Vacant (13 page)

Something Swartz had said to me during his God moments kept echoed in my head,
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Tanya had done what all bodyguards hope they never have to, literally had given up her life to protect her charge. Maybe that was the key. Maybe Loyola was right; we should remember her for this and nothing else. Maybe she'd earned the right.

But it was terrifying, because if things went badly these next few days, this next week, maybe that could be me too. I'd have to find a way to wrestle with that. I'd have to find a way to deal with it, or at least to push through like the cops did, and look into the face of death and assume I was immortal despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite seeing and hearing Sibley, the face of my almost-death. Because I couldn't give up, I couldn't leave. I had committed and I had to stop what would happen, or die trying. Maybe literally, as terrifying as that was.

Tommy sniffed, his anger turning to confusion, and he slouched in the seat. “I want to go home,” he said. He wanted to be alone, and play with the toys that were his and not be caught up in all of this.

“I know,” I said. I also wanted this to be over. But, unlike him, I had the perspective to know it wouldn't be over for a good long time. I was worried, all over again, about us, about me, about him. About Cherabino.

“We're about to arrive at the courthouse,” Jarrod said, and found a box of tissues from some unknown spot. “We'll need to walk in.” He handed me the tissues.

The clear subtext was that we needed to pull it together. I closed off as much as I could, but I was furious, honestly. A bit of human decency wouldn't be uncalled for.

I scrubbed at my face, handing the tissues to Tommy to do it himself.

Mendez met my eyes in the rearview mirror while she was driving. I dipped into her head. She'd gotten permission for us to set up in the judge's chambers, and for her and Jarrod to end up in a file room, where they could set up and give the kid some space. She had information about the investigation from the home office that everyone would need to talk about, though, and if I wasn't at the meeting, she'd catch me up.

Thanks,
I dropped in her head, cautiously. She nodded slowly and returned her attention to the road.

It bothered me, oddly, that the people in this unit were so accepting of telepaths.

It bothered me more that Jarrod was pushing all of this through so quickly—it was like he had threat information I didn't.

*   *   *

The courthouse was a squarish building made of concrete with thin blocks of windows cutting through in horizontal stripes that reminded me of the old black-and-white prison garb you saw in the movies. Two palm trees sat like crows overlooking the walkway in front of the building, and to the left of the two double doors in front burned a memorial torch. The front had a looping driveway thing, to give space, and a grass divider in front of the regular street. Other large buildings of several stories boxed in the courthouse on several sides.

Mendez pulled the car around the building to a large parking deck, spiraling up narrow paths, up and up to the highest floor. The concrete was ancient, and the narrow paths up creaked as we drove over them. Mendez went on high alert, ready to turn on the anti-grav at any moment. But it held. We parked in a small space out of the way, maybe a hundred feet from the elevator.

We all moved out of the car as a unit, to protect Tommy. As we moved, though, I noticed his anger and disgust. Disgust in particular was a red flag; disgust was the emotion most often preceding actual violence, and while he was ten, under this kind of pressure cooker he might explode.

As we got to the elevator he pushed the button five times, emotions going crazy in him, and waited impatiently. When the elevator got there, he was the first in, fidgeting madly with the button panel as everyone got in.

As soon as the doors were open on the ground floor, he made a dash for it.

“Hold up,” I yelled, huffing as I fast-walked in his direction. He was already on the crosswalk, moving toward the guard on the front door. My cigarette-poached lungs were never very happy with running, and running and talking at the same time just wasn't going to happen.
Hold up,
I said in his mind, much more insistently.

Loyola outpaced me, loping past to catch up with Tommy. He flashed his badge just in time to keep the security guard from going for his gun. “FBI,” he said, in explanation, as he walked.

Tommy just kept going. The movement was freeing for him—he wanted out—but he hadn't taken any of his bags with him. At least he was moving toward the side entrance for the courthouse, but there was another armed guard there. Fortunately Loyola was a runner. I doubted the kid could outpace him.

In the meantime, I slowed, watching the world and minds around me for trouble, opening my eyes and all my senses as wide as they would go. The bodyguard dying made all of this real somehow. I was responsible to make sure nothing happened to Tommy. Would I be able to do it?

