“Trish and I are Dynasty, Catriona is a Grandee. What can I say? We’re highly desirable.”
“Was Howard Liang wealthy?” Renne asked.
“He didn’t have a trust fund,” Trisha said, then colored. “Well, he said he didn’t. His family was supposed to come from Velaines. He said he was a couple of years out of his first rejuve. I liked him.”
“Where did he work?”
“On the commodities desk at Ridgeon Financial. God, I don’t even know if that’s true.” She pressed her free hand against her forehead, rubbing hard. “I don’t know how old he really was. I know nothing about him at all. That’s what I hate most about this. Not that he stole my author certificate, not that he gave me a memory wipe. Just…being taken in like that. It’s so stupid. Our family security office sends us enough warnings. I never thought they applied to me.”
“Please,” Tarlo said. “Don’t blame yourself. These guys are very professional. Hell, I’d probably get taken in by them. Now, when did you last see him?”
“Three days ago. We went out for the evening. I’d been invited to the Bourne club, there was some event, a new drama series launch. We had a meal afterward, then I came home. I think. The apartment domestic array says I got in at five in the morning. I don’t remember anything after dinner. Is that when they did it?”
“Possibly,” Renne said. “Did Mr. Liang share his apartment with anyone?”
“No. He lived by himself. I met a couple of his friends; I think they were from Ridgeon. We only went out for a couple of weeks. Enough for me to drop my guard, I guess.” She shook her head angrily. “I hate this. The whole Commonwealth thinks I believe the President is an alien. I’ll never be able to face anyone at work again. I’ll have to go back to Solidade and get my face changed and use another name.”
“That would probably help,” Tarlo said gently. “But before that we need to run some tests on you. There’s a medical forensic team waiting down in the lobby. They can do this in a clinic, or here, whichever you’re comfortable with.”
“Do it here,” Trisha said. “Just get it over with.”
“Of course. Another team will sweep his apartment.”
“What do you expect to find there?” Isabella asked.
“We’ll pin down his DNA, of course,” Renne told her. “Who knows what else we’ll uncover, especially if they used it as their base. And we’ll pull his files from Ridgeon Financial’s personnel records, which I’d like you to verify. It would help to have a picture of him.”
“Won’t he have had reprofiling by now?” Catriona asked.
“Yes. But it’s his background we’ll be focusing our investigation on, his past. That’s where the clues to his origin are. You must understand, we have to crack the whole Guardian organization open; it’s the only way to bring Liang to justice. We’re not pursuing him singularly.”
They spent another twenty minutes in the loft apartment, taking statements from the girls, then handed them over to the medical forensic team. Renne was halfway to the door when she stopped and gave the big living room a thoughtful examination. Trisha was going into her bedroom with two of the forensic team.
“What?” Tarlo asked.
“Nothing.” She gave Catriona and Isabella a last look before leaving.
“Come on,” he said in the elevator back down to the lobby. “I know you. Something’s bugging you.”
“Deja vu.”
“What?”
“I’ve seen this crime scene before.”
“Me too. Every time the Guardians shotgun the unisphere the boss sends us out to have a look around.”
“Yeah, so you should have recognized it, too. Remember Minilya?”
Tarlo frowned as the doors opened. They walked out into the lobby.
“Vaguely; it was four years ago. But that was a bunch of guys sharing an apartment.”
“Oh, so what? You’re going sexist on me? It’s different because it’s girls?”
“Hey!”
“It was exactly the same setup, Tarlo. And we’ve seen the all-girls group before as well.”
“On Nzega, April Gallar Halgarth. She was part of a holiday group.”
“Buwangwa, too, don’t forget.”
“Okay, so what’s your point?”
“I don’t like repetition. And the Guardians know we’ll catch them a whole lot easier if they stick to the same pattern.”
“I don’t see a pattern.”
“It’s not a pattern, exactly.”
“What then?”
“I’m not sure. They’re repeating their procedure. That’s not like them.”
