Saluting the screen I put up, I bellowed, “Yes, Fearless Leader! Hope you enjoyed the show, ma’am!”
Linda chuckled and waved a little return salute at me, then said, “Yes, I did. Very much. The German cops found their ancient accident report in White’s coat and were very curious about it. They’ve already pulled his phone records and impounded his laptop. I’ve placed a request for a copy of that report, so they’ll ask me why I want it. I’ll reveal my suspicions about Bryce or Brian being the cause of the crash, of course. Can you think of any unexplainable loose ends, Ed?”
“Only my sim vanishing between cars. Once they convince themselves he was wearing armor, they’ll assume he got away in one piece.”
“A woman saw him vanish and made a statement.”
“Yeah, but eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. Unless a herd of people say the same thing, she’ll be ignored.”
“And if they do?”
“Unlikely. She was the only jaywalker on the street.”
Linda nodded. “Okay. I spoke to Will. Now I’ll call back and tell him to stand down.”
“Oh, I dunno. Why not fly him and Connie over there regarding the crash report? Will can certify stuff and visit White. Maybe scare some more crap out of him.”
She chuckled, “I’ll take that under advisement. Anything else to report?”
“Only that I still suffer pangs of loss and heartache when I think of you with that brass-bound sailor.” I sighed, “But on the other hand, he does seem to make you reasonably happy, so tell him I said hi.”
“Will do. Thanks, Ed. Later.”
“Bye, Linda.”
She dropped the link. I sat on my board a thousand feet above Ocala, wondering what to do with the day and what to do about Tanya. I had no doubt Marie would recover well, if not fully. How would she handle the news about Tanya and me? Probably not well at all. Not at first, anyway.
Then there’d be all the fuss and bother about Marie’s miraculous recovery. I didn’t really want to be a part of that, but I couldn’t see a way around it. Yet. Maybe it was time to visit the asteroid station for a while? Nah. Sara would honor a subpoena. Might be best to just plead the fifth and keep quiet.
Then it occurred to me that I could move aboard the flitter and use probes to check my mail and such. Pay bills remotely. Hell, I could lock everything I cared about to any degree in one room and rent the house to someone.
But those were last resorts. I wanted every possible minute with warm and willing Tanya and I couldn’t see her living aboard the flitter. She’d go nuts in less than a month. Hm. Save that as a last resort, too, just in case she turned out to be something other than a blessing later.
My implant pinged with Wallace’s ‘Anchors Aweigh‘ ringtone and I answered it with, “Hi. Did you get my message?”
His gaze turned questioning. “What message?”
“I told Linda to say hi for me.”
“You talked to Linda?”
“Boy, you’re really out of things, Cap. Oh, wait! It’s Rear Admiral Wallace now. What does a Rear Admiral do, anyway?”
“All kinds of stuff. Someone sent me something you ought to see, Ed.”
He expanded an icon. It was a 1.5-second video of Tanya and me going at it on the flitter. I sent a copy of it to my core for future reference.
I said, “Well, damn. I don’t really care, but she would. What have you done about it?”
“Two reprimands and fines, confiscation of their private telephones and electronics, and a complete and thorough search of every electronic device on base for more copies.”
I almost pointed out that ‘complete’ and ‘thorough’ meant essentially the same thing, but didn’t. Instead, I pointed at the screen and said, “Thanks, but you missed one,” and my core removed it from his pad. I also had my core run its own ‘complete and thorough’ search for more. It found two copies; one on Angie’s pad and one in a backup.
Wallace gave me a droll look and said, “I presume you’re running your own search. At any rate, I believe that problem is over. The woman in the video. She’s what..? Thirty?”
“Thirty-five, which is old enough in most states. Besides, I figure it’ll end on its own in a while.”
“And in the meantime you’ll pull all you can out of it?”
“Yup. You have a problem with that?”
Wallace frumped, “Actually, yes. I do.”
“Then please keep it to yourself. We’re adults and I have reason to believe she’s doing the same thing.”
