Stealing the Elf-King's Roses: The Author's Cut by Diane Duane Page A

case to end, waiting to be the president of the biggest multiuniversal comms corporation in town. Now  this  happens. Naturally it feels like a thorn in his paw, and he wants it out. We’re just the tool that’s nearest to hand.” He grinned at her. “Your fault for being so good on that job six months ago.”
    “Thanks so much,” Lee muttered.
    “So here’s dil’Sorden,” Gelert said. “By all accounts a team player, a nice guy, well liked by his fellow employees, good performance ratings. Up to his ears in profitable work, stock options—”
    “Do we know that?”
    “It’s a commonplace at his level of employment. We should probably ask Hagen for access to dil’Sorden’s workspace to confirm it.”
    “You think he’d give us that?” Lee said.
    “If he’s really so hot about wanting this case ‘solved,’ let’s dangle the suggestion in front of him tomorrow,” Gelert said. “The worst he can do is tell us to go chase our tails…Anyway, dil’Sorden’s not hurting. Nice apartment, nice car, all the perks. But when we see him for the first time ourselves—he’s down. Upset, would you have said?”
    Lee closed her eyes and replayed her recording of her “sniff’ of the inside of the nightclub. “Yes,” she said. “Depressed. Extremely anxious about something he suspected was about to happen. Not the murder: something else, in the near but not immediate future.”
    “I concur. He goes outside with his mind on that trouble ahead of him. Then turns around, sees the guy with the gun—”
    “And thinks, ‘I never thought they’d go  this  far.’ ”
    “I concur again. That’s certainly how I read it. But this is stuff that I don’t think a jury is going to be able to hear with you from your recording. It goes by awful fast in mine. If you can catch it more clearly when you run the site one last time—”
    “All I can do is try,” Lee said. “Truth is out there. All we have to do is catch her.”
    “If possible. These impressions are very general at the moment: they don’t lead anywhere specific.” Gelert lay back on his pad and stretched, long legs waving in all directions before he came upright again and lay there looking like an oversize statue of an albino Anubis. “So. A human lies in wait for dil’Sorden, shoots him, and escapes. An Elf watches, and leaves. And dil’Sorden was half expecting it. Why? What has he done wrong? Or done right, after which he can’t be allowed to live longer? What has he  not  done that he was supposed to do?”
    They both sat with the thought for a while. “Too soon to know,” Lee said. “But this was no accident: no mugging that went wrong. It was him they meant to kill… And you’re right about his computer workspace. I’ll ask Hagen tomorrow morning, after I sniff the site again.”
    “How many more runs on it do you think we have?”
    “One each,” Lee said. “There won’t be much left to read afterward. But I’m going to milk my last run for all it’s worth.” Once again she saw it, that shadow by the corner, watching, satisfied, gone.
    “You always were stubborn,” Gelert said, getting up and stretching again.
    “It takes over where smart runs out,” Lee said, “and sometimes it’s worth more. Let’s go get some supper.”

    *

    Lee was in early the next morning, earlier even than Mass, which she knew was going to cause some teasing: but she didn’t care. She spoke to the alarm system, had it bring the lights and office services online, and went back to the coffee room to make herself a cup of something strong. The shadow by the corner building had kept her awake for a long time, and when she’d finally slept, she’d gotten no good out of it.
    She had dreamed about Matt again last night: one of those intense and very physical dreams that left her awake and swiftly mortified, amid soaking wet sheets. The mortification was shortly replaced by anger, for in the dream everything was as it had been when everything