Even more importantly, with Rachel gone, there was no one to finish her mission.
Whatever it had been.
Except Montgomery. It stood to reason that her mission was more important than his. He had to know what Rachel knew while he could still find out. He had to finish her mission as well as his own.
There was only one resource available.
Montgomery stepped past Dimitri, pulled out his probe, and datashared with Rachel's corpse before anyone could stop him.
IX
To say that Lilia was surprised by what Gid had purportedly left her would be the understatement of the century.
"Well, here it is." Stevia laid a necklace in Lilia's hand. "He left this with strict instructions that I should only give it to Lilia Desjardins. Made sure I knew what you looked like too."
Lilia stared at the cheap locket and chain pooled in her palm. The "gold" was already chipping and the chain tinkled in her hand as if it had been made of aluminum foil. There was a lavish L on the front of the locket.
It was the ugliest piece of jewelry she had ever seen. Lilia tried to see some link between this clumsy locket and the sleek piece of platinum on her left hand, both chosen by the same man, and failed.
Had Gid left her a comment on the state of their relationship, or was this a kind of suicide note?
The tea seemed to curdle in Lilia's gut.
"Pretty, isn't it?" Stevia reached out a finger and caressed the locket's surface. "If it'd had my initial on it, I might have forgotten it was yours," she said and it was only half a joke.
Lilia was tempted to give the locket to Stevia, right then and there, but Gid must left it for her for a reason.
Maybe it should have come with a cheat sheet.
"Well, aren't I lucky, then," she managed to say.
"I'll say!" Stevia poured another cup of tea for each of them.
Against all expectation and belief, Gid, a man with discerning taste in all matters ornamental, had left this piece of junk for Lilia. She felt like she'd been slapped, like she was having that last awful argument with him one more time.
But Gid had never been cruel.
Maybe it wasn't really from Gid.
Lilia pulled up a couple of images from her palm, including the one of Gid that she'd shown to Miss Congeniality at Breisach and Turner. She set it to scroll through the images and asked Stevia to identify the man who had left this.
Stevia picked Gid's image without hesitation. "More than one admirer?" she teased.
"I just wasn't expecting anything like this."
"Who would? Why don't you put it on?"
Lilia lifted the chain around her neck with some hesitation. It nestled into the pin-tucked cotton covering her cleavage, looking no less tacky than it had before.
"Perfect!" A romantic fantasy put a gleam in Stevia's eye. "Maybe it's a proposal?"
"From my husband?"
"You're married to him? Ooo, then, maybe it's an invitation to a tryst. Or an anniversary present." Stevia winked, then sipped her tea with a knowing smirk. "You should open it and find out."
Lilia doubted that Gid had left any kind of message inside this locket, and doubted even more that it would be romantic or unsuitable for other eyes. In fact, she would have been surprised if Stevia hadn't already peeked inside herself.
Gid, being Gid, would have surely calculated the probability of that to be quite high. People—like circus owners—who survived on the margin of the law tended to be curious. It kept them alive. Gid had learned a lot about such people, courtesy of Lilia.
She smiled. "Maybe he just didn't use up his New Gotham transit chip and wanted me to make use of it while I was here."
Stevia laughed, but her curiosity was undisguised as Lilia pried open the locket. The catch was a bit sticky but it gave suddenly, and whatever was inside splashed into Lilia's tea.
"Oh no!" Stevia cried and ran for a clean spoon.
It was a candy. Lilia could see it through the lens of the tea. It was one of those little sweet-and-sour candies shaped like hearts, the ones in pastel colors with red writing on one side.
LUV U 4EVER those letters spelled out, at least until they started to dissolve.
She knew then, and without a shadow of doubt, that Gid had left this for her. Nine years before, he'd proposed with the duplicate of this candy, a goofy fact no one knew except Gid and Lilia.
No one would have anticipated that he could be such a quirky romantic. Unexpected, that had been Gid.
Sincere.
Honorable.
Loyal.
