Dark Abyss

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  She’d cracked her head because the explosion had thrown them both down! And she was pretty sure she’d cracked her ribs because she was too busy trying to see if Simon and the others got out to be paying attention to her own situation.

  * * * *

  Caleb’s eyes were still glittering with brooding anger when they reached the home he shared with Simon, Ian, and Joshua. It dampened Anna’s excitement over the many gifts she’d gotten from the other watchmen in appreciation for her warning that had saved their lives.

  Not that she felt comfortable about that part. She’d gone with her intuition and warned Simon. He’d taken care of getting everybody out. Besides that, she felt guilty by association since it had been her father that had planted the explosives, or had them planted, to start with.

  No one had given her a gift of any description since her mother had died, though, and it had felt like Christmas on steroids when all the watchmen that had taken part in the raid had come to see her and brought a gift—almost too thrilling for words.

  Caleb hadn’t said anything when she wanted them loaded up to take with her, but she could see he didn’t like it at all.

  She had mixed feelings about that. The gifts were hers, after all, and she certainly had no intention of slighting the men who’d brought them by discarding them! That would be just too rude!

  It made her unhappy, though, that Caleb seemed to be angry with her about it—and resentful. It had made her feel guilty, as if she’d done something wrong.

  And pretty damned miserable all the way around, actually! She’d been so thrilled when he’d come to collect her, and not just because she was sick to death of the hospital.

  She’d been hungry for the sight of him, anxious to see that he really was alright. She’d been hopeful that she might get a kiss at the very least—talk to him, see him smile, listen to him telling her news if nothing else, anything! Instead, he’d taken one look at the mound of gifts, flipped through the cards, and … sulked about it ever since.

  She was eager to retreat to whatever room they’d given her by the time Caleb had helped her climb out of the little sub and into the atrium. She discovered when she, Caleb, and Joshua reached the living area, though, that Simon and Ian were waiting. Her heart instantly took flight. Relief and hopefulness beat in her breast as she looked them over anxiously to be sure they were alright.

  Simon flicked a look at her that he might have trained on a complete stranger. “I know you’re probably tired and anxious to settle in, but I thought we’d just take a preliminary statement from you before you go to your room since we haven’t had the opportunity before.

  The swiftness of her descent from hopefulness to dismay was almost nauseating.

  It took her several moments to recover enough to realize everyone was waiting for her to sit down. She settled in the spot it seemed they’d left for her on the couch. The urge to draw in upon herself was strong enough that she’d already drawn her knees up before she realized she was still too bruised to sit that way comfortably. She settled for folding her legs together to one side, but that twisted her torso and it wasn’t actually very comfortable either. Her ribs were pretty much healed, or knitted anyway, but she thought it would probably be a long while before she could move or sit or breathe ‘normally’ without discomfort.

  Simon leaned forward and set a recording device on the low table between the two facing couches. “Now, Dr. Blake, if you could just tell us in your words what happened on the night of April, 15th, 2098 ...?”

  Anna stared at the recorder and then at him. “Where do I start?”

  “Anywhere,” Ian said soothingly. “Just where ever you think it would pertain to the case.”

  “Start with why you were in your yard so late in the evening.”

  Anna studied Simon searchingly, wondering if there was an accusation in the way he’d said it or if she just felt like there was. “Could you turn that off? I mean, could I ask you something off the record first?” she added hastily when Ian and Simon exchanged a look that she thought was of suspicion.

  Simon leaned forward and turned off the recorder.

  “I was going out to talk to you and Ian. I’m just not sure I should say that on the recorder.”

  Caleb’s eyes narrowed on Simon. Simon’s face darkened faintly. “About what?”

  “Actually, I just wanted to give you a copy of my research for safe keeping,” Anna amended.

  Simon frowned. “And it was so urgent you needed to do it right then?”

  She sent him a resentful look. “Well! Considering how nasty you were to me before, I certainly wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t thought it was urgent!”

  His complexion darkened more noticeably. “Does it pertain to the case in any way?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it should go in the statement.”

  Anna was still doubtful when they’d seemed so angry that she knew someone was out there watching her, but she merely nodded and he turned the recorder on again.

  “I discovered I’d made a break-through in my research.” She couldn’t help the excitement that threaded her voice as she brought the memories back. Before she knew it she was telling them about her attempts to find a way to cook the vegetable so that it would be edible.

  Simon turned off the recorder. “I don’t think we need all that.”

  She gaped at him a moment before indignation and irritation surged through her.

  “You said ….”

  “Yes, but I don’t see how it pertains to this.”

  She glared at him. “If you’d let me finish, damn it, I’d explain it!”

  Simon’s lips tightened. “This is only a sixty minute chip. At this rate it’ll be full before we get to the kidnapping,” he said with determined patience.

  She supposed it shouldn’t have stung that they didn’t seem to have any interest at all in her work, but it did. She glared at him a little resentfully when he turned the recorder on again.

