Silenced Page 8

  With all of the technology and medical advances, why couldn’t they come up with something to treat bruises?

  I heard the telemonitor click on. Jane was a junkie for the news. If it happened violently and painfully, she wanted to know about it. She continued to speed surf through channels until she found the news. She never missed an opportunity to suck up the filth people did to each other.

  "This is the early morning news with Sue Chen," said a narrator.

  "Good morning, I’m Sue Chen,” said news anchor Sue Chen. “…Today in Markenson Heights located in the East End of D.C. a genetically engineered human was found murdered. This killing brings the death toll for the genetically engineered in D.C. to thirty-three this year alone…"

  Hatchling killing?

  I stopped packing and like a zombie under a trance, I glided back into the living room.

  Sue Chen's perfect black hair and neatly trimmed bangs proved glossy under the lights. Her gray, pinstripe suit, sharp and crisp, made my back hurt for her.

  "So what?" Jane asked, disinterested in hatchling news. She didn't like hatchlings anyway. Her dislike had more to do with her father leaving her and her mother for a pretty hatchling named Tara than her own interactions with them.

  She had warmed up to Trey though, so there was hope for her yet.

  Markenson Heights lay only about forty miles from my apartment. I've passed by on numerous occasions, as it was not far from my place. A small grimy group of houses turned to apartments, Markenson Heights didn’t invite people who weren’t down on their luck. They were gloomy and dismal, but the underground organization worked tirelessly to make them look that way.

  My thoughts turned back to last night and Trey's visit. My underground escort won't be ready until tomorrow, Trey said.

  After our shower last night, we went to bed and became reacquainted. In the wee hours, I woke up naked and very much alone. The tangled covers smelled strongly of Trey, and were my only evidence he had been there. His problems with the Raymen Cartel and the T.A. were his to solve, and his very life depended on it. Last night, he made love as if it were his last, with unbridled lust, nips and moans.

  He did not say goodbye.

  Please, don't let that person have been Trey.

  "You all right?" Jane asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You don't look too good."

  "Tired," I said back, distractedly, my thoughts still on Trey. Rumor was that Markenson Heights was a gateway to the underground. "I'm going to be in the vehicle with you all day. I'm not up for a chin-wag."

  Her worried face broke into a grin. "Ditto."

  There's a long-standing joke that goes like this: the two biggest cities in Mississippi are Memphis and New Orleans.

  Originally settled by the Chickasaw people, Memphis changed hands many times before being founded by Andrew Jackson and two other, less than memorable partners.

  Downtown Memphis, a former mecca for African-Americans in the twentieth century lay deserted at eleven at night. Well known for Beale Street, blues and bar-b-que, this legendary strip of land still captured many visitors each year with its museums such as the Civil Rights Museum, which was built on the site where the great Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.

  I sat down my wauto on this historic street in front of Henry's. In the days when my grandmother still lived, she called places like Henry's hotels Rental rooms, as they were called now, no longer ate up the parallel roads next to highways. Few if any in some quadrants existed at all. Travel between territories was difficult, if not flat out dangerous. Most territories' governments were kakistocracies. Dysfunctional sets of politicians running and ruining the lives of its citizens.

  Memphis has always been known for its accessibility. Long ago, it was a major transportation hub and a busy river port in addition to the hundreds of railroads that crisscrossed its area back in the days of steam engines and cowboys. It continued to draw so many people because it was one of the safest quadrants in the Southeast Territories. People constantly came and enjoyed themselves. Plus they survived to make it back home in one piece.

  Hell that was great publicity in and of itself.

  But I wasn’t here for pleasure.

  Throughout the trip down, Jane spun stories about Amanda. She made Amanda sound like some Girl Scout, saint, and golden girl all wrapped into one. I doubted the young Christensen was free of any wrongdoing and totally innocent. Everyone kept secrets. To err is human, and I bet Amanda Christensen did a lot of erring.