So it was true that opposites attracted. Lilia blinked back tears, realizing too late what she'd lost and wishing things had been different. She wanted to erase that last argument, to travel back in time and chart her steps all over again.
Except that then she wouldn't have met Montgomery. She thought of the way Montgomery kissed and the way he made her yearn, tricks that Gid had never been able to master, and her tears came again.
It wasn't fair.
"Oh, it's melting away," Stevia said with disappointment. She put the spoon down on the table. "You should drink it. That has to be good luck, or at least better luck than chucking it out."
It seemed vulgar to tell Stevia that Gid was dead.
Lilia shut up and drank the tea, which had a strange taste courtesy of the dissolved candy, and wondered what Gid's point had been. He'd gone to a lot of trouble to prove that he had been the one to leave her this worthless piece of junk. It didn't make sense.
That wasn't typical of the logic-driven Gid Lilia had known.
Which meant that Lilia was missing his point.
The silence almost sizzled. Montgomery was well aware that his fellow cops were watching him with horror. There was a sizable gap around him. He was on one knee beside Rachel.
"Whoa, Montgomery, that's sick." Dimitri muttered.
Montgomery programmed his palm to download everything she had. His fellow cops were disgusted, but he had no idea how long it would be until one of them intervened.
"Is that how they do it in Topeka?" asked one uniformed officer with scorn. "Or just in the pleasure fringe?"
Montgomery spared them both sharp looks. "We've got a crime scene with no real evidence. She might have identified the killer herself before her death, or pulled up a relevant record. In Topeka, we aren't afraid to explore all the angles."
"Remind me never to go to Kansas," Dimitri muttered.
"Hard to believe anyone would have to tell you that," the uniformed officer said under his breath.
"Jesus," said the image snatcher and left the office.
Montgomery was more interested in the fact that Rachel's palm had been wiped.
Even the I.D. sector was blank.
The back of Montgomery's neck prickled. Rachel had had the same viral software installed as Fitzgerald.
By choice? Or had the killer installed it to ensure that she couldn't pass information to anyone else?
There was no way to know for sure.
He disengaged his probe and stood, feeling the relief of his fellows. He was relieved himself. The software persuaded him that the same person had killed Rachel as Fitzgerald, and he was sure Lilia hadn't killed her husband.
"Well?" asked Dimitri.
"Nothing," Montgomery said.
"You'd better be hoping that you end up with nothing," Dimitri said with the malice Montgomery had come to associate with the other cop. "A little digital souvenir could really mess with your palm, Montgomery." He looked as if he'd enjoy seeing that happen.
Montgomery ignored Dimitri and considered the scene. There were no signs of forced entry into the office—the windows were locked and the door had been slightly ajar when the first officers arrived.
Had Rachel known her assailant?
Whom had she met earlier today?
Why hadn't she already gone to Chicago?
The coroner arrived with his usual efficient bustle and urged the officers aside as h
e got to work. "Well, isn't this a mess?" he said cheerfully. "Anything touched?"
"Montgomery datashared with her," Dimitri said.
The coroner spared Montgomery a considering glance. "And?"
"Her palm was wiped, even the I.D. sector."
The coroner frowned and got to work, calling the image snatcher back to capture the specific images he wanted.
Where were Breisach and Turner? The pings Dimitri had left for those gentlemen weren't getting any replies. Maybe Rachel hadn't considered whoever had come to the office door to be a threat, even though she hadn't known the person in question.
She wouldn't have been afraid of Lilia.
Montgomery couldn't evade that unwelcome thought.
"Hey, this one's a shade," the coroner pronounced. He had pulled up Rachel's sleeve and her tattoo was displayed on her left forearm.
"That makes life easier," Dimitri said with pleasure. "Pack it up, boys. We're out of here."
The image snatcher put his camera away. "Waste of bytes there. I had some good shots."
Montgomery was shocked by the rapid change in their attitude.
