He’d find something.
He had to.
Thirty-four
Van Alen’s office was mostly empty. Only a handful of employees were at their desks as Flint and Van Alen hurried through. As Van Alen passed each one of them, she pointed at them and said, “I’m alone. You got that? Everything else you may or may not see is confidential.”
And to a person, the employees nodded or gave a verbal acknowledgement. Flint didn’t feel comforted. He recorded the entire interaction as he passed through, in case someone from the firm leaked any information concerning him. As much as he liked Van Alen, he wasn’t above suing her for breach of attorney-client privilege if he had to.
He clutched the plastic bag holding the battered handheld as tightly as he could. If things had gone the way he wanted them to, he would have been in the Emmeline now, looking at all of this.
But he wasn’t sure when he’d get back to his ship, nor was he sure his office was secure. He had no real equipment in his apartment, which was a utilitarian place where he slept. He didn’t even eat there.
Van Alen entered the wide area that marked off her office. Flint had forgotten that he had seen no doors on his first visit. He felt even more uncomfortable. Then she waved her hand at some motion sensor, and glass doors slipped down from the ceiling, like dome dividers.
Only the glass was frosted. The parts nearest the door handles (apparently, they could be pulled open or closed as well—he looked for hinges and saw none; they had to be carefully balanced) were etched with floral versions of MVA intertwined.
Maxine Van Alen had a vanity that intrigued him.
“Let’s play those things,” she said, “and see what we have.”
He wasn’t even sure “those things,” which he saw as only one thing—the handheld—had any video component at all. He suspected he was looking for something buried deep inside files, files upon files upon files.
“I need a system that’s dedicated,” he said. “Is everything in your office networked?”
“Would I be a good attorney if it was?” she asked. She pushed a panel on a nearby wall, and four desks rose out of the floor, all of them with surface screens. “Take your pick.”
He went to each, touched it on, and ran through his own diagnostic. Two of the screens had too many users in the past. Another still had case files from something Van Alen had been doing, although he didn’t tell her. The fourth—the one closest to the wall and, as a result, very uncomfortable to work on, had no recent user log-ins and no case files. In fact, it looked neglected.
He stood in front of it and went deeper into the system, looking for hidden tracers, something an unscrupulous lawyer or another client might have put into the system.
“I have it debugged every other day,” she said. “It’s safe.”
She was standing behind him. Her perfume was faint but rich, as much a part of her as her enhancements and her flamboyant clothing. He didn’t like how close she was.
“Still,” he said, “I’m going to check a few things.”
“Suit yourself.” She went to the stuffed couch on the far side of the room and flopped down. Then she pulled off her boots and rubbed her feet. “I do not want another day like this one.”
He didn’t either, but he didn’t voice the sentiment. Instead, he dug deep into the computer’s memory, looking for ghosts, looking for traces of hidden users.
He found none.
“You’re being awfully cautious,” she said.
“I’ve only known you a short time.” He shut down all the computer’s networking systems and its ability to link with anyone else except someone he determined. He added six different passcodes, all of them too long to be quickly cracked.
“Yes, but you hired me for my skills and the confidentiality they provide.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Flint said, knowing that wasn’t an answer. He took the handheld out of the plastic. The handheld had a greasy feeling to it, as if it had been encased in slime.
“You sure that’s safe?” she asked.
“They decontaminated it before they handed it over.” At least, he hoped that was what the slimy feeling was. He didn’t really have the time to check.
He had to hook the handheld directly into the computer; it was the only way to keep the information from being snatched up by any systems in the room. Even then, he wasn’t sure how confidential all of this would remain.
“You think this is what got her killed?” Van Alen had lain back on the couch. The position wasn’t provocative. The events in the port had clearly exhausted her.
“At this point,” he said, “I have to think everything she touched is tied to her death.”
“But are you going to know it when you see it?” Van Alen asked.
She had voiced his main fear. “Probably not,” he said.
She shook her head and then sighed. “I feel like I should be doing something.”
“Maybe getting us dinner,” he said. “This is going to take a while.”
He didn’t want to tell her that she could leave. It was her office, after all. Part of him wanted her to remain. He wanted her to run interference for him. But part of him wanted complete privacy.
“Any thing in particular you want?” she asked. She hadn’t moved off the couch.
“Nope.” He pulled over a chair, attached the handheld to the computer, and downloaded the data. The HazMat team had compressed the data. As he watched the screen, the information streamed so fast that it looked like bits of light instead of data, and he realized that his initial plan wouldn’t work.
He had hoped to isolate the most important information—the stuff from the bridge, most likely, and transfer it from the computer to the data chips on his hand. Then he’d take the handheld and he’d use his own chips as a backup. He’d work on pieces of the information at various places around town.
But he wasn’t sure, first of all, that he could isolate the important information, and even if he did, he wasn’t sure the chips he wore had enough room for this much data. He didn’t want to leave any of it in Van Alen’s office, either. He needed to get it out of here, but to where he did not know.
