Free Weight of the Heart (Bruna Husky Book 2) by Rosa Montero Page A

strange. I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know, maybe I got nervous. It won’t happen again.”
    Deuil smiled, at once soothing and arrogant.
    “What do you mean, Husky? Nothing has happened yet. This is only the beginning.”

11

    T he long, reddish, braided mustache of Virginio Nissen, the psych-guide, filled the entire screen of Bruna’s mobile.
    “Hi, Nissen. Sorry to bother you. Do you have a minute? I wanted to ask if you remember the Russian, the child for whom I’m acting as a guardian.”
    “The girl you usually refer to as ‘the monster’?”
    “Er, yes, that one. It turns out she’s obsessed with tying everything with a cord. I mean, she has a collection of useless items hanging from a piece of string, each one attached with a knot: a comb, a piece of candy, a key. This string of objects seems to be very important to her. She bit me when I grabbed it, and she hung my greedy-guts from the ceiling when he chewed on the cord.”
    “Right.”
    “She even attached a knot to me, on the hem of my T-shirt, without my being aware of it. Of course I’m not dangling from her string, but the knot is still there. I haven’t dared undo it. I don’t understand why she does it. That’s what I wanted to ask you, Nissen—do you know what it all means?”
    “Let’s see, Husky,” said the psych-guide, stroking his mustache. “Why would you tie up someone?”
    “So he couldn’t attack me.”
    “That reply is very you, Husky. But don’t think like a combat rep. Why would you tie someone up?”
    “So he didn’t escape.”
    “You’re close,” Nissen said, laughing, “but once again you’re blinded by that prism of aggression through which you contemplate the world. Listen, the child hasn’t just knotted you. From what you’ve told me, she attaches all sorts of objects to the cord with knots. Not just people. Why? To what end?”
    The rep frowned and made an effort to concentrate. The psych-guide watched her from the screen with the same look a mother uses to encourage her baby to take its first steps.
    “So that . . . so that they won’t get lost.”
    “So they won’t get lost. That’s it, Husky. I think that’s what it is. Imagine the losses this child has suffered.”
    Bruna’s fingertips touched the knot still attached to her T-shirt. The girl had knotted her, too. It could be that Gabi simply didn’t want to miss the rest of the story. Or maybe it was unexpected proof of affection for the rep. Maybe the love of monsters was like that. Knots that snare, bites that hurt and tear.

12

    A fter her unsettling session with the tactile, Bruna had spent a fair portion of the evening working on the Loperena case with a sleeping Bartolo curled up on her lap. Ever since the incident with the girl, the bubi was terrified and constantly sought her protection. In fact the greedy-guts was so scared and depressed that even though the rep left him on his own for much of the time, he hadn’t misbehaved, apart from drooling and chewing on the edge of her towels.
    First, thanks to the not entirely legal search and decoding software in her possession, Bruna was able to go through the police reports on Alejandro Gand’s death. The case, already closed, had been deemed an accident, and the documents were filed with the lowest security clearance. The crash of the minijet—a machine that was almost eight years old—was attributed to equipment fatigue, bolts that couldn’t sustain the strain, and poorly carried-out inspections. Minijets were frivolous gadgets that tended to break down, so the outcome of the investigation wasn’t surprising. The accident, however, was spectacular and catastrophic. The minijet had lost part of a wing, gone into a spin, and ended up crashing into a wall. Full of fuel, it exploded. Apart from a few scattered remains, both the minijet and Gand’s body were burned to a crisp. Or rather, almost totally vaporized, given the force of the explosion. Luckily, it happened at