“Even when you have the ability to walk through time, you still live only one day at a time.”
~ a private conversation with Agent 5—I1—2078
Tuesday January 7, 2070
Florida District 8
Commonwealth of North America
Iteration 2
“Rosie? Oh, Rose! Oh, hello, puppy. What a sweet puppikins.”
Sam opened one eye and peered out from under the duvet. Her face had been swallowed by the most wonderful, butter-soft pillow in the world on a bed curtained by vines. This Eden was idyllic. Also, noisy. Her fingers clenched over the butt of the truncheon as she oriented herself.
“Rosie?” A magpie of a woman wearing a fluttery, multicolored caftan hovered just out of reach. Wild daisies were braided into her fading red hair. “Rose?”
Sam gave up on the idea of going back to sleep and rolled over. “Yes?”
“I’m so sorry to wake you. Anyone with half a third eye can tell you need to rejuvenate and realign your chakras, but there’s an Officer Clemens on the phone. She’s most insistent, dear. Would you like me to tell her to leave you alone? You have rights, you know. Our Davin is a lawyer. Still licensed, too. Very popular with the nudists.”
“Did she say what it was about?”
“Nope!” The woman could make even that sound cheerful.
“Okay—can you check?”
“Of course!” The woman hurried away, leaving Sam to contemplate the vines hanging from the ceiling in macramé nests. Mac would hate this place. Sam could see herself enjoying it for a week or so before the novelty of living in a fairy garden wore off. As soon as someone asked her to sew her own clothes, she’d be gone.
For now, it wasn’t so bad.
“Oh, Rosie!” The woman bustled back in with a big smile. “She says it’s about a corpse, dear. Did you kill someone?”
Sam groaned. “No. I’m trying to find a killer. The police thought he was in jail. I was playing a hunch he wasn’t.” She rolled out of bed and stretched. “Is Ivy still on the phone?”
“Is that Officer Clemens?”
“Yes . . .” Her memory for names failed her.
“Maribel,” the woman said kindly. “Maribel Moonchild First Breath Ocean Peace Starchild Jensen.”
At least they kept a family name.
“Jensen is the name of mother’s favorite actor,” Maribel said, as if reading Sam’s mind, “goddess rest her soul. A sweet woman, my mother. Not a vegan, but we can’t all be perfect.” Maribel beamed at her. “You look delightful this morning, Rose. Rose Dewdrop Honey Sun, that should be your name.”
Sam nodded because disagreeing would have only prolonged the painful conversation. “Sure. Why not? Where’s the phone?”
“Third door on the left. Just hit the gong when you’re done. It clears the negative vibrations from the room.” Maribel took off again, knees bent and arms swinging, but somehow her scuffed-slipper-clad feet never left the bamboo floor. It was an odd little walk for an odd little woman.
Amused, Sam tugged the borrowed plum bathrobe tight and walked into the study. Tickweed Meadow had an honest-to-goodness vintage phone complete with tangled cord attached to the wall. “Hello?” Sam said as she lifted the heavy phone to her ear. “Ivy?”
“Miss MacKenzie?”
“That’s still me,” Sam said. “Although they’re planning a naming ceremony this evening, and if Maribel gets her way, I’ll be Dewdrop Honey Sun.”
Ivy’s horrified silence was delightful.
Everything was delightful this morning. It made her wonder what exactly had been in the tea at dinner. Sam made a mental note to drink water before leaving. “You still there, Officer Clemens?”
“I . . . yes. Sorry. I wasn’t sure if you were joking or not.”
“I was. Maribel probably isn’t. But if you have news on the case, I’ll probably be working late tonight. What happened?”
“We found a body right on the district line. It’s in the morgue while everyone argues jurisdiction, and I thought you might want to look.”
“I’d love to!” Sam said with a little bit too much enthusiasm. Ivy was going to start thinking she was a real mental case. “Where can I meet you?”
“District 6. The medical examiner is Lawrence Dom. I should be there before you, but if I’m not, I called ahead, so he knows you’re coming. He’s a little . . . weird,” Ivy said apologetically. “He’s very particular about where everything is. You should be fine as long as you don’t touch anything.”
“Got it,” Sam said. “I’ll be on the road in a few minutes.”
“Do you want directions?”
Sam winced and lied. “Yes! Thank you. I’m not at the top of my game first thing in the morning.” She listened as Ivy gave her the directions and repeated the street names back as if she were writing them down. As long as Ivy didn’t ask to see the written material, she’d be fine. After hanging up, she sighed and let reality set back in.
She had three changes of clothes, no real ID, and a giant mastiff who couldn’t come in the morgue or be left in the car. She hit the gong.
It didn’t seem to fix her problems.
Maribel’s frizzy red nest of hair appeared in the doorway. “Rosie? Are you done? Is your friend all right?”
“She’s fine. I’m going to drive up and go help her with this.” Sam tugged at her braided, far-too-blond hair. “Can Bosco stay here today? Chase the chickens or something for you?”
“Oh, of course! Dogs have very healing souls. Especially him. There’s so much wisdom in his eyes.”
Sam narrowed her eyes. “Now you’re pulling my leg.”
