Starbase Human (7 page)

And he never got caught, which meant that he had charmed his way out in one fashion or another.

Hell, he’d even charmed her, just a minute ago. This claim he’d made about following the rules—she would have believed it, if she hadn’t known his history.

The building itself added to his charm. The lobby was impressive, designed to distract—art rotating on the walls, showing the history of ancient Earth art on one wall, Frontier art on another. The high ceilings made the place feel cavernous, and the small furniture groupings allowed anyone who was feeling overwhelmed to find a cozy place to sit down.

DeRicci was determined not to let the lobby distract her. She watched the employees work or walk through, all with that vaguely I’m-so-happy-to-be-here expression many corporations required of their staff.

A woman approached DeRicci. The woman was enhancement-thin, with hints of the fat she didn’t want lurking in her arms. She was dressed in a black suit that made her seem even thinner.

The woman extended a hand covered with gold rings. “If you’ll come this way, Detective DeRicci…”

DeRicci shook her head. “Mr. Deshin promised me a chip. I’m staying here until I get it.”

The woman opened her other hand. In it was a chip case the size of a thumbnail. The case was clear, and inside, DeRicci saw another case—blue, with a filament thinner than an eyelash.

“Here is your chip, Detective,” the woman said. “I’ve been instructed to escort you—”

“I don’t care,” DeRicci said. “I’ll take the chip, and I’ll wait right here. You have my word that I won’t open either case, and I won’t watch anything until I get the okay.”

The woman’s eyes glazed slightly. Clearly, she was seeing if that was all right.

Then she focused on DeRicci, and bowed her head slightly.

“As you wish, Detective.”

She handed DeRicci the case. It was heavier than it looked. It probably had a lot of protections built in, so that she couldn’t activate anything through the case.

Not that she had the technical ability to do any of that, even if she wanted to.

She sighed. She had a fluttery feeling that she had just been outmaneuvered.

Then she made herself watch Deshin. He was standing several meters away from her, clearly having a discussion through his links.

He seemed truly distressed at the news of Sonja Mycenae’s death. If DeRicci had to put money on it, she would say that he hadn’t known she was dead and he hadn’t ordered the death.

But DeRicci had already let him charm her once. She wasn’t going to trust her gut when it came to him. She was going to assume this man was guilty until he proved himself innocent.

She closed her fist around the chip case, clasped her hands behind her back, and waited, watching Luc Deshin the entire time.

EIGHT

DESHIN STOPPED BY
a grouping of couches, next to some tall, leafy plants. He wanted to keep an eye on the detective. He’d learned in the past that police officers had a tendency to wander and observe things they shouldn’t.

He had staff in various parts of the lobby to prevent the detective from doing just that.

Through private, encoded links, he had contacted his favorite attorney, Martin Oberholst. For eight years, Oberholst had managed the most delicate cases for Deshin—always knowing how far the law could bend before it broke.

Before I tell you what to do,
Oberholst was saying on their link,
I want to see the footage.

It’ll take time,
Deshin paced slightly as he worked the links. He hated standing still.

Ach,
Oberholst sent.
I’ll just bill you for it. Send it to me.

I already have,
Deshin sent.

I’ll be in contact shortly,
Oberholst sent, and signed off.

Deshin walked to the other side of the lobby. He didn’t want to vanish because he didn’t want the detective to think he was doing something nefarious.

But he was unsettled. That meeting with Sonja had not gone as he expected.

Over the years, Deshin had probably fired two hundred people personally, and his staff had fired even more. And that didn’t count the business relationships he had terminated.

Doing unpleasant things didn’t bother him. They usually followed a pattern. But the meeting that morning hadn’t followed a pattern that he recognized.

He had spoken quite calmly to Sonja, telling her that he and Gerda had decided to raise Paavo without help. He hadn’t criticized Sonja at all. In fact, he had promised her a reference if she wanted it, and he had complimented her on the record, saying that her presence had given him and Gerda the confidence to handle Paavo alone.

He hadn’t said that the confidence had come from the fact that Sonja had years of training and yet she missed the essential ingredient—affection. He had kept everything as neutral and positive as possible, given that he was effectively firing her without firing her.

Midway through his little speech, her eyes had widened. He had thought she was going to burst into tears. Instead, she had put a shaking hand to her mouth, looking like she had just received news that everything she loved in the world was going to be taken away from her.

He had a moment of confusion—had she actually cared that much about Paavo?—and then he decided it didn’t matter; he and Gerda really did want to raise the boy on their own, without any outside help.

“Mr. Deshin,” Sonja had said when he finished. “Please, I beg you, do not fire me.”

“I’m not firing you, Sonja,” he had said. “I just don’t have a job for you any longer.”

“Please,” she said. “I will work here. I will do anything, the lowest of the low. I will do jobs that are disgusting or frightening, anything, Mr. Deshin. Please. Just don’t make me leave.”

He had never had an employee beg so strenuously to keep her job. It unnerved him. “I don’t have any work for you.”

“Please, Mr. Deshin.” She reached for him and he leaned back. “Please. Don’t make me leave.”

That was when he sent a message along his links to security. This woman was crazy, and no one on his staff had picked up on it. He felt both relieved and appalled. Relieved that she was going nowhere near Paavo again, and appalled that he had left his beloved little son in her care.

