Hallie couldn’t suppress a shiver. At the time she had first met Girard, when she’d been under suspicion of killing one of the elite - Bohort Jacobs, the elder son of the powerful Jacobs family - she had been captured byhochlenhouse security. They had been well-trained, disciplined and, from her perspective, terrifying.
“They weren’t as good as the Jacobs’ family team,” she observed. The head of that family’s security, Raff, had been quite willing and prepared to torture her for information. And she was quite sure that if Raff had sent a team after her and Girard, with orders to kill, then she and Girard would even now be lying with Oreste and Kasmo in the mortuary.
“No. But few teams are,” Girard said. “Most of the Conclave member households and some of the oldest families, like the Jacobs, have that level of training and discipline, but it’s not common.”
“Good to know,” Hallie said. She couldn’t help but wonder just how he knew so much abouthochlenfamily security teams, and also just where he would rank his own family’s agents. She had met his father, Verain Abbott, once, and had a feeling thatnothing less than excellence would be tolerated in the Abbott household.
“The attackers you found were all human,” Peredur said. It was a statement of fact, not an argument.
“Buthochlendo recruitkarlenfrom time to time,” Hallie said, thinking back. The team that had, in fact, killed the eldest Jacobs son had been human, recruited by a cousin in the family tree with ambitions to move up the line of succession. Then she straightened, a chill running over her, and stared across the table at Girard.Karlendidn’t have house security. Not in the same way ashochlendid. “Does that mean you think thathochlenare behind this?”
“Not necessarily. I’m just saying what I noticed,” Girard said. He turned to Peredur. “What do you think, sir?”
“I honestly don’t know,” the director answered, and Hallie could see the weight of the investigation and the pressure he was under. “We’ve been trying to keep an open mind. The kind of explosive materials that were used are heavily restricted and we’ve been trying to work out how anyone other thanhochlencould have got their hands on it. But if there’shochleninvolvement, well, that changes things.”
“We can’t be sure,” Girard pointed out. “I just observed that the attackers reminded me of household security, not that they actually were. We do know that some wealthy human families in other places have family teams.”
“That is true,” Peredur said, sounding both exhausted and not entirely convinced.
“They wouldn’t be from Daydawn, though,” Hallie added. “The restrictions on weapons outside high city mean that no one in midtown or low city will have the necessary training. The family vines do have what I’d call enforcers, but they are more like individual bullies going after unpaid dues rather than what you might call a team, or a security force.”
“There may not be a Daydawn connection,” Peredur said, “or not a strong one, anyway. The bombs were almost certainly put on the ships a long way from here and detonated remotely.”
Hallie looked at the walls of images and information and sat back, cradling her coffee mug as she let that turn in her mind for a bit.
“Let’s see if I’ve got this right. The papers we found mean that the attackers in Minamaan were connected somehow to the port bombings. And yet, Girard and I weren’t after the port bombers. We were after Findo Trask. It doesn’t seem possible that while we were hunting Findo and picked up Manju Nayak, as his local contact, the attackers suddenly decided to come after him and us. So we think there had to be some connection between Findo and the port bombings?” Hallie was glad she was sitting down as she worked it through.
“That’s the current thinking, yes,” Peredur agreed.
“And, as of right now, we have no good leads on Findo Trask,” Hallie said, and heard the frustration in her voice. Her fingers tightened around the mug in her hands. She didn’t like just sitting around and talking. She wanted to be up and moving, working her way through the streets and talking to people, narrowing her search. But she didn’t know where to start. Except maybe she did. “Oh, no, wait, we do have one more thing to follow up.” In everything that had happened, she’d forgotten the message from Rosalia. “We have a lead on the forger in Daydawn who makes fake IDs. I’m not sure it’s going to lead us straight to Findo, but the forger seems like the sort of person Findo would associate with.”
“This is news to me,” Peredur said, but he didn’t sound angry. He leant forward, eyes brighter as he looked at Hallie. “A solid lead?”
“I believe so, sir, yes. It’s from a reliable source. I’m sorry, I got the message just before we were attacked and kind of forgot about it until just now,” Hallie said.
Peredur waved her apology away. “I was going to get you and Girard to review the materials, get some fresh eyes on what we’ve gathered so far, but following up on the forger takes priority. Do you need backup?”
“Ah, I don’t know,” Hallie said, thinking back to the information that Rosalia had provided her. She pulled out her phone and noted the local time. It was later than she’d realised, still disoriented from the journey. “I think, if it’s alright with you, we should pay a visit first thing in the morning. The forger operates a cover business with normal business hours, so going in during the day may take her unaware.”
“Good plan. And it will give the medics some time to work on Girard, too,” Peredur said, glancing across the table to where Girard was slightly slumped in his chair. “Go report to the medical team. That’s an order.”
“Sir,” Girard said, with a rueful smile. He looked at Hallie. “Text me the time and address to meet you tomorrow.”
“I will, thanks,” Hallie said, and watched as Girard pulled himself out of the chair and headed out of the room. He was moving far more slowly than normal, and slightly hunched over. Even with the extra strength and faster healing of beinghochlen, he’d been through a lot in the past few days.
“The medics will put him back together,” Peredur said, as if reading the concern on her face. “I’ll have someone drive you home.”
“Thank you, that would be great. Do you mind if I take a look at the boards here before I go? You’ve done a lot of work.”
“Not at all,” Peredur said. He started to speak, then shook his head. “I was going to offer to talk you through it, but actually Ido want your own view on this, not coloured by what I think or believe.”
“Alright,” Hallie said. She put her coffee down and stood up, making her way to one end of the wall.
By the time she was halfway along the stretch of photographs and notes she was impressed again by the thoroughness and attention to detail that Peredur and his team had applied to the investigation they had undertaken. She had known that the director and other investigators had been working on the matter for some time, and the more she looked at the boards they had set up, the more clearly she could follow their line of thinking.
About halfway along the wall she spotted something so out of place it made her laugh.
“What is it?” Peredur asked. He’d stayed seated, working on his own tablet and drinking more coffee, while she studied.
