Breathing Space (Ellis McFadden Mysteries #1)

Chapter 14

A ll I knew was that Harry had disappeared from sight. I didn’t know if he was still in the living area of Andrew’s apartment or in one of the other rooms. “Harry, where are you?”

No response. Now he decided to be quiet. I looked behind the couch, but he wasn’t there. I crouched down to look under it. Nothing but an extra leaf for Andrew’s small dining table, which I doubted he’d ever used, based on the thin layer of pale dust covering the closest edge. I checked behind the chair beside the couch. Still no sign of that naughty creature.

I stood up and frowned. “Come on out, Harry. I’m not mad, but we need to go. This isn’t our place. We aren’t supposed to be here.”

He had to be in either the bedroom or the office area, provided that these quarters mimicked mine, which I assumed they did. Most of the residential spaces were duplicates of each other. Hazel had more square footage that included a conference room, but then she was the vice-admiral.

“ Hieronymus .” Still nothing. I went into the bedroom. It smelled faintly of something a little floral. Maybe the aftershave Andrew had used. The bed was made, but the linens were rumpled as though someone had jumped up and down on the bed. Or, I supposed, where someone had been found deceased. Was this where his body had been discovered? I didn’t know for sure, but there were no signs of blood or any other bodily fluids. Thankfully.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” I whispered. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Harry remained hidden. If I had to search for him, I was going to make the most of it. I’d never been one to let an opportunity pass me by. I pulled the bandanna out of my hair, untied it and shook it out, then used it to open the drawers of the nightstand and the ones under the bed so that I wouldn’t leave fingerprints.

Again, with the bandanna wrapped around my fingers, I lifted the clothing and other odds and ends in the drawers to see what I could find. I did not enjoy touching Andrew’s things. Especially his underwear.

Nothing but clothes in the drawers, except for the nightstand. That held a couple of tattered old textbooks, a tube of muscle ointment, a vial of massage oil (yuck), a sleep mask, earplugs, a field guide to the known biology of the planet Kem, and a pad of paper with a chewed pencil next to it. Nothing I could use.

My luck finding Harry wasn’t much better. Not that I thought he was in those drawers. One of the pillows from the bed had been pushed off to the side so that it was touching the nightstand. I moved it back onto the bed to see between the frame and the nightstand.

A small piece of green straw or paper lay on the narrow strip of floor between the two pieces of furniture. I used the bandanna to pick it up. It wasn’t straw or paper. It was a semidried piece of stem with one crumpled leaf and part of a flower attached. It wasn’t flat, like it had been pressed. More like it had been dropped and forgotten about.

I couldn’t exactly stick it in my jacket pocket without the risk of it breaking, so I wrapped it carefully in a tissue plucked from the dispenser on Andrew’s nightstand and stuck the little package underneath the wide strap of my sports bra. I figured that would keep it flat against my skin and preserve it in one piece. Hopefully.

Still searching for Harry, I bypassed the bathroom, as the door was closed, and went into Andrew’s office, my bandanna at the ready. It was neat and tidy, but the walls were covered in plaques, certificates, diplomas, and various awards he’d won. A shrine to himself, much like his foyer. “Harry?”

A little trill alerted me that he was in there, then I heard something skitter across the hard flooring.

“ Harry . Get over here right now.”

Another trill. Why wasn’t he talking? Sounded like he was on the other side of the desk. I went around to look for him and found him underneath it, playing with something. “Come on, you silly thing, we have to go.”

“Look, Mum. I have a new toy. It’s shiny.”

“That’s not a toy, it’s a…” I had no idea what it was. I should have turned the light on. I stuck my bandanna in my pocket and picked up the two-inch-long slender object he’d been swatting at. I held it up and sucked in a breath. In the light, I knew exactly what the slim metal object in my fingers was.

A pin drive. They were capable of holding incredible amounts of data.

I put it in my pocket, grabbed Harry, and made for the front door. “You need to learn to listen better, baby. When I call you, you should come.”

Harry blinked at me, not a care in the world in those gold eyes of his. “Okay, Mum.”

I was pretty sure nothing I said had registered.

Frank gave me a look as I came out with Harry in my arms, ducking under the holobanner. “I was starting to think you weren’t coming back.”

I slanted my eyes at Harry. “Someone thought we were playing hide and seek. Sometimes I have a hard time believing he’s not a real cat.”

“They are programmed that way.” Frank slotted the plastic rectangle into the side of the keypad again, shut the door, then pulled out the rectangle and closed the keypad’s housing. We immediately headed for the elevators as a man came around the corner.

My heart pounded. Ten seconds sooner and we would have been discovered. That would not have been good. Frank gave the man a nod, and the man nodded in return. Standard guy stuff. I hoped nothing more would come of it.