"Punch this one in for me," the coroner said to Montgomery. "We can wrap it up with an I.D." He read Rachel's number from her tattoo and Montgomery tapped it into his palm with a request for identification from the central database.
"She used the name Rachel Gottlieb," Montgomery read as if he didn't know. "Harvested as an adult by the shade hunter Rhys ibn Ali in New Concord in 2090. She abandoned her assigned labor six months later, was immediately declared missing, but never found again." He glanced up, then displayed his palm to the coroner. "In her file image, she had darker hair."
The coroner peered at the image. "Still her, though. Look at those cheekbones. You can't buy implants like that."
"I thought she was a receptionist," said Dimitri. "Her being a shade explains why the partners aren't rushing to answer me."
"They smell more questions, tough questions," Montgomery said and the others nodded agreement. Breisach and Turner could be charged with harboring stolen property—the property of the Republic—if it could be proven that they had known of Rachel's shade status.
"She might have been more than clerical staff," the coroner said matter-of-factly. "She was quite the looker."
Montgomery was shocked by the thought. But Rachel had been devoted to her quest and pragmatic. He didn't doubt that she would have been prepared to make bargains, even unconventional ones, to complete her mission.
But someone had stopped her.
What had she discovered?
Dimitri eyed Rachel's file image, still displayed on Montgomery's palm. "Quite the babe, with her guts where they belong."
"She was obviously clever enough to pass as a norm and her defect was easy to hide. I wonder what it was." The coroner cut away what was left of Rachel's clothing, baring her body to view with indifference. Montgomery inhaled sharply when her undergarments were cut away and discarded, noting how the other police officers gathered around to gape.
If she'd been a norm woman, her body would have been hidden from view.
"Everything looks like it's in the right place to me," Dimitri joked. The others chuckled, until the coroner rolled Rachel over. The cops stopped laughing, shocked to silence by the two long diagonal scars on her back.
Montgomery's mouth went dry. He had a pair exactly the same.
"Holy shit," whispered one. "What kind of mutation is that?"
"She must have had tumors removed," the coroner mused. "Or it could have been an extra organ. It's hard to say without full medical records." He glanced at Montgomery. "Are they there?"
Montgomery checked the file, then shook his head. "She had the scars when she was harvested, and they were why she failed the S.H.A.D.E."
Rachel's scars had been enough to condemn her. Montgomery felt a new awareness of his own vulnerability.
"Happens all the time." The coroner spoke dismis-sively, snapping his fingers for the body bag team. "She must have been a smart one. Too bad she didn't do her duty in serving the Republic."
"Yeah, on her knees in front of some senator," Dimitri smirked, earning himself no points in Montgomery's view.
The coroner almost smiled. "This one's out of our hands."
"You got her number, Montgomery?" Dimitri asked and Montgomery nodded. "Good, then I'll just retire it when we get back to the precinct. Don't you wish they could all be so easy?"
There was a chuckle of agreement. Rachel's body was removed like so much trash and the office given a cursory cleaning.
Montgomery found himself lingering for one last look. Other than the stains on the carpet, the office was as neat as it had been the last time he had visited Breisach and Turner. It couldn't have been a break-in or a random act of violence, or Rachel interrupting a thief. He suspected that she had died for something she had learned.
Like the shade in the old city.
Maybe like Fitzgerald.
Whatever it had been, Lilia was determined to learn it too.
"Fortune time!" Micheline sang as soon as Lilia's empty cup touched the saucer. Stevia smiled indulgently, and being a bit indulgent herself, Lilia followed the girl's directions.
"First turn it upside down," Micheline instructed. Lilia did so, ensuring that the last bit of tea spilled into the saucer. "Turn it three times, as the sun goes," commanded the little girl, then shook a finger at Lilia. "And make a wish."
Lilia wished for a clue in whatever Gid was trying to tell her.
Micheline pushed her hands away. "Ready for the future?"
"I'll have to have a word with the tarot-card reader," Stevia said under her breath.
