Steal Across the Sky (24 page)

JAMES SAID
, “Soledad, I have to go to work now. I canceled this morning, but I have two patients I must see this afternoon. Are you going to be all right alone?”

Soledad scrambled to sit up on the sofa. Full harsh sunlight poured into the window, along with the honking of horns from the street below James’s building. James stood before her dressed in khakis, sweater, and tie, his blond hair still wet and gleaming from the shower. She felt sleep-dazed and frowzy. “Patients? Are you a doctor?”

He smiled. “No. Just a substance-abuse counselor.”

“Oh. What time is it?”

“Half past noon. Look, you can stay here as long as you like. I’ll be back by six, and we can go get some dinner, if you like.”

Suspicion flared in her sleep-deprived mind. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would we . . . I have to go to the hospital.”
Fengmo
.

James’s face changed from amusement she didn’t understand to concern. He sat beside her on the sofa. She smelled soap and James himself, a light spicy scent that dizzied her.

“Soledad, you can’t go to the hospital. You’ll be identified if you try to get anywhere near Fengmo. In fact, that may be the way the shooter knew who you were last night. . . . Did you see Fengmo earlier yesterday?”

“We had dinner in New York.” Which meant she was the reason Fengmo had been hurt.

“Let me stop by the hospital on my way home and check on him for you.”

Why?
But this time she didn’t say it aloud, just nodded. After a
moment James stood, touched her lightly on the cheek, and said, “See you at six. Make yourself at home.”

Soledad gave him time to reach the street.
I can’t stay here. I don’t even know this man
. But the strength of her longing to stay frightened her. Slowly, as if going to an execution, she walked into the bathroom. James had set out a boxed toothbrush near the sink, clean towels on the counter, a sweater folded neatly beside the towels with a little sign on it: SOLEDAD: WEAR THIS. She looked at herself in the mirror: eyes puffy from crying, hair wild, clothes rumpled on her stocky body. Fengmo’s blood stained the turquoise silk shirt she had worn because he liked the color.

She picked up James’s clean sweater. Sky blue, the exact color of his eyes, and cashmere. In Soledad’s experience, men did not buy such sweaters for themselves. Some woman had given it to him.

Walking back through the apartment, Soledad was scrupulous. She opened no drawers, examined no closets, did not turn on the computer. She studied only what stood out in plain sight, which wasn’t much.

In the bedroom: A bed with inexpensive green cotton bedspread, neatly made. Pine nightstand and matching dresser, topped with a silver brush and comb and a lamp from Sears. The sales tag was still attached to the cord. On the wall, two cheap framed prints of seascapes.

In the living room: The sofa, a plyboard desk with computer, television on a metal stand, one armchair, and a fake leather cube serving as a coffee table. Venetian blinds and two prints of landscapes. No curtains, no wall screen.

Nothing on the kitchen counter except a Braun coffeemaker and an unopened bottle of what looked like very good wine.

Soledad went back to the bathroom and again fingered James’s sweater. The cashmere was thick and soft, maybe even six-ply, with a discreet label she didn’t recognize but which suggested a men’s store with subdued lighting and British accents. She put the sweater down, buttoned her coat over her bloodstained shirt, and left the apartment.

James didn’t live there. Not really, or not yet. Maybe the place had been rented furnished and James’s personal things were still in transit from somewhere else. But if not, this was a weekday city dwelling only and James returned on weekends to wherever his real life existed.
Soledad knew that well-paid executives sometimes did that, but not substance-abuse counselors. So perhaps someone else owned or leased this apartment, and if so, that woman didn’t live there, either.

At the station, Soledad caught the maglev north. Two hours later, she let herself into her front door and called Diane Lovett.

“Soledad! Is everything all right? When you didn’t call in this morning I wondered if—”

“I’m fine.

“Turn on visual, please.”

Soledad did and Diane’s face appeared. Taller and slimmer than Soledad, Diane was a pretty woman trying to appear plain. She wore her rich brown hair in a severe short cut, used no makeup, dressed in loose dark clothing of no particular style. But she hadn’t surgically altered her regular features, creamy skin, or huge blue eyes. She would have been a startling beauty except for her lips, which were unusually thin and made thinner by her habit of folding them tightly together when she felt tense. Soledad respected but didn’t really like Diane. Their lives had had no paths in common.

