by Alex Hughes
The phone rang.
“Hello?” a gruff voice answered. Swartz’s voice.
Something inside me suddenly relaxed. “Hi, it’s me.”
* * *
Cherabino showed up downstairs maybe forty-five minutes after I hung up, her hair mussed like she’d been fidgeting with it. There were deep circles around her eyes, and her forehead was creased. I could feel her worry, frustration, and anger trickle down the Link along with her exhaustion.
“Are you okay?” I asked as she settled against my borrowed desk, the downstairs eerily deserted, the large panel of windows in front of me dark with night. “What’s worrying you?”
She rubbed her head. “Remember the pushy woman from the funeral? The one who had the sexual harassment complaint against her?”
“Yes?”
“Well, the interview didn’t give us any more information. Andrew got her financials to check out, and she didn’t have the contacts to trade for Sibley’s services, as near as we could tell. We ruled her out while you were at the hospital. And the Hamiltons’ finances were too messed up to tell anything, Andrew said, while we’re talking about financials. Right now we’re thinking it’s one of the other poker players—we’re still tracking him down—or Edelman, if not Hamilton himself.”
I waited.
Cherabino sighed. “Anyway, I got a call from a detective out in Chamblee. The woman has been murdered. Dead, in her condo, has been for days. It took the detective this long to trace the connection to our case. Anyways, he says the ME found something weird and he thought I might care to come see it. I told him we’d go in the morning.”
“‘We’?”
“It’s something about the brain. You did pretty well with the brain stuff before, right? And tonight we have to go see Swartz.”
“It’s too late. Selah said before we had to be there before nine if we were coming.”
Cherabino paused. “You should have told me. Work is not as important as—”
“I talked to him. On the phone.”
She settled down on the edge of my desk, softening. “How is he?”
“Groggy. But Swartz, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s good to hear.” She waited, but I didn’t have anything else left to add. “I’m sorry. I should have asked.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you—”
“Can we get some dinner?” I asked. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
“There’s a new pizza place a couple blocks from here.”
“That sounds great.”
The dinner was greasy and terrible, but Cherabino laughed for the first time in weeks, laughed full and long until her joy cut me to the core. I went home, to my empty bed, and tried very hard not to want what I couldn’t have.
I called Swartz in the morning and talked to him for a long, long time.
CHAPTER 20
I met Cherabino at the Chamblee morgue bright and early. It looked a lot like the DeKalb morgue except that everything was new and squeaky-clean. The quantum-stasis refrigerators buzzed louder in Mindspace, the medical examiner was thinner and blond, but other than that it could have been the same place.
Detective Strangely, the guy who called us in, was waiting for us inside, next to a long stainless steel table and the medical examiner.
“I appreciate you calling us,” Cherabino said. “The funeral home already have the body?”
The ME shrugged. “There wasn’t a reason to hold it. We have plenty of pictures and a few organ cross sections. Strangely tells me you might be interested in the results.”
“I would at that,” Cherabino said.
The ME fanned out a number of pictures on the steel table, pictures of internal organs and butterflied brain, heart, and lungs, and grisly measurement tools. “Like I told Strangely, she seems to be in good condition for her age. Minor plastic surgery, the usual amount of scarring on the lungs from living in the city, a healed multiple fracture to the right tibia that required surgery and implanted cartilage, an artificial kidney, and extensive dental work. All items that could be found in any forty-five-year-old woman in the world. She was prediabetic. What I can’t tell you is exactly what killed her.”
Cherabino perked up. “And why is that?”
“Well, her heart stopped. Her tox screen is clear, and there doesn’t seem to be any cardiac abnormality or issue that would cause it to stop suddenly, on its own. There’s no apparent trauma other than a minor blow to the head around the time of death. Not long enough to bleed into the skull; it might have been a concussion, given more time, but it definitely did not kill her.”
Detective Strangely held up a hand. “She was found on her kitchen floor, a spot of which had blood on it. Looks like she fell headfirst.”
“Result not the cause, then,” Cherabino said. “What did happen? Do you have any clues?”
“Well . . .”
“Well, what?”
The ME shifted. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Like what?”
She shrugged and pulled out another photo, and a petri dish with a small gray sample on it. “You know the hindbrain? The seat of breathing and heartbeat, all the things we never think about? In this case, well, it’s so much mush.”
“Mush?” I interrupted, stomach sinking. “Are the cell walls intact?”
The ME frowned at me. “It looks like paste. It won’t hold up to pressure, and it’s definitely not cancer.”
“Yes, but are the cell walls intact?”
“Yes, I suppose. I would have noticed if they’d been blown out.”
Oh, crap, let it not be . . . “Is there any reason to suspect some kind of extreme pressure, or trauma, that would do this?”
“Not really.”
“Any explanation for this at all?”
