Sketches

by Teyla Branton

  The Fountain was less than two city blocks away, maybe fifteen minutes on foot but mere minutes with Garrett driving. When he pulled to a sudden stop, Reese jumped out of the shuttle. A crowd was gathered near the Fountain. That was new. In New York, people tended to split fast if they knew enforcers were coming because of their tendency to scoop up everyone for questioning. She was glad to see the difference in attitude here because witnesses who weren’t worried about being detained overly long by irritated enforcers were better witnesses.

  The crowd opened up for them with ease, as if no one wanted to touch their uniforms, which made Reese reassess her initial conclusion. Maybe the people here weren’t as at ease with enforcers as she’d first thought. Reese studied their faces, watching for signs of guilt: mocking stare, averted eyes, flushed face, or open hostility. But she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  They passed yellow enforcer tape and three enforcers holding back the crowd. Two figures bent over the body. Both arose as they approached, the man with light brown hair stepping toward them purposefully, his hand outstretched. “You must be the new girl,” he said with a welcoming smile. “I’m Alex Andres, the medical examiner.”

  “Reese Parker.” She returned his smile and shook his hand, but her eyes quickly skidded past him to the man at his side.

  It was Jaxon. Her Jaxon.

  He had dark hair, a tanned face with a couple days’ worth of beard growth, and blue eyes that were as intense as when they were children. He was taller and his shoulders much broader than she’d imagined he’d be whenever she’d thought of him over the years, and the sharp angles of his body had filled out with muscle that did wonders for his enforcer blues.

  All at once, her movements felt sluggish, as if she were stuck in a bad Teev feed. The captain had called him Tennant, but never in a million years would she have connected the name to Jaxon, whose last name had been Crawley when she’d known him. How could he possibly be here?

  “Reese?” he said so softly she almost had to read his lips.

  In that instant, the years peeled away, and the gangly boy stood again before her. Her best friend, the person she’d gone to with her fears, the one who’d encouraged her in school, the one who’d understood about her mother. She saw him as he’d been then: appearing in her doorway, roaming the narrow paths of the Coop, swimming at the transfer station. Most of all, she remembered his face the day he’d left her. The day his mother had been murdered.

  Because of her.

  “Jaxon? I can’t believe you’re here.” She took a tentative step toward him, unsure how this should play out. He was Jaxon, and yet too many years had passed for anything to be the same between them. He was a stranger now—a very attractive stranger—and she didn’t know him. The obvious stares of Garrett and the medical examiner, whose name she’d already forgotten, made the situation even more awkward.

  Jaxon seemed to feel no such reserve. He stepped forward, whisking her up into a full-body hug as though she still weighed as much as the ten-year-old she’d been. He felt warm and solid and safe. He smelled like a spring rain, like new ideas and determination. Definitely her Jaxon. She clung to him for a long minute, her toes barely touching the ground, words of apology threatening to spill from her lips.

  “You’re really here,” he said. “I mean, when the captain said your name was Reese, for a moment I thought . . . but the last name wasn’t the same, and your Teev image didn’t look like you, so I wasn’t sure.”

  “I take it you two already know each other,” Garrett deadpanned.

  Jaxon ignored him, giving her another breath-stealing squeeze before releasing her. “You look amazing—all grown up. You’re so different, but your smile, the way you looked at me just now. It’s like twenty years fell away.”

  “I know. You too.” She blinked back threatening tears. “How long have you worked at this division?”

  “Two years. Before that I was down the coast, closer to our old stomping grounds.”

  “The Coop?” She’d never been back since the night she’d run away.

  “Nearly. I was a detective in a similar settlement.” He grinned. “So, you became an enforcer and a sketch artist.”

  “That’s right. Now I get paid to draw. But I get to shoot people too.”

  He laughed as she’d intended.

  Did he remember about her ability to sketch what others saw, or did he chalk it up to childhood imagination? She hoped the latter. The last thing she needed was for her new colleagues to be wary of her. Or to end up in some Estlantic lab undergoing experiments.