“Oh? What’s she trying to get from you?”
“At this point, more of the same. All she can, but not in a material sense.” Straightening my legs to let them dangle over the board, I sipped coffee and said, “Cap, we’re just in heat. That never lasts more than a few months. If there isn’t more to go on then, we’ll likely move on. That’s always how it works.”
Looking generally skeptical, he sat back and replied, “Uh, huh. I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
“Yup. Anything else on your mind today?”
“No, that was it and I have some things to do here.”
“Well, thanks for what you already did. If you meet Tanya, you’ll probably like her.”
“You’re welcome. Later, Ed.”
With a small salute, I said, “Later, Mr. Rear Admiral, sir.”
He grinned and returned the salute, then tapped off the link. I sent a probe to Cap’s office because I knew him and he knew me. He’d have expected me to zap his copy of the video and run a further search.
Sure enough, he pulled a printout of one frame from the video from under his desk blotter. It was a good, clear picture. After studying it for a few moments, he fed it to the shredder by his desk and sat back sipping his coffee.
I gave some thought to what we’d done about Marie. In the most technical sense, no US or treaty laws had been broken. No Robodoc or AI had treated her on prohibited soil. When Marie’s injuries healed, there’d be some fuss, but I didn’t think they could make the kind of case they wanted.
That didn’t mean they couldn’t give Tanya and me a hard time for practicing medicine without a license, but I could deal with that. I could dig up too much dirt on people who’d want to make the whole mess go away.
Might be they’d try to put a political case together based on Marie and others, which would bring Steph and her lawyer buddies into the fray. That would probably be more to their liking anyway.
Chapter Twenty-four
I checked email and worked on my latest book until almost noon, then I sent a ping to Tanya.
She answered with, “I was just thinking about you.”
“Same here. Can you pry away for lunch?”
“No, I’m swamped. Ellie’s bringing me back a salad. Hey, you let me see through this link once. How can I do that?”
I tried to explain and didn’t really feel I’d succeeded, but suddenly I could see her desk and the room beyond it. A young woman came in and set a folder on several others, then said, “This should be the last of them. The audit’s on Thursday.”
As the woman walked away, I kept my gaze on the folder. If I’d watched her leave, my eyes would have been on her legs and Tanya would have noticed if I’d liked what I saw. Possibly not a big thing and easily explainable, but unnecessary.
“An audit,” I said flatly, “What fun.”
“At least it’ll clear out some of the dead wood. Some properties I’d rather not deal with at all.” I saw her vision sweep left and right, then she said in a low tone, “After all we did this weekend, I feel like some kind of secret agent, Ed.”
“Then by all means, keep things secret, Tanya. Your office could be bugged as easily as your apartment.”
She quickly said, “Oh, I know that! I was talking about meeting you and going to Aspen and… everything that happened, uhm…” Lowering her mental voice to a whisper, she said, “In the kitchen. On the flitter. In the shower. Those things.”
That gave me pau
se. If ‘those things’ were secret, was I also supposed to be a secret?
I chuckled, “Ah. Yes. Those things. Tell me something and don’t get defensive, please, because I only want to know how to act around people. Am I a secret, too?”
Her vision blinked, then blinked again. Tanya replied, “I… I hadn’t really thought about it.”
Oh, yes, she had. I could hear it in her mental voice.
I said, “Well, consider… How would the others in your office see me? Maybe I should be a secret for now.”
“Is… is that what you want?”
“Doesn’t matter to me, ma’am. I’ll just stun the first jackass who made an ugly joke about our ages.”
After a moment, Tanya snickered, “I know just who that would be, too. It might be worth it.”
Uh, huh. ‘It might be worth it‘ exposed her trepidation pretty well. Heh. I didn’t care what they thought, but Tanya might receive hassles and comments over our age difference.
“Tanya, I think I’ll be one of your mom’s old friends for now. Unless you can think of a really good reason to tell them we’re together, that is.”
