Spectre of Intention Read online

  Watching your contract, your careers, and your lives go up in flames.

  Not if I can help it.

  Besides Cam, Davina, and Arlen, the Port’s security team consisted of only ten other men and women. Cam gave them a brief and very official sounding description of the incident under investigation. Then it was my turn.

  “As soon as we have got all of you in the system, we will need your help accounting for everyone aboard the ship. Each of you will report to a muster station and oversee the scanning of each passenger’s mass transit card just as if this were a real muster drill. We must have an exact record of each person in attendance.”

  Cam stepped forward.

  “This is critical. If even one person is missing, we will have to cover the entire ship until that person is located.”

  The group nodded. Out of thirteen people, only one single person didn’t exude an attitude of serious attention and focus: Davina. Ignoring her beating fear, all the tiny little expressions and gestures of deception leakage that betrayed her, took too much of my focus. I had to get her out of here. I continued my little speech.

  “Once you have accounted for everyone at your station, bring them directly here. Here, some of you will be responsible for recording the release of each person through your door. Others will be escorts either to the interview room or out of the banquet hall area. You will receive your assignments and equipment from Cam after we complete your check-in process.”

  I lifted my workpad and walked down to the end of the group.

  “Please be aware that being selected for an interview is not an implication of guilt.” I shot all those serious faces a big grin. “It just means Paula’s getting lonesome in that interview room.”

  Behind me, Gerard and Jessie stood ready as escorts. Cam left to join them. If I didn’t hurry this process along, we wouldn’t be interviewing Davina, we would be carting her off to the infirmary. Stephan had said she’d backed out. Now I knew why: she didn’t have the nerves for this business. The idea of committing a crime was a far different thing from committing one. I should know.

  Dmitri stood at attention at the front of the line.

  “He’s clean as far as I can see,” Paula told me through the earpiece.

  I shared her opinion. He was also big, strong, and ex-military. I marked him off my checklist.

  “Dmitri, could you walk with me, please?”

  We crossed the room together to where Jessie stood. Dmitri began to grow uneasy. And I felt guilty, considering how much kindness he’d shown to me in the past.

  I kept my voice low and stepped in tight with Jessie.

  “Dmitri, once you finish your interview, I would like you to stay with my girl.” I looked to Jessie. “There’s going to be a problem.”

  Despite the flash of concern they hit me with, both men kept their faces blank and simply nodded. I returned to the group as they stepped out into the hall. Behind me, I felt Cam move to cover Jessie’s door. A couple more officers, then onto the managers.

  “Heather Black? Please walk with me.”

  I took her to Gerard, rubbed the button on my right sleeve. No interview.

  Next. Oh, good, the guard with the anger management issues from the observation deck. And yes, he was realizing he recognized me.

  “Frode Halvorsen?”

  “Ma’am.”

  “You remember me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Are we going to have any problems working together?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Not so tough when he wasn’t the one in power—and that wasn’t a good sign, because I could feel that singe of anger even under the fear and embarrassment. But I sent him to Gerard. We could deal with personnel issues later.

  I stepped over to Arlen. Next to him Davina’s intention flickered into visibility. She wanted to puke. Alright, enough of this.

  “Davina, could you come with me?”

  She couldn’t even open her mouth to talk. She just nodded.

  I walked her over to Cam. I tapped my button camera, warning Paula to get ready. Cam stared at me. He didn’t like this. If Paula was my girl, then Davina was his. They’d worked together nearly as long. In the elevator my prediction had been odd, funny even. Now it was real with real consequences. He kept his expression light for Davina, but his schooled emotions couldn’t hide a quiet background of anger, defiance.

  He turned, held his elbow out for her, a silly, gallant gesture. A gesture of support. Davina put her hand through his arm. Her intention lost just enough potency to flicker out.

  It occurred to me that I was getting used to these glimpses of incarnations. Either Stephan was nearby somewhere or sharing my mind with him had tripped something in my brain that had been dormant before. It felt more like the latter. I didn’t know if I should be worried.

