by EJ Fisch
“You may dispense with the pleasantries, Lieutenant.” Jaroon’s speech was dignified but his voice was gruff. “Rest assured that no one in this household has seen or heard from Ziva since the assassination.”
“Do either of you have any idea what would have prompted her to kill Tachi?” The question felt strange – after such a brief conversation with her about the matter, Aroska was not yet convinced that Ziva was entirely innocent. At any rate, it seemed she was potentially more innocent than whoever else was involved, if that even made sense. What have I gotten into?
Njo glared at him from behind bushy black eyebrows, silently chastising him for daring to ask another question. “No,” he snapped. “If anyone had any idea, it would be you and your agency.”
So the mysterious incident that had sparked Ziva’s hatred for Tachi wasn’t known outside of HSP. That would help when it came to narrowing down exactly what it was. Reminding himself that he should currently play the role of loyal investigator rather than actually be one, Aroska forced another abbreviated nod. “Thank you, sir. I’ll be on my way.”
The three parted company, Njo and Namani exiting through an open patio door and Aroska heading up the impressive staircase. The house truly was a masterpiece, no doubt dating back to the original establishment of the Royal City. It was eerily quiet, and that combined with the fact that he didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing left him frozen halfway up the steps. He had made a point to rise early in order to prepare himself for the day and had found, to his surprise, that Ziva was already gone. On second thought, it hadn’t actually surprised him at all. The woman was a ghost, disappearing on a whim and affecting his mind to the point where he’d wondered if everything that was happening was just part of some insane dream. It was no wonder HSP was unable to track her down.
If it was a dream, he was still in it. With no way of knowing when or if he would ever wake up, he concluded that it would be best to at least do something that would leave him with a sense of accomplishment when the time came. Helping an alleged capital criminal evade the authorities was accomplishing something…wasn’t it?
Aroska broke out of his stupor and continued to the top of the staircase, where he found himself in a small open area with a sofa and table and a hallway on either side of him. According to the data he had gathered before leaving headquarters that morning, there was Jada and then there were Jaril and Jazel, the Haphezian half-siblings. He preferred to not deal with the latter two if he could so help it, but at the same time he thought he should probably try to stall in order to buy Ziva the time to do whatever the hell it was she was doing. On the other hand, he didn’t want to take too long and drag out the escape process any longer than necessary. “Ziva, you owe me big time,” he muttered, turning down the corridor on the left.
There were several closed doors lining the wall to his right, no doubt bedrooms overlooking the back of the property. He felt odd intruding on anyone, but standing in the hallway looking lost wouldn’t do any good either. Inhaling deeply, he went to the first door and knocked, waited, and then tried the controls to find the room unlocked. The door slid open with a hiss and he found himself looking into a large apartment-style room that appeared to have been unoccupied for some time judging by the storage containers stacked about and the bare mattress in the bed frame. He ventured a few steps inside and listened for a moment before retreating back out into the hall, satisfied no one was around.
Mind wandering, Aroska continued to the next room, this one on his left. He repeated the process of knocking and waiting and found that it too was unlocked. Inside he found a well-furnished room similar in style to the other, though this one was clearly still in use. The massive canopy bed sat unmade behind a thin pale-green veil, and a variety of clothes were strewn about the floor – all feminine, mostly undergarments, Aroska noted. This room obviously belonged to…
Her name trailed away when her voice rang out from down the hallway. “Who the hell are you?”
Aroska turned in the direction he’d been heading to find Jazel Jaroon standing outside the lavatory door wearing only a flimsy house robe. She pulled it tighter around her scrawny body and strode toward him, face scrunched in a manner that attempted but failed to intimidate him. She was about the same height as her mother and only bore a resemblance to Ziva if he squinted a little. According to the information, she and Jaril were twenty-year-old twins, though Jazel made herself up to look a good three or four years older. In the few seconds he’d stood there studying her, it was clear that she tried way too hard, whether it was to draw the eyes of men or give her self-esteem a boost. It was typical behavior for a child in a family with a structure such as this one, nothing but an attempt to compensate for the lack of attention from royal parents. Her face was caked with powder, eyes lined with black half a centimeter thick, eyebrows plucked to the point that they were nearly nonexistent. Vanity aside, she wasn’t bad-looking – if he’d had no idea who she was, Aroska might have expressed interest.
“Hello Jazel. HSP,” he said, displaying the special ops credentials he had been given. “Care to answer a few questions?”
The young woman smirked and leaned up against the frame of her door, no longer quite so conservative with the grip on her robe. “Are you here to interrogate me, agent?” she asked, letting her eyes flit about flirtatiously.
The girl had no shame. In any other situation Aroska would have responded with a coy comment of his own, but at the moment he was determined not to stoop to her level. “Have you heard from Ziva recently?” he asked, refusing to indulge her.
“No,” she snapped, “and I don’t care to. Thanks to her, this whole city is on lockdown and I’ve been stuck in this house for three days.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Sounds brutal.”
“It is. If you ask me, she’s getting what she deserves for what she did to Tachi, but it’s unfair that the rest of us have to suffer.”
