“Emergency hatch in the elevator?” Max asked.
“Sounds an immediate alarm if it’s so much as touched.”
Max understood the import of her statement when she used a red X to mark the place where the charge had been laid.
Above the elevator.
Mind beginning to hum with the exhilaration that came from knowing a case was starting to take shape, he tapped the screen, rotating the image until he could’ve drawn it from memory. “Someone inside had to have either greased the wheels for the saboteurs or done the job himself.” And the two, he thought, weren’t necessarily connected. A smart man might’ve become aware of the Alliance’s plans, used them to further his own agenda. “Surveillance footage?”
“By the time I realized the significance of where the charge had been placed, that footage was gone, erased.”
Sophia stirred, bringing up something on her organizer. “The list of those with the security clearance to successfully execute such an erasure is very short and includes every individual in your inner circle.”
“Precisely, Ms. Russo.”
“I don’t seem to have the name of your security chief.”
“He’s dead.” Brisk words coated in frost. “He was killed in an accidental fall three weeks before the assassination attempt.”
Max folded his arms, his gut tight. “He was the first victim.”
“Yes, I’ve come to believe so.”
Sophia looked up from her organizer. “You haven’t hired a replacement.”
“No—I haven’t found the right candidate. The assistant chief is doing an unobjectionable job at present.”
Max stared at the image of the Duncan building, but he wasn’t really seeing it. There was dedication here, he thought, a long-term commitment that had to rise from a very specific motive—and whatever that motive was, it was about more than the thrill of murder. “You’re telling me,” he said to Nikita, “that you no longer trust anyone in your inner circle.”
“No. I—” She cut herself off as her phone began to beep. “It must be something critical. I ordered no interruptions.” Picking up the handset, she said, “Yes?”
Max glanced at Sophia, caught by the way a sudden sliver of sunlight glimmered off the rich ebony silk of her hair. He could play with the soft strands for hours, intended to do exactly that once he’d coaxed his J into bed.
“Don’t disturb anything. Don’t enter.”
Nikita’s words had his attention whiplashing back to her. “What is it?”
She hung up. “It seems you will no longer have to satisfy yourself with cold case data. My international financial advisor, Edward Chan, has just been found dead.”
This time, Max thought, there was no question of it being murder. Either the people behind the acts were getting impatient, or this was a message. “Sophia, you recording?”
“Yes.” She’d clipped a small wireless camera over her ear, curving the lens in front of her left eye. “Go.”
Having barred anyone else from entering, Max took his time looking over the scene, which happened to be on the second-highest floor of the Duncan building, right below Nikita’s penthouse. The murdered man lay on the otherwise undisturbed bed, his legs hanging over the side. His pants were slate gray, his belt sedate black leather, his white shirt stained like a Rorschach painting in red.
“No bruises, no defensive marks on his hands.” The only evidence of violence was the bowie knife thrust hilt deep in his sternum—solid, thick, and Max guessed, with a wicked curved edge. The kind of knife you might use to bring down game or skin the pelt off a downed animal. “Looks like a single blow, directly to the heart.”
Sophia continued to film as they spoke. “Either the victim allowed his attacker close, or the killer used Tk to punch the blade home.”
“Tk—telekinesis?” That would explain how the knife had ended up buried so deep—though a burst of cold rage might well have sufficed to give the killer enough strength.
“Yes. I’ll go through the personnel files”—Sophia moved to his left, capturing images of the body from every angle—“find out how many telekinetics the Councilor has in her organization.”
“Nikita said Chan got in from Cairo last night,” Max murmured, “but that he had a number of informal meetings scheduled here in his home office this morning.” Which meant someone had known his schedule well enough to time the murder when Chan would’ve been alone and vulnerable.
As she shifted position again, the clean purity of Sophia’s scent swept over him, providing a much-needed antidote to the ugliness of death. Psy, human, or changeling, Max thought, murder always had the same putrid stench. And the dead always screamed for the same justice. Edward Chan was one of Max’s now, just like every single one of Bonner’s lost victims.