“Listen, if you’ve got something to share with the class, share it,” Cherabino said. “Neither she nor I have all day here.”
“It’s a telepath,” I said, and a strange sense of déjà vu overtook me. “It’s a way you can kill someone as a telepath, and there’s no way in hell I can tell you any more than that.” Hell, the watcher might turn me into mush himself if I said anything more than that. Assuming that was one of his skills. If not, he could always call in a favor.
“Why in hell would the Guild want to kill this woman?” Detective Strangely asked grumpily. Of course she assumed telepath meant Guild. Mostly it did.
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.” But I did know how she died—how she was killed, her brain the focus of so much energy directed at a particular spot through Mindspace . . . “This took training. Training and raw power.”
All the threads of my life seemed to be focused on one horrible moment. “Could we have another Guild serial killer?” I asked.
“Sibley?” Cherabino frowned. “I’ve seen your federal files. There’s no affiliation with the Guild, anywhere, not here, not in England.”
“The Guild’s not the only source of telepathic training. Not like they’d have you believe.”
When I would say nothing further, Strangely swapped information with Cherabino and threatened to show up at the department if she didn’t share information on her ongoing case.
“What the hell was that?” Cherabino asked me in the car.
“I have to call Kara.”
* * *
Kara answered the phone on the first ring. “I’m in the middle of something right now.”
“It’s me.”
She took a breath I could hear over the phone. “I only have a minute. Is Swartz okay? Did the deal work?”
“It looks like it. Thus far his prognosis looks really good.”
“I’m so glad!”
“Me too. Listen, I’m getting a strange death up in Chamblee that looks like a telepath
execution. Do you have any—”
“Damn it.”
“What? I didn’t—”
Kara made a frustrated sound. “We have a Minder missing, somebody who had a business contact out in Chamblee. This one could be a murder in our jurisdiction. I’ll look into it as soon as I get back from the courier office.”
“I’d appreciate it,” I said. The Minder most likely could do that kill, but that was Guild jurisdiction for certain and nothing I needed to worry about for at least a few days. It occurred to me: “Why the courier office?”
“Oh. Tamika called in sick today and they needed advice on who else to pull in. It’s the busy season and that’s my old department.”
“Is there any way the two are related?”
She laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
“If you say so,” I said. Kara would know better than I would anyway. “I just thought I’d report it.”
“I appreciate that. I’ll send it through channels—somebody may come out and talk to you in a week or two, if that’s okay.”
“As long as it’s not Stone, that’s fine.”
“You guys having trouble?”
I paused. “It’s more that I just don’t like him.”
* * *
Stone showed up at the station, at quitting time. I was already half out the door; I kept going.
“We’ll talk about this away from the station. You’re making me look bad. Well, worse than I have to.” I hadn’t felt him in my head all day and I was getting twitchy. I hustled down the street two blocks, to where the trees grew in deeper and the government parking lot across the street, at this time of day, belched cars in a steady stream.
Then I turned around. “Why are you here?”
“You’re a mess of emotion right now,” Stone observed.
“So sue me.”
“I can come back.”
I ignored that. “Why are you here?”
“The Guild has decided what they want in return for your favor.”
My hands felt loose, itchy, like I needed a cigarette and I needed one now. “And what is that?”
He shifted, and I got a vague sense of discomfort from him. “You’re in a position to know things. You’re connected to one of the best homicide detectives in metro Atlanta—and more importantly, the one who knows the most other people of the type. You interview hundreds of suspects a year. Your boss has one layer of administration between her and the DeKalb County—and to some degree Decatur City—politicians. You’re in a position to know things. We’d simply like you to share some of those things with us.”
We’d been over this, but I had a debt now. “What kinds of things? Anything we’re cleared to talk to the press about I’d be happy to send to you first, but I’d have to clear it with Paulsen.”
“This is not an official relationship. Anything cleared for the press is probably not something we’d be interested in. My superiors simply . . . well, they want inside information into what the normals know and how it’s going to affect the Guild’s interests.”
So they wanted me to spy for them. To use Cherabino’s barely-there trust as the stepping-stone for their stupid power plays. “And how am I supposed to know what the Guild’s interests are?” I asked, to buy time.
He glanced down the busy street, body language almost too casual. “You’re not a stupid man. I think you can figure out the details.”
“Why don’t you spell it out for me?”
I got a strong sense of discomfort from him, which was odd. Either he was getting lazy or I was healing a lot faster than expected.
“Power. The Guild wants power over its own people and its own destiny. It wants to develop stronger Abilities, stronger ties within its community, and it wants to protect all of those things from the degradations of normals, no matter how well meaning. If it affects Guild power, Guild profit, or lets the normals get leverage against the Guild in any way, it’s not in the Guild’s best interests.”
“I’m not Guild anymore.”
