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“My notes don’t say which one it is,” Bethiah continues, a sly look on her face. “A skater sounds about right, though. Our friend must be compensating for something.”
He laughs. “Aren’t they all?”
“Indeed. So which dock is it in?”
The male employee pauses. “I have to ask why you need to see it.”
Bethiah gives him a languid smile. “I need to check it over for DNA traces. His mate apparently is making a fuss.”
The employee freezes. “DNA traces? She thinks he was murdered?”
Ninety-Seven
JAMEF
Bethiah laughs at the employee’s shock. “You are watching far too many crime feeds, my friend. Not murdered. It’s a jealous mate looking for evidence of a mistress, silly. You know how us mesakkah females can get.”
“Oh.” He chuckles. “Of course. Dock sixteen.”
The tension in my shoulders eases.
“We won’t be too long.” She taps the top of his console with a satisfied smack and then turns to me. “Come on, trainee. The sooner we get this request completed, the sooner we get our lunch break.”
“Coming,” I say, stepping in line behind her.
I have to give Bethiah credit. One reason why her wild schemes work so well is that she sells them completely. It’s with utter confidence that she strides through the massive bay, passing by mechanics at work and a couple of employees washing the outer hull of a rather elite-looking cruiser. No one looks at us twice. She knows how to make it look as if we belong here, and so everyone else buys it, too.
She pauses and pretends to check her data-pad as we get to dock sixteen. “Yep, this is the one. Come on, trainee.” She turns toward me and gives me a sly grin. “If you’re nice, I’ll let you fuck me in his captain’s chair.”
“Let’s just find what we’re looking for.” I take back everything I just thought about Bethiah “selling” her position. Fucking in a customer’s ship is definitely not allowed here. “The sooner we get back, the better.”
We approach the ship and the boarding ramp automatically lowers, the safety protocols clearly disabled while it’s being held here. We’re both silent as we board the ship, and then Bethiah turns to look at me. “I’ll take a peek at his ship’s logs if you want to scan the ship. Let me know if you see any signs of foul play or traces of DNA other than our buddy Nerit.”
I nod and separate from her, getting to work. As we discussed before arriving, Bethiah will break into his records and see if there are any hints there. With my eye, I can scan each room of the ship quickly, noting any traces of DNA or fingerprints left behind. I move through the ship, recording each room. There are hints of DNA all right, some belonging to Nerit, some human DNA belonging to Rhonda, and a few strands of hair from an unknown party.
I also find traces of a second human, which is intriguing. Most intriguing of all, however, is that everything is covered with a fine layer of dust. Lord Nerit apparently arrived here after dropping Rhonda off at Haal Ui, then left his craft behind and disappeared.
Or rather, he didn’t entirely disappear. There are credit records from a few other planets scattered over the next system, but nothing that points an arrow to our missing lordling. I finish collecting the data and return to Bethiah’s side. She’s bent over the console in front of the captain’s chair, concentrating on her work. “Anything?”
“Give me a moment,” she replies in a cranky tone, not looking up. “Overachiever.”
I snort, leaning against another console nearby. “Let me know when you want to hear what I’ve found.”
“Didn’t I just say give me a moment?” She turns and gives me a scathing look. I swat her with my tail, and she whirls around in the chair. “Okay! Fine! What?”
“No one’s been here for weeks.”
“That’s obvious,” she says, running a finger along the control panel edge and leaving a line in the dust. “My guess is our friend disappeared shortly after ditching Rhonda.”
“We don’t know that he ditched her. He might have been intending to come back for her and never made it,” I point out. “There are no traces of blood, though. Some skin flakes and strands of hair, of course. And some fingerprints, but most of them are too smeared to make out. Nerit piloted this ship himself, and Rhonda’s DNA is here on the ship, too, so she was with him at some point. There’s also the trace of another male mesakkah who has no records matching with my database.”
Bethiah grunts. “That doesn’t mean anything. It’s easy to wipe your records or have yourself declared dead so you won’t show up as a current profile. Not that I would do such things.” She blinks innocently at me.
“There’s also evidence that another human was on board.”
