Titan Song Dan Stout (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

“What is it? That’s too small for candy. Is it a book? She likes books.”

“I know she likes books, Carter.”

“So what is it?”

He stepped into the elevator, and I moved to follow.

“Carter?”

“Yeah?”

“You forgot your keys.”

My hands flew to my pockets, patting them down as I swore and stepped back toward our shared desks. Then I froze. “Wait. Didn’t I give them to the garage attendant?”

I turned back and caught the briefest glimpse of Jax’s face, all big eyes and innocence as the elevator doors closed between us.

Really, he wasn’t a bad match for Talena.

Suddenly finding myself alone, I pressed the call button once more. I was tired of reacting. Getting to root causes sometimes requires shaking the tree. That was why I had a visit to make. And I never keep an ambassador waiting.

27

PAULUS HAD PREDATOR’S EYES.

Half-shut and seemingly indifferent, she was in fact watching my every move. She reminded me of nature shows where big cats circled their prey, searching for ways to separate the weak and weary from the herd. Paulus was the kind of predator who took great delight in the kill. I’d seen firsthand how her eyes stretched wide to take in every agonizing moment of her victim’s final struggles when she thought she’d won.

Standing in front of her cell, I couldn’t help but doubt whether the bars could hold her, if the manna in her tattoos would allow her to bend steel like butter, and walk through the halls as her own personal ice storm: cold, deadly, and howling with rage.

But the ambassador seemed content to stay where she was.

“Detective,” she said, angling her head, a caged hawk curious about her visitor. “Forgive me if I don’t stand.” She remained seated on the bunk, its simple mattress and thin blanket a far cry from the luxury of her mansion in the hills.

I settled into a cross-armed stance, feet wide, directly in front of the door to her cell. It was a path she’d soon have to cross one way or another, whether it led to freedom or a trip to the high walls of Sequendin prison.

“That shade suits you,” I said. Paulus wore a light blue jumpsuit, the color given to prisoners classified as special confinement, typically a mix of celebrities and snitches at risk of assault.

I pursed my lips and tapped my chin, the way I’d seen some of my more pompous teachers do, right before I slept through their lectures. “What’s interesting is the way the AFS supports the—”

“Honestly, Detective, I doubt you’ve ever said an interesting thing in your life.” She crossed her ankles and traced a finger over the rough fabric of her jail-house blanket. Paulus regularly wore her hair cut short, and she’d apparently been allowed to shower since her incarceration, leaving it flat and damp across her scalp. “Have you merely come to gloat, or . . .” She tilted her head once more, looking at me from a different angle. “No. You have something to say, don’t you? Take your time. I know it can be awfully difficult for you to process your thoughts.”

In the different times I’d tangled with Paulus, one of the most effective ways I’d found to get under her skin was to drag out the conversation, to take too long and drift onto too many tangents. The busy political operative with a high opinion of herself would always grate at the sense that her time was being wasted. Now, the script had been flipped. She had more time than she knew what to do with, and she was dedicating her full attention to me.

“Not much time to chat,” I said. “I’m on my way to visit another prisoner. I’ve simply slowed in the middle of my walk.”

Her eyes narrowed, and flicked down the hall. No guards were visible. Just like the special-treatment blue pajamas she was wearing, the cell she sat in was special as well. Set aside from the general population, close enough for the guards to observe, but far enough that it was out of earshot; they didn’t have to listen to the occupants complain. She wouldn’t be kept there long. Not long at all. But there was time enough for a chat.

Paulus tugged on her lower lip, eyes on the vacant space beside me, where an escort would normally be standing.

“So this isn’t an official visit?” she said.

“We’re not in a visitation room,” I pointed out. “No lawyers, no supervisor watching from another room. No tape recorder.” I paused, letting that sink in. There would be no record of whatever we said here.

I scratched my chin, hand muffling my words and obscuring my lips from anyone who happened to be watching. “I was wondering if you’re going to fight this thing or just do the jail time.”

“Do I strike you as someone who wouldn’t put up a fight?”

“You didn’t resist arrest.”

“There’s a difference between surrender and knowing when to strike.”

I thought that over. “Do you know what you’re charged with?”

“Something asinine about the sinkhole, a natural disaster that I neither caused nor profit from. You already made your clumsy inquiry about Tanis Klein, and I’ve heard rumors about a dead body with no name. As if the streets weren’t full of them.”

“What you don’t know could fill that sinkhole back up. The girl with no name is the real threat.”

“Oh?”

“Because I recognized her,” I said. “She looks like you. And Gellica.”

Paulus was silent, but the blanket under her hand bunched together as she squeezed it. Rage or fear, it didn’t matter. The reaction told me I was right.

“Sooner or later,” I said, “someone is going to put it together, and search your home. Far more thoroughly than if they’re just looking for embarrassing documents or illegal substances. If they know you have . . . Well, I don’t know what you have down there. But I know what it produced. Who it produced. And I somehow don’t think that’ll sit well with the public, or the AFS Council.” I shrugged. I’d