“It was an individual he trusted,” Sophia said. “That’s the only way a telepath of his strength—8 on the Gradient—could’ve been taken by surprise.”
Raising his gaze from Edward Chan’s cold flesh, Max put his hands on his hips, pushing back his jacket. “One problem though—even the most perfectly aimed stab wound wouldn’t have caused death instantaneously and a telepath could get out an emergency message within seconds, if not less.” Unlike with the Vale scene, everything here suggested a quick, brutal operation. No time to drug the victim into compliance. “Why didn’t he call for help?”
“Turn his head a fraction.”
“What’re you looking for?” He saw nothing remarkable except for a couple of droplets of blood below the—Damn. “Telepathic blow.”
“If someone hit him with a hard enough one at the same instant that he was stabbed, while his attention was splintered by shock, it would’ve torn through his shields, destroyed his mind.”
“Cold, calculated.” A one-two hit to ensure success.
“Max.” Sophia’s voice was almost soundless.
Spine prickling with awareness, he followed her gaze to the bathroom mirror—just barely visible through the half-open door on the other side of the bedroom.
The single word was written in blood that had dripped onto the white porcelain of the sink. But the accusation was still very legible.
Traitor.
CHAPTER 16
The space for your father’s name is blank in our records. Such an action is permitted in some limited circumstances, but the cause must always be noted. There is no such note on your file. We apologize for the error.
—Office of Births and Deaths: City of New York,
to Max Shannon, June 2079
Nikita handed Max a data crystal as soon as they returned to her office. “I’ve downloaded the security footage for you—it covers the period since Edward’s return from Cairo.”
Max slipped it into his pocket. “Are private comm conversations backed up on your main servers? The killer dropped a corrosive acid in the computronic ‘brain’ of the system in the victim’s room.” And they’d found neither a cell phone, nor an organizer.
“Edward’s entire file was wiped using his own security override,” Nikita said, the words succinct. “The murderer must’ve torn it from his mind.”
The callous nature of it all might’ve shocked other men, but Max knew that no matter the race, some were always born with a capacity for evil. “We thought we might have a pattern of deaths—each of your other advisors was hit before a major deal. Does Chan fit?”
Nikita was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “Edward had a lot of things in play but nothing close to completion.”
Frustrated at the sudden end to that line of inquiry, Max focused on another. “Sophia says the victim was high profile enough that he was known outside business circles?”
A quick nod that sent her glossy hair swinging. “It was part of his job description to wine and dine human and changeling businessmen and women. As a result, he occasionally found himself in the society pages.”
Max felt Sophia glance at him with those amazing, perceptive eyes, knew she’d made the same cognitive leap he had. “Would it be fair to say he’d made some personal connections within those groups?”
Nikita took a moment to think about it. “Not in the human or changeling sense. However, certain individuals had come to have a measure of trust in him because of a shared history of successful deals.”
“An unquantifiable loss,” Sophia said. “One that you will feel the effect of for some time.”
“Yes.” Nikita looked at Sophia for a long, quiet moment before returning her attention to Max. “I’m beginning to see the pattern it appears you already have, Detective.”
“So my next question won’t come as a surprise—who doesn’t like you getting into bed with the other races?” Edward Chan, Max was certain, had only been considered a traitor by association. It was Councilor Nikita Duncan who was the key.
“That,” Nikita said, “is something I’ll have to think about.”
Sophia spoke into the small pause. “I’ve heard rumors of a group called Pure Psy—the members seem to believe that contact with the other races is tainting the purity of our Silence.”
“Yes. They’ve begun to gain a measure of support in the Net.” Nikita returned to her desk. “I have some additional data on them that I’m sending you now—please brief the detective, Ms. Russo.”
It was a dismissal from a woman who was used to obedience, but Max wasn’t finished. “Whoever’s behind this, he or she is getting bolder—they’re going to come directly after you sooner rather than later.”
“I’m protected. That’s why Edward and the others are dead—the assassin went for the next best thing.” A razor of a glance. “You’d do well to protect yourself. You are, after all, only human.”