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  He didn’t tell DeRicci that he suspected there was more than one victim—there was a lot of blood in that small space and not all of it human. He hadn’t had time to double-check all of the evidence. He didn’t want to seem stupid before her if his assumptions didn’t pan out.

  DeRicci listened intently, hands clasped over her knees, her gaze remaining on his as if she were going to be quizzed on the information. For all he knew, she might be later on. She would nod occasionally, or make encouraging sounds so that he knew she was listening.

  He hadn’t had someone give him this kind of undivided attention in a long time. Maybe years.

  Finally, he told her about his meeting with Justinian Wagner. She seemed surprised. When he finished, she let out a soft whistle.

  “I knew this case would be a problem—a murdered Retrieval Artist always is—but I had no idea WSX was involved.”

  “I didn’t say he was involved,” Nyquist said.

  “But he has to be one of your main suspects now,” DeRicci said. “A son who clearly claims his mother abandoned him, a woman who left her business with all kinds of secrets, secrets that gave her ‘power,’ at least according to him.”

  “I plan to investigate him,” Nyquist said. “It’ll be hard.”

  “Because he has so much power himself,” DeRicci said, as if she were going to participate in the investigation.

  “Power that goes back generations. His grandmother was mayor, you know.”

  DeRicci nodded. “There were Wagners at the founding of the United Domes of the Moon, and I think they belong to the First Families of Armstrong, as well. They’ve been around. Have you looked into the Stuarts?”

  Nyquist shook his head. “I came here as soon as Wagner left my office.”

  “I’ll be interested to hear,” DeRicci said. “What about the ship he mentioned?”

  Nyquist felt his shoulders tighten. He had promised to give Wagner information the moment he secured the ship. Wagner had left happy, but Nyquist wasn’t. He didn’t want to fulfill that promise. He’d never planned to, but he also didn’t plan to lie. The only way he could do both was to get DeRicci involved.

  “I was hoping that your office would claim the Lost Seas for the United Domes of the Moon.”

  DeRicci frowned at him. “It’s part of a police investigation.”

  “One that already has had your interest.” Nyquist had thought his argument through on the way over. “That ‘biochemical goo’ would have caused your office to take over the investigation—”

  “I never would have taken it over,” DeRicci said. “I would simply have monitored it.”

  “Well, we still have goo, although the experts don’t think it’s toxic, and we still need supervision. Right from the start, this has not been a simple murder.”

  “As if there’s any such thing.” DeRicci stood. She went back to her window and didn’t say anything else.

  Nyquist forced himself to sit still. He had a thousand things he needed to do. He had to check on Mikaela Khundred. He had to oversee the evidence results. He had to research the Wagners and the Stuarts, as well as WSX. And he had to find out what Miles Flint was doing.

  Miles Flint, who, according to Wagner, inherited everything.

  Nyquist hadn’t told DeRicci that, either.

  “Technically,” Nyquist said into DeRicci’s silence, “you’re still overseeing this investigation. I’m here now, instead of finishing my work.”

  That came out sharper than he intended. DeRicci turned, a smile on her face.

  “Speaking to your superiors that way can get you into trouble,” she said. “I should know.”

  There it was, that connection. It had formed over their rebel spirits. Only DeRicci seemed to be taming hers. Or maybe she had finally found the job that suited her.

  “You’re not my superior,” he said.

  Her smile widened. “But I do outrank most everyone in Armstrong Dome. I assume that includes you.”

  He shrugged. He wasn’t going to play this kind of game. He didn’t know if she was flirting or exercising her power, and he didn’t care.

  “Look,” he said. “All I’m doing is asking for a favor. If I take control of that vessel, Wagner can take it from me. He can go to the chief and get her to let him inside or, if she decides that he doesn’t belong there, not that I would expect it, then he can probably get some kind of court order. He can’t do that against you.”

  “At least,” DeRicci said, “it’s never been tried.”

  “I think, if you do this right, he won’t even know who has taken charge of the ship. Only that it’s not the police.”

  “I’d have to give you some kind of dispensation to go inside,” DeRicci said, “so that we don’t have a lot of legal wrangling later on. The last thing I want to do is muddy up evidence that could convict someone.”

  “First things first,” Nyquist said. “We need the evidence. I’m not even sure how the ship fits. I think Wagner wants it to improve his standing within the community, not because it has any bearing on this case.”

  “You can’t know that,” DeRicci said.

  “No, I can’t,” Nyquist said.

  “And I’m not sure he can improve his standing,” DeRicci said. “He’s already at the top of the heap. I think he believes there’s damaging information there, and he wants it, either for his own blackmail purposes or because it damages him.”

  “Or both,” Nyquist said.

  DeRicci studied him for a moment. Then she sank back onto the couch and resumed that demure, ladylike position she’d been sitting in. It didn’t suit her.

  “I’ve never met Justinian Wagner,” she said. “Tell me honestly, did you like him?”

  Nyquist stared at her. Like, dislike, usually didn’t factor into his cases. Although sometimes it did. Despite himself, he liked Miles Flint. He’d still convict the man if Flint killed Paloma. But he’d bent a few rules for him.