  “The discovery I made was so significant,” she began again after a moment, “that I felt the need to protect it. I don’t really know why I had the sudden feeling that something might happen to it, but I did. I knew I was under electronic surveillance but not who it was. So I copied the files onto a storage chip and hid it in my reader. I thought I’d take it out to Officers Simon and Ian for safekeeping since I also knew they were watching in case my father tried to contact me again.”

  Simon asked her for specifics of the conversation she’d had with Paul, but she’d been too afraid to recall it with clarity. She repeated it to the best of her memory and everything else that happened right up until Ian and then Caleb had burst into her room at the mansion.

  He asked her a lot of questions pertaining to her state of mind—specifically whether she’d felt like her life was in jeopardy—and finally turned off the recorder. She left them discussing it and headed toward the room she’d occupied before. Since nobody objected, she closed the door behind her and climbed into the bed, grateful to get the chance to stretch out, more tired than she ought to be when she hadn’t been out of bed more than a few hours.

  Simon’s scent wafted to her as she cuddled the pillow beneath her head. She hadn’t known before he’d kissed her that it his bed, his room she’d been occupying. Her mind had catalogued that scent as a source of pleasure and comfort, though, and she knew the moment she inhaled it who it belonged to. It produced a sense of longing that made her chest feel tight, but it was comforting, too, soothing her rattled nerves and the vague sense of hurt that still lingered from the interview.

  Simon had told her he was sorry when he’d kissed her that night. She hadn’t thought about it since, hadn’t even remembered it—only the kiss, and that had felt so much like good-bye that she hadn’t wanted to think about it. She discovered she still didn’t want to. It brought back the horror, the fear that he was going to die.

  What had he
meant, she wondered? That he was sorry he’d upset her that day?

  She supposed he might have, but had the incident been significant enough to him for him to remember it?

  Maybe he’d just meant that he was sorry he’d had to use her to find her father?

  She didn’t suppose she’d ever really know.

  * * * *

  “You really have a way with women,” Caleb muttered.

  Simon slid an irritated glance at him. “You have a problem with my handling of taking the statement?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. She was happy, excited, chirping like a little bird, and I happened to be fucking enjoying watching her and listening to her.”

  “You didn’t have any more of a fucking clue what she was talking about, or interest in it, than I did!” Simon growled.

  “Nobody cares, either,” Joshua said. “I’m with Caleb. She’s been through hell. I don’t see spoiling a little bit of enjoyment.”

  “It wouldn’t have hurt to let her talk,” Ian said tightly. “We could’ve gotten the statement later.”

  “We aren’t here to chat. The idea is to put together a case that will stick.”

  “Jesus! You aren’t the only one that wants to see the bastard pay for what he’s done!” Caleb snarled. “Everything else aside, she isn’t safe as long as he’s running loose!”

  Simon studied the others angrily for a moment. “We agreed this would have to be kept strictly professional. One whiff that she might be romantically involved with any of us and it could jeopardize the entire case. His lawyers would be all over it, screaming that we’d influenced the witness and her testimony wouldn’t be worth a damn!”

  “Well, I’m damned if I see how letting her chatter on about recipes and franken-veggies is liable to hurt a damned thing!” Caleb said tightly.

  “The point is we can’t allow ourselves to get side-tracked or … too friendly.”

  Ian frowned. “If you ask me, you’re going as far overboard on your ‘professionalism’ as Caleb is in keeping things ‘friendly’,” he drawled. “You’re as blind in your own way as he is.”

  Simon and Caleb glared at him.

  “How do you figure that?” Simon asked tightly.

  “I figure it,” Ian said coldly, “because I was actually listening to her. I was enjoying her liveliness just like they were, but I was still listening. You tuned her out the moment she got sidetracked or you would’ve realized she’s just as much of a professional as you are. She said she’d discovered something ‘significant’ and she was afraid something would happen to it. She risked a lot, Simon, to leave the house at all and she knew it was a risk, or didn’t you think about that?”

  “She asked me to get it for her while she was in the hospital,” Joshua said. “She told me she’d hidden her files in her reader and asked me to find out if the paddler had survived the explosion.”

  “And?” Simon prompted.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t want to tell the Water City PD what I was looking for,” he said pointedly. “I asked for a copy of the report.”

  “And they refused to send it because it’s an ongoing investigation and they haven’t decided yet whether we were involved or not,” Simon concluded. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you that asking was enough to make them that much more suspicious?”

  Joshua sent him an angry glance. “It occurred to me, but she asked, and I could see it was important to her. I told her I’d try.”

  “There’ll be men on Cavendish’s payroll in the department,” Caleb muttered.

  “He’s too good at what he does to overlook the benefit of owning a few cops. If it did survive the explosion, it could still disappear from the evidence room.”

  “We need to figure some way to retrieve it if it still exists,” Ian said, then added when Simon glanced at him sharply, “I don’t know or care whether it has a direct bearing on the case or not. It’s important to Anna.”

