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CHAPTER NINE

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Bilswift’s port and docks were located in a natural cove at the northwest part of the city, a couple of hundred meters east of where the river met the ocean and butting up against the eastern edge of the spaceport that itself jutted out into the sea. Anywhere else, having ocean and river craft crossing paths with each other and then throwing in space and suborbital planetary vessels could have made for a traffic nightmare. Here in the backwoods, with mostly fishing craft on the water and a couple of suborbitals a day, it was hardly even noticeable.

Most of the area around the docks was taken up by warehouses, service and refurbishing centers, and maritime supply stores. But just upriver from all that was a row of five tiny cottages with a nice view of the river and the forest beyond. My guess was that they’d once been homes to some of the fishing captains or crews, or maybe tourist rentals, but now seemed to be occupied by ordinary townsfolk who liked looking at moving water and weren’t worried about flood tides.

The middle of those five houses turned out to be Tirano’s.

Oddly enough, and unlike the other four cottages, his place had windows only on the north, east, and west sides, with an unbroken wall facing south. Selene speculated that seasonal storm-force winds might come from that direction; my more cynical theory was that the person who built or refurbished that particular cottage had been figuratively turning his back on the rest of the city. It wasn’t until we got inside and got a look at the cottage’s interior that we discovered the real reason.

The south wall, as it happened, was about half a meter too thick.

“Where do we begin?” Selene asked, shining her flashlight around.

“I’ll start with the wardrobe and dresser.” I pointed to the south wall. “You find the hidden compartment and figure out how to open it.”

“All right.”

“And keep your light away from the windows,” I warned as we headed to different parts of the cottage’s single room. The heavy rain and shadows had hopefully obscured our furtive entrance into the house, but a single careless flicker of light peeking around the window shades could very quickly unravel all that caution.

“I know,” she called, already sniffing methodically along the wall.

The stand-up wardrobe nestled against the east wall contained a pair of jackets of different weights, probably for Bilswift’s different seasons, three pairs of trousers, a raincoat, and a set of reasonably nice dress shoes. I was sifting through the modest selection of shirts in the dresser when I heard a muffled click from across the room.

“Found it,” Selene announced. I turned around as she swung back a two-meter-wide section of the wall. “Well.”

“You find his phone?” I asked, heading over to her. In the backwash of her light I could see the hidden compartment had a rack of some kind of clothing, along with two pairs of boots. On the other side of the compartment, the area where her light was focused, were half a dozen shallow shelves. “I never believed that nonsense about him losing it.”

“More likely he threw it away,” Selene said, pointing her light at one of the shelves. “If he was worried about being tracked, I can see why.”

I stopped behind her and looked over her shoulder.

At the six-centimeter-high stack of commarks.

“And there used to be more,” Selene continued, pointing at the empty space beside the stack. “There was another stack here. I can smell the spots where his fingers brushed the wood as he picked them up.”

“How long ago was he here?” I asked, wanting to see how much there was but knowing better than to contaminate the scene with my touch.

She hesitated. “Two hours or less.”

“Two hours or less,” I repeated, frowning as I tried to reconstruct the evening’s events. “So he leaves the Ruth, goes to the fish shop, sees the Javersin brothers have been murdered, comes here and grabs a stack of cash and . . . what?”

“The obvious answer would be that he’s preparing to run,” Selene said, her pupils doubtful.

Would be?”

“Yes,” Selene said. “Because I’m confused.” She shifted her light to the clothing in the other half of the hideaway. “Those clothes look like they’re designed for hiking or rock climbing, don’t they?”

“I’d say so, yes,” I agreed shining my own light on the footwear below the clothing. “Especially the boots. But if he was planning to run for the hills—in this case, literally . . . ?”

“Why didn’t he take time to change?” Selene finished our common thought. “The clothing he was wearing when he came to the Ruth was barely even suitable for a rainy night. It wouldn’t hold up two minutes in the kind of terrain we drove through today.”

“He could have switched shoes,” I pointed out. “There’s room down there for another pair of boots.”

