Extremes: A Retrieval Artist Novel Read online

  She had warned him right from the start.

  Flint tapped a button on his keyboard, and upgraded the airflow system inside the office. He wanted to stay awake and alert; fresh cool air would do that.

  After he cooled the air, he got up and paced. Paloma’s reticence on Wagner, Stuart and Xendor Ltd. bothered him. If she had been keeping information confidential, and struggling to tell him something without revealing secrets, he wouldn’t have been upset.

  But she had hinted at other things, an involvement with that office that went beyond what she had led him to believe a Retrieval Artist did.

  He had gotten the same sense from Ignatius Wagner—that something in the relationship between Paloma and WSX led him to believe that Flint would be flexible in his dealings with them.

  Perhaps he would be; he was never known for following the rules—at least not when he had been a detective. Since he had become a Retrieval Artist, he had followed the rules slavishly; Paloma had predicted dire consequences if he did not.

  But had she been teaching him to be the Retrieval Artist she had always wanted to be and had never been? Had she bent all of those rules she claimed no one should bend? Was that how she knew what the consequences were?

  He stopped pacing near the door, slipping his hands in his pockets. He knew she would never tell him if she had made those mistakes, and she had made it clear she wasn’t going to tell him anything else about WSX.

  He did have a way of finding out her involvement with them, a simple and direct way, one he had avoided until now.

  Paloma had made him promise that he wouldn’t investigate her cases. What files she kept, she had taken with her. Most of the information she had gathered, she claimed, she never wrote down.

  But that last statement had to be a lie. Paloma believed in doing reports—expense reports for the clients, and a final report, depending on the case. Of course, she had said that the reports weren’t always accurate—that they couldn’t be if she were to keep some secrets—but, she added, they always had a grain of truth.

  Deleted reports left ghosts in the files.

  Flint had known that when Paloma had initially told him of her system, and he had wondered then if she had known that she left traces of herself throughout the internal net. Paloma hadn’t been as good with computers as he was; she knew a lot, but she didn’t know everything.

  He went to his desk, sat down, and flexed his hand over the keyboard. Paloma’s question haunted him: why did he still work? He didn’t need the money.

  He had told her he wanted to be useful, but that wasn’t true. He felt that everything—right, wrong, good, bad—had been turned upside down by the agreements between the known worlds. People were punished for things they hadn’t even known were crimes—for things, even if they had known, that wouldn’t be considered crimes under human law.

  Flint had been forced to enforce those rules, sometimes sacrificing children for their parents’ crimes, sometimes sending people to their deaths for carelessly walking along the wrong patch of ground.

  He had gazed along the path of his future and had seen his own morals become twisted or felt the impending bitterness of a man continually forced to do things he did not believe in.

  He had become a Retrieval Artist because he had watched Paloma. It seemed to him then that she had the perfect job: she could determine who she worked for and why; she never had to make tough moral choices, leaving them to other people; and she could rescue people if she felt they needed saving.

  She wouldn’t endanger lives, not even accidentally, and she would—more often than not—help families get together rather than use the law to force them apart.

  He rested his fingers lightly on the keys, not depressing them, staring at the empty screen before him.

  Paloma had warned him. You have a romantic view of the Retrieval Artist, Miles, she had said. You must realize that nothing is easy or straightforward any longer.

  He had felt she was wrong when she had said that to him. The choices he made in his last days as a detective—they had seemed easy and straightforward. He had saved lives, countless lives, and he had felt good about his work.

  Then he had come here to continue that work, wanting to be Sir Galahad, a hero of old.

  He had always been fond of tales of heroes. He’d even read them to his daughter before she fell asleep. His wife had laughed at him, saying Emmeline was too young to understand what he was saying, let alone understand the stories themselves, but he had believed that stories planted early would become a healthy foundation for Emmeline’s life as an adult.

  The life she would never, ever have.

  He raised his right hand from the keyboard and wiped his face. A sheen of sweat coated his skin, even though he had cooled down the room.

  Emmeline. How had he gone from ethics to Paloma to Emmeline?

  Perhaps ethics and morals and his daughter’s short, tragic life were all tied together in his mind. Maybe the guilt he carried from her death—from failing to check the care providers’ backgrounds more carefully to failing to understand how one accidental death could become the first murder when everyone realized that Emmeline’s had been the second.

  How awful it must have been for her in those last few minutes, being held by someone larger and more powerful, someone angry who had shaken her….

  He stood. His breath was coming in short gasps. He walked back toward the door, not pacing this time so much as trying to get away from his desk, where the emotion had built to a fever pitch—as if it were the desk’s fault instead of his own.

  Maybe he didn’t want to work for ethics and morals at all. Maybe he simply wanted to defend the small, helpless, and uninformed against anyone larger, stronger and angrier. Maybe he was just trying to right a wrong—a wrong that could never be fixed.

  He made himself breathe evenly. Examining his own motives wouldn’t help him here. They would only twist him further.

