Chapter Twenty-Four #2
She recognized him, too? Ruyn narrowed his eyes. Where have I seen him?
“Let’s get to my questions, shall we?”
* * * *
Typical, she thought. Government operated the same everywhere. Information equated to power, so government flunkies clung to it, relinquishing as little as possible and only when they had to.
If they hadn’t met him before, he would have said so. Instead, he’d ignored the question.
Supposedly, the agent had come to help, but she couldn’t deal with institutional arrogance right now.
It took every ounce of willpower to hold herself together and not succumb to despair.
It wouldn’t take much to trigger a wailing, sobbing breakdown.
She never, ever expected something like this.
Ruyn was envisioning ending their relationship!
Her worst-case scenario had been having to return to Earth prematurely—not losing him.
They had to stick together. If they couldn’t have sex for a little while, so be it. Abstinence never killed anyone. That he would give up so easily shocked her and caused her to question the depth of his love and commitment.
If you couldn’t endure through the tough times, then you weren’t truly in love.
That was why couples getting married vowed to stay together for better and for worse. “Worse” didn’t mean a slight inconvenience. Worse sometimes meant really, really bad.
This was really, really bad.
Good thing we’re getting the worst out of the way now.
I wish.
There was no guarantee the specialists on Oberia could find a cure. It was never reassuring to have a doctor say, “gee, we’ve never encountered this before.”
Ruyn had experienced more than his share of hardship and suffering—the attack, the end of his military career, his brother’s shenanigans, and her going into anaphylactic shock not once, not twice, but three times.
Now, he’d been hit with more life-altering bad news.
His fear, panic, and pessimism were understandable.
That was why, despite her own fear, she intended to hang on. She would have to be strong enough for both of them. Where there was a will, there was a way, and she refused to give up. She would stand by him and see this through to wherever it might lead.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked. The agent had been speaking.
“I asked how long you’ve been frequenting Mama Murta’s Café.”
“I’ve been eating there for about three weeks.
” She hadn’t doubted that Murta was an alien cartel member, not really, but she had nurtured a tiny kernel of hope that Korsan had been blowing smoke up her ass.
But with Tervik’s indirect confirmation came the realization that they had stumbled into some serious shit.
The attack on Ruyn, her intruder, and Mama added up to too many cartel encounters to be a coincidence. She didn’t understand how or why yet, but the encounters were connected.
“How about you?” Tervik addressed Ruyn.
“I started eating at the café when I came home on leave a little over a year ago. Then I stopped going for a while. I resumed maybe a month before Michaela arrived.”
“Why did you stop?”
“I got attacked and was injured. I didn’t go anywhere for a long time.”
The agent nodded, and it hit her he’d asked questions he’d already known the answers to. He’s testing us. And she figured out where she’d seen him. “You’ve been eating at Mama Murta’s Café, too!” He was a regular customer.
“That’s where I know you from! I thought you looked familiar!” Ruyn said.
“Murta has been under investigation for some time,” Tervik admitted. “How long have you known she’s Prellim?”
“How long have you known?” she countered.
If she’d said she’d found out forty-five minutes ago, he’d ask how.
That would lead to Korsan. Aware of the galactic stakes, she wished to cooperate with the investigation to the fullest extent she could without throwing him under the bus.
It might come to that, but shouldn’t they at least talk to him before pointing law enforcement in his direction? He was Ruyn’s brother. His only kin.
“Since before she opened the café.” Tervik surprised her with the admission.
“That long?” Ruyn said. “Then…you knew she was Prellim while she was defense minister?”
The agent nodded. “Near the end of her service, we began to suspect, but we couldn’t prove it.
One can’t accuse the esteemed minister of defense with an exemplary record of military service of being a member of a galactic crime syndicate without proof.
” He shrugged. “Until she poisoned you, we had nothing we could tie to her, no cause to arrest her, no reason to bring her in for questioning. We could only watch and wait.
“It’s still only circumstantial that she did poison you. Her defense could argue you got poisoned on Elyxis 4. Any information directly tying her to the poisoning or another crime or that proves she’s a Prellim will allow us to arrest her.”
The only “proof” they had that Murta was Prellim was Korsan’s say-so. But did he have any evidence? Or had he repeated what someone else had told him?
She hesitated. Should they mention the doctor said the antigen had been sexually transmitted?
Was their private, personal sexual activity relevant?
“We, uh, didn’t become aware something was wrong until Elyxis 4, but we’d had a meal from the café two nights prior.
We picked up a dinner box the night of the big solar flare.
” She lifted her shoulders. “We don’t have any direct evidence of criminal activity.
We ate Murta’s food, and, some hours later, I went into anaphylactic shock.
But I didn’t have an allergic reaction every time.
Dr. Kurur says Ruyn was infected with a nanocyte that produces an antigen, which he passed on to me. ” She spread her hands.
“That’s everything we know,” Ruyn seconded.
“One coincidence is a random accident. Several? There’s a correlation.”
Something about his tone made her wary. “Are you referring to something specific to this case?”
“Galpol is aware that you, Ruyn, were attacked by Prellims, and that a Prellim broke into your apartment, Michaela. You have been frequenting a restaurant owned and operated by a cartel member who likely poisoned you. Those cannot be isolated incidents. No one else on Luturna has been targeted or attacked by cartel members—let alone several times as you two have. That’s not a coincidence. ”
She didn’t like what he was implying.
“The Prellim are excellent at what they do. There are no near misses. If they want you dead, you’re dead. So, how did you two manage to survive three Prellim attacks?”
“We didn’t exactly survive unscathed!” she said. “Ruyn was critically injured; he could have died.”
“But he didn’t.”
“He got infected with a nanocyte that may affect him for the rest of his life! I went into anaphylactic shock. I almost died!”
“But you didn’t.”
“Actually, she did,” Ruyn said. “Her breathing and heartbeat had stopped. If I hadn’t found her in time to perform CPR and give her an injection, she wouldn’t be here.”
As if they hadn’t spoken, Tervik continued, “You knew Murta is Prellim, but you continued to frequent her café.”
“We didn’t know she was Prellim!” she said.
“Didn’t you?”
“No, we didn’t,” Ruyn said.
“What exactly are you implying?” Michaela demanded.
Agent Tervik leaned back and regarded them for a long moment. “Here’s what I think. You two have been working with the Prellim Cartel but ran afoul of Murta, and those attacks on you were warning shots.”