Invasion of Justice (Shadows of Justice)

by Regan Black

  "She's been of great assistance to the CRIA–"

  Petra gained her feet and gave up on them both. "I'm going to the hotel to write your report, Kincaid," she called on her way out.

  "Wait!" Kincaid jumped out of the engine after her. "You get anything on the victims?"

  "They're safe. Escaped on a ferry headed up the Michigan coastline."

  "Destination?"

  Petra just shrugged.

  "And the Jane Doe?"

  "That was self-defense, not murder." Petra shook her head. "Jane was one scary woman."

  "What about those arm bands?"

  Petra sighed. "I don't know. Things went haywire before I could prod that out of them. If I'd been alone maybe I could've gotten more." She refused to look at Gideon.

  "If you'd been alone, you'd be dead by now," Gideon said, joining them.

  Petra looked at him, then away. The docks weren't any improvement. The bleak, dismal view left an impression she didn't want to cloud her senses later. The very air smelled of disuse and decay. "I need to get out of here."

  "I'll drive you," Kincaid offered. "We're at the Ritz downtown."

  "Nice. But no thanks. I'll take the el." As she walked the few blocks to the platform, her nerves got worse instead of better. Only after forcing herself through the security scanner and into the elevated train, did Petra realize the feelings weren't her own.

  My sister.

  Pushing aside the layer of anxiety, Petra smiled. Her sister hated the el. It was fascinating to discover such a detail about a person who'd been a figment of her imagination until an hour ago. Mentally, Petra reached out and waited for a reply. When nothing but emptiness returned to her, Petra sent out as much warmth as she could generate after the ordeal at the docks.

  Once in her hotel suite, she wrote the first draft of her report and then ran through a brief healing meditation. When she felt restored, she put on her favorite music and sent herself in search of the sister she'd never known.

  The incessant summons of her cell card brought her back before she'd made any real progress. The distinctive chirp told her it was another CRIA call. Maybe they'd found the victim in the lab at last.

  "Petra Neiman."

  "It's Kincaid."

  The tension in those words brought her to full alert. "Let me guess. Genetics researcher dead by evisceration. Looks like suicide. Pretty fresh scene, I'd bet. It got funneled to me–"

  "And you didn't report it?"

  "CRIA ordered me here. I haven't had a chance to re–"

  "Just shut up a minute."

  She did. This sort of impatience didn't match with Kincaid's normally temperate personality. Something was very wrong. "You're scaring me."

  "About time something did. Meet me downstairs in ten minutes."

  The connection died as Petra deciphered their emergency escape code. She had five minutes to meet him in the south stairwell on the tenth floor. Having not bothered to find the landmark when she checked in, she wasted two minutes getting her bearings.

  "Are we evacuating?" she asked, gasping from her mad dash up four flights.

  "Not yet. Let's go for a walk."

  He started back down and she followed him, restraining the urge to comment that they could've met at ground level. Except anyone listening to the call would've expected that. Petra knew if Kincaid was taking these precautions, there was a reason. She shivered, hoping it was a glitch and not a serious breach in CRIA security.

  The stairwell opened into a street level alley. Kincaid helped her negotiate the smelly dumpsters and cluster of homeless men near the street. They merged into the foot traffic and walked for two blocks before Kincaid spoke again.

  The tension simmering around him warned her she wouldn't like what he had to say.

  "Nathan's been arrested. Apparently for the crime you experienced." He risked a touch to steady her when she stumbled at the news, but he released her quickly. "Why didn't you call me when you felt the scene?"

  "I didn't want to believe it was real."

  "Did you see the killer?"

  She shook her head, forced herself to think logically. Her brother had nothing to do with this. Surely everyone knew better. This was just a formality.

  "I was inside him. I felt his anticipation, even the blood on his hands. It wasn't Nathan."

  "It was his retina."

  "What?" Petra stopped, and was jostled by those around her. Fortunately, nothing stronger than irritation got through. She lowered her voice. "The security scanner's wrong. It can't be Nathan. What I felt was dark and vicious. Nothing like I've ever felt in Nathan."