  For the first time since he had purchased Paloma’s business, her past was influencing his. She had always told him that he could not make decisions without all of the information he could find.

  The biggest problem he had this afternoon, however, was that Paloma refused to share information with him, information that clearly pertained to Wagner’s insistence on Flint for this job—whatever the job was.

  Flint ran a hand through his hair. Sweat had beaded beneath the curls, but he wasn’t hot. He was nervous.

  He had felt quite an obligation to Paloma, one that had extended throughout everything he did—using her systems, her office, her well-worded client agreements. In some ways he felt like her placeholder, someone who ran her business while she took a much-needed vacation.

  You need to graduate, she had said to him. Retrieval Artists work alone.

  He sighed. He had promised Paloma that he wouldn’t investigate her past cases, but it was a promise he wouldn’t be able to keep.

  Perhaps she had known that. Perhaps that was why she had taken the remaining files with her.

  However, if she wanted to have complete privacy, she should have taken the entire office network, all the way down to the security system. He would be able to find traces of anything within that system, especially now that he knew it better than its designer.

  Paloma knew how good he was with computers. She had once told him that his computer skill would make him a better Retrieval Artist than she could have ever been. Perhaps she had known about the ghosts in the system and expected him to find them.

  But he had to stop worrying about what Paloma wanted. She would never know what he did, how he conducted his business, why he made the choices he had, unless he told her.

  And he wasn’t going to tell her. Not any more. He had graduated. He no longer needed an instructor, and he couldn’t afford to have a close friend—at least not one who knew about his business.

  He returned to the computer. He would capture all of the ghost files Paloma left in the system, and he would store them in a special
place, someplace that no one else would ever think to look. Then he would wipe them out of the system forever.

  That was step one.

  Step two was even simpler. He would read the files that pertained to WSX, but he wouldn’t read any other files. He wouldn’t snoop unless the situation forced him to.

  He had a hunch that this wouldn’t be the only time that Paloma’s past would influence his present. He would use what she had left him when he had to, and only then.

  He had to this afternoon.

  Flint took a deep breath and sat down at his chair. The restlessness was gone. Now he had to concentrate to get all the work done before Wagner arrived for his appointment.

  ELEVEN

  DERICCI STOOD INSIDE the bungalow, her hood down, the environmental suit off. Sweat slicked her body, and her cheeks felt flushed. She longed for the opportunity to remove the suit, but knew it probably wouldn’t come any time soon.

  Chaiken, Lakferd, and five other race organizers were gathered around her. She could feel their anger already, and she hadn’t even spoken to them yet. Perhaps what she felt was her own anger, suppressed after her conversation with her boss.

  DeRicci had contacted Gumiela just before coming into the bungalow. With an investigation this complicated—a murder at the marathon—DeRicci had asked for someone else to take over. Someone with diplomatic abilities, political skill, and a little bit of clout.

  Someone, in other words, as far from DeRicci as possible.

  Gumiela had turned the request down. A younger, more naïve DeRicci would have been ecstatic that she remained in charge of this investigation. The older, cynical DeRicci knew that she had gotten the job because she gave the city the ability to blame every tough position, every unpopular move, on her. They might even fire her if she did her job extremely well—especially if it turned out that the marathon was somehow at fault for the corpse that still rested on the regolith.

  The live feed of the race now focused on the finish line. Runners came across in clumps, arms raised.

  DeRicci thought it odd that to a person they all leaped across, no matter how tired they were. It was as if, in that final moment, they summoned the strength to fly.

  The organizers were staring at her. She hadn’t told them anything yet. She had asked Chaiken to gather them as she returned from the murder scene, then she had come straight here.

  At least the coroner and the forensic team had arrived quickly. DeRicci had sent them a message through her link the moment she realized that the corpse was a murder victim. Forensics was guarding the scene now, preventing anyone else from getting close.

  She had left the coroner with specific instructions: DeRicci needed time of death as soon as possible. She also needed cause of death. Even though the corpse’s face had the look of an oxygen deprivation victim, the position of the body had not.

  DeRicci wanted all of the contradictions explained. The more information she had when she started the interviews, the better off she would be.

  “Where’s your partner?” Chaiken asked.

  He crossed his bony arms and stared at her, as if he wanted her to get another message. She got it: he wanted this meeting to go quickly.

  So did she, but she wasn’t going to let him control her actions. If Gumiela wanted DeRicci in charge, then DeRicci would stay in charge.

  “He’s doing some follow-up for me,” she said.

  She had sent van der Ketting to the organizer’s table to investigate the singlet number, figuring he could do that without harming any evidence, even if the low gravity made him topple over. This investigation had suddenly become too sensitive for him, only he didn’t know that yet. He didn’t have the skills to conduct the kinds of interviews she needed, and he didn’t have the political background to handle the kind of diplomacy she now found herself faced with.

  “Follow up?” Chaiken asked. “Then the investigation is nearly done?”

  She didn’t like the note of superiority in his tone. In the past, the marathon organizers had controlled the length of police investigations into the deaths. That control had been possible because the deaths were clearly accidental, the fault of the type of event rather than any human agent.

