“That’s the one,” Miller said. “This is deep. Drowning deep. And you know what they say about going in after a drowning man, right?”
Sematimba looked down the corridor. He nodded.
“Let me help you,” Sematimba said, but Miller shook his head.
“I’m too far gone. Forget me. What happened was you got a call. You found the place. You don’t know me, you don’t know them, you’ve got no clue what happened. Or you come along and drown with me. Your pick.”
“You don’t leave the station without telling me?”
“Okay,” Miller said.
“I can live with that,” Sematimba said. Then, a moment later: “That’s really Holden?”
“Call the coroner,” Miller said. “Trust me.”
Chapter Twenty-Five: Holden
Miller gestured at Holden and headed for the elevator without waiting to see if he was following. The presumption irritated him, but he went anyway.
“So,” Holden said, “we were just in a gunfight where we killed at least three people, and now we’re just leaving? No getting questioned or giving a statement? How exactly does that happen?” Holden asked.
“Professional courtesy,” Miller said, and Holden couldn’t tell if he was joking.
The elevator door opened with a muffled ding, and Holden and the others followed Miller inside. Naomi was closest to the panel, so she reached out to press the lobby button, but her hand was shaking so badly that she had to stop and clench it into a fist. After a deep breath, she reached out a now steady finger and pressed the button.
“This is bullshit. Being an ex-cop doesn’t give you a license to get in gunfights,” Holden said to Miller’s back.
Miller didn’t move, but he seemed to shrink a little bit. His sigh was heavy and unforced. His skin seemed grayer than before.
“Sematimba knows the score. Half the job is knowing when to look the other way. Besides, I promised we wouldn’t leave the station without letting him know.”
“Fuck that,” Amos said. “You don’t make promises for us, pal.”
The elevator came to a stop and opened onto the bloody scene of the gunfight. A dozen cops were in the room. Miller nodded at them and they nodded back. He led the crew out of the lobby to the corridor, then turned around.
“We can work that out later,” Miller said. “Right now, let’s get someplace we can talk.”
Holden agreed with a shrug. “Okay, but you’re paying.”
Miller headed off down the corridor toward the tube station.
As they followed, Naomi put a hand on Holden’s arm and slowed him down a bit so that Miller could get ahead. When he was far enough away, she said, “He knew her.”
“Who knew who?”
“He,” Naomi said, nodding at Miller, “knew her.” She jerked her head back toward the crime scene behind them.
“How do you know?” Holden said.
“He wasn’t expecting to find her there, but he knew who she was. Seeing her like that was a shock.”
“Huh, I didn’t get that at all. He’s seemed like Mr. Cool all through this.”
“No, they were friends or something. He’s having trouble dealing with it, so maybe don’t push him too hard,” she said. “We might need him.”
The hotel room Miller got was only slightly better than the one they’d found the body in. Alex immediately headed for the bathroom and locked the door. The sound of water running in the sink wasn’t quite loud enough to cover the pilot’s retching.
Holden plopped down on the small bed’s dingy comforter, forcing Miller to take the room’s one uncomfortable-looking chair. Naomi sat next to Holden on the bed, but Amos stayed on his feet, prowling around the room like a nervous animal.
“So, talk,” Holden said to Miller.
“Let’s wait for the rest of the gang to finish up,” Miller replied with a nod toward the bathroom.
Alex came out a few moments later, his face still white, but now freshly washed.
“Are you all right, Alex?” Naomi asked in a soft voice.
“Five by five, XO,” Alex said, then sat down on the floor and put his head in his hands.
Holden stared at Miller and waited. The older man sat and played with his hat for a minute, then tossed it onto the cheap plastic desk that cantilevered out from the wall.
“You knew Julie was in that room. How?” Miller said.
“We didn’t even know her name was Julie,” Holden replied. “We just knew that it was someone from the Scopuli.”
“You should tell me how you knew that,” Miller said, a frightening intensity in his eyes.
Holden paused a moment. Miller had killed someone who had been trying to kill them, and that certainly helped make the case that he was a friend, but Holden wasn’t about to sell out Fred and his group on a hunch. He hesitated, then went halfway.
“The fictional owner of the Scopuli had checked into that flophouse,” he said. “It made sense that it was a member of the crew raising a flag.”
Miller nodded. “Who told you?” he said.
“I’m not comfortable telling you that. We believed the information was accurate,” Holden replied. “The Scopuli was the bait that someone used to kill the Canterbury. We thought someone from the Scopuli might know why everyone keeps trying to kill us.”
Miller said, “Shit,” and then leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
“You’ve been looking for Julie. You’d hoped we were looking for her too. That we knew something,” Naomi said, not making it a question.
“Yeah,” Miller said.
It was Holden’s turn to ask why.
“Parents sent a contract to Ceres looking for her to be sent home. It was my case,” Miller said.
“So you work for Ceres security?”
“Not anymore.”
“So what are you doing here?” Holden asked.
“Her family was connected to something,” Miller replied. “I just naturally hate a mystery.”
“And how did you know it was bigger than just a missing girl?”
Talking to Miller felt like digging through granite with a rubber chisel. Miller grinned humorlessly.
“They fired me for looking too hard.”
Holden consciously decided not to be annoyed by Miller’s non-answer. “So let’s talk about the death squad in the hotel.”
“Yeah, seriously, what the f**k?” Amos said, finally pausing in his pacing. Alex took his head out of his hands and looked up with interest for the first time. Even Naomi leaned forward on the edge of the bed.