Death Thieves (30 page)

I shrugged, wondering what the driver thought of our conversation. I hadn’t admitted to actually running a search because of Tag, and I hadn’t used Tag’s name in my searches for a long time. Kirk Shaw was not the same thing as Tag. Playing stupid might be the smartest option yet. “Can you be more specific? Whose name? I do lots of research.”

“Taggert’s father.” Professor Raik very nearly growled the two words.

“I didn’t research Taggert’s father.” Incredulity and the righteous anger of the wrongfully accused filled my voice. Having been raised in the foster care system, this was a voice I’d used a lot in my life. “How would I know who some soldier’s dad’s name was? I don’t even know who
my
dad’s name was. I’ve only done research on my sister, which there isn’t any information on, by the way, and science stuff. What do I care whose related to who?” I added the part about my Winter searches because I knew he already knew and by making him look guilty of withholding information, it might make me look more innocent.

I held my breath. The denial hovered between us.

He made a noise in his throat, like a self-deprecating laugh. “Hmm. Well, we shall see what we see.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to my estate for dinner.” He turned his smile all the way up to “beaming.”

“Eddie’s going to be there?” It smelled like a setup.

“Yes—and several others.”

And how could I say no? He’d corralled me into the car, accused me of stuff I was actually guilty of doing, and I had no way of getting home again short of walking—past curfew—in the dark where crazies might still lie in waiting. “I’m not really dressed . . .” I had at least worn a skirt today, but not one I would have picked for a night out.

“You look . . . perfect.”

I froze. I may not have dated a lot of different guys in my life, but I knew that leer and recognized that tone.

My pulse quickened, and I drew myself back into my seat as deep as I could go, as if by moving those couple of extra millimeters, I’d be able to put myself out of his reach.

He didn’t reach.

The rest of our flight was taken in silence. And though I’d looked away—out the window, pretending to find interest in the topography below me, his eyes never strayed from me. I could feel them roving over every inch of me and had to quash the desire to throw open the door and jump to my death.

When the car touched down, I was surprised to find we didn’t hook into a rail system; he had a little landing pad in his side yard. No rails led to his home.

As soon as the engine cut, I sprang from my door and moved several feet away from the car. If nothing, he grinned wider as if he enjoyed having unnerved me. I followed several paces behind him as he approached his palace-size house. “Where do you keep the moat?” I muttered.

“We have several ponds in the back.”

His answer surprised me since I’d kept my voice intentionally low so he wouldn’t hear. “Oh, that’s nice.” His door glowed green on our approach, and we entered into a marbleized hallway that opened into a room with ceilings high enough to be mistaken for the sky. The many couples were all dressed formally, women in floor-sweeping gowns, men in dark-suited attire. Relief flooded me upon seeing Eddie—anyone was better than Professor Raik for company. I very nearly fell into his arms in my desperation to get away.

Eddie smiled. “You almost look happy to see me.” His arm went immediately around my shoulder and no amount of shrugging and shoulder jostling removed him.

I was wrong. Eddie wasn’t better than Professor Raik, stupider, maybe, but not better.

“I’m glad to see you changed your mind about joining me.” He murmured in my ear, his lips intentionally brushing my ear lobe.

I went from shrugging to shoving. “I didn’t change my mind, meathead. I was tricked into coming. You—just stay away from me.” I put my hand out to stop him when he moved forward, knowing I was sending major mixed signals and not caring at all. I stepped in close enough to make myself heard by him only. “You mess with me, Eddie, and I will make that little accident you almost had while dodging the draft seem like a better alternative than what I can make happen to you. With my study in the labs, I have no problem
accidentally
injecting you with HTHBI. You’ll be crazier than the worst of them, and you’ll get the shakes so bad, you’ll look like a human earthquake.”

Eddie’s jaw fell slack, and his eyes widened. I turned on my heel, and, feeling a bit like Alison, flounced away. I grabbed a glass from the table, poured myself whatever they had in the punch bowl, and let my anger simmer down from the boil. The corner provided an excellent place to fume and take in my surroundings. Most of the guests were regents and regent advisors. These were the people in the futuristic limelight. These were the movie stars of the new world.

