by Mark Henwick
She and Tullah were right. Sooner was better. It felt strange when Jen went on and assumed that it would be up to her to get me out if I got pulled in. I didn’t want that obligation on her, but I liked that she felt it. I grimaced. I was getting so convoluted.
Jen wanted to know more of course. Even with the flash of temper, I could see she was controlling her curiosity and hating it that I had so much I couldn’t tell her, wondering why that might be. Her eyes looked almost bruised with the hurt behind them.
I got up to clear the plates and began washing.
“Oh! I nearly forgot,” Jen said. “Your friend Campbell Carter—”
“I can think of plenty of names for him,” I said shortly, drying my hands, “but I didn’t have friend on my list.” He was threatening me with an unfair lawsuit I really couldn’t afford. Jen had persuaded me to let her lawyers handle the case. Another thing I owed her for.
“No, no, listen. He contacted me even before my lawyers got hold of him and asked me to get through to you and apologize. Quote—I’ve been a fool—end quote. Your missing payment, and half again as an apology, are in your bank today.”
I sat down heavily on the stool with my mouth open while she laughed at me.
We were interrupted by the sound of the door opening.
My gun was sitting on the table in the living room. I was about to grab one of Carmen’s shiny cooking knives when I heard Tullah’s voice.
“Hi. Only me.”
We were still officially using Jen’s spare study as an office, so she was coming in for work. I let out a breath.
Jen and I wandered out with the coffee to chat.
Tullah was looking tense, and when she’d gone off yesterday, she’d been concerned.
“Just heard, Carter’s folded and paid his bill,” I said to cheer her up.
“That’s great,” she replied.
Hmmm.
We drifted into the living room and sat among the discarded blankets and pillows. It looked like the tail end of a sleepover. Tullah’s eyes roamed the room, taking it in, probably wondering what on earth was going on.
You and me both, girl. I remembered the feeling of home as I’d fallen asleep last night.
Tullah sat very still, her head slightly bowed and her eyes flicking nervously to look at Jen and me. “Jen, could I stay here for a little while?”
“Of course,” Jen said immediately. “What’s happened?”
“I’ve left home. It’s time I was independent.”
“Whoa! What brought this on?” I asked. I’d thought something wasn’t quite right, but this was sudden.
“Some of what we talked about yesterday. I don’t want to go into it right now. It’ll only be for a few days. I’ll get myself a place.”
“This is a bit abrupt, Tullah,” I said.
“It’s my decision,” she said defensively.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “But I’m going to have to talk to Mary and Liu at some stage. They’re going to blame me for this.”
“It’s got nothing to do with you, Amber. Not directly.”
“What does that mean?”
Tullah looked frustrated. “It’s like we were talking about last week. At my age, you were already in the army, making your own decisions, running your life.”
“But Mary might say the army was running my life back then. Look, I’m not going to argue. As you say, it’s your decision.”
Ever practical, Jen interrupted us. “Have you got clothes and so on in your car?”
When Tullah nodded, Jen got us organized, emptying both our cars. My rag-tail assortment of clothes went into the guest suite that Jen kept telling me was mine. Jen gave Tullah a lovely room on the other side of the house. There wasn’t much of my stuff, so I helped Tullah carry hers in.
Tullah grabbed my arm when we were alone.
“Look, Amber, I’m sorry. I know this puts you on the spot with Ma.” She hesitated. “I just wanted to say, I’ll try not to get in the way, you know, between you and Jen.”
“Hmm. Nothing to get in the way of, thanks.” I was blushing.
“Yeah. Right,” she said.
“Tullah, you know what I am, what I could do to Jen.”
She nodded. “But you control that, don’t you?”
“I haven’t been taught anything. I don’t really know what I can do or not. I’ve promised not to tell anyone about the Athanate at least until next week. I don’t dare risk doing anything with Jen until I’ve told her. And when I tell her, you think she’ll still want me around?”
Tullah smirked at that before going on. “What’s the big deal with this week? Something to do with all those high-power Athanate in town that Ma was talking about?”
