Word and Breath (19 page)

His real aversion might have more to do with what he sensed between Connor and Riana.

Riana and Mikel had come together to the basement of a grungy drugstore where they were holding the illicit meeting. Everyone else was already present when they walked in.

Tava he’d already met and respected. Kelvin had been one of the armed men in his apartment the previous afternoon—a competent man if not a particularly articulate one. Donn and Posen were unknown quantities, both men holding low-level positions for the Union in offices they might need to access to find Jannie Cole.

But Connor he’d disliked immediately. As soon as he’d seen the look Riana and Connor exchanged.

It wasn’t a romantic look or a passionate one. It wasn’t even a particularly happy one. But it revealed a history between them, a bond that went farther back than he’d expected. A knowledge and trust that was so ingrained as to be unconscious.

She knew Connor and trusted him in a way she’d never trusted Mikel.

And Mikel was evidently petty enough to resent Connor for that.

It was a surprising part of his nature he’d never suspected before. He wished he’d responded in another way.

But there it was.

He didn’t like Connor.

And Connor was obviously in charge here.

Mikel’s one consolation was that his distrust and resentment was clearly returned. Connor was meticulously polite to him—shaking his hand and thanking him for his help.

But Mikel wasn’t deceived for a moment. Connor might be genuinely trying to give Mikel a chance, but it wasn’t a successful attempt.

Connor didn’t want Mikel anywhere near Riana.

There was too much at stake here to start some sort of alpha-male challenge or try to prove his place in Riana’s life, so Mikel shelved the animosity and concentrated instead on the mission at hand.

Connor evidently was following the same strategy because, after his first greeting, his attention was entirely focused on business.

“Thanks for coming,” he said to the room at large. He was propped up on a crate, looking oddly incongruous in his glasses and corduroy jacket. “This is the group we’ll start with. If we need more help later, we’ll recruit it. We try to keep meetings small—for obvious reasons. With this kind of activity, the fewer knowing the details the better.”

He looked at Riana with the explanation at the end, and Mikel’s eyes moved sharply from one to the other.

Riana sat cross-legged on the floor, looking almost like a girl in her jeans and braids. Her face was pale and strained, though, and her eyes focused up at Connor anxiously.

Mikel saw Connor’s eyes soften as he gazed at her, and a new flicker of thought entered his mind. He mentally filed it away for later processing and didn’t let it distract him from his observation of the meeting.

“So what are we going to do?” Riana asked.

“We obviously have to find where they’re keeping Jannie before we can try to get her back.” Connor tugged on the hair at the back of his head. It wasn’t a nervous gesture as much as a habitual one. “Donn, have you made any progress since your last report?”

Donn was a big man—as tall as Mikel and probably fifty pounds heavier. He wouldn’t be much help in physical tasks, being so out of shape, but Mikel knew that wasn’t why he was here.

“I’ve been digging into financial records,” Donn explained. He too was talking mostly to Riana, although his eyes shifted over to Mikel occasionally, including him in the explanation. “For the last day, I’ve been looking for…researching…” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been trying to find out information on
you
.”

Mikel gave him a half-smile to put him at his ease. A lot of people were naturally nervous around Breathers, and that wasn’t something Mikel wanted to encourage here. “I’d hate to know what you found out.”

“Not much,” Donn admitted, grinning back. A good-natured man and not a stupid one. “Soul-Breathers might as well be ghosts, as far as Union records go. Anyway, I was working on that—in an attempt to find you, miss.” This bit was directed at Riana. “So I don’t have any new information. I’ll keep looking.”

“What will you look for?” Riana asked. There was hope in her eyes—not much, but more than Mikel had seen there before.

“Patterns of unexplained expenditures. It’s never a very organized investigation and doesn’t always turn up results, so I’d suggest you not put all your eggs in my basket.”

“We won’t,” Connor said. “Posen does paperwork for the Department of Detention. He’s going to look into recent prisoners of the Union here in Newtown.”

“Do you really think they’d keep paperwork on Jannie, if they’re the ones who have her?” Tava asked.

She’d alluded to what Mikel had been afraid of all along. If the Union didn’t have Jannie, then they were back to square one.

