by Autumn Dawn
Gem rose automatically from her desk and extended her hand, extending common courtesy. The Narc looked at it, but made no move to take it. Puzzled and a little insulted, Gem let her hand fall.
“I’m Captain Azor, and I’ve been assigned to your case,” the man said in the deep, raspy tones of someone who spent his days inhaling hellfire. “I have some questions for you.”
“Okay.” Gem gestured for him to take a seat and resumed hers. Reminding herself he was there to help, she looked at Azor attentively. “Do you have any idea who might have hurt my sister and Jean Luc?” In all the excitement, she’d almost forgotten Jean, but she planned to visit him, too. She blinked as she added the trip to her mental schedule. This was turning out to be a jam-packed day, and it wasn’t even noon!
“We spoke with Jean Luc this morning,” Captain Azor said coldly. “While he claims he didn’t know his assailant, he gave us a general physical description. Short, masked, with an unidentified accent. He was trying to get information out of Jean by interrogating your sister. However…Jean would not specify what the man wanted.”
Gem frowned. “Why not?”
Azor cocked a brow. “Perhaps because he would implicate himself.”
Gem shook her head, still puzzled. “In what?”
Azor leaned back and assessed her. “Are you aware that there’s a drug investigation centered around your inn, Ms. Harrisdaughter?”
Gem’s eyes bugged. “A what? That’s not possible. I’m aware of everything that goes on around here!”
Blue snorted.
Gem glared at him, then turned the look on the captain. “That’s not possible. You’ve got to be wrong,” she added.
Azor gave her a cold stare. “Are you aware that your sister is taking antidepressant drugs, Ms. Harrisdaughter? You didn’t list them on her medical records last night while filling out her paperwork. Her surgeons would have found the information useful. Fortunately, they were in touch with her current doctor. Thank goodness for small communities.”
Gem blinked, floored. She’d never heard of such a thing, never suspected it.
Azor continued in a conversational tone that still cut like a whip. “You’re a busy woman, Ms. Harrisdaughter, that’s obvious, but maybe you should have looked into the background of the man you chose to affiliate with. Your brewer has a record of past narcotics violations as wide as your desk. Distributing, suspected manufacturing—someone didn’t do their job on that one—fraud…The list goes on. You did claim to know everything that happens around here, didn’t you?”
The blood had drained from her face as he’d recited the list. Now Gem stared at her desk, blinking in disbelief. This cop was investigating The Spark, and she was smart enough to know what that meant. If they thought she had anything to do with this, she could lose her livelihood, her self-respect and her home, all in one blow.
Azor inclined his head. “You should also know that your sister Brandy is one of our main suspects.”
“No!” The word exploded from her in a burst of rage and fear. Gem stood up. “You’re mistaken, Captain. My sister would never sell drugs.”
Azor rose slowly to his feet. “You didn’t know she was taking them, either.”
“Legal drugs,” she ground out. “And I can understand why she wouldn’t tell me that.”
“Can you?” He handed her a slip of paper. “This is a warrant to search the brewery and anything else on the premises we deem necessary. I trust we have your full cooperation?”
She couldn’t speak, could only stare at him, hollow-eyed with shock. He tilted his head at her and left the room.
Gem looked at Blue. “How could I not know? And Brandy is taking medicine? How could I not know that?”
She shook her head. “You snorted when I said I knew everything that’s going on around here. What else am I missing?” She moved around her desk, then jerked to a halt when a plan came to her. “Jean Luc! I have to talk to him.”
“He’s in custody, Gem. He wasn’t hurt that badly.” Almost reading her mind, he added, “And Brandy’s got a fractured jaw. No talking. Broken hands—she can’t write, either.”
Like a hornet in a jar, she paced, seeking a way out. “This doesn’t make sense! Why Brandy? Why not me?” Suddenly a thought hit her, and she froze. “Why not me? They were shooting at me before. Why move to Brandy and Luc now? What’s different?”
