“We’ll let them worry about that,” Girard said.
On that good advice, Hallie headed upstairs. A shower and a change of clothes seemed like an excellent idea. The heat of the day was finally fading into evening. From what the others had said, it seemed unlikely she was going to get much chance to sleep overnight as they got ready to leave. And as they were going back to Daydawn, she followed Girard’s example and got into her own version of working clothes, in this case, jeans and a t-shirt. She left a sweatshirt and her own leather jacket at the top of her bag. Even though it was stiflingly hot here, she knew it was still winter in Daydawn and she’d need the extra layers.
Once she was in her normal working clothes, thezaubertucked into her jeans pocket, and her bag was packed, she stood in the quiet, shadowed bedroom, mind turning over what they had learned and not learned from the information she’d managed to photograph and about the attackers. They had two live ones in custody, somewhere else in the house, Hallie remembered. Frollo and the others hadn’t been able to get any information out of them, but then, as far as she knew, no body else had her truth sense. So there might be something she could do now that no one else could.
With that determination, she lifted her bag onto her shoulder and headed downstairs to find Frollo and discover where the attackers were being kept.
Chapter nine
Thetacticalteamhadhoused the two captives in the completely empty rooms on the ground floor, keeping them separate not just from the rest of the house but from each other. Frollo flatly refused to let Hallie go into the room on her own, insisting he or another member of his team go with her, and not accepting Girard as a suitable alternative, given Girard’s injuries. Hallie’s first impulse was to argue - she had spent her whole career as a skip tracer working alone, chasing down and capturing a wide range of violent offenders, human andveondken. She thought she could handle one human man at a time, particularly when they were restrained. And she didn’t want any more witnesses than necessary. Only three people in the world knew about her truth sense and that was more than enough, as far as she was concerned. However, they were running out of time before they needed to leave, and arguing would only waste some of that time and energy that might be needed for other things, such as making sure the house wasproperly cleared. In the end, both Frollo, in body armour and bristling with weapons, and Girard, still pale, with his arm still in a sling, came into the first room with her.
The man she’d fought with in her bedroom glared up at her. Someone, possibly Modron, had slapped a field dressing on the wound on his head, but someone else, almost certainly under Frollo’s orders, had added flexi-cuffs to his ankles as well as his wrists. The man was sitting propped up against a wall, facing the door.
Hallie took a moment to study the captive in the harsh glare of the single, bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Shockingly young, was her first and overwhelming impression. From the way he’d fought, and the weapons he’d carried, she had somehow expected him to be older. But he looked barely into his twenties, perhaps even younger. Definitely human. If he’d beenhochlen, the head wound would have healed by now. He had the sort of pale skin that looked as if he’d never been outdoors, the stark white of the field dressing not far off his natural colour. Dark blond hair cut short. Possibly so that no one could grab hold of it in a fight. Pale blue eyes that were full of anger and hate as he looked across at his visitors. If he hadn’t been restrained, she had no doubt that he would have tried to harm her, Frollo and Girard.
Frollo had already told her that neither this man nor the one in the room next door had carried any kind of ID. They had scanned negative for microchips. And they hadn’t said a word in the time since the tactical team had arrived.
Trying to ignore Frollo and Girard for the moment, Hallie took a pace forward and crouched down, so she was more or less eye level with the man.
“They tell me you’re not talking,” she said, in a conversational tone. “But I know you can talk. What about telling us your name?”
He just glared at her. There was a hint of something in his eyes that she didn’t recognise. Not an emotion. More like a physical response that made his pupils small, even in the shadowed room. Possibly drugs, although she was confident that Frollo would have told her if Modron had dosed their captives with anything that might slow their responses. She didn’t know enough about medicine to know if a head injury would gave that odd response in his eyes. As he seemed alert enough, she kept going.
“Alright. No name, then,” she said, still in that easy tone. If she could provoke some response from him, even non-verbal, she could use that. “What were you looking for in my room?”
He kept staring at her, and she realised he hadn’t blinked since she’d settled in front of him.
“I don’t think you’d fit into my clothes.”
There. That got a response. A twitch of his mouth. Disgust. So he was listening and aware. She could use that.
“You and your friends didn’t just decide to visit in the night and start shooting up the place,” she went on. “Someone told you to come here.”
For the first time, he looked away. Confirmation, as far as she was concerned.
“And you weren’t in charge, were you? Because you were upstairs searching the bedrooms while your friends were downstairs where all the action was.”
Another twitch. This time his jaw tightened. Frustration, she thought. Angry that he hadn’t been given a more important assignment. It was a young man’s response to having his worth questioned.
“So, they didn’t trust you with the important stuff. What happened? Did you drop your gun in training? Shoot one of your friends?” Hallie had managed not to do either of those things,but she’d heard both stories from Commander Rojas in her own weapons training.
The young man looked across at her, and his mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but no sound came out. There was a brief expression of confusion on his face, then he clamped his jaw shut again. Hallie noted sweat beading on his forehead as he looked like he was struggling with some internal conflict.
“Can’t speak, huh?” She watched his response, then got to her feet and took a step back, making sure she was safely out of the way before she turned to Frollo and Girard. “Outside.”
They followed her out of the room without commenting, then both looked at her.
“You almost got him talking, ma’am. That’s more than we managed,” Frollo said.
“I think he’s been given something. Some drug. Did you see his eyes? Pupils were tiny and he was barely blinking. I think he wanted to speak, probably to swear at me, but he couldn’t,” Hallie said.
“Did Modron draw blood from them?” Girard asked Frollo.
“No. She just treated the wound,” Frollo said, frowning.
“If he’s still showing symptoms, it’s still in his system,” Girard said. “We don’t have the facilities here, but Degan and Isoud should be able to identify whatever he’s taken.” Leodegan, or Degan to his friends like Girard, was the investigators’ medical examiner and as competent at his job as Isoud, the head of the forensic team. If anyone could work out what the drug was, it was those two.
“Or been given,” Hallie added, remembering the frustration on the captive’s face as he’d tried to speak and found that he couldn’t.
