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CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
ZIRKOV
Zirkov remained behind Maggie, surveilling the quiet neighborhood as she slammed the middle-aged man up against the front of her apartment building. He’d promised he would not interfere. She’d made it clear she would not be controlled or ordered around, by anyone, including him. Now that she’d been demoted to civilian, he had no authority over her, professionally or personally. Still, doing nothing in a situation where she could get hurt left him on edge.
“Where is he?” she demanded.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” the man stuttered, his hands raised high and his locked on Maggie.
She had insisted on returning to her apartment to collect a few personal items and that meant they risked running into DAA agents. Now Zirkov had to worry about her attacking random people on the street.
The man winced when she wrapped her hand around his throat, fear filling his eyes.
“Let him go,” Zirkov ordered.
“He has information.”
“This was not what the doctor meant by resting.” He never should have brought her here, no matter how compelling her argument that a familiar setting might stir memories vital to their case.
When her hands clenched on the man’s jacket, Zirkov placed his hands over hers. “Maggie, this isn’t necessary.”
She faced him, confusion and desperation swirling in her face as she relaxed her grip. The human tore free of her hold and fled. Shaken, he ran into a bike chained to a light pole outside the building. The male picked himself up and stumbled the rest of the way down the street.
“I wasn’t ready to let him go. But I don’t know why.”
“He triggered a memory.”
“I think it was the red hair, but I’ve never seen that man before. And the way he’s running, I suspect I never will again.”
“He will avoid this neighborhood in the future. As we should.”
“No more lectures, Z. I needed to come here.” She climbed the stairs to her apartment on the second floor and pulled out her keys. The door stood open by a fraction of an inch, the yellow tape with “DO NOT ENTER BY ORDER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ALIEN AFFAIRS’ written across it still intact. Maggie tore the tape down with a vengeance, then reached for her gun in a holster that she wasn’t even wearing.
Zirkov nudged her aside as he raised his blaster and entered the apartment. A quick search proved no one lurked inside, but someone in addition to DAA agents had searched the place. Furniture sat overturned and displaced, clothing lay shredded and strewn everywhere, and even the kitchen cabinets had been emptied of their contents, with food and broken dishes littering the wood floors. He’d been at crime scenes under DAA jurisdiction before, and while the agents always left a mess behind, they never destroyed a home’s contents.
Maggie carefully stepped around broken dishes. “What the hell happened here?”
“When I was last here, DAA agents were cataloging and taking items they thought would be useful, but they hadn’t destroyed anything.”
Maggie’s jaw clenched. “It’s a warning.”
“Against what?”
“Talking. Ratting out the og’dals.”
“Og’dal slavers don’t deliver messages. They kill and move on. Straightforward. Clean. Quick.”
“Like the body at the warehouse,” Maggie said.
“You’ve never admitted you were there.”
“I didn’t know what to make of it. I still don’t, at least not fully. I woke up leaning over Bu’Tay’s body. I don’t remember how I got there.”
“Did you kill him?”
She spun toward him, her mouth open and ready to object. “I don’t know,” she said, that lost look returning.
“The answer is no, Maggie. No matter who asks you, the answer is always no.”