“The Union keeps paperwork on everything,” Connor said. “It’s just a matter of finding where they file it. The Union is our best bet. Either they kidnapped Jannie or they’ll figure out soon who did. Our surest way to find her is to go through them.”

Riana nodded, the lines around her mouth relaxing slightly.

“Which brings us to the other angle,” Connor continued, turning to look squarely at Mikel for the first time since their initial meeting. “Tava tells me you can open a connection with people without their being aware of it.”

Mikel inclined his head, looking the other man evenly in the eye.

“Will you do it with Largan?”

Mikel arched his eyebrows. Connor didn’t waste any time. He wouldn’t have expected such directness from the man. “No.”

Connor frowned, and Riana turned to look at Mikel with obvious surprise and disappointment.

Mikel explained to her, “I don’t think I
can
do it to Largan. He never lets me get close enough to touch him. And he’d be suspicious if I tried. He might be a bureaucrat, but he’s smart and careful.”

“There’s no way you could arrange an accidental encounter?”

Turning back to Connor, Mikel answered his question. “I could try, I suppose. I can’t read his mind, though. Tava must have told you. All I can do is sense a general impression from him, assuming he hasn’t already put up his guard. He’ll have to be very distracted to not know I’ve done it.”

“Could you tell if he’s lying or not when he says he doesn’t know anything about Jannie?’

“Maybe. But I don’t think I should risk it.”

Mikel was determined to play nice for Riana’s sake, but he wasn’t going to be pressured into anything against his better judgment. He didn’t back down from Connor’s cool stare.

“But Mikel,” Riana whispered, clenching her fingers in his sleeve.

He looked down at her, pleased she’d reached out to him the way she had, even if it was only beseechingly. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you get your sister back. And, if we run out of options, I’ll try this. But one of our few advantages is that they still assume I’m loyal. Rousing Largan’s suspicions would kill that advantage for us.” He turned back to hold Connor’s gaze. “I’m telling you the truth. It won’t take much to get Largan to doubt me.”

It was a sign of either his intelligence or his practicality that Connor accepted him at his word. “We need to find out whether the Union knows anything about the kidnapping, so we don’t waste our time unnecessarily.”

“Largan has an assistant,” Mikel suggested. “Not nearly as clever or suspicious. He also suffers from a case of Breather hero-worship. He’d know if the kidnapping was done by Largan’s office. I can find out from him.”

“Good. That leaves Smyde, from the office of Readers.” Connor cleared his throat. “We have a couple more Readers on our side, but we can’t risk compromising them since we’ve lost Jenson.”

Mikel’s eyes cut over to Tava, whose expression hadn’t changed.

“Do you have any way to run into him?” Connor asked.

“Maybe.” Mikel thought quickly. “You think he’s involved with whatever they want from Riana, since it seems to be about reading?”

“I have no idea,” Connor admitted. “But we might as well find out. You did say he was the one who originally assigned you to tail Riana, before Largan took over the assignment.”

“I can ask Largan to bring Smyde in for a meeting because I want to question him about Riana’s routines. I’ll say I need more information to find her. It might work.”

“Good. Thank you.” The gratitude was obviously not easy for Connor to express. “So tomorrow we’ll start work on collecting information. If we find out the Union doesn’t know anything, we’ll consider other possibilities.”

“What about me?” Riana asked. She was still holding onto Mikel’s sleeve. He doubted she was even aware of it, although he was brutally conscious of her touch, even through the fabric. “What can I do? I can’t just sit around and wait anymore.”

Connor’s eyes flicked down to Riana’s hand, noticing her clutching grip as well. “You’ll be with me.”

Mikel stiffened at the implication but managed not to let it show.

“We have some work to do,” Connor added.

“Oh. The Old Language.”

Mikel glanced away, clenching his jaw and willing himself to relax. She and Connor must have discussed something earlier that afternoon—something she hadn’t shared with him.

He couldn’t expect her to tell him everything. She had been open with him about not fully trusting him.

Just because he’d uprooted his entire life for her didn’t mean she had to return the favor.

Her life had been uprooted by things she couldn’t control. He wasn’t going to resent her for keeping control of the little she could.

Maybe she’d tell him after the meeting.