  “What happened after that day you left the Coop?” she asked. “I never heard.” She had so many questions for him. She’d searched his name on the population database several times and come up empty. Each failure made her want to find him more. Yet at the same time she’d dreaded this day because he would have just as many questions for her. Questions she’d have to answer. Almost, it was better not knowing what had happened to him.

  Yet here he was, working as a detective and not drinking himself into oblivion or strung out on juke, so something had gone right in his life. He’d made it out of Colony 6 just like she had.

  Jaxon opened his mouth to answer, but instead, he glanced at the other two men and said with a smile, “We’ll have to catch up later. But I’m glad you’re here. I know that . . .” He stopped without finishing, but Reese had the feeling it was important. Probably just her imagination—she didn’t know him anymore.

  As they turned back to the body, a sketch crashed across Reese’s consciousness. A woman. A pretty, petite woman with ebony hair. Reese clutched her bag tightly, trying to keep her expression blank. Who was the woman? Without a doubt the mental sketch had come from Jaxon and was of someone he knew.

  A second image followed the first. Same woman, different clothes. Obviously, she was someone important to Jaxon. Wife? Lover? Girlfriend? She pushed the images away, but it was too late; they’d burned into her mind. She’d have to record both sketches on paper before the compulsion to draw them faded.

  Just when she thought her “gift” was under control. Apparently, it was as unsettled as she was at seeing Jaxon again.

  “Time of death is at least two hours ago, possibly three,” the medical examiner was saying. His voice was serious, but his face, with his large brown eyes and dimpled cheeks, seemed meant for laughing. Reese hoped her interested expression made up for the lackluster greeting she’d given him, but paying attention was difficult with so many emotions rocketing around inside her brain.

  The dead man looked like any other resident of the CORE Territories. Brown hair and light brown skin that reflected an influx of different races, ordinary synthetic khaki pants, a casual, fitted blue shirt with buttons extending under the right arm to the hem. Even his loafers looked no different than a million others. Nothing about him stood out—except that he was dead. The angle of his body, the way one hand twisted under his back with the other arm flung up and out as if trying to catch his fall, unsettled her.

  Jaxon’s hand brushed hers momentarily as they stared down at the deceased. His touch was strangely comforting, as though they were still two little kids trying to survive in the Coop.

  His presence was also disturbing. How likely was it that they would both end up here in Amarillo City at the same time? And partners? With five main enforcer divisions in Dallastar, another ten in Estlantic, and numerous subdivisions, this “coincidence” might be a little too coincidental. Presumably, he’d trained in Estlantic as she had, and he would have had a similar career arc, but in all this time their paths hadn’t crossed.

  Her eyes lifted to find Jaxon staring at her. She replayed their meeting in her mind, the way he’d greeted her—enthusiastically but without surprise. He knew I was coming, she realized. Not that she’d be here today, maybe, but he’d expected to see her soon. He might have even been lying about not recognizing her Teev image. But to what purpose?

  All of her instincts screamed out that Jaxo
n was hiding something.

  He gave her a slow smile that brought back that first day they’d gone swimming at the transfer station when she trusted him more than anyone in the world. When she’d worried about him leaving her. Back then the smile had made her feel safe and loved. Now it made her pulse race and her mind question his motives. Her heart ached for their lost innocence.

  She filed her thoughts away for future reflection. For now, she’d take Jaxon at face value and wait for what their catching up might reveal. Sooner or later she’d learn his secrets.

  And she’d have to tell him the truth about his mother’s murder—or, rather, her part in the murder. If she couldn’t make it right, it wouldn’t matter what he was hiding because any chance of a meaningful relationship between them would be lost.

  Chapter 2

  JAXON’S EYES TRACED the curves and angles of Reese’s face, smiling whenever she looked up at him. She was really here, after all these years. And she looked good. More than good—beautiful. Shoulder-length brown hair, partially escaping from its braid, her green eyes alive and eager. He’d dreamed of her over the years, but she’d always been that little girl with the sketchbook. Not this tall, fit, confident woman who made his palms sweat and self-consciousness creep in. Maybe now the image he had of the little girl staring after him, panic in her eyes as the enforcer took him away, could be replaced by the confident enforcer she’d become.

