Cozened: A Cybil Lewis SF Mystery: Cybil Lewis SF Mystery, #2

By Nicole Kurtz

"Magnificent mansions with dysfunctional diplomats, ruined rock stars and failing families hid their shortcomings behind these structures of supposed strength. Such is life in the District." –Cybil Lewis

Cybil Lewis and her inspector-in-training, Jane, are back on the case. Hired to find the missing son of a prominent woman, Cybil is pulled into the District's sordid political arena of a governor's family with dark and dangerous secrets, and the determination to keep them hidden.

Cybil will soon learn that anyone can be a little cozen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mocha Memoirs Press
• Release date: Jul 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386810605

Nicole Kurtz

Nicole Givens Kurtz's short stories have appeared in over 40 anthologies of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her novels have been finalists for the EPPIEs, Dream Realm, and Fresh Voices in science fiction awards. Her work has appeared in Stoker Finalist, Sycorax's Daughters, and in such professional anthologies as Baen's Straight Outta Tombstone and Onyx Path's The Endless Ages Anthology. Visit Nicole's other worlds online at Other Worlds Pulp, www.nicolegivenskurtz.com.

Book preview

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The call came in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

1:37 a.m. to be exact.

The evening had only just melted into the morrow when my telemonitor dinged, breaking into my dream and disrupting my peace with the implied threat of violence.

Partially asleep, I stumbled into the living room to answer the annoying tone. My sole conscious thought—stop the damn noise. I woke up completely as an awful thought bloomed. Nina. My niece. What if something happened to her?

What else could it be? Only tragedy rang at that hour.

District Regulator, Daniel Tom, appeared, his eyes weary to match his stubble-lined chin. Those light brown eyes hadn’t received their fair share of sleep and stood out in his grim face.

Never one to mince words, he said, Get here.

Where’s here? I didn’t want to race down to some violation scene and deal with a group of grumpy regulators.

I sent you the coordinates. With that, he disconnected.

Curious and a little worried, I dressed, rinsed my mouth with mouthwash, and hurried outside to my wauto, a wind automobile. I hit the button for the launch sequence before the door lowered and attached. My aged wauto needed a tune-up. It was a four-door model with tinted windows and trunk space big enough for a body. Let’s just say I’ve tested that selling point.

With the wind channel cranked to four, my mind turned back to the issue at hand. What could have happened? And to whom? Why was Daniel asking me to come to an active regulator violation scene?

I pushed back the rising tide of panic racing up my throat. Flying to Daniel’s transmitted coordinates with my heart pounding, the questions refused to subside. I adjusted my shoulder holster as the autopilot kept my course steady. The pug and its holster fit me well, but in my rush to get dressed in the bedroom dark, it had become twisted.

The coordinates fell right smack in the middle of downtown, still called down below, Pennsylvania Avenue. After the Great War, the United States had been dissolved into territories. Most of the street names stayed on the ground, but as traffic lanes moved up, coordinates became standard for locations. You couldn’t zoom up to someone’s apartment window. Security and privacy regulations forbid it, but they wouldn’t keep a reckless wauto from crashing through the front room.

Within minutes, I reached the regulation-restricted area thanks to good flying and no traffic. People weren’t up and around at two in the morning.

Coordinates approaching, the wauto’s artificial intelligence declared in an inorganic voice.

My stomach dropped as the vehicle sank lower to the ground, descending through the thick clouds.

Soon, I parked in a spot a short distance from the rotating strobe of regulator lights. A small gathering of people clustered in the middle of a stretch of road. My gut burned in warning. The sooner I got this done, the sooner I could go back to bed.

As if hearing my groan, Daniel looked up and waved me over the caution beam. I walked by a big boulder of a regulator. He glowered at me. A civilian—hell, a P.I.—at a regulations scene. Sacrilege!

Daniel smoked. His black and stiff regulator uniform separated him from the vioTechs crawling around the scene, but the man beneath was weathered and wrinkled.

The May sun had already turned Daniel’s caramel-toned skin a dark, more copper shade. It had turned some of his brunette strands into a warm honey.

Over here, Daniel shouted to me around his cigarette.

I headed over to him. Yeah.