“But not for any other outfits.”

“So he didn’t head out of town unless he had access to a vehicle,” I said thoughtfully. “Okay, odd thought: Remember what Darnell said about Tirano once being some kind of tracker?”

“I remember,” Selene said slowly as she pulled up the conversation from her memory. “He said there used to be natives living up the mountain near Seven Strands, and that Tirano used to find abandoned artifacts up there.”

“He also told us the natives had all disappeared,” I said. “What if they haven’t?”

“Are you saying Tirano might have gone to them?”

“It’s a thought,” I said. “If he’s the only one around who can sniff them out, and if he made some friends on his other trips, it might be a good place to go to ground.”

“But that’s still up in the mountains,” Selene pointed out. “If he went there, why didn’t he change clothing first?”

I scowled. That was a good point. “Maybe he’s just planning on traveling through their territory to Cavindoss and thought hiking gear would be too conspicuous in the middle of a city?”

“Maybe,” Selene said, her pupils going suddenly thoughtful. “Gregory, you said Lukki called herself a dealer in exotics. Correct?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Yes, I see where you’re going. Artifacts from a vanished people would also fit that category. And I doubt Tirano has the contacts and business skills to set up that kind of dealership alone.” I gestured toward the stack of commarks. “Especially one that pays this well.”

“And if he was working for Lukki, maybe he knew about a safe house she had for emergencies,” Selene suggested.

“Maybe,” I said, staring at the commarks. “So if he was running, why didn’t he grab all the cash? Also, Lukki didn’t strike me as the sort who would share safe-house information with anyone else.”

“Not even her most valuable employees?”

“She might tell them about one or two of her hideouts,” I conceded. “Maybe. But she’d have at least one that no one else knew about. She also wasn’t the sort to put information like that on her phone or info pad where it could be tracked or hacked. Did any of the badgeman reports you looked at mention Lukki’s address?”

“Yes,” she said. “But I’m sure the badgemen have already been through everything.”

“That’s okay,” I said, motioning her to close the secret door. “As my father used to say, Just because you look at something doesn’t mean you see it. Let’s go find out what they missed.”

* * *

The outer door of Lukki’s apartment building was locked, and I hadn’t thought to bring a set of lockpicks with me. Fortunately, we only had to wait a few minutes before one of the other residents came along, hurrying through the rain with his head down, and keyed it open. Most people knew enough not to let strangers crowd through a security door behind them, but most people also didn’t pay attention to whether or not the door actually sealed once they were inside. This tenant proved to be one of the most, and kept going despite the door hanging up on the small stick I lobbed onto the threshold as it was closing. Twenty seconds later, Selene and I were also out of the rain.

Unlike the tenant, I made sure the door sealed behind us.

“I don’t suppose you know which apartment is hers,” I muttered to Selene as we dripped our way toward the elevator.

“No, but—” She broke off, lurching to a sudden stop, her eyelashes going like crazy.

“What is it?” I asked quietly, opening my coat and getting a grip on my plasmic.

“They were here,” she murmured. “All of them. Willie, Kiolven and Venikel, Detective-Sergeant Kreega”—she braced herself—“and Tirano.”

I gripped my plasmic a little tighter. “Well, Kreega having been here makes sense,” I muttered. “Badgeman and all that. Any of them here now?”

She gave a quiet sigh. “Tirano.”

So he’d had the same thought I had about finding a clue to Lukki’s safe house. “Okay,” I said, glancing around at the deserted hallway and drawing my plasmic. “Let’s find him.”

Selene hadn’t been able to dig Lukki’s apartment number out of the badgeman files. Not surprising, given that sensitive information like that was typically buried under thicker layers of hackproofing than Selene had had time to tackle.

But for a Kadolian, that wasn’t a problem. Now that we knew Tirano had been here, and had presumably gone to Lukki’s place, all Selene had to do was sniff at each elevator button until she found the floor he’d gone to, and then sniff at each door on that floor until she found his scent on the knob.