  Simon studied him a long moment and finally settled back, thinking. “I hate to say it, but I think we run more of a risk of losing any chance of getting it if we try regular channels than getting it. The governor’s already chewed my ass out about our unauthorized stakeout. It put him in the position of claiming he’d authorized it just to keep from looking like he didn’t know what was going on, and he didn’t like that worth a fuck since we were completely out of our jurisdiction and hadn’t even had the courtesy to inform Water City PD, who had the jurisdiction. Beyond that, it’s thrown suspicion on him as well as us. I don’t think he could help us even if I managed to convince him, and he isn’t too keen on talking to me right now.”

  The men looked at each other. “Do we have any connections in Water City that might be helpful?” Caleb asked.

  Joshua seemed to struggle with himself. “I do,” he admitted finally. “I’ve still got family there.”

  “I’d forgotten your folks colonized,” Simon murmured in surprise. “Do you think they could help?”

  Joshua shrugged. “It’s possible. If nothing else, they might have connections that could help us.”

  “But would they?”

  Joshua grinned abruptly. “Maybe. They aren’t exactly what you’d call upstanding citizens,” he said wryly. “They aren’t fond of Water City PD.”

  Simon rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I suppose you’re all aware that what we’re proposing goes beyond ‘gray’?”

  Ian stared at the other three for a long time, wrestling with his own conscience. “I didn’t become a watchman just to enforce laws,” he said slowly. “I became a watchman to protect the innocent, to punish the guilty, and, above all, to do the right thing. If that chip still exists, the right thing to do is to get it and protect it. Anna was working on something to help people. Whatever’s on that chip will, and letting someone destroy it is absolutely the wrong thing to do.”

  Simon nodded. “I agree. I hope everybody has enough credits put up for retirement. We might be needing it before we’re done with this case,” he added wryly.

  Caleb grinned at him. “We aren’t too old to learn new tricks if this falls on us like a ton of bricks.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Simon muttered. “I feel older by the day.”

  Caleb narrowed his eyes at him speculatively. “You can always head over to the brothel. You haven’t been in a while. It’ll make a new man out of you.”

  Simon flushed, glaring at him. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you conniving bastard?” he growled. “Anna wouldn’t give me the time of day if I did.”

  “There’s no reason Anna has to know,” he said pointedly. “It isn’t as if you’ve spoken to her, anyway. You’re still a free man.”

  “Well, I don’t fucking want to stay one!”

  Caleb shook his head at him in disgust. “You aren’t going to get in Anna’s bed if you keep snapping and growling at her! If you want my opinion, you need to let off a little steam before you explode.”

  “If I wanted your damned opinion, I’d knock it out of you!” Simon snarled, surging to his feet and stalking from the living area.

  Caleb sent Ian an ‘I rest my case’ look.

  Ian shook his head at him and snorted. “Why don’t you just take him outside and let him beat the shit out of you? That would make him feel better and he wouldn’t be worried about Anna discovering he’d been dipping.”

  Caleb shot him a bird but then thought it over and grinned. “Maybe I will. Anna would be fussing over me and giving him drop dead looks for days, at least. It might be worth it.”

  * * * *

  Simon had already snatched the door open to his ‘sanctum’ before he discovered there was someone sleeping in his bed. He jolted to a halt, staring at Anna blankly for several moments before he looked around the room and ascertained that it was his room.

  It dawned on him after several moments that he’d actually intended to give her his room for her stay.
They didn’t have a guest room.

  Well, they had until Joshua had moved in.

  He’d planned to move most of his personal belongings out before settling her in, though, and that had included his blanket and pillow.

  After studying her for several moments, he backed out of the room again and headed toward the living area.

  “Where are you going?” Joshua asked in surprise.

  “To my office,” Simon growled, passing through and into the atrium.

  “He knows it’s his day off, right?” Caleb murmured curiously.

  “Joshua!” Simon bellowed from the atrium. “You left the damned sub parked at the door!”

  “Well take the tube!” Joshua yelled back at him. “I left it there so I could take Anna out to get something when she felt up to it. She lost all of her stuff when her place blew up.”

  Simon stalked passed them again, heading toward the tube in the utility room off of the kitchen. “Pick me up some bedding while you’re at it.”

  Joshua sent Caleb a look of disgust when they heard the door of the tube slam and lock. “You just had to bring up that shit about the brothel!”

  “You think he isn’t approaching melt down? I didn’t bring it up to try to fuck things up for him with Anna, whatever he thinks. I figured it might help him mellow out a little. He’s wound so tight he can hardly think straight.”

  “Simon isn’t the only one wound up. You might be, too,” Ian drawled acidly, “except you already slept with her.”

  Caleb flicked an accusing look at Joshua.

  “Don’t look at me!” he snapped. “I didn’t rat you out.”

  “He didn’t have to,” Ian said dryly. “If you think Simon and I didn’t both know when she showed up at the sub, you don’t know us nearly as well as we know you. I’m guessing here, but my guess is that that’s why he’s wound so tight. I know it’s been bothering the hell out of me. It was bad enough before.”