SIXTY-SIX

 

 

HE HEARD EVERYTHING. Standing alone in a damn hallway, white on white, nothing here, except him and an insane woman in the next room.

Who helped plan the attacks that were killing people all over the Moon.

Nyquist brought a hand up to his ear, even though he knew that DeRicci had severed their connection. She sounded angry, terrified, shaken, and he had rarely heard DeRicci shaken.

The day he nearly died. She’d been shaken then.

You need to find out who the hell caused this, she had snapped at him. She hadn’t even said hello, hadn’t asked where he was, hadn’t asked if he had learned any more, not that he had. She had just demanded he help her. And he wished he could.

Flint was there. Oddly enough, as uncomfortable as Flint occasionally made him, that comforted Nyquist. DeRicci trusted Flint and she needed someone like him right now.

Apparently he already had some answers.

Nyquist hoped they were enough.

He leaned against the cold white wall, and peered at the one-way window into the interrogation room. The port had locked down. He already heard the announcements, felt the shudders as the dome sectioned around the port.

The port was its own island, designed that way because everyone believed if anything bad happened in Armstrong, it would happen at the port.

And this nearly had. The destruction he was hearing about through his links, that had nearly happened here. But Palmette didn’t do it, not just because of him, but because she trusted others to do it for her.

And they did.

He slammed his fist into a wall. The shuddering pain didn’t do anything. It didn’t make him feel better, it didn’t soothe him. All over the Moon, people were going through what he had gone through during the first bombing—unstable buildings collapsing from the vibrations set off by the dome sectioning, injuries, attacks.

Deaths.

How many people had died because others got the job done, as Palmette had said. How many died? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands?

And once again, in a moment of great crisis, he was stuck with Palmette. He was dealing with Palmette. He had to figure out what to do with Palmette.

Besides kill her. Because that was what he wanted to do. He should have left her to die in that squalid kitchen, on the floor of that squalid house. No one would have known. No one would have cared.

Only back then, he had thought her worth saving. Hell, he had even thought Alvina Ingelow was worth saving. And she had cost him months in court time and in headaches.

In comparison, though, Alvina had been worth saving.

Palmette had not.

He clenched his fist and nearly sent it into the wall again, but the soreness on the side of his hand stopped him. Hurting himself wouldn’t help. Punching a wall wouldn’t help.

He couldn’t go into those destroyed domes and save lives. He couldn’t be a first responder. So far, everything in Armstrong was fine.

Everything here would rest on the investigation.

Because the assassins had said that the assassinations had only been the beginning. Maybe they were referring to these attacks. Or maybe they’d been referring to something more.

Why attack every major city on the Moon if it wasn’t the prelude to something bigger?

Only what? He didn’t know.

Maybe Palmette did.

It was time to find out.