by F P Adriani
So, at some point, I would have to semi-break into a crime scene. I soooo wasn’t looking forward to that.
One thing at a time. Right now, I had to collect my own belongings and move them over to Tan’s place.
*
He had given me a key and the security code for the alarm system. And it took me hours to move my stuff into his house.
I really didn’t know what to put where. I felt very uncomfortable: I hadn’t lived in anyone else’s home since my childhood. And, in particular, I’d never lived with a man….
Tan had said he’d be late getting home that night, which was good because it left me more time to get used to the place. But his being late was also bad because I really didn’t want to be alone that night. The girl kept weighing on my mind, her body’s situation….
An hour before Tan was due home, I called her at the hospital, but the nurse said she was sleeping.
“Out—unconscious?” I asked.
“No, just sleeping.”
I hoped the nurse was right. I hoped Julianne wasn’t in so much pain that it had knocked her out. The pain was what bothered me. The bastards had injured her belly internally…oh I didn’t want to think of that!
I was pacing the house, screaming Where the hell is Tan! inside my mind when he finally walked in.
“Hello,” he said as he dropped his keys and bag on the side table near the front door.
“Tan,” I said, rushing up to him and my words rushing out my mouth, “I just can’t deal with this alone anymore.”
He stopped moving and looked at me as he said, “But, Pia, you don’t have to.” And then his arms reached out to me.
*
Not long after, he made us some black-bean tacos for dinner. We ate at the dining-room table, and I couldn’t recall ever having swallowed tacos so fast; I polished off four in only minutes.
When I’d finished stuffing the last taco into my face, Tan finally brought up Hera. “So what happened that last day? Nell told me some things about earlier, but you stayed on.”
“They’re…on to me,” I said then, picking up my glass of lemonade and finishing off that too.
Tan sat up straighter. “On to you? What the hell does that mean?”
“Tan, these people mean business. Obviously.” I glared at him as I lowered my glass. “They could have killed me….” I watched his sarcastic eyes…damn him. “All right, they tried—all right! So now you know.”
His face turned a furious bright crimson as he rocket-shot off his chair. “Dammit—I knew this would happen!”
“What the fuck do you want me to say? Hooray! You were right! I’ve been in grave danger! I’m only glad Jamie was there—he woke me up—”
“—So then you were sleeping together—”
Now it was my turn to shoot off my seat. “Are you nuts? This ridiculous jealousy has got to stop already. Have you taken a good look at me now—do I look like I’m in good shape? Like I’d inspire amorous feelings? Oh yeah, it was really romantic in that room, getting shot at and all.”
“Not that different from the way we met,” Tan said then in a dark voice. He was too clever sometimes. He was also too jealous. I could see that now, and I didn’t know what to do about it. He hadn’t been this way at first. It had taken time to reveal itself….
I said now, “I have to work around other men. You work around other women, and I don’t give you a hard time—though that doesn’t mean it never bothers me…. But this is stupidly stereotypical of you. And I don’t fucking like it.”
“I don’t like a lot of things too—like your line of work….”
“Oh christ,” I said, looking ceiling-ward.
“…But I deal with that. Not everything goes perfectly.”
“I certainly don’t need a lesson in that again. What I need right now is…some comfort. Something nice. Just something nice to hang onto. Someone nice. Can you be that for me—just for tonight?”
For a moment, his whole self didn’t move even a bit. Then he let out a hard breath—through his nose. “Of course, yes. Look, you go shower, and I’ll clean up here. I think you need sleep right now more than anything.”
“That’s the truest thing you’ve said all night,” I replied. Then I walked away and began doing what he’d said.
Later, we met up again in his bed. I had shut the nightstand lamp beside the bed and had been lying in the semi-dark, listening to him shower. When he finished in there, he turned off the bathroom light and didn’t turn on any other lights.
In the thick darkness, I felt his slim damp body slide into the bed. He pulled me near him, and at first I thought he was naked, but then I realized he had on his pajama-pant bottoms. They were damp though, and for some reason, the wet feeling chilled me. I pulled the blanket up higher.
“Cold?” he asked, his hand helping me arrange the bed linens better.
“Tan…Tan, it’s bad there. Dirty and damp, and so many of the people are miserable. I thought it was bad here, but here looks good compared to there.”
“Yeah, it does. …Is that why this guy Jamie came here?”
My head turned to him, but I couldn’t see him just like he couldn’t see me. “Honestly, there’s nothing there, Tan. You’re worrying for nothing. He’s a bit naïve, and after what happened, I couldn’t just leave him there. Sometimes I do things spur-of-the-moment because they feel right then, though I’m not sure why yet….”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Should I have just left him there? Look what happened when I took off from here? Poor Juli….” My voice faded away, started cracking. I couldn’t hold them back any longer; the tears finally came, hot and fast….
Now he pulled me closer, said softly, “Is that what this is all about?”
I didn’t respond. My tears dampened his damp shoulder even more.
“It’s my fault,” I said in a weak beaten voice. “Had I been here…I think that wouldn’t have happened at the house….”