  Henry’s was a three-story level building decorated in blue awnings and slick metallic doors. It seemed clean enough. The automatic windows lay in shadows. Puddles of streetlight revealed nothing odd or out of the ordinary. I found this strange for the night usually brought out the local baddies, ack-addicts, and prostitutes.

  Perhaps the regulators swept this sector often, keeping the riffraff from polluting the areas were tourists might frequent. That alone would give the appearance of a fair and safe quadrant now wouldn’t it?

  Mayor Christensen cared an awful lot about how things appeared.

  Nevertheless, strapped to my right ankle was my pug and under my left shoulder was my laser gun 350. Again, I felt somewhat protected and prepared. It did occur to me that Jarold Montano managed to take the 350 off of me and nearly killed me, had I not had the ankle holster.

  Next time he’d be ready for the pug.

  Surely there wouldn’t be a next time, until I went back to D.C. Right now, I had to find this girl.

  "Aunt Belle can be pretty tough," Jane said as she lifted the passenger door and climbed out. "She's been horribly scarred by Mandy's disappearance. The publicity alone is making her sick. The media has turned the damn thing into a circus."

  Oh, I bet it was. But I kept this thought to myself. I hoisted my travel bag and satchel out of the trunk and came around to Jane, my arm still singing in agony. "Sure, but this will get uglier before it gets better." Thinking the media's darling was still being portrayed as the grieving mother. Her ratings had actually gone up by about forty percent for her chances of becoming governor.

  Jane gave me a half shrug, her broad backpack protruding at least seven inches from her back. Despite the load, she carried it with grace.

  "I'm serious. You may discover stuff you don't want to know about Amanda, your aunt, maybe your entire family."

  She caught my tone. "I know."

  I doubted that she truly understood. Objectivity, a P.I. essential, would be lost in a cloud of fog that resembled early morning in the London district.

  We went inside and checked in. Once done, we took the creaky old stairs up to our floor. We went to room two-twelve. The keycard opened the room without incident. There wasn’t much more security than keycards, which were found most often in older rental rooms like Henry’s and apartment buildings like mine. Newer places didn’t rely on keycards, but personal pin numbers, robotic guards, DNA, and other technological advances.

  As the doors opened to our room, the smashing odor of mothballs, hit us in the face.

  “Whew!”

  Two double beds, a bathroom and a small sitting table and two chairs filled up the small, square space. Cramped but it would do for our time here. Jane hurried over to open the windows to air out the place.

  "At least there aren't any holes in the roof," Jane said as she dropped her pack to the floor with a thud. “Remember that place in Toronto you had us holed up in. Dreadful.”

  “At least it was free,” I said back, dropping my bag to the floor beside my bed with a soft thud. “This place is costing us a sizable bit of currency. The exchange rate between SE currents and the district’s dollars is hurting us.”

  My body still bore bruises courtesy of the tango with Jarold and my joints protested my sudden movements. Bluish-green circular spots dotted my right thigh and sections of my calf. If possible, my body felt worse than it had yesterday.

  "It's night, let's get some shut eye," Jane suggested and immediately took off h
er boots. Within minutes, her snores filled the air. Sprawled across her bed, fully clothed, she must have been drained. She did do most of the flying down to the quadrant.

  I put on my pjs, made up of yellow satin camisole and short-shorts. I tossed and turned in the new bed, feeling every lump and cavern. Rental rooms always caused the most insomnia in me. It wasn't my bed and it took a few days for my body to come to terms with that.

  If I stayed that long.

  Friday, the thirteenth, arrived with hurdled splats of fat raindrops against the window, creating a drumming sound that woke me well before my customary time of noon. The glowing time on the clock did not lie.

  Two minutes after six o’clock.

  Outside the thunderous clouds painted the sky an eerily bluish black. With much effort, I got up, passed Jane, sleeping soundly in the other double bed, her hair scattered across her pillows. In the distance, the doors of a rental room opened and closed. Heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway and vibrated throughout the corridor. The walls must’ve been made of paper, for I could hear everything clearly as if I was in the neighboring room.