Maribel shrugged, and an impish smile appeared. “Well, people say cats are healing. Why not dogs? I like them better than cats anyway.”
Sam laughed. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”
“Do you have time for breakfast before you go?”
“No, probably not. I need to get to the morgue in District 6.”
“Oh.” Her wrinkled face sagged into the most despondent frown. “It isn’t anyone you know, is it?”
“No.” Sam shook her head. “It shouldn’t be. But I need to get there and help Officer Clemens find the perpetrator before it happens again.”
“I’ll pack you a goodie bag. Do you think Officer Clemens would like some dandelion cookies? They’re very nourishing.”
“I don’t know her that well, but she might. Who says no to free cookies?” She paused. “Wait, is there any of that spinach salad left over from dinner?”
“Of course! I’ll put together a little lunch for you.”
“You’re the best,” Sam said. She rushed to back to the nursery-turned-bedroom, changed, and was out the door with a cooler full of nourishing goodies in under twenty minutes.
The labs in District 6 made Sam sick with envy. A gleaming chrome-and-glass edifice to science surged from the white sidewalks like a temple to research. There was even a fountain. She hadn’t been able to get a full-time medical examiner, and Petrilli had a fountain.
That was unfair.
She parked the rental in the back of the lot and walked in, with her hair hanging loose and wavy. From the Tickweed Meadow’s communal closet she’d grabbed a pair of bright, Mediterranean-blue pants that hung loose on her hips, some short black, faux-leather boots, a white tube top, and a white crop-top jacket. With a few tasteful pieces of costume jewelry she’d grabbed at the flea market on the side of the road, she looked exactly like a trashy California PI from a movie.
Even she was startled by her reflection in the mirrored glass of the lobby. The look was Not Her in so many ways. But that was the point. She’d met Lawrence Dom once, very early in her move to Florida, and she didn’t want to risk a run-in with Petrilli. If either of them recognized her, she’d be the one in the detention center explaining things. There was no way it would end well.
The doors swung open automatically, inviting her to step out of the pleasant Florida plaza into a sterile, ultramodern lobby that looked eerily familiar. She’d bet a milk shake and a side of fries the architect for the District 6 labs was the same person who had drawn up the plans for N-V Nova Laboratories in Alabama.
A bright silver half dome rolled past. It took her a moment to realize it was the latest model of cleaning bots. She’d seen the ads before, but District 8 had never been on the list for the upgrades.
Feo Petrilli really was a lucky dog.
“Rose MacKenzie here to see Dr. Dom, please.” She held up a fake ID with her thumb over the fine details as she approached the security desk.
The guard was a middle-aged woman who reminded Sam of her old landlady, Miss Azalea. Except Miss Azalea smiled and cooked fried chicken, and this woman looked like she’d been sucking lemons for the past six hours. “Are you expected?”
“Yes, ma’am.” A hint of Southern twang slipped out. Sam prayed the women wouldn’t think she was being rude.
The guard sighed and handed over a datpad. “Sign in here.”
Sam scribbled some loops in place and handed it back with a smile.
“This is your name?”
“Mmmhmm.”
“There are letters in there?” The woman had missed her true calling. The nuns at St. Agnes would have welcomed her with open arms.
Sam pretended to inspect the signature with interest. “Right there’s an R and that’s an M.”
“That M doesn’t quit.”
“Neither do I.” Sam winked at her.
The guard rolled her eyes. “Fourth door down the green corridor. Follow the tiles. Hit the buzzer when you get there and smile for the camera. I’ll unlock the door from here.”
Following green agate tiles to the eastern wing, Sam buzzed in and stepped through the doorway into the memorable Eau de Morgue. The fug was something she’d tried to scrub from her brain, but, like the procedure for securing a crime scene, it just wouldn’t leave. Her heels clomped on the hard floor, the sound echoing down the whitewalled hall and warping on its return.
When the door behind her opened, she spun.
“Miss MacKenzie?” Ivy stood in the doorway, frozen.
Sam forced a smile. “Sorry, you startled me. Morgues always give me the creeps. All alone . . . I thought maybe one of the corpses wanted to go out for a donut.”
Ivy chuckled nervously as if she wasn’t entirely sure Sam was joking, or how she was supposed to handle the situation if she wasn’t. “District 6 has some of the best facilities in the state. The precinct considers ourselves lucky that we get to work with them.”
“It’s lovely if modern architecture is your thing.” Sam waited for Ivy to catch up, then followed her down the hall to the ME’s office. “I prefer some greenery. Fresh plants or a fish tank maybe. Something alive.”
“I think it’s a very practical design.” Ivy stopped in front of Dom’s door. “Have you ever seen a corpse before?”
“Several,” Sam said. Two of them had been Sams from other iterations. Hopefully other iterations. There was still an uncomfortable question mark over Jane Doe’s origin. “I’ll let you know if I have a problem.”
Even Ivy’s smile was apologetic. “Last time I was here was with Detective Monroe, and she had morning sickness. The formaldehyde did her in. I didn’t want to . . . you don’t have anything like that, do you?”
“Not in several years,” Sam said, biting back the bitter sorrow.