  He wouldn’t bend any rules for Wagner.

  “No,” Nyquist said. “I didn’t like him.”

  DeRicci nodded. “Because of his job or because of his personality?”

  “I’m not sure I ever got to his personality,” Nyquist said. “He seems purposely hidden, and deliberately snide.”

  “The lawyer persona,” DeRicci said. “There’ve been rumors about him forever—how he’s helped some of the solar systems most notorious criminals escape justice—”

  “Like a Disappearance Service?” Nyquist asked.

  “Like the best defense attorney in the system,” DeRicci said. “I don’t think he’s ever counseled anyone to use a Disappearance Service, although I do think he’s kept some of his people hidden long after the authorities stopped looking for them.”

  Nyquist had heard the same rumors, but he’d never had the need to track them down before. “Does that make him a bad person or just someone who’s good at his job?”

  DeRicci shrugged. “Do you think he could have killed his mother?”

  Nyquist remembered the carefully manicured hands, the expensive suit, the attention to the slightest detail of his personal grooming. A man like that couldn’t do messy work. It wasn’t in his nature.

  “I don’t think he committed that murder,” Nyquist said. “At least, not hands-on. But I think he could have hired someone to do it.”

  “Then there’d be a trail,” DeRicci said. “You said he has a brother.”

  “Who sounds a little less competent,” Nyquist said.

  “His brother said that?”

  “The Moon’s gossip mill says that,” Nyquist said.

  “So the brother could have done it,” DeRicci said.

  “I don’t know,” Nyquist said. “I’m not hurting for suspects. I am hurting for a reason to do this now.”

  DeRicci nodded. “You think that reason is on the Lost Seas?”

  “I don’t know what’s on that ship.” Nyquist shifted slightly in his seat. He wanted to continue investigating, not speculating. “I won’
t know until I get aboard.”

  DeRicci’s smile returned. “You’re a cautious man.”

  Nyquist thought of Flint, of the tech suit that he let Flint take with him. “A lot of people wouldn’t use the word cautious to describe me.”

  “But you want protection for this one thing,” DeRicci said.

  “I do,” Nyquist said.

  “You know that means I could take over the investigation of the ship,” she said. “I could fail to release it to you. I could assign someone else to examine the contents. I would never have to say another word to you about this. I could, if I wanted to, screw up your case by not allowing you what’s on that ship.”

  “I know,” Nyquist said. “I’ll take that risk.”

  “Have you investigated me?” DeRicci asked. “Is that why?”

  He hadn’t. “I know enough.”

  “You know that Miles Flint, the man who bought Paloma’s business, is my old partner. We’re still friends.”

  “I know that,” Nyquist said.

  “Flint could have had reasons to kill Paloma,” DeRicci said.

  “I know that too,” Nyquist said.

  “Yet you didn’t mention him.” DeRicci studied him.

  Nyquist wasn’t going to answer that. He knew better.

  Slowly, DeRicci leaned back on the couch. She toyed with the leaf of a nearby plant. “You don’t trust me.”

  “I trust you as much as I trust anyone,” Nyquist said.

  She tore off the leaf, then ripped the leaf in half.

  “If I didn’t trust you,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound desperate, “I wouldn’t ask you to take over the Lost Seas.”

  DeRicci crumpled the leaf in her right hand. “I’d like to come with you when you go onto that ship.”

  “I prefer to conduct my own investigation,” Nyquist said.

  “You’re involving me,” she said. “I will step in as far as I can.”

  She raised her chin, meeting his gaze. He sighed. She had a point. If she had a hand in the investigation, she would be less likely to pull the plug on him.

  Even though she could at any time.

  “Does that mean you’ll take over the Lost Seas?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But before I do, I want a report listing the concerns that still exist over that biochemical goo.”

  He smiled. She was becoming more political. She wanted him to write something that would cover her ass.

  “It’ll be on your desk in less than an hour,” he said.

  “Then we’ll be able to go to the ship in two,” she said. “Unless we stop for dinner.”

  He looked at her, startled, not sure if he had heard her correctly.

  She shrugged again. The movement didn’t seem as casual as the previous shrugs. “We have to eat, you know.”

  “I know,” he said. “I just tend to eat on the fly during an investigation.”

  “Then it’ll be on the fly,” she said. “I’ll meet you at your office.”

  His mouth opened slightly, but it took him a moment to realize that he hadn’t said anything.

  “Sure,” he said. “I mean, that would work.”

  She smiled. “It’ll work for me too,” she said. “Maybe then you’ll have some updates and I’ll have a ship.”

  “Yeah,” he said, thinking he sounded awkward. A ship and some updates. Dinner and an investigation. And a woman smart enough to figure out what he was holding back.

  Maybe he was making a mistake. But it was too late to change his plan. He had to move forward, even if he was making the wrong choice.

  Seventeen

  Flint stopped at his office only as a matter of form. He figured he was being watched—if not by the police, then by WSX. Or perhaps someone wasn’t actively watching him yet, but later would track his movements. He wanted those movements to be as far from suspect as possible.

