5.
CASSIE
Cassie woke the next morning with a pounding headache and dark bags under her eyes. She’d not been able to settle down, which had led to the pouring of more whiskey, and the eventual passing out into a fitful sleep. Now, she snapped at her alarm to shut the fuck up and squinted against the light pouring in through the windows. She was going to have to take a look at the contraption which filtered the glass and get it to stay dark for a lot more hours in the morning.
Beside her sat the panic button that would call Vikram, and she groaned, everything coming back in a rush.
The thought of getting out of bed and dealing with the day made her bury her head under the covers and nap for another hour.
Eventually, though, she checked her phone and decided she had to make something of the day. She sent Vikram a text telling him she was awake, intending to get up, but then became distracted by the endless news articles about Archie’s death. Some of the less reputable papers were running sensationalist articles spreading straight-up defamation about possible causes for his death all over the headlines. Far too many were speculating about the state of his marriage. She was sure the foundation would be instigating lawsuits against some of them, they were so appalling.
Some were touching, though. One—a cause-sympathetic paper that had always been a friend of the foundation—had given him a two-page spread detailing all the massive achievements he’d accomplished in his lifetime. They’d quoted some of her speech at the end, and she found tears in her eyes as she read it.
Vikram came in then, and she struggled to pull herself together. “I was intending to have gotten up and put some coffee on by the time you got here. Then I got an alert about all these stupid news stories. Well, some of them are nice.” She handed her phone to him. “That’s a good one, if you were interested in knowing more about him.”
He took it, looking surprised that she’d handed her phone over, and read while she got up and put a pot of coffee on. “Did you eat already?”
“Not yet.”
“Feeling like anything in particular?”
“Whatever you’re having is fine. Thank you.”
She hummed and ordered him the biggest thing on the menu instead. He was definitely too muscled to be satisfied with a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast.
Then she loaded up her laptop and was hit by the sheer number of people that could have been responsible for Archie’s death. There was everyone at the conference and then some. He’d been involved in every major conflict of the past forty years, and there had been a lot of them. Anyone could have taken this opportunity to wreak their revenge.
Vikram handed her back her phone. “He was an impressive man.”
“Yeah, he was.”
“And you were his second for most of these things? You must have seen a lot.”
“Only the last six years or so. But, yeah, we did. We accomplished a lot, too. It was all worth it.”
“Impressive,” he said again.
Their food came and he thanked her for it. They ate in silence, Cassie absorbed in flicking through the attendees at the conference and making a list of all the possible suspects. There was always the chance he was just a lone assassin, but she didn’t think it was likely. Someone would need help to get that far into the IU’s headquarters. The Agalaxians were an obvious suspect: they were the foundation’s biggest opponents and, without the trick she had up her sleeve, very likely to get their way. It wouldn’t have made sense for them to kill Archie, though. It was more likely to make him into a martyr and bring people to their side of the debate than anything. The only reason Prince Qugrom could have wanted to kill Archie for was if he knew what was on the memory card, and they’d been so careful there was almost no chance of that being true.
She kept a question mark next to them on the list, but wasn’t convinced they were responsible.
The word martyr stuck in her head and she was forced to add people on their side of the debate to her list. It was possible someone had decided they could create a stir big enough to win them the argument if they could use Archie as a martyr. She didn’t think it was true, but that was just wishful thinking talking, so she kept them on the list.
It was when she was going down the smaller parties that a name stuck out.
The Tevisians.
They were a small planet that had been torn apart by a bloody civil war nearly a decade ago. A rebellion was in full swing to try and overthrow an authoritarian government. The Foundation had stepped in to help with civilian casualties, but it had required going to one side or the other for protection. The rebels had been unwilling to provide that protection, so they’d gone in on the side of the government. They provided medical support only, but the government ended up crushing the rebellion and staying in power for another five years before the rebellion began again and the head of state was taken out. By an assassin.
It was the leader of the rebellion that ran the planet now, and they were the ones at the conference.
She put a star next to them.
They would have some serious animosity towards Archie—he’d been the public face of the foundation’s operations on Tevis. He’d been the one at all the interviews, spouting the politically correct line that they were a neutral party, refusing to take a side.
