Blood Will Tell (39 page)

She didn’t bother to protest, but instead shook one of the pale blue oval tablets into her hand and popped it in her mouth. “At least I finally managed to convince him that we could take one of the boots over to the lab, so as soon as they’re done tagging it, we can get out of here.”

“Great,” Creel said, but with a lack of enthusiasm that was obvious even to him.

To his surprise, she gave him a quick pat on the arm before saying, “I know it’s not much, but we do what we can, right?”

He had to remind himself of that during the excruciating minutes that followed, right up until the time the precious boot was finally released to them, and Jessa was able to beg a ride for herself and Creel back to the station. The evidence labs were located on the fifteenth floor of RilSec’s headquarters, and luckily they were staffed around the clock.

As he and Jessa entered the the main lobby, Creel gave a quick glance at the chronometer that hung on the wall above the reception desk and tried not to shudder. By now it was almost 0100, and he guessed the night was going to drag on for a lot longer than that. His work didn’t usually require him to run around at all hours of the night, but he was going to see this through to the end, even if it meant being up for fifty standard hours or more.

They showed their badges to the woman at the reception desk and went on into the maze of hallways that connected the offices and workrooms of RilSec’s crime labs. Jessa seemed to know where she was heading, so Creel followed her lead. Her job required dealing with physical evidence, whereas his work of late had mainly involved conducting interviews and sifting through innumerable computer records.

After going around several corners and down one long corridor, Jessa stopped in front of a set of double doors. She pressed the button on the intercom and said, “Howard? It’s Jessa. I’ve got something I need you to look at.”

The right-hand door beeped, then swung inward to admit them. Creel raised an eyebrow at Jessa. “Howard?”

“Howard Dael,” she replied, and paused. “My ex-husband.”

He felt his mouth drop open slightly, then said, “Oh.” After that he gave a small mental groan:
Real suave, Creel!
How the hell had she managed to keep such an important piece of information hidden from everyone in her department? He worked in a different division, true, but if something like that had been common knowledge, Creel would have eventually found out.

Jessa’s own mouth curved slightly in one of her patented “I’ve got a secret” smiles. All she said, though, was, “Let’s go.”

Still feeling a bit off-kilter, he followed her down a narrow hallway that had a faint chemical smell he couldn’t quite identify. From there they entered a large room lined with all sorts of complicated equipment and a number of computer displays, both flat-screen and holographic.

From seemingly nowhere appeared a rumpled-looking man only a few inches taller than Jessa. He blinked at her, then at Creel, and said, “The evidence?”

For a second Creel could only gape at the man, who had to have at least ten standard years on Jessa and who probably would have been the last person Creel would have picked out of a lineup as her ex-husband. Then he recovered himself enough to hand over the boot, which had been vacuum-sealed in non-permeable polymer at the crime scene.

Dael took it and immediately set off for an elaborate piece of equipment that Creel thought he recognized as some sort of high-powered microscope. He raised an eyebrow at Jessa, who shot him an amused glance but said nothing, and instead turned to watch as her ex dipped his hands in the self-skinning nano-polymer material that would prevent any contaminants from touching the evidence.

Well, she sure didn’t love him for his people skills
, Creel reflected.
Or his looks...maybe that means I have a chance.

That pleasant line of thought, however, was interrupted by Dael saying, “Definitely local.”

“What’s definitely local, Howard?” Jessa asked, in tones more patient than Creel would have expected of her. Then again, she’d probably had plenty of time to get used to her ex-husband’s quirks.

“The shell fragments,” he replied, not bothering to look up from the eyepiece of the microscope. “Let’s take another pass...” He made a minute adjustment to a dial, then said, “That’s got it.”

“Got what?” Creel demanded, but Dael just pushed past him to the flat computer screen immediately to his rear.

“That’s what I thought.”

“So what is it, Howard?” Jessa inquired. She appeared to take in Creel’s scowl, and a tiny flicker of a smile ghosted around the corner of her mouth.

“
Arthreni rilsportianus
,” Dael replied, with a note of triumph in his voice.