In this case, we ended up at one of the fancier corner apartments, sealed away behind a safe-style digital lock. “Well?” I asked as she sniffed at the keypad.

“Six digits; six different numbers,” she said.

“So, no,” I concluded. “Is he in there?”

She stooped down and sniffed at the wisps of air coming out from under the door. “Yes, he’s—” She broke off, her body going rigid as she straightened up. “The two Patth,” she said, twitching aside her coat and drawing her plasmic. “They’re in there with him.”

“Damn,” I muttered. Tirano and two Patth on the inside, Selene and me on the outside, and a locked security door between us.

I frowned down at the keypad as a sudden thought struck me. Unless . . .  “Selene, was there any Patth scent on the keypad?”

“No,” she bit out. Her pupils were blazing with fear and helpless anger, her hand tense where she gripped her weapon. “What does—?” She broke off, the emotion in her pupils shifting as she saw where I was going.

Because if Kiolven and Venikel were high enough in the Patth hierarchy to have a set of those handy little security back-door protocols, and if they’d been just a little careless . . .  “Let’s find out,” I said. Getting a grip on the doorknob, mentally crossing my fingers, I gently turned it.

Careless it was. The knob turned, the latch bolt slid back, and the door was open. Glancing at Selene to make sure she was ready, I gave the door a gentle shove and slipped through into the apartment’s common room.

And walked in on what could have been the anteroom of a medieval torture chamber.

Tirano was sitting on an upright chair facing us, his thin wrists tied to the chair’s arms, his face rigid. Standing facing him with their backs to us were the two Patth. An end table laden with a selection of kitchen knives and skewers sat between them. The Patth on the left was holding a long and particularly nasty-looking serrated carving knife, its tip hovering bare centimeters above the first joint of Tirano’s right forefinger. The Patth on the right was murmuring something in a low voice, his tone somehow managing to be both soothing and menacing. I opened my mouth to announce our arrival—

“Drop it or die,” Selene said quietly, gliding toward the Patth with the knife.

“If you’re smart you’ll listen to the lady,” I advised, angling toward my right.

People were never smart. The words were barely out of my mouth when the Patth holding the knife—it was Venikel, I saw as he swung far enough for me to see into his hood—twisted around and hurled the knife at Selene.

Rather, he hurled it at the spot where Selene had been when she delivered her threat. As my father used to say, They’re welcome to know where you were as long as they don’t know where you are. Selene had been a bounty hunter far too long to make that kind of mistake, and had angled off to her left as soon as the words were out of her mouth. The knife whistled past her and bounced off the door. Venikel continued his spin, grabbing blindly for one of the knives on the end table—

And snarled something in the Patth language as Selene’s shot burned into the edge of his hood and my one-two shots turned the remaining knives into an artistic selection of branding irons.

“I don’t know why you people can never just do as you’re told,” I complained, striding around behind Kiolven. He, at least, had taken note of our willingness to make a mess and was standing motionless with his open hands outstretched to the sides. “You really think you can outrun one of these things?”

“You people, as in the Patthaaunuth?” Kiolven asked, a shimmering of threat in his voice.

“You people, as in everyone who thinks we don’t really mean it,” I corrected. “Nothing against you or the Patth personally. You want to raise your hands, step away from the young lad there, and tell us what the bloody hell is going on?”

“They want to know where Galfvi is,” Tirano said as the two Patth complied. The boy’s face was outwardly composed, as Kadolian faces nearly always were, but his trembling voice showed the fear and horror lying beneath the façade.

“Where is he?” Venikel demanded, anger simmering in his face even as he winced at the embers still floating around the charred hole Selene had burned in his hood. “If you know his whereabouts, tell us. Now!”

“Take it easy,” I soothed, my eyes on Kiolven. He had also turned to face me, but unlike his partner he was standing quietly, his face and outward attitude calm and cool.

And he was watching me. Very closely.

“So,” I said, addressing him. “You’re not just the cold badge half of the classic hot badge/cold badge game. You’re the head of this little search party.”

