Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"But she did hear something," Fierenzo said, the pieces finally starting to come together.

"What do you mean?" Roger asked, frowning.

"They knew who we were the minute we drove in," Fierenzo said, trying to put his intuitive logic train into words. "They also had to know we were there to spy on them."

"Granted," Roger said. "So?"

"So they didn't seem all that worried when they thought we were spying for ourselves," Fierenzo continued. "Otherwise, they'd have grabbed us while we were still in the house. And it didn't even seem to bother them all that much when the hammerguns went off."

"They looked startled enough to me," Roger said.

"Startled, yes, but not bothered," Fierenzo pointed out. "There's a difference. That implies they weren't even that worried when they realized we were spying for Grays."

He looked at Laurel. "But they did care when Laurel made that quick call for Melantha and they suddenly realized we had a hidden Green aboard. They cared a lot, in fact. So the question is, what was going on back there that they wouldn't want a Green to overhear?" He lifted his eyebrows in invitation.

"I don't know what to say," Laurel said, her forehead tight with concentration. "They were monitoring our progress through the forest, and there were bits of other conversations—just the casual sorts of things people talk about all the time. There was also a Farspeaker keeping in touch with their Commander, who must have been out of normal range."

"Aunt Sylvia," Roger murmured. "I wonder if she's the same Sylvia I met at Aleksander's place."

"I don't know." Laurel looked at Fierenzo. "But you were right. The minute I gave my call, they suddenly went from very calm to very excited. I went quiet again immediately, but it was too late."

"Wait a minute," Roger said, frowning. "You say she heard something that worried them. But after a couple of minutes they went ahead and let us go. Doesn't that mean they concluded she hadn't heard anything?"

Fierenzo thought it over. "You may be right," he conceded reluctantly. "Damn. I thought we might be onto something."

"We might still be onto half of it," Roger offered. "Because their reaction shows there was something they thought she might have heard."

"Could be," Fierenzo agreed. "Any ideas, Laurel?"

Laurel shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I can't think of anything—"

She broke off as the sound of something brushing through tree branches came from their left.

Fierenzo looked that direction, his hand automatically going for his gun.

But it was only Jordan, flying rapidly through the air toward them as he angled downward on his invisible tension line.

Beside him, Fierenzo felt Roger twitch as he caught sight of the flying Gray. "It's all right," Fierenzo soothed him, wincing as Jordan's outstretched feet slammed hard into the tree trunk anchoring the other end of the tension line. A pair of broken ankles right now would not be good.

But the young Gray's legs merely bent with the impact, absorbing the momentum like a pair of coiled springs. A second later he had let go of the line and dropped onto the ground, clearly none the worse for wear. A second later Jonah slammed into the same spot on the tree and also dropped to the ground. Turning around, he waved his hand back and forth twice as if directing traffic and then held it steady.

Fierenzo looked back in the direction the two Grays had come from. A moment later he spotted the tiny tension line projector flying toward them like a small kite being reeled in, its manta ray/airfoil shape keeping it high above the ground and any potentially entangling branches. It shot toward Jonah, and Fierenzo wondered suddenly if the Gray was going to wind up with a set of broken knuckles when it hit.

But Jonah obviously knew the proper technique. Just before the projector reached him, he swiveled a hundred eighty degrees around to let it shoot past, burning some of its speed as it braked along its retrieval thread. The projector made a U-turn and finished its trip to his hand at a much more manageable speed. "Everyone okay?" he called as he and Jordan jogged to the car.

"Thanks to you," Roger said, shaking his head. "Velovsky mentioned tension lines, but it didn't sound nearly as impressive as it looks."

"Yeah," Jonah said distractedly, his eyes on Laurel. "Laurel?"

"I didn't find Melantha," she said tiredly. "I'm sorry."

"Then where is she?" Jordan asked anxiously, looking at Fierenzo.

"I don't know," Fierenzo told him. "But we won't find her hanging around out here. Everybody in the car."

"We going back to the city?" Roger asked as they all climbed in.

"Not yet," Fierenzo said, retrieving the mental thread he'd been working on back at the estate before the Warriors had so rudely interrupted. "Nestor told us Sylvia was out doing some shopping. Laurel corroborated that a minute ago when she said their Commander was out of range of everyone except the Farspeakers. Given that, what's the simplest thing for them to have done with Caroline?"

"Sylvia took her along?" Jordan suggested.

"Exactly," Fierenzo said. "And there's just a chance that Caroline might have been permitted to do a little shopping of her own."

He looked at Roger, who was frowning blankly at him. "And if she was clever," he added, "she might even have used a credit card."

Roger's eyes widened as the light finally dawned. "Of course," he said, fumbling out his phone and his wallet. "How do I do this?"

"Call the company—number's on the back of your card," Fierenzo instructed, glancing in the mirrors and pulling out onto the highway again. "Tell them your wife may have lost her card and ask where the last place was she used it."

They had made it back to Shandaken and the intersection with Route 28 when Roger finally turned off his phone. "Got it," he announced. "The Minute Cafe in Bushnellsville."

"A restaurant?" Jonah asked incredulously. "She bought lunch?"

"As I said, clever," Fierenzo said, taking a left into a grocery store parking lot and turning around back toward 42. "Let's go see how clever she actually was."

"Afternoon, gentlemen," the waitress said cheerfully as she came up to Roger and Fierenzo. "Two for lunch?"

"No, thank you," Roger said, pulling Caroline's photo out of his shirt pocket and holding it up for her inspection. "We're looking for this woman."

The waitress's eyes went suddenly wary. "Oh, yes?" she asked, her voice neutral. "Who wants to know?"

"Her husband," Fierenzo said, nodding toward Roger. "And the NYPD," he added, holding his badge wallet up beside Caroline's photo. "Was she in here today?"

The woman's eyes flicked to the badge and then back to the photo. "Yes," she said, a little reluctantly. "She and her mother."

Roger frowned. Her mother?

"Where were they sitting?" Fierenzo asked.

"Back there," the waitress said, pointing at the rearmost booth. "They left in an awful hurry, too.

Hardly touched their food."

"Find me her charge slip, please," Fierenzo said, starting toward the booth. "Her name's Caroline Whittier. Come on, Roger, let's take a look."

"What exactly are we looking for?" Roger asked as they sat down on opposite sides of the booth.

"Something Caroline might have left behind," Fierenzo said, picking up the napkin dispenser and rifling through the napkins. "A note slipped into a menu, say, or dropped on the floor during lunch."

"But she couldn't have known we'd even be up here," Roger objected, leaning over and studying the floor under the booth.

"No, but she could address it to you and assume someone would find it," Fierenzo pointed out, pulling out the stack of menus and fanning through them.

"I don't see anything," Roger said, poking his fingers carefully along the gap between the cushion and the padded seat back. "Maybe Sylvia caught her trying to do it."