by R S Penney
The woman smiled and looked down at her feet. “Somehow, I'm having a hard time thinking of you as boring.” She set her purse down on the table. “So, are you planning to introduce me?”
“Tanaben Loranai,” Jack said. “Cassiara Seyrus.”
Ben felt his cheeks burning, and it seemed as if his head had become too heavy to maintain eye contact. Companion have mercy, had he really just been lecturing his friend about being lousy company when Jack was clearly in pain. “You're Jack's new partner,” he managed with just enough volume to be heard over the music. It wasn't too loud in this place. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“Jack didn't tell me you were coming.”
Tilting her head to one side, the woman smiled at him. The kind of fetching smile that would set his blood on fire if he were straight. “Jack has a bad habit of not informing people of what he's planning.”
“He's never been a planner, no.”
Jack tossed his head back, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, that's exactly what I need,” he teased. “A full accounting of all my faults! That'll make me feel better in no time!”
Rather than coming up with a zinger to win that little verbal fencing match – Ben could if he put his mind to it; he really could – he decided to fetch some drinks and give the two of them a chance to talk.
Tension drained right out of him when he considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be solely responsible for keeping up his friend's spirits. If this Cassi liked Jack half as much as she seemed to…
He ordered three drinks from the dispenser along the back wall: a glass of whiskey for himself – he was growing quite fond of that – a Tropical Breeze for Jack and another for Cassi. Those were mostly fruit juice with just a little bit of alcohol. It felt a little silly to be ordering drinks that were intended for teenagers, but Keepers were forced to limit their alcohol consumption. That was one reason why he had never wanted to join their ranks. The idea of sharing his body with another life-form was…less than appealing.
When he came back to the table, however, Jack and Cassi were sitting side by side with their heads together, smiling and talking quietly. It made him want to melt into a great big puddle of feels.
Bleakness take him! That was one of Darrel's expressions. Ben really needed to get his ex-boyfriend out of his head. There was no fixing that relationship, and that was the end of it! If Jack was happy, then Ben would go and find some fun of his own.
He delivered Jack and Cassi's drinks to them, receiving a cheerful thank you from both Keepers, and then made his way over to the bar. A young man in a gray shirt with a high collar stood there, looking at Ben.
This guy had a handsome face of olive skin, short hair that he kept neatly trimmed and an infectious smile. Well, Ben thought. Maybe I'll have some fun tonight after all.
Jack found himself completely distracted by the gorgeous young woman who sat next to him, close enough that her shoulder would brush his if she moved in the wrong way. Damn it, he knew – from various sitcoms – that sleeping with your coworker was almost always a bad idea, but it was hard to take his mind off Cassi. She looked amazing in that little pink dress, but that was only half of it.
The woman exuded confidence from every pore, and you only had to spend a total of five minutes with her to know she didn't take crap from anyone for any reason. That, more than anything else, let her get under his skin in ways that few other people had.
Cassi sat with one leg crossed over the other, a glass of fruit juice mixed with rum in one hand. “So…” She took a sip. “Ben said that you weren't feeling well. Anything you need to tell me?”
“Don't listen to Ben,” Jack cautioned. “I'm just feeling a little…”
A glance over his shoulder revealed Cassi sitting there with her elbow on the table, her cheek pressed into the palm of her hand. Those purple eyes were full of curiosity. “A little what?” she inquired.
“It's Anna.”
“Who?”
“Special Agent Lenai.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Cassi leaned over the table with a sigh. “Ah…You mean the Keeper you befriended four years ago,” she said. “The one who helped you free your symbiont from Wesley Pennfield.”
Pressing his lips together, Jack felt his eyes widen. “You're awfully well informed,” he said. “But yes…The same Anna Lenai.”
Of all the reactions he would have expected, soft laughter wasn't one of them. “It isn't hard to be well informed, my dear,” Cassi said. “Just about everyone on this planet knows your story. I take it you were in love with Agent Lenai?”
To buy himself a moment to think, Jack took a sip of his drink. It was good: fruity, but not too sweet and something – probably lemon juice – gave it a nice sour twist. How to answer that question?
It wasn't so much that he minded Cassi knowing about his personal life – he wasn't the sort of man who felt the need to hoard his secrets like a miser – but he felt as though Cassi had him at a disadvantage. She had come into his life with all this knowledge about who he was; he knew next to nothing about her. Just how much did he want to tell this woman? Was any of this her business? Before he could even formulate a response, Cassi tapped her glass with one finger and said, “Ah…”
Jack felt his face heat up, then pressed a hand to his forehead. He scrubbed fingers through his thick, dark hair. “It's not what you think,” he assured her. “We were friends for years before anything happened between us.”
A small smile blossomed on Cassi's face, and she stared into her glass as though she could see the future in it. “Aren't those the best kind of love affairs?” she murmured. “The kind where everything is on the line.”
“Not when you lose everything.”
“Who says you've lost everything?”
Jack squinted into the distance. “Oh, I don't know,” he said, shaking his head. “I suppose that would be Anna. Earlier this week, she told me that she pretty much wanted me to stay away from her.”