Now he slid from beneath me and grabbed me by the arms, giving them a little shake. “Think, Pia—think. You didn’t do this. They did! Someone started before you were even in the picture. They killed Amy. If it wasn’t for you protecting Julianne, they might have hurt her sooner.”
“Tan, I know what you’re trying to say, but it just doesn’t matter…. And I’ve got no choice but to finish all this now. If I remain at a standstill here, I don’t think the other side will. I’ve got to go wherever this all takes me, even if I’ve got to go with Hu.” I hated saying her name in his bed, but it had slipped out before I could stop myself.
There was a small silence.
Then Tan said, “Then I’m going too. I’m not letting you get away from me again. You feel guilty over Julianne and I feel guilty over you. And it’s not the first time, if you remember.”
I tried to sit up. “But your job—”
His hand on my arm pulled me back down. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve been doing so much overtime lately, I can take days off. I figured I might have to. But I need to know when. If we’re going somewhere—when?”
“That I don’t know,” I said, frowning into the dark. “And before then, I need your help on something else. Your boss, Clive—I need to see him again.”
Now, he stilled beside me. “Why? And will this jeopardize my job?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted.
“Well, what the hell’s going on with him now?”
“I can’t say yet…. Look, I’ll know in two days, I think. Or maybe late tomorrow. We’ll see. …I’ll let you know when I’ve gotta see him….” I was getting very sleepy. His skin felt drier now and therefore warmer beside me; it was very tempting….
But, ultimately, I didn’t have the energy needed to act on Tan’s tempting skin. “I must sleep now, Tan,” I said in a softer voice as consciousness began seeming too hard to maintain.
And when he said, “Go ahead, baby,” that really pushed me over the edge, and the dark room instantly fade
d into nothingness.
*
When I woke up the next morning, Tan had already gotten dressed and left for work. I’d slept so soundly, I didn’t even hear him. I had been hoping we’d “connect” in the morning when I had more energy, but now that connecting would have to wait.
On the dining-room table, he’d left me a letter explaining where a few things were in the house and saying he’d call me around lunchtime. That “lunchtime” reminded me of something—something I hadn’t thought of before.
Yesterday Roberto told me he and Lori would be back visiting at the hospital until lunchtime today.
I picked up my portable phone and dialed Julianne’s room again.
When Lori answered the phone there, I said, “I’m going to need your help.”
*
Tan did call me at noon, but mostly to check on me, to see if I was doing better. I told him that I was because, well, I was—slightly. But he didn’t have much time to talk then, and neither did I; I had to go back to the Castano house.
On the phone Lori had informed me that the cops had taken a lunchtime break yesterday, during which they had disappeared from the house—all of them had disappeared. And I was hoping they were creatures of policing habit….
My hoping paid off: I did another one of my pass-bys and saw that only Lori’s car sat in the driveway now.
When I finally walked up to the front door, she opened it to me and I slipped inside, my Osier scanner working in one hand, my special case strapped to my other arm.
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” she asked, nervously looking over her shoulder, seemingly at the mess the downstairs still was. Most of the furniture was out of place, and there was a spot near the kitchen entrance—a spot where a body had been but that a special police tent now covered.
I didn’t blame Lori for being nervous. None of this thrilled me either.
I swallowed uneasily before saying to her, “No, I’m not sure about this. But it’s got to be done. Remember: if the cops come back before I’m finished, you asked me to come with you to get some of Julianne’s things.” I handed her a communicator, and then I moved the scanner toward the stairs.
“But where are you going? What are you doing?”
“That’s not for you to know. Trust me,” I said. “And stay here. Press the communicator button if someone comes. But: Do. Not. Follow. Me. Understood?”
Her head shook fast. And then I walked up the steps.
*
My first night there when I inspected the place, I’d thought something about the house had seemed wrong, as if the outside shape and the inside shape didn’t match, as if I hadn’t encountered every space inside.
Now I knew there was a hidden room behind Julianne’s room, a hidden room only accessible via a panel in one of the walls. It wasn’t a full-length panel, so now I had to squeeze through an opening raised off the floor, which left me inside a dark library area.
There might have been a room light to turn on somewhere, but I didn’t want to risk it being visible outside this space, which might reveal this space. I used my small focused-beam flashlight instead. I had to find a second panel—somewhere among the narrow hardwood floorboards. This wound up taking more time because I was stuck in a mostly dark room….
Too hot in here, not enough air…I began sweating…. Then I found the panel. I pulled up the top and slid down the opening into a very narrow staircase. It was lined in stone and would go into the belly of the house, or, more correctly, beneath the belly.
I knew that this was Diamond, so there were no dangerous species lurking down the damp musty staircase. But then I didn’t need dangerous species to make me afraid of tight spaces…. I was sweating again, wondering what the hell I was doing here as the staircase seemed to go on forever in the half-dark. My flashlight didn’t light the way that far ahead. Maybe this was all a mistake; there would be nothing waiting for me….
