It looked so natural, but Courtney’s blood ran cold as Lambert made his explanation. Then again, it was not what she was hearing that was disturbing her. It was what she was smelling. She knew what the scent was. The more private rooms were at the back of the house. The bedrooms. Courtney bolted toward the corridor that led back into the house. Bethany was convinced that this was not her father…
‘What are you doing?!’ Lambert called from behind her. ‘You can’t go back there!’
Courtney slammed a door open. A child’s room. Bethany’s. It was painted pink, though a rather adult shade of pink, maybe orchid or amaranth, or some other name for a slightly darker shade of a girly colour. There was a chair, of the straight-backed and wooden variety, out of place near the door. It would have been perfect for wedging under the door’s handle to bar the door.
‘You can’t go back there!’ Lambert repeated. His voice was closer. He was following.
Turning, Courtney strode toward the door at the end of the corridor. That seemed a likely place for the main bedroom.
‘No! Stay out of– What?! What are you doing?’
She did not look, but Courtney guessed that Kyle had restrained Lambert. Kyle’s idea of restraint generally involved rank thirty Telekinesis and some form of remotely executed wrestling hold.
Slamming open the door of the bedroom, Courtney took in the scene. For a second, all she could do was take in the scene because her mind was refusing to entirely accept it. Just for a second; she was planning to be an investigator in the ASF and she figured things like this would eventually become part of her life. She was not expecting it to be so soon, however.
The room’s décor was bland, off-white walls, maybe a shade of pale yellow. One wall was a huge window, though the shades had been closed and the room would have been in darkness if the overhead light had been off. The shade had been removed from the light, presumably to make the room brighter, so the scene on the bed was starkly clear.
The bed sat against the wall on Courtney’s right, the footboard facing the window. It was an old-fashioned design with the head- and footboards made like iron fences painted white with gold knobs on each corner post. Candide Lambert was tied to the bed, her arms stretched out to the corner posts of the headboard, her ankles taped together and then tied to one of the posts at the foot. There was a wad of cloth stuffed into her mouth and then tied over with what might have been the belt from a robe. Livid bruises covered her body, only obscured by the blood which had oozed out of various cuts. Her auburn hair was matted and stuck to the pillow, and a lot redder than it should have been. Her eyes were closed, but Courtney could see her ribcage moving. She was still alive, if that was actually a good thing.
Courtney pulled out her ketcom. ‘This is Captain Courtney Martell Garavain, SSF. I need medical technicians and additional SSF backup to the Stenger Mendel house immediately.’ Without waiting for a response, she turned to stare down the corridor at Lambert, who was currently struggling against invisible hands which had him jammed up against a wall with his right arm twisted up behind his shoulder blades. Courtney had, on occasion, felt the grip of Kyle’s Telekinesis spell and she knew that nothing human was going to break out of it. ‘Lambert Stenger Mendel, I am arresting you on charges of assault and destruction of school property and anything else I can think of before you’re handed over to the ASF for trial!’
She looked on, horrified, as Lambert smiled down the hallway at her. He smiled. ‘You can have him,’ he said. Then the smile collapsed, Lambert’s face went entirely slack and his eyes became unfocused. For a couple of seconds he just blinked, still pressed against the wall by Kyle’s spell. Then the blinking became more rapid and he seemed to reacquire awareness of his situation. ‘W-what? What’s going on? Where…’
‘Oh no,’ Courtney snapped, marching toward him. ‘You don’t get to pull that twice. After what you’ve done to your wife, I’m going to print off the entire legal code so I can throw it at you.’
‘Candide? What’s happened to Candide? Where’s Beth?!’
Disgusted, Courtney turned her back on him and set off toward the bedroom to record the scene and see whether there was anything she could do for Candide before the medics arrived. ‘Kyle, get this piece of shit out of my sight!’
~~~
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t believe it,’ Melissa said. ‘Lambert Stenger is simply not that kind of person.’
‘Agreed,’ Rochester said.
‘I’m just reporting what I was told,’ Mitsuko said, her hands raised to prevent more vehement denials. Or perhaps to say, ‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’ They were in Mitsuko’s apartment. The intent had been to determine whether the day’s homework required a mass study session, but Mitsuko had just read Courtney’s report and, since Lambert was their metaphysics teacher, she had told Nava, Melissa, and Rochester about it.
‘The facts,’ Mitsuko said, ‘are that Professor Lambert Stenger was caught on camera destroying property. The security cameras in the lab, to be precise. Obviously, that means there’s no record of him trashing the lab and destroying the artefact.’
‘Why would he destroy it?’ Melissa asked. ‘When he showed us around the lab, he was as fired up about it as I’ve ever seen him about anything. He was excited to be working on it.’
‘Currently, he claims that he remembers nothing about the destruction of the artefact, or the lab, or going home and… He’s denying the assault charges regarding his wife.’
‘May I see the report?’ Nava asked.
Mitsuko considered for about half a second. ‘Okay. Just don’t tell Courtney I let you see it.’
‘Excellent. Blackmail material.’ Nava took Mitsuko’s ketcom from her before