Mendez was behind me, with Jarrod, in that tone of mind I associate with a conversation about details. Loyola was very aware of his surroundings, and Tommy's running was helping him. No one else in the area seemed to be paying overt attention.

The armed guard to the courthouse wasn't taking Tommy as a threat, even at a fast pace, and he'd heard the edge of Loyola's loud declaration.

“I need to see ID,” he said as Tommy slowed. I heard him through Tommy's mind, a weird kaleidoscope effect that I'd only had happen previously with Kara and Cherabino, legitimate Links between our minds. It was strange, and even stranger, I felt a . . . pull as he got farther away. I'd have to stay close; I had no idea what would happen if I did not. Nothing good, I was sure.

My formal shoes clattered against the concrete walkway as I got closer. People at the front of the building had stopped, all in the formal wear of people going for a day at court. One lone journalist carried a camera with a ridiculously large flashbulb, but his regard was more about curiosity than anything else.

“I'm Tommy Parson,” the kid said, pulling out a school ID. “Judge Parson is my mom. I've been here before. This dweeb is following me for the FBI.”

The guard took the ID, glanced at it, and handed it back. “Sorry. No one told me to expect you.” He was a tall guy, and bored, and his wife had just left him; all information readily available to my senses on first meeting.

He handed the ID back and spent more time on Loyola,
who handed over an FBI badge. I caught up and waited behind Loyola, scanning the surroundings. There were plenty of minds in the hallway just inside, but none were paying attention in this direction. I was already beginning to get a headache behind my eyes from all of the emotion earlier; combined with the relentless information from all the minds around me—and the need to pay attention—the headache was only going to get worse.

“Who are you?” the guard said, in the tone of voice of someone repeating himself and very irritated about it.

“He's with us,” Loyola said in a firm tone of voice before I could say anything. “Also, my colleagues behind us—the woman, and the thin guy in the suit. Now, are you going to let us in or not?”

The guard stared at me and tried to figure out how far he could push this. He didn't like me, and I suspected it was because he had just enough Ability to detect another telepath, without any additional information. He knew I was a big fish and wanted to watch me.

This was both gratifying and frustrating, of course.

“Now, please,” Loyola said.

Tommy read the guard's decision before he acted, and the kid was already pushing through the door. Fortunately I'd read the same decision and was moving myself.

He was going to be a handful, wasn't he?

In the crowded hallway beyond, Tommy stopped in front of a fortysomething man with a small scar on his right eyebrow and a pair of wire-framed glasses, currently standing in the security screening line. Next to the man, another guy, clearly a lawyer, stood.

“Did you send the bad guys to kill me yesterday?” Tommy asked. “Tell me to my face.”

“You can't . . . ,” the lawyer said, then trailed off.

“Who are you?” the man asked—but he asked me.

“This is Tommy Parson and entourage,” I said, coming up behind him, still puffing.

Something about the man read like a shark to me, a predator, someone used to being the top thing in the ecosystem, able to do whatever the hell he wanted, whenever the hell he wanted it. I moved up behind Tommy, just in case, ready to move if anything were to happen.

“You shouldn't be talking to Pappadakis,” Loyola said, now right there as well. “Come on, let's wait for them to move through.” The entire hallway had quieted, and everyone was now looking at us. Jarrod was still talking to the guard outside, and Mendez was torn between. We were on our own.

“This is Pappadakis?” I asked quietly.

“Did you?” Tommy demanded, angry and grief-stricken.

The lawyer glanced at the screening guards, just to make sure they were paying attention. “My client will not answer any of your questions.”

“No,” Pappadakis said anyway. “No, I didn't,” he said, and I believed him. His mind had the ring of settled fact, but he was not surprised. Either he was the world's best liar—which I would not put beyond him—or he'd known about the attack from other sources.

“You'll leave my client alone,” the lawyer said.

“Seriously, Tommy, let's go back outside for a second,” Loyola said. “Excuse us.”