  Once Cam and Davina cleared the room, I ducked my head behind my hair.

  “Anyone else?”

  “No. You?”

  Gerard and I walked back to Arlen. Time to drop the pretense.

  “We’re done here. Gerard will take you all to the waiting room. Room service will be bringing sandwiches, sodas, coffee. It’s going to be a long night, so take advantage of it while you can.”

  A long, long night. Because I couldn’t falter for a second in my role as Kaitlin, or Ashley would have me putting Davina to shame.

  I waited until the room was empty. I dropped my head back, swung my hair out loose. I felt through myself, shook out any remaining vestiges of my old, damaged self. Prayed she wouldn’t have the chance to ambush me.

  Time to go run damage control.

  Paula opened the door for Cam, Davina, and I. I nodded to Dmitri where he stood at attention next to Paula’s desk. Cam led Davina to the booth. I led Cam to the observation room, closed the door behind him.

  Davina took one look at Dmitri and realized the whole exercise had been a set up. I grabbed the garbage can and shoved it at her. She used it.

  No, she didn’t have the nerves for this business. How the hell had she ever gotten into security in the first place?

  I slipped into the adjoining bathroom, came back with a wet cloth and a cup of water. Davina’s manicured hands shook as she wiped her face and rinsed out her mouth. She looked so pale and pathetic, I wanted to have sympathy for her, but all I could feel was anger. This was the woman who had tried to destroy my life. This was the woman who still might.

  I pulled a second chair to the desk, set my workpad on the table.

  “Here, use this file.”

  I sent Paula a montage of pictures I’d collected from Arlen’s surveillance cameras. Paula imported it into her interview file, then looked up.

  “Please step forward and place your hands on the outlines on the panel in front of you.”

  Davina did so, pressing hard enough her fingertips went white.

  “Please stand up straight and look at me. I am going to ask you a series of questions. I will know if you do not answer truthfully.”

  Paula began my little slide show on the screen in front of Davina as she worked through her control questions. The majority of the pictures were of random employees, guests on the ship. I caught a couple of brief spikes, nothing more than basic recognition.

  Beside me, Paula’s mood tensed as she moved into the real questioning. I leaned back into my chair and relaxed my body completely. And listened.

  “Were you aware of the attempted canister break-in prior to witnessing it with the tour group this morning?”

  “No.”

  Truth.

  “Were you aware of any plans to break into or in any other way sabotage the canisters?’

  “No.”

  Lie.

  “Did you knowingly assist in boarding the ship anyone who had the intention of breaking into or in any other way sabotaging the canisters?”

  “No.”

  Lie.

  A full blow-up of Mak’s face, features set in a cold rage as he watched me walk aw
ay.

  I jerked, gripped the arms of the chair as Davina’s fear shot out into the room like javelins of ice. Paula’s software registered the same reaction and she flipped the slide show back to his portrait.

  “You know this man?”

  “No.”

  Bullshit.

  I got up from my chair, circled the table. I tapped the image screen in front of Davina’s face.

  “This man attacked me in the food court with a knife.” I lifted my hair, pulled down my scarf so she could see the still-swollen wound beneath my ear. “He demanded that I give him the ship’s schematics. Do you know anything about that, Davina?”

  I heard a rumble of voices from the observation room. Behind me, Paula gave a little start. Davina stared at me and slowly, finally began to understand just how much deep shit she was really in. Amazingly, she finally marshaled her fear—as if resignation somehow gave her strength.

  “No.”

  I lifted the screen between us, so I could look her straight in the eye.

  “There are children on this ship, Davina,” I whispered. “There will be children in those canisters. Just how much murder are you willing to be responsible for?”

  Davina pulled back. The door to the observation room opened.

  “Dmitri, Gerard will assist you in getting Davina down to the brig.”

  No laughter danced in Cam’s eyes now. He was livid.