  Still, she shouldn’t be here, and the fact that she was troubled him. Someone had sent her, just like he’d been brought two years ago. Like the other two had been sent three months back. Reese’s being here meant one more person he would have to worry about.

  Jaxon stifled a curse and forced himself to focus as Alex explained his initial findings. The medical examiner wouldn’t be able to offer much until after an autopsy, but it was something to start their investigation.

  “What I don’t understand,” Garrett said, “is how he can be dead two hours but was only just now reported.”

  “I’m getting to that part.” With a gloved hand, Alex turned the victim’s head to show a bloodied wound on the back of his skull. “I’m guessing death was caused by a blunt object, but head wounds bleed like crazy, and there just isn’t enough blood here for this kind of wound. That was my first clue that he wasn’t killed here, but there are others. Anyway, he was dumped here after being killed.”

  Garrett nodded. “Makes a lot more sense.”

  Normally, the deaths they encountered in Amarillo City were punks overdosed on juke. Murders generally occurred only in welfare colonies like the Coop or in the empty zones. Or occasionally in the expensive business high rises.

  “Name’s Philo Henderson,” Jaxon told them. “He was a Teev software engineer. Worked for the CORE. Unfortunately, there are no witnesses. Or at least none that have come forward to talk to me.”

  “Anyone in particular you think we need to detain?” Garrett asked.

  Jaxon gave a sharp shake of his head, his eyes lifting to the crowd. “No. But I haven’t talked to many yet. If no one comes forward, we’ll need to pull their CivIDs from the surveillance feeds and bring them all in for questioning. Someone must have seen something.”

  “Is that a hunch?” Garrett asked, a bemused smile on his face.

  Jaxon snorted. “Yeah, I guess.” It was more than a feeling, but he couldn’t explain that to his partner, who was already beginning to act funny about his predictions, however few he shared.

  Garrett looked at Reese. “You probably know all about Jaxon and his hunches.”

  Jaxon didn’t know if Garrett was making small talk or probing about their relationship, but to save Reese from answering Garrett’s question, he removed his iTeev from his sleeve and said, “I already pulled the surveillance feed.”

  Unfolding the square screen to a rectangle and opening the ear supports, he put the iTeev on like glasses, feeling it settle and mold to the curves of his face. Everyone around him put on their own iTeevs and connected them to his feed. With a few hand motions, Jaxon brought a 3D holo replay of the plaza to life in front of them.

  “It just so happens that thirty minutes ago an oversized delivery shuttle was blocking the camera on this side of the plaza. That means we don’t have a clear view of anyone dumping the body.” Sure enough, the massive white shuttle had a weird sign on the top that blocked the view of the area where they now stood. “We’re tracing the delivery shuttle now, but it stops here every day, so it may not be connected.”

  “What about from another angle?” Reese asked.

  Jaxon switched the view. “The Fountain blocks the area from the other two cameras, but they did record the vehicles passing by. This one”—he stopped the feed on a nondescript black shuttle—“paused for ten seconds. And it didn’t have any vehicle or CivID information.”

  “No identification at all?” Reese’s brows shot up, and Jaxon understood her surprise. All vehicles were programmed with an ID that silently broadcasted itself to the surveillance cameras, and every CORE citizen was required to carry a CivID with them that also emitted a signal. Most people had a chip inserted under their skin instead of bothering with carrying a card, but insertion wasn’t required in Dallastar as it was in Estlantic.

  “Must be our guy,” Garrett said.

  “Which leaves us exactly nowhere.” Jaxon killed the feed from his iTeev and returned it to his sleeve. “I’ve already started the search for similar vehicles in the area, but if they know enough to remove the vehicle ID and have the balls to dump a body in broad daylight—and here, of all places—I’m betting they won’t be found.”

