Duplicate Effort

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Van Alen didn’t move. “I know. I’m wondering if we did something wrong. We knew that she wouldn’t be totally safe. I just never expected her to die.”

  “You knew it was a risk,” Flint said, his fingers still skimming. “We talked about it.”

  “A risk is one thing,” Van Alen said. “An actual murder is another.”

  Through the opaque glass, he could make out a coffee, blue, and blondish blur. That blur was Talia. He had asked Van Alen to set up the waiting room perimeter alarm and to shut off the room’s external computers.

  If Talia tried to go to another part of the office, the alarms would go off. If she tried to access one of the computers, she couldn’t because there was no obvious way to hack in. Flint had updated the system for Van Alen six months before.

  “We don’t know if Bowles’s death was random or if it was connected to the story,” Flint said.

  “We have to assume it was connected. Don’t you think it odd that she died today of all days?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I do.”

  He stopped pacing and frowned at Van Alen. He had a sudden realization.

  “She shouldn’t have died so quickly,” he said. “If Justinian Wagner was going after her, he wouldn’t have done it like this. He would have tried to find out where she got the information first.”

  “Maybe he did,” Van Alen said. “We don’t know what happened just before she died.”

  Flint flopped into a nearby chair. “Thuggishness is not his way. He’d’ve tried to finesse it. Unless he already knew she was working on the story.”

  He was talking more to himself than Van Alen. But she didn’t know that. She answered as if he were speaking directly to her.

  “He had to know something,” Van Alen said. “She corroborated the facts you gave her with some of his former employees.”

  “And the stuff they gave her was stuff they’d given other reporters,” he said.

  “So he killed her for the uncorroborated stuff? At least, the stuff that seems uncorroborated? Isn’t that odd?”

  “It’s all odd,” Flint said, “and yet I feel like I shouldn’t be surprised. I picked….”

  He let the sentence trail off. He wasn’t going to admit to anyone that one of the many reasons he had chosen Ki Bowles to report this story was that he didn’t like her. He had hoped it wouldn’t bother him much if something happened to her.

  But it did bother him. And not just because it had happened so much sooner than he expected, but because Bowles had done a good job.

  “Miles?” Van Alen asked. “You picked what?”

  He shook his head. He had forgotten he had spoken out loud. He didn’t want Van Alen to know that he had picked Ki Bowles for more than her reporting skill.

  He had picked her so that his conscience wouldn’t get pricked if he had to ruin her life. Part of him saw this story—this long work on WSX—as revenge for the stories Bowles had done on him and on DeRicci.

  And for the first time, he felt guilty about that.

  But he had explained the risks to Bowles. She knew her life was at risk. She even knew that she might have to Disappear if things got really bad, although she had laughed at that idea.

  He moved an arm onto the back of the chair and looked at Van Alen.

  “We have some things to figure out,” he said. “She let me know that she had completed several stories, and that she wanted me to see them. How many are here?”

  Van Alen frowned as she worked to remember. “She dropped off two last week, including the one that Upstart had run. Then, this morning, she dropped off three more.”

  Then Van Alen sighed and looked down. “She was in a good mood.”

  He wasn’t sure whether the good mood made things better or worse. “I’d better look at those stories, then,” he said. “We have to decide if we want to run them ourselves.”

  Van Alen glanced at the opaque walls. He knew she was looking at Talia.

  “Maybe we should stop now,” Van Alen said.

  He didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to see Talia out there, waiting.

  He had put his daughter at risk, too, and he had never meant to. He hadn’t even known she existed when he hatched this plot against WSX, to make them pay for everything they had done over the years.

  The courts couldn’t go after them. The police could do nothing.

  This had been the only way to bring the firm down.

  It probably wouldn’t have put Justinian Wagner in jail, but it would have ruined his life.

  Instead it took Ki Bowles’s life and might damage Flint’s.

  Or Talia’s.

  He thought aloud: “There’s a tie to you just because Bowles was in and out of this office. We revealed another tie today to our friend from Whitford Security, so a few people, at least, know that I’m involved. If Justinian hears about my involvement, then he might figure out how Bowles got the information. Although he won’t be able to prove it. Not that proof seems to matter to him.”

  “I don’t see why he’d kill for revealing the firm’s confidential files,” Van Alen said. “He can sue both of us. He probably wouldn’t win—we can successfully argue that those files were part of your inheritance from Paloma, and we can probably stretch that to mean that because she had them, and had given them to you, she had broken the confidentiality seal, not us. Not that it would matter. The resulting scandal would be as bad for my office as it would be for his.”

  “But that scandal wouldn’t take care of me,” Flint said. “I’d be fine. People already see me as operating on the edge of the law, anyway.”

  Van Alen tapped her forefinger against her lips. “Maybe we had more than we thought.”

  “We have a mountain of information. Ki Bowles wouldn’t have reported it all in five years, let alone the—what was it? Ten?—stories she planned to do.”

  “No, no,” Van Alen said. “I mean maybe there’s something in those files that’s worth killing for.”

