Sharp

by Alex Hughes

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Stone said.

  * * *

  I ran up the battered stone steps at the front of the building, sucking in air hard, and slowed at the top, right at the door. Sweat pooled on the back of my neck as I opened that front door. . . .

  An unmarked police car, Cherabino’s car, screeched away down the street with her at the wheel. It burned rubber around a corner, then squealed as she demanded the anti-grav engage too suddenly—it limped into the air, narrowly missing an airbus, and left like all the demons of hell were following.

  Part of me, the tiny part that leaked through the Link, followed her, me running too, all my hopes disappearing behind her.

  In the front of my head, I felt Stone announce himself. I slammed up every shield I had, tolerated him only for the few seconds it took him to rummage through my mind, and stood, panting, as he pulled away.

  I had no secrets. I had no damn secrets anymore. And Swartz . . . and Swartz . . . how the hell was I going to explain all of this at our next morning coffee meeting? Would we even have another morning coffee meeting?

  I limped into the cold air-conditioned lobby and walked, like a funeral march, to the coffee closet. There, I locked the door and ate four stale donuts until my brain stopped screaming, until the fight-or-flight thing settled down and I could think, a little.

  When I came out, Bellury was standing there waiting for me.

  “What’s this about you talking to a dealer this afternoon?” Bellury wanted to know. He had a boxy leather case in his hand, the same case—well, I knew what that case was. Another damn drug test.

  CHAPTER 21

  By the time I called that night, Selah said Swartz was sleeping. Frustrated, I got Bellury to drive me home.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said as he drove. “Really.”

  “We’ll know for sure when the test comes back tomorrow,” Bellury said. He turned left, down a street into the bad part of town that neighbored my apartments from the east. It was out of our way to go this way, but Bellury had been a semiretired cop for a long time, and he was watching the streets carefully, hoping someone would be stupid enough to commit a crime where he could see it and have to do something about it.

  “Cherabino’s mad at me. I mean, really mad.”

  “She’s been mad before.”

  She had. This time felt different, though.

  “If you’re telling the truth, it will come out. She’ll calm down.”

  “She doesn’t trust me, though.” Bellury didn’t trust me either, but the knowledge of that didn’t cut at me.

  “She’s a cop.”

  “It’s personal.”

  “Is it?” Bellury asked, glancing over at me. “You falling for the detective?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “You sure?”

  A note of question lay in my own mind. A real, honest question. Had I fallen for her?

  After a pause of far too long, with Bellury smirking, I had to say something. “I’ve proven myself, over and over. What more does she want from me? I’ve done everything she asks. I’ve worked hard.” Swartz said you couldn’t have a relationship if you couldn’t keep a plant alive. And I’d killed more plants than I could count; long hours did not a good horticulturalist make. But this was Cherabino, beautiful, cranky Cherabino, and more than anything I wanted . . . well, I wanted her.

  I batted the thought away like I’d fight down a craving, but it stuck back up. Bellury had twisted the tiger’s tail, and now the thought wouldn’t leave me alone. That kiss . . . and her. The way she smelled. The way she laughed. The way she cared, all too much, for the victims. For justice.

  She was beautiful, was Cherabino. She was strong, and difficult, and stubborn, and deadly smart.

  “She’s the only one who doesn’t know,” Bellury said quietly.

  I realized with panic—and then with a pang—that maybe he was right. That everybody else saw. That I—when I wasn’t stuffing it in a closet and sitting on it—I saw too. But not her. Not her, and wasn’t that ironic? The only one in the whole department I shared headspace with, the only one I was Linked to, and I’d hidden my feelings so well she didn’t see me.

  “You think I’m going to keep my job?”

  “I don’t know, Adam. I really don’t know.”

  * * *

  Linda Powell, Emily’s sister, came back on Wednesday morning. Cherabino had asked Mrs. Powell to bring in her niece.

  “Children know everything,” she’d said yesterday. I had no reason to disagree; I didn’t have a lot of experience with normal kids, but the trainees at the Guild seemed to get in everyone’s business. The younger, sometimes, the more details they seemed to know. Of course, the youngest children in the Guild were in the fourth grade or so, but supposedly Laney Hamilton was about that age.

  At the moment, Cherabino was sitting in the observation room with a migraine that, despite my best efforts, was leaking behind my eyes. She’d asked the tech if she could turn the lights way, way down, and faced with her misery, he hadn’t been able to say no. She had a high pain tolerance, which her sensei liked, but when she came into work sharing this much pain it wasn’t pleasant for me. At least it distracted me from going over other things, things I couldn’t afford to think about right now.

  I was already in the interview room. I’d tried to book the clean one, but Clark had scooped it up for this rich man’s robbery case and wouldn’t let it go. So here we were. The surroundings were only the second step of hell, much less bad than the worst interview room. And the dirt layer was light; we actually let the cleaners in here occasionally. But it wasn’t a palace either, and the mirror-slash-observation-window behind me was smudged and covered in various types of dirt.

  Bellury escorted the sister in with a big smile and a sandwich he’d purchased on my credit—I was tired of him stealing my lunch. Mrs. Powell held her niece tighter against her side and stared at me disapprovingly.