  Garrett scanned the crowd with an unconcealed glare. “Has to be fringers. Again.”

  “Again?” Reese asked, her green eyes intent.

  “We think they might be behind the disappearance of six people,” Jaxon explained. “All top scientists or software engineers—and you know how important people like these are to the CORE, if we’re ever to stop relying on pre-Breakdown tech. Given the blood at two of the scenes, they might be dead, but we haven’t been able to track down their bodies, so we can’t say for sure. This is the first one we’ve found.”

  “I’ve heard about the missing people. But are you saying this guy is one of them?” She flicked her gaze toward the dead man.

  “No. I meant that if we hadn’t found him, he would have been the seventh software engineer or scientist to go missing. This guy was working on some old airplanes discovered just inside the North Desolation Zone.”

  “Yet he was dumped here where he could be found,” she said. “Unlike the others. Which means he might not be connected at all. Besides his profession, are there any similarities with the other cases? Something that isn’t common knowledge maybe?”

  He knew she referred to details that might have been left off the official reports, but he’d been thorough in the three cases that had happened in Amarillo City and had gone over every bit of evidence and testimony a dozen times in the other three cases that had occurred in the two neighboring cities. Nothing had been left out.

  He sighed. “The only thing they have in common are their professions, as we already discussed. And four of them worked for the CORE. That makes it even more important that we find—”

  “A witness,” she finished for him, as she often had in the old days, giving him an odd sense of déjà-vu.

  “Exactly. As soon as CSI gets here, we can leave the details to them and use our team to set up a perimeter to make sure no one leaves.” Jaxon caught movement at the edge of the crowd. “Speaking of which, there’s Hammer and his crew now. About time.”

  “You brief them and then start working the crowd,” Garrett said to Jaxon. “I’ll help set up the perimeter and do the same. Reese, you start talking. I’m sure you know the routine. If you find anyone interesting, pull them aside. We’ll take ’em to division.”

  “Where’s the guy who found the body?” Reese asked. “I’d like to start with him.”

  “Over there.”
Jaxon thumbed over his shoulder at a dark-skinned man in a business suit. “Douglas Sundry. He was walking to a mid-morning meeting at a nearby restaurant. But I’ve already questioned him. He doesn’t know anything.”

  “Still, if you don’t mind?” Reese gave him a confident smile.

  “Not at all. You’re a lot less threatening than I am. Maybe he’ll remember something you can sketch.” The words were barely out of his mouth when he remembered something from their shared childhood. Reese had always been drawing back then, and some of the pictures she’d created were almost too real. There was more, a half memory of her drawing things she’d never seen, but surely that was a child’s fantasy. Twenty years was a long time, and the memories were colored by the trauma of his mother’s death.

  Some of his thoughts must have shown on his face because Reese gave him a strange, tight look that evoked an emotion in his gut. Something like longing or melancholy. Maybe even desire.

  Reese pulled out one of her sketchbooks and the moment passed. Jaxon grinned. “Just like old times, eh? You almost always carried one of those.”

  She hesitated, as if expecting more. Then she said, “It was destiny, I guess.” She headed toward the witness, who stood uncertainly by the Fountain.

  Jaxon watched her go, and he noticed with irritation that he wasn’t the only one watching. He scowled at the medical examiner and one of the other enforcers before he reminded himself that Reese was all grown up. Maybe she would even welcome their attentions.

  Regardless, he could never allow himself to forget that someone had orchestrated her arrival. Despite the twenty years separating them, Reese was back in his “crew” just like in the Coop, and he was responsible for her. But first he had to discover why they’d both been brought here.

  With a sigh, he started across the plaza to meet the CSIs. He’d done a stint in Crime Scene Investigation on his way up the ladder, and normally he was glad not to be involved in the often tedious work of gathering evidence. But lately he’d begun wishing he was back in the unit, at least for the six missing persons cases. Because every clue he had expected would lead them to a resolution turned out to be yet another dead end. Either someone was doing something wrong, or he was losing his mind.