I stood, stretched, and announced, “I gotta go to the can. I’ll be right back.”
When I returned I saw Ajax staring at the ceiling, his fingers idly drumming on a file folder.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He pushed yet another carbon-paper sandwich across the desk, a blue arrow indicating where I was to sign. With his other hand he pulled the folder to the far side of the desk. An attempted distraction.
I pretended to fall for it, and asked, “You stressed about the badge?”
He raised a brow. “You deduce that all on your own? I really do have so much to learn from you.”
“Glad you’re coming around.” I signed the form where he’d indicated. “Listen, I’ve gotta do this thing with Guyer. But after that, let’s talk. We can get this badge thing taken care of one way or another.”
I creased the signed form down the middle, raised it to eye height, and gave it a push. The crease caused it to act as a crude paper airplane, fluttering across the desk and tilting up at an unexpected angle. Jax reached for it, and while his hands were in the air I grabbed the file folder he’d slid aside, nearly toppling his neat towers of paper as I did. Ignoring his trill of protest, I flipped it open and found a report from Children’s Services.
Clipped to the report was a photo of a scared and angry teenager named Ronald, taken into the system when his mother died during a raid on an angel’s roost. I had a brief flash of the room where she’d died, the smell of sweat and heat in the air as her body began to consume itself. Maybe she’d have still been alive if I’d understood how my manna bond worked. Seeing the kid’s photo made something in my chest go cold. I closed the folder and tossed it back to Jax.
“You can’t take in strays,” I said. “Bad enough you adopted that cat from the angel’s roost.” The cat had been one of the few residents to come out of the raid alive. “You name him yet?”
Jax tapped the folder on his desk, knocking the papers into perfect alignment before setting it neatly aside. “I gave him to Ronald.”
Of course he had.
“I know you mean well,” I said. “But what are you hoping to achieve?”
Jax tilted his head. “Worst case, the cat gets ignored and takes off for a new home. Best case? Maybe the kid has someone to care for, and to care about him in return. You spend so much time caring about homicide victims. Try giving a little thought to the people they left behind.”
I made a show of checking the time. “I was serious about meeting up after Guyer. Will you be here when I get back?”
“No. I have dinner plans of my own.”
“And that’s more important than your badge?” I kept my voice low, to avoid being overheard.
He answered with an irritated hum. “I called the Camden Terrace substation and asked them to search the snow-runner we used. Nothing. I also radioed the festival—”
I winced. “Not a good idea.”
“I was going to go in person, but I got a little sidetracked by your quick errand out to visit Saul Petrevisch. So I radioed the festival site and left a message for your pal CaDell. He’s searching Sheena’s room looking for dropped police equipment. If it’s found, he’ll hold it for me. In the meantime,” he took a deep breath, “tomorrow morning I’ll go to Captain Bryyh and report it lost.”
I didn’t say anything. I’d already told Ajax he was principled, and repeating it wouldn’t mean anything, especially if he was about to eat a ten-day suspension and fine.
I met Guyer at Hammer Head’s, a popular watering hole with the men and women of the Titanshade PD. As such, my order of a soda didn’t raise any eyebrows at the bar. There were enough cops who needed to step away from alcohol, and the bartenders always served soda in a tumbler with a twist of lime, the better to fend off any social awkwardness.
I found Guyer in a back booth, picking at a salad while flipping through a paperback. Compared to my wrinkled brown suit or the patrol cops who’d traded their patrol scarlet for blue jeans and light sweaters, Guyer was out of place. She wore a black leather jacket with a thick maroon band and a white racing stripe running parallel up one arm, over the chest, and down the opposite arm. A bright green T-shirt with a motorbike logo peeked out from behind the jacket. Her fingers sparkled with an assortment of rings, and her hair was done up in several tightly interwoven braids. Guyer looked as if she were about to be in a street race or go on a date. Either way, it indicated that she had other plans for the evening, and that gave me hope that I might be set free relatively quickly.
She dog-eared a page as I approached, setting the book on a pair of gloves with checkered lines representing stylized finger bones. “About time,” she said.
“I like to keep my audience in suspense.” That was a lie. My failure to be on time was entirely accidental. “What’re you dressed for?”
She scowled. “I had plans to go for a ride up on the hills. But the Barekusu camp means all kinds of access is shut off.”
I considered that. The hills at the foot of the Mount weren’t great for cars, and she wasn’t dressed for bicycling.
“You off-road?” I asked.
“What do you think?” She wiggled her arms, causing the leather of her outfit to creak. “I have a scrambler.” Scramblers were dirt bikes that were also street legal. Guyer used the term with the forced confidence of someone who’d only recently learned a new phrase. Her jacket had a new leather shine to it, and I thought of Harris’s biker-style boots.
“How recently did you pick up that hobby?”
Guyer pushed the half-finished salad
