“I doubt Murgan’s thugs’d ring the door chime,” he said.
The monitor mounted on the wall across from the bed had a direct feed into her home’s security system. Miala grasped the remote and turned on the monitor, then tapped in a command to bring up the view of the front courtyard. No, they were most certainly not more of Murgan’s hired killers. The two men who stood on her front step were clean-cut and starched, wearing the dark green uniforms of RilSec, the local police force.
Miala glanced over at Thorn, who merely cocked an eyebrow as he looked at the flat video feed. Damn him—why couldn’t he ever look as worried as she felt? Then she transferred her gaze back to the monitor and thought, This can’t be good…
XX
For the second time that night Miala hurried down the stairs to open the door, but this time she did not bother to change out of her nightclothes, thinking that showing up fully dressed might look too suspicious. Instead she quickly drew on a warm quilted dressing gown and went to meet the officers with what she hoped was an appropriately puzzled expression.
“Can I help you?” she asked, after tapping in the code that would allow the door to open.
The older of the two police officers replied. “Sorry to disturb you, Ms.—” and he paused for a second to look down at the tablet he held— “Felaris. I’m Officer Korr, and this is Officer Rhyse. We need to ask you a few questions.”
“Questions?” Miala echoed. At least she didn’t have to feign the note of worry in her voice.
“It will only take a few minutes,” the other officer, the younger one, said. He flashed her a quick smile. His blue eyes seemed to radiate reassurance.
“All right,” she said, after a slight pause. After all, what else could she do? If she refused them entry, it would only make them more suspicious. She could only hope that Thorn would continue to make himself scarce. And they hadn’t said anything about wanting to search the place, so if she could just keep the two of them downstairs, everything should be all right.
She led them to the larger of the two salons on the ground floor, a formal room where she and Jerem spent very little time but which she hoped might intimidate them, with its sleek marrit-hide couches and expensive canvases on the walls. At the very least the room seemed to breathe out respectability through its pores.
“Coffee?” Miala asked. Part of her motivation was simple courtesy, but she also thought if she were allowed to hide in the kitchen for a few moments to prepare the beverage, she could take the time to school her thoughts, to think up plausible lies for whatever questions they might ask. Had they somehow divined Thorn’s presence within her home? But how would they even know who he was? And—
“No, thanks,” Officer Korr replied, and Rhyse shook his head as well. “If you’d take a seat, please?”
Fighting a sensation of overwhelming futility, Miala sat herself down on the smaller of the two leather divans and threaded her fingers through one another, forcing them not to clench.
The lights had come on automatically as they entered the room, and so she was better able to get a good look at the two men. Even on closer inspection they appeared to be no more than who they said they were, two officers from Rilsport’s security force. Somehow Miala doubted that any crony of Murgan’s would part his hair so ruthlessly, or have such clean fingernails.
“Now, then,” Korr went on, pulling a stylus out of his breast pocket. “Just a few things, for the record. You are Mia Felaris, currently of 98 Starcrest Court?”
She nodded. That was harmless enough, anyway.
“And your place of business is Felaris Security Systems, 22 Sherrol Tower?”
Again she nodded.
Korr made a few notations on his datapad. “Our records show that you recently went off-world, Ms. Felaris. The purpose of your trip?”
Miala paused, wondering what it was they really were after. An admission of Thorn’s presence? A connection to the bodies the mercenary had so off-handedly dumped in a back alley? Her thoughts seemed to chase around one another, like dogs running after their own tails. How in the world could she concoct a plausible lie if she didn’t even know which piece of information it was that they sought?
“Business,” she replied at last.
“For whom?” asked Rhyse, the younger officer. For a few seconds his blue eyes didn’t look friendly at all, but then he gave her a fairly reassuring smile.
A cold fingernail of doubt began to draw its way up her spine. “I’m afraid that’s confidential,” Miala said immediately, but she tried to temper the words with a smile of her own. “My business is security, after all. It would be a breach of contract for me to reveal my clients’ identities.”
Officer Korr’s lips tightened for a second, but he said only, “This is police business, Ms. Felaris.”
“I know that, officer,” Miala replied. “But I also know that unless you have a warrant or something of that order compelling me to turn over client files, I am under no obligation to reveal that information to you. Besides,” she added, wondering a little at her own audacity even as she did so, “you haven’t even told me why you’re here. Am I under investigation for something?”
This time there was no mistaking the hostile glance the officers traded before they turned their attention to her once more. Obviously they had been expecting her to be a bit more tractable.
I’ve faced down worse than you, boys, she thought. It takes more than just a fancy uniform to frighten me.
“No,” said Officer Korr slowly, before he added with a nasty smile, “not yet.”
“Do you know this man?” Rhyse asked, holding his own tablet computer out to her. The image on it showed a somewhat grainy three-quarter shot of Thorn in his nondescript dark jumpsuit. Probably the still had been taken from a security camera somewhere.
“He doesn’t look familiar,” she hedged. After all, it was a fairly bad image, Thorn’s features only recognizable because she had known immediately that the shot could be of no one else.
“Really?” asked Korr, that unpleasant smile still pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Several eyewitnesses place a man of that description entering your property only an hour or so ago.”