Harry seemed fine with being held, but I was questioning my decision on going with the chunky model droid. Picking him up and putting him on the bed was one thing. Carrying him for an extended period of time was completely another. Maybe if I lifted him more frequently it would count as weight training. Sadly, there was no diet he could go on.

Once inside the elevator, I started to speak. “So, I found?—”

“We could go to my place if you want to talk. Or yours. Up to you.”

I squinted at Frank. He’d never interrupted me like that. And he kept looking at the ceiling. I got what he was intimating. But did he really think we were being listened to? I wasn’t so sure that was true, but then again, anything was possible. “My place. If that’s all right with you.”

“Fine.”

We stayed quiet until we were in my quarters and the door had closed. I set Harry on the floor and turned to Frank. “You really think it was dangerous to talk in the elevator?”

“Public area. They have the right to surveil it, and they do.”

“You sure about that?”

He exhaled. “I’ve seen the equipment.”

“All righty then.”

“It serves a valuable purpose, but in your case, better not to say anything you wouldn’t want the ASF to use against you.”

I blew out a breath. “I had no idea.” You’d have thought Hazel would have mentioned such a thing. She was going to get an earful next time we talked in person. Then I wondered if she knew. She had to. Didn’t she?

“So you found something at Andrew’s?”

“Yeah, I did.” I reached into my T-shirt and pulled out the tissue-wrapped plant matter I’d tucked under the strap of my sports bra. I carefully unfolded the tissue, pleased to see the plant still in one piece. “This. And…” I took the pin drive from my jacket pocket. “This.”

“Don’t know about that little bit of plant, but that’s a pin drive. Which I’m sure you know.” Frank’s brows arched. “That could be interesting.”

I nodded. “I think so, too. But I don’t think I should use my computer to read it. Just in case there’s something bad on there.”

“You think Andrew could have put a virus-lock on there?”

“I don’t know. Anything’s possible. Who knows what’s on it?” I turned it over in my fingers. “This could be the thing someone killed him for.”

Frank pursed his lips. “Or it could just be his research.”

“Which might be what got him into trouble. We can’t exclude anything at this stage.”

“True.”

I looked at the dried-up piece of plant lying on the tissue. “Any thoughts about this?”

Frank shook his head. “Circuits, gears, code, I’m your guy. Can’t help you with plants, I’m afraid. You want me to open that pin drive for you? We’ve got a computer in the mech center designed to handle potentially infected boards and drives. It’s a virus killer.”

“Can you do it without anyone else seeing what you’re up to?”

“If I go in early. I’ll open it, and so long as it’s clean, I’ll upload it to my private bubble and send you the link.”

“Okay, that would be great.” I handed him the pin drive, which he put into the pocket of his track pants, then I wrapped the plant back up and tucked it away again. “And I’ll see if I can identify the plant tomorrow. The library’s got all kinds of resources. I’ll just need to photograph it and run it through an image search.”

“You still going to try to talk to Sarah Fenchurch?”

“Yes, definitely. Will you have time for Vivak tomorrow?”

“I should be able to make it work. Which reminds me—dinner at Luna’s tomorrow night? I have a reservation at seven. We can share what we find.”

I smiled. “All right. It’s a date.” I stopped smiling. Was it a date? Maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t want to assume, even though we had sort of talked about it being one. I was so out of practice with this stuff. “I mean, it’s a date for dinner.”

He grinned. “Is it all right if it’s an actual date? You good with that?”

“Yeah,” I said, my smile returning as a curious lightness bloomed inside me. “I am.”

He gave a small nod. “I should get going then.”

“Okay. Thanks for walking with me.”

“I enjoyed it. Maybe we can do it again sometime.”

“I’d like that.”

He paused, his gaze shifting to my mouth.

Was he thinking about kissing me? Did he want to? I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but I sort of wanted to know. Couldn’t hurt to reassure him that I was okay with it. “Are you going to kiss me good night?”

“That be all right with you?”

“Yes,” I breathed out.

To prove it, I took a step toward him. He leaned in and kissed me. Nothing fancy, just an old-school press of his lips to mine. Firm, intentional, and sweet. His lips were warm, soft, and pliant. I might have let out a tiny sigh.

When we broke apart, we were both smiling. Harry nudged his way between us, his chunky figure rubbing against my legs as well as Frank’s.

Frank wore an easy smile that suggested the kiss had met his satisfaction. “See you tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow,” I managed as I tried not to melt. I watched him leave. And then stared at the door for at least a full minute after it had closed.

I looked at Ned’s urn, sitting in the small wall niche in the foyer. “Been a while since that’s happened. Don’t be jealous. He’s a good guy. I think you’d like him.”