Free Keeper by Greg Rucka Page A

while you’re working, you don’t,” I said.
    Rubin looked hurt. “Do you think I take my duties so lightly that I would risk our principal and her daughter for one night of sordid pleasure?”
    I nodded.
    “You know me too well,” he said.
    From the bedroom, Dr. Romero said, “Atticus? Could you come here, please?”
    Natalie, Rubin, and I exchanged looks. “Sure,” I said, and extricated myself from Katie’s grasp. She didn’t seem to mind.
    Felice was sitting on her bed, now wearing jeans and a faded Amnesty International T-shirt. Her feet were bare, and she held a sheet of paper in her hand. She looked small and frightened.
    “I thought it was a charity solicitation,” she said.
    I took the paper. It read:
     
    BUTCHER BITCH-ONE BULLET,
    TWO BULLET,
    EACH IN YOUR HEAD.
    BANG BANG.
    YOU’RE DEAD.
    BOOM BOOM.
    DEAD DEAD.
    THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS COMMON GROUND.
    JUST KILLING GROUND.
    YOUR KILLING GROUND.
    I WILL HAVE JUSTICE.
    YOU’RE NOT MY FIRST.
    I WILL HAVE JUSTICE.
     
    No signature.
    I set the letter carefully on the bed, went back to the bedroom door, and said softly to Natalie, “Call Fowler. We got a letter.”
    Then I went back to Felice.
    “They just won’t stop,” she said. Her voice was very low.
    “I don’t want you going to the conference,” I said.
    She looked at me.
    “Hotels are almost impossible to secure, and with only four people I absolutely cannot do it.”
    “You think that’s what—of course. He doesn’t want me to speak, whoever wrote it. A man wrote that.”
    After a second, I said, “I can’t protect you at the conference, not as it stands. It’s too easy for someone to get a gun or a bomb into a place like the Elysium. And it’s already been publicized that you’ll be there.”
    Felice inhaled deeply, then reached for her pack of cigarettes. “I’m going,” she said. “I won’t be frightened off.” 
    “I can’t provide adequate protection there,” I said. 
    “Can’t or won’t?”
    “Can’t.”
    She stared at the pack of cigarettes for a few seconds, then lit one and smoked, watching my face. “You’re serious, I’ve never seen you look this serious,” she said.
    “The stakes have changed,” I told her. “You could have been seriously injured this morning. And it was a stupid thing for someone to do and that worries me. So far, there’s been a terror-campaign logic to this. The bottle ...” I left it unfinished.
    But she was right with me. “That was an attack, wasn’t it? Testing the defenses, maybe?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m going.”
    “Felice, listen to me. It’s a hotel, do you understand? Suppose a man wants you dead. He knows you will be there in three days, giving a lecture, sitting on a panel. He checks into the hotel tomorrow, all he has to do is wait, polishing his gun. Do you see the scale? Everybody in the hotel—all the guests, the staff, the temps—everybody must be checked and cleared before you can go. It’s impossible for me to do that and to protect you at the same time with just four people.”
    Felice got up and took the ashtray off her nightstand, tapping her cigarette on the rim. After a moment she said, “I am going to speak at Common Ground. I helped organize the damn thing, and I will be heard there.”
    I started to open my mouth but she held up a warning finger. “Let me finish. I agree with you. I don’t want to die, Atticus. I won’t go to the conference if you tell me it can’t be made safe. But I want you to talk to Veronica, Veronica Selby. She’s the one who got the hotel in the first place, and she told me that she’d take care of security. Talk to Veronica, and if she can’t make you reasonably happy, I won’t go.” She sat back down on the bed. “Fair enough?”
    “I won’t take chances here, Felice,” I said.
    “I know,” she said. “And I appreciate that.”
     
    Fowler arrived shortly after we finished talking. I got Selby’s phone number from Felice and gave the woman a call