“It sounds like you couldn’t care less about what’s happening to your own sister.”
“Half-sister,” Jazel bit. “It’s too bad a relation could be proven using DNA – otherwise I wouldn’t claim one at all. All she’s ever done is cause problems for us. She’s messed up in the head.”
Aroska wondered who exactly was messed up in the head, as well as what the definition of a “problem” was. He couldn’t fathom how she’d even had the opportunity to develop this attitude, considering he was fairly sure Ziva had done everything in her power to avoid her family during recent years. Had Namani instilled this mindset in her? Was this conflict the reason Ziva had left so many years earlier? He considered the things he’d read in Ziva’s background profile, and now he was even more curious to hear her take on the situation. A dozen points of argument spun through his skull, but Jada appeared out of thin air and prevented him from speaking his mind.
“Lieutenant Tarbic isn’t it?” she said, gliding up to them with a distasteful eye on Jazel. “We met a couple months ago in Noro.”
“Jada,” he replied, hoping his relief wasn’t as obvious as it felt. “Always a pleasure.”
Her long brown hair was loose from the braid she had worn when they’d first been introduced, reaching two thirds of the way down her back. She seemed shorter than Aroska remembered, though he realized she was barefoot. Despite the fact that she was younger than her Haphezian counterpart, it was clear merely in the way she carried herself that she possessed wisdom and charisma beyond her years.
“If you’re here about Ziva, I’d be glad to answer any questions,” Jada said, turning back the way she had come with a short cough.
“Great,” he said, mustering all the poise he could while Jazel was still present. “I won’t be long – I’ve got somewhere else to be and they’re expecting me back in Noro soon.”
Thankfully Jazel took her cue and turned away. “If there’s anything else, Lieutenant, I’ll be in the shower.” She began to strut back toward the lavatory, throwing a wink back at him as she went.
Jada walked like true royalty, with shoulders rolled back and head held high. Aroska wasn’t sure if it was two months’ worth of maturity or simply the fact that they were under the Royal General’s roof, but there was definitely a more aristocratic air about her than there had been during dinner that night in Noro.
“I’m terribly sorry about that,” she said, loud enough that Jazel could no doubt still hear.
“Your sister has a very…mature outlook on life,” Aroska scoffed, stealing a glance back toward the lavatory.
Jada led him past the staircase to the room at the far end of the hallway. “One of many side-effects of being raised in an environment like this,” she replied, opening the door and stepping aside to let him through. “Don’t get me wrong, living here isn’t a bad thing, but unlike Jaril and Jazel, I’ve had enough experience with life on the outside to know I shouldn’t take all of this for granted.”
“A logical perspective.”
“Yeah, well around here the logical thinkers are the ones who are considered narrow-minded. If they want to know who’s actually short-sighted, all they need to do is look in a mirror.” She showed him to a comfortable chair near the glass door that led out to a balcony overlooking the yard. “It’s an interesting phenomenon. I’m under the impression that everyone thinks I’m as crazy as Ziva the majority of the time.”
Aroska took the seat and waited for Jada to sit down across from him. “Speaking of Ziva,” he said, trying to move things along as efficiently as possible.
“Speaking of Ziva,” the girl sighed, her tone making it sound like some sort of agreement rather than a simple echo. She was quiet for a moment, thoughtfully rubbing her hand across her forehead with her eyes closed. Even after having only met her once, it was clear to Aroska how close Jada and Ziva were, and he respectfully gave her some time.
“I can tell by the tone of your voice that you have a different view on all of this than most people,” she said. “I couldn’t care less whose side you’re on right now and I understand you’re only doing your job. However, I want you to know that I really appreciate the attitude you seem to have; you’re not here to interrogate anyone, you’re here to carry on a civilized conversation like a true professional. I think Ziva would appreciate it, too.”
Aroska found himself rendered momentarily speechless, part of him happy for the compliment and part of him feeling guilty about even being a part of HSP at the moment. He reminded himself that he had yet to hear the whole story and that he should remain a neutral party for the time being. “Thanks,” he replied. “Like you said, I’m just trying to do my job. Despite everything, I have a lot of respect for your sister and I’d like to catch up to her before the rest of the agency does. I don’t want to see her suffer any more than she has to.”
“If I asked if you knew where she was, would you tell me?”
“Even if I did know, I doubt I could tell you.” That much was true – he literally hadn’t the slightest clue where Ziva was, though he imagined she might be somewhere in Haphor since she’d gone through the trouble of sending him there. He felt more and more like a pawn as the seconds passed, and the more he thought about it, he couldn’t come up with a better term to describe himself. Ziva was using him to keep Dasaro and company occupied while she was running around doing the galaxy only knew what. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to get this nonsense over with and see some action.
He shifted in his seat. “If Ziva were to come here to Haphor, where would she go?”
Jada seemed puzzled by the question but broke out into a grin. “At this point she would probably infiltrate the Royal City in broad daylight just to prove she could.” Then the smile dissolved as abruptly as it had appeared. “Honestly I don’t know,” she said with a sad wag of her head. “She never liked spending much time here.”