  The open window, drenched in rain, offered a watery view of the sidewalks and Beale Street below. Empty, the downpour had chased all indoors. Though I couldn't understand why anyone would be out at this ungodly hour.

  Now fully awake, going back to sleep was impossible. Interrupted sleep was unfinished and aborted step in the natural cycle of things. Disturbed slumber left a nasty taste in my mouth, like hot instant cocoa that hadn’t been stirred thoroughly, and I drank the grit.

  Thoughts of hot chocolate lead to thoughts of steaming hot coffee. Coffee could smooth out the rough edges of being awake way too early. A good cup of java could set my clock right.

  The temperature in Memphis was somewhat warmer than D.C., but not by much. The rain surprised me for March in D.C. came prescribed for snow, ice, and most cases flurries. Not so for Memphis. The rain must be the precursors to spring. Not to be undone, the edge of winter blew about cold, frosty winds. The air from the window turned my breath into smoke.

  It wasn’t spring quite yet.

  I was about to turn from the window when a shadowy figure stepped out from underneath the awnings of the store across the street. The shining red circle of a cigarette drew my attention.

  Who would be out in this sloppy, cold weather?

  The person wore a hat with a wide brim and rainwater tunneled over its flap. It spilled out and down to the already saturated sidewalk.

  Then, he (or she) glanced up at my window. Startled the cigarette fell to the ground and the murky body melted back into the shadows as suddenly as it appeared.

  Imagining things?

  Nah, someone was watching me.

  I hurried back to my bed, ignoring my protesting body, and ripped open my travel bag. Inside were about four days worth of clothes, give or take, and extra shoes. In the unlit room, I hastily dressed in sweats, sneakers, and guns.

  Three short steps from the door, Jane called, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Out! No time to explain,” I said in puffs as I pressed the open button and fled through the gap.

  No time for the elevator, I banged through the hallway’s exit doors and took the stairs down in twos, careful not to trip and smash my face into the century old carpet.

  I bustled through the lobby and out in the soggy morning. With fluidity I took out the 350 and ran across the street to the spot where I saw the man (or woman).

  No one.

  I could still smell the burnt tobacco of cigarettes and something else, like beer, floating around the spot underneath the awning.

  I checked the store’s front. Lined with litter and bottles of alcohol, the inside room lay in sullen, unlit darkness. It figures, a liquor store directly across from the rental room. Its posted opening time was eleven o’clock. So whoever was out here was definitely watching me, because they weren’t coming from the store.

  Or any of the stores for that matter. All of them were closed.

  Soaked and hyper thanks to my adrenaline surge, I kept my gun out and walked around the area where I had seen the mystery stalker. Briefly, I pondered if I had imagined it. Did I really see someone or was it the overactive imagination of a woman with too little sleep?

  The awning protected me from getting wetter, but I couldn’t see my rental room’s window from here. I took three steps forward. The rain continued to fall, free of the awnings. I could easily see the window to our rental room and the lights were on.

  Sighing, I stepped back against the store’s doors.

  I scanned the front section of Henry’s and didn’t see anyone coming or going.

  Maybe I did dream it up, but I didn’t think so. Where had the person vanished too so quickly?

  I searched the debris and dust bits floating in the puddles of rainwater on the sidewalk and along the edge of the street. Bobbing in the chilly water was a cigarette butt. I picked it up between my index finger and thumb and then quickly cupped it into my palm, tightening my hand into a fist to protect it from more rain.

  This was a clue!

  I reholstered the 350. With a small shout of glee, I started to cross the pavement back to Henry’s when a wauto, flying lower than necessary, whipped past, nearly taking me with it. I tried to jump back onto the sidewalk, but I tripped on the curb. I fell backward into a puddle of muddy water in time to save myself from becoming road kill.