“I can’t say anything else.” I changed the subject. “What can you tell me about what’s going on at home? It’s not about me, is it?”
“It’s not just you. It’s lots of things.”
“Like what? If you don’t mind telling me.”
“Like, I told Ma about my spirit guide.”
Ouch. Traditional Adepts like Mary approved of the known spirit guides: bear, wolf, coyote, raven and so on. Tullah’s half-Chinese heritage had manifested itself in a spirit guide that was not on the approved list. She’d shown me secretly last week. She had a freaking dragon as a spirit guide.
“How did that go?” I asked.
Tullah snorted. “What do you think? Ma had the entire cow. Sideways. Nearly put a lock on me again. And don’t even start to talk about Matt.”
I had to bite my lip. It wasn’t funny for Tullah just now. Putting a lock on her would prevent her from using her Adept abilities. “I’m sure she’ll come around,” was all I could come up with. “And about me?”
“Hmm. Are you, y’know, drinking?” She made fangs next to her mouth with her fingers.
“No. Not yet anyway.” Dreams, yes. I shivered.
“You’ve changed your attitude about becoming Athanate,” Tullah said. “I can hear it in your voice.”
“There’s not much becoming left. Is this going to be a problem?” I asked. “I know Mary won’t trust me anymore.”
“It doesn’t make any difference to me.” Tullah shrugged and turned away slightly. “Just so you know, Ma and I aren’t agreeing on a lot of stuff at the moment.”
“I don’t want to be the cause of trouble in your family,” I said. Not least because both her parents scared me.
I tried to think of the practical things she might have overlooked. “What about college?”
“I can move to a modular program. I’ll manage. Doesn’t matter to me if it takes longer. I can work nights.”
“Oh, that’ll make Matt happy.”
She whacked me on the shoulder, then gave herself a little shake. “I better get into the office and chase my cases.”
I smiled. She was trying to look serious and professional, but I could remember the first time I said that. I grabbed her arm. “Feels good, huh? Say it again.”
“I’m going to chase my cases.” This time she laughed. She paused, looking at me a bit shyly. “I mean it about you being Athanate, Amber. I think it would be totally cool, and it changes nothing for me, whatever Ma says. And I sorta think my dragon likes it, y’know?”
“Thanks.”
And what?
Perhaps I had to go talk to Mary and just check why dragons weren’t on the approved list. Quietly.
We went back to the living room, and Tullah seemed happier to have gotten it off her chest.
“Jen, has Amber talked to you about Matt?” asked Tullah.
Thanks, Tullah.
“No.” Jen looked at me inquiringly.
“Ah. Can I borrow Matt for a couple of jobs this week? Not whole days or anything.”
“Of course,” Jen said. “Be gentle with him, he’s still scared of you. I’ll call him. What should I say?”
“I need him to be a cyber-ninja,” I said. “I’ll email details in a minute.”
She laughed and
dialed him on her cell as she headed out to work.
I sat down and wrote an email for Matt. I needed him to give me an info-dump on Matlal and Hoben, then I needed him to do an analysis on the cells I’d taken from the ambush at Castle Pines. He’d done a similar job on some ZK cells last week and the police had found it was a mother lode.
After thinking it over, I added the reference code from the police reports, telling him all I wanted was confirmation of which federal department it was.
I ended the email with a warning to be a true ninja and leave no trace of his searches.
“What have you got going on today, Amber?” asked Tullah, as I got ready to leave.
“The Quinns, and I guess the FBI.” I wanted to check on why the colonel hadn’t responded to my calls and I needed to be at Cheesman Park in the evening to haul Larry in, which in turn needed preparation. I was itching to get going on Hoben, but Larry was my best route, and I’d have to wait until I had him.
So, even with all the things on my mind, it looked as if it was going to be a light day, getting back into the swing of things.
As if.
