Slow River

For a while, it seemed that I ran through the fountains with Tok, that I ran through the city streets with Spa

“You didn’t watch it?”

“No. I didn’t want to see myself looking old and useless.”

He was old, and arthritic, and lonely—but his eyes were not heavy-lidded and ancient and used up, like Spa

I wondered if he had seen the video of Chen’s kidnapping, of me; what he might do if he had recognized me and seen the reward posted; whether he would turn me in… and if I would blame him if he did. A quarter of a million would change his life.

He looked at me a long time when I handed him Gibbon’s leash. I met his eyes. Not like Spa

I got to the plant a little before six. Magyar was waiting at the gates. Her relief was obvious.

“Was it you who called and hung up? Thought I wouldn’t show?” It had occurred to me while I dressed, sweating, remembering the look on Tom’s face, my own doubts. I didn’t want to tempt friends, or those who might become friends. I could have run, disappeared, just another tiny rodent in the undergrowth of the city… But if I ran I would be alone again, never knowing who I was when I bent to look at my reflection.

Being near Magyar made me feel known and understood.

We walked into the locker room very close but not quite touching. We caught a few slantwise glances, coming in together, and Ki

I wondered why I wasn’t telling them that their obvious assumption was wrong. I wondered why Magyar wasn’t, either.

“Later,” Magyar said, “at the break.”

We went our separate ways.

All through the first half of the shift, Cel kept watching me, raising her eyebrow at me when I caught her gaze. A

Five minutes before the break Magyar came to find me. I watched her striding toward me, loosening her mask, frowning. The different lights ran across her hair, which looked very clean and soft. When her right leg moved forward, the ski

“Bird.”

“Magyar.”

“We need to talk.”

“Anywhere but the breakroom. I’m begi

Frowning ferociously, Magyar led me to the glass-walled office where we had faced off with Hepple. She went around the desk and sat in the comfortably upholstered chair. She was angry again. “Feels good. Want a try? No? Well, I suppose you’ve sat behind big desks a lot. You were probably used to chairs like these by the time you were seven.”

I thought we had gone through all this rich girl—poor girl stuff yesterday. “What’s bothering you?”

“Have you checked the police records yet?”

“No.” I should have. Of course I should have, but I had been sleeping, exhausted and confused.

“I did. Or my friend did. She works in the county records office. I called her this morning, asked her to check.”

“And?”

“And nothing. At least not from this part of the country.”

There was a large dry patch high up in my throat. “How about hospitals?”

“Also nothing.”

The dry patch was getting bigger. “I don’t understand.”

“Nor do I, frankly.”

I didn’t really want to ask her. “Do you believe me?”

“I wonder if you’re telling me everything.”

“You’ve heard the high points. There are some things I don’t want to talk about. Some of them are a matter of public record,” like the net video, “some are things only I know about.” And Spa

There was another chair on my side of the desk. I took it.

“So, what do we do from here?”

I didn’t have any suggestions. She was the one who didn’t trust me. I was tired of dancing to other people’s tunes. Somewhere below, water gushed loudly through a pipe. It was hot in the glass box.

Eventually, she sighed and put her feet up on the desk. “You’re a van de Oest. But you won’t go back to your family because your mother abused your sisters and might have abused you. And because you think you killed someone. But there’s no record of a dead body. No body, no murder, no crime. And if your mother did abuse anyone, it’s not your fault, so why should you suffer? Why not just go back and get her arrested?”

“She may already be arrested.” I told her about Tok and Oster, the strange appeal they had made two years ago. “But there’s more to it than that.”

Magyar folded her arms in satisfaction. “Thought there might be.”

“My ransom wasn’t paid for a long, long time. I thought the delay was deliberate.”

“Thought or think?”

“I don’t know.” Did the fact that it was Katerine and not Oster make a difference? No. “I was in that tent for weeks. The ransom demand was thirty million.” I ignored the way her pupils dilated. “They wouldn’t actually expect thirty million, of course. That’s just a negotiating tool. But they would expect about ten.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s the kind of thing you learn growing up.”

“You might.”

I supposed it might seem odd, to grow up understanding the mechanics of abduction. “Ten million—even thirty million—means nothing to my family. Just on my own I’m worth more than that.” Talk of millions was doing what mention of my name yesterday had not. I could see the shutters start to come down in Magyar’s head. “Don’t. Damn you, Magyar, don’t go away, don’t pretend I’m not real. There’s nothing I can do about the money. It’s what I was brought up with. But I don’t have it now.”

“You could, though.”

“I could. But I won’t.”

“We’ll see.” But she smiled. It was just the corner of her mouth, but she was trying.

“At those prices, my release should have been negotiated within a week. Ten days at the most. I was in that tent six weeks. Why?”

“Bad communications?”

“No. They had excellent lines of communication. Think about it. Someone knew where to abduct me from. I’d been in Uruguay less than twenty-four hours, but they were ready: transport, masks, drugs. And they even knew I was allergic to subcutaneous spray injections. How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Someone told them. And the only people who knew were family members, and those close to the family.” I gave her a minute to absorb that. “So if my family, or someone close, set the whole thing up, the question has to be: Why? The family doesn’t need money, nor does the corporation.”

“Maybe it wasn’t money they were after.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. Maybe they just wanted me out of the way.”

“But why? And if it was the family, for family reasons, why the Chen kidnappings”

“I don’t know.”

Silence. “So you changed your name and hid.” I nodded. “Well.” She did not seem to know what to say.

She knew I had been in danger, maybe still was. She knew I was rich but would probably never claim the money. She knew I thought I had killed a man. “Magyar, will you help me?”

“Yes.”

Yes. “Just like that?”

She lifted her feet off the desk, gave me a crooked smile. “Murder, money, high intrigue. It’s just getting interesting.”

Another silence, this time longer. “Magyar, why?”

“Why do you think?” she asked softly.