Deadly Lover (8 page)

“Or to renegotiate terms when needed,” Vaj added.

Lily got the distinct impression the conversation had drifted back to whatever they’d been discussing before she arrived. The Ormney Affairs office had a reputation for being ultra-pro-Ormney, so the undertones between Bradley and Vaj struck her as odd. “I don’t want to interrupt.”

“No problem at all.” Bradley put out an arm as if subconsciously corralling them all to the door. “Vaj, perhaps we could continue our discussion later this afternoon.”

Vaj inclined his head in a stately manner. “Certainly.” He met and held Lily’s gaze for a heartbeat. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Agent Rowan.”

The Councilor left the conference room and Bradley led Lily a few steps down the hall to his office. In under a minute, he had Deepwater Regional Field Director Marjorie Gardot on his office-com.

“Marjorie, good to see you again. Thanks for taking my call.”

The image of the short, fiftyish woman with a cool smile and assessing eyes loomed large on the video display wall. “I see Agent Rowan is there with you. Can I assume you’re calling to officially request her reassignment?”

Bradley’s smile tightened beneath the weight of Gardot’s scrutiny, but he didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Precisely.”

The woman gave away nothing of her thoughts. “Agent Rowan.”

“Director Gardot,” Lily acknowledged.

“Bradley, you’ll excuse a moment.” Without waiting for a response, Gardot turned her back to the screen and her voice switched from the office com to the com-link in Lily’s ear. “I’m clearing you for reassignment to this case, but I’m not clearing you to divulge any further information related to your last assignment.”

Despite the director’s unremarkable tone, Lily accepted it for the stern rebuke it was. The director wasn’t pleased she’d shared information about the possibility of negative Ormney drug reactions with Metro.

“Understood, Director.”

“And, Agent—” the director paused as if she wanted to make sure she had Lily’s full attention, “—I expect you to keep your responsibilities to this office clearly in focus in this matter.”

Lily measured Gardot’s words and the possible meaning behind them. “Yes, Director.”

With her acknowledgment, the director turned back to face the vid and Bradley. “Always a pleasure, Mr. Rubiero. Close com.”

The screen went dark abruptly, leaving them standing side by side in front of the quiet com station.

Bradley sucked in a breath as if he needed to reset after the director’s abruptness. He turned to face Lily. “You’re looking a lot better this morning, but you still look tired. You okay?” He reached over to Lily and tried to slide his hand into hers.

She stepped away, to put some distance between them. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, then, can you tell me what that sidebar was about?”

Lily lifted a shoulder to her ear in a less than subtle deflection. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

Bradley laughed. “You in trouble?”

“Maybe I was a little too forthcoming with confidential information yesterday.”

“About the drugs?”

“Yeah.” That was definitely part of it, but she thought there was something more. The director must be worried that the course of the investigation could tempt her to repeat the mistake.

“I’m sorry,” said Bradley. “I probably got you in more trouble when I spoke to her about the drugs.”

“No, I reported in when I got to the med center yesterday.” She’d requested Deepwater’s science division share details of all known Ormney chemical vulnerabilities. She’d already told Metro that Deepwater had the info so they were pressed to transmit the details.”

Bradley, stared at her silent and doe eyed.

Lily shifted on her feet, uncomfortable. “Did you tell Director Gardot about the earlier case? The woman found in the river?”

“No,” said Bradley. “No need to tell her about that at this point.”

Lily wouldn’t argue the point. “I’ll need that file as soon as possible, and clearance for the new Metro case.”

While Bradley went to work getting her what she’d need, Lily took in the office. The decorative mini-vid screen on one corner of his desk flicked between professional portraits of Rose and Ambassador Rubiero, Bradley’s father.

A display curio held several pieces of Post-Crossing Ormney art. There was no Pre-Crossing Ormney art. Not in Bradley’s case. Not anywhere. They’d lost every physical representation of their culture. She tried to imagine losing even a small fraction of Earth culture. What if the Louvre were destroyed? The pyramids in Egypt? The works of Shakespeare, Beethoven, Roberts? If the only thing remaining of them were memories? She wondered what Jolaj had left behind, what memories of home he held precious.