“Did you two have a fight?”
Lifting his glass to his lips, Jack shut his eyes tight and downed half the beverage. “Nope,” he said, slamming it back down on the table. “I just checked in on her after three months of silence, and she gave me the old heave-ho.”
“I'm sorry to hear that.” There was a surprising amount of sympathy in Cassiara's voice. “But Anna's loss is my gain.”
“Is it, now?”
“Well, just in case you haven't noticed,” Cassi teased, “I'm out with a hot guy for an evening that could be considered somewhat date-like.”
“But Ben…”
Cassi gestured with her drink toward the bar where Ben stood chatting up another young man. It seemed to Jack that they were both enjoying themselves. “He's been over there for the last ten minutes,” Cassi said. “Probably because he's smart enough to leave his friend alone with the adorable pink-haired pixie.”
There was something so very Anna-like about this woman it left him feeling more than a little off-balance. She knew how to get his attention – there was no denying that – but a part of him felt weird. He had been starting to think of Anna as his soulmate, but could that be true if he was so easily attracted to someone else? It was all very confusing, and he just wanted to forget about it for a night.
“So,” Cassi said. “How should we spend our evening?”
Chapter 11
The small church on Lintal Street looked somewhat out of place when compared to everything else in this city; it was a small building with a stone facade and a gabled roof that rose to a peak a mere twenty feet above the sidewalk. Two arch-shaped windows on either side of the large wooden doors looked in on a room that might have fit nicely with just about every Catholic church Melissa had ever been to.
Dressed in black pants and a short-sleeved red blouse, Melissa stood on the front step with her arms folded. Working up the nerve to go inside took some effort. “You can do this,” she told herself. “Stop dawdlin
g.”
In her mind's eye, Harry was just a short ways off behind her, standing on the path that cut through the church's front yard with his back to the road. “Are you sure you don't want me to come in with you?”
Melissa winced, shuddering as she sucked in a deep breath. “No,” she answered truthfully. “But if I'm ever going to be successful at this, I'm going to have to learn to do it myself.”
Harry shoved his hands into his pants' pockets and stood there with his head down. “Yeah, but you're still a rookie,” he reminded her. As if she needed someone to point that out. “Back home, we wouldn't let a cop speak to a potential suspect on his first day unless his supervisor was present. Besides, I might notice something you don't.”
“All right,” she relented. “I guess you can come.”
Pushing the door open revealed a large room with wooden pews at an oblique angle and stained-glass windows along each sidewall. Wooden beams along the vaulted ceiling were polished to a shine.
At the far end of the room, the altar stood solitary, unoccupied. It looked so very similar to the churches she had been to and yet different as well. The depictions in the windows weren't of saints but rather of scenes that Melissa didn't recognize. No doubt, they were important moments detailed in the Covenant of Layat.
Melissa started down the aisle between the pews with her hands folded in front of herself, her head bowed respectfully. It was a habit from years of taking Communion, and she broke it as soon as she realized what she was doing. A demure posture would not do much to convince anyone to respect her authority.
At the altar, she found a copy of the Covenant open to a page in one of the middle chapters. Melissa could read Leyrian now, but some of these expressions were from an older dialect of the language that-
“Can I help you?”
She nearly jumped.
To her right, a small door that led into what must have been the Reverend's Office was open, and a tall man with copper skin stood there in simple black clothing. “The next service will be three days from now.”
Gathering her courage, Melissa turned to the man and began tapping the screen of her multi-tool. A hologram appeared before her, displaying her Justice Keeper ID. “My name is Melissa Carlson; I was hoping I could ask you some questions.”
The man clasped his chin in one hand, frowning down at the floor. “Another Justice Keeper,” he said, stepping out of the office. “And a cadet, no less. I thought I answered all the relevant questions the other day.”
Melissa felt her eyebrows try to climb into her hair. “Another Justice Keeper?” she asked, approaching the man. “Someone else spoke to you?”
The reverend grunted, shaking his head. “I think his name was Director Andalon,” he said. “And I will tell you the same thing that I told him; the person who stole Miles Tarso's access codes is not a member of my flock.”
“How can you be sure?”
That put a touch of scarlet in the man's cheeks, and his lips peeled back into a sneer that betrayed his contempt. “Because none of my parishioners would ever consider doing something so sinful.”
Crossing her arms with a heavy sigh, Melissa stepped forward with her head down. “I wouldn't be so sure of that,” she said softly. “We have reason to believe that the person who planted the bomb wears a Talis Ring.”
“Impossible!”
“We were-”
“Who's your supervising officer?” the man barked, and she was suddenly struck by a wave of panic so powerful she had to resist the urge to squeak. What would happen if he found out that she was here against Director Andalon's orders? “The arrogance! You would accuse a servant of the Companion of such things?”
Melissa closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm herself. “I wasn't accusing anyone,” she said in an even tone. “I came here for information, and I was hoping you would be willing to share.”
