Payoff: A Mindspace Investigations Novella by Alex Hughes

Author:Alex Hughes [Hughes, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781101618240
Publisher: Roc
Published: 2013-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

I was on my second cigarette. The door opened and closed. I assumed it was Bellury, since it was his job to follow me around like a misbehaving child. Cherabino was on the other side of my brain and still blocking me hard, and that was making me feel even more blind.

“I don’t get it,” I told Bellury, as I watched the sun make its way down to the top of the buildings across the scorched courtyard. The department didn’t have the money for bioengineered grass or water past the drought allotment, and it had been a hot dry summer. What few clumps of grass that had survived clung in stubborn mounds to the red earth, a bright green from all the recent rain. “I really don’t understand. I mean, if he paid him, why kill him? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I agree.” Cherabino’s voice came from behind me.

I turned, startled. My heart was beating way too fast. This lack of telepathy thing was not working out for me—it was making me blind and deaf and dumb, making as many assumptions as the normals.

I put the cigarette out, suddenly, oddly, hopeful. “Um, hi.”

“Hi,” she said. Her body language was folded in on herself and she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“What’s going on?” I asked, wary.

“I’ve been reassigned.”

“What? Where are you going?” Visions of her moving—to South DeKalb, out of state—danced through my head.

Maybe she saw it through the Link. She looked up, too quick. “No, nothing like that. It’s just—Bransen has reassigned me, okay? He says I have too many other cases right now to deal with the Raymond Datini case, so I can’t work on it anymore. You’re on your own. I’m sorry. Paulsen said you can use Bellury. He was very firm with me—it’s the way it is. I’m sorry.”

“I . . .”

“What?” She squirmed.

“I’m not a detective,” I finally settled for. My telepathy wasn’t even working. “Aren’t there legal implications?”

“They say not in this case. I’m sure you’ll figure this out.”

“Can I keep the senator here?” I asked. Her faith in me suddenly registered, too late, after the fact. Should I have said thank you?

She frowned. “Do you have enough to charge him yet?”

“Well, no.”

“Then turn him loose and get the evidence. Unless you really think you can sweat out a confession from him tonight.”

I took an internal stock; even this conversation was pushing the limits of my capabilities right now, and the world was starting to fade in and out again. I was pushing far too hard; I needed to sleep again, and soon.

“No,” I said. “No.”

“You’ll get the evidence later,” Cherabino said. “You will.” She squirmed again, vague guilt finally escaping over the Link. “Listen, my grandmother’s having a lunch this weekend, and she wants to meet you. It’s good food if you want to come along.”

I stared at her. She wanted me to actually meet her family? That had always been a firm no before. . . .

“Um, sure, I’d love to,” I said.

“It’s good food,” she said again, uncomfortably, and left.

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