Fade to Black by P A Wilson

Author:P A Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781990509070
Publisher: Perry Wilson Books

23

“You need to check your messages,” Amanda said without looking up from her screen as Sofie entered the room.

“Who’s been calling?” Sofie didn’t plan to sit in the office, or in some meeting space wasting time. “Any tips we can use?”

“The usual hundreds of useless, time-wasting nonsense calls.” Rick moved past her and put his pad on the table. When he turned around to face her, he winced.

“It’s nothing,” she said, knowing the temporary skin covered the worst of it.

He glanced at Amanda as if looking for support to argue with her, but Amanda gave him a tiny headshake. He took the hint and continued with his griping. “I swear if I have to hear another lie about some lover, husband, rival, or annoying boss killing an Elite, I’m going to start arresting people for being assholes. So, no real tips, and it feels like everyone has been calling.”

Sofie sympathized. “Eventually, that will be against the law, but I doubt the punishment will be death. Who do I need to call first?”

Amanda looked up from her screen. “June Sato. You’d know that if you looked at the list.”

“What’s got you in a mood?” Rick asked. “You’ve been sitting here in comfort. We’ve mostly been out in the stink of Maintenance.”

“No one is responding to my requests,” Amanda said. “How am I supposed to find answers without input?”

Sofie tuned out the bickering. It wasn’t serious and would fade soon. The list of messages was short. June Sato and two from the equipment manager. Rick had taken all the tips. No wonder he was fed up.

She called the equipment manager only to leave a message of her own that he didn’t need to wait for her, either of the other two detectives would take his information. Was this a delaying tactic? Easy to cover up involvement, incompetence, or corruption by appearing to help the police.

Now she only had June Sato. Frequent interference on a case was often an attempt to misdirect. Ordinary people did this hoping to distract the investigation until it was dropped. Real criminals knew it didn’t work.

There was no doubt that the Sato Second was keeping secrets. Were those secrets about the case? Or were they about some other amoral shit?

Sofie didn’t like being pushed or feeling anxious about talking to a suspect. Although she needed a lot more undeniable proof than she had if she was to suggest that June Sato was involved.

She hit the contact information on the message and sat. The stim Bindes gave her was wearing off and her legs were shaky.

Instead of reaching an aide, the call was answered by the Second personally. “Detective. I don’t usually wait this long for someone to respond.”

“The investigation takes priority,” Sofie said. “I’m sure you prefer we find the killer.” It was never easy to walk the knife-edge between respect and annoyance when you didn’t actually feel someone in power deserved any deference. Sofie waited for a response, knowing she’d cross the line if she kept going.

“I expected more progress,” June Sato said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.