Page 5

T hree hours later, I’m sitting in one of the big, padded pilot’s couches on my ship, the Spinning Infinity .

Well, my and Kez’s ship, since we bought it together.

Outta one eye, I’m watching the feed from Myhre’s office, where a very tense debrief is going on.

With the other, I’m checking the flight path from Hemos to our destination on the Cloudlands.

Mike’s superior, a big, cool bastard named Exeter, showed up at Tyng Tower within fifteen minutes of me killing Mara.

Myhre kept him and Mike waiting for two hours.

That Exeter’s kept his cool not just through the long wait, but during the subsequent hour of increasingly hostile questions, is impressive.

That he’s held his own, against Myhre, is even moreso.

Exeter clears his throat, drawing my full attention back to the feed from Myhre’s office. “Is there anything else, Miz Hata?”

The feed’s from a viewie built into the window-wall behind Myhre’s desk, so the display shows me the back of Myhre’s sleek, black head, and the faces of the two men sitting on the far side of her desk.

Mike’s sweating. Exeter’s not, but the close-cropped beard along his jaw keeps twitching from the muscle ticking underneath.

That’s been going for the last hour while Myhre’s made Mike go through every interaction he’s ever had with Mara.

Since they were occasional fuck-buddies as well as paired on several security details, it’s taken a while.

“Yes,” Myhre says. “I’d like to review Michael’s last communication with Mara Kawada. It was through a Tyng channel, so I’ve accessed it while we’ve been talking. May I play it?”

Exeter glances at Mike, who nods. He’s been sweating, but he’s also been forthcoming, as far as I can tell.

Mike’s a cagey fucker, but I wouldn’t have pegged him as a traitor.

He seems to take both his job, and his personal code of honor, seriously.

Still, he’s a merc, and mercs can, by definition, be bought.

“Thank you,” Myre says. “For the record, Michael Leung Sung has indicated that I may play the recording. The communication is timed twenty-one forty, three-six, from Tyng channel gamma. Mother Jo, play recording.”

I can’t see the recording, which is probably playing on the window-wall behind Myhre, since both Mike and Exeter look up, which gives them the disconcerting appearance of looking straight at me. But I can hear the audio just fine.

“Hey, guy.” A woman’s voice. I only heard Mara speak once, but it sounds like her. Maybe a little huskier than the way she spoke to me. “What’re you doing on the five?”

“I’m on duty.” That’s Mike. He sounds bored rather than inviting.

“What if you weren’t on duty? Want to get together?”

“I’m still on duty, Mar.”

“C’mon, killjoy. You haven’t taken a day off in I don’t know how long. I want to see you. I might have something to celebrate. Take a night off. You’re overdue.”

I know exactly how long it’s been since Mike took a day off.

Sixteen days. He spent that day in medical, having his arm re-attached.

After Kez cut it off. He hasn’t seemed to hold a grudge.

In fact, as soon as he had both arms again, he was in my office, demanding to be assigned to Chiara’s personal guard.

Since it seemed to me that he had some ground to make up for letting me kill her father, I agreed.

But maybe I made a mistake.

“I’m on duty,” Mike repeats in the recording. “Until I’m sure there’s no immediate threat to Miz Tyng, I’m on duty. I’ll call you, okay?”

“Okay. Make it soon, guy. See you.”

“Bye, Mar.”

“End transmission,” says the voice of the Tyng AI, Mother Jo.

“Michael,” Myhre says. “Why didn’t you enquire as to Miz Kawada’s reason for celebrating?”

“She said she might have something to celebrate, for the record,” Exeter interjects.

“Noted,” Myhre says. “Michael, please answer the question.”

Mike shrugs. “I didn’t think anything of it. Mara said that any time she got a good-paying job. It was just an excuse for us to get together.”

“It wasn’t because you already knew her reason for celebrating?” Myhre asks.

Over Exeter’s grunt, Mike says, “I see where you’re going with this.

You’re suggesting that I didn’t ask because I knew she had a contract, a high-paying contract, to kill Miz Tyng.

And I will say again, for the record, that I didn’t know about any such contract. If I had, I would have reported it.”

“To whom would you have reported it?” Myhre asks.

I see the trap she’s laid yawn at Mike’s feet.

His eyes narrow. He sees it, too. “First to my superior officer at Sabadeen and then to the Tyng SecChief.”

“For the record,” Exeter says. “Michael has reported a number of potential threats to Miz Tyng’s well-being.”

