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

I focused on that wording. Whale song? Whales had been extinct for a century so who the Hells made comparisons to whales?

Serrow.

I blinked, then blurted out, “You keep saying ‘she’ but correcting yourself, she—Paulus.”

Vandie stared at me, blank-faced. Auberjois turned in my direction, mandibles twitching with irritation. It was possible I’d interrupted him when I asked my question. Then again, my question was more important.

“I was trying to be clear. For the record,” said Vandie.

“You were trying to correct yourself. Because I know exactly one sorcerer who rambles on with some fairy tale about singing whales.” I stepped closer to the table. “You didn’t mean Paulus when you said ‘she this’ or ‘she that.’ You meant Serrow. Because that’s who really helped you, isn’t it?”

Even before I’d finished my question, Auberjois was speaking over me.

“Carter, you’re done here.”

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “I don’t need anyone covering Paulus’s backside during my investigation. You’re done. Show yourself out.”

I turned to Vig, hands spread, appealing the decision. He only shrugged. It wasn’t worth going to the mat with a captain. I recognized the tension around me. Everyone was ready to roll out to that festival and tear it apart looking for whatever could cause another sinkhole. Despite the fact that there were no geo-vents on the ice plains. Despite the fact that the site was outside our jurisdiction. Despite the fact that all we had to go on was the word of a woman who was already facing a stint behind bars. Everyone else in that room would believe her story. Cops want to be heroes. We don’t always live up to that standard, but it’s how we see ourselves. And Vandie was playing into it, offering us a chance to save tens of thousands of lives in a single go. Who wouldn’t want to believe that?

Only a broken cop who wouldn’t trust the word of a killer.

I could only hope I wasn’t the only broken cop in the building.

37

AN HOUR LATER I STOOD in Auberjois’s office, a relatively sparse room with a desk, two chairs for guests, and a side table. Auberjois sat at the desk, Bryyh and Guyer were in the chairs. Ajax and I stood closer to the door, waiting for our superiors to come to some kind of group decision.

Auberjois was shredding an envelope into thin strips, the repetitive rips underscoring his words. “We’ve got to bring in everyone on this. This is too big for just us.”

Bryyh sighed. “It’s outside the city’s jurisdiction. We don’t have any standing to go out there and disperse people and search for—I don’t even know what’d we’d be searching for. We’ve got to be invited, or it’ll play as a violation of their rights and federal law. And that’s all the justification the feds need to keep the manna strike under their control.”

I coughed. It wasn’t going to make me look good, but it was time to reveal my earlier strategy for justifying access. “Well, if there have been complaints from citizens—”

The door flew open and a woman in a tuxedo entered, closing it behind her with a frame-rattling thud. “I understand you have something for me?”

Auberjois blinked. “Who the Hells are you?”

The newcomer grinned, causing the glitter on her cheeks to sparkle. “I’m the person who knows that you’re a baby captain with zero job security trying to punch above your weight class.” She bent toward Auberjois, hands on hips, chin jutting out. “And I’m the woman who canceled a night at the opera to come down and mop up the mess you left when you shit the bed on this one.”

Bryyh leaned back in her chair and folded her hands over her stomach. “This is Assistant City Attorney Doyle,” she told Auberjois, then glanced at Guyer, Jax, and me. “You three are excused.”

I wasn’t familiar with this Doyle person, but from Bryyh’s reaction, we were about to witness a controlled burn.

Auberjois seemed slower on the pickup. “Flifex was in the loop on the entire Paulus operation. He’s working point on—”

“He was,” said Doyle, “and then you convinced him to make the worst decision of his possibly abbreviated career. So Flifex was in the loop, and now he most decidedly is not.” She turned on a heel and surveyed the room, as if measuring the drapes. “You are not to speak to him again. Going forward, all ARC Division contact with the City Attorney’s Office will be through me.”

“I don’t understand what’s so complicated,” I said. Bryyh covered her eyes. “We’ve got Vandie on the geo-vent tampering. She’s also selling us an obvious distraction about a threat to the festival and covering for her accomplice.” I took a step toward the center of the room. “Serrow murdered Taran Glouchester, a reporter for The Titanshade Union Record. The reporter’s partner tells me they were working on a big story involving Barekusu funneling cash to radical groups. Honestly, I have no idea why we’re still talking instead of finding handcuffs big enough to slap on a Barekusu.”

Doyle’s dark purple lipstick made the sneer she gave me even more effective. “Can you imagine something more disastrous than arresting an ambassador?”

I shifted my feet, knowing where this was going.

“Not enough imagination? How about arresting both an ambassador and a beloved religious figure for the same crime. Maybe tomorrow you can bust some orphans who held an unlicensed bake sale to pay for their teacher’s heart medicine. Because that would have a better chance of going on to conviction than this paranoid Barekusu theory.”

“Stop!” Bryyh didn’t stand, but her voice was sharp and decisive. “My detectives do good work. What you do with the charges is your business, but you won’t speak to them like that again.” She kicked Guyer’s now-vacant seat toward the ACA. “Sit down, Irene, and let’s talk this through.” They locked eyes, and the rest of us let ourselves out.

Once we were in the