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Disappeareds, making the adoption situation even more difficult. The Earth Alliance’s insistence that local laws prevailed when crimes were committed meant that humans were often subjected to alien laws, laws that made no sense at all. Many humans didn’t like being forced to lose a limb as punishment for chopping down an exotic tree, or giving up a child because they’d broken food laws on a different planet.
    Those humans who could afford to get new names and new identities did so rather than accept their punishment under Earth Alliance law. Those people Disappeared.
    Paavo’s parents had Disappeared within weeks of his birth, leaving him to face whatever legal threat that the aliens his parents had angered could dream up.
    Paavo, alone, at four months.
    Fortunately, Deshin and Gerda had sources inside Armstrong’s family services, which they had cultivated for just this sort of reason. Both Deshin and Gerda had had difficult childhoods—to say the least. They knew what it was like to be unwanted.
    Their initial plan had been to bring several unwanted children into their homes, but after they met Paavo, a brilliant baby with his own special needs, they decided to put that plan on hold. If they could only save Paavo, that would be enough.
    But they were just a month into life with the baby, and they knew that any more children would take a focus that, at the moment at least, Paavo’s needs wouldn’t allow.
    Deshin reached the bottom of the stairwell, ran a hand through his hair, and then walked through the double doors. His staff kept the detective in the lobby.
    She was immediately obvious, even though she wasn’t in uniform. A slightly disheveled woman with curly black hair and a sharp, intelligent face, she wasn’t looking around like she was supposed to be.
    Most new visitors to Deshin Enterprises either pretended to be unimpressed with the real marble floors, the imported wood paneling, and the artwork that constantly shifted on the walls and ceiling. Or the visitors gaped openly at all of it.
    This detective did neither. Instead, she scanned the people in the lobby—all staff, all there to guard him and keep an eye on her.
    She would be difficult. Deshin could tell that just from her body language. He wasn’t used to dealing with someone from the Armstrong Police Department who was intelligent and difficult to impress.
    He walked toward her, and as he reached her, he extended his hand.
    “Detective,” he said warmly. “I’m Luc Deshin.”
    She wiped her hands on her stained shirt, and just as he thought she was going to take his hand in greeting, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her ill-fitting black pants.
    “I know who you are,” she said.
    She deliberately failed to introduce herself, probably as a power play. He could play back, ask to see the badge chip embedded in the palm of her hand, but he didn’t feel like it.
    She had already wasted enough of his time.
    So he took her name, Noelle DeRicci, from the building’s security records, and declined to look at her service record. He had it if he needed it.
    “What can I do for you then, Detective?” He was going to charm her, even if that took a bit of strength to ignore the games.
    “I’d like to speak somewhere private,” she said.
    He smiled. “No one is near us, and we have no recording devices in this part of the lobby. If you like, we can go outside. There’s a lovely coffee shop across the street.”
    Her eyes narrowed. He watched her think: did she ask to go to his office and get denied, or did she just play along?
    “The privacy is for you,” she said, “but okay….”
    She sounded dubious, a nice little trick. A less secure man would then invite her into the office.
    Deshin waited. He learned that middle managers—and that was what detectives truly were—always felt the press of time. He never had enough time for anything and yet, as the head of his own corporation, he also had all the time in the universe.
    “I’m