* * *
It wasn’t hard to nap in her command chair, the straps keeping her locked in place. She needed to rest and to eat and she could do both while keeping an eye on the monitors as they cycled around the Belle.
A handful of energy bar wrappers floated by her side. She could have gotten real food from the Belle, her daily ration, but it felt wrong sitting down and eating while a murderer was on the loose. Never mind that she couldn’t do anything about it, but she wasn’t going to get caught with a mouthful of rehydrated mashed potatoes if something happened.
She could think of better things to fill her mouth with.
Sam shifted in the chair, pushing away the sleepy daydreams. She didn’t have time for that.
She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing but erotic thoughts about Daniel weren’t going to find Halley’s killer.
A light flashed on her panel, signaling an incoming call.
“Marshal LeClair is on the line. Shall I patch him through?” Belle asked.
“Sure.” Sam grabbed at the floating wrappers. “Go to visual.”
Daniel appeared on the monitor in front of her. “Am I interrupting anything?”
Not yet.
“No, nothing.” She jammed the wrappers down the disposal chute. “Any news?”
“Not yet. Base is on their night cycle so we’re all down for a few hours. Don’t worry, the killer isn’t going anywhere. The base is still locked down so no one’s getting out.” He yawned. “It won’t do anyone any good if we’re all too tapped out from sleep deprivation to figure out who the killer is. Thought I’d check in and see how you were doing before going down.”
She couldn’t help smiling at his choice of words.
Obviously she was already suffering from a lack of sleep.
His eyebrows rose as he watched her. “Something funny?”
“No, no.” She waved him off. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“You seemed pretty annoyed with me before. It’s not good for us to be at odds if we’re going to close this case.” He rubbed his chin. “Before—I didn’t mean to push any buttons.”
“I’ve heard worse.” It wasn’t a lie. The therapist hadn’t held back over their sessions. “It’s okay.”
“I just want you to know that if you want to talk about the Hub I’m here for you. It won’t go past these ears, promise.” He smiled. “Consider it part of our professional relationship.”
“Our relationship,” Sam repeated. “Do you have a lot of those?”
Daniel sat back. “We talking personal or professional?”
“Whatever.” Her pulse increased as she waited for the answer. She wasn’t sure why she was asking—after all, this was only going to be a temporary liaison. Nothing more, nothing less.
“I don’t have a girl in every port if that’s what you’re asking. I’m not that type of guy.”
“What type are you?” She felt comfortable talking to him, more than with almost anyone she’d met since leaving the military.
“Loyal, faithful—”
“Like a dog.”
“You got a thing for pets?” He laughed. “Maybe a leash and collar?”
Her imagination went into overdrive, enhanced by the lack of sleep and exhaustion from recent events.
Daniel picked up on her expression. “Ah. That’s what you like. Let me guess—you’re thinking of me bound and gagged?”
“No,” she croaked through a suddenly dry throat. “Not so much gagged.”
“You want me to talk to you?” He licked his lips. “What would you like to hear?”
“I want to hear you scream,” Sam whispered.
The sly smile almost pushed her over the edge. “And what, perchance, would make you scream?”
She paused, swamped by scenarios she’d read about in her detective novels. And other books she’d found in the virtual library, the courtesans’ choices.
“Let me guess.” Daniel leaned back, putting his fingertips together. “I’m a hard-boiled private dick and you’re my faithful partner. Not my Girl Friday, ’cause that’s just sexist, but my partner due to a case we ended up working together on and we clicked so well that we decided to make it official.”
Sam forced herself to speak. “You’ve been reading the books in my library.”
Daniel chuckled. “You think you’re the only one borrowing and trading books? Mystery novels are the hottest property around.” A touch of red dotted his cheeks. “Other than porn of course.”
“You read a lot of that?” She tried to sound nonchalant, hiding her curiosity.
“When I first started out I went through a lot of them.” Daniel nodded. “But as I got older I got more picky.” He gazed at her. “Go for quality, not quantity.”
“So how does a nice guy like you end up patrolling the backwaters?” Sam asked, not rising to the bait.
Might as well grab the tiger by the tail.
He tilted his head to one side. “That’s pretty personal.”
“We were talking about bondage a few minutes ago. That’s damned personal. Besides, you know a lot about me. Time to return the favor.” She tapped her fingers on the armrest. “I heard you were a golden boy, a hotshot. What happened?”
Daniel stared at her for a full minute.
She didn’t flinch. Even if she was only going to see him for one night of passion, she wanted to know more about him.
“I was assigned to help out on a raid. Homestead supposed to be making illegal drugs.” He ground his teeth together. “Turns out info was wrong. Civilian got hurt but they wanted to fix it to make it look like she resisted. I disagreed with their scenario.”
“Pissed off the wrong people,” she translated.
