Gilded Latten Bones

so startled by seeing you. . I should get back to work. I need to be with those people out there.'

Tight as it was, she got past me and Belinda without getting intimate. She left me totally rattled. Those eyes. . I had forgotten those eyes.

22

Belinda gave the Windwalker a short lead. 'There something between you two? I thought I knew all the bimbos that came after me.'

'Only in her head. Maybe. She took a weak run at me once upon a time. It didn't go anywhere. Though. . She's a multiple personality type.'

'She'd have to be to come down off the Hill to chase you.'

Belinda was kidding but was so tired and worried she made it sound serious.

I kept my mouth shut. Belinda wasn't really interested. She held Morley's hand and asked, 'Where the hell were you for those ten days?'

I got confused. 'Ten days? There some things you haven't shared with me? The backstory changes as we move along?'

'What are you yammering about?'

So I thought back. And decided I was a dumbass. All she had said was that he had been laid up here three days before she brought me in. 'I don't know. I'm having trouble getting my mind into fighting trim. You did wait three days before you came to me?'

'I was rattled. You, of all people, understand that we do stupid things when we aren't thinking straight.'

'He could have died.'

'But he didn't. And I did get around to you and the Children of the Light.'

'Sorry for barking.'

'I had it coming.' Belinda looked at Morley with the same cow eyes I have seen on a thousand other women. I took a short ramble through the realm of intuition.

'Belinda?'

'Uhm?'

'Were there any weird events around here before I showed up?'

Sometimes Miss Contague is a mind reader. 'You suggesting that they suspected he was still alive but didn't know where to look? So they watched you. They raided your place to get you moving. . No. That doesn't hang together.'

'They watched you till you contacted me. Then they watched me. That's how I would've done it. How come they're so desperate? Where did it happen? What did the people who found him say?'

'I don't know where, yet. I'm supposed to go look at a place. They found him dying. That's about it. It was obvious he wouldn't need his stuff anymore so they started turning out his pockets.'

'And found something to connect him to you. So they did the right thing.'

'They did what they thought might put money in their pockets.'

'Did they bet wrong?'

'No. That's just good public relations. You feed the beast sometimes.'

'Did you get his stuff back?'

'I did. I thought he might have been hit because of something he was carrying. He had nothing on him. But he might have been cleaned out where he was attacked.'

'How about dead attackers? Nobody could do this much damage without Morley doing some damage back.'

'The place I'm going to check, there was some blood and others signs of a big fight. But no bodies. My people found two wooden buttons, a scrap of gray wool cloth, and a broken wooden mask with cast glass eyehole covers. Weird, huh? I hoped Pular Singe could do something with them. She said it's too late. That trail is long gone.'

'He was missing for ten days?'

'Yes. Again.'

'He really never told Sarge or Puddle or any of his mugs anything?'

'No. I went there even before he turned up full of holes. We talked about this already.'

'I have to ask over and over. You had a witness.'

'One who can't be found by anyone anymore.'

'Put away for safekeeping.' In the river, with big rocks for shoes.

'I'm thinking ringer. Not based on any evidence, just intuition.'

'No marvelous body in tight black leather?'

'Not him. We'll find him eventually.'

We would, of course. 'I can't see Morley wandering off for that long. For one night, maybe. But he's a hands-on guy with his business.'

'You're not producing original thought.'

'I'm not trying. I'm musing out loud. But here's a question of personal interest. How close are you working with the Director?'

'We pretend not to see each other poking around. Communication between foot soldiers will be overlooked.'

'Last time our paths crossed, Relway was putting together teams of specialists. One was supposed to do forensic sorcery.'

'The Specials. There are a dozen squads, now, and more to come.'

'If the forensic sorcery group is up, maybe you can get Relway to check out this place when you visit it.'

'I'll suggest it. But the red tops don't give a shit about Morley.'

I eyeballed Dotes. What secrets would we prize forth once he could sit up and talk? He looked more relaxed. The drops in the water must have been working.

'There is one obvious answer to why Morley was missing for ten days.'

'He was a prisoner.'

'Fits what we know. And might explain why someone tried to kill him, assuming he escaped.'

'He showed no signs of having been restrained.'

I picked up a hand, looked at the wrist. Nothing, of course. 'Meaning he wasn't kept in chains.'

Belinda stood at the window and watched the street, likely not seeing anything. 'I'm considering changing my mind.'

'About?'

'Moving Morley to your house.'

'Really?' Warily.

'Two birds, I think. He wouldn't be safer anywhere else. And your partner could find out things we need to know.'

Belinda is ever-capable of doing the startling thing.

'One problem. Old Bones is dead to the world right now.'

'You always say that.'

'This time it's true. Actually, it's almost always true.'

'And you're here. The one man able to stir the relict out of his dreams.'

Marginally true.

Crush and DeeDee arrived.