“All right then.” Connor glanced around the room. Then up toward the entrance at the top of the stairs. “We should end this meeting soon. It isn’t safe to meet too long. Listen. Do not discuss any of this with each other outside of our meetings. That’s the way they stop being secret.”

Mikel’s shoulders stiffened even more. He’d go along with whatever plan they decided, as long as it was what Riana wanted. But he was the most powerful person in this room, and he didn’t take orders from anyone.

Certainly not Connor.

If Riana wanted to talk things out with Mikel, then that is what they would do.

As the others started getting up, Riana finally seemed to realize that her hand was fisted in Mikel’s sleeve. She released her fingers, gently smoothing out the wrinkles in the fabric. “Sorry,” she murmured, glancing up at him self-consciously.

“Don’t be.” He was genuinely trying not to put any romantic pressure on her, but the words came out warmer and more nuanced than he’d intended.

She blushed slightly and got up. When he stood up beside her, she said in a low voice, “Thank you for helping us this way.”

He wanted to brush her gratitude away, but he realized it was important to her to say it. “You’re welcome.”

“Do you think we’ll be able find her?” Her eyes were huge and anxious and beautiful. Mikel thought he might drown in them.

He had absolutely no idea if they would find her sister. If he gambled, he’d have wagered against them. But there was only one answer he could give Riana.

“Yes. I think we will.”

Largan arrived at his office the following morning to be greeted by a message from Mikel.

It was enough to ruin the rest of his day.

Mikel said—in the flat, dry tones he always used with his employer—that he needed to meet with Largan that day.

Largan’s morning had already started off badly, having been forced to leave his wife in a considerable amount of pain and then spend his whole commute on the phone with the capital. The last thing he wanted was to meet with the arrogant Soul-Breather.

But he called up Mikel anyway, before he’d even gotten his coffee.

“Do you still want me to find Riana Cole?” Mikel asked him, after picking up on the fifth ring. “Or has my assignment been canceled because of your…other difficulties?”

His bored, self-satisfied tone made Largan sneer at his empty office. If he canceled Mikel’s assignment, the man would get paid for doing absolutely nothing. Those were the regulations in situations like this. Largan didn’t want to waste the money, and he definitely didn’t want Mikel to get a free ride at his expense. “Nothing has changed. Your assignment is still the same. Find the girl and extract the information from her.”

“If you want me to find her, I’m going to need more information than I have.” Mikel didn’t sound particularly disappointed. Just bland and business-like. “I’ll come in around noon to meet with you.”

Largan stiffened and desperately searched his desk for a mug of coffee that wasn’t there. Merely to be recalcitrant, he replied, “I have plans at noon. I might be able to fit you in around 11:15, if it’s absolutely necessary.”

“It is. I also need to talk to someone who worked with her. I don’t have a clear enough sense of her habits and routines to even begin the search for her.”

“Didn’t you follow her for more than a week?”

To Largan’s displeasure, Mikel didn’t react defensively to the obvious challenge. “I saw what she did last week, but that’s not enough to go on in this situation. Do you want me to find her for you or not?”

Largan needed Mikel’s help. He had other people searching too, but Mikel had resources and skills that no one else had. “She didn’t have many friends at work. I can probably bring her supervisor in, but that’s all I can offer you at the moment.”

Mikel paused. “I suppose that will have to do. 11:15.”

Then he hung up, without even a farewell.

Largan muttered to himself to relieve some of his irritability and got up to get the cup of coffee his assistant was supposed have brought him.

When he came back, he called Riana’s supervisor. Smyde wasn’t pleased about coming in at the whim of a Soul-Breather, but Largan didn’t give him a choice.

When he hung up, Largan looked at the piles of tedious work he needed to do today and briefly considered crawling under his desk to hide.

At 11:17, he hadn’t gotten done nearly enough, and he wasn’t going to put up with Mikel’s thoughtless lack of punctuality. He went out to the main office to tell his assistant to call the Soul-Breather and demand he get his ass over here immediately.

Mikel was already there.

He was talking to his assistant, leaning against the desk and looking as sleek and polished as ever in some sort of trendy black coat.

He always made Largan feel like a lazy slob.