“You could say that.” He smiled. “I pissed them off good. A few reprimands, a payoff to the woman involved and I got a one-way ticket to the outer reaches.”
“And now you have all this.” She swept her hands around her narrow cabin. “Was it worth it?”
“Yes,” he said almost before she’d finished her sentence. “I wouldn’t have met you otherwise.”
She rubbed her face, putting up a barrier between them. “I think it’s time for bed.”
“Okay.” Daniel sat up straight. “Your place or mine?”
She scowled.
“Too much dirty underwear floating around your cabin? Okay, mine.” He closed his eyes. “Just don’t snore.”
“I’m not coming over,” she replied despite her libido hammering and screaming to be let out.
“I’ll see you in my dreams then.” He closed his eyes and rolled his head back. “Just don’t bite.”
Sam smiled. “Not until you ask me to.”
She cut the comms with a flick of her finger before he could respond.
Let him chew on that all night.
She wasn’t going to be the only one having dirty dreams.
Chapter Eight
Daniel stared at the knife, still floating in the transparent evidence bag. He hadn’t gone to sleep after his conversation with Sam, too wound up to consider it. Another pass over the evidence might calm him down enough to let him get some rest.
He was there to catch a killer, not woo Sam Keller. Whatever he was going to do with her, to her, it’d have to wait until later.
He sighed, annoyed at being caught between personal and professional demands.
No matter how much he wanted to help her heal. Whatever ghosts were chasing Sam Keller, they snapped at her heels constantly if the recent anxiety attack was any indication.
Etts beeped and clicked at his waist.
“I’m not clearing Bianca as a suspect. She could have done all this to throw us off her trail.” Daniel turned the evidence bag over in his hands.
“She did seem pretty upset. And we don’t have a motive yet for anyone.”
Etts made a double-clicking noise.
“Not strong enough?” He chuckled. “You’d be surprised how strong a woman’s grip can be at the right time and place.”
The AI blew a raspberry.
He rubbed his chin. “Run another search on the Hub and Keller’s part in it. I want to know what makes her tick.”
Another disapproving sound.
“It’s part of the investigation.”
Etts coughed.
“I don’t have to justify everything to you.” He settled down in his chair and closed his eyes. “Why does it have to be so damned hard?”
Etts beeped again, the question clear.
“Everything.”
* * *
She was in the debriefing room, listening to the spin the military experts were going to put on the events at the Hub. The manipulated photographs spun through a cycle on the screen, the revisionist history they were supposed to cover their memories with. One kid to her right, barely old enough to shave, kept shaking his head and muttering to himself.
Names. He kept repeating names.
Dead friends.
A captain moved in on the trooper, kneeling down beside him and talking in a low voice. She couldn’t hear what was being said but she had a good guess.
The kid wouldn’t listen. He slammed his fist down on his knee, dangerously close to the officer.
A twitch of a finger from the officer and the guards moved in, taking the soldier’s arms and dragging him out of the room.
No one else moved. No one turned from viewing the screen, no one spoke up to ask what was going on.
The captain followed, his face expressionless.
She turned her attention back to the photos, hoping no one had seen her watching the argument.
She wanted to live—
Sam thumped the control panel with her right hand and gasped at the pain shooting up her arm.
Metal didn’t tend to give when pummeled with fleshy bits.
“Captain, are you well?” Belle’s voice came out of the speaker. “Do you want me to contact Sean for medical assistance?”
“Yes. No. Not yet.” She shook her head, trying to clear it of Daniel LeClair.
“I have an incoming call from Grendel.” Belle sounded apologetic. “Would you like to speak to him now?”
“No.” The water bottle at the side of her chair was cold, intentionally kept that way. Sam grabbed it and took a deep swig through the narrow drinking hole. “But I guess there’s no better time like the present.”
The low voice dribbled through the speakers. “Captain.”
“Grendel.”
“I understand you have a suspect in custody.”
Trust him to cut to the chase.
Sam pressed the cold plastic against her temple. “How do you know that?”
“Captain.” The slick voice caused her stomach to churn. “Surely you know the Guild doesn’t just depend on your reports?”
“We had a suspect, past tense. Unfortunately he’s been ruled out but we’re keeping him in custody until we find the real killer.”
She didn’t want to think about who leaked the info to the Guild. It had to be Trainer, Swendson, Danforth or Huckness.
Or Daniel.
She didn’t want to think about the marshal chatting it up with Grendel.
“Who knows this?”
“The marshal, myself, the foreman, the shop steward and the medical officer. Oh, and the security chief.”
As if the Guild rep didn’t know. One of them must have flipped Kowalski to Grendel, serving the poor guy up on a platter.
Grendel was playing his cards close to his chest though—she couldn’t tell from his tone which one had the loose lips.
And open wallet.
“I see.” Grendel’s tone turned icy. “I’ll contact them and let them know we’re satisfied with the preliminary results of the marshal’s investigation. Send this man to a Justice base and we’ll close the books on this unfortunate incident.”