She pretended not to note as Ivy’s eyes dipped to her abdomen. “Oh. You have—”
“No.” Sam cut her off. “I miscarried. I don’t like pineapple. My first kiss was in college. Are you done prying into my personal life? Can we get to work now?”
Ivy shrunk in on herself, and Sam silently cursed her own temper.
“I’m sorry. That was curt of me. It’s a touchy subject.” Sam held her hands up in apology. “Can we, please, move on?”
Ivy quickly nodded and opened the door, but Sam noticed how she stepped away. It was like kicking a puppy, it really was. Ivy had opened up to her—would open up to her—before Sam had slipped back in time and moved to Australia. She knew what was going on, how hard Ivy fought to be seen as human.
A mutinous voice in Sam’s head muttered that getting snapped at was human, too. She wished Mac were with her. He was good at tag-teaming these situations. Playing the gormless medic with big, hazel eyes and a sad smile while she did her job as the by-the-book agent. People trusted Mac. She just made them angry.
“Dr. Dom,” Ivy said to the room at large. “Doctor? It’s Officer Clemens from New Smyrna.”
A chubby man with a gleaming bald head wheeled across the room in an oversized office chair. “Officer Clemens! And visitor. They sent me the visitor’s signature, but I couldn’t read this.” Narrowed eyes glared up at Sam accusingly. “With handwriting like that, you better have a Ph.D. Who are you?”
“Call me MacKenzie,” Sam said, holding out her hand.
Dom shuddered. “Eww. No. I have spent too much time studying the wealth of biology growing on human flesh.” He looked away in disgust and took a moment to recover. After making a gagging face, he said, “I’d say please come in, but we all know I don’t really want that. But, come in anyway. There’s not much to see.”
“Have you identified her yet?” Ivy asked.
“One of my assistants is running the dental work now. Very unusual amalgam.”
A red flag went up in Sam’s mind. “Can I make a guess about her physical description?” Sam asked. “Female, Latina, long black hair, beaten-in face, just over average height, below average weight, and under thirty?”
The ME turned his chair to look at her with focused interest. “Do you want to guess the lotto numbers next?”
“Miss MacKenzie was hired by Lexie Muñoz’s family to ensure her killer comes to justice,” Ivy said. “She thinks that Lexie was possibly murdered by a serial killer.”
“If this girl fits the pattern, she’s number ten,” Sam said.
Dom grimaced. “I was under the impression this was a very open-and-shut domestic abuse case. Find the boyfriend, find the liquor, and the case would be closed.”
Sam shrugged. “That’s what we thought about the other cases. So far, all the victims have been single. But anything is possible.”
“But not likely,” the ME grumbled. He kicked off the floor, sending his chair sailing into the next room. “This way! Our Jane Doe is in here.”
Sam walked in and stared at the corpse, who wore a set of loose, navy coveralls with the patches torn off. She pulled on gloves and touched the suit. “Any idea whose uniform this is? One of the garbage companies or something?”
“No tags, no patches. Once I get her on the table, I can check the other tags, see if there’s anything that gives us a pointer, but right now, they’re just clothes. You can buy coveralls like that at half a dozen stores around here.”
The fabric felt strange through her gloved fingertips, like it wasn’t quite the right thickness or weight. “How long has she been dead?”
“Hard to tell,” said Dom. “Her body’s colder than it should be for where we found her, so I’m guessing she was moved.”
“Where was she found?” Ivy asked.
“In Carroll Park. A patrol officer discovered her along the jogging track,” Dom said. “There are footprints, but nothing to indicate a struggle.”
“And there’s not enough blood and her body is the wrong temperature, and there’s a circular breakage pattern on her bones that’s very unusual,” Sam said. Mac needed to be here. They might as well label this girl Jane Three. If the facial reconstruction pulled up her own face again, Sam was going to vomit out of sheer anger. “Skip that. What’s the murder weapon?” She looked over at the silent Dom. “No guesses?”
“You seem very well informed about this case.”
“I’ve seen a few like this before.”
Ivy frowned. “I haven’t, and I checked the records. Even the police database.”
“Some of them were very, very classified records,” Sam said. “If you have enough money, you can make sure your loved one’s death isn’t fodder for the media doom-and-gloom machines.” She pointed to Jane Three. “Murder weapon?”
“My guess is fists and boots.”
“Just like the others.”
Ivy groaned. “Troom has an alibi.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Sam cautioned. “We still need to tie this victim to the others. Unless we can put all of them together with one person, we’ll need to find a weapon, or trace material, or something. Otherwise, we have no case.” And Henry Troom stayed in jail. She looked at Dom again. “You said boots. Did you get a make or style? Manufacturer imprint? Please, I’m begging, tell me it’s a rare doeskin boot hand-stitched on one remote farm in north Georgia or something. That would do so much to speed this case along.”
“Well, um, first, it’s a partial imprint,” Dom said. “We matched the bruising to the ridges of a boot, but not one that’s on the regular databases.”
“Any links to other cases?”
“One,” Dom said. “A locked case from Alabama District 3 last summer. I put in a request to have the files opened.” He held up a datpad for Sam to look at.