His assistant was staring up at Mikel with an idolization that nauseated Largan. He could only guess what nonsense had been spilled in his gullibility.

“Have you drawn up that report?” Largan barked, startling his assistant.

“Yes, sir,” the young man said, fumbling with a file before he could hand it over. “It’s here.”

Largan flipped through the file of images—a standard background dossier on Jenson Talon. He didn’t have a need for it any time soon, but at least it had interrupted the conversation. “You ready?” he asked Mikel curtly.

Mikel nodded and followed Largan into his office, smiling covertly. Obnoxiously.

Then he started to fire off a bunch of questions about Riana. Some Largan didn’t know the answers to, and some Largan couldn’t possibly have known the answers to. As he fended them off, he felt more and more off-stride and was relieved when Smyde finally arrived.

He was also starting to get suspicious. Mikel wouldn’t have come in and wasted everyone’s time like this unless he had an underlying agenda.

When Mikel started bombarding Smyde with similar questions, Largan couldn’t help but feel a tiny twinge of petty pleasure. He’d never liked Smyde—the man was too narrow and unyielding for his taste—and it was nice to see someone else as the target of Mikel’s inquisition.

“You must have been told this dozens of times already,” Smyde finally said acidly. “Riana Cole had no friends. She kept to herself.”

“I don’t believe it.” Mikel leaned against the doorframe—hadn’t even come all the way into the office. “No one is that isolated. Who did she talk to in the office?”

“Talon, mostly. But he’ll no longer be troubling anyone.”

For just a moment, Largan thought he glimpsed a hint of satisfaction in Smyde’s face, and he wondered if there had been more animosity between the two men than he’d been aware of before.

“No one else?”

“She talks to others casually, but she doesn’t spend any time with them. If we suspected she’d had any friends at work, we would have already pursued those avenues of inquiry.”

Mikel shook his head, the florescent light glinting off his fair hair. “So you’re telling me that an attractive, twenty-two-year-old woman goes into work and then goes home and has no sort of social life at all? You know of no friends or lovers in the eight years she’s been working for you?”

Smyde looked annoyed by Mikel’s condescending attitude, but he answered the question directly. “Well, there was another Reader—several years back—with whom she spent some time. I suspected they might be involved. Reed Connor. But he quit years ago, and no one has heard from him since.”

Mikel looked interested. “Do you think he might have kept in contact with Riana?”

“I doubt it. He dropped out of the Common Directory.”

“He went underground? Is that her connection with the Front?”

“We don’t think so,” Largan put in, feeling more at ease now that they were focusing on real business. “There were no signs that Connor was involved with the Underground. He came from a family of trouble-makers, but he never made any waves. We’re pretty sure Jenson was her connection to those circles.”

“Connor had a large inheritance, which disappeared at the same time he did. I always figured he got tired of it all and set up house on a free island outside of Union control. He was never a team-player.” Smyde’s mouth turned up in a sneer.

Mikel seemed to have lost his interest in that topic. “So her only attachment was her sister?”

“As far as we can tell.” Largan glanced down at the files he still had to go through before lunch and hoped this meeting was almost over.

“And you’re both willing to look me in the eye and assure me that neither of you knows anything about the kidnapping of her sister?” Mikel’s eyes were steel as he leveled his gaze at them in turn.

Largan met the other man’s eyes. “The Union was not responsible for the kidnapping. I told you that before.”

“If I needed information from her,” Smyde said, “I wouldn’t waste my time with her sister. There are far more direct ways to extract information.”

That was another thing Largan didn’t like about Smyde. He had no sense of subtlety or appreciation for nuance. If he’d wanted the information, he probably would have just tortured Riana until he got it.

And never doubted the information he gained was reliable.

“And you don’t know anything about the shooting either?” Mikel asked, his eyes shifting from Largan to Smyde. “That’s the thing that drove her into hiding.”

“The shooting is not the work of the Union—not my office or anyone else’s.” Largan felt vaguely disgusted by the thought. “We do have some further information on that.” Pleased that both Mikel and Smyde turned to him with interest, he explained, “It’s definitely the work of a Zealot group. Overnight, they processed evidence from the scene and traced the weapon to an ex-soldier with the Union military. We’re pretty sure he was the shooter. He was discharged dishonorably and has ties to extremist circles—anti-reading, anti-Breathers, anti-everything. They want to destroy everything of value in the world because they’re convinced it’s a threat.” He nodded at Mikel. “You know the type.”