Chapter 10
Before going to the Quinns’, I had an important job. I needed a place to stash Larry, assuming he could get away from Hoben and Matlal this evening. Having Hoben out on the street was making me twitchy, as if I was in crosshairs all the time. I needed to bring Hoben down, and for that I needed Larry’s intel to be gold.
If he was on the level, I wanted somewhere safe for him, somewhere Hoben and Matlal wouldn’t think to look, and one without an obvious connection to me. And if he wasn’t, I didn’t want him to have access to anyone I cared about. At this short notice, the list of possibilities came down to two.
The first option I looked at was Mykayla’s apartment, just across the interstate from Yale station. She’d moved to Haven after the ZK attack, but the rent was likely paid up and it wouldn’t occur to anybody to look for Larry there. I drove around the back of the two-story building, into the dirt parking lot. The rusted pickups were in exactly the same place, but the ZK motorcycles were all gone of course. There had been blood in the dirt when I’d finished, but that was gone too.
The door to the stairs was still broken. It screeched loudly as I pushed it open. I’d last seen the stairs and landing full of ZK bikers, trying to break into Mykayla’s apartment and carry out the gang rape they’d threatened when she’d refused to tell them what little she knew about Bian and me. Tullah had barricaded the door and I’d arrived just in time.
The apartment door had been replaced. I guessed the landlord had been around, made the minimum repairs, and was probably trying to rent the place out. Mykayla certainly wasn’t coming back. The place didn’t feel right anyway; the neighbors were too close and there were limited ways in and out. I headed back out and drove to Aurora.
My next option was a real ‘hide in plain sight.’ The small house in Aurora had been owned by the truck driver that had headed up the ZK drug smuggling logistics, Guy Windler. He’d escaped when I’d busted the operation, but he’d died here when one of Matlal’s lieutenants decided Windler knew too much and tidied up the loose ends. By ripping his chest open and tearing his heart out.
The place still had yellow police tape around it, but they’d finished with it a long time ago. It was risky, but it had more ways in and out than Mykayla’s apartment, and no one immediately responsible for it. It’d probably not be looked at for six months or more, and Hoben wouldn’t think to come here. And the neighbors weren’t the curious kind, on this street.
It still stank of death, but Larry would just have to put up with that.
The Quinns lived on the fifth floor of an apartment building, a couple of blocks east of Cheesman Park. Niall Quinn had been a close friend of my dad, and for his sake, I’d help them any way I could.
I parked and looked up at the sage-colored building. It had a strange ridged front, like the corrugated panel of a shipping container. On the side, each apartment had a wide balcony with iron railings that made me think of prison bars.
I called the number and Niall answered. “Mr. Quinn, hi. It’s Amber Farrell.”
“Ah. Oh, yes. Hello, Amber.”
“Is this a bad time? I’m just across the road, but I can come back.”
He dithered. Clearly, this wasn’t the best time, but he invited me up anyway and buzzed me through the entrance.
It was a shock to see how he had aged since I’d last seen him, at Dad’s funeral. His pale hair had thinned to translucent wisps and his pink face was lined with worries. He had put on a sizeable belly as well, but worst of all was his movement. I remembered him as our softball coach, racing around the field, and now every step was careful, every motion slow and considered.
I refused a drink and managed to embarrass him by helping him into his seat in the living room. A couple of walking sticks rested against the wall nearby.
“Well, Mr. Quinn, how can I help?” I said, after we had the usual old family friend preliminaries out of the way.
“Niall, please,” he replied, running a hand over his scalp. “I’m not sure you can. I’m sorry if it turns out I wasted your time. It’s a bit of a long shot. I just couldn’t think of anything else.”
“Tell me about it, Niall. I don’t charge for listening.” I grinned at him, and was pleased to get an answering smile. At least his physical condition hadn’t affected his outlook on life.
“Okay.” He rubbed his hands up and down his thighs a couple of times. “About a month ago, we had a burglary.”
I looked around the room. It did look a little bare, with no stereo or expensive ornaments. Had they been cleaned out?