The temperature of the room dropped a few hundred Kelvin.
“Do you think they’ll open the record?” Ivy asked.
Sam shook her head no as Dom said, “Yes.”
He scowled at her. “I have top secret clearance. I assure you, if they let you look at it, they’ll let me.”
“If I did see something,” Sam said as she thumbed through the information, “it wouldn’t have been through official channels. Wait, what’s this? Grease on her hands and under her nails? I don’t see an analysis of that listed.”
“There isn’t one yet,” Dom said. “My tech brought back some data that were just impossible.”
“How?” Ivy asked.
“She said the grease had high levels of polychlorinated biphenyl. You can’t even find those in trace amounts in Florida unless she worked on antique machines. Even then, it’s odd. We’re recalibrating the machines and doing a secondary test. We should have a better reading by tomorrow.”
Ivy’s and Sam’s eyes met. Ivy looked worried.
“It’ll be soon enough,” Sam said. After all, what’s the absolute worst that could happen, someone else could die? It wasn’t like Mac could get any further away. He was lost in time. Kidnapped by—probably—the dead woman whose autopsy she was holding. At least she hoped it was Jane’s autopsy and not hers.
She rubbed her head, trying to knock the anxiety loose. Being two breaths away from a panic attack wasn’t going to help anything. “Okay. I guess Clemens and I will hit the park. See if anyone knew her or if we can find anyone in the uniform she was wearing. Doc, can I give you my number, get a phone call if you have information?”
“Do you have clearance?” His button nose twitched in the air like a sanctimonious rabbit from a kid’s cartoon.
She pulled a pad of paper from her purse and scribbled her number under the contact information for Tickweed Meadow. “Call me. Or I can hack in, check the files, and leave your screensaver set to the kind of pictures that will get your clearance revoked while they drag you to jail.”
His thin eyebrows went up. “You wouldn’t.”
“Your security code is 046471. You drive a white Delion Breeze, the 2064 model, and the left-rear taillight has been out for over a month. You eat rice bowls for lunch every day and two burgers from Swing n’ Snack for dinner.” Sam leaned down to look him in the eye. “Would you like me to keep going?”
“H-how do you know this.”
She smiled. “I know people. I know things. It’s my job.” And she had a very good memory for obscure details. The first time she’d met Dom, he’d been enthusiastically showing her around while covertly trying to determine if she was a clone. His password was close enough to her old gym locker combination that she wasn’t likely to forget it.
“Is there a leak in the CBI?” He sounded genuinely worried.
Her smile gave nothing away. “Maybe. Or maybe I have better clearance than you think. Do you want to play chicken and see who gets fired first?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he choked back fear. “No. I don’t think that’s necessary. I’ll keep Officer Clemens informed. Degrees of separation and all.”
“Scapegoats and plausible deniability.” Sam nodded and smacked Ivy’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get to the park before the good citizens trample our evidence. Dom will call when he has more.”
Ivy hurried after Sam’s long steps. “Where did you get all of that? I . . . I can’t be your scapegoat.”
“You won’t,” Sam promised, only now realizing how it must have sounded: Break the rules, blame the clone, and dance away without consequence. “I have some friends in the CBI, and this isn’t my first case working with them. That’s kind of why I don’t want to work with them if you catch my drift?” She hoped Ivy did because she was still assembling the lie in her head.
But Ivy shook her head. “Are they mad at you?”
“You ever met Feo Petrilli?” Sam asked. “Tall guy, handsome in an Italian Stallion sort of way? Likes to flirt?”
The pink tinge on Ivy’s cheeks told Sam all she needed to know.
“Yeah, he and I . . . yeah.” Sam looked at the floor and mentally apologized to Petrilli. “If I can, I want to avoid him this trip.”
Ivy nodded. “I can understand that. He’s never been bad to me or anything, it’s just . . . has he ever met a woman he didn’t make a play for?”
“Not that I know of,” Sam said. “Let’s get to the park. I want to see the grounds before we do anything else.” Because Jane Three wasn’t the first unidentified woman to drop out of a cloudless sky into Sam’s life. She just hoped Jane Three was the last.
Ivy watched Miss MacKenzie circle the crime scene twice without comment. On the third lap, she lost patience. “Are you looking for something in particular?”
The other woman shrugged. “Do you see anything that indicates this is a crime scene?”
“The police tape?” Ivy suggested, but since Miss MacKenzie had invited her to enter the crime scene with a look, she stepped forward. The grass was watered by the city sprinkler system, but the drought-dry earth had greedily drunk every sip of moisture down, leaving the jogging path dry, and the green grass was limp.
Miss MacKenzie stepped across the tape and stood beside her. “If this is where she died, what would we see?”
“Blood?”
“Broken grass. Broken branches. Scuff marks. Mud. If someone dragged her here, there would be drag marks. Maybe even some impressions in the ground.”
“It’s a dump site, not the original crime scene,” Ivy agreed. “We knew that already. So what do we do?”
“We widen our search. No one comes from nowhere.”
“Clones do,” Ivy muttered.
Miss MacKenzie gave her a sharp look. “You came from a lab, yes, but there was a twisted sort of love behind it.”
