Part 8 (2/2)

He sighed. ”Because it might grow into something bigger. And the bigger a lie gets, the more hurtful it becomes.”

”That's for sure.” Talia looked at the now-empty screens. ”You think they have any idea they're adopted?”

”Maybe one or two of them know,” he said. ”I wouldn't think all of them do.” ”You think they ever wonder about their real family?” ”Yeah,” he said. ”I do.” ”I'm going to keep wondering about them,” she said almost defiantly. He put a hand on hers. ”Me, too,” he said softly. ”Me, too.”

11.

Nyquist pushed open the door of Bowles's rented studio. The techs had finished with the main room. He wasn't sure what he expected them to find, but he'd had them go over the place anyway. Since the Hunting Club had denied him his crime scene evidence, he'd take evidence from other places like this studio, and see what he could come up with.

He fully expected to come up with nothing. Bowles had died in the Hunting Club's fake forest and she might not even have been the main target. The other man-still unidentified-might have been the focus of the killer, and Bowles might have been in the wrong place.

Nyquist couldn't work on the other man until the identification was complete.

So he was going to focus on Bowles.

The studio looked exactly like it was supposed to-a small, rented s.p.a.ce that somehow had to mimic the big production places like InterDome.

Most of InterDome's techniques could be done on handhelds and on personal links, but some of them were difficult to reproduce-especially in holoproduction.

He had worked enough cases-and done enough interviews-to learn that much.

The door to the building opened directly into the studio. A production desk, which reminded him of nothing more than the c.o.c.kpit of a s.p.a.ce yacht, sat in the middle of the room. Nearly empty shelves stood behind the desk, and in front of it, a window that opened into an empty room. That room had sound dampeners on the wall, ceiling, and floor, and a door to the left.

He'd seen rooms like it before: They were used for holoproduction. Only more sophisticated places didn't have visible sound dampeners on the walls. They had clear screens that could be made to show any image at any time-a way of presenting a holoreporter as if she were standing in Wells City on Mars when she was actually here, reporting ”live.”

A small bathroom opened off the studio. He went in, and was surprised to find another door. That opened into a dark s.p.a.ce. He requested a light, and nothing came on, so he fumbled against the wall. Still nothing.

He went back into the studio and looked at the production desk. On one corner were the environmental controls. They were labeled for the three other rooms, including the back, which was marked as VIEWING Room.

Of course. She used it to watch what she had completed. He shoved his hands in his pocket. Most studios were smaller s.p.a.ces in large media conglomerates.

The studios themselves were often smaller than this, but better appointed, and crammed with listeners, engineers, and supervisors.

This one felt lonely.

He wondered whether Bowles had noticed that or she had liked the solitude. He knew that some investigative reporters worked alone, even at places like InterDome, because they didn't want to be scooped.

There had to be preventive equipment here, too, although-he was surprised to note-his links (even the unimportant ones) remained on.

He sat in the overstuffed chair and felt it mold to his body. A luxury in a place that didn't seem to have any. He whirled the chair around and studied those empty shelves.

What had she planned to put on them?

Or had she planned to put nothing on them?

They weren't built in. They had been moved here, and they were an unusual feature.

He got up and walked to them, and that's when he saw a single jewel case holding a tiny chip. The case was marked THE FIRST-COMPLETE, and he finally knew what he was looking at. She had planned to use the shelves to keep track of every story she had done here. Which seemed more pretentious than it should have, even for Ki Bowles.

A single jewel case could hold a hundred chips, and the jewel case pretty much disappeared against the wall of the shelf. She could have put tens of thousands of stories here and not taken up more than two shelves.

It was a waste of s.p.a.ce, and in a place like this, that seemed out of character. He grabbed one of the shelves and started to muscle it aside.

To his surprise, it slid on its own track, moving toward the wall. The other shelf did the same, blocking the door.

He didn't care that he was trapped in here. What pleased him was the screen behind the shelves. The screen with its touch-control features and the large keypad beneath.

The production desk might have been the center of recording for the studio, but this was the mixing board, the storage unit, and the place where Bowles did her thinking.

He could tell that just from the diagrams that opened without his even asking. The diagram flowed, like a two-dimensional genealogy chart.

He squinted at it. The labels were small, but he could read them.

She had diagrammed a conglomerate, with all its corporate holdings. Each holding had subcorporations as well, and what appeared to be several small businesses.

She hadn't written names anywhere, just the type of business: corporation, subcorporation, affiliated business. She had made arrows that ran from a corporation to an affiliated business of another corporation. Some of those arrows then went back up to the conglomerate.

He didn't understand those arrows at all. Nor could he tell just from the diagram which conglomerate she was ill.u.s.trating. He supposed that information would be in her files somewhere, along with the reasons she had for doing this. He tapped the dedicated link on his thumb to tell the techs to come back into the studio. But the link was blocked. He searched for his internal links and found all of them blocked as well.

He couldn't access anything except the emergency links. He felt a momentary irritation. Then he stepped back to see if all of his links worked near the production desk.

They didn't.

When he had moved the shelves, revealing Bowles's true workstation, he had activated the link blocker. In spite of himself, he smiled.

That was just plain brilliant.

He stepped forward again and pulled the shelves toward each other. They slid easily and then clicked as they locked into place.

Then he heard the white noise as his links reconnected. He tapped the dedicated link on his thumb again, and this time, one of the techs answered.

”I need the team back in here,” he said. ”You won't believe what I found.”

He signed off, grabbed the chip from the top shelf, and opened the viewing room. While the techs worked the new area, he would watch Bowles's last production-and see whether anything in it had gotten her killed.

12.

Maxine Van Alen sat behind her desk, folders scattered in front of her. The company she was suing had so much money they could waste it on expensive paper bindings for their annual reports. And, in case anyone missed the we're-wealthier-than-the-rest-of-you-idiots message, the files were labeled in gold leaf.

She wore a pair of jeweled half-gla.s.ses frames halfway down her nose. A matching jeweled chain kept the frames around her neck when she didn't want to wear them. Her earrings and rings also matched.

Otherwise she was wearing all black today, from the thin silk tunic that ran over a pair of matching pants to her black hair and black fingernails. She'd debated making her eye color black today as well, but she opted for bright blue instead, matching the sapphires in the jeweled chain.

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