Micheline turned the cup over with a flourish, then both Stevia and Lilia gasped. No one needed any special skills to see the images that these tea leaves had formed. There was a wiggly line on one side of the cup, and on the other, a winged man.
"An angel!" Micheline crowed.
"A dark angel," Stevia said with authority. She pointed at the wiggly line. "And a snake? I think that Lilia is going to be tempted sometime soon." She shook a finger at Lilia. "That husband of yours has something up his sleeve, that's for sure."
Lilia let Stevia believe what she wanted to believe. The "dark angel" in the cup gave her an idea—she wasn't going to think for one second about temptation.
She turned to the little girl. "Maybe I am going to see more angels. Would you show me your angels, Miche-line?"
"They're just her imagination," Stevia chided.
But Micheline reached up and touched Lilia's forehead with her fingertips. They were a bit sticky with jam but landed right where Lilia's own third eye would have been, if she'd had one.
Lilia had the barest glimpse of Micheline's eyes rolling back before her lids closed. Was it for show? The little girl took a deep breath, her face serene.
"Yes. The angels will allow you to see them," Micheline whispered slowly, majestically. The hair on the back of Lilia's neck stood up. Micheline's voice had become reminiscent of the resonant tones of Armaros and Baraqiel.
"Tomorrow. They will show themselves tomorrow."
Lilia spoke softly. "Do you know when, Micheline?"
"Early. When it's still dark."
"Where?"
"I will take you."
"Where will I find you?"
Micheline lifted her fingertips from Lilia's forehead, then opened her eyes and spoke with authority. "I will find you at the circus. The angels will tell me where to go."
Stevia and Lilia exchanged a glance and Lilia nodded slightly, letting the other woman know that she'd take care of the child.
Could there really be more angel-shades? It looked like she was going to find out.
Montgomery's desktop was pinging when he got back to his cube. At his touch, it summoned an array of hotlinks for his viewing pleasure.
Although they didn't particularly please him. They showed Lilia's activities in New Gotham, sorted by time and dat
e.
• image: Y654892
source: datachip of Lilia Desjardins time stamp: 10/27/99, 21:03
• vid: Lilia Desjardins
source: NGPD precinct vid-cam time stamp: 10/27/99, 22:36
• vid: Lilia Desjardins
source: security cam, Breisach and Turner timestamp: 10/28/99, 12:37
• image: R374591
source: police image-snatcher timestamp: 10/28/99, 19:47
Lilia's visit to Breisach and Turner had been noted by the security video. He took the hint and looked at Lilia's record. It was a different level of the databank, a deeper one than he had previously viewed. Presumably the system had authorized a closer look at Lilia's records.
Her academic history at the Institute for Radiation Studies was the main difference Montgomery saw in the new display. Lilia hadn't shown much academic prowess in her years at the Institute. Montgomery would have expected as much, given her apparent distaste for the Society's agenda. Once again, he wondered why she'd bothered to apply to the school in the first place.
What surprised him was that Lilia had received four consecutive proficiency awards in one core subject, for exceptional skill in Dissection and Vivisection.
Montgomery sat down heavily. Dissection and Vivisection couldn't be for the faint of heart. Was Lilia's squea-mishness an act? He followed the links through to the program of duties and the syllabi for the Dissection and Vivisection courses. They were, if anything, worse than he could have expected.
The databank and the Institute's records couldn't be lies. Lilia, however, had shown a tendency to manipulate the truth.
Was Lilia a shade-killer? Montgomery couldn't believe it.
Was he willing to bet his life on it? If his scars were revealed, he could be classed as a shade. Would she turn him in? Send him to the circus?
Or would she only do either if the price was right?
Montgomery spun in his chair. He liked Lilia's sense of honor. He liked that she bent the rules she saw as unimportant. He liked her fierce loyalty and he liked her passion. He respected that she presented herself as tougher than she was, if only to protect her idealism. He wanted her as well, his desire more than he'd felt for any other human woman.
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