I followed, watching the minds around us for disgust, for strong decisions, for anything that felt threatening or personal. It was like three music tapes played all too loud, all at once, so that you couldn't quite sort everything out, much less enjoy it. I vaguely saw the back of Loyola's suit, saw his hand on Tommy's shoulder, steering him, saw the door again.

Fifteen minutes later we were up on the fifth floor,
ancient carpeted gray hallway lined with benches and the occasional solid door, signs everywhere. More people sat in the benches, and a sign said C
HILD
S
UPPORT
H
EARINGS
T
HIS
W
AY
. The buzz of all the upset minds was intense.

I was a terrible Minder, maybe, but the kid was in legitimate danger and I had to step up.

Finally we were led through a secure area, a quieter hallway that smelled different, passing through another door into a small room—a judge's chambers, according to the door. Judge Marissa Parson. She wasn't there.

There was a
surprisingly large amount of waiting involved in bodyguarding. Well, more than I was expecting, or was used to; Cherabino was an impatient cop, and she'd long since figured out a way to bribe others into doing the real time-consuming work while she powered on to the next thing. It meant working with her gave you whiplash sometimes, and you drowned in the paperwork she handed you, but you didn't often get bored.

We'd settled in, me on a chair, Tommy on the floor almost rebelliously, though I didn't tell him he couldn't. He was making complicated paper boats, cutting file folders into pieces and folding them into shapes he then assembled with tape into boats. Since the file folders appeared to be empty, I didn't protest.

I sat in an overstuffed armchair to the right of the room and Tommy, under a reading lamp next to a big bookshelf. I was monitoring the surroundings in Mindspace, sure, but in this part of the courthouse the minds might as well be on a loop. They did the same things, thought variants of the same things, over and over.

I was thinking about Cherabino a lot lately. Not only because of this trial—though it killed me not to be there and I was desperate to know what was going on—but because I missed her. I missed her as a person. And now, when I
was worried about nearly everything, I missed her competence, her experience. There was very little in the world she hadn't seen at least once, or could find someone who had on two minutes' notice.

I picked up the phone on the large desk and dialed Cherabino's office number from memory. It rang three times.

“Hello?” Michael's voice picked up.

“It's me,” I said, glancing at Tommy still on the floor. “Is Cherabino around?”

The tone of his voice changed to something more careful. “No. She's at the hearing right now and will be for a few hours. Something I can do for you?”

I considered hanging up but decided we really did need more information. And Tommy still seemed happy with his homework. “I'm in Savannah, and the case we're dealing with . . . um, it's been linked to Sibley, the killer for hire Cherabino's been tracking for a while. I was hoping to get a copy of her files on him overnighted down here.” Maybe seeing his information in black-and-white would help me sort out what was real and what I was imagining.

A long pause, which wasn't characteristic of Michael. “I'm not technically supposed to be sharing information with you at this time. Since you're working for an outside agency.”

I made a frustrated sound. “Ask Branen. He approved it, and as near as I can tell he's a fan of interagency cooperation to start with. The FBI will spring for the cost of the shipping.” At least, I hoped they would.

“Adam?”

“Yes.”

A pause. “Strictly between you and me, she's not doing well. If you can come up here today, I'd recommend it.”

My stomach sank, and my guilt returned tenfold. “What's going on?”

“They've got another two days of hearings, but it's bad. I've never seen the powers that be mobilize like this, not this quickly. The union reps are protesting, and they just sent in Chou and his team. It's turning into a witch-hunt.”

One of the foremost lawyers that worked with the department, Chou was good but he was expensive. For the union to hire him, it felt that Cherabino's hearing was crossing some essential line on principle. Considering what Branen had said, that wasn't out of line, and in fact it was probably a good thing. But I wasn't there.

“That's . . . that's rough,” I said. My stomach sank. “I can't leave,” I said. “I want to be there, but I can't leave. There's a ten-year-old whose safety depends on me being here.” I couldn't even imagine what would happen to Tommy if I left. “I can't leave him.”

Tommy looked up at me then, and frowned. He didn't like being talked about like he was helpless.

“You do what you have to do,” Michael said, but in the tone of voice of someone who thought I was in the wrong.

I took a breath. Speaking of Sibley . . . “Did Cherabino have you look up the jail records for Sibley? She said she would.”