  "The deceased is General Hawthorne."

  Petra gasped and began walking again. "I know they didn't always agree, but they were on the same team." She straightened her shoulders. She could do this. "When do we leave?"

  "We don't. I'm leaving in an hour."

  "But I can help you ID the real assassin."

  "Not when I need you here. Not when it's personal. If you were there, you'd threaten the case no matter what you found."

  Sudden tears streamed hot down her face. "I have to see him," she begged. "Let me help."

  "You can't." They came to a stop in front of the Ritz. "It's too sensitive, Petra. I'm sorry. Don't even try to fly to him. That's an order. It'll just make things worse."

  She swiped at her face, struggled to regain her composure. "Where are they holding him?"

  "I'm not authorized to tell you."

  "Aaron, please!"

  He shook his head. "I can't. Go inside and try to get some rest."

  "My parents?" she asked before he stepped out of earshot.

  "They've been told."

  "And?"

  Kincaid just shook his head and turned away.

  She didn't need to hear the answer. With such damning initial evidence, her parents would've deserted their son for using his unique mental talents for selfish or criminal purposes. The family standards were impossibly high, image and reputation vital. Nathan's choice of a military career was constantly lamented by their mother as an outright rebellion and promotion of violence.

  She entered the hotel lobby and, grateful for the empty elevator, let the tears fall. Once inside her suite, the murder she'd been privy to replayed in her mind and she clutched her stomach as the gruesome reality swamped her.

  Nathan wasn't capable of the evil she'd witnessed and she would find a way to prove it.

  Determined, she lit up her computer and programmed the music for an extended flight. To hell with orders. No one could track her during a spiritual search. Flying without an anchorperson was a risk, but it conveniently eliminated a record of any comments she might make.

  Besides, she was flying to Nathan, her brother and best friend. They couldn't hold him anywhere that she wouldn't find him.

  Chapter Two

  The patient presents as a normal, healthy eight-year-old girl. Gleaming dark hair and intelligent blue eyes in a serious face. Her parents arranged the session, as they were concerned about recent nightmares.

  Patient describes dreams of a grandfatherly sort of neighbor who takes her hostage and abuses her to the point of death. Her words were simplistic and often her vocabulary limited a full description of events so I don't suspect staging. No one in her neighborhood fits the physical description according to parents and police. The medical report confirms parental and patient claims that she is unharmed to date.

  Her fear however, is real, and quite tangible. I ached for her while she spoke, my own eyes filled with tears. In twenty-four years of private practice, I've never been moved to such extent.

  I've prescribed three more sessions of one hour each.

  –From the notes of Dr. Julian Reynard, founder, Reynard Psychiatric Institute

  Petra's first attempt was useless; she'd not even been able to break free of the suite. Now she felt ill and her stomach threatened to derail her next attempt. She eased back on the couch and tried to work through her preliminary reports f
or Kincaid.

  Chills skated across her skin and she felt her temperature climb. When tears rolled down her cheeks, she realized the whole episode was an echo of someone else's trouble.

  She reached out from her mind, searching for the source of the miserable signals. Her parents and closest friends were safe. In the past, only her brother could push his symptoms onto her like this. She still hadn't quite forgiven him for the flu of 2090, though sharing his high fever probably saved his life.

  Impatient, she stood up to make tea. Focusing on a physical task often interrupted wayward connections like this. But the room spun and she fell back.

  "Nathan?" she whispered to the empty room. Maybe her parents were right. Nathan's talents did surpass hers, but this didn't feel like Nathan. Of course, in her opinion, Nathan hadn't felt entirely like himself for nearly two years.

  The fresh, devastating loss brought on convulsive sobs. Desperate, Petra tried to pull away by imagining the connection as a thread and cutting it.

  Imagery didn't work. Wishing for a shut-off valve for her empathic ability wouldn't either. That left one option.