For a moment I thought he was going to deny it. Then, a touch of a smile crossed his face and he inclined his head slightly. “You are indeed as we were told,” he said. “Tell me, Mr. Roarke, how well do you know Galfvi and his family?”

“Never met him, and absolutely nothing,” I said. “What do you want with him? Escaped criminal? Run out on his wife?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a brief reaction cross Venikel’s face. Kiolven’s expression didn’t even twitch. “Not at all,” he assured me. “He’s been out of contact with his family for a significant time, and they’re concerned for his safety.”

“Concerned enough to sanction torture?”

“The safety of the Patthaaunuth always takes precedence over the comfort of lesser beings,” Kiolven said. “Did Galfvi never express that reality to you?”

“I already said we never met him.”

“And you?” Kiolven asked, turning his head back toward Tirano. “He said nothing of his family to you?”

“He cut fish and cleaned tools,” Tirano said. His voice was still tense, but some of the quavering had faded. “That’s all I know about him.”

“I see.” Kiolven turned back to me. “Then our duty here has been discharged, and we will be on our way.”

“You think so?” Selene asked.

I felt something hard settle into my stomach. Selene was usually the calm half of our team, seldom getting angry, always observing and assessing and waiting for my lead or taking advantage of a promising opening I’d missed.

But here she’d drawn her plasmic before I did. She’d warned or threatened the bad guys without waiting for me to do so. And she’d fired a warning shot far closer to her target’s face than I ever would have.

And now, with a peaceable disentanglement strategy laid out in front of us, she was not just rocking the boat but possibly hoping to capsize it.

“You’re threatening an innocent boy,” Selene continued. “Such actions carry consequences.”

“Innocent?” Kiolven sent a sideways look at Tirano. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But let us pass on that. Do these consequences you speak of entail you summoning the badgemen? Or do you intend to shoot us and be done with it?”

I held my breath . . . because from what I could see in her pupils it sure as hell looked like she was ready to go with option two.

“I should point out that there are serious difficulties intrinsic to the disposal of murdered bodies,” Kiolven continued, his manner still glacially calm. “As for calling the badgemen, I believe Detective-Sergeant Kreega still wishes to question your kinsman Tirano concerning Galfvi’s disappearance, the theft of money from the seafood shop, and Ms. Lukki Parsons’ murder. Do you really wish to give the authorities that opportunity?”

The unthinking anger in Selene’s pupils began to fade. “If we let you leave, what happens then?” she asked.

“We have questioned your kinsman and learned the depth of his knowledge,” Kiolven said. Without asking permission, he lowered his arms to his sides. “There is nothing more we can do here tonight.”

For another few seconds Selene continued to point her plasmic at the two of them. Then, she twitched the weapon’s muzzle toward the door. “Go,” she said. “If you bother any of us again, you will sorely regret it.”

“Understood.” Kiolven gestured to Venikel and started toward the door. Venikel took another moment to send glares at Selene and me before following. Kiolven opened the door, ushered Venikel out, and left, closing the door gently behind him.

“Well, that was fun,” I said, holstering my plasmic and drawing my knife as I walked over to Tirano. Behind me, Selene crossed to the door, locked it, and engaged the deadbolt. “You all right, Tirano?” I asked the boy as I cut him free from the chair.

His only answer was to leap to his feet, take four running steps across the room, and fling himself into a clearly surprised Selene’s arms. For a moment they hung together, faces pressed into each other’s necks, communing silently by touch and scent. Then, Selene gently pulled away. “Are you all right?” I asked again.

“He’s fine,” Selene answered for him. “Frightened, but unhurt.”

“Good.” I’d have preferred to hear it from Tirano himself, but the Selene who was only now returning her plasmic to its holster wasn’t one I wanted to raise petty complaints to. “So what did they want, Tirano?”

“You heard him speak,” Tirano said. With Selene having ended their hug, he was now standing in the middle of the room, looking a bit uncertain. “They wanted to know about Galfvi.”