No wonder HazMat had told him they had done the best they could. Old ships like that usually carried one-eighth the data of a space yacht like Emmeline. Somewhere along the way, Paloma had boosted the capacity.
Or the HazMat team had taken information off systems other than the ship’s. He hadn’t thought to ask what that might be.
“Problem?” Van Alen still hadn’t ordered any food. From what he could tell, she hadn’t even moved off the couch.
“No,” he lied, wondering if he’d made a face. “Except that I’m hungry.”
“Nag.” She swung her legs off the couch. “I suppose you don’t want me to use my links at this sensitive time.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He wasn’t using anything networked, and he was relieved to realize she didn’t know that.
“Good,” she said. “Then I’ll get someone to bring us a small feast.”
His stomach growled. He was amazed he could be hungry after the day he’d had.
He sat down. Van Alen had that vacant look people sometimes got when they were sending messages along their links.
When she blinked and looked at him again, he said, “This is probably going to take me a long time.”
“Weeks, months, years?” she asked.
He wanted to answer yes, but instead, he said, “At least until tomorrow.”
She sighed, glanced around her office as if it had suddenly changed color, and then stood. “Well, lucky for us there’s a full bath right through that door.”
She pointed behind one of the tall trees pressed up against the wall.
“You can have a shower and everything,” she said.
“Everything except a change of clothing,” he said.
“Give me sizes and I’ll send one of the associates out.”
“You don’t think that’ll look suspic
ious?” Flint asked.
She tilted her head and then smiled. “One of the male associates. Who’s going to question him?”
Nyquist, Flint thought, but didn’t say. The handheld had almost finished dumping the information. He glanced at the sofa, hoping it was long enough for him to catch a comfortable nap.
“You need help on any of this?” Van Alen asked in that tone people used when they really didn’t want to help.
“No,” he said.
“Good, then I’ll get down to business.”
He frowned at her.
“I do have other clients, you know,” she said.
His frown deepened.
She smiled. The smile was cool. “Much as I like you, you’re not staying in my office alone.”
“Because of your other clients,” he said.
“And that prodigious skill I just saw with computers. That was a bit scary. I had no idea people still knew how to dig into machines like that.”
“People don’t,” he said.
“Oh, that’s right,” she said, waving a hand. “You were some kind of computer whiz once.”
Some kind, he thought. He wished she’d shut up. He wanted to work. He wanted to work alone.
He didn’t want anyone to see his reaction when he learned what other surprises Paloma had in store for him.
Thirty-five
DeRicci sat at her desk, studying ship specs and worrying about her friends. She hadn’t heard from Nyquist, although she’d been pinging him for the last hour.
Finally, she got a response, and she sighed with unexpected relief. She was glad she was alone in her office with the lights dimmed, because she felt unexpected vulnerable.
DeRicci put him on visual, something she usually never did because she hated having two images play in front of her eyes. But there he was, superimposed over the antique desk as if he were nothing more than a disconnected head.
She shuddered at the image, thinking of the explosion. She’d seen disconnected heads before, and much as she tried to harden her heart to that kind of thing, she hadn’t been able to.
Nyquist looked a little matted. His hair was combed wrong, and his skin shone. His eyes were bloodshot. His collar was turned up, and his suit looked unfamiliar.
“You haven’t answered my pings,” DeRicci said.
“I was in decon,” Nyquist said. “I was near the blast.”
DeRicci’s breath caught. All her annoyance vanished, and she felt a greater than normal concern for Nyquist.
She liked him too much.
The thought annoyed her, and she pushed it aside.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Cut, bruised, and cleared by the computers,” he said. “Just peachy, considering how much brains, blood and fecal matter landed on me.”
He didn’t even grimace as he said that. She wondered if he was in shock. She didn’t know him well enough to tell.
“We only have confirmation of one dead,” DeRicci said.
“That’s enough,” he said.
She nodded. She’d never been near someone who’d exploded, but she’d been close to a couple of blasts, and even closer to people who’d been shot. Being covered with the remains of someone else was one of the worst sensations she’d experienced.
“Maybe you should take the evening off.”
“Would you?” he asked, with a little too much edge.
Of course she wouldn’t. But it was easy to see from the outside how ridiculous that was.
“We have reports of biochemical goo,” she said, “Just like Paloma’s murder.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think it’s just as false. Everyone on the tech team and me have been cleared. We’d’ve been covered with it if the reports were true.”
She let out a small breath that she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. She was more worried than she wanted to think about. “You know what caused that report?”
“Probably the sheer destruction of the poor woman who went into the ship,” he said. “I’m not in charge of that part of the investigation, though. Theoretically, I’m only taking care of Paloma’s death.”
DeRicci liked the theoretically. It meant Nyquist was going to do what he could.