That’s about as far as we ever got with pleasantries. As clear evidence that we knew each other far too well, excessive wordage had become unnecessary.

When I crossed the beam and cleared the gigantic regulator, I saw the massive amount of debris first. Scattered across the pavement was a spray of carnage, smeared human and paint, portions of fiberglass, and seared off fingers. Four to be precise. The nails still clean and manicured as they lay like lightly browned sausages in a heap next to one of the arms. The body, for it was hardly a person anymore, lay sprawled amongst the wreckage. People should not be hacked into pieces like minced onions.

It was unnatural.

When I reached Daniel, his eyebrows twitched as he scanned the debris site. Tomorrow will come about with quickness.

It’s close to two a.m. and once day breaks over the horizon, the traffic through this intersection will increase threefold, I thought aloud to myself, but Daniel nodded.

Yeah. It’s good to see you again. But we gotta move. Hopefully the weather won’t ruin the scene. Daniel scowled and blew smoke from his cigarette.

Tides of dark clouds washed across the sky, threatening to drown out the moonlight and douse the District in a squall.

This is an aerocycle accident. Why am I here? I glanced back to the debris. Something about the victim’s face, as damaged as it was, tugged at my memory and was swiftly blocked.

You tell me. Daniel peered through the puff of smoke.

It’s way too early for this shit. I crossed my arms, feeling my twisted shoulder holster dig in.

I watched as one of the vioTechs took out a razor and sliced through the victim’s pockets to make sure there weren’t any needles, weapons, or anything that could inflict damage. Daniel expected nothing less than my full one hundred and fifteen percent.

Call it tradition.

We go back a long way. Daniel and I had both worked for the District’s army. We ended up being first and second place in all areas of boot camp training. Sometimes he’d win; sometimes I’d kick his butt. After a while of hating each other and viewing the other solely as rivals, we forged a friendship steeped in trust, loyalty, and competition.

After boot camp, we deployed to different locales. Yet it was Daniel who stood by me during my sexual harassment hearing, and it was Daniel who testified on my behalf, thus saving me from serious reprimand. He’d climbed the army’s brass with speed and agility, having played the political game like a pro.

You can gather which of us was better with that.

No ID chip on him, Lewis. So, help me out. Daniel kept his gaze downcast, but I felt he hid something.

Only about six feet from the body, I froze. My legs threatened to buckle, but sheer will forced them to remain erect.

No, it couldn’t be. No.

Come on over here and let’s talk. Daniel put his hand on my arm, tugging me in the opposite direction, away.

I didn’t budge. I couldn’t move…not yet. I had to see, all of it. Unable to recognize what was right in front of me, I struggled, shaking Daniel off.

Something horrible had happened, but it didn’t involve my niece.

Come on, Lewis. Let’s talk over there. Daniel trailed off, letting me take the unspoken words where I wanted them to go. His hard tone came close to angry.

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Back! Step back please! Another regulator commanded into the microphone in her hand. Speakers amplified her voice. The blonde woman continued to command the people backward as a section of uniform-clad regulators shifted in unison like a mob of black velvet, spreading out across the scene, pushing the rubbernecking spectators back from the road and onto the sidewalks. The mass of regs carried stunners and hard plastic shields.

A former hotel turned dance club across the street had closed at two. People had spilled out and into a horrific accident, which I’d bet my beer money killed any remaining buzz or high.

I know you called me here for a reason. I hate moonlighting for the regs, you know that! But this—this is wrong. The hum of the vioTech’s equipment continued ripping up, documenting, and working the scene around us until everything had been catalogued, downloaded, and tagged.

He nodded, his eyes on his tablet. Yeah, I know, but I wanted to be sure.

Bastard.

Yeah.

It’s been three years. I crossed my arms so I wouldn’t punch him.

Feels like yesterday. Bellyaching and all. Daniel looked at me. The grin on his face faded.

I want some sort of payment for this. I hated that it sounded like a whine. My temperament toward regulators bordered on instant rage. I considered most of them, except for Daniel, to be complete morons and more crooked than the violators they arrested. Often their squads were so rotten they were falling apart like rancid meat.

Daniel sighed.  You’re right. I’m sorry. Thanks for coming. He jutted his thumb toward the mob of people straining against the regulators. You’re done here—civilian.

