The Big Sheep (36 page)

Keane seemed uncertain what to say to that. Finally he said, “I didn't know they were going to kill everybody in Maelstrom. I should have figured it out, but I didn't. I got so wrapped up in the project, I didn't think about the implications.”

“Clearly,” I said. “I mean, you worked on a top-secret project to deal with the aftermath of a cataclysm in Los Angeles, and you never considered that the people signing the checks were up to no good?”

“Sometimes my desire to solve a problem … clouds my judgment,” Keane said. “But I've never killed anybody. I tried to stop them, but I barely got out myself. Creating the character of Erasmus Keane was my only way out. And I swear, Fowler, I had nothing to do with Gwen's death.”

I swallowed hard. “So she is dead?”

Keane looked down. “As far as I know, yes,” he said.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

He was silent for a moment. “I … couldn't.”

I snorted. More non-answers from the non-person, Erasmus Keane. I was getting really tired of this shit.

“Look,” said Keane after a moment. “I know you're still mad at me, and I don't blame you, but we have more pressing matters to worry about.”

“More pressing than you conspiring with my missing girlfriend to destroy Los Angeles? Really? Like what?”

“Like the fact that we don't know for certain that Banerjee didn't send the police to pick up Bryn while we were out.”

My chest tightened. I'd been so preoccupied with Keane's sins, I'd forgotten Banerjee still presented a very real threat. I had been counting on him to make the rational decision, but there was no guarantee he would. If Banerjee was angry enough with Keane, he might kidnap Bryn and ruin Keane's life after all, just to spite him.

These fears were confirmed when we got out of the cab in front of the office and saw that the door had been smashed in. It was only open a few inches, as if someone had tried to close it again, but the wood had splintered around the locks.

“Wait here,” I said to Keane, drawing my gun. I ran to the door and shoved it open. The building was eerily quiet, and I moved inside, gun at the ready. Brian still had my SIG, but I'd retrieved a Glock from the office. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light of the lobby, and at first I didn't notice the giant fuzzy mass lying in the corner of the room. It wasn't moving. Near the sheep's head was a large, dark stain in the carpet.

“No,” I murmured, moving slowly toward the sheep. “Please.” For some reason I had assumed Banerjee's people would abduct Bryn and dispose of her in some cold, sterile fashion in the Esper lab—not shoot her and leave her for dead in my lobby. But Banerjee was relying on the LAPD to be his muscle, and they weren't known for their finesse. And if Banerjee wanted to send us a message, this was the way to do it. I could only hope Roy hadn't been killed trying to protect Bryn. And April. Jesus, I had no idea if April had been here as well. Banerjee would have told the cops to be thorough.

I knelt over the sheep and held the back of my hand in front of her nose. I felt warm breath. Then she licked me. Her eyes opened.

“Hello, Mr. Fowler,” she said. “Did you take care of everything at Esper?”

I nodded dumbly, and quietly holstered my gun. It occurred to me the stain on the carpet she was lying on had been there since we moved in. “What … happened?” I asked after a moment, gesturing vaguely toward the door.

“Cops broke down the door,” I heard Roy say. I turned to see him entering the lobby from the back, carrying a bucket that appeared to be full of water. “Came through the front, the back, the roof. Must have been twenty of them. I'd have started shooting, but we didn't have a chance. Figured if we didn't resist, at least some of us might get out alive.” He put the bucket down in front of Bryn.

“Thanks, Roy,” she said, and nuzzled his hand affectionately. She put her head in the bucket and began to lap up the water.

“You did the right thing, Roy,” I said. To my right, Keane walked in, taking in the situation.

“Yeah, well,” said Roy, “it didn't do any good. They gathered us all together in the lobby. Me, Bryn, April, and Pavel. I knew what was coming next. None of us were getting out alive.”

“So what happened?” I said.

“All the sudden they backed off. Seemed like they got an order to stand down. Left without a word.”

I glanced at Keane, and he gave me a knowing nod. Banerjee's thugs had been there and let them live.

Just then, April walked in, carrying several large bags. “I wasn't sure what kind of salad you wanted, Bryn, so I got three Caesars and four—Blake!”

“Good to see you, April,” I said. She dropped the bags and ran toward me. She threw her arms around my waist. “Easy!” I said, holding my injured arm out of the way.

Roy emptied the bags April had dropped, revealing several sandwiches and an ungodly amount of salad. “Hungry, Bryn?” he said.

“Famished,” Bryn replied.

Roy opened the salad containers and set them down before Bryn, and she began munching enthusiastically at the greens. “God, this is good,” she said, without pausing in her mastication. The fact that the only thing that creeped me out about this scene was Bryn talking with her mouth full was a testament to just how far out of whack my sense of the uncanny had gotten over the past few days. I guess you can get used to just about anything eventually.

