Free The Big Sheep by Robert Kroese Page B

interfere with filming, and you will not fuck with Priya.”
    â€œWe’re not going to do anything to hurt Priya,” I said.
    â€œYou’re not listening to me,” said Durham, his voice low and steady. “Priya Mistry is the Hope Diamond. She’s the Mona Lisa . She’s the goddamned Taj Mahal, understand? If you know what’s good for you, do not fuck with her .”

 
    SEVEN
    We left the party and returned to the office. So much for remaining incognito; that thug with the syringe had forced me into the open. Anyway, we’d done our best to protect Priya; if anything happened to her now, it was out of our hands. At least Durham and his thugs knew we were suspicious of them.
    I sat with an ice pack for a while and then went to bed. In the morning, I expected to head to the DiZzy Girl set, but I found Keane had other plans. He’d set up an interview with Jessica Díaz, the widow of the late Hugo Díaz. Keane seemed to think she might be able to tell us something useful about the missing sheep, but I couldn’t imagine what. In any case, according to Priya’s schedule, she wasn’t due at the set until ten A.M ., so we had some time. We took Keane’s aircar to the quiet neighborhood in Pasadena where Jessica Díaz lived.
    Jessica Díaz was a slim, slightly mousy-looking blond woman with excellent posture and a terse but cordial way of speaking. Her reserved demeanor could of course be explained by the recent loss of her husband, but I got the impression she was always like this. Reserved and aloof, as if her life were something she preferred to observe at a reasonable distance. If she was distraught, she hid it very well. Her house was tidy and spotless.
    I’d begun by explaining there had been a theft at the lab where her husband had worked, and told her we’d talked to all the employees with access to the lab. In her husband’s case that was obviously impossible, so protocol required we interview his next of kin. It was a reasonable-sounding fib. I also made sure to explain that the theft occurred after her husband’s passing, so of course he wasn’t a suspect.
    â€œWe just need to cover our bases,” I said apologetically. The three of us sat around a coffee table in her living room. “You know how it is with these big corporations.”
    Jessica nodded sympathetically.
    Keane kept silent as I ran through the basics (Sorry for your loss, had you noticed any changes in your husband’s behavior, had he mentioned any problems at work, had you observed him having secretive conversations on his comm or in person, is there any possibility he left the house the night he died, etc., to which she gave the expected responses: thank you, no, no, and no), but he perked up at Jessica’s response to my question about whether Hugo had seemed depressed lately.
    â€œNo,” she said, “In fact, he seemed happier than usual. The happiest I’d seen him since before his accident.”
    â€œAccident?” I asked. Keane listened with interest.
    â€œFour years ago, when he was working for Gendrome,” Jessica said. “Hugo had an accident in the lab. A machine had been misprogrammed, and it nearly crushed his skull.”
    â€œNearly?” asked Keane.
    She shot him a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
    â€œI mean, I’ve never heard of someone’s skull being nearly crushed,” Keane said. “It’s typically a binary thing. Either your skull is crushed or it isn’t.”
    I glared at Keane, but he was oblivious.
    â€œIt crushed his shoulder,” Jessica said, only a hint of irritation in her voice. “He had six surgeries. They put in a titanium joint.”
    â€œI see,” said Keane. “And did anyone ever determine who programmed the machine incorrectly?”
    â€œI don’t believe so, no,” said Jessica. “It was an honest mistake. Could have been anyone