LITMIR.BIZ

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got it,” Pietr said, standing up and wincing as his knees cracked loud enough for me to hear.

      “You’re getting old, old man.”

      “It’s not the years, it’s the damned mileage,” he said, and he wasn’t joking. We were in our twenties, everyone except the Big Dogs and Lou, but some days I woke up feeling like the tail end of a forty-year-old. Current took it out of you. What we were doing, what we were seeing…that took it out of you, too.

      I looked at the tarp. Someone had taken it out of our vic, too.

      You didn’t end up bound-and-drowned by accident. Someone had killed this fatae, for whatever reason. We didn’t know who it was, if it left a family, if it had been murdered for cause or on a lark, or if there were other bodies waiting to be found, or if the killing was a one-off or if they would strike again. Hell, we didn’t even know the victim’s gender, or how to check.

      I’d be carrying all those unknowns with me tonight when I tried to get to sleep, and keeping me company in my dreams, and when I woke up again, hoping against hope we’d be able to find even one answer…and knowing we might not.

      Sometimes, this job sucked large, pointed rocks.

      Pietr pulled the tarp back over the body and nodded to the cop that we were done. They’d cart the body off to the city morgue, to the little cold room in the back that nobody talked about, and stash it there until we figured out who the next of kin were. “You think Shar and Nick are having more fun?”

      I glared up at the clear blue sky. “They’d better be.”

      Sharon’s report later was the usual tersely professional recounting, but no, they hadn’t been having more fun.

      Mass transit didn’t reach into their destination, so they had to walk from the bus stop, pausing to check their directions several times.

      “Huh. Nice.”

      Sharon let out a sniff that wasn’t entirely disagreement. “Gaudy.”

      Nick shoved his hands into his jacket pocket and smirked. “I like gaudy. It takes a lot of money to be that tasteless.”

      The house they were looking at wasn’t actually tasteless, although it leaned that way: a gleaming white, pseudo-Federalist structure on a lot not much larger than the house itself. There was enough frontage, barely, to allow for an imposing driveway from the street, and enough shrubbery to suggest privacy without hiding the grandeur of the house from the peasants driving by. Peasants were, clearly, supposed to be aware of their own insignificance in the face of such a house.

      Sharon said as much, as they walked up the driveway, each of them carrying their kit in their off-hand, so as not to bump against each other. Nothing in the kits was terribly unstable, but some of their equipment was best neither shaken nor stirred.

      “In this neighborhood, any peasants would get kneecapped by the private security force,” Nick said, not really joking. They had noted the discreet but blunt signs when they walked down the street: nonresidents were not welcome here, unless invited.

      The double doors were white, with lions’-head knockers in brass, and a simple buzzer underneath.

      Sharon touched the buzzer, and they waited.

      “Yes?”

      The woman who opened the door for them wasn’t the owner—she was dressed in a neat cream pantsuit that had the feel of a uniform, and had an air to her that was pride but not ownership.

      Nick took the lead. Women of a certain age and position, Venec said, would respond more automatically to a man than a younger woman, especially a good-looking man. You used whatever tools you were given. “We’re from PUPI. Mr. Wells is expecting us.”

      “Oh.” The woman wasn’t flustered, just checking them out, her gaze taking in the details of Sharon’s neat, dark blue suit and pumps, and Nick’s more casual slacks and loafers. He was wearing a leather jacket, but it was quality enough to pass muster, apparently, because the housekeeper nodded once, and stepped back to let them in.

      “Mr. Wells is in the sunroom,” she said. “Please follow me.”

      They both took in the details, not obviously scanning their surroundings. The foyer was larger than either of their apartments, with marble floors and a carpet that was probably worth more than they earned in a year.

      “Ouch,” Nick said softly, and Sharon’s gaze followed his as the housekeeper led them down the wide hallway. The left-hand side of the hallway boasted only closed doors, but to the right there were archways opening to a great room with soaring ceilings and expensive furniture—that had been torn apart. Fabric was shredded, as though huge claws had used it as a scratching post, and cabinet doors were ripped off their hinges, antique-looking carpets shoved in a crumpled pile against the walls.

      “I don’t think this was a Retriever,” Nick said softly.

      “No?”

      “It just doesn’t feel right. Retrievers are pros. They don’t leave behind any trace, much less damage.”

      Sharon nodded. “Although, it could just have been the owner’s temper tantrum after being robbed.”

      “You really think one guy could get that mad?”

      Sharon merely looked at Nick, one delicate eyebrow raised. Anger could make even the calmest, most sedate people do things you wouldn’t expect; they both knew that. And they had no idea who—or what—their client might be.

      “In here, please,” the housekeeper said, pushing open an interior door, and ushering them inside.

      The sunroom was a surprisingly cozy place after the grandeur of the rest of the house, filled with orchids and small potted trees placed to catch the appropriate light coming in through oversize windows, and a series of comfortable-looking chairs upholstered in dark gray fabric. Each chair had a small table next to it, perfect for a newspaper or drink.

      Nothing in this room appeared to have been disturbed, not even a trace of dirt on the parquet floor where a plant might have been knocked over.

      The woman stopped the moment they entered the room. “Mr. Wells.”

      It was less an introduction than an announcement, the way a museum docent might say “The Mona Lisa.” The client was—to all appearances—an ordinary sixty-something-year-old male. Tall and well built, with skin just naturally dark enough to avoid assumptions of WASPy wealth but not so much that an observer assumed any particular ethnicity. His head was clean-shaven, his face lined and slightly creased around the eyes and mouth. His clothing was rich-man’s casual—a pair of expensive twill slacks, and a black pullover sweater that obviously was cashmere, and not a cheap single-ply weave, either.

      “These are the—”

      “The investigators I hired.” His voice was cultured, almost lazy, with an oddly clipped drawl. “Yes. Thank you, Joyce. You may go now. Please remind the staff not to touch anything in the affected rooms.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Please,” the client said, waving to a grouping of cloth-upholstered chairs off to the side of the room. “Be seated.”

      They sat. The chairs weren’t as comfortable as they looked.

      “You had a break-in last night.” Nick took the lead without checking with Sharon, continuing how they had begun with the housekeeper. It was fifty-fifty how the client would respond, but Sharon’s truth-sensing would be a strength here, and it was easier to use it when she could focus her attention entirely on the subject, without worrying about how to phrase the questions. And Nick, while not diplomatic, could do a solid guy-to-guy thing. So Sharon sat and watched, and listened.

      “Yes. It happened early this morning, actually. Around 3:00 a.m. We heard the noise.”

      “We?” They knew already, from the original report, but the more the client talked, the more

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