I barely resembled a civilian. My pug was clearly displayed, and it stood out against my black tee-shirt. The bluish-gray bruise across my cheek gave a small testimony to my very violent profession. The one jagged scar up my right arm added to that testimony.

Civilian, my ass.

I’m Cybil Lewis, a private inspector in the District.

Ignoring him, my eyes landed on the glittering glass flung out across the pavement. It was as if the stars had fallen from the sky and shattered on the ground. God had thrown a mega temper tantrum.

Daniel didn’t get it. He just didn’t comprehend the impact the accident had on me, right then. He wasn’t interested in my feelings anyway, only my reaction. He had called me because he wanted me to see, to know what had happened before the media got a hold of it.

He’d gotten what he wanted. Now I wanted some answers.

Who is it? My throat closed over the words. I coughed to dislodge the emotion that knotted there. The victim’s damaged face held the faint hint of familiarity. It jerked at my memory, digging in, and scavenging around for the person’s name. Tell me!

Daniel’s head whipped around to the wreckage. I felt him pat my back gently on top of my chestnut-colored braids as if I was suddenly a child. His sweat stained the air between us, turning it into a salty musk. He was nervous and it wasn’t like him to be anxious. Maybe all that bravado had been to shield me.

Tired, my sleep disrupted and my anger growing, I folded my arms across my chest and pinned Daniel with a stare.

You’ve got to get back with the rest of them. I thought you could ID him. Brinnington will be here in a bit.

Yeah, okay. I didn’t budge.

Every inch of Daniel was muscled in a distance runner sort of way. Not tricked out on steroids, which anyone with a District Dollar could pick up in the back alleys and front streets along the mall.

You’re sure you don’t know. Daniel made it a statement as he pulled out a new cigarette.

I don’t… As soon as I stopped trying to remember it, his name burst into my mind, flooding me with memories I thought I’d buried. Sometimes when I think I’ve dealt with a situation in the past, it comes hurling back into my present, smashing the window pane from where I gazed back on it, shattering my sense of togetherness and demanding to be handled once more.

The battered aerocycle lay on its side, window broken out and gutted. The victim’s mouth lay open, slacked and busted. Bruises, heavy and angry, marred his right arm, which lay about six feet from his body next to the neat pile of sheared fingers. Behind the scrapes and scratches, other bruises were stacked across his face and his exposed neck. The aerocycle wreck wasn’t what killed him. The injuries to his body happened before his aerocycle decided to play chicken with a cargo craft.

Tell me who it is. Daniel whispered it, a hush against the exhale of cigarette smoke.

I fidgeted, my voice low, dangerously close to exploding. Stop shitting me, Daniel. Tell me.

His eyebrows rose at my tone, and he sighed, deep and heavy.

I dunno. I just don’t know, Lewis. It could be him. The fitted uniform seemed to squeeze him tight. Sweat-drenched and weary, Daniel shook his head. I shouldn’t have brought you here. I really am a bastard. I’ll call you later when I’ve got some answers. I—I had to be sure, and since you knew him…

He trailed off, sliding his shades down to cover his blunder in bringing me here.

Great. I hoped he felt like crap because I did.

Shoving by him, I started back to my vehicle. Without halting, I ducked under the yellow caution beam daring anyone to say anything to me.

Lewis! Lewis! Wait a damn minute! Daniel bellowed from behind me.

No one seemed to hear him. The response team of emergency personnel, regulators, and vioTechs all went about their business, oblivious to the emotional tsunami brewing inside me.

Lewis!

It truly was a violation scene, for in my mind, an accident happened when you stubbed your toe or spilled your coffee. Not when you’ve been killed with your vehicle and need to be catalogued, cleaned up, and removed before six a.m. traffic poured in from the outer quadrants.

Something about seeing someone smeared over Freedom Square with its historic quotations and long dead implications made me shudder. It wasn’t right.

The shiny moonlight revealed glistening drops that led off from the man’s body on to the impenetrable trees that dotted the pavement along the square. A reminder of a time when the United States wasn’t a jigsaw puzzle of territories, the vegetation had part of continuing Thomas Jefferson’s law to keep D.C. beautiful.

Now, no one even flew their vehicles this close to the ground unless landing.