  A deafening horn sounded over the PA system. Seven short, one long: the call to muster stations. Cam had already given the captain his cue.

  He didn’t wait for the noise to fade but headed for the door. Before the door closed behind him, he caught it, turned back toward me. I couldn’t hear him, but I knew exactly what he was saying: We will talk.

  Of course, there was someone in line ahead of him.

  “A knife?!” Jessie shouted at me.

  I didn’t flinch, just looked him dead on.

  “What did you think it was? A hickey?”

  “What’s going on?” Paula asked quietly.

  “Kaitlin’s stalker is whole lot more violent than I was previously led to believe.”

  Paula pointed to her screen.

  “And this guy is your stalker?”

  I took a deep breath. No Ashley, no Ashley, no Ashley. Come on, you have to hold onto it.

  “One of them.”

  Jessie folded his arms and raised an eyebrow.

  “We will be looking for five men and one woman. I will signal you if I spot them. This one is going by the name of Maxwell McKinnis. I got the fingerprint off him. The rest of them, I have no idea.”

  Paula looked down at my workpad.

  “They are starting to scan the cards.”

  Jessie dropped his arms.

  “We need to get down and eat.”

  I nodded, started to lead the way to the door. Jessie walked over to me. I hesitated as he laid a hand on my shoulder.

  “You did good, Kaitlin. Hang in there a couple more hours; this will all be over.”

  I looked up at that weathered face, needing to believe every word. Because the longer we waited, the more I felt Ashley starting to win.

  If there had ever been a longer twenty minutes in my life, I couldn’t remember it. Ashley scrabbled frantically at every corner of my mind. She was truly inventive: I came face to face with Mak in the crowd. He slit my throat then and there. I collapsed in a pool of my own blood. Or…I never saw Stephan. He simply seized my mind from afar and walked me straight over the rail of the promenade. The fall snapped my neck, but I lived long enough to see the sharks tear my body apart chunk by chunk. Or…we sat around the table for the debrief and Cam announced that he knew his sister-in-law/ex-lover/long-lost stepsister, Davina, could never have perpetrated such a crime. But he knew who could: Ashley Porter, wanted for the 2042 shooting of Jemma Weir during a botched burglary in Seattle, Washington. The guards pulled me from my chair, hauled me to the cryogenics lab where they sealed me in a cryo-container. The stabbing cold finally shattered my screams.

  Ashley’s nightmares were endless and gruesome.

  Eyes closed, I sat with my head laid back on the obscenely uncomfortable couch we’d shoved out of the way. I listened to Paula and Jessie talk about a picture her son had sent her from his visit to the grandparents.

  “He actually got my dad out fishing again.”

  Jessie laughed quietly.

  “Having kids around is healthy. Keeps you from calcifying. Keeps you young.”

  “I have such a hard time believing you never had any kids.”

  “Just never seemed to work out. Someday. So, you grew up in Colorado then?”

  “Sort of. My dad was in the military.”

  “Really?”

  So simple, so sweet, the melody rolling off the pair of them. Just getting to know each other, just beginning to think about the possibilities. That beautiful sensation lulled me, lulled Ashley. And I hoped for them; I hoped for them to find something beautiful to ease their loneliness.

  Eventually, I heard a hand on the door handle. When I sat up, I was Kaitlin once more.

  Gerard and Cam walked in.

  “All stations have checked into the ballroom. It’s not a comfortable fit. I suggest we make this quick.”

  I got to my feet, grabbed my pad.

  “Have we got a list of people who didn’t report in?”

  “There are ten. Arlen will shoot us a list of those names.”

  I followed Gerard and Cam out the door and down to the banquet hall. We opened the doors and the cacophony hit me. Voices, minds, bodies writhing with worry. God! And then it hit me. From behind.

  Stephan tore his way into my brain, searching wildly. I stumbled, grabbed Gerard’s arm. He looked over at me. Quickly, I dropped my hand.

  Blank. I made my mind completely blank.

  Get out!