Tarlo led the way out through the lobby’s revolving doors and used his e-butler to call a city taxi over. “The Guardians don’t have a lot of choice in this. Admittedly the number of dumb young Halgarths in the galaxy is pretty huge, but their living and social arrangements only have a finite number of permutations. It’s not the Guardians who are repeating, it’s the Halgarths.”
Renne frowned as the taxi pulled up in front of them; he was right, though that wasn’t the line she’d been thinking along. “Do you think the Halgarth security is running an entrapment operation? They could have hung Trisha out as bait?”
“No,” he said heatedly. “That’s wrong. If it was an entrapment they would have caught Liang the first night he met Trisha. His identity history data might have stood up to a review by Ridgeon Financial, but a specific entrapment operation run by the Halgarths…no way.”
“They must be running entrapment operations. If I were the senior Halgarths I’d be goddamn furious the family was constantly targeted by the Guardians.”
Tarlo settled back into the taxi’s leather seat. “They do tend to put a fair amount of pressure on the boss.”
“I don’t think that’s right, either. If they were running an entrapment they’d tell us.”
“Would they?”
“All right, maybe not,” she said, “but as this wasn’t an entrapment, it’s irrelevant anyway.”
“We don’t know it wasn’t an entrapment.”
“They didn’t catch Liang, and they haven’t told us, which they would do at this stage.”
“Alternatively, they’re busy tracking Liang, and don’t want to spook him by telling us.”
“That’s not it.” She was having trouble even looking at Tarlo. “Something is just wrong. It was too neat.”
“Too neat?”
The tone of disbelief in his voice made her wince. “Yeah, I know, I know. But something bothers me. That loft apartment, those girls, it all shouted out,
‘Here are dumb rich kids, come and rip them off.’ ”
“I don’t get this. Who’s in the wrong here, the Guardians or the Halgarths?”
“Well…Okay, I don’t suppose it could have been the Halgarths, unless that really was an entrapment operation.”
He grinned at her. “You’re getting as bad as the boss when it comes to conspiracies. You’ll be blaming the Starflyer next.”
“Could do.” She gave him a weak smile. “But I’m still going to tell her I think something’s odd about this one.”
“Career suicide.”
“Come on! What kind of a detective are you? We’re supposed to act on intuitive hunches. Don’t you watch any cop soaps?”
“Unisphere shows are for people without lives. Me, I’m busy in the evenings.”
“Yeah,” she said snidely. “Still putting on your navy uniform when you go around the clubs?”
“I’m a naval officer. Why shouldn’t I?”
Renne laughed. “God! Does that really work?”
“It does if you can find girls like those three.”
She sighed.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m serious. What can you tell Myo? You had a feeling? She’ll just bawl you out big time. And don’t look to me to back you up. There was nothing wrong with it.”
“The boss appreciates the way we consider cases. You know she’s always saying we have to take a more holistic approach to crime.”
“Holistic, yeah, not psychic.”
They were still arguing about it forty minutes later when they arrived back at the Paris office. Five uniformed navy officers were standing in a group outside Paula Myo’s office.
“What’s happening?” Tarlo asked Alic Hogan.
“Columbia’s in there with her,” the Commander said. He looked very uncomfortable.
“Christ,” Renne muttered. “It’ll be the LA fiasco. I was supposed to be chasing the leads from that operation this morning.”
“We all were,” Hogan said. He forced his gaze away from the closed door.
“Did you find anything in Daroca?”
Renne was trying to think what to say; Hogan was very by-the-book.
“It was a standard Guardians operation,” Tarlo said quickly. He was staring hard at Renne. “We left forensics working through the scene.”
“Good. Keep me updated.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Standard operation,” Renne said scathingly as they walked back to their desks.
“I just saved your ass back there,” Tarlo said. “You can say all that kind of intuition stuff to the boss, but not Hogan. All that little prick is interested in is checkmarks in the box.”
“Okay, okay,” she grumbled.