Myhre nods. “Have all of those been relayed to the Tyng SecChief?”

“Every. Single. One,” Exeter says.

“You will submit all of Michael’s reports to me so that I can cross-reference them against our security records. Within four hours.”

Exeter’s shoulders bunch under his charcoal grey unisuit, but he says evenly, “Those are Sabadeen classified records, but given the circumstances, I agree. You’ll have them within the time specified.”

I feel a pinch of empathy for the guy. He’s going to have a long night, since it’s already eighteen-hundred.

A ping from the ship’s console distracts me. Ship security. Kez is at the outside door.

I tap off the security so my kitten can board and rotate the flight couch so I can watch her walk up. I love watching my kitten move.

She doesn’t disappoint me. I hear the click of her heels on the ceramsteel flooring before I see her. She turns the corner from the entrance and takes my breath away. Again.

She’s not classically beautiful, my kitten.

Her face is sweet and expressive, framed by her long, white-blonde bangs.

The metal rings she wears through her ears, nose and eyebrow give her sweetness a little edge.

Her skin’s milk-pale. She colors easily, and she’s flushed now: hot pink rising across her cheeks and along her collarbone when she sees me looking at her.

But that’s not what makes my chest tight.

It’s her eyes. Huge baby blues. Deeper than Kuseros’s oceans.

Kez’s soul is right there in her eyes, looking back at me. Beautiful.

I stand, open my arms, and she comes to me.

The way she always does. Without hesitation.

She comes to me and hugs me and nuzzles her face into my neck.

She doesn’t wear make-up, except for kohl around her eyes, which I’m pretty sure is permanent.

I never have to worry about what she’s getting on me or messing up her make-up when I kiss her. Which I do. A lot.

She smiles up at me when I finally break the kiss.

Normally she’d drop back onto her heels once I let her go, since I’m a quarter-meter taller than she is.

But the heels that were making such a racket belong to a pair of over-the-knee boots.

They’re so tall her mouth is almost level with mine, and I take advantage of that, brushing my lips over and over hers, enjoying the plush, velvet texture .

She breaks the kiss and glances around me when Myhre’s voice rises from the flight console.

“What’s going on?” Kez asks.

I lead her forward, into the space between the flight couches, so she can see the feed from Myhre’s office.

Kez whispers into my ear. “Can they hear us?”

“Nope, feed’s one way. If you want to communicate with Ree, plex her from there.” I nod at the console’s touchpad.

“Who’s the guy with Mike?” Kez asks.

“Mike’s boss.”

“What the hell happened?”

I give her the quick-and-dirty.

“Do you believe him?” Kez asks when I finish.

I breathe out into her hair, take a deep breath before I answer her. “Probably shouldn’t. But, yeah, I do.”

“Okay, then,” Kez says.

I kiss the back of her head. “Like that?”

“Like that.”

“Cause we’re both idiots with poor judgment?”

“Uh-huh.” She twists her neck so she can look up at me. “He could have killed Chi a thousand times. Seriously, a thousand. He’s been with her every minute of every day. I’m not sure he even sleeps.”

I’m hoping he’s not with her when she’s screwing Ape, but I wouldn’t count on it. “Yeah, but maybe he was waitin’ for someone to offer him a fuckload of credits to do it.”

“Do you really think so?”

“No.” I don’t. I should, but I don’t. “He could have ignored my call when the sensor tripped. He could have called in sick. If he’d had any idea of what was going down, he could have come up with a dozen excuses not to follow me down that hallway.

Instead, he had my back the whole way. And he had every opportunity to take me down before I took out Mara. ”

“Surely that puts him in the clear,” Kez offers .

“Yeah, in my book.” I nod over her shoulder at the interrogation that’s still going on in Myhre’s office. “Don’t think she feels the same way.”

Kez snorts. “She’s enjoying herself. I swear she has a taxidermy butterfly collection at home.”

“Ouch, kitten.” I kiss the back of her head. “I think we should put Mike outta his misery.” In the viewie, he’s continuing to sweat: little beads dotting his upper lip. And Exeter’s jaw is still twitching. “His boss is playin’ it frosty, but I bet he’s had enough, too.”

“Call off your kemwar,” Kez agrees, referring to one of Kuseros’s native predators.

I release Kez reluctantly, and step around her to reach the touchpad. “Ree’s more your kemwar than mine, top-dog.”

Kez snorts. “She doesn’t listen to a thing I say.”