“The way you can go isn’t the real way”
—Fengmo’s voice in her head.

Diane said, “Tell me what happened last night.”

Soledad told her about Cam’s lecture. From Diane’s expression, Soledad guessed that none of this information was new to her. Diane said, “And after you left the hospital?”

“I’m here now,” Soledad evaded. James was none of Diane’s business. “Will you check on Fengmo and get back to me? You can find out things I can’t.”

“Okay,” Diane said, and Soledad heard the usual restrained disappointment that she didn’t confide in Diane. Soledad didn’t apologize. She confided in no one except Fengmo.

After a long, hot shower, Soledad poured herself a glass of wine and sat with it by the kitchen window, watching dusk gather in the woods that climbed the mountain behind her yard. The moon was the slimmest of crescents, a curved slash of light in the navy blue sky. Although she listened, tonight the owl didn’t hoot. At full dark she turned on the computer, fought with herself, and lost. Her e-mail account, set up for her by Diane, went through two remailers and was virtually
untraceable. But James’s was easy enough to find using his name and street address.

James,

Thank you again. You saved not only Fengmo’s life but mine, too, in ways you probably can’t understand.

S.

She turned off the computer, drank another glass of wine, and went to bed. As she lay under the blanket, she finally heard the owl outside her window, low and mournful, surely the loneliest sound this side of the grave. The bird, she imagined, was hunting. Soledad slipped farther under her blanket and hoped for sleep.

THE NEXT MORNING, VERY EARLY
, Lucca called. “Soledad! I saw the news—that was your friend among the injured at Cam’s lecture, wasn’t it? How is he?”

“In a coma.” She tried to remember when she had told Lucca about Fengmo. It must have been aboard ship during the voyage out, in that period of cramped and overheated intimacy among her and Lucca and Cam, all three of them taut with excitement over the unknown ahead. Lucca, she sensed, had been choosing between her and Cam. Soledad had wanted to engage his attention, this moody and exotic fellow voyager with the sexy Italian accent. He had chosen Cam, of course, and after that . . . But that was another lifetime.

“I’m so sorry,” Lucca said. “The newscasts say Fengmo’s condition is uncertain?”

“Yes.”

“Soledad,
cara
—why do you continue to go to hear Cam? It’s no more than flimsy theatrics. Like Cam herself.”

“Maybe,” she said neutrally. Lucca was not the philosophical bully that Cam was, but he was just as stubbornly fixated on his own view of what had happened on Kular A. Soledad didn’t want to argue with him. Not this morning.

“She’s a perfect example of what psychologists call ‘situationally acquired
narcissism.’ I think that by now that woman has confused herself with John the Baptist—if not with Christ himself. Savior and prophet.”

“Maybe,” Soledad repeated.

This time he caught her reserve and changed the subject. “Do you remember Frank Olenik? He witnessed on Susban A.”

“The ex-cop? I didn’t interact much with him at the Dome, but I remember him. Why?”

“My government contact is bringing him here to see me this afternoon.”

Soledad sat up straighter. Lucca never allowed anyone to visit him, not even the other Witnesses. In fact, she was surprised that he took her calls. But, then, loneliness drove most people to at least some human contact. She’d always had Fengmo.

She said, “And you’re seeing Frank why?”

“I’m told he has important information about his own witnessing which he has told no one before, but which I will want to hear.”

“Why would you want to hear it?” None of this made sense.

“Because,” Lucca said, and she heard in his voice the very Lucca-like mix of skepticism, intelligence, and permanent underlying anger that he could not acknowledge even to himself, “Frank says his information will change everything.”

THE MORNING AFTER THE SHOOTING
, Cam slept late. She was shocked—ten o’clock! She hadn’t slept till ten since before she became a Witness.

Even more shocking, she hadn’t dreamed of Aveo or Kular.

Sitting up in the bedroom of her hotel suite, Cam put her head in her hands. No nightmares, but two more people dead because of her, and some Chinese guy in a coma. She’d been told that much late last night, or rather early this morning, by Angie Bernelli, after Cam had finished being interviewed by everybody in the world. The NYPD, reporters, the Agency. It had all gone on for hours.