  And then he was gone. But not. Because then the room was full not just of panicking, nervous people, but their incarnate intentions as well.

  “Osgood, what the hell’s going on with you? We got work to do here.”

  Deep breath. You used to walk through life like this every day when you were with Stephan. You used to think it made you like some kind of secret goddess, a seer, an oracle. It used to make you feel powerful. Pull out your inner dumb kid. You can do this.

  And forget that somewhere in that seething mass of souls lurked a man who wanted my blood on his hands. I raised my workpad, pulled up the interface of the ship’s occupant database. But I couldn’t keep myself from compulsively scanning that crowd.

  “Where’s the critical personnel? I want to get them out of here as soon as possible.”

  Cam watched me like my face was some sort of complex geometry puzzle he was just on the cusp of solving. It was everything I could do to pretend I couldn’t see, couldn’t feel his intention reach out and grab me by the chin.

  “Everyone you requested is in the corner to your left with Arlen. I need to get up there and make the announcements.”

  Cam turned to go. I caught him by the sleeve.

  “We’re still missing ten people. If you have to do a sweep of the ship, can I still let them go?”

  “Yeah, I’ll need you to clear me a team of about sixty people or more. I’ll need at least half to have operations clearance. Have Arlen help you pick them out.”

  His intention slid its arm around my waist, kissed me deep and hard. I flushed as Cam turned around and walked away.

  I led Gerard in the opposite direction, ignoring him, trying to penetrate that crowd. But it was like trying to pick one voice out of two thousand. Despite Mak’s unnatural rage, the general anxiety and impatience was too much for me to sift through.

  We came to a stop in front of Arlen and I forced myself to focus on the task at hand. I couldn’t help but notice that Arlen didn’t find me quite so fuckable now that I’d gotten his comrade thrown in the brig. His real face still managed cheerfulness, but his intention watched me with wary eyes.

&
nbsp; Overhead, Cam’s voice brought the din down to a hush. He didn’t explain anything, just told them that a large number of people had missed check-in at their muster stations, so we now had to conduct a ship-wide search. And thank you for your patience.

  “We need to clear these people as quickly as possible. Then Cam wants a team of sixty or more for the sweep, half operations, half hospitality. Do you have the list of absentees yet?”

  Arlen checked his pad. “Here it is. Well, we can take it down to nine: Will is in Switzerland. He must not have checked out. This Fortunato is an infant. I’ll hunt down his mother. Maybe he doesn’t have a card yet.”

  Impatient, I held out my hand. “May I see?”

  Arlen spun it around for me. I scanned down the list.

  Maxwell McKinnis.

  Mak.

  Behind. Stephan had hit me from behind.

  Ah, shit.

  I turned to Gerard.

  “She warned them. Davina, she warned them.”

  Our tidy, discreet plan transformed into a blatant man hunt. The search party took precedence over the critical staff and the banquet hall was converted into a movie theater with promises of food on the way.

  Arlen and Cam split the search party between them. Cam walked with me and his group of forty to the waiting room we’d used for the security staff assignments.

  “We can either gossip about it or you can make a formal announcement,” I murmured.

  “They need to know what to expect.”

  “That’s probably best,” I agreed.

  As we entered the room, I fell back in the queue, leaving Cam to take the lead. He stepped up onto a chair to be heard. I’d never have guessed that that lively face could turn so implacable and grim. I thought back to Ashley’s little nightmare and my stomach clenched that much tighter.

  “We will be looking for at least five men and one woman. We know that at least one man is armed with a knife. Do not engage them. If you find them, contact me directly. J.C. is getting you each earpieces…”

  I stopped listening and braced myself to start wandering the crowd. The last time I’d walked a crowd with my senses so “on” I had been scrawny with ratty hair and a face younger than my years. I’d been Ashley. The face I wore now, the face Jessie and I had built, people tended to notice. And to pass through this crowd, I would pass near enough to feel the touch of each and every one of their intentions.