Greg Rucka - Critical Space

"I know what you're thinking, Atticus," Natalie said. "Chester is a valid target, yes, she needs protection, yes, and that means she's got to be locked down until this is over. But I'm not the person for it."

"You're the only person for it," I said. "If we go mobile we'll need Dale behind the wheel of one of the vehicles, and Corry will have to man the gear."

Natalie pointed at Moore, who was leaning back in his chair with his hands folded across his chest. "Chester is his principal by proxy. He should do it."

"Like bloody hell," Moore said. "She's my secondary principal, if we're going to be picky, and if there's a prayer of retrieving my primary, then I'm on that action. It's got to be you or Atticus. Since Drama has already fingered Atticus as a player, it's you."

Natalie pivoted to face him, using both hands to indicate her bruised face. "I think this qualifies as a fingering, don't you?"

"Well, maybe as The Finger."

"Asshole!"

Moore nodded placidly. Natalie turned back to me, eyes blazing.

"You're the best one for the job," I said. "Even if it wasn't a question of vehicles and electronics, you'd still draw the straw, Nat."

"That's crap."

From the couch, Dale said softly, "Neither Corry nor I are as good at the close protection as you or Atticus."

That gave her pause. She ran a hand through her hair, then seemed to remember it had been cut, and scowled. Then she said, "Well, I'm not going to be the one to explain it to her."

We all looked at Moore, who said, "I'll do it, but after dinner. We've had one case of poisoning here already, no need to push our luck."

The meal helped ease the tension somewhat, and after that, Moore took Chester aside and spoke quietly to her, explaining she would be staying at the apartment with Natalie until we had a definite resolution to the situation. The two of them spoke for a long time.

I made up the bed in the office and told Corry he should take it. No one had even broached the subject of heading to their own home for the night; we all expected the call to come during the darkness, and no one wanted to be out of the loop. Additionally, there was safety in numbers.

"I called Esme," Corry said as he helped me make the bed. "She's taken Eddie to my mother's in the Bronx."

"Dale might want to call Ethan."

"He did at the office. Ethan said he wasn't going anywhere until Dale came home. They had a fight."

"I didn't know."

"Natalie told me about it while we were unloading the van." He plumped up the pillow, then dropped it on the bed. "This'll do me just fine."

"As long as you're comfortable."

"Speaking of, how's the briefs? The elastic loose?"

"Surprisingly snug, actually. Get some sleep."

"You, too."

I left him alone, shutting the door after me. Bridgett was already at the kitchen table with Moore, and she informed me that everyone else was down for their naps. We stayed in the kitchen, by the phone, and tried to keep from getting too much on one another's nerves, and it was a challenge because all of us were caught between a tension that wouldn't let us consider relaxing and the boredom that sets in when all you can do is wait. I made coffee and Bridgett made tea, and for a while Moore seemed unable to decide which he wanted more.

"Make up your fucking mind, dammit," Bridgett snapped at him.

He had one cup of each.

A few minutes after ten Bridgett stopped playing with the tin of Altoids she'd emptied hours earlier and said to Moore abruptly, "She's going to want Atticus to make the swap."

Moore, who was field-stripping his Browning for the fourth time, stopped his hands and considered, then went back to reassembling the gun. "Could do, yeah. Been thinking it's what she's got planned."

I put my back to the window, sitting on the sill. The closed blinds rustled against the glass when I bumped against them. "I don't," I said.

"Then you're being willfully naive," Bridgett said.

"You're making it personal, between Drama and me. We don't have any evidence of that."

"She broke in here and poisoned you. She has history with you."

"And with Dale," I pointed out. "And all of us except you and Moore and Lady Ainsley-Hunter and Chester…"

"No, you were running the show when she last met you," Bridgett said, but it was less to me than it was thinking out loud, teasing out a train of thought. "She met you, she spoke with you, you're the one she made a connection with, however tenuous. Natalie's incidental, like she was in the elevator today. Using Keith as a decoy, that was to draw you out, not Her Ladyship."

"You want to explain that last bit?"

She looked at me curiously. "Again?"

"For the first time. That's new."

"I thought I had."

"No, it must have been lost in the rush."

"Keith had a backstage pass to the show this morning."

"Legit?"

"No, but a damn good forgery. Both Scott and I figured he'd made it himself, but the more I think about it, the more I think Drama picked him for the job. It would fit with what Keith told the cops when we took him to Midtown North." She began playing with the tin again, flipping the top up and down with her right index finger, snapping her fingernail against the metal. "His story was that he got a letter about three weeks ago saying that, as a member of Together Now in good standing, he'd been specially selected to meet Her Ladyship backstage at the show today. He swore up and down that he'd gotten the pass with the letter. We all thought he was lying."

"To do what you're describing, Drama would have had to access membership lists for clubs all along the East Coast," Moore said.

Bridgett shook her head. "The information is online. I've seen it myself, and we all know I'm not nearly as skilled as Drama is at these things. She could find it without breaking a sweat. Picks a chapter, starts searching through the names, sees if anything comes up. She found out that Joseph Keith had a thing for Lady Ainsley-Hunter, and was a little sprung in the head, to boot. So she wound him up and turned him loose."

"But there was no way she could control what Keith'd do backstage. Not unless he was in on it with her."

Bridgett snapped the tin shut again in annoyance. "Drama didn't need to know what he would do, she didn't need him to do anything other than be a warm body in the right place at the right time. If Keith had been backstage with nothing more than a smile and a bouquet of flowers…"

"He actually had both of those," I said. She ignored me.

"…you still would have gone lockdown, guns a-blazing. She counted on that, she knew his presence alone would force an evacuation, and she knew that you'd bring Ainsley-Hunter back to the Edmonton. Hell, she even knew when to expect you, since it wouldn't happen until after the show had ended. It's a lot of planning, but the way Atticus talks about her, I don't even think that would slow her down."

"It wouldn't," I agreed. "She got us doing exactly what she wanted at every stage without any of us ever thinking we were being played. Very precise, even elegant."

Bridgett snorted. "I wouldn't go that far."

I shrugged and let it go.

At eleven Bridgett went into my bedroom to rouse Natalie, and I went into the office and gave Corry a gentle jab in the ribs. He bolted upright the second I touched him, but either he was a little slow or I was a little fast, and he missed breaking my wrist. I told him there was fresh coffee, and that he should rouse Dale when he wanted company.

Bridgett was out of her pants and in my bed when I came back to my room. I took off my shoes and shirt, put my glasses on the nightstand at my side of the bed, and lay down on the covers beside her. She killed the light and for a while neither of us said anything, listening to the voices talking softly in the kitchen and the noises of the street beyond my window. Then she rolled onto her belly and put her chin on my chest, looking at me. My eyes are bad enough that even at eight inches she was blurry.