  Although that was hard. If someone was tracking his movements, he would seem suspicious, first with his activity near the Dove and then with his return to the Emmeline. He had a hunch his visit to Traffic’s office in the port’s Administration Center would only raise a level of confusion, particularly if Murray didn’t tell anyone why Flint had visited.

  The interior of Flint’s office still defeated him. The dust looked thicker than it had before. At least it showed if someone else had been here. So far, he only saw his own footprints.

  The air smelled slightly stale. He still had the environmental systems off.

  Maybe he would take the equipment from this place and put it up for sale, letting the new owners deal with the mess.

  But even as he had the thought, his heart twisted. No matter how he was feeling about Paloma—betrayed, confused, heartbroken—he still cared about her. And this place was as much a part of her as it had become a part of him.

  He couldn’t sell it. He would have to fix it.

  But not now. Now he needed only to use its back door.

  He made sure the front was locked, slogged through the dust in the main room. Dust rose, fine and irritating, making him cough. He wished he had put on some kind of environmental gear. He didn’t want this stuff getting inside him.

  Although it was too late. He made his way to the back room, which was, if anything, more of a disaster than the front. Then he covered his mouth and nose with his hand, and turned on the environmental controls for thirty seconds.

  The dust swirled, getting in his eyes, his ears, and through the cracks between his fingers into his mouth. His teeth felt gritty. He resisted the urge to cough again.

  He made sure he made the full thirty count, then shut off the environmental systems. Now if anyone managed to break in, they wouldn’t know that he had walked through and left through the back. The dust was too thick and too smooth to tell them anything.

  Of course, he was coated. He slipped into the small bathroom off the back, wiped off his face and arms as best he could, and changed into fresh clothing. He always kept at least one change here—after he had gotten caught once without enough clothing. The clothes were in a drawer, so they weren’t coated at all. Only his feet and shoes would show where he had been, and Armstrong locals would simply assume that he had been walking in a poorly filtered part of the dome.

  He slipped out the back door, made sure it too was locked, then went to his favorite sandwich shop. The proprietor greeted him, gave him a sandwich for half price (the man was too poor to offer it for free) as a sort of welcome home gesture, and Flint ate part of it right there.

  The sandwich, made of bread with Moon flour and some kind of processed fake turkey breast, tasted rubbery and old. Flint smiled as he chewed. No matter where else he ate, no matter how many expensive foods he could afford, he loved these old Moon meals.

  They tasted of home.

  He thanked the proprietor and left, drinking a bottle of very expensive purified water and eating the rest of the sandwich. The neighborhood hadn’t changed much. A few businesses had gone out, a few new ones had come in.

  But the one he was looking for remained, half-hidden in a dilapidated warehouse. Like his business, this one showed no sign of the money it raked in almost daily.

  In all practical ways, this place was the source of his sudden wealth.

  And he hadn’t returned since the day he traded information for money—the day he had saved countless lives by breaking the laws he had sworn to uphold.

  He pressed a button against the front door. A beam touched his face, turning everything reddish for a brief moment. Technology was sophisticated enough so that an examination beam could be invisible. But Data Systems wanted its potential clients and visitors to know that they were being investigated from the moment they stepped on the warehouse’s threshold.

  As the beam touched him again, he said, “Miles Flint for Colette Bannerman.”

  The beam shut off without finishing its task. The door swung open. The interior was as filthy as he remembered, only the dirt here was deliberate.

  Data Syst
ems was a Disappearance Service. It wanted to make certain that its potential clients couldn’t be scared away by the appearance of a difficult existence. There were other kinds of traps set up through the entry into the main part of the building.

  Flint had gone through them all years ago, when he had tried to see Bannerman the first time.

  This time, he didn’t have to go through the series of questions, the hordes of middle managers, all wanting to know if he was legitimate. Data Systems probably kept track of him, like they did so many others.

  And, in his own way, he had kept track of them.

  A lower-level employee—a woman—led him to the very room where he had brokered his deal with Bannerman. He hated the room: it had no windows, although it was cleaner than the front of the warehouse. The environmental controls worked here as well. He did have to go through a decontamination area before entering, as well as a rather intrusive examination to see if he was carrying weapons or some kind of listening and/or recording devices that couldn’t be shut off by conventional means.

  Data Systems, like his office, shut down people’s links the moment they entered. He had shut his off when he stood outside, not wanting any information accidentally left from his download of Paloma’s systems to get into Data Systems’ records.

  The woman left him without a word. He sat in a large chair—updated and more comfortable than the one he’d sat in all those years ago—and stared at the walls. On them were scenes of various cities. When he first came, he only recognized New York and London from Earth. Now he saw New Orleans, which he had visited a few years back, and Miami, as well as Ottawa and La Paz.

  A wall to his left showed some cities from other planets and other moons. He could guess at them—he knew the reddish dome with the Disty buildings had to be Sahara Dome, and the cold, bluish looking dome was on Io. But he didn’t know the rest, even though he’d just spent months traveling all over the solar system.