“I know,” he said, and suddenly the implacable Face of the Guild had given way to the quiet, competent, powerful cop vibe I’d gotten from him a few days ago. “And I know you want to stay neutral and keep your own counsel. I don’t think they’re asking you to get involved. There were things you could have done much worse with the Bradley case. If you wanted to torch the Guild and all it stood for, you would have done it then. You were raised at the Guild. You must have some vague remnant of patriotism for your people.”
“It’s not patriotism if it’s not a nation.”
“In a lot of ways, the Guild is the only nation that takes up the whole world,” he said, a much more radical—and naive—thought than anything I’d encountered before.
“If you say so,” I said to cover my ass. “Let me get this straight. You want me to spy on my friends, share confidential police information that may or may not allow bad guys to go free and the Guild to get the jump on the law?”
“You owe the Guild a debt. A debt you agreed to.”
“And I still haven’t seen Swartz. I’ve paid what I can afford through your system. It’s a lot of cash.”
“It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the fees you owe.”
They had me by the balls. But even so. “I still haven’t seen Swartz. I’m not agreeing to anything until I see Swartz with my own eyes.”
“It was a bad idea to involve the old man.”
I put my hands in my pockets; they were shaking. “Yeah? And why is that?”
“Now they know he’s important to you.” He let the implied threat sit in the air a long, long moment while my mind flashed to the vision of me, alone, without Swartz, without anyone.
Finally Stone met my eyes and spoke past the threat. “Fairness is something I pride myself on. Fairness and getting to the truth. I’ll wait a little longer, if I have to, but I’ll get to the truth. If you’re planning to take down the Guild—”
“I’m not,” I said hurriedly.
“—if you’re planning to choose the normals over the Guild—”
What did that even mean?
“—then it’s my job to make sure you’re not a threat anymore. I can and I will use whatever force is at my disposal to do so.”
And then a chill went through my entire system as this guy, this guy I kind of liked, was the executioner again.
Which is probably the reason I was so surprised by her voice.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Cherabino said.
* * *
Cherabino crossed her arms. “What the hell nerve do you have coming here, three blocks from the police station, trying to work out a drug deal? I ought to string you up—”
“You must be Detective Cherabino,” Stone said, absolutely unmoved. Cherabino was about three feet from him now, and if he didn’t start taking her more seriously she would have him on the ground with a kung fu move faster than he could blink. What he did then was another matter, but—
“Cherabino,” I interjected.
She ignored me. “Who the hell are you?” she asked Stone. “I thought I knew all the perps in the area, but if you’re new you’d better—”
“Cherabino.”
“—stay the hell away from my station because—”
Cherabino! I yelled through the Link.
She stopped cold and sent me a glare that would melt lead. “Stay the hell out of my head and I’ll deal with you later.”
What?
“Edgar Stone.” He gave a nod of greeting. “I’m this man’s new Guild overseer.”
She sputtered. Finally to me: “Is this true?”
“Is what true?”
“Is this true!”
“He’s Guild. That much is true, and he’s been sent—”
“Guild. And you didn’t tell me.” She pulled bac
k and hit me—hard. With her full weight behind her. Pain ex-
ploded on my jaw like fireworks, and the world tilted as I fell.
The sidewalk hit me with a thud I could feel in my bones, and Cherabino fell over too, cursing up a storm at the “damn Link, damn Link, damn Link, I’m getting the hell up!”
Then her shapely rear stalked away from me, wobbly but far too quick.
She’d thought he was a drug dealer, my mind reported numbly. She’d thought I was buying, on her territory, right in the middle of everything where anyone could see me.
But worse, she’d assumed I was working behind her back, I was working for the Guild. And that—that—was a deeper betrayal, to her. She’d believed me earlier, when I’d told her what I’d told Paulsen. She believed me that I wasn’t dealing with the Guild more than I had to. But to see me here, with apparently friendly body language, outside the station . . . it was a betrayal, and her distrust had crystallized.
“Does she do that often?” Stone’s voice asked urbanely.
“Go away,” I said, jaw grinding against the rough concrete.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me your answer. I can’t. You should know that by now.”
I picked my pride and my shame up off the ground and peeled myself away from the sidewalk.
“What’s your answer?”
The world crashed in on me and I saw my future, what it could be, and the betrayal I’d seen in Cherabino’s eyes. “I can’t do that. I can’t spy on my friends, on the people who’ve actually given me a chance and kept me on the damn wagon. I can’t. Burn me if you want, find something else, come after me hard for financials or forced labor or lockup or whatever the hell you need to do, okay? But leave Swartz out of it. He’s an old man. An old, sick man whose only crime is to try to help people get their worlds back in order.”
“That’s your answer?”
I nodded.
A silence filled the street as the cars kept pouring, pouring out of that parking garage and taking to the skies and the streets in steady streams.
