Hard Line - Pamela Clare Page 0,31
came to see whether I could help.”
“You already have.” She glanced around them. “You could take down the fairy lights. You can probably reach them without standing on a chair.”
“On it.” He reached up and carefully removed the strands.
“I think I’ll put them with the rest of the Skua stuff.”
“Skua? Aren’t those birds?” The confusion on his face made her smile.
“We have a Skua table. People give stuff away, swap things, and leave things for the next people who arrive. We call it the Skua table because real, live skuas are such scavengers.”
Thor nodded as if he understood, his lips curving in a smile. “That’s clever. But you should keep the lights. You said she made your life brighter. These lights could be a symbol of that. I could put them up for you.”
Samantha stopped where she stood, touched to her core that he’d heard her, that he’d understood. “I … I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you. I like that idea.”
He set the lights aside and began taking down the photos. “What do you want to do with these pictures?”
“We should put one of them in her shrine and send the others to her family.”
A knock at the door.
Lance stuck his head in, his gaze shifting from Samantha to Thor. “You ask him to help but not me?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but Thor cut her off. “She didn’t ask. I came to check on her and volunteered.”
Lance walked in. “What are you doing with Patty’s stuff?”
“Most of it is going home to her family. They’re the rightful owners now. I’ll put some of it out on the Skua table. Do you want to pick something for her shrine?”
“Where’s her journal?” Lance glanced toward the desk. “I want that.”
Samantha reached for it, held it against her chest. “That belongs to her family.”
Lance tried to take it from Samantha. “I want to read what she wrote about me.”
“You can’t do that.” Samantha turned her body away from him, kept the journal beyond his reach. “Her private thoughts are her business, not yours. The fact that she’s gone doesn’t change that.”
“Oh, come on!” Lance reached for it again. “She didn’t keep anything from me.”
“But she didn’t let you read her journal, did she?” She saw the flare of irritation on his face and knew she was right.
“What gives you the right to act as her executor?”
Thor came up behind Samantha, his presence making Lance take a step back. “Samantha was Patty’s best friend. She’s known her longer than anyone else here. That gives her the right.”
“Patty and I were lovers. That has to count for something, even here on station. I feel like I’m being erased from her life.” Lance grabbed a small silver ring off Patty’s shelf—the ring with the horseshoe that she’d worn on her pinky finger. “I’m taking this.”
Thor blocked Lance’s attempt to leave. “Samantha?”
“That’s okay. He can have it.”
Thor stepped aside, watched him go. “Is he always an asshole?”
“No. Just since Patty died.”
Thor watched as Samantha carefully arranged Patty’s belongings on the Skua table alongside other items people had given away—electric razors, gloves, socks, hats, earbuds, unopened toiletries.
Samantha stepped away from the table. “Now, she can still be a part of life down here, even if the people who end up with her things never knew her.”
“That’s a good way to think of it.”
Vasily and four of his friends walked by, probably on their way to the B1 Lounge, Vasily’s gaze fixing on Samantha.
He stopped. “Good to see you, Sam. I am sorry about Patty. Who would think that one so young would die?”
Samantha crossed her arms over her chest—a protective posture. “Thank you, Vasily.”
“You must join me sometime for a drink in her memory.” He held up the bottle of vodka in his left hand.
“I would like that.” Samantha watched them walk away. “I would never have imagined that he’d be involved in something like this. Vasily, a spy? We had so much fun with him and the others on station at McMurdo.”
“Most spies don’t seem like spies.”
Samantha looked up at him. “Have you met real spies?”
“Yes—a few.” Holly Andris and Gabriela Marquez, both Cobra employees, had once worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. Elizabeth Shields had been an Agency counterterrorism analyst. “If you met them, you would have no idea that they’d once worked for the CIA.”
“Wow.” Samantha gaped at him. “You’ve led a more interesting life than I have.”
That made Thor laugh. “I don’t know about that. Mapping distant galaxies, working at the