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neutral, but he had the feeling she was very aware of her surroundings.
    He hadn’t planned on bringing Morganthur today, except he’d been in a bloody-minded mood the day before. He’d mostly forgotten about her after the dead-of-night meeting when Zheer had forced him into leading the case. He owed Zheer for giving him a job and working around his… eccentricities. If he really wanted off the hook, he’d have to tell her the truth about his talent, and he wasn’t willing to take the chance that she’d consider him impaired. The case was too important to give to anyone else. Zheer knew he’d been a lead investigator before, and had the record to prove it. La Plata’s top investigator had been Leo Balkovsky, a mid-level finder who made it out of the Minder Corps of the Citizen Protection Service more or less sane, but he’d been gutted like a fish in the Centaurus warehouse. Luka missed Leo’s good-natured teasing and confident leadership with painful intensity.
    After what had happened at the warehouse, Luka hadn’t slept well and had gone into work early. He’d been too restless to work in his office, so he’d decamped to a nearby conference room, as he sometimes did when he needed room to pace. Vengeance fantasies kept infiltrating his rational thought processes, and the movement helped him stay focused. He’d heard Velasco looking for him, but hadn’t been in the mood to deal with him. Then he’d heard another voice, and it became apparent that Velasco had run into Malamig, the scheduling manager from Security Division. Luka wouldn’t have eavesdropped if he hadn’t heard his own name.
    “…Morganthur to drive me and Foxe last night?” asked Velasco.
    “Don’t ask me,” replied Malamig with evident antipathy. “Investigation Division picked her from my roster. Something about availability and location. Why, did she screw up?”
    “No, she didn’t do anything except drive and stand around. Wouldn’t talk to either of us. Typical graveyard shifter—no social skills whatsoever.” He snorted. “Once I saw her in the light, I remembered meeting her a few months ago. Tall, skinny blondes with little titties aren’t my type.” Some men remembered women’s names, faces, or jobs; Velasco remembered their bodies. “I mean, Foxe is weird and all, but he’s got nothing on her. Dekkil says she always carries two or three knives.”
    “She’s stupid, and she doesn’t know how to cooperate,” said Malamig with vitriol. Luka wondered what she’d done to piss off her boss. Perhaps she’d turned him down for sex. If so, Luka’s estimation of her taste rose a couple of notches.
    “You better be careful,” continued Malamig. “She might be willing to spread for Foxe to get your job, and then you’ll be back in patrol doing shift work again.”
    Velasco laughed. “I’m not worried. Foxe is oblivious to women, and even if he wasn’t, I doubt he goes for zero-witted or hostile.”
    The conversation had ended a minute later, with Malamig headed back to his office and Velasco leaving for parts unknown.
    If they hadn’t mentioned Morganthur’s name, Luka would never have guessed they’d been talking about the same quiet, unexpectedly competent woman who’d helped him in the warehouse. Even if she was uncooperative or hostile, which he highly doubted, she’d been immediately more useful than Velasco. He didn’t care what either Velasco or Malamig thought of him personally, but oddly, he found himself annoyed on Morganthur’s behalf.
    So Luka had given in to malicious impulse and sent a request to Zheer for Morganthur to accompany him the next day to the meeting. An informant with information about the case just dropping in from the sky still felt entirely too convenient. He firmly told himself he’d asked for Morganthur because he hated to see good talent to go waste, and definitely not because, for the first time in a couple of years, he was attracted to someone—a lithe, cheetah-slim