He saw me looking and smiled a little. “Oh, we don’t have much worth stealing. Them up there, on the top floor.” He pointed at the ceiling. “They’d be worth stealing from. Not us.”
“What was taken then?”
“Just an old medal and some jewelry,” he said quietly.
“Oh my God! Not…”
He nodded and made a big thing out of retrieving a handkerchief from his pocket and blowing his nose loudly.
I’d seen the medal once. It wasn’t just a medal any more than Arlington was just a cemetery. Niall’s grandfather had earned a posthumous Medal of Honor in the appalling Marine assaults on the Bois de Belleau in the First World War. Niall’s father had passed it to him just before he died of throat cancer. Unable to speak, his father had scrawled these words on a note which Niall kept with the medal: ‘Keep it safe. This is all I knew of him.’ Despite the pride, the medal wasn’t displayed, and it was only because my dad had been so close to Niall that I’d had the chance to see it.
I sat there in complete shock. It wasn’t a matter of value. It was the Medal of Honor. My first thought was—how could anyone care so little about what it represented as to steal it? But that was stupid. The world was all too full of people who didn’t care.
Secondly, it was inscribed and it was illegal to sell it. But I guessed a certain type of collector might ignore that.
Worst of all, it must have been someone who knew of the medal. A friend of the family.
“I thought you might understand,” Niall said after a while.
I sat up straighter. “What do you want me to do?” At first glance, this wasn’t something straightforward that I could help with.
“There are two things,” he said slowly, struggling back to his feet. He made his way over to a bureau where some letters were lying and picked up a couple of pages to hand them to me. “First off, the insurance company are bilking us on the damage.” He waved at the doors to the balcony, which were obviously repaired but not yet painted. “And when I complained, they suggested they might not renew coverage.”
I frowned. Surely, this was more Kath’s line than mine. Whatever problems my younger sister and I had with each other at the moment, she surely wouldn’t refuse to help the Quinns on a legal matter. She was a lawyer; this would be easy stuff for her. Then I
scanned the letters and suddenly it all made sense.
The insurance company was claiming that the thief couldn’t have gotten in by the balcony.
“You remember,” I said, laughing despite the seriousness.
I opened the balcony doors and walked out. He joined me as I leaned over the railing and looked down.
“Easy. How do you want to do it? You could get an insurance assessor here, or you could film it.”
He considered it. “I don’t think they’d send someone. I’d rather just film you and send it to them.”
“Okay, do you have a video camera?”
“I’ll borrow one this afternoon, if that’s okay.” He raised an eyebrow at me.
“That’s fine, Niall. And I’m not going to charge you for climbing up the side of your building.”
I turned to go back in, but he caught my arm.
“Listen, spider-girl, I’m not having you do anything without payment. Just not. Get over it. Your minimum charge is an hour. I know. I asked your secretary.”
“An hour’s standard rate is a rip off for a couple of minutes climb. And Tullah’s my…” Damn, I hadn’t gotten around to giving her a title. “…apprentice.” That sounded right. It had overtones of being given all the boring jobs.
“An hour. Take it or leave it.”
I shrugged and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “I can’t believe you remembered what I used to get up to when I was fourteen.”
“If I hadn’t, Cassie would’ve reminded me.”
“Has she forgiven me?” I’d climbed the side of their house and left frogs in his daughter’s bed. Well, she shouldn’t have called me a toad. No matter how good a friend she was, she should have known the founder of the Urban Crazy Climbing Club was not a person to be messed with.
“What? Already? It’s only been, oh, not even fifteen years.”
“Sixteen,” I said.
“Yeah. Sixteen. I guess you…” He trailed off. Fifteen years ago, Dad’s illness meant the practical jokes and climbing and lots of stuff had just stopped. “Anyway, she said to give you her love, and she’ll look you up the next time she comes back.”
Yup, and I could expect some payback. She was as bad as me about practical jokes. After the frogs, she’d left anonymous messages for me—‘revenge is a dish best eaten cold’—at every opportunity. She knew how to get inside a person’s head, even at that age. I blame her for my paranoia.