“Yes. Give me a second.” There was a long pause while I listened to the sound of papers rustling. “Okay. I talked to the warden this morning. He was released on a special order sometime early in the week. Cherabino has a flag on his case, so we're entitled to notifications. I'm not sure why they didn't go through in this case.”

“What in hell is a special order? Do you have any idea where he went? Damn it, you put people in jail, you expect them to stay there.”

“Hold on, I had nothing to do with this. There's no need to yell. And I don't know who ordered it. The records are sealed . . . or at least not easily shared. It's not any of the
people that Cherabino suspects of being on Fiske's payroll, but the DA's office has been looking for that kind of evidence for a year now. No luck.”

“What's a special order?” I asked. I felt like beating my head against the wall.

“It's a rule from post–Tech Wars. Nobody uses it anymore, and they hardly used it then. If somebody with enough power wants somebody out for a time period, they can order it. They're supposed to go back to jail when they're done with whatever the special mission is. It's like a governor's pardon, only temporary. This one's for six weeks.”

Strange. I'd never heard of the rule, but then again a Guild education didn't emphasize normal laws and I'd had to pick up police rules as I went. “You don't know who gave the order?”

“No. That's what I've been trying to tell you. It's been redacted, and the warden didn't approve it personally. It's the strangest damn thing. I'll see if I can't figure out more for you, but it looks like a dead end. I'll turn it over to the Fiske task force. Maybe they can prove the connection.”

I took a breath. “If he's pulling strings on that level, the task force has bigger problems.”

“Yeah. He destroyed the last case they built against him. If this is him, I'd say he's moving on some kind of plan he needs Sibley for. Maybe the task force can piece it together.”

A plan with Sibley lined up with my vision perfectly. “Thanks,” I said in a bitter tone. I didn't think that the task force would be able to do anything, not fast enough.

“Thank you for bringing it up. The department spent a hell of a lot of money and effort getting this guy behind bars, and we put a flag on his record. We should have been informed when this happened. The captain isn't happy. I'll . . . I'll see what I can do about sharing the rest of the information. I don't think anyone's going to have a problem
with it, especially if you guys are suspecting him in a case down there.”

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

There was another long pause.

Finally I said, “Tell her she can reach me after seven at this number.” I gave him the judge's house number, ignoring all protocol. If Cherabino needed me, I'd do whatever it took. I would. Even if it was too little, too late.

Tommy's safety was worth it. It had to be.

“I'll tell her,” Michael said.

“Thanks.” I waited, realized there was nothing more to say, and hung up.

*   *   *

After an hour, I was literally hurting for a cigarette, so I pulled Loyola into the room with Tommy and went outside to smoke near the side door of the courthouse. I saw the guard again, and he harassed me for ID again. Neither one of us felt entirely happy with the results of that one, but I made it out the building and moved to the corner of the building to smoke where I wouldn't get in anyone else's way and was still—barely—close enough to Tommy.

That connection was tight, though, stretched like a tense rubber band in the back of my head. I poked at it as I smoked. The information on this from the book I'd read was sparse, and that was ten years ago. I didn't have a lot of details on this kind of connection. The human mind—especially the pubescent and prepubescent human mind—was inherently unpredictable. Probably there was something in Guild records with a full write-up, but that did me no good right now, and right now was critical.

I worried about it as I smoked and watched the cars go by in front of the courthouse, people walking up the front steps, people being belched out of the front door in large
groups. The minds were a cacophony of sound outside, so I shielded up to my gills. I told myself I needed a break, and the truth was that I wouldn't do Tommy much good from out here anyway.

I was almost done with a too-fast cigarette when I saw him. My heart nearly stopped.

Sibley was standing across the street, next to a tall kiosk full of soy-print newspapers and degradable magazines, paying the teenager in charge of the kiosk in cash. Pale and bald, average height with a muscular frame, he was dressed to blend into the crowd, a quiet suit that would have fit in anywhere in the world, but with shoes meant to run in. I knew that face despite the sunglasses. I'd know it anywhere.

A car passed along the street between us and I took a step forward, then another. When the street cleared, Sibley was looking up—and directly at me.