Blue moved toward her, looking concerned. Maybe he thought she was losing her mind. “I don’t know, but settle down. Once Brandy is able to talk, we’ll sort it out. She’s not going to withhold information about someone who hurt her like that. You know Brandy—she’ll want to see him fry.”
“Unless he kills her first.” She looked at Blue in horror. “She’s not safe in that hospital!”
Blue took a deep breath. “Woman, that place is swarming with cops. Nothing’s getting past them. Now calm down before you blow a gasket! Look at yourself.” He grasped her shoulders and turned her toward a mirror on the wall. She didn’t recognize the tormented woman who stared back.
She shuddered and looked away. “I have to get out of here. I have to see Brandy, then try to see Jean Luc and make him talk. Then I’ll—”
He shook his head. “Still making lists? I think this thing has gone beyond something you can organize.”
“I have to try!” she exploded, using fury at him to boil off her frustration. “I can’t even walk outside without a shadow these days, my sister might have been killed, and you want me to calm down? I know I can’t do it all! I know I can’t…” She broke off as a sob tore from her throat. Horrified, she turned her back on Blue. “Get out. I need a couple of minutes.”
Hesitant hands touched her shoulders. She shrugged them off. “Get out!”
Instead, he turned her around and pulled her into a kiss. Cautious, restrained, the embrace grew into an emotional exchange of tension, fear and a buried tenderness. Blue kissed her hard and held nothing back—nothing except his heart, she was certain.
She pulled away with a small moan of pain and buried her face against his chest. He was killing her. He’d made her want him, made her want to have him in her life. When she felt him holding back, it made her realize how limited his offer was. The loss of hope hurt worse than the wanting. “I can’t take this.”
“Shh.” He rocked her a little, stroked her hair, kissed the top of her head and rested his cheek against it. “Shh, little one. Just hush.”
Blue wanted Gem to be innocent, wanted it desperately but didn’t dare trust his instincts. His personal feelings were no guarantee she wasn’t involved. It would be almost as bad if she weren’t but her sister was. He knew where those kinds of situations went. The only possible way things could work out was probably the most unlikely outcome. How typical of his life.
Gem pulled away again and sniffed. “I need to go see Brandy,” she said.
“Okay.”
There was a guard outside Brandy’s hospital door, but Blue wasn’t necessarily reassured. A rent-a-cop was hardly a threat to the type of guy who’d been responsible for all the recent attacks.
To his surprise, Brandy was able to talk, though it cost her. She looked at Gem and said mushily, “Sis.” Her eyes dulled with agony, and her lids half closed as she drew in deep breaths.
“Oh, Bran. Don’t try to talk,” Gem began, reaching for her hand. She stopped in mid-motion, remembering in time that it was broken.
Brandy’s eyes flashed under the bruises. “Sh! M-man was short. A-accent.”
“We know. Jean told us,” Gem said hastily. “Blue caught him on video, too.”
“Drrrrugs,” Brandy struggled on. “Wanted know. Jean wouldn’t talk.” Furious tears ran down her face, but she flinched when Gem gently dabbed at them. “Ugh! Stop,” she managed to say, her voice semi-garbled.
Blue stepped in. If Brandy was going to talk, he was going to help her. “Did you know Jean was making drugs, Brandy?” he asked.
She nodded. Gem’s lips parted, and s
he pulled away a little.
Blue hurried on before Gem could interrupt. “Were you involved?”
A slight head shake: No.
“Then when did you find out? Recently?”
Brandy sighed and sent a guilty look at Gem. She shook her head. “Last year.”
Blue’s eyes narrowed as he considered the possibilities. “Was he blackmailing you for silence?”
Another gusty sigh and a nod. “Gem, sor-sorry.”
Gem swallowed and looked to the side. “Girl…Bran, you should have told me. We would have worked it out.”
“You…need…S-spark,” Brandy gasped and closed her eyes in pain. More tears leaked out.
Gem wiped them away, careful as she did. She said, “Stop, now. I’d rather throw the match on The Spark and watch it burn to the ground than lose you. Sleep. Rest. There’ll be time later to talk.”