“He’s not guilty.” Sam shook her head, forgetting the invisible Guild representative couldn’t see her. “He’s a crippled old man who got played for a fall guy by the real killer. The token I gave him got plucked out of the garbage by someone who left it in Comet’s room to throw us off the track.”
“Then he’s guilty of something else. I’m sure there’s something he can be charged with for tossing the token out. Either way Kowalski needs to be arrested.”
“Huckness is keeping him in custody for causing a ruckus during my presentation. The only thing he’s guilty of as far as the Guild is concerned is not wanting to use the Belle’s services. And that’s not a crime.”
She suspected that if the Guild could make it a crime, it would.
“I see.” The chill continued. “Captain, you’ve spent only six months with the Belle. Maybe it’s time to remind you of your responsibilities.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Sam snapped. “I’m finding out who killed one of my crew.”
“That’s only part of your job. You’re also supposed to be making us money.”
She pressed the cool bottle to her forehead. “And how does arresting an innocent man make the Guild money? We’ve already reopened for business and the clients are coming in. Others are rescheduling.”
“The longer a murder investigation takes the worse it appears for both the Guild and the Service.” Grendel sighed. “This isn’t rocket science. Bad publicity is bad publicity and we need the situation rectified as soon as possible.”
Her patience was at an end. “So what, toss Kowalski down for the crime? He’ll clear out in no time after his lawyer gets hold of the evidence. And we’re flying either with a murderer in amongst the crew or leaving one on Branson Prime among the employees.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Sam blinked as if she’d been slapped across the face. “Come again?”
“Tell the marshal to take Kowalski. Right now the murder is top of the news feed and we need it gone. By the time he gets out of jail it’ll be a note at the bottom of the page right after the sports score. Case closed.”
“And the killer goes free?” Sam croaked.
“For now.” She imagined Grendel waving a hand in the air. “If we’re lucky he’ll slip up again and take out a girl on a Charity ship and get caught. Or he’ll disappear and never do another illegal thing again until he rotates back home. Some of these fellows need to vent and that’s how they release the pressure. One, maybe two kills and they never do it again. Either way it’s a problem that’s easily solved now that we have a suspect in custody.”
Sam stared at the water bottle, wishing it were vodka. “And what if it’s one of the crew? You want me to fly a ship with a murderer running loose on board?”
“You wouldn’t be the first captain to do so.”
She felt nauseated.
“I know, I know.” Grendel’s honeyed voice swept over her. “You want justice done. I get it, I really do. I told you we do psych checks on all the crew and we do, every time they renew their contracts. But space changes a man, a woman. Sometimes the competitiveness between our members gets to be too much, inflamed and inflated by the lack of space and the need to make money.”
“And when they snap, someone dies.” The words caught in her throat.
“At the very worst, yes. Someone dies. Maybe they get into a catfight or maybe they ask for a transfer to another ship and it never reaches that degree. It doesn’t happen often but it does happen.” The low, warm words continued to try to bribe her. “Look, you used to be a soldier. You’ve seen how people react under pressure. Some can handle it, some don’t. You can give al
l the tests you want but you can’t predict how a person will cope when it comes down to it. You’re a professional. You’re a vet. You can smooth this over.”
Sam closed her eyes, the sour taste in the back of her throat increasing. “And if he or she kills again?”
“Then we’ll deal with it. But these cases tend to burn themselves out after one side is taken care of.”
“Murdered.”
“Whatever,” Grendel replied. “Just tell the marshal to take Kowalski and go. Finish the stay and get back into space and on your route.”
She couldn’t find her voice.
“I understand you having problems with this, Sam.”
Using her first name made it worse.
“But this is the way the world works. Money has trumped justice for decades, centuries. You’re not going to change that and we don’t want you to. Just do your job.”
“I can’t order Daniel to arrest the wrong man.” She tried to drink from the bottle and found it empty. “I can’t control the marshal.”
“No, you can’t. But you control a ship of women and men who could,” Grendel purred. “The Guild is very willing to compensate any courtesan who will help you out of this situation.” He paused. “Or even you, if you’d like to take on the task.”
The blaze of white hot rage blinded her. She threw the empty bottle at the communication panel. It gently smacked a set of buttons before bouncing away.
“I won’t be a part of this. I won’t help cover up a crime or thwart justice.”
The bottle floated overhead, a last drop of water trying to escape from the opening.
“I understand your position, Sam. I just thought you’d like to be the one to take care of—Daniel, is it?”
She flinched.
“Your job is to dispose of the problem and finish the assignment. The Guild won’t settle for anything less. I’ll be in touch later.”
The link went dead.
Sam closed her eyes and wondered what god she’d pissed off enough that she kept dropping into different levels of hell.
In the Black Page 19