Dealers' Choice - Susan Hayes Page 0,42
into the feed to make it look like she came back, not knowing about the extra security in place.”
Ward made a note to invite the soldier to the Nova and buy her a drink when this was over. “I think you’re right.”
“I’m calling this in,” Masters announced. “You can go, now. This is a military matter.”
Ward folded his arms across his chest so he’d be less tempted to smack the asshole. He needed this shit handled the right way from the start, and this idiot wasn’t the one to do it. “The hell you will. You haven’t even looked at the screen yet. You have no idea what happened. How about you leave Hutchings to make the call, and you go check to see if Dr. Virness is in her quarters? I’d do it, but I’ve got a feeling you’re going to deny me entry, and someone needs to check.”
Masters hand dropped to his firearm, but Ward didn’t move.
“You’re impeding an investigation, sir. I’m ordering you to step back right now.”
“I’m not impeding anything. I’m the reason you even know she’s missing right now,” he said through gritted teeth. Now he knew Xori was missing, he regretted every second he’d spent in the gym instead of looking for her. He’d wasted enough time already, and no one, especially not some preening peskin of an AIF soldier, was going to cost him another second.
“He’s right. Someone has to confirm she’s not in her quarters.” Hutchings pointed to her comms. “I’m waiting to report the issue. You’ll have to do it.”
Ward growled and stared at Masters. A few seconds later, he headed off, spine as stiff as the stick he had shoved up his ass. Once Masters was gone, he moved back a few steps from Hutchings and sent spoke to Vic over their internal link. “I think Xori’s in trouble.”
“What? Why? And where the hell are you? Cyn’s a little pissed about the damage to that locker.”
“If she were really pissed, I’d have heard from her directly. And that’s not important right now. I went looking for Xori.”
“You shouldn’t have done that. We need to give her space to—”
It wasn’t easy to cut someone off when you were programmed to obey them, but it was possible with enough effort. Ward squelched his brother’s incoming message and fired back his own. “Shut up and listen to me. She’s gone. I’m at the security post by her quarters. They checked the logs. Someone tampered with the video so it looks like she came through, but they’ve got some kind of facial rec software running and it didn’t register her face. Xori didn’t come home last night.” He swallowed hard, his hands closing into fists. “Someone took her, Fox. While we were sleeping, someone took our girl.”
It was strange. Xori felt like part of her mind had walled itself off and was acting as an impartial observer, aware of her thought process without getting involved. That portion of her noted that her reactions to her situation were remarkably similar to the stages of grief. She experienced anger, self-recrimination, shock, sadness, and fear. She’d even tried to think of anything she could offer her silent captor to let her go, though she hadn’t been foolish enough to try. She’d learned enough about the way this group operated to know that those who worked for them were either fanatically loyal or compelled by threat of death to obey, or sometimes, both.
She had no way to measure the passage of time, and it left her unsettled. She had nothing to do but think, nothing to look at but the blank screen on the bulkhead across from her. She didn’t want to speak to the man Vivian had called Five, but eventually the need to take a break from her own thoughts outweighed all other considerations.
“How long have you worked for Vivian and her employers?” she asked without turning her head.
There was a moment of silence, and then, to her surprise, he answered. “About a year.”
“Were you, uh, hired the same way I was?”
The silence stretched on longer this time. “No. You’re a unique case.”
Lucky me. She risked a quick glance sideways. He hadn’t taken out his blaster again. That had to be a sign he wasn’t annoyed with her questions. At least, not yet. “Your name is rather unique. Does it have a special meaning? Mine does. It means a soft summer rain.”
“It means I was the fifth of my batch to exit my maturation tank.”
She forgot