Miala raised her eyebrows. “Really? They must be mistaken.” And if I ever find out who was watching my front entry instead of minding their own business...
“I’m afraid not, Ms. Felaris. Additionally, another man was seen entering your home a short time later, then leaving after about twenty standard minutes.” Officer Korr made a show of looking back down at his tablet. “A Dr. Lassiter, it seems? Neighbor of yours?”
“Yes,” she admitted unwillingly.
“You want to tell us what your neighbor was doing over here in the middle of the night, Ms. Felaris?” put in Officer Rhyse, with an expression dangerously close to a leer.
For one wild second Miala considered admitting to an affair with Quin Lassiter. Perhaps that would put these two hell hounds off the scent. But she had already dragged poor Quin into this deep enough—it wouldn’t be fair to him or to his family to concoct stories that would only cause him more trouble.
“He’s a doctor,” she said smoothly, hoping they hadn’t noticed her pause. “My son was having stomach cramps. Since Dr. Lassiter is a friend of the family, I called him to see if he could come help.”
Again Officer Korr’s mouth tightened. Then he asked, “So what was wrong with your son?”
“Quin said it looked as if he’s starting to develop an allergy to shellfish,” Miala replied, inwardly marveling as the lies seem to leap unbidden to her lips. She only hoped that the inner bullshit generator could keep going like this indefinitely. “The red-eye shells are still in the compactor—do you want to take a look?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary, Ms. Felaris,” said Officer Rhyse hastily. It was fairly obvious that the last thing he wanted to do was start rooting through the contents of her trash compactor.
“That still doesn’t answer our question a
bout this man,” put in Korr, who tapped his tablet with a significant gesture.
“And I told you that I don’t know who he is.” Miala narrowed her eyes at them in what she hoped was an expression of annoyance mixed with curiosity. “So who is he, anyway?”
“A dangerous off-world criminal,” Officer Korr said, watching her carefully as if to gauge her reaction.
Miala allowed her eyes to open wide. “Really? I haven’t seen him—but if someone else spotted him lurking around, maybe he’s still here...out in the backyard, maybe?” Anything to get them out of the house. All she could do was trust that they were buying her big-eyed, frightened act.
The two men looked at one another for a second. Then Korr sighed, as if Miala had forced him to some action he really didn’t want to take. He fixed her with an almost respectful gleam in his dark eyes. “You’re good,” he said. “For an amateur.”
“Excuse me?” The fingernail of doubt turned into a whole set of icy fingers that seemed to settle around her throat.
“But we’re not amateurs,” Korr went on, and with a smooth, easy movement he drew his gun out of its holster, training the muzzle directly on her heart.
Oh, hell, she thought. But she remained silent, holding herself very still as Korr continued to watch her with that half-regretful stare.
“This could have been so much easier if you’d just handed over the money in the first place,” said Officer Rhyse.
Miala glanced over at him and wondered how she could have ever thought his blue eyes were friendly. Right now they looked about as cold as the ice caps that topped Nova Angeles’ poles. She opened her mouth, not really knowing what she should say even as she did so—I don’t know what you’re talking about…you’ve got the wrong person…possibly even I’ll get it for you, just don’t hurt me or my son—but she never had the chance to speak.
Instead, a blast of blue pulse fire flashed past her cheek, missing her by inches just before it caught Rhyse squarely in the chest. His eyes widened for a second—eyes that Miala distantly noted were almost the same color as the pulse that had killed him—and then he slumped over against the arm of the couch.
“Get down, Miala,” came Thorn’s voice, and she slid off the couch and onto the cold tile floor even as Korr did almost the same thing, dropping to the ground as the mercenary advanced into the room. Miala’s and Korr’s eyes met as they stared at each other from under the coffee table, and then she quickly backed away before the officer—if that’s what he really was—could reorient the blaster in her direction. Scuttling crab-like, she moved around the corner of the divan just as Korr up-ended the table, putting a makeshift barrier between Thorn and himself.
Reddish-orange fire erupted from the end of Korr’s gun. Miala couldn’t see where it went, but she heard it hit the far wall of the salon, followed by the acrid smell of burning paint and canvas.
Fifty thousand units down the tube, she thought, even as she kept moving away from the firefight. She felt her foot bump into something and realized it was the side table that stood against the wall nearest to the divan. That seemed as good a place to hide as any, and she knelt there, arms wrapped around her knees, before cautiously lifting her head to see what was happening.
Thorn had dropped to a half-crouch, using the bulk of the divan where she had just been sitting as some protection from Korr’s blaster fire. As she watched, the officer shifted his position slightly and lifted his gun to shoot at Thorn once more, but the shot passed harmlessly over the mercenary’s head, this time catching in the heavy curtains that framed the floor-to-ceiling window on the wall behind him. Red and orange flames began to feed hungrily on the glossy silk.