His office door had opened as security responded to his request. A security team of four entered.

Sonja screamed “No!” at the top of her lungs.

She grabbed at Deshin, and his security people pulled her away.

She kicked and fought and screamed and cried all the way through the door. It closed behind her, leaving him alone, but he could still hear her yelling all the way to the elevator.

The incident had unsettled him.

It still unsettled him.

And now, just a few hours later, Sonja was dead.

That couldn’t be a coincidence.

It couldn’t be a coincidence at all.

NINE

LUC DESHIN PACED
the lobby, his expression grim. For a while, DeRicci could tell that he wasn’t on his links. He appeared to be waiting for a response to something, which surprised her.

She would have thought that he would vanish until he had news for her.

Instead, he remained.

However, he never looked at her. It was as if she weren’t there, as if he had planned to be in this lobby all along, that being here was an essential part of his day.

It was taking so long for him to actually get back to her that DeRicci almost turned on her own links. Then she remembered that she’d probably have a screaming message from Lake, some complaint from Gumiela, and some misinformation from Brodeur, and so DeRicci did nothing.

Except watch Luc Deshin.

It took nearly fifteen minutes for him to look at her. He nodded once, as if he hadn’t been sure she would wait for him.

But she had.

He walked over to her, his strides long, a few employees working hard to get out of his way.

His expression remained grim as he nodded at the chip in her hand.

“You may watch it, Detective,” he said. “In fact, you may log it in as evidence in this case.”

“Thank you,” DeRicci said. She started to leave, when Deshin held up one finger, silently commanding her to stay, as if she worked for him as well.

For the first time, his charm didn’t work with her.

“I want this on the record as well,” he said. “You have all the information we have about this morning’s meeting on that chip. In addition to the meeting in my office, you’ll see Sonja’s arrival and her departure. You’ll also see that she left through that front door. After she disappeared off our external security cameras, no one on my staff saw her again.”

He was being very precise. DeRicci figured his lawyer had told him to do that.

“Thank you,” she said, closing her fingers around the case. “I appreciate the cooperation.”

“You’re welcome,” Deshin said, then walked away.

She watched him go. Something about his mood had darkened since she originally spoke to him. Because of the lawyer? Or something else?

It didn’t matter. She had the information she needed, at least for the moment.

She would deal with Deshin later if she needed to.

TEN

DESHIN TOOK THE
stairs back to his office. He needed to think, and he didn’t want to run into any of his staff on the elevator. Besides, exercise kept his head clear.

He had thought Sonja crazy after her reaction in his office. But what if she knew her life was in danger if she left his employ? Then her behavior made sense.

He wasn’t going to say that to the detective, nor had he mentioned it to his lawyer. Deshin was going to investigate this himself.

As he reached the top floor, he sent a message to his head of security, Otto Koos:
My office. Now
.

Deshin went through the doors and stopped, as he always did, looking at the view. He had a 360-degree view of the City of Armstrong. Right now, the dome was set at Dome Daylight, mimicking midday sunlight on Earth. He loved the look of Dome Daylight because it put buildings all over the city in such clear light that it made them look like a beautiful painting or a holographic wall image.

He crossed to his desk and called up the file on Sonja Mycenae, looking for anything untoward, anything his staff might have missed.

He saw nothing.

She had worked for a family on Earth, who had filed monthly reports with the nanny service that had vetted her. The reports were excellent. Sonja had then left the family to come to the Moon, because, apparently, she had been homesick.

He couldn’t find anything in a cursory search of that file that showed any contradictory information.

The door to his office opened, and Koos entered. He was a short man, with broad shoulders and a way of walking that made him look like he was itching for a fight.

Deshin had known him since they were boys, and trusted Koos with his life. Koos had saved that life more than once.

“Sonja was murdered after she left us this morning,” Deshin said.

Koos glanced at the door. “So that was why Armstrong PD was here.”

“Yeah,” Deshin said, “and it clarifies Sonja’s reaction. She knew something bad would happen to her.”

“She was a plant,” Koos said.

“Or something,” Deshin said. “We need to know why. Did anyone follow her after she left?”

“You didn’t order us to,” Koos said, “and I saw no reason to keep track of her. She was crying pretty hard when she walked out, but she never looked back and as far as I could tell, no one was trailing her.”

“The police are going to trace her movements,” Deshin said. “We need to as well. But what I want to know is this: What did we miss about this woman? I’ve already checked her file. I see nothing unusual.”

“I’ll go over it,” Koos said.

“Don’t go over it,” Deshin said, feeling a little annoyed. After all, he had just done that, and he didn’t need to be double-checked. “Vet her again, as if we were just about to hire her. See what you come up with.”

“Yes, sir,” Koos said. Normally, he would have left after that, but he didn’t. Instead, he held his position.

Deshin suppressed a sigh. Something else was coming his way. “What?”

“When you dismissed her and she reacted badly,” Koos said, “I increased security around your wife and child. I’m going to increase it again, and I’m going to make sure you’ve got extra protection as well.”

Deshin opened his mouth, but Koos put up one finger, stopping him.

“Don’t argue with me,” Koos said. “Something’s going on here, and I don’t like it.”

Deshin smiled. “I wasn’t going to argue with you, Otto. I was going to thank you. I hadn’t thought to increase security around my family, and it makes sense.”