And with that Aroska felt as though he was back to square one. Ziva had neither told him what to do nor told him how to figure out what to do. Did she expect him to just go sit at a bar somewhere and wait for her to make contact? At the moment that didn’t sound like such a bad idea.
He stood up, unsure how to end the conversation. He’d been there for what, fifteen minutes? Jada watched him quizzically, her wise brown eyes telling him she was aware he was fighting some sort of internal battle. He wanted very much to tell her what he knew, though he recalled what Ziva had said about her being fearful of getting too involved. At this point he didn’t feel like he even knew enough for it to be a problem; he’d be putting himself in more danger than anyone else.
“I wasn’t entirely truthful with you a minute ago,” he said, resolving to at least fill her in on the basic details. “It’s true that I have no idea where Ziva currently is. However—” he glanced toward the door and lowered his voice a bit “—she’s been with me for the past two days. The agency does have me running point on the team assigned to track her down, but I’m doing it on her behalf.”
The look on Jada’s face made Aroska wonder if she even believed him. She watched him through slightly narrowed eyes in a manner than reminded him of Zinni or even Ziva herself. Neither of them said anything for a while as they each contemplated what he’d just said. For a moment Aroska regretted saying anything, but after a few more seconds of studying the girl’s face, he could tell a certain shadow had been lifted from it. Still, she didn’t smile and her eyes didn’t change.
“Good to know, Lieutenant,” she said, standing up as well, “but I ask that you don’t tell me anything else. If we were in Noro that would be one thing, but right now I’m stuck under this roof and it would be best if I didn’t know any more than I have to.”
“Completely understandable,” Aroska said, offering a hand. “I just thought you should be aware – I wish I would have had your good judgment when I was seventeen.”
Jada shook his hand and her lips finally parted in a radiant smile. “Try eighteen.”
“My mistake, my lady,” Aroska said with a sheepish dip of his head. He checked his watch – he’d managed to waste a total of twenty minutes there at the Jaroon estate. Perhaps he could spend a while scoping out the streets for any signs of Ziva, though he couldn’t bring himself to believe it would do much good.
“There’s a little café just outside the Royal City,” Jada said as he turned to leave. “I’ve met Ziva there maybe three times – it’s the only place I know of that she ever frequents when she’s over here. It might be worth it to check there. If she sent you here to ask me where to go, that’s where I’d tell you.”
Aroska shrugged. “Hey, at this point I’ll take anything I can get.” With one last nod he was on his way out, angling toward the stairs with a cautious eye in the direction of the lavatory. There was no sign of Njo, Namani, or the butler who had let him in as he strode through the entry and broke out onto the front walkway. His groundcar sat untouched where he’d left it, though it remained under the watchful eyes of several Royal Guard agents who were patrolling the immediate area. They all hesitated when they caught sight of him so he picked up his pace, just as uncomfortable with being scrutinized as they were with him being there.
Within a moment he was pulling the car out into the traffic of the Royal City’s main thoroughfare, which was minimal on account of the lockdown. The community was large but the road provided a straight shot to both primary entrances as well as several secondary ones. Lost in thought, Aroska barely noticed when he arrived back at the front gate. After a brief stop and a quick search of the car by the guards, he found himself making his way through the hustle and bustle of the main city.
Jada had neglected to specify where exactly this restaurant was, but being as most of the buildings in the vicinity seemed to be offices, he imagined it wouldn’t be too hard to find. Taking his
chances, he guided the car to the right, easing into place on the one-way street between two slower-moving vehicles. Before he had made it half a block, the line stopped moving altogether, held up by some unseen delay at the next intersection.
Heaving an impatient sigh, Aroska leaned back in his seat and drummed his fingers on the controls, realizing he really had nothing better to do than sit in traffic. He glanced to the walkways on either side of him, wondering what the chances were that he would actually catch sight of Ziva. Keeping an eye out for someone who didn’t want to be found – especially when that someone was Lieutenant Ziva Payvan – was as close to futile as something could get. It wasn’t a matter of finding her, but rather of her making herself known when she saw fit.
That was why he nearly laughed out loud when he saw her. At first he hadn’t realized who he was looking at – her hair had been released from its perpetual ponytail and she was wearing dark glasses – but after a quick double-take he saw she was watching him. She was sitting on a bench using a news hologram for cover, but her head was turned directly toward him. With her eyes obscured, it was impossible to tell if she was making eye contact, yet he could feel her gaze boring into him as if she were standing a meter away. Not wanting to draw any attention to her by staring, Aroska shifted his focus back to the street. Traffic was still frozen; Ziva had clearly inserted herself into this particular spot knowing he would be held up long enough to notice her.
When he stole another glance in her direction, she had risen to her feet and was holding the shades at her side. As soon as he reestablished eye contact, she replaced them and looked up the street. Only then did he notice the HSP-issue hoverbike parked at the curb a short distance away, no doubt the same one she had taken from the checkpoint in the forest. Using it in the middle of the city was a bold move on her part…unless she wanted to be caught.