No, there was something. I finally found it: a small cellar-room at the edge of the stairs. There were boxes and steel canisters along the floor, and the “walls” were made of earth and rock, both human-made concrete and Diamond-made stone. And I knew a special digitally-locked container was also fixed into the wall.
I soon located it, entered the proper code, slid off the container’s top, and found two notebooks waiting inside. My shaking fingers pulled them out and I opened my case, intending to put the notebooks inside…only I suddenly couldn’t resist looking at the writings.
Sliding both my case and my ass to the floor, I opened the cover of one of the books. My fingers flipped the pages: they were filled with technical information, geological information, unfolding maps of Diamond resources, atmospheric motions and tectonic forces…I barely understood a word of it.
My fingers kept paging through the notebook—and then I hit a summary section. It was both handwritten and computer-written, with printed-out pages attached. In this section, Amy Castano spoke to the reader, the reader who might not be her….
I didn’t want to read this, but I did read this.
And then I was sorry I’d read it.
I was sorry I’d ever found out about this whole house and these Castano people and that John and then the Thorntons—oh everything! Maybe sometimes not knowing was better. Maybe sometimes just closing your eyes and living in ignorance of the world around you—maybe that was the best way to live. You just couldn’t do anything with some knowledge; the knowledge itself was the end of its usefulness. And that rudely highlighted the limitations of both your mind and body.
My hands shook on the notebooks, sweat slid down my neck and into my bra, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the words because I now saw that the potential damage to Diamond was much, much worse than I’d ever thought.
I read the words in front of me over and over again, hoping it was all a mistake, especially because, as far as I could tell, there were no other map pieces completing the piece I’d seen and the piece Hu had apparently seen. I sensed other information was incomplete too; there might be another notebook….
My communicator bleeped. Shit—I’d been down here too long! My hands scrambled to pull everything together; then I rushed back up the narrow stairway. Inside that little library, I dusted myself off the best I could, then I slipped back into Julianne’s room, rummaging through her drawers and shoving some of the clothing there inside an overnight bag carelessly dangling off a wall hook.
As I walked back downstairs, I could hear Lori telling the cops, “…the food there just isn’t good enough. I wanted to get her fresh snacks. Pia’s getting Julianne some clothes….” Her words died when she spotted me. Her voice had sounded okay, but now I saw that her pale face gave away her nervousness. Her tongue was carelessly licking her lips as I stepped off the stairs.
“Here are the clothes,” I said, briefly holding the bag up high. I didn’t know the cop standing there, but he turned to glance at me now. “The poor kid,” I said to no one in particular. Then, to the cop: “Have you found out anything more?”
“No,” he said, staring at me with not-blank-enough eyes. “Have either of you thought of anything else you could inform us with?” He looked back and forth between us. But we both shook our heads.
“How long will all this investigating be going on?” Lori asked in a distressed little voice, swinging her hand to encompass that tent behind her especially. Another cop stood there now, taking some measurements of something.
“Not much longer,” the other cop said to Lori. “Maybe two more days. Then you can probably have your house back.”
“How? It will never be the same! I can’t even stay here now, I’m so afraid…. When will I ever—and Julianne, after what’s happened to her—” Her voice grew increasingly distressed.
“Take a deep breath, Ma’am,” the cop said, his hand pressing beneath her arm. But I wondered if she really was so distressed or if she was putting on an act to distract the cop’s suspicious nature.
Whatever the
case, her actions worked to our advantage: about five-minutes later, we were both outside the house driving away in our respective cars.
*
I went back to Tan’s house to change my clothes. Then I called him.
Luckily I caught him in his office. “I need you to make that meeting for me with Clive. Today. In an hour. Tell him to meet me on Route 58, at the south corner where it splits off into a dead end.”
“But Pia—this is such fast notice. What the hell explanation am I supposed to give? What if he says he can’t make it?”
“Oh don’t worry about that. He’ll come.”
*
The hot afternoon Sun pounded on top of my head as I leaned back against my car. Sunglasses covered my eyes, but they didn’t block my view of the land around me. I watched the pale sand shimmering in the distance, the grass near my car gently bending with the rhythmic wind. I smelled something citrusy—a light fresh scent probably coming from a nearby farm. I imagined a tree silently waiting there, giving off its nectar to lure insects who didn’t exist here. On Diamond most everything needing pollination was either done by wind manipulation or by machine. In some ways, farming here was more work than on Earth; in other ways, it was less.
This part of Route 58 was an open lonely stretch of road that didn’t lead to much, and that was why I’d picked it. I wanted to be able to see all sides, to check them for anyone who shouldn’t be around here.
I finally spotted a dark red car in the distance; it slowly came toward me. And by the time it got pretty close, I’d moved to the front of my car so it sat between me and the other car. My hand lay on my Granger inside my jacket pocket. I didn’t know what his car looked like; this could have been anybody coming at me….
It wasn’t. It was him. He pulled his car behind mine. Through his windshield, I saw his head tilt sideways, as if he were feeling suspicious. I slid back out toward the road, pressing my back to my car once again.