“Not for me.”
“Yeah? Well, take it from someone whose biological parents dropped her off at a boarding school at age four, clones aren’t the only ones who get forgotten.”
“You were loved.”
“Not really,” she said, as they walked down the path. “I was a gimmick for my mother’s career. As soon as she got what she needed from me, she dropped me. It happens.” She didn’t seem bothered by the admission.
Ivy frowned. “There are no security cameras out here.”
“Either the victim came to the park on her own and was murdered somewhere out here, or her killer brought her here. Somewhere, there is a sign of one of those two events.”
“Why here?” Ivy asked, looking around at the trees. “This is a community park, part city-owned and part paid for by user fees and donors. It’s well lit, heavily used, patrolled by an off-duty officer. I know the people who patrol here. They come to walk the trail to get their workout in and get paid extra to do it in uniform. It’s one of the worst places to dump a body I can think of.”
Miss MacKenzie nodded in agreement. “Which suggests two things. What are they?”
“Is this a class?”
“It’s mentoring,” she said as she brushed a leaf aside to look at the underside. “Come on. Play along.”
Ivy rolled her eyes and tried to think. She’d audited psychology classes but never had to use them in the field. The CBI took murders. The local PD handled the rest, but all she ever did was ride along. “Maybe the killer wanted her to be found. A, ‘Look at me! I’m here!’ sort of taunt to the police?”
“Or because the killer threatened the victim before and now wanted to prove they’d won something. It’s common enough with stalkers and domestic abuse.” Miss MacKenzie pointed at something that was little more than a rabbit trail. “Thoughts?”
“It looks used, but there’s deer here, wild pigs, stray dogs.”
“Still.” Miss MacKenzie started walking, following the trail of scuffed earth and broken bushes. “The other reason the killer might have left the body here is because they aren’t familiar with the area. The park is next to wildlife land, isn’t it?”
“Tomoka and Tiger Bay are just north of here. And there’s South Tomoka to the east.”
“And there’s I-95 running from Miami to New York, I-4 headed inland, and 92. All major roads with plenty of traffic. Around here, if you don’t know better, you can turn off the highway and think you’re in the middle of nowhere. If the killer is transient, and they have to be if all these murders are connected, then they could have turned off anywhere, taken an access road.”
“And failed to notice the lamps and paved trail?” Ivy asked skeptically. “Criminals aren’t that dumb.”
“Yes they are. Especially if they’re intoxicated, on drugs or the buzz of killing.” Miss MacKenzie stopped as the trail at a gopher tortoise hole. “I hate this. I hate having nothing. Ten crime scenes, and all I have is a psych profile, and a dodgy one at that.”
Ivy led the way back to the main trail. “You know what we wouldn’t find a trace of? Wheel marks. If I were going to drag a body somewhere, it’s not like I’d throw them over my shoulder and jog out here. We’re over a mile from the main parking lot.”
Miss MacKenzie raised an eyebrow. “But lamps mean someone needs to get a maintenance truck in.”
“Which means an access road,” Ivy said. There’s an access point about three hundred meters this way.”
The path curved, and there was an open space under several aging oaks. There was a rest area with a bench, a flower bed, and several chin-up bars next to a plaque with the name of the donor. Ivy smiled. “Look at the sandbox. Someone was feeling zen on their workout this morning.” They’d gone and drawn perfect concentric circles in the sand. They’d even gone and trampled down some of the grass.
The beauty was somewhat marred by what looked like a drunk’s unfortunate encounter with the petunias.
Miss MacKenzie’s face twisted in disgust and fury.
“They’re just annuals,” Ivy said. “Flowers like that, they’re ripped out and replanted in a month.”
But she wasn’t looking at the flowers. She was glaring at the sand art as if it had pulled her hair, stabbed her kitten, and stolen her car.
“Ma’am?”
She held up a hand and stalked into the grass. “A gun,” she said reaching between some tree roots and pulling out a dark gray weapon. She sniffed it and nodded. “I bet I know what murder this belongs to, too.”
Ivy shook her head in confusion. “The victim wasn’t shot, she was beaten. I mean, we need to take it in, but it’s not related to our murder.”
“Oh, it is. The killer was carrying this but didn’t use it. What does that say about them?” Miss MacKenzie demanded.
Ivy hesitated. “They had a weapon, but they used their fists? That seems angry to me.”
“Me too,” she agreed. “And angry people make mistakes.”
Ivy took an evidence bag from her pocket and held it out.
Miss MacKenzie chuckled. “It’s not part of the murder, and it won’t help the investigation.” She tossed the weapon up in her hand.
“You said it belonged to another crime.”
“It’s a hunch.”
“Worth testing the ballistics.”
Miss MacKenzie shook her head. “Not really.” She waved a hand at Ivy’s protest. “It’s complicated, and the case this might belong to is out of my jurisdiction. If I bring it in, things will get complicated.”
“Out of your . . .” Ivy’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you were private sector. You don’t have jurisdiction.”
Her smile was sad and amused all at once. “Yes. That’s a good thought. Run with it.” She tossed the gun in her hand again. “It’s not too heavy, either. Do you want it?”