“Arth...what?” Creel demanded.

The lab tech blinked, then said, “A rare breed of mollusk, one that’s found in only one location.”

“And where would that be?” Creel asked. Damn, he’d had hostile witnesses who’d given up information more freely than this guy.

“Rendarlin Point,” Jessa said. Creel gave her an incredulous look, and she went on, “I minored in marine biology at the university.”

She’s just full of surprises, isn’t she?
Creel thought. “So you’re saying our bad guys are hanging out somewhere on Rendarlin Point?”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

It snapped into place then, as he tried to figure out what could possibly attract a bunch of thugs to Rendarlin Point. The old Stony Point amusement park. It had been closed for several years, but the structures were still intact, and it offered rare isolation while still being in close proximity to Rilsport proper. Maybe he still hadn’t quite gotten the why of all this, but at least he’d narrowed down the where.

“Let’s go,” he told Jessa, who looked a little surprised.

“Shouldn’t we be calling in a strike team?” she asked.

Creel shook his head. “Not until I know who—and what—we’re up against.” He nodded at Dael. “Thanks for the intel.”

The man blinked. “It was an interesting specimen.”

There being no real way to reply to that, Creel just nodded again and then headed out to the corridor, with Jessa following him, a slightly puzzled look on her face. Maybe she’d been expecting some sort of sarcastic comment about her ex, but Creel knew better than to go here. Instead, he stopped in the main lobby, and grinned down at her.

“You ready for some good old-fashioned recon?”

She grinned back. “Of course. I’m glad you know how to show a girl a good time.” And with that she sauntered off to the elevators.

Typical
, he thought.
Always has to get in the last word.

Somehow, though, he found he didn’t mind too much.

Finally Thorn brought her to a small café on the outskirts of town. Miala ordered a tall mug of coffee and hoped it would be enough to see her through the night.

“Isn’t this a waste of time?” she asked. Now more than ever, she had the sense of time flying past her, every precious second increasing the possibility that something terrible could have happened to Jerem.

The mercenary hadn’t bothered with artificial stimulants. He drank some of the local mineral water he’d ordered, and took a bite of the steak he’d gotten to go along with it. Miala knew she should have gotten herself something as well, but between a few horrendous flashbacks to what had happened in that dingy little warehouse and her ever-growing worry over Jerem, she knew her stomach wouldn’t tolerate anything heavier than the coffee.

Thorn shook his head. “The kidnappers are expecting to meet with you in the morning. After this you’re going to take a cab to the Rilsport Plaza and try to get some sleep.”

“Sleep?” Miala repeated, with open incredulity. “How the hell do you expect me to sleep at a time like this?”

“Because you need your rest,” he replied. “I can go seventy-two standard without sleep. Can you?”

Much as she hated to admit it, Miala knew she couldn’t. Even now, despite the spurious energy brought on by the coffee surging through her veins, she knew her current wide-eyed state wouldn’t last. Sooner or later she’d have to get some sleep.

Thorn appeared to take her silence as tacit agreement, for he continued, “I’ll ditch the car someplace in the city. Then I need to get back and retrieve the
Fury
.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” she asked. “You know RilSec’s going to have people watching the landing pad.”

A lift of one straight dark eyebrow. “Not a problem.”

From anyone else, such a comment would have sounded like false bravado. Coming from Thorn, however, it was probably no more than the simple truth. Something had been bothering her ever since they left the two RilSec officers trussed up on the floor of the docking bay, however. “You know, Thorn, you say you don’t like loose ends, but you didn’t kill those two cops. Why?”

His mouth quirked a bit. “It’s one thing to waste a two-bit hood that nobody’s going to miss. It’s quite another to be a cop-killer. I thought about it, but I decided that having all of RilSec’s resources focused on finding me probably wasn’t that great an idea. Besides, the one officer might have guessed at who I am, but he still doesn’t know for sure...and who’s gonna believe him? Anyway, he doesn’t know where we went, or where to find us. This city’s big enough that I don’t think he’ll be able to track us down by the time you rendezvous with the kidnappers.”