I could tell she nodded, though her vision remained fixed on the doorway. “Yes. I think you’re probably right, Ed.”
With a tap on Tanya’s door, a woman stepped inside the office and said, “Mr. Rosen is here.”
Tanya thanked her, then said, “Well, back to work. Wish me luck; Rosen and his brand-new wife want a three-bedroom.”
“So soon? Ambitious, aren’t they?”
That made her blurt a short laugh. She quickly picked up her phone and faked ending a call just as a somewhat short man was escorted in.
I said, “See you later, Miz T,” and dropped the link. My first thought after that was, ‘Now, what the hell do I do with the rest of the day?‘ Not one interesting idea came to mind at that moment, and then began envisionments of Tanya. Not just naked ones, either. How she looked in Aspen, grinning and slinging snow. How she looked when I’d first met her.
Clothed or not, she stirred me mentally and physically. All the symptoms. Lust and strong general attraction. Not love, but just as distracting when it drives all else from your mind.
Well, not quite all else. A number of people knew about us and word would get back to Marie eventually. Mental sigh. Probably just about the time she was regaining her power of speech so she could rail at me about it. Oh, well. Might be good practice.
Angie pinged me and I answered, “You got me,” as I put up a screen. For a moment, Angie just looked at me.
She said flatly, “Ed, I just called to apologize.”
“Uh-oh. What’d you do now?”
Her gaze narrowed. “Don’t joke. I jumped on you earlier about something you couldn’t help. Your flitter answered the call. You shut down the video almost instantly.”
“Yup. Sure did. And I told Tea to let me open future links.”
With a glance askance, she replied, “That’s probably wise as long as you’re with Miss Connor.”
“Tanya.”
Her gaze hardened. “I’ll be calling her Miss Connor. What are you going to do when she figures out her affections are just gratitude and some kind of daddy issue manifestation?”
“I’ll send her straight to you for psychiatric counseling, Dr. Angie. And since when do you get to pass judgments? You’re about her age and you nailed me. Often, as I recall.”
“I’m a few years older than her. Doesn’t it bother you that she may be experiencing a deep psychological disorder?”
“If she is, that makes older men her thing until she gets over it, so she might as well be with one who can make her purr.”
Her anger very evident, Angie growled, “I really didn’t need to hear that, Ed.”
“Apparently you did, ma’am. You kept pushing. I’ll tell you what I told Cap; it’s heat. It’ll probably end in a few months.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Well, then, I may be stuck with a hottie half my age who makes me feel her age. Could be worse, right?”
Shaking her head, Angie said, “I thought you were smarter than this, Ed. I don’t know what she really wants from you, but you can bet it’s going to cost you big trouble somehow.”
I sighed, “Look, Angie… What if — only by some strange happenstance, of course — she just wants more of what she’s already getting from me? And I don’t mean just the sex. People need occasional adventures.”
Giving me a long, silent stare, Angie said, “Just don’t come crying to me when she dumps you.”
“Yes’m. Got it. No crying to you.”
“Goodbye, then.” She dropped the link.
Great. Who else could I expect to hear from? Lori? Aunt Lisa? Probably not; even if they’d seen the video or heard gossip, neither of them had a viable excuse to voice an opinion. On the other hand, when did that ever stop people?
Didn’t matter. I could do a lot worse than lovely, lusty Tanya. If she had psych issues — which seemed possible, given her drinking — I’d just roll with them unless they became intolerable. Every flight of fancy catches some flak. It’s the way of things.
Bringing my legs back aboard the board made them tingle and I realized how long I’d been sitting above Ocala. I stood up and thought about lunch. Anything would do. I found a mom ‘n pop place and landed between trucks.
Half an hour later I was back in the air, again wondering what to do until Tanya got home. The easy answer was to monitor 911 for trouble, but trouble didn’t cooperate. For over two hours there were nothing but fender benders. Nothing dire happened.
I tried writing, but got nowhere with it. Or should I say, I wasn’t particularly happy with what came of it. Got lucky around three with a house fire, but snuffing it thoroughly only killed fifteen minutes and talking with cops only used another fifteen or so.