“Lily?”

“Yeah.” She turned to see a Metro file pull up on the vid display.

“Here’s the case we think is related to yesterday’s attack.”

“I’ll want a complete copy of this sent to my data account.” She stepped closer to the display and listened as Bradley read.

“Ginger Simon, age forty-two. Unemployed. Picked up repeatedly for petty theft, vandalism, vagrancy. Her address is in The Mixer.”

There were two images on screen, one of a lump of flesh that looked vaguely like a rib cage and another of Ginger, looking serious, ivory complexion, coal black hair.

“You said they found her body.”

“Enough of it to get a DNA identification.”

So a lot of poor Ginger was still eddying around the bottom of the river or had found its way out to sea.

A silken artificial voice interrupted her thoughts. “Urgent com from Secretary Lupcke.”

Bradley engaged privacy mode, pulled the ear-tuc from his com unit, and slid it over his ear. He listened for a moment then ended the call with a brief yes-sir, thank-you-sir.

Lily waited, curious. “Everything okay?”

“Ah, no.” Bradley slipped off the ear-tuc, his face sober and empty. “There’s been another attack.”

A crowd had already gathered outside the boxy, multi-story building when Lily and Bradley arrived at the crime scene. Officer Ferguson escorted them up to the apartment where Mary Santini had been murdered. Sean met them at the door with and a day’s growth of blond whiskers not quite covering his tempered scowl. Lily understood. Two murders in two days changed things for Metro. They’d thought they were working a one-time incident with the perpetrator already out of the picture.

“You got the com with our clearance?” she asked.

“I got it.” He nodded at Lily then he turned to Bradley. “Brad.”

Sean joined them in the hall, forcing them away from the door. “Forensics should be through with their sweep in a few minutes. I can fill you in out here until they’re done.”

Lily stepped back, noticing there door next to the crime scene was also open. The sound of weeping spilled out.

Sean sucked in a lungful of air and flexed his shoulders in a stretch. “This was called in as a
stringer
attack based on the damage done.”

“Ormney,” Bradley corrected.

Sean shrugged then pulled Lily to the far side of the hall. “The victim is ripped up a lot like the one yesterday. A neighbor downstairs saw an Ormney leave the building sometime before the victim’s mother got home and found the girl dead. Bled out.”

Bradley edged closer to Lily, clearly unwilling to be cut out of the conversation. “The victim is the daughter? Is this a younger victim?”

“Yeah, just turned eighteen a month ago.” Sean jerked his head over his shoulder to indicate the weeping still coming through the apartment doorway. “The mother says the girl was top of her class and doing independent-ed to finish out her last year of high school, didn’t have much of a social life. She worked at the grocery down the block during the day to bring in extra cash for the family and did her school work at night.”

“Jesus,” said Bradley. “An honor student and perfect daughter. This will explode in the media.”

Bradley was probably calculating the additional damage that news would inflict on his public relations efforts, but Lily accepted the weighty news for what it was—another life lost to violence. “The neighbor hear anything?” she asked. “Give a description?”

“The one downstairs gave us a rough description for the guy she saw. There’s no visual surveillance in this building, just basic security logs. According to those, she unlocked the door to the apartment in response to a buzz at 7:30 A.M. Someone opened the door again from the interior at 7:50 A.M. Door was left standing open.”

“So, that gives you a timeline for the murder,” said Lily.

“Yeah,” said Sean, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The back- to-back murders had hit him hard. “The neighbor saw the
stringer
, ah, Ormney, leaving the building sometime before eight. Since curfew lifts at 7:00 A.M., he could have been here in time for the murder without raising any flags.”

Lily held her tongue on the subject of curfew. She still didn’t know how Jolaj had gotten clear of The Zone without tripping any of the curfew monitors. “Is it normal for the girl to be home alone at that hour?”

“She was the youngest child. Last one still living at home. The mother works graveyard shift and the father is in freight rail. He’s on his way back from Boston Metro now.”

Lily didn’t envy Sean having to deal with the parent’s grief. “Any suspects?”

“No obvious ones. So far no one in the building has specific ties to any Ormney, but we’re still canvassing. She opened the door to her attacker so she might have known him. At the least she wasn’t worried by his presence in the building.”

