Dragon Justice. Laura Anne Gilman

of things I couldn’t do, before. We all were the type to really look at things, not just accept what was on the surface; that was why Stosser hired us in the first place, because we didn’t accept the first impression as truth. But two years of doing this day in and out had put us on another skill level entirely. The more you used, the more you could do. The thought of what we might be able to do five years from now…

      “Bonita?”

      Oh, hell. I brought myself back to the Starbucks, keeping the connection to the generator open, if narrowed, and looked to see who had approached me, who knew me well enough to use my name, but not so well to use the shorter version.

      “Andrea. I didn’t know you slummed in public coffeehouses.”

      The words were joking, the tone probably softer than I’d intended, because Andrea took it for an invite, sitting on the windowsill next to my table in lieu of an available chair.

      Five foot ten, short blond hair, eyes the color of the Aegean Sea, and teeth as white and straight as money could make them. Andrea was Eastern Council, running at the same levels as my mentor used to.

      Because of that, I was cautious about why she’d approached me. I doubted she was just happy to see a familiar face; we’d flirted a bit back when I was still living with J up in Boston, but she was in her thirties, and I’d been twenty, and nothing more than a few innuendos had been exchanged.

      And now…now I was a PUP and had to think about things like why someone wanted to get to know me, rather than just enjoying their company. Even the Council people who supported Stosser’s Great Experiment still saw us as tools for them to use rather than the impartial clearinghouse we were trying to become. So there was that.

      “I heard that you were living in the city now, but I didn’t think I’d run into you. I should have, of course. That’s how it works—you think this is a huge place, but it’s really such a small town.” She leaned forward, her blue silk blouse open just enough at the collar that I could see the swell of her breasts and the gold chain that dropped between them, and part of my brain kicked into a different gear. Apparently, being out of college meant I was fair game now.

      Huh. Andy was gorgeous, smart, ambitious, and potentially very useful to me, long-term, if I were going to think the way she did. And I was—modesty aside—smart, good-looking, and potentially very useful to her, both short- and long-term, if she had any ambitions in the Council, which I knew damn well she did. We would be, as the pundits like to say, a dream power couple.

      And the sex would probably be a lot of fun.

      There was just one damn problem. The Merge. Other than Pietr, who knew what the deal was and where he stood, all of my sexual relations for the past year had lasted two weeks, tops. Not that my sex drive had suddenly gone away—far from it. It had just… I need to be emotionally engaged with the person I’m sleeping with. Not love, but like-a-lot. And respect. And…

      And every time I touched someone else, I knew that it wasn’t enough. I wanted Venec. I wanted the spark-and-thump I got just touching him. Wanted to know if his eyes were as intense when he hit orgasm as they were when he was decoding an evidence tangle. Wanted…

      I wanted him out of my head, out of my groin, and the last lingering scent of him out of my core, because it was just the damn Merge, and I did not like being directed by anything, least of all some obscure, magical hand-of-fate.

      But I knew, by now, that he wasn’t going anywhere. And neither was I. It just… I wasn’t ready yet.

      Andy touched my hand, her fingers soft and firm and smelling like very expensive sin. “I have to get to a meeting—I’m already running late—but can I ping you later, maybe have dinner?”

      I didn’t want to encourage her if there was nothing happening—I’m a flirt, not a tease—but Andy could be useful. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t glad to have someone to exchange friendly innuendo with who knew the rules and wasn’t interested in a lifetime of devotion. And having a Council friend was never a bad thing, despite what my lonejack-raised coworkers believed.

      I tested my conscience and came back with a quick response. “Sure. Ping me.”

      I watched her leave, enjoying the view her knee-length pencil skirt gave me, then brought myself back to the business at hand. My core hadn’t quite topped off, but it was good enough. Time to get moving. Stosser would expect me to have something to report, come morning.

      Not an answer: even the Big Dog wasn’t that unreasonable. But a little girl was missing, and finding out who took her was my job. No fucking pressure, right.

      I had a number of contacts among the fatae, both through my mentor and my own social circles. Bobo, the Meshaden who acted as my occasional bodyguard and gossip-bringer. Danny, the half-faun P.I. who did side work for us occasionally and had connections into just about every shadowed corner of the city. Madame, the Ancient dragon who lived in a penthouse cave high above the cityscape and had her talon on the pulse of everything scandalous in the society world, human and otherwise. But even as I ticked off names in my head, I knew that if I wanted the most up-to-date details that other people wouldn’t want known, if time was of the essence and cost not really an object, there was one place to go and two people to talk to.

      For various interpretations of “people,” anyway.

      * * *

      I didn’t have the patience to deal with the stop-and-start motion of a cross-town bus, so I hailed a cab. Stosser would damn well approve the expense, even if we were doing this pro bono.

      Once upon a time, meeting up with The Wren had been a thing of awe—after all, she was The Retriever, at least in the States—the most talented (and Talented) of current-thieves. Then we’d become building-mates, and friends, and I almost stopped thinking of her in a professional manner.

      Almost. Not quite.

      The past year or so, we’d lived in the same building—she’d gotten me my apartment, in fact. But about a month ago, when the planned condo conversion of our building fell through, she’d moved uptown. I didn’t blame her—our building was cozy and had a sense of living energy in the actual construction that made Talent feel comfortable, but it was also kinda cramped and rundown, and her sweetie lived uptown anyway, so…

      It wasn’t like we saw each other every day, anyway.

      I gave the cabbie Wren’s new address and leaned against the seat as the car jolted forward, moving into traffic. Pulling the file Stosser had given me out of my bag, I opened the folder and studied the report in more detail, putting aside what the Lord said and concentrating only on the established facts. Kids sometimes went missing with no supernatural elements involved, and I’d learned the hard way about not checking every-damn-possibility. Especially if anything contradicted what the client gave us. But the notes didn’t give me anything new, or even problematic. Parents still married, so not a custody battle. No other relatives who might be problems. Family decently middle-class, not the sort to be targeted for ransom. Both parents worked in academia, teachers, so it’s not like there was the high probability of coercion or blackmail, either, unless PTA meetings had gotten a hell of a lot tougher since I was in school.

      The cab dumped me out on the corner rather than fight the delivery van double-parked and blocking traffic, and I walked the half block to “The Westerly.” I had laughed when I saw the name on the formal, cream-colored change-of-address card delivered in the mail a few weeks before. Seeing it, though— J’s building was called Branderford. I wanted to live in a building that had a name. And a doorman. And…

      And, pointless. I couldn’t afford an apartment in a building with a name and a doorman. Not yet, anyway.

      Doormen in New York City are more than guys—or women—who open doors and accept deliveries. They’re the first line of security for the residents. So I was prepared to do the usual who-I’m-here-to-see routine—I was assuming Wren, being Talent, would not have bought into one of those places with the full electronic security systems. To my surprise, though, the doorman