It took a moment for the reverend to calm down, but when he did, the anger visibly drained out of him. He slumped like a puppet with its strings cut. “What do you want to know, Ms…”
“Carlson,” Melissa said. “Let's start with your name.”
“Reverend Haran Vanorel.”
“And is it just you working here?”
The man clasped hands together behind his back and stood up straight as if he were about to give a lecture. “No,” he said in a crisp voice. “I have two acolytes – Sarellia and Brinton – who aid me in my duties.”
Sarellia and Brinton…
They were looking for a man; so that meant Sarellia was out of the picture for the time being. Which turned her attention to this Brinton. Unless Vanorel himself was the culprit; the man was strangely cagey about answering questions. “Would I be able to talk to your acolytes?”
“Brinton is tending the garden in the back.” The man suddenly looked up at her with eyes that were narrowed to slits. “You think he did it, don't you?”
“Right now, I don't have any firm opinions,” she lied. Ilia didn't care for that – the Nassai were sticklers for honesty – but telling the man that, in her mind, it was narrowed down to Brinton or himself wouldn't get her very far.
In her mind's eye, she spotted her father near the front entrance, leaning against the wall with a hand over his stomach. So far, Harry had been content to remain silent. Had he noticed something she could use? God have mercy on her; this was much harder than she would have imagined.
“I'd like to talk to Brinton,” she said.
“Through there,” the reverend muttered, gesturing to a door in the back wall. With a sigh, she turned away from Vanorel, and she was about to walk through that door when his voice stopped her in her tracks. “Carlson,” he said. “That sounds like an Earth name.”
Melissa rounded on the man, drawing herself up to full height and lifting her chin to stare down her nose at him. “It is,” she said. “I'm surprised you noticed.”
Vanorel's face twisted, and he shook his head with a growl that could have come from a rabid dog. “If you ask me,” the man began, “your people should never have been allowed to join the Justice Keepers.”
“What a saintly demeanour you have, Reverend.”
She went through the door without giving the man a chance to respond – May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy; she had believed that Leyrians had outgrown that kind of bigotry – and found herself in a garden where a cobblestone path slithered its way around flowerbeds where yellow tulips and white daffodils stretched for the clear blue sky.
A man in black was down on one knee in front of her, turned so that she saw his profile. He was using a watering pail to sprinkle a light drizzle on a group of tulips. The church could have requisitioned maintenance bots to do that, but from what she had read, plants held a sacred place in the Layati religion.
“Brinton?” Melissa called out.
He glanced over his shoulder, blinking at her. “Yeah, that's me,” he said, setting the watering pail down and standing slowly as if his legs were aching. “Is there something I can do for you?”
Cocking her head to one side, Melissa squinted as she studied him. “Yes, there is,” she said, taking a few steps forward. “If it's not too much trouble, I'd like you to tell me where you were four nights ago.”
Colour drained out of the man's face. “The night of the bombing,” he said. “I'm sorry. Who are you?”
She displayed her badge again.
Dusting his hands nervously, Brinton stepped forward and let out a huff of air. “A Justice Keeper,” he said. “Well…four nights ago, I was visiting a friend, a member of our congregation who needed some counseling.”
“And who might this friend be?
“Am I under suspicion?”
Through spatial awareness, she sensed her father coming through the door behind her and pausing there, watching as she conducted her questioning. Once again, he said nothing; he just waited. Time to prove herself worthy of his trust.
“What if I told you,” Melissa began, “that we found the
car that dropped the bomber off at the vertical farm and tracked it back to an address on Elidrea Street? What's more, an eye-witness claims that she saw a man with a Talis Ring get into that car.” That last part was a lie, but she wanted to gauge his reaction, and he didn't disappoint.
With a squeak, Brinton ran for the back fence as fast as he could. Her first instinct was to chase after him, but…she was here without authorization. If she tackled him to the ground, would that be a crime?
“Melissa,” Harry said.
Brinton had reached the chain-link fence, and he leaped to grab the metal bar at the top. Pulling himself up with a grunt, he awkwardly tumbled over into the field behind the church. Curse her hesitation.
Melissa charged after him.
Her multi-tool beeped with an incoming call.
Brinton was on the other side of the fence, scrambling through the grassy field like a madman, nearly tripping several times. He didn't even stop to look back.
With a touch of Bent Gravity, Melissa leaped and tucked her legs in toward her chest. She sailed over the fence with her arms spread wide.
Dropping to the ground a moment later, she was on her feet and chasing after him, the tall grass rustling as she ran. Her perp was only ten paces ahead of her. With Keeper strength, she'd overtake him in no time.
Her multi-tool kept ringing.
And then it started buzzing.
Maybe this was a bad idea, but curiosity and concern got the better of her. Melissa stopped to run her finger along the screen and check the text message that she had just received…from Jon Andalon.
Cadet Carlson, please explain why you have continued to pursue an investigation into the bombing of the vertical farm against my orders.
Answering the call filled the screen with an image of Director Andalon's face. And he was not happy. “Cadet,” he said in a deep voice. “Would you care to tell me precisely what you think you're doing-”