What the heck? Without even realizing it, I’d drifted over to the violation scene once more for closer inspection. My eyes squinted as they tried to focus on the substance.

Stop! A regulator resembling a brick wall with a tan jumped in front of me just as I reached the liquid trail’s beginning a few feet from the cautionary beam. Between the beam and the brute, they’d managed to keep all citizens out of the violation scene. Beneath his uniform, muscles bulged against the fabric, threatening to rend the material.

You’re not authorized to be here! The monstrous regulator’s deep voice sounded like it had been modified from an audio file. Lips firmly pressed together and trunk-sized arms crossed over his chest, I knew immediately that my usual sweet-talking charm wasn’t going to melt his ice.

Well, Regulator Tom said… The lie formed on my tongue and slid off like a snake.

I said what? Daniel quipped from behind me.

I groaned. I needed to see those stains closer.

She’s leaving, Ron. Daniel frowned at my actions, no doubt. He grabbed my arm and directed me over to a somewhat secluded spot several paces away.Are you trying to get me fired? he asked heatedly once we were out of earshot.

You invited me here! I removed his hand from my arm. I turned slightly away from him. His fingers brushed my arm in a half-hearted attempt to reclaim it.

If the captain finds you here…

I know. So why wake me up just to jerk my chain? I didn’t want to argue with him. Daniel’s arguments could go on for eternity, even if I’d died midway through the debate.

No, but go home. I’ll let you know when I get more.

I didn’t quite know how to respond to that and retain my dignity, so I stood with my arms crossed and my face fixed at pissed.

I needed you to ID him, all right? You keep telling me you don’t know who he is, though the look on your face tells me you do. Since you won’t make the identification, I’ve got to put you back with the citizens.

With his hand on my shoulder, he moved me toward the crowd of hungry spectators. Perhaps it was more guiding than dragging. I seemed to gravitate to my wauto. I didn’t tell him or anyone about the inky dark spots. No doubt the regulators’ vioTechs would locate and misinterpret them. This wasn’t my case and I wasn’t getting paid. Home sounded better and better.

I paused before getting into the pilot’s seat. Behind the caution beam, doctors removed chunks of the body into a body bag and hauled it away on a levitating dolly. Flashes from digital cameras lit up the early morning sky. The cool air seemed to suck all the strength out of me.

Death.

No matter how often I saw it, regardless of what form it took, it made me reflect on just why I did this kind of work. The loss of human life always unnerved me. Well okay, not always. When someone is trying to silence you truly permanently, then no, I don’t weep for the bastard who eats the other end of my laser gun.

Yet, this accident dropped a sharp stab into my emotional soft spots, the ones I usually keep covered with my own internal Kevlar vest.

As I sank into my wauto’s leather seat, images of him swirled across my vision like contact lenses—suctioned on, refusing to let go until the tears washed them out. I didn’t cry, not then. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.

The body no longer resembled a human being, but a battered hunk of meat.

Once he had been handsome, healthy, and one hell of a lover.

His name had been Carlos Rodriguez.

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Later Wednesday, about noon, I sat at my desk, groggy and sullen. Sleep avoided me after I got back home. So, up early and out the door, I made it to the office by eleven. Jane, my inspector-in-training, nearly passed out from shock at my unusual arrival time.

You’re already here, she quipped, looking at her watch as if it had somehow malfunctioned. This can’t be right.

Don’t push it, I grumbled and disappeared behind the safety of my private office’s door.

As soon as my butt connected with my chair, I thought once again of Carlos. He hung around like a ghost needing permission to cross over and out of my mind. Alive, he was full of life and fire. He worked as a fireman with the District fire department. A daring, marvelous man, who at one point in time wanted to marry me.

There had only been one problem.

He was already married.

The monitor embedded inside my desk flashed images from the Southwest Territories, my screensaver doing its business. Through the door, I could make out Jane’s muffled hunting and pecking style of typing on her laptop. Sprawled directly in front of the pitiful air conditioner as it spat out occasional puffs of cool air, I closed my eyes in reflection. I still could see him clearly, collapsed on my bed and tangled in the satin sheets. His cocoa-toned skin slipping in and out of the black silkiness, peeking and hiding his muscled flesh, grinding his scent into my covers, my pillowcases, my memory, and my heart.

