Free Rabbit Trick: A Mindspace Investigations Novella by Alex Hughes Page B

shored up my shields, annoyed now, trying to push his nasty emotion-snarl out of my head. The fear was there all right, with anger too.
    Cherabino was finishing up her conversation with the detective, maybe fifty feet away from me in front of one of the lights; she was gesturing less and looking more thoughtful, spine a little straighter. It wouldn’t be long now.  
    So, cut to the chase. “What are you doing here?” I asked the cop.
    His mouth flattened in a long line and he glanced back over at the car, currently surrounded by techs. Anger and guilt forced their way past the shields into my head. “I’m Audrey’s partner.”
    “Your name?” I asked.
    “Wiggles,” he said. Stared as if he dared me to make something of it.
    I swallowed a snicker. Wiggles, really?
    “The station captain is a friend of mine,” Wiggles said in a flat tone. “We went to academy together. I told him he should call you in.”
    I took a breath. Ah, the reason he was here. “I’ll do everything I can,” I said, very quietly.  
    He nodded, as if that ended the conversation. Maybe it did.
    Across the parking deck in front of the lights, Bull said something to Cherabino, and left the area.

    I walked closer to the crime scene, step by step. The car was a cheap domestic white box without even an antigrav generator – strictly ground-level only, cheapest of the cheap. Cops weren’t paid that well, and personal vehicles weren’t covered as an additional expense, but this seemed a bit cheap even so. The car was scrupulously clean, however, from what I could see in the blinding floodlights pointed at it, with fully inflated tires and no dings.  
    Forensics personnel swarmed in and around the car. Their thoughts were quiet, ordered, and surface level, more than a little sleepy, and despite myself, I suppressed a yawn as I got closer. Another step, and I paused. A low-level disorder – something not right – made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Someone had died here, violently and recently. I told myself not to be a ninny, that this was what I had come to see. I still shielded, hard.  
    Cherabino came up behind me. “Need them to move?” she asked about the techs.
    I took a breath, asked myself the same question. “No, not tonight. Give me just a minute.” If they’d been half as upset as Wiggles… but they weren’t. It should be fine.
    She fidgeted, but didn’t push the issue. She let me use her as a ground when I had to drop deep into Mindspace, looking for clues. I wasn’t quite ready for that, yet. I wanted to see what I could see.
    A technician blocked my view of the driver’s side as he took photos. Flashes of light interrupted the night until he moved away.
    The driver’s side window was dotted with blood, thrown onto the glass from the inside. Smears in the blood, in the window, even a crack in the safety glass, maybe from her elbow. She’d fought back.
    “What was her name?” I asked.
    “Audrey Peeler. Officer Peeler,” Cherabino’s voice said from behind me. “Hey!” she yelled. “You done with the photos already? We need the telepath to scout it.”
    The photographer bitched but finally moved. Then I was close enough to see it. Her. Audrey. For the first time.  
    Tightly-braided hair crowned her head, freckled face thrown back, hands askew. Face twisted in shock, wrenched in anger, the whites of the eyes red with blood, dark spots around them. And a long, dark red, thick line bisecting her neck, spilling dried blood down onto her shirt in irregular splotches. A thin cord in the middle of it, as transparent as fishing line, draped over the backside of the driver’s seat. A key ring, a can of pepper spray lay on the floorboards, just barely out of reach. A strap thingie on the seatbelt on the passenger’s side, an adjuster of some kind, I noticed. Not currently in use.
    I sniffed. Strong smell of urine, of drying blood, stomach acid, violence and death. No pepper spray.  
    Cherabino