“I can’t have a gun.”
“You can’t legally purchase a projectile weapon or own a long list of guns. I promise, this one isn’t made by any of those manufacturers, and I’m not selling it.” She opened the chamber. “It is missing a bullet, though. How are you at metalworking?”
“What?”
“You won’t be able to find bullets for this gun anywhere in the Commonwealth.” Miss MacKenzie held it out to her. “If you learn to make your own bullets and always wear gloves when you load it and clean it, you should be fine.”
She stared at the strange weapon. “What do you mean you can’t find ammunition for it in the Commonwealth? Where does it come from? Where do you come from?”
Miss MacKenzie didn’t answer right away. As Ivy grew impatient, Sam held up a hand. “Hold on, I’m trying to think of an honest answer that won’t significantly shorten your life.”
“Because you’ll need to kill me if you tell me? That’s a bit trite.”
“I don’t kill people,” she said. “I drive them mad and arrest them. Or I arrest them and drive them mad. Sometimes the order gets switched up. Either way, they live. But there are people who will kill to protect certain secrets, or to own them. Since I’m not in the habit of endangering people without a reason, let’s try this: You might need this, and I’m basing that off a hunch.”
She blinked. “A hunch?”
Miss MacKenzie winced. “ For now, until I can confirm a few details with an expert, yes, it’s a hunch. This looks exactly like a gun that I saw on a prior case. The owner was . . . let’s say private military. The kind of group everyone likes to pretend doesn’t exist in the Commonwealth. They manufacture the guns and the bullets. You won’t find it anywhere on any registry or sold by any company. Which makes it the perfect, untraceable weapon.”
Ivy shook her head. “No, the CBI wouldn’t let that happen.”
“Even the CBI has cases they’d rather not solve,” Miss MacKenzie said. “Now, can we get out of here? This place is giving me the creeps.”
“I don’t understand why you’re scared of circles on the ground.”
“I hope you never understand,” Sam said. “I really do. And I hope my hunch is wrong.” But she knew it wasn’t.
The detention center wasn’t much different than it had been when the reforms kicked in after the Commonwealth united. It wasn’t supposed to be a prison but a rehab center for individuals addicted to antisocial behavior; however, the million-dollar landscaping only gussied up the surface. Inside there were cellblocks, neon-green prison jumpsuits, and hard-eyed men looking Sam over like she was a piece of meat. In training, she’d been told not to make eye contact, that it encouraged reckless behavior.
Today, she made eye contact, and the criminals were the ones who looked away in fear.
A woman was waiting inside a prison advocate room with a white plaque stuck on the door that read FAMILY THERAPY ROOM. Her escort opened the door and returned to his desk.
Sam nodded at the woman. “You’re Dr. Mallory?”
“Yes, Mr. Troom’s rehab facilitator for first-stage therapy. I’m afraid we aren’t having much luck breaking the denial cycle. It’s holding him back.” Mallory had the look of a perky cheerleader: bright pink lipstick, eye shadow a few shades darker than her suntanned skin painted to elaborate the arch of her eyes, and hair curled and shellacked in defiance of the humidity outside.
Sam supposed she didn’t look much different right now. “Have you considered that Dr. Troom might not be guilty?”
“Everyone is guilty of something,” Mallory said. “A person may not be here long, but if he isn’t guilty of murder, there are other things he can confess to that will put him on the road to a healthy, happy, productive future.” Her smile never faded, and it didn’t reach her eyes.
Sam smiled in kind. “What are you guilty of?”
Dr. Mallory’s smile shattered, and, for a moment, Sam saw rage. It was quickly covered by a smirk worthy of any high school student. “Trying to rattle me, Agent?”
“Do I need to?” Sam asked.
Guards arrived at the lock, with Henry between them.
Mallory looked over her shoulder and back. “I will leave you alone for the private conference the CBI has requested, but I must remind you that you are required by law to give us any relevant information that would help us put Mr. Troom on the path of rehabilitation.”
“I am aware, and I will comply,” Sam said. Her smile sharpened. “First step: Call him by his title and respect his intelligence. He earned his degree.”
The therapist’s lips puckered like she’d bitten a lemon, and her heels rapped against the cement floor with quick, angry steps as she exited.
Henry’s guards let him in as Mallory left the room, locking the outer door behind her. His smile was genuine, then he laughed. “Your hair looks awful.”
“I know. It’s for a case.”
Henry shook his head. “Nice job with Dr. Mallory. You have a talent for driving smart people crazy. Dr. Emir had that look on his face every time you talked to him.”
“Really? I didn’t actually mean to antagonize him.” She took a seat in the plastic chair across the table from an identical one the prison had provided for Henry. “How are you doing?”
He shrugged. “Solitary confinement and the accusation of being an antisocial element at risk for suicide, with a prescription medicine to fix my delusions.”
“Hmmm. Are you suicidal or delusional?” Sam asked.
“I know you’re required to report this to the therapists, but I’ll say it anyway. I’m feeling homicidal. Low-key. I’m not an advocate for violence, but the pills make me violently ill, and they can’t erase what happened last summer.”
