Other Worlds Than These

The numbers, glowing danger-red, swam out of the darkness and into focus. It was a moment or two before she realized that she was staring at the clock-radio on the nightstand.

Odd. She never woke in the middle of the night; even with the Dread pressing relentlessly harder on her every day, she slept too heavily to wake easily or quickly. Therefore, something must have happened, something big or close, or both. She held very still, not even breathing, listening for the sound of an intruder in the apartment, in the bedroom.

A minute passed, then another; nothing. Maybe something had happened in the apartment next door or upstairs, she thought, still listening, barely breathing.

Nothing. Nothing and more nothing. And perhaps that was all it was, a whole lot of nothing. It could have been a car alarm out on the street, an ambulance passing close with its siren on, or someone’s bassed-out thump-mobile with the volume set on stun. Just because she didn’t usually wake up didn’t mean that she couldn’t. She took a long deep breath and let it out, rolling onto her back.

There was something strange about the feel of the mattress under her and she realized that she wasn’t alone in the bed.

Automatically she rolled onto her right side. Rafe Pasco’s head was resting on the other pillow. He was gazing at her with an expression of deep regret.

Shock hit her like an electric jolt. She jumped back, started to scream.

In the next moment she was staring at the empty place next to her in the bed, her own strangled cry dying in her ears as daylight streamed in through the window.

She jumped again and scrambled out of bed, looking around. There was no one in the room except her, no sign that anyone else had been lying in bed with her. She looked at the clock. 7:59.

Still feeling shaky, she knelt on the bed and reached over to touch the pillow Pasco’s head had been resting on. She could still see him vividly in her mind’s eye, that regretful expression. Or maybe apologetic was more like it. Sorry that he had showed up in her bed uninvited? Hope you’ll forgive the intrusion—it was too late to call and there wasn’t time to get a warrant.

The pillow was cool to her touch. Of course. Because she had been dreaming.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, one hand unconsciously pressed to her chest. That had been some crazy dream; her heart was only now starting to slow down from double-time.

She stole a glance over her shoulder at the other side of the bed. Nope, still nobody there, not nobody, not no how and most especially not Rafe Pasco. What the hell had that been all about, anyway, seeing her new partner in bed with her? Why him, of all the goddam people? Just because he was new? Not to mention young and good- looking. She hadn’t thought she’d been attracted to him but apparently there was a dirty old woman in her subconscious who begged to differ.

Which, now that she thought about it, was kind of pathetic.

“God or whoever, please, save me from that,” Ruby muttered and stood up to stretch. Immediately, a fresh wave of the Dread washed over her, almost knocking her off balance. She clenched her teeth, afraid for a moment that she was going to throw up. Then she steadied herself and stumped off to the bathroom to stand under the shower.

Pasco was already at his desk when Ruby dragged herself in. She found it hard to look at him and she was glad to see that he was apparently too wrapped up in something on something on his notebook to pay attention to anything else. Probably the mysterious case he was working on and didn’t seem to want to tell her about. Shouldn’t have slipped and told me you thought it might be related to the one we caught yesterday, she admonished him silently, still not looking at him. Now I’ll have to pry it out of you.

Later. She busied herself with phone calls, setting up some witness interviews, putting in a call to the medical examiner about getting a preliminary report on the Japanese girl, and requesting information from Missing Persons on anyone fitting the girl’s description. It wasn’t until nearly noon that it occurred to her that he was working just as hard to avoid catching her eye as vice versa.

She drew in an uneasy breath and the Dread seemed to breathe with her. Maybe he had the same dream you did, suggested a tiny voice in her mind.

As if he had sensed something, he looked up from his notebook at her. She gave him a nod, intending to turn away and find something else that had to be done before she could talk to him. Instead, she surprised herself by grabbing her memo book and walking over to his desk.

“So tell me about this case of yours,” she said, pulling over an empty chair and plumping down in it. “And why you think it might have something to do with the dead girl from yesterday.

“Do we know who she is yet?” he asked.

Ruby shook her head. “I’m still waiting to hear from Missing Persons. I’ve also put a call into the company that makes the charm bracelet, to find out who sells it in this area.”

Pasco frowned. “She could have bought it on the internet.”

“Thanks for that,” she said sourly. “You can start with the auction sites if I come up empty.”

He nodded a bit absently and then turned his notebook around to show her the screen. The dead girl smiled out from what seemed to be a formal school photo; her eyes twinkled in the bright studio lights and her lips were parted just enough to show the thin gold line of a retainer wire around her front teeth.

“Where’d you get that?” Ruby demanded, incredulous.

“It’s not the same girl,” he told her.

“Then who is it—her twin?”

“Can’t say at this point.” He smiled a little. “This girl is Alice Nakamura. I was investigating a case of identity theft involving her parents.”

“Perps or victims?”

“To be honest, I’m still not clear on that. They could be either, or even both.”

Ruby shook her head slightly. “I don’t get it.”

“Identity theft is a complex thing and it’s getting more complex all the time.”

“If that’s supposed to be an explanation, it sucks.”

Pasco dipped his head slightly in acknowledgment. “That’s putting it mildly. The Nakamuras first showed up entering the country from the Cayman Islands. Actually, you might say that’s where they popped into existence as I couldn’t find any record of them prior to that.”

“Maybe they came from Japan via the Caymans?” Ruby suggested.

“The parents have—had—U.S. passports.”

Ruby gave a short laugh. “If they’ve got passports, then they’ve got Social Security cards and birth certificates.”

“And we looked those up—”

“We?’”

“This task force I was on,” he said, a bit sheepishly. “It was a state-level operation with a federal gateway.”

Here comes the jargon, Ruby thought, willing her eyes not to film over.

“Anyway, we looked up the numbers. They were issued in New York, as were their birth certificates. There was no activity of any kind on the numbers—no salary, no withholding, no income, no benefits. According to the records, these people have never worked and never paid taxes.”

“Call the IRS, tell them you’ve got a lead on some people who’ve never paid taxes. That’ll take care of it.”

“Tried that,” Pasco said, his half-smile faint. “The IRS records show that everything is in order for the Nakamuras. Unfortunately, they can’t seem to find any copies of their tax returns.”

“That doesn’t sound like the IRS I know,” Ruby said sceptically.

Pasco shrugged. “They’re looking. At least, that’s what they tell me whenever I call. I have a feeling that it’s not a priority for them.”

“But what about the rest of it? The birth certificates? You said they were issued in New York?”

“They’re not actually the original birth certificates,” Pasco said. “They’re notarised copies, replacing documents which have been lost. Some of the information is missing—like, where exactly each of them was born,