  I snapped up to a sitting position. My arms stretched up in the air in an attempt to protect both the clue and my weapon. Water in the barrel and body of my 350 could ruin it. The wauto’s driver zipped away into the Memphis air, leaving a lovely cloud of exhaust fumes and a determination for me to catch him.

  With enthusiasm, I ran across the pavement and made it back up to my rental room.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Jane barked as soon as the doors opened to reveal my sopping wet attire, her arms akimbo. "Where did you go?"

  "There was someone watching us," I said and held out my palm. "He saw me looking at him and seemingly vanished."

  Jane's eyebrows crouched down into a frown. "Who tried to run you off the pavement back there?"

  So she was watching me. Score one for Jane.

  I shook my head, tossing water droplets onto the floor. It could've been the person under the awning or it could have been mere coincidence.

  "It's raining cats and dogs out there…"

  "I saw him, Jane," I said with more confidence than I felt.

  "He?" she asked as she sat down on her bed and took out her knife. "I ain't saying you didn't see him, Cyb. I'm wondering who would be following us way down here?"

  She had a point.

  "No one knows we're here," I said, unsure of the statement as it slid out of my mouth. "Unless you told your aunt, and then everyone knows we’re here."

  "I didn't tell her," Jane said defensively. “Don’t start pointing fingers unless you got evidence to back it up.”

  Already I wasn't sure of anything or anybody. The case was less than two days old.

  Jane chewed her lower lip. Her harsh words hung in the air between us.

  "Here, put this in a plastic box," I said as I held out my tight fist where the cigarette was protected from getting any more rain. "We'll have to be extra careful."

  Jane picked up the box she normally used to store cotton balls and dumped them out. She brought it over to me and said, "Drop it."

  "The mysterious watcher dropped this.”

  I refused to argue with her about her aunt. My gut told me I was simply delaying the inevitable, but right now all I cared about was finding out who knew we were in Memphis.

  I slipped into the bathroom and pealed off my clothes, layer by soppy layer. Briskly, I toweled off, trying in vain to get dry. Memphis's temperature fluctuated between fifty and fifty-five degrees in the afternoon; this morning felt more like forty, too warm for snow and too cold for dancing in the rain.

  Jane
was quiet before coming to the bathroom’s door.

  I toweled off and realized I had no clothes that weren't wet in the bathroom with me.

  "Uh," I stuttered, suddenly chilly without the towel to distract me.

  The door slid back abruptly and Jane held out my clothes to me. Her face turned away from the open door. "Thought you might need these."

  Rapidly to stop the chills and to get decent, I yanked on a sweater and jeans. My bare feet ached, but she didn't bring any socks. I walked out to the room. Crouching down beside my bed, I pulled on socks from my travel bag. Thank goodness I brought three other pairs of shoes to wear.

  "We have that large bulky scanner that could tell us DNA and fingerprints on this cigarette," Jane said, her voice somewhat muffled as she examined it.

  "Yeah, but it's back in D.C. taking up space behind my desk," I said as put my right foot into my black boot. This kind of weather requires boots that repel water and my own boots, complete with compact soles, would work. "Captain Hanson should have several we could use."

  Before I could get my foot into my left boot, the telemonitor came to life, buzzing and illuminating the partially lightless rental room.

  "Aunt Belle," Jane said, her voice unusually quiet. "Answer it or no?"

  "Answer it," I said as I tied a nice bow with my laces. "We're up. Might as well get started."

  How'd she know we were here and in this room? We checked in under aliases.

  Jane caught the unspoken question and shrugged. She clicked on the telemonitor to receive the mayor’s call.

  "Good morning," Mayor Christensen said with sharp happiness. "I thought you gals would like to come over to the house for some breakfast before you start your day."

  Jane hesitated, but delegated the decision to me with a head toss.

  She didn’t just call me a gal. Ugh!

  "I would like to get started on the case as soon as possible, Mayor Christensen. Starting with Captain Hanson this morning. Is he in today?"