And they were watching my searches—even the ones not made on my lapdesk. The ring. The IDR must link somehow to wherever the searches are made—no matter whose lapdesk is used. These people killed Tag’s family. And they’d taken me away from mine.

I didn’t eat anything during dinner, my stomach soured by the company. Professor Raik’s gaze followed me like a searchlight everywhere I went. He slid in beside me toward the end of the night while other people danced.

“So you really don’t prefer Eddie?”

I narrowed my eyes to where Eddie danced with one of the other girls from our dormitory. “The intelligence of lunch meat.”

Professor Raik’s smile went from congressman to predator. “So do any of the young men we picked for you seem suitable?”

The impropriety of the question disconcerted me. Was this his way of seeing if I was a lost cause to furthering mankind and therefore available in some way? Maybe it was nothing and Eddie’s advances mingled with my own paranoia had finally got the best of me. I didn’t respond.

Before Professor Raik could ask anything else, a small eruption of excitement came from the far end. Regents clapped and let out cheers. Soldiers, dressed in what I supposed to be soldier formal—long silvery black dusters over their silvery black pants and shoes shiny enough to be black gemstones—marched into the room. They circled the entire perimeter. My breath caught when I recognized Tag as one of the soldiers. His concentration on his performance for the regents meant he hadn’t noticed me.

“They’re magnificent!” One of the regents declared. She turned to Professor Raik. “Really, Seaver! You’ve outdone yourself with this group!”

Professor Raik nodded in recognition of her compliment. And I couldn’t help but agree with her assessment.
He
was magnificent. My Tag—magnificent. The near year we’d spent apart had only helped him fill out more in the shoulders. His hair was a bit longer in the back. I couldn’t help but smile while looking at him. The soldiers turned their heads toward Professor Raik as part of the program. Once facing him, they saluted. Tag’s eyes widened when he caught my glance, and he stumbled over his next few steps of marching. The soldiers all passed us bringing their weapons to their shoulders. Tag jerked his head, glancing back at me once before returning to the drill.

Professor Raik’s eyes followed Tag’s line of site to me. Professor Raik’s expression darkened briefly but smoothed out as the regents burst into applause at the soldiers’ performance.

Professor Raik knew.

He didn’t know about the notes or the friendship, but he knew emotion bubbled up in us when we were faced with each other. He knew feelings existed where feelings should not. And no amount of denial on my part would convince otherwise.

Oh Tag . . . I wish I’d stayed away from the library tonight rather than getting trapped into this dinner.
But in reality, it wouldn’t have mattered. Professor Raik didn’t go to the library ever. His whole purpose in being there at the same time as me was to get me to this party.

And I was lying anyway. The joy at seeing Tag overrode my fears of what might come of this moment.

“Magnificent, Seaver!” The regent repeated as she clapped energetically with the crowds. I briefly wondered if she’d been one of the regents who recently adopted a baby from the public nurseries but shook my head. It didn’t matter. While she and several other regents had Professor Raik otherwise occupied, I caught Tag’s eye.
Library
, he mouthed. I nodded, slipped behind and past Raik and his regents, heading for the staircase leading up to the library. Several people commented through the evening that Professor Raik’s was one of the finest home libraries they’d ever seen. They all held this as a credit to Professor Raik’s outstanding brilliance.

In the library, I pulled out a book on the history of Einstein, and settled myself on the couch, prepared to look innocent in case anyone else showed up. My toes tapped against the plush carpet impatiently while minutes ticked away from me. I thought about checking out the window to see the ponds Professor Raik had mentioned, but worried my ring getting too close to the window would leave evidence of my presence.

I turned pages absently and didn’t read a word, my gaze slipping toward the door that remained stubbornly closed.

It startled me when the door did finally open. I averted my eyes back to the book to look like I’d been reading.

“What are you doing here?” Tag’s voice. The book tumbled to the floor in my hurry to get up. I couldn’t help it. I threw my arms around him. The act must have surprised him, or he would have likely pulled back, but he let me hold him a moment and even returned the embrace before he untangled himself from my arms.