Watching for another 911 call, my thoughts returned to Tanya; her face, eyes, hair, voice. Her legs, shoulders, neck. It was both exhilarating and annoying as hell to be so wrapped up in someone. I took the board for a hard run, but all I did was kill some time. Envisionings of various Tanya-features kept flitting through my head, even during the most difficult maneuvers.
She pinged me at 4:30 to say she was leaving early to pick up keys and paperwork at a property. I zipped back across town to meet her and waited upstairs while she visited a house. Ten minutes later she rejoined me and we returned to her office so she could drop things off.
Again I waited upstairs, then she rejoined me and we headed for her place so she could change. She told me about her day and I told her about mine. Well, I mentioned the fire, anyway. I didn’t say I’d essentially spent the whole day waiting for her.
As we descended, I saw only one NIA guy in the parking lot. Guess they’d sorted out whatever had caused so many of them to gather in the morning.
Taking a seat on the bed, I sat marveling at Tanya’s anatomy as she took off one item and put on another. She’d said she was starving, so I mostly kept my hands off her as she swapped clothes, taking only occasional opportunities to run a hand over a flank or down a thigh.
She surprised me by choosing a mid-thigh denim skirt over jeans. Instead of a blouse, she picked a white t-shirt advertising a two-year-old event in Orlando. Instead of sneakers, she put on soft black ankle boots with low heels. After transferring keys and a few other items to another handbag, she announced herself ready and said another buffet would be fine.
“You sure?”
Nodding, Tanya said, “I want to eat and run.”
“Run?”
“First we’ll visit mom, then Jessica, and then we’re coming back here.”
On the way through the kitchen, she opened her booze cabinet, shuffled boxes and bottles for a moment, and closed the door. With a glance at me, she said, “I need to restock. Since you only drink gin and that green stuff, I’ll let you get your own.”
Eyeing my pack, she nodded again, then went to the bedroom for her own pack and dumped i
t out on the bed. After putting her handbag in it, she slung it on a shoulder and said, “Ready.”
During dinner, I suggested that I visit a grocery store while she visited her mom and Jessica. After some discussions about possible quick breakfast choices, we had a list.
Aiming her fork at the food list, Tanya said, “Well, if you’re going to pick up all that, I’ll take care of the booze.”
“Good ‘nuff. Have I thanked you properly for wearing that skirt, ma’am?”
She chuckled, “No, but I’m sure you will later.”
And so it was. After dinner she gave me a kiss and took off. I crossed the parking lot to the grocery store. Even with adding a few things to the list I finished shopping in half an hour and couldn’t see hanging around to wait for her, so I took the stuff to her place and sent her a ping.
When she answered, I said, “I took the groceries home. Want me to come meet you somewhere or wait here?”
I could feel her grin as she replied, “Just be naked when I get there, okay? It’ll save us some time.”
“Oh, yes ma’am, ma’am. By your command, milady.”
We’d just dropped the link when the door bell rang. I answered it to find a guy in his fifties on the porch. He introduced himself as the apartment manager and said someone had reported a man entering Miss Connor’s apartment without her. I sent a ping to Tanya and let her see what I was seeing.
Showing him the key and pointing to the groceries, I introduced myself and said, “I’ll be visiting for a while. House sitting, too, probably. Her friend Jessica’s in the hospital.”
“You her father?”
“No. I worked with her mom for a while.”
Saying that appeared to make him turn a bit wary. He said, “Worked with, as in you did whatever it was she used to do?”
Shrugging, I admitted, “Well, yeah. Pretty much.”
Nodding, he fidgeted for a moment, then said, “I saw her take down two guys in the parking lot one night. We had a bad tenant and he had some bad friends. They started some sh… stuff with her and Tanya and Tanya’s mom flat kicked their asses.”
“Sounds about right. She always did have a short fuse.”
3rd World Products, Book 16 Page 27