Masterminds by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page B

through almost anywhere else in Armstrong. If she’s carrying something or she looks suspicious, then don’t let her up here. Trust the guards downstairs and the systems inside the building. You’ll be fine.”
    Popova squeezed his hand. Her fingers were cold and a little clammy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There are days when nothing seems easy. This is one of them.”
    He understood, but he felt that if he said that, he was patronizing Popova.
    “Talia still in the kitchen?” he asked.
    “She’s moved to the room you two sometimes use. She asked for a tablet. I gave one to her. Is that all right?”
    Flint was cheered to hear that news and worried at the same time. He had no idea what Talia would be working on.
    “Thanks,” he said, pivoted, and headed the other way down the hall. Behind him, he heard a chair squeak as Popova sat back down.
    The empty office he and Talia had used in the past was just beyond the elevators, around the corner. The door was open. Talia sat in her usual chair—although Flint wasn’t exactly certain about that as a definition of sitting.
    She had her knees over one of the chair’s arms and her back propped against the other arm. She rested her head against the top of the chair. The tablet was propped against her thighs.
    When she saw him, she grinned. “I’m setting up so that I can help you with whatever you need.” She sounded just a bit too cheerful, as if she were compensating a bit too much. But he would take it at the moment. “I decided to start with finding Detective Zagrando’s history. He’s listed as dead in every database you know.”
    “I know,” Flint said. That disturbed him, but Zagrando had said it was all complicated. And the fact that the man had worked undercover for Earth Alliance Intelligence might have explained the subterfuge.
    “Is it him?” Talia asked, clutching the tablet to her chest.
    “I’m ninety-nine percent sure it is.” Flint felt the need to leave at least a small margin of error.
    “Is he going to be okay?”
    “I don’t know,” Flint said.
    Talia hugged the tablet harder. Her eyes were big, her expression solemn.
    “Do the databases say how he died?” Flint asked.
    “It’s weird,” Talia said. “That’s why I was digging into it. He was called to Valhalla Basin’s port on some case, alone, and then he got murdered in a room by some perpetrators. They all got caught, but he died pretty horribly. His body was recognizable, though.”
    Flint frowned. “If that had happened here, the body would have been autopsied.”
    “It was,” Talia said. “There were some strange things.”
    “You read the report?”
    She smiled a little and shrugged.
    He almost smiled in return. His daughter had come back to him. He had missed her.
    “What’s strange?” he asked.
    “His weight, for one thing. Standard VBPD procedure. A monthly health check, including weight and height and general fitness. His general fitness was less when he died, although his heart was stronger and some of the health problems his enhancements had compensated for were gone.”
    Flint wanted to grab the tablet and look at the results, but Talia kept it close. Apparently, she wanted to watch him as she told him the news.
    “But his weight was way off. Like forty pounds off. And he would have had to lose that in two weeks. That kind of weight loss usually means an illness, not an increase in health, at least that’s what my poking around this afternoon told me.” Talia’s gaze met Flint’s.
    He knew the look. It meant she had a theory.
    “What are you thinking?” he asked.
    “They ran the DNA,” Talia said. “Standard test, just to make sure, even though he still had his badge in his palm and all of his enhancements and stuff, plus his face was recognizable.”
    “But…?” Flint asked.
    “But there are all these weird aspects to the death. He didn’t put up much of a fight. He had a weapon and they disarmed him. Plus, he went into this room