And the Tevisians were on their side at this debate—advocating against the use of torture—they would have both motives covered. The creation of a martyr and the personal revenge.
The lilac eyes of the assassin burned in her vision.
The lilac eyes of a Tevisian.
She stood up abruptly, only half her breakfast eaten. “I need your help,” she said.
Vikram had already wolfed his down. “With what?”
“Investigating.”
He frowned. “I thought you were going to focus on the conference.”
“No you didn’t. I know who did this. Now I need proof.”
“If you know who did this then so will the police.”
“That’s not good enough for me.”
“Why not? What will you even do when you get proof? You’ll take it to the police.”
“They haven’t even been to speak to me yet,” she said, crossing her arms. “I was right there, beside him. I almost got shot myself, and they haven’t even come to interview me yet. That tells you how competent the police are.”
“It’s a politically tense climate and they’ve got a lot on their hands.”
“Right. There’s a lot of political bullshit going on that they have to pander to. It’s slowing them down. What’s going to happen when the conference is over and everyone goes back to their own systems, weeks travel away from each other? It’ll never be solved. It needs sorting now, while the conference is going on. I can help.”
He was easier to read than he thought he was. He dithered on his response, shaking his head. “The police will do their job. They’re qualified and capable and they know what they’re doing.” The implication that she had no idea how to be an investigator wasn’t subtle.
It stung that he was right.
“I have to,” was her only argument. “I just have to. For me. For my piece of mind. I’d never forgive myself if someone got away with this.”
“Give it a couple of days, then. Go to the police and see what they’ll tell you. Don’t just go bounding in there.”
“Why are you even arguing? You’ve got to come with me if I decide to go anyway. You don’t have any choice in the matter as long as you’re my bodyguard.”
“I won’t be an active part of helping you put yourself in danger. My job isn’t to act on your personal whims, it’s to keep you safe. You going and hanging around the people you think want to kill you isn’t going to keep you safe. Me allowing it to happen isn’t me doing my job.”
She was ready to scream. “I don’t want to make your job harder, but I have to do this. I just… I have to. I’m sure it’s the Tevisians. I’m positive. I can feel it.”
He leaned back in his chair, running his hands over his face. “I brought all these safety procedures for us to go through this morning. I may as well delete them.”
“I’m not saying I want to run in there screaming I think you did it, you bastards, and I intend to prove it. I just want to know more.”
“And how exactly are you planning to know more? To ask them?”
“They’re on my side of the debate. Saying I want to go and compare notes isn’t that strange of a tactic.”
“And when you’re there, then what?”
“I don’t know. I go through their notes, or try and steal their hard drive or something.”
“You’ve watched a lot of crime dramas then, have you?”
She scowled. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve been stationed in the middle of war zones for years. I know how to deal with conflict.”
“Dealing with open conflict is different from dealing with political games. You know that.”
And she believed he knew what he was talking about. He’d already said he’d worked with politicians. They were always embroiled in covert games and power plays with each other. He’d have had an intimate glimpse into all of it.
She couldn’t just give up like that, though. “I’m not going to be silly about it, I promise,” she said, almost falling automatically into the default role she’d played yesterday to get the policemen to escort her to the morgue. It was one of the things Archie had taught her: this society might be sexist, but sometimes it could be used to her advantage.
And Vikram was a man. Trying to woo him into agreeing with her was almost instinct.
She didn’t, though. She wasn’t interested in tricking him, she wanted him to really agree. She wanted his endorsement of her plan.
“Like you said, I can’t stop you going in there if that’s what you want to do.”
“I want your help.”
He dithered again. “I can’t.”
“Can’t?”
“It goes against all the training I’ve ever had. I refuse to put you in more danger.”
She sighed, but nodded, feeling bad for having pushed it so hard. Archie was more important than pushing the boundaries of a man she’d just met, though. “Okay. I am going to go and see them, though, even if you’re not going to steal their hard drive for me,” she teased. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’d just rather you were locked in your room where there was no chance of anyone getting in.”
“Don’t worry. Most of the week is going to be that. You’re going to have to listen to a lot of bitching about people from the conference and poor attempts at research and planning speeches, though.”
“I can live with that.”
As the tension between them faded for the moment, Cassie decided she could probably live with that, too.