“Kids are less cautious,” said Bradley. “Especially teenagers.”

“True,” said Sean. “But the attack yesterday was only a few blocks away. The victim had to have heard about it. There are a few Ormney working stock and loading and unloading trucks in the store where she worked. So far that’s looking like our best possibility for a connection. I’m headed over there next.”

Bradley stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Are you doing anything to consider the possibility that this might be something other than an Ormney attack?”

Sean bristled. “We follow the leads and the evidence, Brad. So far the injuries, timeframe, and witness description, such as it is, points that way. If the techs find physical evidence pointing to something else, we’ll pursue it.”

Ignoring the posturing, Lily focused on the apartment where the weeping had quieted. She couldn’t really see much. The techs appeared at the victim’s apartment threshold and exchanged a few words with Sean.

“I’d like to see the victim,” Lily said, raising her voice to be heard over the murmuring between the men. It was a lie, but Jolaj was counting on her to see something the others would miss.

Sean nodded and moved toward the door. Lily was relieved when he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t know the details of the work she’d done for Deepwater, but apparently he was prepared to treat her like a professional. “Brad, you might want to wait here.” He didn’t look back as he dismissed Bradley, maybe trying not to make it confrontational. Maybe, giving the guy an out. Lily was more than willing to leave Bradley in the hall. She doubted he’d ever even seen a dead body. Not in his job description. But she expected he would try to follow anyway.

“Bradley,” she said. “ Maybe you could talk to the mother. Use that charm of yours to get more info from her.”

He nodded and Lily dismissed him from her thoughts. Inside the apartment, a tech sprayed her down with a light forensic sealant. An overstuffed semi-circle sofa faced an entertainment wall that had been muted. Images flashed across the wall in eerie silence. Like the apartment, the furnishings were serviceable, standard. The place showed all the signs of a family getting by and going nowhere. And that was probably okay by them.

Sean led Lily down a wide hallway lined with photos that testified to the family’s pride in their kids. Portraits mixed with snapshots in a colorful jumble.

The smell of death spilled down the space, swelling as they got closer. The name MARY had been stenciled in green letters on the door that stood open at the far end. Sean stepped aside and let Lily go in first.

The copper tang of blood and the biting stench she associated with belly wounds lay thick in the air, squeezing her lungs like a horrid, blood-soaked blanket.

She took her time, looking past the gore and chaos to the pale green walls and feminine mint and white furnishings beneath. Feminine, yes, but not overly so. No ruffles or flounces.

An e-scribe tablet lay on the floor near the bed and basic secondary-school math formulas peeked out from behind the blood splattered across a work-display wall. There were no school banners. No stills of friends.

It looked as if the victim might have been a bit mature for her age, maybe hiding something, more likely a bit of an introvert, isolated, lonely. Not the kind of kid to draw the attention of a random attacker, but exactly the kind that might be targeted by a more methodical predator.

Lily half-listened to Sean’s all-business explanation of cast-off patterns and the preliminary ME report.

She let her eyes see the victim, slowly. As she’d done with the room, she tried to look below the obvious offense of blood and torn flesh.

Mary’s face was surprisingly untouched, her pale blue eyes open and unseeing. Wisps of baby-fine hair spread around her head in a shade of red almost too perfectly uniform to be real, but the delicate eyebrows, arching thinly over her eyes, were the same carroty color, suggesting it might be natural after all. The sprinkle of freckles decorating her nose and cheeks clinched it. No teenager had ever wanted freckles.

“No sign of a struggle till we get in here,” said Sean. “She fought. Defensive wounds on her forearms.”

His flat, cop delivery of that detail sparked along the scars of her own arms like electrical current along a glide-rail. Lily took in the deep grooves carved into Mary’s arms then moved on to the girl’s torso. She couldn’t tell what color the shirt had been before the attack. Lily clutched the edge of her coat and squeezed the leather tight in her fists. She wouldn’t look away. Not yet.

Focusing on the details, she saw that the tiny flower buttons than ran down the edge of one side were all free of the matching button holes and all still intact. They hadn’t been fastened when her abdomen had been ripped open.