to find it ourselves. See, this is why Matty sent us.”
Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of a way to get him to tell her what they were looking for. Anything she could think of would reveal that she had no idea who this Matty person was, and she didn’t want Kaddox to guess at who she was really working for.
She activated her overlays and put in a priority message to Schramm Matthews.
He responded within a minute.
“I guess we just wait until my friend gets back, then,” she said.
* * * * *
Trey didn’t return alone. He arrived with Nizhoni, who drove a woman ahead of her by repeatedly jamming the muzzle of some archaic-looking weapon into the space between her shoulderblades.
“You were outside?” Reece asked, surprised. “I thought you’d stayed below.”
“And let these dickweeds run amok in my distillery?” Nizhoni scoffed. “Not happening. I take care of what’s mine.”
Reece stepped closer to examine the weapon. “What is this? It looks ancient.”
Nizhoni wore a satisfied expression. “It’s a relic, for sure. So old it’s classified as a collector’s piece and not as a weapon.”
Reece blinked at her in amazement. “And you refurbished it so you could keep a gun under your pillow?”
Trey looked equally surprised by this revelation.
“Not under my pillow,” Nizhoni said, “but I live out in the middle of nowhere. Of course, I’m going to have a way to deal with trouble.”
Reece liked that philosophy. “Well, you’d better hide it before our associates arrive.”
Trey sat their captive down and bound his arms behind his back.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Nizhoni admitted.
“Wait,” Kaddox looked confused. “You’re working with her?”
Yeah, that didn’t exactly fit with the story she’d told him. “Well, we are now. She gave us a better offer.”
“I don’t understand.” Kaddox blinked several times in succession.
“You don’t need to. But when our friends arrive, I recom
mend you just skip to the end and tell them everything you know. It’ll save you a lot of trouble.”
An hour later, the cleanup crew arrived, taking away Kaddox, his living colleagues, and the dead one as well. They even cleaned up the bloodstains, which Reece thought to be a nice touch. No doubt it was intended to obliterate any evidence, but it was nice that Nizhoni wouldn’t have to scrub the blood out of her bedroom.
Afterward, they hustled the damaged furniture and cleaning equipment out the door, and it was like none of it had ever happened.
“Now that was impressive,” Nizhoni said. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”
“Consider it Rexcare’s gift to you,” Reece said.
“Nothing’s free,” Nizhoni said. “What’s it going to cost me?”
Reece shook her head. “It’s not like that. Rexcare considers you one of its own and is going to look after you. All you have to do is fully cooperate in our investigation.”
“Meaning?” Nizhoni asked, not looking terribly inclined to cooperate.
“We need to figure out who wants to put you out of business with extreme prejudice.”
DEEPER
DATE: 05.03.8948 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Agriculture Sector Six, Akonwara
REGION: Machete System, PED 4B, Orion Freedom Alliance
“So you’ve never heard of someone named Matty?” Reece flexed her fingers. Some of the feeling was coming back, but her whole hand burned like crazy.
“No. And like I said, I don’t have personal enemies.” Nizhoni covered a yawn. “Are we done yet?”
Reece doubted that someone with Nizhoni’s salty attitude hadn’t earned herself an enemy or two along the way, but Reece put that aside for now. “If it’s not a personal thing, then that means it’s a business thing. Who are your biggest competitors?”
“Define ‘biggest’,” Nizhoni said.
“Never mind.” Reece smoothed her hair back. “Can you put together a list of all your competitors, rated from biggest competitive threat to least, and making notations of any personal interactions and possible grudges?”
Nizhoni shrugged. “Yeah, I can do that, if it’s going to help figure this out. And if it gets you out of here.”
Reece looked at Trey. Nizhoni wasn’t going to like what she had to say next.
“I’m afraid we’re not going to leave just yet,” Reece told her. “There could be more people on their way here. Trey and I will remain, unless you’d rather have a security detail assigned to you.”
Nizhoni’s head tilted back, as if she’d been dealt a slap. “So, it’s either you two, or some strangers in my home?”
Trey didn’t seem too happy, either. “Seems like it.”
Nizhoni sighed. “At least I know you two can fight, and respect the whiskey. Fine. But I only have one bedroom and I’m not giving it up.”
“That’s okay,” Reece said. “I can sleep with the barrels.”
“And risk you drinking all my whiskey?” Nizhoni asked, outraged. “Not a chance.”
Reece smiled. “I guess we’ll need to agree on some ground rules, then.”
Nizhoni groaned. “I thought having a hole blown in the side of my building was the worst thing that would happen to me today. Clearly, I was wrong.”
* * * * *
“I don’t consider myself a man who requires a fancy lifestyle.” Trey frowned at the blankets piled on the floor of the entryway. “But this is definitely sub-par.”
“Do you want to sleep at the back entrance instead?” Reece asked.
“No. It’s no better.”
Reece rolled her eyes. “Stop being such a fragile flower. We’ll be warm. We’ll have food. All we need to do is sleep on the floor and prevent armed psychopaths from entering. Easy.”
He frowned. “You and I clearly grew up very differently.”
