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“Anyway,” she began, “there’s cereal, or you can help yourself to anything you like.”
I suddenly felt a lump in my throat. Tegan was one of my true friends in Ashport, and the thought of having to leave her as well got at me a moment. She was the kind of friend who would let you in without question, standing at her door, no shoes and dripping wet. She’d even bought a bigger couch a couple of years back, stating that I’d better have space to stretch out. She was an affiliate and we’d gotten to know each other that way. Her apartment was a place I could go, not only because she owed me a favor and I kept a stash of clothes there. Which I did of course, but that was beside the point. No, we’d become friends and liked each other’s company.
“Are you all right, Maggie?” she asked, picking up on my hesitation.
I swallowed hard again and nodded assuredly. “Yeah. Just tired.” I wanted to tell her everything. She knew about Andrea and Yorov, of course. By now I figured every affiliate in town did. But she didn’t know the rest and I didn’t want to worry her. I wanted her to enjoy her day. Her worrying wouldn’t help me anyway.
“So, what’s on your agenda today?” she asked, handing me a bowl and spoon.
“Gerard’s got me checking out a guy who has fallen into some kind of coma,” I said, the disinterest unhidden in my voice. If he was in a coma, he could wait, and what could I do about it anyway?
“Really?” she said, seeming more interested than I had expected.
“What?”
She shrugged. “It might be nothing, but Dr. Morris has an affiliate patient in some weird state at the hospice.”
“What kind of state?” I asked, suddenly a little interested despite myself. Tegan worked as a nurse at the Ashport Hospice. When affiliates got hurt and needed a doctor that wouldn’t involve the police, we didn’t go to the hospital. We went to the hospice where we had an affiliate doctor working. If she had a patient now, it meant there was something about him the police were not supposed to know about.
“Not sure,” Tegan answered. She didn’t work exclusively with Dr. Morris and she was only called in to help if the doctor needed assistance. “But it seems to be some sort of permanent non-responsive state.”
I made a note of that. It might be worth checking into. First, however, I had to do as Gerard had said.
“Anyway,” Tegan continued, putting her cereal bowl in the sink. “I’m off.”
“Be careful out there,” I said on reflex.
She smiled as she swung her coat around her. “Come on, Maggie. I get that Yorov are here, but they wouldn’t be interested in me anyway. My thought control is too weak.”
She was right. With regards to humans anyway. Still, considering that they had kidnapped the wrong person, you could never know.
“The only way I’ll be late for work today is if you’ll tell me who that dream was about,” she said, her smile wide.
“Fuck off,” I laughed and watched her blow me a kiss before she opened the door and left. She could lift my spirits all right, but no way was I telling her I’d slept with a cop. Even Tegan would balk at that. She did know about my working for them now and then. It had been sanctioned by the Community authorities. It had all been Chief Mulligan’s idea. She’d more or less guilted me into it after helping her with her kid. Convinced me I might do some good, and I had, of course, fallen for it. The thought of being able to help had gotten the better of me. And the authorities had agreed, reluctantly, though still thinking a positively inclined police chief might be a good thing. Turned out the police chief wasn’t the problem. The first time I’d met Hansen was after helping out Detective Bowman a couple of times. My first impression had been…a little too positive, I guess. He was a looker, that one, with the tall, fairly dark and quite handsome thing going for him. Light brown hair, bone structure to kill for. Yup, I’d been suckered in until he’d opened his mouth making it clear he didn’t like me being called in to help out when an interrogation was going nowhere. I wasn’t a cop, and he had never liked my method. Not that he’d known the truth of course. I knew he’d thought I did cold reading, not a bad guess actually, but the truth it was not. His dislike had made me resent him. I had enjoyed making him uncomfortable as he retained his professionalism all the time. So when he’d lost it, yelling accusations at me at the police safe house a few nights ago, I’d been truly surprised when he’d gotten too close, his breathing changing, pupils dilating. All clear-cut signs. Old habit had made me egg him on, and I’d been astonished when he didn’t back down, which in turn had made me refuse to do so as well.
The night had been intense and fiery, interspersed with resentment and an odd sense of antagonism. Yet, there had been moments of consideration as well. Him pulling me back against him, lips brushing my neck, holding me up with a strong arm, his other hand working me into a frenzy. While joined together, I’d felt him struggle to restrain himself against my movements.
A clink as my spoon fell down into the bowl startled me back to the present. What the hell was wrong with me? I had serious problems, and the guy who hated my guts wasn’t even at the top of the list.
“Focus, Margaret,” I told myself, forcing down some cereal, not enjoying the boring taste, but knowing I needed some fuel. I knew what I had to do. Keep my head down, do what the Community demanded, and in return, hope they found even a semblance of a clue as to Andrea’s whereabouts.
Easy peasy.
Right.
Chapter 4
I had barely rangthe doorbell before the front door opened. I had clearly been expected and instantly felt bad I’d slept in that morning. A woman with a warm and dark-sepia skin and steel-gray hair looked at me with what I could only call despair.
“You’re the mender?” she asked.
I nodded. “I’m Maggie. Gerard sent me.”
The woman stepped aside, holding the door open for me. “Please come in, Maggie. I’m Mona.” She was polite, but there was a sense of urgency in all of her few words.
I decided to skip any pleasantries and get to it. “What’s the problem, Mona?”
She looked grateful a moment, before taking my hand and leading me upstairs to a bedroom. It seemed like the room of a high school boy, posters and video games, a guitar in one corner, but on the bed lay a man, not a child. College age, I thought. Perhaps home visiting his parents?
