“Never mind, how can anyone know. It’s all still so unsettling.
“You saw me act, didn’t you, when we were both young?” she asked Chris.
It seemed to be a hobby with her, Chris thought, to try to catch people off guard. “Yes. I probably even had a crush on you,” he said, playing her game.
“How sweet of you to say so. Forgive me if I doubt you. Men like you never have a crush on women like me.” She turned to look at Livvy. “They don’t, you know. They may want to protect us, but they don’t want to make love to us.
“Don’t get huffy, my dear. By us, I don’t mean you and me, Detective Hutchins. I mean me and women like me. Vulnerability, it was called. I wonder what they call it in a bicentenarian.”
Chris looked at Livvy. As far as he could see, she had neither moved nor changed expression. If anything, he would say she was projecting a hard-held tolerance. It was probably driving Isabella wild at some level.
“You’re right, there was a little something. We’ve been planning a trip to England and Scotland together and he said we might need to postpone it.” She turned to Livvy at this point to speak directly to her. “There are so few places one can travel safely anymore. He did mention something about some special project. I never listen when he talks about work, unless he’s found something new he thinks would suit me.
“That’s all, really.”
“Some special project at his clinic or some special project outside of the clinic?” Livvy asked.
“You didn’t pay attention, my dear. I said I don’t listen when he talks about work.”
“When had you planned on leaving? On your trip?” Chris asked.
“In two weeks, on Monday. You would be more than welcome to take his place,” Isabella said. “Either one of you.” She threw another smoky glance Livvy’s way and laughed.
“And how long would you have been gone?”
“Three weeks,” Isabella said. She seemed to have gotten suddenly bored.
“One final question, please. Was it meant to be strictly a pleasure trip?”
“Of course,” Isabella said, faintly amused once more. “Or I would have never agreed to go.”
“If you think of anything else…” Chris said.
“Naturally. I hope you find him. Margaret will show you out.”
“Did you believer her?” Livvy said when they got back outside and were walking slowly back to the car. She turned around for an instant and walked backwards for several steps as she surveyed Isabella’s mansion one more time. “I doubt if it’s a love match, but she was an actress, and if she knows he’s gotten into something questionable… she’d want to deny knowing anything to protect herself. I suspect she’s her own biggest fan.”
“I believed her when she said she doesn’t listen…”
The first silenced shot came from the side and slightly behind them and went so close to Chris’ head that he felt the wind of its passing ruffle his hair. It hit the car fifteen meters ahead of them and ricocheted off the bullet-proof shell. The second shot grazed Livvy’s left upper arm. By then they were already sprinting for the car and yelling instructions.
Livvy’s shout of “Open doors” clashed with Chris’ “Louie down.”
Louie, who had been sitting in the back with both of the side windows open, didn’t need to be told twice. He went to the floor and disappeared from view.
The car obeyed as well, and as the third shot sounded Livvy was diving inside and simultaneously shouting “Close driver front.” The door slid shut and Livvy at least was inside a bulletproof shell.
Chris yelled “Close doors and windows” and took a shortcut to the passenger side, leaping onto the car and letting his momentum carry him across the smooth surface and onto the road on the other side. The fourth shot spit road surface three meters beyond the car. Chris did some quick vector imagining. The houses were on hillocks, but with that angle the shooter had to be on a roof.
“McGregor, get your ass in here! Now.” It was Livvy, projecting with a volume that he wouldn’t have believed she could manage and now looking quite spectacularly feral. For one hyper-amused moment Chris realized that, unlike him, his new partner most definitely had been a training officer at some point, and the instincts and skills had stuck.
For opponents within 30 meters, they had their Stingers, which were excellent for instantly dropping any opponent with a drugged, barbed dart that sliced through all clothing, even most armored tunics. Since there had been no one within view for at least 50 meters when they left the house, Chris figured Stingers weren’t going to be useful. For longer distances, all of their equipment was in the trunk. He decided the angle was adequate for an attempt.
He was her senior in every way, and even if they got to the armor and weapons in the trunk by going through the interior panel they would then be in the car and unable to use them unless they got out again. He was delighted with her good sense – she was right where he wanted her, but he had no intention of joining her. Instead, crouching and staying close, he moved towards the back of the car.
“Open trunk,” he said. The trunk slid open and Chris remembered with nostalgia the old lift hoods that might have supplied a little more cover. He cautiously reached over into the well only to have one of the small dart rifles thrust into his hand and an armored tunic and gloves dropped over the panel onto the road beside him.
The fifth and sixth shots hit the midline of the road a meter behind the car.
“Aarrrgh. Will you put those on, please!” Livvy’s voice came from the trunk.
Chris grabbed the armor and shifted over to the better cover near the center of the car. It was still awkward, staying behind the shield created by the car body while getting into the armor. He had barely finished when Livvy’s voice emerged from the back seat of the car, immediately behind him.
“Move out of the way. Please.”
He barely began shifting back towards the front of the car when the right rear door opened and Livvy, tunic and gloves already on and gripping a dart rifle, basically tumbled out of the car onto the road beside him.
The seventh shot hit the roof of the car and ricocheted off into the neighborhood just as Chris reached out, got a firm grip on her tunic, and pulled, successfully moving her back and drawing her up so that she was leaning against the car frame at his side, well within the cover offered by the car.
“Your arm?” Chris asked.
“It’s fine. A scratch. I’d clock you, you know, but I may need you to provide a diversion,” she said. “Just make sure the Chief knows I was prepared to huddle safely in the car, call for back-up, and scan for a sign of the shooter. Just like standard Enforcement procedures dictate. I’m going to get stomped on for this, aren’t I?”
“Not by me. But that was a good plan. I wish you had stuck with it.”
“But LLE handles this sort of thing differently, I suppose,” she added more calmly. “Proactively.”
“I want to try to flush him out before backup scares him away,” Chris said.
“So I figured,” she said.
“Whoever is shooting, he doesn’t seem to be very good at it. I’m worried about the innocent people beyond us. Now that we have the tunics, I think we should give him better targets and charge.”
“Where?” Livvy asked, closing her faceplate and turning around to look through the car window.
The eighth and ninth shots both pinged off the top of the car near her head.
“Persistent sort, isn’t he? Doesn’t he know these cars are projectile-proof?”
“I thought it might be a roof, but I think now it’s that oak over in the neighbor’s yard.”