“Do you know where your friend Flint is?” Nyquist sounded exhausted, almost defeated, as if Flint had betrayed him, too.
DeRicci found herself wondering if she had failed to contact Flint not because of any misguided loyalty to her office, but because she actually believed he could have done this thing.
“No,” DeRicci said. “I’ve deliberately avoided contacting him until this thing gets resolved.”
“You think he did it?” Nyquist asked.
“You’re the one with all the information,” DeRicci said. “I’ve only gotten what’s come through the secure links.”
And a bit from the media, although it didn’t seem like the usual feeding frenzy. The reporters were confused; they couldn’t get into the port, and very few people had gotten out.
“Do you know how to find him?” Nyquist wasn’t quite tracking. Maybe he wasn’t looking at the camera, or maybe he was more injured than he thought.
DeRicci knew better than to say anything. She would have resented it if someone had pointed out that she wasn’t functioning at full capacity when she was on a case like this.
“Flint’s a creature of habit when he’s not on a case,” DeRicci said, surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth. She hadn’t expected to betray him so easily. “You can find him at his office or on his yacht. He catches about six hours’ sleep at his apartment, but otherwise he’s not there. He likes to eat at the sandwich shop behind his office or at the Brownie Bar. Sometimes he does his research at the public links or in Armstrong University’s main library.”
“And when he’s on a case?” Nyquist asked.
DeRicci shook her head. “It depends on the case. If it takes him off-Moon, he’ll go. He’s been known to go pretty far to find out information.”
“Far physically or far in the bending of laws?”
DeRicci almost said, Both, then didn’t. Not because of Flint but because of some weird sense of self-protection. She had a hunch this was going to get a lot worse before it got better.
“I meant far physically,” DeRicci said.
“Although that was a long pause.” Nyquist’s gaze finally met hers—or what passed for hers through the links.
“I guess it was,” DeRicci said.
“You think he did this thing.” That wasn’t a question. Nyquist had an uncanny sense of her, something that should have bothered her more than it did.
“I don’t know enough about it,” DeRicci said.
“But you wouldn’t put it past him,” Nyquist said.
“Flint and Paloma were close,” DeRicci said. “He doesn’t react well to the death of people he loves.”
There it was. The thing that had disturbed her. She had seen him years after the death of his daughter, and he never seemed quite sane on the subject.
“You think he loved Paloma?” Nyquist asked.
“He did,” DeRicci said. “But more than that, he admired her. She was his ideal. He felt like he could never measure up to her.”
“She was a Retrieval Artist,” Nyquist said as if he didn’t understand.
DeRicci nodded. “Flint sees it as a noble profession.”
Nyquist frowned. “Do you?”
She had when Flint dropped out of the police force. For a year or so afterward, she had thought of becoming a Retrieval Artist herself. To be on her own, to make her own rules, to decide which rules she’d follow and which she wouldn’t felt noble, but in the end, she had decided that she needed the structure.
She wasn’t wise enough to determine which laws were just and which weren’t. She just wasn’t that smart.
“Noelle?” Nyquist asked, prompting her.
The use of her first name startled her. It sounded almost intimate.
“What?” she a
sked.
“Do you think being a Retrieval Artist is a noble profession?”
“I think there’s no such thing,” she said.
“As a noble Retrieval Artist?”
“As a noble profession,” she said, and severed the link.
Thirty-six
Van Alen had unimaginatively ordered pizza. The difference between the pizza she ordered and the pizza Flint used to have on late nights when he was a detective was that this pizza had real ingredients. Sauce made from real tomatoes, fresh herbs, real cheese, real pepperoni, and sausage made from real meat.
The first bite he took tasted so unexpectedly rich that he almost spit it out.
He whirled in his chair, nearly knocking over the caffeinated ice coffee she’d bought him, and looked at her.
She was munching a piece of pizza at her desk, reviewing something on the screen in front of her, making notes on a handheld, probably because she didn’t trust Flint with her confidential files as much as he didn’t trust her.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked.
She looked up in surprise. He shook the piece of pizza at her.
“We have an Italian bakery in the building,” she said. “It costs a fortune, but it makes the late nights worth it.”
He was beginning to understand her tastes. Always the best in everything, which cost money. He wondered if lawyers made that kind of money, particularly lawyers who followed their principles.
He could pull her financials, he supposed, but he wouldn’t do it here, in her office on her computer. He made himself focus on the work.
He’d gotten a lot done since he downloaded all of the files. He had hoped the important stuff was flagged somehow, but everything had been organized in a numbering system that he didn’t entirely understand.
He looked first at the files outside that system. They were the ship’s log and its manifold, and the information that had come with it when Paloma had bought it, long before he was born. He could have gotten lost in the ship itself—the logs were complete: the former owners’ travels were also kept, as if that was important to the ship itself.
Paloma Page 22