All Miala could do was watch. She didn’t dare move from her hiding place, even though every instinct in her cried out to run to the comm, to call fire control before the flames spread even further. She thought of Jerem, lying upstairs in his bed, and prayed that he would have the sense to stay put and not come down to investigate the noise. Every ounce of her wanted to go to him, to hold him until this was all over, but she forced herself to stay still, to watch as Thorn traded gunfire with Korr, as new flames caught in other corners of the room, and smoke began to fill the chamber and catch at her throat and lungs.
The mercenary’s expression never changed. He looked as calm as a man choosing which shirt to wear, even as Korr’s blasts ripped past his head. From her vantage point Miala couldn’t see the officer, but even if one of Thorn’s pulses had hit him, it was obvious he was still in good enough shape to continue returning fire.
Then, suddenly, the red pulses from Korr’s blaster ceased.
Thorn didn’t move. Instead, he asked, “Had enough?”
A long silence, filled only with the soft, hungry sound of the flames feeding off the drapes and the expensive artwork on the walls. Miala could only be thankful that she’d decided to keep the tile floors in this salon clean and bare, or no doubt any carpets she might have placed here surely would be on fire as well.
Then Korr finally spoke. His voice sounded hoarse, but whether that was because of some unseen wound or merely the smoke-filled air of the salon, Miala couldn’t be certain. “Time enough.” He coughed. “You’ve lost, Thorn.”
“I’m not the one bleeding on the floor.”
So Thorn had wounded him. Good.
Korr coughed again. “Nice hit, mercenary. But that doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not the one you should be worried about. Checked on the boy lately?”
At those words Miala felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over her head, although the room had grown suffocatingly hot over the past few minutes. Jerem—he had to be talking about Jerem.
Enough of hiding. She pushed herself out from under the table and bolted toward the door, even as Thorn called after her, “Wait—you don’t know who’s up there!”
That didn’t matter. None of it mattered. If someone were there, trying to harm her son, she’d rip them apart with her bare hands.
The stairs seemed twice as high as they usually did. Miala pounded up the steps, terror giving her speed, the breath choking in her throat as smoke drifted out the open door of the salon and rose up the staircase, seeming to follow her like a malevolent spirit.
The door to Jerem’s room stood open. She plunged inside, crying his name, but only silence greeted her. Her son’s bed was mussed, the sheets half-pulled down on to the floor. But he was nowhere to be found—not under the bed, not hiding in the closet. Nowhere.
A movement at the window seemed to mock her. For a long moment Miala stood and watched the blinds shift as a salt-smelling breeze blew through the open casement. The photoreceptive material of the blinds was torn at one end, as if clutching hands had grasped it in a desperate attempt to keep from being pulled out through the window. At least he had not gone without a fight, this son of hers.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, fighting the tears as the scent of smoke swirled around her.
Then Thorn’s voice. “Gone.” It was not a question.
“They took him through the window.” Her voice sounded strangely flat, without emotion.
The mercenary came to stand next to her, then looked over at the broken blinds and the mussed bed. “We have to get out of here. The fire’s spreading.”
His words didn’t seem to register. She could only stay rooted in place, looking at her son’s empty bed even as her mind screamed at her, He’s gone! They took him! All that time you were hiding, worried about your own miserable skin—
“You can’t help him if you’re dead of smoke inhalation.”
As if to give weight to Thorn’s words, a huge wave of smoke filled the corridor, followed by a sudden rush of skin-crackling heat. From far away, outside the open windows, the night was broken by the sound of approaching sirens.
“Out the window,” Thorn commanded. “Now.” And he grasped her by the arm and pulled her toward the open casement, using as an
escape route the same path the kidnappers must have taken. The branches of the tree outside reached almost to the windowsill, and Miala roused herself enough from her misery to focus on crawling out there, inching her way along until she reached the trunk, then began to slowly step from branch to branch until she reached the ground. Thorn followed along behind her, his wound seeming to give him no trouble even during these contortions.
From ground level the true scope of the blaze that had engulfed the house could finally be seen. Orange glowed from almost all of the first-level windows, and smoke billowed out of the window they had just used as an egress.
Miala stood there and watched the destruction of her world. How unfair that the grass underneath her feet should feel so soft, the cool night air so gentle against her cheek, while her house burned and her son was gone.
“Let’s go,” said Thorn, and she let him pull her along, away from the house, away from the curious clump of people who had begun to gather on the walkway that bordered the cul-de-sac where she lived. He kept to the shadows at the edge of the property, and no one seemed to note their passage. Perhaps the men who had stolen Jerem and those who had employed them hadn’t bothered to stay around. After all, they’d gotten what they came for.
Just putting one foot in front of the other required most of her concentration. A few moments—or possibly just a few seconds—later, a fire-control vehicle roared past them, followed by another, and then the squarish blue airtruck of the local medical services branch. After they passed, Miala stopped, and turned to face Eryk Thorn.
“Shouldn’t I have stayed to meet them?” she asked. “Shouldn’t I be calling the police—the real police?”
Thorn lifted an eyebrow. “With two dead bodies dressed in the uniforms of RilSec officers in your living room?”
At least Thorn had taken that small vengeance for their son. But her despair wouldn’t allow her to feel any joy at the thought of the two men’s deaths. Instead she inquired, “But shouldn’t we report Jerem’s kidnapping?”
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