Sam frowned. “They have your files from the N-V Nova Labs case? That’s not supposed to be available for civilians.”
“They don’t have the whole thing. They called around and got ahold of my cousin, who told them I was into weird stuff although that’s probably not the term he used. He’s a crackle addict, legalized and nonaddictive LSD for the gezes who can’t get their lives together. He lives in Alabama District 12 on disability and has a prescription for the pills. I saw him in September. Got drunk.”
“You talked?”
“Not about specifics. I didn’t know any. But I told him what I’d heard. What’d they’d done. It was a near-death experience!” He crossed his arms. “I didn’t kill Lexie Muñoz if that’s what you wanted to know.”
Sam shook her head. “I already know you didn’t. But I need details. And your alibi.”
His eyes narrowed into a mulish look. “Agent Rose, is this really necessary? Can’t you just, I don’t know, do a DNA test or something? Rule me out as a suspect?”
“You took Lexie to the beach party. Multiple people saw you walk onto the beach with her and leave with her. You were the last one to see her alive, so start there.”
Henry squinched his eyes shut, then shook his head. “Son of a—” He bit off the curse. “Are we friends?”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Friends? Is this relevant?”
“You saved my life. Twice, by my count. You know what I’ve been through. It’s not like I can talk to anyone else about this . . .” He gave her a pleading look.
“Henry, I don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Just . . . don’t make fun of me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Bradet invited me to the party. The station had a thing going on . . . have you met Bradet?”
Sam tried to hide the wince that came with those memories. “Yeah.”
“He’s solar wind. Wild and fun, and all the girls want him.”
Which spoke to the poor taste of the girls going to these parties. Every time Sam had talked to Bradet, she’d felt the need to wash.
“I thought if I went to the party maybe some of his magic would rub off on me. Girls don’t like geeks, you know? I start talking about work, and their eyes glaze over.”
“Try talking to smarter women,” Sam said.
Henry blushed and looked at the table. “Lexie was solar. I mean, hotter than the sun, solar. She’s triplicate, the whole package. She was working on a math degree at the college, she’s from a good family, she had a body that was just . . .” His hands curved in the air and dropped as he tried to describe her. “It wasn’t love, but I thought we were having a good time. We went to the beach to get away from the noise and talk about her thesis paper, which sounded really promising for a master’s student, and she said she was thirsty. So I went back up to the bar.”
Anger suffused his face, creasing it. He wasn’t seeing Sam anymore, but that night. “I came back with sangrias, and she was with some guy. Tall, handsome, surfer tight with a military haircut and muscles.” Henry shook his head. “She was having fun.”
“It could have been small talk,” Sam said.
Henry looked her in the eye. “They weren’t talking.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Bradet had already seen me. He’d winked at me when I walked out with Lexie. Gave me the high sign when I got the drinks. If I went back in, I was going to be humiliated. So I figured I’d walk down the beach a bit and loop around, get to the parking lot, and make a quiet escape. Bradet usually goes home with a girl, so it wouldn’t matter. I could lie about it, and he’d leave me alone.”
Sam rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I feel like there’s a piece missing here. I get the male ego, trust me—married life teaches a woman these things. But why not tell the cops? Someone saw Lexie leave, and it wasn’t with you, that’s a mistake.”
Henry rolled his eyes to the side and bit his lip.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He put his hands over his face and rested his elbows on the table. “This could end my career. I haven’t been at the think tank a month. It’s paradise, you know? Like being the kid in a candy store.”
Sam shook her head. “Not that big a fan of candy.”
“Makeup shop?”
“No.”
“Gun store?”
“Me?” Sam gave him a disappointed look. “I like fresh produce, running shoes, and my truncheon.”
He sighed. “Fine, you have your healthy ways, and I have physics. And the think tank lets me do work without writing grants, without answering to committees, without teaching. I can request anything. I can try crazy things and fail because I don’t need to show results to anyone for years. Do you know how wonderful that is? This is the golden apple of science.”
“Isn’t the golden apple the one that started the Trojan War?”
He nodded. “Yeah. People would kill for the slot I got. I’m only there because I’m Emir’s protégé, and his posthumously published papers were very well received. They’re on particle wave physics and advanced communication between the planet and orbital satellites, but it has wonderful applications for the space industry.” He paused, and a little smile crept onto his face. “He wrote those papers years ago. Erased most of them, but I had copies since I had worked with him in grad school. I did some of the math, nothing major. After he died, the lab wanted to publish something, and it wasn’t like we could let his current research get out. I thought it was a nice memorial.”
Sam tapped the table. “Back to the night Lexie died?”
He closed his eyes. “If anyone finds out the truth, I’ll lose my place at the think tank.”
“If I don’t find anything, you’ll be here for murder for years. Eating the horrible pills and still not working at the think tank.”
“I went home with someone!” Henry shouted.
Sam shook her head in confusion. “So? Who could you possibly go home with . . .” Her imagination caught up with her tongue. “She is over eighteen, or he, right?”
Henry glared at her. “She’s twenty-three, five years younger than I. And she’s a protestor.” He looked at the floor like he’d just confessed to some lewd form of bestiality.