We sat down on the floor of the lobby and had a sort of impromptu picnic. We could have moved to a room with some furniture in it, but Bryn seemed content to remain in the relatively open space of the lobby, and the unspoken consensus was that she deserved a break after everything she'd been through. Keane wisely remained silent while we ate. He must have suspected I was in no mood to listen to him pontificate after Selah's revelations about Maelstrom and Gwen. To be honest, I was tempted to walk out and never come back, but there was still something I needed to see through with Keane.

“What about Bryn?” I asked. “What are we going to do with her?”

“I've got an idea about that,” said Keane.

 

THIRTY-THREE

After lunch, Keane called an ex-client who owned a ranch near Bakersfield and convinced him to take Roy on as an on-site manager and handyman. The client owned dozens of properties all over Southern California; Keane said the ranch was just a tax write-off for him. The house on the property was small and rundown, but Roy insisted he was up to the challenge of renovating it. Bryn promised to do her part as well, although I wasn't sure what she could actually contribute other than mowing the lawn and producing wool. Still, it was something. I don't think Keane mentioned to the client that Roy's girlfriend was a sheep. There were some things best left unsaid. The two of them were downright giddy about the idea of getting out of Los Angeles and having a real life for once. They made for a very strange couple, but I gave them better odds than most. The way I figure it, if you can get past the fact that your partner is of a completely different species than you, you're already ahead of the game.

We never had a chance to warn the final Priya Mistry clone, who had been brought in to replace the one who had been killed in the explosion on the
DiZzy Girl
set. She was found dead of an apparent suicide in her hotel room at the Four Seasons later that night. Selah had evidently decided that the risk of prolonging the charade a little longer outweighed the benefits.
DiZzy Girl
was canceled, but Flagship Media's coverage of Priya's “troubled life” and suicide went on for months, garnering record ratings. Figures. We also never found out what happened to the unfinished clones in Selah's lab. Mostly, I tried not to think about it too much, but I supposed they probably met the same fate as Esper's sheep. Slaughtered like cattle.

The mysterious Maelstrom file had burned up completely when Mag-Lev's thugs blew up Keane's car, so whatever other secrets it contained were going to remain secret for a while longer—assuming Banerjee was cowed by Keane's threat. Our financial situation was worse than ever at the close of the Case of the Missing Sheep and the Case of the Concerned Teddy Bear, owing to the fact that we weren't likely to get paid for either of them. We'd failed to deliver on the former, and our client on the latter was not, legally speaking, a person, and therefore unable to cut a check. On top of that, it wasn't at all certain that the insurance company was going to pay for Keane's exploded aircar. This was a tricky, dangerous, and often unrewarding business. But it was all worthwhile to give Roy and Bryn a chance at happiness. That's what I told myself, anyway. Who the fuck knows?

After our impromptu picnic in the lobby, Pavel left to take the happy couple to their new home, and April left shortly thereafter. Keane went up to his office, and I spent most of the rest of the day in bed. My arm was throbbing, and I was just plain worn-out from everything that had happened over the past few days. Thoughts of walking out on Keane gave way to thoughts of sleep. I was in no shape to make a life-changing decision anyway. I figured I'd revisit the matter in the morning.

It was dark when I woke up, and I knew immediately there was someone in the room with me. I had locked the door to my apartment, but it was an old lock, easy enough for a pro to pick. We hadn't had a chance to fix the doors of the building yet.

“April?” I asked. She was the only person besides Keane who had a key to my apartment, and somehow I knew it wasn't Keane.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said a woman's voice. It was familiar, but it wasn't April's. I knew I should know who it was, but for some reason I just couldn't place it. That had been happening a lot lately. But this time it wasn't Priya Mistry. It was a voice out of another time, one that just didn't fit somehow. In my sleep-addled state, I couldn't quite figure out why, but I knew that voice was impossible. It couldn't be here.

The light went on, and I saw the face that went with the voice. Her hair was shorter, and had been dyed brown, but there was no mistaking that face. The wide lips, high cheekbones, the pale, flawless skin. She stood next to the door, wearing a long coat that concealed most of her tall, angular form. In her hands was a large envelope, which she handed to me. Somehow I knew what the label was going to say before I even looked at it.

MAELSTROM
.

“What the hell happened to you, Gwen?” I asked.

Gwen sighed. “You got any coffee, Blake?” she said. “This could take a while.”

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ROBERT KROESE
honed his sense of irony growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After barely graduating from Calvin College, he stumbled into software development. In 2009, he called upon his extensive knowledge of useless information and love of explosions to write his first novel,
Mercury Falls
. He has written three more books in the Mercury series and a humorous epic fantasy,
Disenchanted
. The Big Sheep is probably something like Kroese's eleventh book, but there's no way to know for certain. You can sign up for email updates
here
.

    

 

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