The two people who’d died, and who’d tried to kill her—were they right this minute standing here in Cam’s bedroom before setting out on the second road, screaming at her?
Not yet, I don’t want to go, I have kids and a wife and a mission to kill you and all the other false prophets like you who
—

“Ms. O’Kane?”

—
are killers themselves, you killed me you killed them all
—

“Ms. O’Kane!”

“Oh! Sorry, Jen—what is it?” Her secretary, a scarily intelligent girl supplied by Angie Bernelli, stood diffidently in the bedroom door.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, but you have a visitor. Angie’s not here and I didn’t know if you’d want him to come up or not—it’s J. S. Farrington.”

Cam felt her eyes widen. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Buzz him up and give him some coffee or something. I’ll be five minutes.”

Cam threw on a robe, brushed her teeth, and slashed on lipstick. Good enough—the dreamless sleep had helped her appearance.
Automatically—not from design, Farrington must be over sixty—she left the top buttons of her robe undone.

He stood when she entered, which confused her. Should she stay standing now, too? But Angie, who had arrived while Cam primped, stayed seated and so Cam sat, too, and Farrington followed.

“I’m very glad to meet you, Ms. O’Kane.”

“Call me Cam.” He wasn’t handsome—bald and stooped, with ears that stuck out—but he seemed easy to be with, even a bit down-home. He had very small, very bright brown eyes.

“ ‘Cam,’ then. First let me congratulate you on your successful lecture tour and hope that last night’s mess isn’t going to interrupt it.”

“It’s not,” Cam said, although she hadn’t really decided that until this moment.

“What you’re doing is important,” Farrington said. “I’ve always believed in life after death, and you’re getting the word out in a way that young people can understand. There’s something else I’ve always believed in, and that’s space travel, as you probably already know.”

“Yes.” Why was Angie scowling?

“If humanity doesn’t expand out into space, we have no guarantee that our race will continue past any catastrophes to Earth. Man-made catastrophes or otherwise. Now I’m going to come right to the point, Cam. Farrington Tours would like to offer you a free trip back to the moon. That’s a two-million-dollar value. But we’ll take you gratis if you let us photograph you at Luna Station and outside the Atoner Dome, for our ad campaigns. That’ll mean publicity for both of us, and for space exploration. Everybody wins.”

Everybody wins
. Had Aveo ever described a kulith move in which everybody won? Cam couldn’t remember, but she suspected not.
Kulith is a mirror of the mind that produces life, Ostiu Cam
.

Angie, still scowling, said, “Mr. Farrington, there are security risks in your proposal, and after last night—”

“We know that,” he said. “But all our employees and guests are screened very carefully, Agent Bernelli, and both Earth Base Alpha and Luna Station have state-of-the-art security. I believe we can guarantee Cam’s safety.”

“There are no guarantees where security is concerned,” Angie said flatly.

“I meant, of course, relatively speaking.”

Farrington looked at Cam hopefully, and Angie looked at her disapprovingly. All at once Cam was sick of them both—what was this but more pressure? Or was it the Atoners she was really sick of? Here she was, doing her best to spread their message just as they wanted, and what were they doing? Where was the promised atonement? Or—

—something she barely dared admit to herself—

—was she it? Was this all that the Atoners were going to do about their monstrous crime, just let Cam O’Kane, alone of The Six, spread the word and get shot at while doing it?

“I think,” she said carefully, “that I’d like more time to think about your offer, Mr. Farrington.”

“All the time you like.” But he seemed startled. Obviously he’d expected her to jump at his offer like a hungry dog at meat.

She was getting tired of jumping at bait.

Angie gazed speculatively at her, as if assessing Cam’s thoughts. Well, let her. Cam was doing what she had to, what was right, but that didn’t mean it was always easy. If Agent Bernelli thought it was, then fuck her.

Later, after Farrington had left and Cam had showered and dressed and they were all preparing to leave for whatever city she was supposed to perform in next, Jen came shyly up to Cam. “There’s something I want to say, if it’s okay.”

“Go ahead,” Cam said. Jen was in fact two years older than her but seemed to Cam like a child. Jen had never burned down men with a laser gun, never held a dying friend in her arms, never seen a child spitted like a chicken because it threw a pebble.