“And then what?” Miala asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

Thorn’s expression didn’t change. “Leave that to me.”

She’d been afraid he’d say something like that, but maybe it was better she didn’t know much about his plans. If something went terribly wrong and she fell into the kidnappers’ hands, at least she couldn’t reveal any important information to them.

“So I go back to the Rilsport Plaza—won’t the police be able to find me there?”

“Calculated risk,” said Thorn. “I’m pretty sure the cops have already come and gone. They might have the place under surveillance, but we can sneak you in disguised. You have to be there, since that’s where the kidnappers will be calling.”

Of course. She’d almost forgotten about that. The only way they had of contacting her was through the hotel comm, since of course she had none of her own with her. Had the conversation she’d held with the head kidnapper only taken place thirty-six standard hours earlier? Somehow it felt like a lifetime.

She took an oversized swallow of coffee and managed a weary smile. “I can’t wait to see what sort of disguise you have planned for me...”

It turned out to be simple enough, just the enveloping cloaks and full-face mask of a Zhore. Thorn procured the items from a secondhand shop near the spaceport that dealt in such off-world oddities and which stayed open around the clock in order to serve its exotic clientele. Miala waited in the car while he handled the transaction, and then had to climb into the garments as best she could from her place in the front seat of the vehicle. Once that was done—and she could have sworn she saw Thorn’s mouth twitch, as if he were trying to repress a smile at her awkwardness—he dropped her off at a transit station where she could get a cab to take her back to the hotel. At that point the panic almost overtook her, as she realized she would have to do the next part of this alone, but the mercenary gave her hand a reassuring squeeze as she alighted from the vehicle, at the same time pressing a tiny handheld into her palm. That steadied her a bit; at least she knew she could reach him in an emergency.

Still, it took all her strength for her to remain there on the curb, to stand quietly and watch him drive away. No one approached her. Even in this civilized part of the galaxy, the mysterious Zhore were regarded with some suspicion, as they did not often mingle with other races. She was able to hail a mech-driven taxi with no problem—mechs didn’t share the same prejudices as the living—and ride without incident back to the Rilsport Plaza. Once there, she hurried through the lobby, her head down, and slipped into the lift farthest from the front desk. At that hour the ride up to her suite was uninterrupted, and she almost ran the few steps that separated the elevator door and the entrance to her suite. After she had locked the door behind her and checked it twice just to be certain that it really was secure, she pulled the stifling mask from her face and flung it on the bed, followed by the heavy, awkward robes.

A glance at the chrono on the side table next to the bed told her it was a little past 0200. The room seemed preternaturally still after the events of the past few hours. Miala had to quell an urge to turn on the vid-screen that took up the wall opposite the bed and fill the silence with some mindless programming. But no amount of 25-hour news channels or replays of vid dramas she’d seen several times before would change the fact that her son was still being held by kidnappers, or that she’d allowed Thorn to go chasing off on his own in order to secure the
Fury
. At the moment she felt very superfluous, and very, very tired.

She stood in the center of the room for a long moment, not sure what she should do. Then she sighed and went off to the bathroom. If nothing else, maybe a hot shower would relax her to the point where she could catch a few hours of the sleep Thorn had instructed her to get. Then this useless time would be past, and she could move on to reclaim her son.

He’d fallen asleep at some point. Jerem couldn’t be sure exactly when, since he hadn’t been wearing a chrono when he was taken, and the ventilation tunnel around him was darker than a black hole. After that near-miss with the kidnappers, he’d scuttled on in search of the source of the sea breeze he’d felt coming down the right-hand shaft. It had sloped upward for a while and then leveled out...and then had come to a dead end where the tunnel met a piece of mesh screen that was bolted down so securely Jerem was pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to get it off even if he’d had the correct tools, which he didn’t. Feeling exhausted and very near to tears—but he wouldn’t cry, no way, not when his father could show up at any moment to rescue him—he’d curled up in a ball, thinking he’d rest for just a bit. But the next thing he knew, the draft across his face had intensified to almost a breeze, and the sky beyond the grating had turned from black to gray.