  I gestured to the two seats I’d set up for them at the end of the table, complete with two cups. Mrs. Powell got a steaming cup of tolerable department coffee, and Laney got our best cup of artificial orange juice. They also spent far too much time getting settled.

  I introduced myself to Laney, assuming that the older woman wasn’t going to give me the time of day unless I had a good reason. “I heard you just got out of school.” This was Emily’s little girl, and I would be kind to her no matter what it cost me.

  “That’s right. It’s a half day. The teachers have to be there the whole time, but we get to leave early.” Laney was a thin kid, with long limbs, dirty blond hair that fell pin-straight to her shoulders, and a pair of glasses that made her look a lot like an owl. She was too young for corrective procedures, I assumed. She had an air about her of awkwardness, all angles, and, as I’d suspected in the crime scene earlier, she had a low-level Ability—and was controlled for that age. With her father, probably she’d had to be.

  “What grade are you in?” I asked.

  “Fifth. I’m on a team with some sixth graders, in soccer, though.”

  “You must be pretty good at soccer, then, huh?”

  She frowned at me and pushed up the glasses. “When are you going to ask me about my mom?”

  “What?”

  “That’s why I’m here, right? Because my mom is dead and you want to know if I know anything that might help you catch the guy who did it and find my dad.”

  “That’s right,” I said, and looked at Mrs. Powell, who shrugged. I radically revised my strategy for the conversation. Clearly this girl was the more-information, better-information type. “We’re trying to figure out why it happened so we can keep this guy from doing it again.”

  The girl nodded and took a breath. “I’ve been thinking about it. A lot of people don’t like my dad, but my mom has a lot of work friends and
people who like her. You want to know about enemies, right?”

  “If you think something happened with those enemies recently. Yes, please, but friends too, if they had fights recently.”

  Laney then proceeded with a surprisingly coherent fifteen-minute rundown of most of her dad’s associates and began on her mom’s.

  “Hold on,” I said.

  She stopped midsentence and sniffed. I could feel the emotions she was holding back at talking about her parents, sadness like a hurricane on the other side of those owllike glasses. I wished there was something I could do for her.

  “We don’t have to do this now if you’re sad.” I glanced at Mrs. Powell for support.

  “Yes, honey. You’ve already done a lot. Nobody would fault you for needing some time, would they?”

  I could take a cue. “That’s right.”

  She sniffed again and then lifted her chin. “I need to help. I want to help, okay?”

  “Okay.” I understood needing something to do. The trouble was getting the useful information out of her rather than the dross. How to phrase it? “I guess what would be most helpful is anything that changed in the last few months. Anything unusual.”

  “He hit her less,” Laney said. Mrs. Powell turned her head in shock.

  Laney was being so matter-of-fact about it, I couldn’t do any less. “How often?” I asked.

  “Hardly once a week. Sometimes even less. The last few months he’s been calmer. Mom seems calmer too.”

  Mrs. Powell looked terribly uncomfortable, as if a terrible secret were being aired in public. I’d met her kind before and had no use for them. The facts were what mattered, and hiding these kinds of secrets only made them worse.

  “Anything else that changed in that time?”

  “A few months ago Emily was complaining of money troubles,” Mrs. Powell said. “Lately they seem to be doing better.”

  I gestured at her to settle down. Then to Laney: “Do you know what the money trouble was about?”

  She nodded, looking down. “I overheard them talking. I was at the top of the stairs where they couldn’t see me. I’m not supposed to listen.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Dad got a pay cut at work—a big one—and I think it was his fault. He said it wasn’t a lot. And he got mad and yelled, and said if Mom was making her commissions they’d be fine. She kept saying something back, but I didn’t hear it. She didn’t yell so much.”

  I nodded encouragement. “What else?”

  “A while ago, they had this fight. Mom said something about taking care of the money, but he was yelling about needing more money. He lost some, somehow. Probably gambled it,” she said, in that too-adult voice. “He loses a lot that way. Then he started hitting her again, a lot. She had a black eye she tried to cover with makeup, but you could still see it. That’s when she started leaving me alone.”

  “She left you alone?” Mrs. Powell said.

  I gestured for her to be quiet. “Laney, tell me about that. Anything you can remember.”

  The girl looked back and forth between us and finally at the table. She pushed up her glasses again. “She told me I had to be good and not to tell Dad she was going. This was poker night,” she explained, as if that explained everything. Maybe in her world it did. “She rented me a movie and ordered pizza, and then said not to leave the house and be good. She said I couldn’t have Dora over either, which I thought was mean.”

  “When did she leave? When did she get back?”

  “She left about eight, right after the pizza came. I watched the movie and then I went to bed like I was supposed to. It was a school night.”

  “Did your mom look tired the next morning when she took you to school?”

  She nodded. “She had like three cups of coffee. But Dad had a hangover and stayed in bed, so he didn’t know.”

  “I see.”

  “Once I watched two movies instead of one, and I fell asleep on the couch,” Laney added. “When Mom came home, she woke me up and she was really mad.”