Brandy frantically shook her head. “He’ll try kill. W-won’t testify.”
“You won’t, or Jean won’t want you to?” Blue asked.
“Won’t…He won’t—”
“Want you to,” Blue finished grimly. “I understand. I’ll take care of it.”
Amazingly, her eyes closed and her body relaxed.
Gem looked sharply at him. “What are you going to do?”
“Move you both,” he replied. “Whoever was hired to knock you off might not quit just because Jean’s going to jail. Until we figure out who the other party in the game is, you’ll be better off somewhere else.”
“I have a business to run. My one sister is beaten almost to death, the other is off with the Galactic Explorers! I can’t just—”
“As of now, your business is worthless to you,” Blue interrupted ruthlessly. “It’s in the middle of an investigation, and you’re going to run for your life. We’ll get you a manager and talk to your banker. I don’t want you walking back in there until whoever did this is dead.”
“But—”
Blue shot a frustrated look at Brandy’s bed and dragged Gem out of the room. He didn’t stop until they found a clear chunk of hallway. “Think, Gem! Jean Luc has a motive to kill your sister, but we still don’t know if he was the one trying to snipe you. Someone else was after him. What if that same someone was the one who tried to kill you?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to follow his logic. “This is too complicated.”
“Agreed. Let’s settle you somewhere we can sort it out.”
“No.”
“I have somewhere in mind. I’ll take care of it,” he promised.
“You’re not listening, Blue! I said no.”
Fury flashed in his eyes. “You’re in the middle of a drug war, and you want to stay here and play house like nothing can touch you.”
“Stop it! I’m not the guilty one here, so stop trying to belittle me. Nor am I so naïve that I think I can’t be hurt. I have a reminder right there.” She pointed back down the hall to Brandy’s door with a trembling hand. She forced herself to steady and looked him in the eye. “My family needs me.”
The need to cry was choking Gem, from fear and rage and worry for her sister. She wanted to stomp up and down, throw fragile things, watch the splintered fragments slide down the wall. Protect and defend? The cops had no idea what that meant.
“You’re a fool, lady,” Blue said. “This thing is going to tear you apart.”
She looked at him so hard her eyes burned. “Maybe you don’t know me like you think you do.” She held his gaze for a long moment, then said, “I’m going to talk to Jean Luc. Are you coming?”
She had to do some fast-talking to get the cops to let her see him. Jean Luc wasn’t being allowed visitors, but she convinced them she might be helpful. On the slim chance she might, they let her visit with him through a Plexiglas screen. It took an effort to clear the anger from her throat enough to speak. “Luc. You let my sister get hurt.”
He stared at her, the stitched-up knife wound fresh and ugly on his cheek. “My apologies. It was regrettable.”
“You led the wolves to her.”
His expression was cool. “Your sister is an adult. She’s responsible for her own actions.”
Gem’s smile was ugly. She took a moment to stare at this man whom she’d thought she knew, who had been running drugs out of her establishment without her permission or approval. She said, “You realize the cops have my full cooperation.”
Jean Luc sat back and looked at her in consideration. “Did you come just to chat, then?” He shrugged. “I suppose it’s a change of pace from my cell.”
She smiled again without humor. “A small thing: I had a question about Cirrus.” She noted the distaste on Jean Luc’s face, and was pleased by it. She hoped it would help with the questions to come.
“I know you like him as little as I do,” she said. Jean Luc remained quiet, so she added, “He approached me at the wake for that miner. He invited me to his house, which surprised me. It surprised me even more that he wanted me to recommend him to you.”
Jean Luc’s lip curled with disdain, but he said nothing.
“That was my reaction, too. I told him to piss off.” She let the faint satisfaction in Jean Luc’s face settle in before she said, “I have a clue what he wanted now, but what I don’t understand is why you dislike him. He’s a…persistent man. Is there something about him I should know?”
Jean was silent. It was clear he wasn’t willing to give up any information. Gem wondered if he was nervous about damning himself further.