“What did you tell them?”

Tirano looked at Selene. “I told them I don’t know where he is,” he said. “I told them the last time I saw him he was afraid.”

“And the money?” I asked. “Did you tell them about the money in Galfvi’s robe?”

“I didn’t steal it,” Tirano insisted. He lowered his gaze to the floor. “Galfvi stole it,” he continued, almost too softly now for me to hear. “I didn’t know it was in there. That was why I—” He broke off. “Over there.” He pointed to a small duffel bag on the couch.

I looked at Selene, wondering if she would want to look first. She stayed where she was, so after a couple of seconds I went over to the couch and opened the duffel.

Inside were two shirts, a pair of slacks, a couple of changes of undergarments, and a stack of commarks.

“Good rule of thumb: when you go on a trip, stick with the essentials,” I commented, holding up the open bag so Selene could see inside. “So if you’re running, why didn’t you take the rest of the money?”

“I’m not running,” Tirano said, showing no surprise at the implication that we’d been in his home. Probably smelled it on Selene while they were hugging. I’d noted over the years that having Selene as a partner saved a lot of time and conversation. Clearly, being a fellow Kadolian saved even more of both. “I was going to give it to Mr. Darnell and Mr. Bicks to pay them back for what Galfvi stole. Only . . . ” He trailed off, closing his eyes.

“Only you got there and saw they’d been murdered,” I said grimly. I again looked at Selene, but could see no suspicion or doubt in her pupils. Apparently, Tirano was telling the truth. “I guess our timeline was a little off.”

Tirano raised his head and gave me an odd look. “The timeline?”

“We assumed you’d been to the fish shop first, then gone to your house to get running money,” I explained. “I see now it was the other way around. So why did you come here after the fish shop?”

“I thought I could hide,” he said. “I knew Ms. Lukki had been killed—”

“Don’t lie,” Selene said quietly.

Tirano twitched. “What?”

“I said don’t lie,” Selene repeated. “You didn’t come here to hide. Why did you come here?”

Tirano looked at me, then back at her. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’m afraid. I need to sleep.”

It was obvious Selene wanted to keep the conversation going. It was equally obvious that she couldn’t force Tirano to talk if he didn’t want to. “All right,” she said. “I assume there’s a bedroom back there. Find it, clean up if you want, and go to sleep. Are you hungry?”

“No,” he said, moving toward a door at the back of the common room. “Thank you. And thank you for—” He looked at the row of knives. “For saving me.”

“Sleep well,” Selene called as he passed through the doorway, closing the door behind him.

“Well, that was interesting,” I commented as I went over to the knives and gave one of them a careful tap. It was still hot where my plasmic shot had superheated it. “I thought you couldn’t tell if he was lying.”

“You mean by smell?” She shook her head. “No, I can’t. Not the way I could with another Kadolian whom I knew well.”

“So calling him on his lie was a bluff?”

“No. I mean, not completely.” She hesitated. “It’s . . . You’ve seen his expressions and gestures, Gregory. He seems to have adopted them from the humans and other non-Kadolians he’s been living and working with these past few years. I don’t think he ever fully learned how to express his thoughts and emotions through his pupils.”

“You’ve also been living with me all this time,” I pointed out. “You’ve picked up a few human gestures, but your pupils are still your main indicators.”

“But I grew up fully with other Kadolians,” she said. “Tirano didn’t.”

“Which is part of the whole changeling thing?”

If he’s a changeling.”

“Of course,” I said. The words were firm enough, but her pupils didn’t hold the same conviction that I’d seen there before. She wanted to believe he was fully and properly Kadolian, but I could tell that conviction was starting to erode. “So if he didn’t come here to hide, what did he come for?”

“I presume he was looking for something.” She looked around the room, then headed toward an antique rolltop desk in the back corner. Its cover was open, revealing several short stacks of paper on the writing surface. “Maybe we can figure out what it was.”

“Maybe,” I said, following her toward the desk. “And if Tirano didn’t find it, maybe we can.”


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