Rather than take that as a bad thing, Reece considered it a compliment. “Clearly,” she agreed. “I grew up being glad for what I have, and you grew up with people who insisted on being better than human.”
He whistled. “Low blow.”
“Too low?”
He rolled one shoulder. “Not for you.”
She laughed. “Not much is. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think we’ll get any company here tonight.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Nothing in particular,” she said. “It’s a gut feeling. But my gut is pretty accurate.”
“Accurate enough to give odds?”
“Well, I’m not Marky, but I’d say we have a ninety percent chance of not being invaded while we sleep.”
He tilted his head to one side. “That’s not bad, actually.”
“Exactly. And at least you don’t have to worry about being stepped on by Nizhoni if she decides to get up in the middle of the night and go to the kitchen for a cup of water.”
“True.” He nodded slowly. “And based on what we’ve seen of her, she might just step on you on purpose.”
“Yeah. Sure you don’t want the back entrance?”
“Definitely not.” He paused, then asked, “Are you sure Kippy will be okay with looking after Dex?”
“Sure. He loves animals. You can count on Kippy.”
“If you say so.”
She added, “Plus, he’s curious to check out your apartment. He’d show up just to case the place.”
Trey gave her a sour look. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“It should. Your monkey will be in good hands.”
Trey’s expression twisted into something strange. It was half-pained, and half-amused. “Where I come from, that could mean something else.”
“Like what?”
“Good night!” he said, kicking off his shoes and sitting on his pile of blankets.
“Aw. Not going to tell me?” Reece teased, all too aware of the innuendo.
“Nope.” His tone indicated that he had made his decision and wouldn’t change his mind.
“Fine. Good night.”
She went to her own pile of blankets and lay down with her Rikulf Specials within reach.
Sure, the floor was hard, but the blankets helped. She’d had far worse nights when she was growing up. Compared to that, this was still a life of luxury.
* * * * *
Reece couldn’t decide who looked more cranky—Trey, after sleeping on the floor all night, or Nizhoni, who found herself tasked with feeding her protectors breakfast.
In the light of the kitchen, Nizhoni looked a little softer. Her light brown hair went nicely with her tanned skin. She was an attractive woman, really.
Then she started swearing up a storm and making rude suggestions about things Rexcare could put in anatomically impossible places—since Rexcare, in fact, had no anatomy. She looked less attractive again, just like that.
At least, to Reece, she did. Less because of the language, which Reece didn’t mind, and more because of the foul temper.
Trey, on the other hand, seemed charmed by Nizhoni’s lack of charm. Maybe that was a thing where he was from.
By the time Nizhoni had grudgingly fed them fried potatoes, some kind of fried meat, and a vegetable hash, Rexcare’s security detail had arrived.
The distillery’s proprietor seemed no happier to see them when Reece let them inside.
“Don’t expect me to make breakfast for you fuckers,” she said to the two men and two women, whose eyes widened in surprise. “Make some arrangements for your damn selves.”
With that, Nizhoni stomped off to her bedroom, not even bothering with introductions to her new protectors.
“Well, good luck, friends,” Reece said as she grabbed her bags and shoved Trey out the door.
She’d never thought she’d be so eager to leave a place that made whiskey, but Nizhoni’s mood had been on a downward trend all morning, and showed no evidence of improving anytime soon.
Wisely, Trey didn’t argue about being hustled out.
“Have you he
ard anything from Schramm about the data we sent them?” Reece asked in the autotaxi. “I’d like to start matching up the findings against the list of competitors Nizhoni made. The sooner we can determine the most likely suspects, the better.”
“Why would I have heard something before you?” he asked.
“Is that a no?”
“I haven’t heard a word,” he said.
“Why not just say that?”
“I didn’t want you to think you were the only one with questions to ask.”
“Fine.” She twisted in her seat to face him.
He simply stared at her, his eyebrows raised.
“Don’t you have something to ask?” she prompted.
“No. Not really.”
She squinted at him. “Is this your version of humor?”
“Not at all. If I were being funny, you’d be laughing. Since you aren’t laughing, I clearly wasn’t trying to be funny.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m too tired for this crap.”
“Didn’t sleep well? Floor too hard?”
“The floor was fine. I just slept too lightly to feel rested. You know, just in case some whiskey kamikazes came flying through the doors and windows.”
He patted her shoulder. “And it’s making you cranky. I understand.”
She let out a sound that was half scoff, and half laugh. “You can call me cranky after spending a day with Nizhoni? That woman would make a saber-spike cactus look soft and cuddly.”
He rubbed his chin. “You think so? I kind of liked her spirit.”
“How is she spirited, and yet I’m cranky?” Reece demanded.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “She just has a certain something. Maybe it’s the foul language.”
“That’s a turn-on for you?”
“Well,” he shrugged. “I wouldn’t say it’s a turn-on, but it certainly got my attention.”
She copied his shrug. “I guess there’s someone out there for everyone.”
“What about you?” he countered. “I’ve never heard you mention someone special, past or present. You’ve never even spent a few seconds too many looking someone over. It’s a little weird.”
“I’m just very professional.”