He smiled and gave me a two-fingered lazy man's salute, fingers to forehead, and another car passed between us.

I trotted toward him, still unable to believe what I was seeing—and then the connection with Tommy choked me like an invisible collar, tight. I could keep going, maybe. I could push through and break that connection—but I had no way of knowing what it would do to me, or to Tommy. And my priority had to be Tommy.

His hands were empty, and I didn't see either the device or the gun or any other suspicious lumps on his person. But there was no way to be sure this far away. No way to be sure.

Sibley took his paper and walked away. I hesitated. But then I turned back, hustling toward the security guard to put him on alert. Then to Jarrod, to stir up whatever security we could.

I tried to connect to Jarrod via Mindspace as I walked,
but he didn't hear me. Deaf as a doorpost, I guessed. I let Mendez know, though, and moved as quickly as I could.

This was getting all too real.

*   *   *

Jarrod agreed with my assessment, and I left him scrambling half the city and three departments. It was my job to find Tommy and stay with him. It should have been my job in the first place, Jarrod had said.

I passed Pappadakis's lawyer in the hallway outside the courtroom, who apparently had stepped out of his client's trial to take a phone call in the otherwise empty hallway. He stopped talking when I got within sight distance, and put his hand over the phone. “Do you mind?” he said, and glared at me.

I frowned, wondering if this was Sibley he was talking to, but it felt like paranoia. When I tried to read him, all I got was a sense of fuzzy wariness. He and I had poor valence; our minds meshed badly, so that while another telepath might be able to read him perfectly well, I could not.

But I didn't have the time to stand here and drag it out of him. My senses were already back in Minding mode, tracking every mind in the vicinity. Hopefully it would be enough.

I hustled back to the judge's chambers, worried.

At a time like this, I wished I had a physical weapon of some kind—a knife perhaps, or a Taser, or even pepper spray in a pinch. The cops would make fun of me to no end if I got caught with pepper spray—or even a Taser, to be honest—but if it gave me a chance to walk away or to overcome an attacker with my telepathy, I'd take the ribbing. I didn't normally carry a weapon; my mind was a weapon all on its own. But it had already proven useless against Sibley, and like I'd said, he'd almost killed me. And maybe he was there, and was a threat. Maybe.

Needless to say, I was jumpy when I closed the door behind me.

Tommy was on his feet already, Loyola with gun ready.

“You might knock,” Loyola said, lowering the gun. His heart was beating too fast, the decision not to shoot too fresh.

“Next time I will,” I promised.

“What's wrong?” Tommy said. I could feel his panic, his reaction to my own worry.

Crap. Now I was scaring the kid. I pulled on years of intensive training, and forced calm. Deep breath in, deep breath out, calm down the limbic system. “I saw a threat outside, but I reported it and we're fine,” I said, and then forced myself to believe it. “If anything, it's good news. You can't shut down a threat you didn't see.”

Loyola met my eyes, question in his body language.

No, not good news at all,
I told him mind-to-mind.
I'd appreciate you sticking around.

He nodded significantly.

“You're lying to me,” Tommy said, sounding hurt.

Crap, again. I stood closer to him. “I'm not lying to you. I just don't want you to worry more than you have to. We've seen the problem. We're dealing with it. Right here is probably one of the safer places in the world right now—local police are on their way on top of the usual security system, and the bailiffs are all armed as a matter of course.” I said this firmly, making myself believe it. Sibley had rattled me, though. Sibley had rattled me a lot, and my heart was still beating all too fast.

“You saw the bad man, didn't you?” he said. “The one from the vision.”

Great. Teach me not to think too loudly around Tommy. I took a breath and responded, “I told you I'd stick around and keep you safe. I intend to keep that promise.”

There was a silence as I looked at Tommy and Tommy looked at me.

“Don't die, okay?” he asked in a small voice.

Loyola put a hand on Tommy's shoulder then. “No one's dying today. Now, don't you have more math homework to do? Nothing calms me down when I'm tense like math homework.”

“Really?” I asked. “Math stresses me out.”

“I'll help you with the homework,” Loyola said. “No sense in letting the teep do it.”