“To my regret, I do,” Mikel murmured, with a rare expression of understanding in his eyes.

On this, at least, the two agreed.

Smyde looked visibly startled. “So you found the shooter?”

“We know his identity. We haven’t yet found him or picked him up. We will.” Largan sighed, with another agonized look over at the work he still needed to do. “We’re acting on the assumption that the Zealot group found out our plans for Riana and didn’t want that project to succeed.”

Mikel cleared his throat. “And what project is that?”

Largan didn’t need the distressed noises Smyde was making to immediately shut Mikel down. “That’s confidential. Find Riana and do your job.”

Mikel frowned thoughtfully, and Largan experienced that flash of suspicion again. What was the Breather doing here anyway? He could have gotten all of this information from a phone call. In fact, he hadn’t learned anything particularly helpful at all.

Something else was going on. Mikel wasn’t here to get information. The cool nonchalance in the Breather’s manner wasn’t going to convince him otherwise.

Tired of undercurrents, Largan asked bluntly, “So what did you want, Mikel? You’re not the kind to pay a social call.”

Mikel’s smile was slow and knowing, and there might even have been a glint of respect in his eyes. “Riana Cole called me last night.”

And there it was. The
something
Largan had been waiting for.

“What?
What
?” Smyde almost sputtered as he advanced on Mikel. “And you’re just now telling us? What did she say? Where is she?”

Mikel arched his eyebrows, and Largan was glad he wasn’t the target of that look of vaguely disgusted disdain. “I’m telling you now. Would you like me to go on?”

When Smyde kept sputtering, Largan snapped out, “Shut up!” Then he nodded at Mikel. “Continue.”

“She called me last night. She wouldn’t say where she was, and she wouldn’t agree to meet with me. She was scared. The shooting had rattled her badly.”

“Why did she call
you
?” Largan asked, thinking as quickly as he could.

“I’m not sure. I told you I formed a connection with her, and I don’t think she has anyone else. That’s why I was asking about her friends and colleagues. She’s looking for someone to help her, but she’s not sure who she can trust.”

“How did you end it?”

Mikel answered Largan’s question. He ignored the clearly frustrated Smyde as if the man wasn’t in the room. “She hung up on me. Something spooked her before I could talk her into trusting me.”

“Did you at least get the number she called you on?” Smyde asked.

Mikel narrowed his eyes unpleasantly. “As a matter of fact, I did. She wasn’t calling from her phone. It was a public telephone in the train station. She’s a smart girl, and she’s not going to take unnecessary risks.”

Largan nodded, agreeing with this assessment. Despite Mikel’s pursuit of his own agenda, at least the man was smart and competent. “Can you give me the phone number of the public telephone? I’ll send someone to check it out.”

Taking the piece of paper Largan handed him, Mikel checked his phone and scrawled down the numbers.

Largan understood what was happening now, so his next words were more a statement than a question. “You think she’ll call you back.”

“I do. She’s scared. She needs someone to help her.”

“We need to get busy then,” Smyde put in urgently. “We can tap your phone and maybe—”

Mikel cleared his throat, his eyes never leaving Largan.

“How much more do you want?” Largan asked, mentally sorting through his budget and trying to determine how much extra he could pull from other line items.

“This is a different assignment than the one I signed on for,” Mikel said mildly, while Smyde sputtered some more. “A more difficult one.”

“How much?”

With a slight, ironic gesture of his hand, Mikel said, “Five-thousand should do it.”

Smyde made an exclamation of outrage, but Largan kept his face impassive. It could have been worse. Mikel wasn’t one to barter. His demands for compensation were met, or he simply walked out the door.

There was too much riding on this to deny him five-thousand extra. This was the first positive lead they had on Riana Cole’s location.

“Agreed. I’ll set you up with Veda in Communications. She’ll take care of your phone. You’re to report as soon as you hear anything more from her. Set up a meeting, and we’ll figure out what to do from there.”