“Why is it that the first thing you ever say to me is ‘what are you doing here?’”

“Because wherever I get to see you, it’s in places you shouldn’t be!” He stepped back to put space between us.

“Why shouldn’t I be here?” His attitude irritated me. In all this time it’d been since we’d seen each other and the only thing he could think to do was lecture me?

Tag backed away a few more steps. “Yes. I guess you should be here. I guess I should offer congratulations. I’d heard you were with Edward.”

“Who? And congratulations for what?” Surprise filled me. There were rumors about me among soldiers?

“Edward. I don’t know his last name. He trails after the professor like a dog. Professor Raik said you two were to be married.”

“Eddie?” I laughed. “Eddie married to me? Do you really think I’m that desperate?”

Tag looked confused. “So you’re not?”

“I’m not what? Desperate or marrying Eddie?”

“Don’t confuse me. Just answer the question.” He looked frustrated, annoyed, and worried.

I tried to sit back on the couch as I said, “Neither. I wouldn’t marry Eddie if my life depended on it, and I’m too busy to be desperate.”

He took hold of my hands making it impossible to sit down. He pulled me over to the desk. “Duck down under there.”

I lifted my eyebrows at him. “You want me to what?”

He grunted and rolled his eyes. “If anyone comes and sees us together, it would be bad. Especially Edward. He’d make a big deal about it, and we’d both be in a lot of trouble, me especially. If you’re already hidden, we can have a few minutes to talk without being worried.”

I ducked down, admitting to myself that Tag was right and this setup made sense. I sat cross-legged under the desk, hating how it diminished my view, I finally get to see Tag and end up only staring at his black shoes. “Why would Professor Raik tell you Eddie and I were getting married?”

Tag sat on the desk and faced the window, which irritated me since I really could only see his shoes then. But sitting there and looking out the window would make him appear innocent to anyone coming in. “I think it has something to do with your searches.”

“You know about those, too?”

He leaned over enough to look me in the eye. “Searches that seem suspicious or overly questioning of the current political system mark you as a dissenter—even if you do those searches on someone else’s lapdesk. The IDR pulses to any device used. The pulse leaves a digital fingerprint.”

I figured it had to be the IDR that ratted me out. “So you’re saying the freedom of information act is no longer valid?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

I caught his swinging foot before it smacked me in the nose. “What about freedom of speech?”

He sighed. “I told him getting women from the any year past 1980 was a bad idea.”

“Why, because we can think for ourselves?”

“No, because you aren’t subtle.”

“What kind of dumb man would want a subtle woman? He’d always have to remember things like her birthday and anniversary on his own because she wouldn’t be in his face reminding him. Subtlety just gets men in trouble.”

He leaned over the desk and grinned at me. “Yes, well, the lack of subtlety gets questions asked when you’re trying to keep a low profile.”

“I’m sorry about your family.” Changing the subject so abruptly and to such a brutal topic could be considered heartless, but I had to say it. I’d thought it almost as many times as I thought about telling him how much I loved him. Since I couldn’t say the one, I had to say the other. Who knew when, or if, another chance would come?

His grin froze and then slowly faded into pain. His fingers curled over the lip of the desk gripping it so tightly his fingertips went white. “I’m a soldier. I have no fam—”

“Don’t!” My shout surprised even me. I crawled out from under the desk enough so I could face him. “Don’t do that Tag. You have a family. Being gone doesn’t mean they don’t exist and that they don’t belong to you. Winter is gone. I’ll never see her again, but she’s still my family. She belongs to me. Now more than ever since my memory of her is the only thing that exists. If I decided to forget, then I really would be erasing her forever. You can’t do that to them, Tag. They belong to you. If you kick them out of your memory, they’re really gone.”

He didn’t answer. His jaw flexed and his eyes shimmered as though he might cry, but he didn’t cry. He stared at me and took deep breaths. I unlatched his fingers from the desk and took his hand.

“They broke the law by hiding—”

“Don’t tell me you believe in that crap? Not being willing to turn their kid over to the government to kill doesn’t make them lawbreakers. It makes them heroes.”