“I don’t get it,” Sam admitted.
“Her name’s Krystal, with a kay. She protests government oversight and waste.”
Sam shook her head. “Still not seeing a problem.”
“She’s on a government watch list for antinationalistic behavior.”
“Like Marrins?”
“No!” Henry sounded horrified. “As an undergrad, she was part of a modernist group pushing to reopen various habitats for human use.”
“Are those the anti-ecoterrorist types?”
“Oh! No. She’s not with them, she was petitioning to open up various preserves for recreational activity. Camping, kayaking, that sort of thing. She’s really into outdoorsy things and . . .” He shut his eyes tight. “We had a thing, before I graduated. Not anything formal, but kind of an open relationship. N-V Nova Labs told me I couldn’t work there if I was associated with anyone who couldn’t pass a background check. Krystal was chill with it. There were other guys, I spent too much time in the lab, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Except she followed you here?”
“She came to see some guys who live in the swamps. There’s a protest coming up, and she’s out here rallying troops or something.” He shrugged. “I was going to leave, and I didn’t even know she was at the party. Lexie was kissing this beach guy, then there’s Krystal.”
“The perfect rebound.”
“She likes sangria. We finished our drinks in maybe ten minutes, then headed for the car.”
Sam took out her notepad. “This Krystal, dark hair, about five-five?”
Henry nodded. “She doesn’t look like Lexie, but at a distance after a few drinks? I guess they look alike.”
“You left together?”
“Yeah. Maybe, thirty minutes after I left Lexie? She was still on the beach talking to the guy when I left.”
“Do you remember anything else? Anything odd?”
Henry stared into the distance for a minute. “It was a bit serendipitous running into Krystal again. But, no. The party was noisy, people were laughing, listening to bad music, drinking. It was a beach party. The weather was nice. Warm I guess—that probably caused the heat lightning.”
Sam raised an eyebrow as a sense of certainty settled over her. “Heat lightning? In January? When the party had heat lamps in every corner?”
Henry frowned. “I guess that was a little odd. I was wearing my slacks and a sweater, so I guess I didn’t think about it. The pavilion on the boardwalk was hot, but it wasn’t really warm, I guess.” He frowned.
Sam pulled up her notes. “It was fifty-six that night. It was the tail end of the cold snap.” She closed her notebook.
“Does that help?” Henry asked.
“It confirms something I suspected and gives me the murder weapon.”
“Lightning isn’t what killed Lexie,” he said. “They made me look at the crime scene photos. She . . . they . . .” He shook his head and looked away.
Sam grimaced in sympathy. “Did you see any concentric rings in the sand, or was the area too trampled.”
Henry frowned at her. “What?”
“Concentric rings,” Sam said slowly. “Were they there?”
“Like the rings from . . .” He shook his head. “No. That’s not what happened. Lexie was beaten to death by someone. Not me, but someone.”
“There’s no blood on the beach. Witnesses saw you leave the party, but if you left with Krystal—whose full name and address you will be giving me—then no one saw Lexie leave the beach. She didn’t die there. She was dumped there. I think I know how. With Krystal as your alibi, you’ll be cleared of charges. And then we’ll talk about the rings.”
“Agent Rose,” Henry said quietly, “what you’re cryptically suggesting is impossible. The device in question was destroyed.”
Sam looked him dead in the eye and let him see what had driven the other inmates to look away. “Tell me right here, right now, that you didn’t make another one. Look me in the eye and say it.”
He looked at his hands.
“Exactly. You tried to reconstruct the device. How unstable is it?”
Henry jerked back in surprise. “How . . . ?”
“Just be honest with me, Henry. We are friends, after all.”
“It’s okay, but the charge is weak. I need a better battery. I didn’t . . . I didn’t put anyone at risk. I swear it. I know what it did to Matt and Miss Chimes, so I took it out in the desert.”
She frowned.
“I went to Colorado to see a friend at the School of Mines before I moved down here. I took the machine out to the sand dunes. Middle of winter, the wind and cold, it was abandoned. It turns on, but there’s not enough energy to get the portal to accelerate properly. It fizzed, and there were some weird little dust storms. Almost like an energy pulse but at a distance. Subportals maybe, but I don’t know. I’m missing some of the original components, and there’s no way I can find a replacement for the core you smashed. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“I had a very good reason for smashing it,” Sam said. “Not that it worked like I planned, because if it had, Lexie would be alive, and you’d be at work right now.” She pushed her pen and paper to Henry. “Give me a way to contact Krystal, please.”
He slid the notebook toward himself and froze. “Are you sure about this?”
“Do it, Henry.”
Obediently, he wrote down the name and address.
“I’ll get this wrapped up and get in touch with you.” She stood. “Don’t call the CBI office, though. If you do, I won’t remember this conversation, and it will be awkward all around.”
“What do you mean you won’t remember this conversation?” Henry demanded. “Agent Rose?”
She held up her left hand. “Agent MacKenzie, now.”
“Congratulations on the engagement?”
“Marriage.” She studied her ring. “We’re getting married before the year’s out, and we’ve been married five years already.
“Isn’t time funny like that?”