  Mrs. Powell put her hand on her niece’s shoulder. “Where did she go, Laney?”

  “There was mud on her jeans and she had to clean her shoes, and the floor. I don’t think she went to the grocery store or the movies or anything. But when I asked her, she said not to worry about it. Adults are always telling me not to worry, and then bad things happen.” The emotion was welling up again in a flood.

  “Laney,” I said, with just enough punch to distract her. I held up a hand to keep Mrs. Powell from interrupting.

  “What?”

  “Anything else? Anything new?”

  She frowned, and thought, the wheels turning and focusing the emotion into something useful. “Well. It’s not important. But Mom had a new friend over. She said they knew each other at the Guild.”

  I had a sinking feeling. “What was her name? What did she look like?”

  Laney frowned. “I don’t know her name. She wasn’t very nice to me. She was a black lady with long hair and not much makeup and she wore flat shoes with work clothes. Mom says if you don’t wear high heels to work, it looks like you don’t care. Once there was a bald guy there. I didn’t like him at all. He looked at me funny. I went to my room.”

  Tamika was there? And now she was missing.

  “Do you remember what he looks like?” Mrs. Powell asked when I didn’t. “The bald man.”

  “Could you draw a picture?” I added. Maybe the bald man was the missing telepath or Sibley.

  “I can’t draw.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  She thought about that, the tears held at bay for a moment anyway. She finally shook her head. “He was bald. I didn’t like him, but Mom said he was important to her plan. She said she was almost ready to tell me about it.”

  “Her plan?” Mrs. Powell asked.

  Laney looked up and nodded. “She wouldn’t talk about it, but last week she asked me. If she and Dad got a divorce, would I choose her?”

  “And what did you say?” Mrs. Powell was almost foaming at the mouth to know.

  “She’s dead now! What does it matter?” And Laney started tearing up again.

  “Laney. Laney, I’m sorry. Just one more thing. It could help.”

  She sniffed. “And what is that?” Tension was like the blade of a knife in the room.

  “Do you know what a telepath is?”

  “Yes.” She took a breath. A tear ran down her cheek. “They came and tested us. If you can read minds or do stuff, they take you off to live at the Guild. Or they give you lessons. I guess you have to get your parents’ permission or something. I kept hoping they’d pick me so I could live at the Guild, but it didn’t happen.”

  Poor girl, when the Guild test was her best chance at another life. On the other hand, my own story wasn’t all that different. “I’m a telepath, a Level Eight if you know what that means.”

  Mrs. Powell grabbed her arm then, but Bellury was abruptly there and Laney pulled away, leaning forward.

  “Can you read my mind and stuff?”

  “Not without your permission. If you’ll let me, though, I’d like to borrow your memory. I’d like to figure out who those two people are.”

  The girl sat back, thinking.

  Bellury kept a tight watch on Mrs. Powell. “It’s her decision,” he murmured.

  “Will it help?” Laney asked.

  “It might.”

  “Okay.”

  “Really? That’s it?”

  “Well, you’re not going to hurt me, are you?” Now her eyes narrowed.

  “I promise I won’t.”

  “Okay, then. But if you do I’ll scream and you’ll be in trouble.”

  “I understand,” I said gravely. “I promised, though.”

  Five minutes later, the girl and
her aunt were leaving, and I stopped Mrs. Powell at the door.

  I handed her a card, my card. “If there’s ever anything I can do . . . ,” I told her.

  She hesitated before tucking it into her purse.

  Afterward I sat, trying to recover from the challenging read. Blocking out a migraine via Link while reading a twitchy fifth grader whose mind kept wandering was not a task for sissies. Especially while keeping my promise to her.

  My head pounding, right now my nose was full of the smell of kerosene, the heavy-sharp, bright smell I hadn’t smelled in ages. But Laney had, all over her mother, the last night she’d described, when her mother had come in late.

  A few days before, Tamika—it was indeed Tamika—had visited, with a bald man in tow. A bald man who walked with the controlled power of high-level military training.

  Tamika in the memory had seemed nervous, and had kept glancing at him, then back at Emily. She’d tried to get Laney away from the conversation, and quickly. Was Sibley threatening Tamika? Had he used her to scout out the house?

  I spent the rest of the day in the interview rooms, interview after interview while I tried to figure out how this had happened. On my break, when I had a minute, I pulled the casebook from Cherabino’s empty cubicle. She was in court, or working from home, or something. In the back of my head, she still had the migraine pounding.

  I searched through every one of the inventory entries for the house. The blueprints were absent. Either they were hidden well or—I sat down in Cherabino’s chair—or Sibley had gone there to steal those blueprints. Those blueprints of Tech. Maybe Fiske was using them to assemble a Tech supercomputer from the blueprints with all the parts that had gone missing.

  And he’d used Tamika to do it.

  * * *

  I visited Cherabino’s cubicle, the lights in the area turned down, all of the lights directly over her cubicle all the way off. A kind of hush had fallen over the area.

  “We have a problem,” I said quietly as I entered.

  She was facing away from me, her head cradled in her hands, eyes closed. She mumbled, sounds that meant “Could you talk quieter?”