  Flint shook his head. “First, you’d have to find out where the files are stored. You shoot the messenger, you’ll never recover the information. No one’s been here, right?”

  “So far as I know,” Van Alen said.

  Flint remembered how Talia had accessed the files at Oberholst, Martinez, and Mlsnavek. “You never linked our files to your computer network, did you?”

  “No,” Van Alen said, but Flint was already moving to her unnetworked systems. He had kept a backup of the files on one computer system that he made her swear she wouldn’t use.

  He turned on the computer (thinking it was a good sign that the thing was off), then searched through everything that had been accessed in the last six months.

  Even though the search was rapid, he felt reassured.

  No one had touched this computer except him.

  “Are you finding anything?” Van Alen asked.

  “No,” he said. “And everything is just as I remembered it.”

  He knew these files better than anyone. Van Alen didn’t, and Bowles certainly didn’t. There was information in the WSX files that could bring down some of the most powerful politicians on the Moon. Even more that could implicate various corporations in all kinds of hideous scandals.

  And worst of all, to his mind, was the way that WSX helped cover up truly heinous crimes, often to its own profit. That was the kind of information he had been feeding to Bowles bit by bit.

  But they hadn’t even gotten to the first bit, not really. Just some passing mentions.

  Could those mentions have been enough to get Bowles killed? Enough to put a drastic plan into action, rather than have Wagner go through the usual channels as was his bent?

  And if so, did that put Flint at risk? Or, more importantly, Talia?

  He couldn’t live with himself if he lost his daughter yet again. Anyone who looked at his past had to know that. It would be obvious.

  Paloma had been right about one thing: Retrieval Artists shouldn’t have connections. When she traine
d him in this new profession, she had told him that he was a perfect candidate. His parents were dead, he was divorced, and his child was dead, too.

  No one could use his family as a blackmail tool. Paloma had warned him about friendships as well, but he’d had more trouble with that.

  But Paloma hadn’t separated herself, either. That was another lie, like her name. He had had no idea when he had bought her business that she had once been Lucianna Stuart, the woman who had started WSX, and he had no idea that she had a still living husband, whom she apparently still loved, and sons who ran the business.

  He didn’t find out any of that until she died.

  “It’s odd,” Van Alen said. “I’m usually not in a position where I say this, but I don’t know what we should do.”

  “I don’t either.” Flint shut off the computer and stood. “I don’t think we have enough information.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you know much about Bowles’s life?”

  Van Alen shrugged. “She was single. She lived alone. She worked hard, and she was fired for doing her job—even if you don’t like the story that she eventually came out with.”

  “Yeah,” Flint said, “and what else?”

  Van Alen opened her mouth to answer, and then closed it. “You’d think I’d know more,” she said.

  “Yeah, you would,” Flint said. “Me too. Considering how long I’ve known her and that investigation is part of my job description.”

  “You knew enough. You knew how she reported stories. You knew that she was an award-winning journalist, and that she was out of work. You also knew—how did you put it to me?—that she was utterly ruthless. That’s all we needed.”

  “Yeah.” Flint sat down in his chair. “But now that she’s dead, I realize that’s not enough.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I have no idea if the WSX story is what got her killed. For all I know she has a stalker boyfriend or has had trouble with the Gossip columnists or has made a dangerous enemy from a previous story.”

  “Who just happened to kill her now?” Van Alen snorted in disgust. “Come on, Miles. I thought you didn’t believe in coincidence.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “But there are several factors at play here, and one is that Ki Bowles wasn’t visible to the public for nearly six months. The thing that caused her death might be as simple as the fact that she became visible again.”

  “Oh,” Van Alen said, and it was her turn to frown. She walked around her desk, pulled out the chair, and sat.

  “I need to conduct an investigation of my own,” Flint said. “I need to find out everything I can about this death and about Ki Bowles herself.”

  “The police can do it,” Van Alen said.

  “With limited information,” Flint said. “Unless you plan to tell them about our scheme for WSX?”

  Van Alen gave him a measuring look. “Point taken. Still, you won’t have their resources.”

  He nodded. And the police no longer looked on him as one of their own. He’d burned those bridges. He still had some contacts in the department and a few old friends. He’d have to lean on them, as well as some of the back doors he built into the police database when he ran designed some of their computer security systems.

  He hated using that a lot, though, because some day someone would close those back doors, and he wouldn’t have access any longer.

  “What about us in the meantime?” Van Alen asked.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, not quite following her.

  “You, me.” She paused just a moment, obviously for effect. “Talia. If we are in danger, any extra time you take is just going to keep us vulnerable.”

  “I guess we have to assume we’re in danger,” he said, and as he did, his heart started to pound. How would he investigate when he had Talia to protect?

  “Maybe we should just leave Armstrong until this thing blows over,” Van Alen said.

  Flint raised his eyebrows. “You can abandon all your cases just like that?”

  She gave him a sheepish smile. “No.”

