SIXTY-NINE

 

 

THE PSYCH REPORTS hit Nyquist’s links just as he touched the door to the interrogation room. He paused, scanned them, and got even angrier.

Palmette had been an iffy hire in the first place. Parents dead in a murder-suicide when she was young, caused—or so it seemed—by an inability to hire a Disappearance Service. Palmette had moved in with relatives, always been the outsider, unhappy, unwanted.

But she had a fascination with crime and she’d scored better than any other candidate for the police academy on investigative techniques. She was also exceptionally brilliant, very driven, and extremely teachable.

She was also unable to connect with others, unable to form a close bond, and unwilling to go into therapy to work through the problems. She got an enhancement so that she could handle social situations, but even that was a stop-gap measure, one designed to help her in the field, not to improve her life.

Her entry psych report stated: This woman is a marginal candidate emotionally, but so brilliant and talented that we would be remiss not giving her a shot at the work. If she suffers serious trauma, she must receive a greater and more thorough examination afterwards than more stable candidates. But many officers go through their careers without serious problems; we trust Ursula Palmette will be one of them.

They trusted wrong. Nyquist wanted to let them know that they had gambled and lost big. But that wasn’t his place at the moment. At the moment, he needed to deal with Palmette herself.

At least he understood what went wrong now. It had gone wrong when her father had killed her mother, and then killed himself. Something twisted in Ursula Palmette’s brain. That twist had been evident from the beginning, but not something that the people in charge worried about.

They did what they were programmed to do—they didn’t rehire her after she had nearly died in the line of duty. Maybe if they had rehired her, Arek Soseki would be alive.

Nyquist slammed the door open. Palmette looked up, startled.

As he stepped inside, letting the door close behind him, he realized he didn’t know how to play this.

Then he decided he didn’t want to play it at all.

“I need to know who your contact is, Ursula,” Nyquist said.

She shook her head. “I don’t even know.”

“You do, and you’ll tell me.”

She frowned at him. “I don’t.”

Hundreds, maybe thousands of people died because of her, and he knew if he threw that in her face, she wouldn’t care. She had stopped caring about dead people when her parents died. Dead people had become a puzzle to her.

He splayed his hands on the table. “What the hell were you thinking?” he asked. “You didn’t just want to blow up Armstrong. You wanted to destroy the Moon.”

She smiled—that cold, chilling smile. “Have I done so?”

“You haven’t, no,” he said. He sat down. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that the other bombs had gone off.

She tilted her head. “Then why are you so angry?”

“Because you of all people should know better,” he said. “You know how it feels to be abandoned because someone got murdered.”

She flinched.

“You know how it feels to suffer in an attack that wasn’t aimed at you.”

“You forget,” she said. “I wasn’t injured in the bombing. Alvina Ingelow nearly killed me.”

“And you wouldn’t have been vulnerable if the bombing hadn’t happened,” he snapped. “I saved your life. I thought you would amount to something.”

“I did,” she said.

He stared at her.

“People will remember me,” she said.

His heart was pounding. He was alone here. Everyone in Armstrong was dealing with a different crisis. No one was observing him. He could probably even convince Murray Atherton to get rid of any footage from this interrogation.

He could do what he should have done before: He should have left her to die. He could make sure she died now.

But he wasn’t like her. He wasn’t a killer—except in self-defense. And this had moved beyond self-defense long ago.

“No one will remember you,” he said coldly. “I’ll see to it. They’ll have no idea that you even existed.”

She blanched.

“I’ll wipe you from the records,” he said. “I’ll make sure you’re not in any reports. You know how this chaos works. You know no one will double-check. Ursula Palmette disappeared on Anniversary Day, and no one knows why. Worse, no one will care.”

“You said you cared,” she whispered.

He nodded. “I did, until I found out what you were.”

She raised her chin, but it was trembling. “I’m a good person.”

“You’re a mass murderer, Ursula. You’re worse than Alvina Ingelow. You’ve killed many more people. You’re worse than your father.”

Palmette straightened. “I am not.”

“You are,” Nyquist said. “You did to countless people exactly what your father did to you. You destroyed their lives. You purposely destroyed their lives.”

“I did not,” she said.

“No one remembers him except you. No one thinks about him, no one cares about him. And that will happen to you.”

“No,” she said.

“I’ll make sure of it.” He sat down, crossed his arms, and glared at her.

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t.”

“I will,” he said. “In fact, I’ll enjoy it. I’ll happily destroy you, Ursula. And what’s ironic is that I can.”

She blinked, holding back tears. He watched her, knowing what was going through her mind. She knew he was manipulating her, but she couldn’t stop the emotions. Emotions had always been her problem, and if she had been able to control them, she would still be on the force. She’d be a productive member of society, not one who had nearly destroyed it.

“All right,” she said quietly. “What can I do?”