  Grateful she'd kept her laptop close, she reached out and restarted the music. The meditative baroque melodies washed over her. It was dangerous to backtrack an unknown link, but she didn't feel any undercurrent of deceit, just a bone-crushing loss that echoed her own feelings. This tie was clear and strong and, at the moment, her brother was neither.

  It stretched her, tapped out her already low reserves, but she followed the tide of sorrow until she hit an icy wall. She tried to nudge around it, looking for a way inside, but the layers of bitterness were thick and her attempts to soothe were useless.

  Defeated, Petra groaned as she came back from her flight. All she'd found was one hurt and angry woman, with big trust issues. Still crying and dizzy, she forced herself to her suitcase to dig out a derma patch for pain and fever. Slapping it on her abdomen she crawled back to the couch, made a fast note of date, time, and primary emotion, then gave in to the meds to sleep it off.

  Gideon watched Petra stumble around her suite. Her short black hair was mussed making the odd gray streak more noticeable. How old was she? The dossier said twenty-eight, but it didn't indicate any addictions either, and she clearly wasn't in good health. Well, that made two of them.

  He rubbed his left shoulder and rolled it a few times. In a few minutes a chime would sound reminding him to stretch it. He didn't really need the reminder anymore, but setting it had become habit during the days immediately following his injury.

  When the order for this assignment had come down, Gideon was trading foul words with his first, and last, physical therapist.

  How the mighty have fallen.

  He resented sitting here, listening and watching some ultra-femme con-woman work the system. May as well be a desk jockey. A position he was morally opposed to and had no intention of putting up with for long.

  Still, he dutifully checked all the camera angles in her suite three floors down, but Sleeping Beauty looked to be out for the count. He refused to envy her. He turned up the volume, heard the most boring of classical music, and immediately silenced the feed.

  Standing, he took the prescribed position near the wall, slid his left palm as high as possible, and rotated his body at the shoulder.

  He ignored the soft chime. Pain. Relief. More pain. More or less relief.

  Ten reps of pushing the rotation envelope. It seemed like eternity since he'd pushed any real limits of weapons, vehicles, or special ops. One lousy dislocation and they'd relegated him to covert babysitter.

  "Oh, goody. A gold star for the ol' performance record," he muttered aloud.

  The answering vibration of his sub-dermal pager snatched him out of his self-pity and made him wonder if they'd loaded this latest model with an audio transmitter.

  Protocol allowed thirty minutes to answer any call. Gideon considered making them wait. It'd be a futile exercise. They knew as well as he did there wasn't anything life-threatening going on in the Ritz tonight.

  At his laptop, he emailed the appropriate check-in code and waited for further instruction.

  "Please, God, let it be a real job."

  The message appeared on screen. Nathan Burkhardt has gained access to the prison. Stand by.

  At least someone could take pride in a day's work. Impersonating a criminal, taking the rap and injections in the line of duty, all of it was better than babysitting some useless psychic wannabe.

  Stay on Neiman. Update every twelve hours or as situation develops.

  "Gee, Colonel Dufus, the kid fell asleep. Can I invite over my girl?"

  Behave, Callahan.

  Gideon blinked and looked at the hairline scar on his right biceps. If they'd really added an audio feed to his pager, he was in some serious trouble.

  He watched Sleeping Beauty for a minute longer, then went to nuke the last dregs of coffee. What he wouldn't give for some real caffeine. He should work that into his next contract.

  The idea made him chuckle as he pictured such prohibited negotiations, but he lost all humor to discover his charge gone from the video frame.

  He keyed in a camera change, but unless she was hiding in a corner of the bathroom, Petra Neiman was AWOL. He bit back a curse. This definitely wasn't a development he planned to advertise.

  Grabbing his jacket and a multi-purpose card, Gideon headed out to find her.

  The fresh air–fresh being a relative term in downtown Chicago–cleared her head for the first time in hours. She walked away from the hotel, toward Lake Michigan, until she found an organic food bar with an available table. From the isolated spot, she watched the crowds shift as workers left the city and evening visitors came in.

