“Which is interesting, considering they were originally intending you for the Director’s office.”
“Yes. I don’t know if I’m suspect, or if Bradly decided he wants that office for himself. I have a strong hunch it’s the latter.”
“In which case, you might want to clear out once you get off work today. Go someplace no one will think to look for you.”
“That’s… not a bad idea,” Peabody decided. “What about you? What about Carter, and your wives?”
Ashton grinned.
“Stupid we ain’t,” he said. “Trust me. We’ll be okay.”
“And you’re sure?”
“I’m sure. And under the circumstances, I’m giving you the rest of the day off. Go home, get a bug-out bag together…”
“I keep one of those handy, and I have since… the old guard. Never knew when there might be a regime change that I found myself on the wrong side of.” Peabody shrugged. “I’m not sure where it’s gotten to now, but… it’s still there someplace. I should be able to find it pretty quickly.”
“Makes sense.” Ashton shrugged. “Go home, dig it out, and go. Right now. Turn off your VR until tomorrow afternoon. I’ll ping you then, and let you know if it’s safe to come back.”
“Thank you, Detective Ashton. That… sounds like a very good plan.” He rose, then added one more time, “Be careful.”
“I will.” Ashton checked the security videos in VR, then remarked, “Go now. Bradly and Carr are on the way back from lunch, and just entered the building. You don’t want ‘em to see you coming out of my office.”
“Roger that. Gone.”
Peabody promptly rose and slipped out the office door, headed to his own desk to gather his things.
On his way out the door, he raised an eyebrow, smiled, and nodded to Carr and Bradly as he passed.
Two hours later, and well outside the eastern outskirts of the Imperial City, Emily Walton, who was a mid-list mystery author of some note and worked from home, heard a knock on her front door. Puzzled, she rose from her desk and accessed the security audio in VR.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“An old friend,” came the response… in a familiar voice.
One that she hadn’t heard in many years.
“No,” she whispered, and accessed the security video. A man, likewise familiar from her younger years, though somewhat aged and more careworn, stood there with an uncertain smile on his face.
And flowers in his hand.
“WIN!” she cried, and rushed to the door, jerked it open, and flung herself into his arms.
“…But I figured you for dead, in the destruction of the Headquarters building,” Winston Peabody’s old flame Emily said, as they sat close together on her sofa. Peabody’s bug-out bag sat where it had been dropped, in a nearby armchair. “I cried and cried, all day…”
“No, I… was cooperating with the Throne, at that point,” he explained, feeling guilty that he hadn’t thought to contact her to let her know he was alive; in truth, since he’d been effectively imprisoned that whole time, he was still coming to grips with it, himself. It was, he had decided, like he’d lost a small chunk of his life, or perhaps a chunk of history, he was unsure yet which. “I wasn’t anywhere near Headquarters when that all went down.”
“Thank God,” Emily said, and buried her face in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her.
“Em, I… need some help right now,” he said then, uncertain how to approach the matter.
“What do you need? I’ll do everything I can to help,” Emily replied immediately, raising her head.
“Well, there’s an attempted coup going on within the new department,” he explained. “It’s some of the guys from the old regime; they’re trying to regain control of the department. My supervisor told me to clear out. Depending how it all winds up, I could regain my old position as head of Investigations, or I could even end up Director, or I could stay where I am to regain my rank the hard – but honest – way, or… I could be a wanted man.”
“You need someplace to hide,” Emily realized instantly. Peabody blinked.
“How did you…?”
“I haven’t written popular mystery novels for years without picking up a few things, Win,” she scolded gently, with a wry smile. “I even had a couple of best-sellers. And police officers and their families are some of my biggest fans. What does that tell you?”
They laughed.
“Did anyone see you come here?” she asked then.
“I don’t think so; I kept my eyes peeled. And I’m pretty good with that sort of thing.”
“Good. You can stay here, then.”
“But Em…”
“If you’re worried about proprieties, I have a spare bedroom,” she retorted, pert. “And if you’re the man I think you are, then the reasons we broke up won’t exist by tomorrow, anyway.”
Peabody felt his breath catch in his chest.
“Are you asking… if we…”
“No, I’m not asking, Win. I’m telling,” Emily replied, firm in both expression and tone of voice. “I’m not letting you get away again.”
And she kissed him.
That evening after work, Cally and Nick went home, showered together in their big, two-person shower – decadent though it appeared, they only occasionally used it for anything but showering; it simply speeded up getting ready, since neither had to wait – changed into casual clothes, then headed for the condominium tower’s parking garage and their little mini electric car. It turned out not to be as hard as they’d feared to enter their destination into the car’s maps app, and within a couple of minutes, they were on their way toward the southwest edge of the city.
Half an hour later, on the dot of 6:15 – fifteen minutes early – they were headed up the drive of the Carter residence.
Upon their arrival, the sentry in the adjacent