She stared at him for a moment. “Well, if he wanted to get me to promote his cause with you, he’s going to be disappointed, isn’t he? I expect he’ll back off now. And with you out of the way, nobody will try to hurt my family again. I can chase Blue off, cooperate with the cops. Everything will go back to normal. Everything seems to work out for the law-abiding…” She stood up as if to go.
“Gem.”
She hesitated but didn’t turn.
“Don’t let Cirrus near you.”
Gem gave in, looked back over her shoulder. Jean Luc looked deadly serious.
“As for the other…keep him close. It’s not over yet.”
Blue dialed from his encrypted communicator and paced Gem’s office as he waited for someone to pick up. They’d just gotten back from the local police station, and he was in a foul mood. He kicked the flowered couch as he passed, cursing for good measure.
Gem Harrisdaughter was ruining him; he’d seen Azor the other day and known it. He himself used to be the one with the cold smile, the cool head when everything around him went south. Now look at him: he’d tried to remove a suspect from an active investigation because he was afraid of her getting hurt—and because he was afraid she might be guilty. She might be guilty and he was trying to protect her! When had a woman become more important than justice? Snarling, he mentally flayed himself.
Blackwing’s voice came on the phone. He wasn’t Blue’s commander, but he was support on this end for the underfunded and unappreciated Galactic Narcotics office for which Blue worked. “What have you got?”
Blue kept a wary eye on the door. Gem had gone to her room with her laptop computer, so she could look through online listings to try to choose a temporary manager for the inn. He was delighted, because her agreement at hiring the stand-in would make it easier to relocate her for security reasons until the assassin was caught. She wasn’t doing it for his convenience, however. She’d determined that Brandy needed her right now, and she wanted to make sure The Spark continued to run smoothly while she was preoccupied. She still had no current intention of hiding, of running. He decided to skip the conversation with Brandy, and Blackwing already knew about the one with Jean Luc. He decided to simply report: “Gem refuses to leave The Spark.”
“Interesting.” Chief Blackwing sighed on the other end of the line. “Do we think she’s innocent?”
“Well, with her sister as involved as she is…” Blue couldn’t quite vindicate her. “Gem’s part in this is still u
nknown. Personally, I think she’s scared for Brandy, and I believe that she didn’t know Jean Luc was blackmailing her.” He thought the situation over carefully, reviewing all the details in his mind. Was Gem capable of dealing with Jean but leaving her sister unaware? Were the sisters so double-dealing as to lie to each other?
There was a beep as a new participant was added to the communicator frequency. “I think Gem’s innocent,” Zsak remarked, coming in late to the meeting. He walked through the door to Gem’s office and glanced at Blue, who adjusted his earpiece. “She’s too uptight, too straitlaced to get involved in something like this. Her sister? That’s less surprising. She’s wired pretty tight.”
Blackwing pondered Zsak’s remark. “That’s a big difference of opinion between you two. Why are you convinced Gem’s still a possibility if Zsak isn’t, Blue? At this point, for her to be involved would require an enormous amount of deception and a convoluted scheme that—”
“I’ve seen it happen, sir,” Blue interrupted, tense with warring emotions. He couldn’t let this go until he was sure, didn’t want to be wrong about Gem. He couldn’t be wrong about her. He didn’t want to look into why.
“Did we get a match on those surveillance photos?” he asked, changing the subject. Brandy and Jean Luc’s assailant had been uncommonly stupid. Though the man had worn a mask, preventing Blue from identifying him, he’d avoided none of the cameras while entering and leaving the brewery, and the police had computer programs that could reconstruct his face under the cloth. It wouldn’t be a perfect picture they created, but it was a great start. As soon as they could match that against another photo, they’d have the man dead to rights.
“Hamish Nasser,” the chief said. “He’s got a record and is suspected in several other cases where we lacked enough evidence to convict. He’s a local miner, had been using an alias to lie low. This time we have him. The only trouble will be finding the bastard.”
“Finding him? How hard can that be in a settlement this size?” Blue shook his head, surprised.