  They wouldn’t have that kind of control this time, no matter what it cost DeRicci.

  “No,” she said. “The investigation has barely started.”

  The organizers shifted. One of the women, whose name DeRicci hadn’t caught, looked at Chaiken in alarm.

  “You know we have to clear the course by the end of the dome day,” he said. “We have an agreement with the city—”

  “The city has other priorities now,” DeRicci said, “and you will too in a few minutes.”

  “That sounds like a threat, Detective,” Lakferd said.

  Were all former runners paranoid? DeRicci wanted to snap at him, but she didn’t. She had to present her case as best as possible, without angering the organizers.

  She needed them, for the next few hours at least.

  “No, it’s not a threat,” she said, making sure her voice remained level. “We all have a serious problem here.”

  Chaiken moved in front of the wall of images. Runners moved behind him all over the course, a not-so-subtle reminder of the importance of the race.

  “A serious problem?” he asked. “What’s so different about this death?”

  DeRicci clenched a fist, but kept it hidden at her side. His tone was so matter-of-fact, as if the end of someone’s life meant nothing in comparison to the race.

  She hated people like Chaiken. She had to take a deep breath, so that she wouldn’t tell him what she thought of him.

  “What’s so different about this death?” she repeated, her voice low. “Well, it’s pretty simple, actually. This death is a murder.”

  Lakferd gasped. The other five stared at her as if she had gone crazy. Behind them, more runners floated across the finish line, arms raised.

  Chaiken didn’t look at his colleagues, or at the wall screens. Instead he stared at DeRicci as if he could see through her. His posture hadn’t changed, nor had his expression. She could have just as easily told him that she preferred reconstituted chicken to the real thing.

  “How can you possibly know someone was murdered?” he asked.

  He wasn’t challenging her data. He was challenging her expertise. He wanted her away from his marathon, as if the murder were her fault.

  “I found a variety of things that convinced me this was murder.” DeRicci wasn’t about to tell him what those things were. Right now, everyone connected to the marathon was a suspect. She didn’t think the organizers were involved, but she was operating on a hunch, not fact. And, frankly, she didn’t like Chaiken’s attitude.

  Maybe her gut was wrong.

  “Right now,” she added, “the forensics team is out there, seeing what they can find.”

  “We can’t deal with a murder,” one of the women said. “This’ll shut us down forever.”

  Lakferd nodded. He started to say something, but DeRicci spoke first.

  “I think shutting you down might have been the intent.”

  Everyone looked at her. Even Chaiken seemed stunned. Finally he had shown some emotion. It was as if he couldn’t bear losing the marathon, as if it were as alive as he was.

  “Why?” he asked, his voice shaking. “Why would anyone do that?”

  “We’re a long way from why,” DeRicci said. “But I suspect that someone set you up. It looks like the body was dumped here, so that it would be found during the race.”

  “That’s not possible,” Lakferd said. “We have security measures. No one gets Outside before the race starts.”

  “No one?” DeRicci asked.

  “No one,” Lakferd said. “Except staff, of course.”

  DeRicci waited for him to realize what he had said.

  His cheeks grew red, and his eyes widened. The other five organizers were shaking their heads.

  “It couldn’t be staff,” Chaiken
said. “We’ve all been part of this event for decades. None of us would try to ruin it.”

  “But you have volunteers, don’t you? People who must man the tables, people who help set up. And what about the medical staff? Surely they aren’t the same year to year.” DeRicci spoke softly. Right now, the organizers’ shock gave her an advantage. She planned to use it.

  “We check them out,” the woman said.

  “I’m sure you do,” DeRicci said. “Checking people out doesn’t always stop them from doing something bad.”

  “If this person was dumped onto the track,” Chaiken asked, “how did she get a singlet number?”

  “That’s one of the questions we have,” DeRicci said.

  Chaiken sank into a nearby chair. “This is a mess.”

  He was finally beginning to understand.

  “It’s going to get worse,” DeRicci said. “We’re going to have to interview everyone connected with the marathon.”

  “I figured as much,” Lakferd said. “We get names and addresses as a matter of course. Everyone is linked. It’s a requirement of entry. Since we have all the information, you’ll be able to contact them at your leisure.”

  DeRicci clasped her hands behind her back, like a school teacher facing a recalcitrant student.

  “We have no leisure,” she said. “We have a small window of opportunity before everyone in the race scatters. We have to take it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lakferd asked.

  “We’re going to interview everyone today. You’ll have to clear out this bungalow for us. You’ll also need a place that the runners can go after they finish. I would suggest one of the utility buildings Outside. I’m sure the city will give permission for that.”

  “You want people to stay here? They’ll be tired and hungry and they’ll feel trapped. You can’t do that. Imagine the publicity it’ll garner us.” Lakferd twisted his thin hands together.

  One of the other men bowed his head as if he had already given up. Chaiken was watching a wall screen. More people crossing the finish line.