  He could go if he had to, but he wasn’t sure he had to. And there was one other problem.

  “You know, if this is WSX, they have a long arm. And they’re not afraid to go sideways. If WSX wants us dead, they’ll kill us whether we’re here or at the edges of the known universe.”

  “So better to stay here.” Van Alen sighed. “And maybe hire a security firm?”

  “Look what good that did Ki Bowles,” Flint said.

  “Then what do you suggest?” Van Alen asked.

  “I don’t have any suggestions.” Flint had to stand again. The nervousness was back.

  This time, he did look at the opaque windows. The coffee, blue, and blondish blur that was Talia had moved to a different couch.

  He couldn’t trust her safety to someone else. He had done that with Emmeline, and she had ended up dead. And he couldn’t take Talia with him everywhere he went.

  He’d given her a list of contacts in case anything happened to him. Noelle DeRicci. Bartholomew Nyquist. Even her mother’s old attorney, Celestine Gonzalez.

  But none of them were good enough to handle a crisis of this magnitude.

  “I think,” he said after a moment, “that we both need to be responsible for our own safety. If you feel better hiring someone, go ahead.”

  “What are you going to do?” Van Alen asked.

  “Until I know that we’re targets,” he said, “I’m going to take care of myself.”

  “And Talia?”

  “For now, I’ll keep her with me.” He didn’t know what else to do.

  “And if it turns out that someone is after us, too?” Van Alen asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He needed time to think about that. He supposed all the options that he had once presented to Ki Bowles were now on his table.

  He could hire guards. Or he could Disappear. Or he could find some kind of compromise—if he believed a compromise possible.

  “Let me do the research,” he said.

  “Well, I’m going to act like I could die at any moment,” Van Alen said.

  “That’s probably sensible,” he said. He would do the same.

  And he would tell Talia about the risks.

  For now, that was the best he could do.

  Nineteen

  Sixty-five client contacts so far, and those were just the ones Justinian Wagner knew about. Of those sixty-five, three had pulled their business from Wagner, Stuart, and Xendor, threatening to sue the law firm if they weren’t allowed to leave.

  Six more had demanded copies of their confidential files sent over a secure link. Once they received those files, he knew, they would demand that the firm destroy the copies they held. It was a smarter, more organized way to fire WSX.

  He remained at his desk, handling the most important cases from there. So far he had cajoled twenty of their top clients to remain.

  He even had a speech: At this point, it’s just innuendo and speculation. We’ve already filed an injunction against Ki Bowles and Upstart Productions. They won’t be able to run any more stories. We’ll be going after her in court. Even if she has access to confidential material—and frankly, I have no idea how she could—then we shall get it back from her, whatever that takes, and enjoin her from ever speaking about it.

  And if that didn’t pacify the client, he added this:

  No court is going to allow a law firm’s confidential files to remain in the hands of a reporter. The attorney-client privilege is a sacrosanct premise of law throughout the Earth Alliance. No court is going to allow that to be violated, no matter how the violation happened.

  A few clients hadn’t been satisfied with that, and for them, he played part of Bowles’s report. The part where she promised but did not deliver on what she would show.

  She probably got some of that from disgruntled former employees who, by talking with her, have bankrupted themselves. She will get no more information, and we can o
nly assume that what she has is gossip and innuendo. Reporters always magnify the importance of their evidence to make their stories seem even more important. This reporter was fired from her last position for improperly handling evidence on a high-level story. She nearly brought down the Chief of Security for the United Domes of the Moon at a time that would have threatened the Moon’s security just by doing so. This reporter is a loose cannon. No one will believe anything she says.

  Except, so far, nine of his important clients, and probably more who hadn’t even contacted him yet.

  Wagner put his head in his hands. The partners wanted a meeting to figure out how to handle the crisis. He didn’t. Not yet. He was hoping he could cajole clients out of their anger and fear.

  Of course, to do that, he would have to cajole himself first.

  If Bowles did have access to the kind of confidential material that she claimed to have, then she knew a lot of harmful secrets—not just for his clients, but for WSX as well. And no matter what he said about the woman, she was good at her work.

  He stood, his stomach queasy. The damage to his firm had just begun. The sixty-five clients were merely the first to respond. He had no idea how clients of the subsidiary firms in the rest of the known universe were responding to this story—or how they would respond to future stories.

  The cost to WSX’s reputation was phenomenal, but the financial cost would be even worse.

  And then there were the malpractice vulnerabilities, particularly with some of the cases his parents had handled.

  Not to mention the criminal liability on dozens, maybe hundreds of cases.

  He made himself breathe.

  He hadn’t lied to his clients. He could quash this.

  WSX could survive rumors so long as they remained only that—rumors. His biggest worry was that in the public mind the rumors would become fact.

  And once that happened, his firm would lose all of the power that it had ever had.

  Twenty

  Fifteen minutes with her sons. That was all Romey had managed. She’d gotten home long enough to program a meal, serve it, take a bite, and leave.

  Her sons were used to it. She doubted she would ever be.