  Across the aisle, she picked up on mild guilt and wariness, smiling to see a woman discreetly sprinkle what must've been pure sugar into her tea.

  She remembered studying the prohibition era in the 1920s and realized how little people changed. Technology and laws, maybe, but at the base of it, people stayed the same. She hadn't yet decided if that was a positive trend.

  In her pocket, her cell card hummed. Petra pulled it out and recognized her office number.

  "Hi, Kelly," she answered.

  "Lucky guess," Kelly replied with a smile in her voice. "It was nearly your mother. She seemed to think you were about to go flying off without a ground person."

  "So nice to be loved," Petra said.

  "Yeah, well, I deserve a raise for keeping her off your back. How're things in the big city?"

  "How're things ever, where I am?" she groused.

  "Red alert, Pet's whining. What's up?"

  "Sorry. Just a bad day. I'll send you a copy of my report to file. You should know Nathan's been arrested for murder."

  Kelly gasped, sputtered, and then swore with such vengeance Petra actually laughed. "Thanks. I know the charges are false," she managed at last. "But it feels better to have someone agree with me."

  "I'll start hacking around–"

  "That's nonsense," Petra cut her off. The last thing she needed was Kelly to get caught snooping where she wasn't welcome. "Why don't you come meet me here?"

  "Great! We'll hack around together. I can be on the road as soon as you tell me where you stashed the spare keys to Nate's car."

  "I think not." Petra tried not to be amused and failed. Kelly's devotion and enthusiasm meant everything on a day when the foundations of her personal life were crumbling.

  She had a sister she'd never known. A sister capable of surviving life and death combat. And she had a brother she'd loved all her life in jail for a crime she knew he didn't commit.

  "Pet? You there?"

  She refused to cry again. "Yes. I'm here. You can't drive Nate's car."

  "Oh, yes I can. I'm getting better all the time."

  Petra pictured her sprightly assistant's long, dark hair, obsidian eyes, fine boned features, and impish grin. From the moment they'd met, she reminded Petra of a misplaced
, mischievous fairy.

  In truth, she didn't want anyone else behind the wheel of the gorgeous vintage Mustang. It was foolish, she knew, but the car was her only physical link to her brother and she didn't want anything muddling up the tenuous bond.

  "You're considering aren't you?" Kelly persisted.

  "No." Petra lowered her voice. "I've decided you should stay put."

  Gideon had just strolled by the bar for the second time.

  "There's trouble here, Kelly, and you can be more help from a distance. Do me a favor?"

  "Sure, boss."

  Petra smiled again. The only time that phrase came out of Kelly's mouth was when she was pouting. "Track down my birth records and my mother's OB history."

  "OB as in obstetric?"

  "Yes. I've got to go, Mom." Gideon was aiming straight at her. "We'll talk soon. Bye." She hung up on Kelly and turned off the card as Gideon slid into the chair opposite hers.

  "Does Mom know you're scoping a night on the town, Petra?"

  "That's Ms. Neiman to you."

  "Right," he said, stretching out the word. "I'll take your indignant expression for a no. Polite ladies like yourself really shouldn't explore night life around here without an escort."

  "Is that a threat?"

  "Could be an offer."

  "Then I decline without regrets."

  "Ouch," he said with a cocky grin, laying his hand over his heart. "Shot down before the hunt begins."

  Something in his tone caught her attention. This wasn't a man who instilled trust, but he did rouse her curiosity. His hovering combined with the bogus CRIA order to leave Kelly at home had her on full alert.

  She toyed with her cash card as she studied him. Under the closer scrutiny she realized his posture was off. He showed a distinct favor in his left shoulder, though she'd bet he thought he projected an invincible front. He'd irritated her enough during the earlier interrogation she took the opening.

  "I could help with that, y'know. Your shoulder," she clarified when he scowled.

  "I'm good, thanks."

  "Are you doing your exercises?" she pushed.

  "You're nuts." He shifted, slouching and working hard to look careless.