I found it arduous to believe that he was dead. In my line of work, death was a constant, hovering like a hideous specter in the back corners, waiting because going home would be pointless and a waste of time. Death would only have to come right back up to earth to collect another soul. Regardless, Carlos’s parting nagged at me, like a hangnail or a scab I couldn’t stop picking at. Despite his appetite for women, Carlos had been a good person. He provided for his wife and children as well as saving countless lives as a fireman, especially when the District had a serial arsonist on its hands some years back.

Carlos, beautiful and careless, had been fun in a way that was both sexy and difficult to ignore. I couldn’t believe he had died so violently, yet I could understand it. He lived his life running into fire-engulfed buildings while everyone was trampling people to get out. Dangerous and violent professions are the jobs of fireman and regulators (not to mention P.I.s), but he loved it. So had I read about his death in the D.C. Mirror alongside a JPEG of a mother praising her baby’s savior and hero, I would have believed it. It wasn’t even so much that I’d believe it; rather, I could accept it.

An aerocycle accident? His strong body hacked to pieces at the bottom of an intersection? Now that I could not accept, would not accept. It was so…so…unnecessary.

Believe me, there were times that death was not only necessary but warranted—when someone threatens my life, or when someone endangers another human being.

It’s the same thing all the time. People doing absolutely vile things to each other and me having to either clean it up or find the culprit. Violators found new ways to slaughter each other and the people who dared to get in the middle.

So what had Carlos gotten in the middle of?

The door to my private office opened, sending the warm and fuzzy feelings of my former lover fleeing to the recesses of my mind, and Jane’s shadow fell over me.

They knew they had no place in my office.

One glance at Jane said as much.

Her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed into a grim line.

Client?

A slight nod of her head.

I gestured for more information.

There’s a woman in the lobby. She says she needs to see you and asked for you by name. Monochrome Jane was my secret nickname for her. I don’t think she owned too many clothes that weren’t some shade of noir.

"It is on the doors. What does she want?" If I got up now, I’d miss the occasional cooling of the air conditioner.

My name’s not Cybil.

I could see Jane out of the corner of my eye as I hugged the air conditioner closer to me. When did they say they were going to fix the air?

I dunno, but the potential client wants you and that’s that. So get out there. Payment is the essence of our being. Jane clapped me on the back.

Can’t you handle it? Time to expand your training. Take the lead.

"Not that I don’t want to learn more, dear mentor, but she wants you. Maybe this will convince you to unglue your sweaty ass from your seat, Miss Popular. Oh, by the way, Trey’s with her."

Trey.

All interested points of my anatomy took hot notice.

The woman did ask for me. My ego at the moment didn’t need any more feedings. So, it was the one name that caused a buzzing in my ears. Surely Jane didn’t say what I thought she said.

Did she?

Trey?

Trey, Jane spat, as if the name left an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

Heavens knows it did in mine.

Jane crossed her arms over her chest as if she found the whole thing unpleasant.

We were in complete agreement.

Trey. I pulled back from the air conditioning and my trip to Grief City. Getting to my feet, a sort of blind rage filtered over my vision. Everything in the office had gone a hazy kind of red. He’s here. My. Lobby.

Cyb, you're grunting…

You're damn right I am! He has absolutely no right to be here. Not after the shit he pulled in the Memphis Quad.

"Listen, we have a potential client, so get ahold of yourself, go on out there, and see what she wants."

Jane had a point. We were between cases and clients, which was why I was sitting behind my desk doing nothing. Business came in waves. Some waves grew to tsunami size and nearly drowned us; other times the waves washed out as they reached shore. This fact didn’t waver from our normal routine. Sometimes we’d have four or five clients to deal with at one time, and at other times, like now, we’d have no one.

Client. We needed one of those. Yes. Professional. I could do professional. Sure.

I blew out my anger, and after several deep breaths, I found myself somewhat ready to face him.

Focus on the client, focus on the client.

Focus on the client. I nodded at Jane.

Jane nodded in return.

Who was the mentor and who the protégé?

I got up, slid past her, and out into the lobby. Marsha’s still vacant desk sat abandoned. Her death left a bitter tingle in my heart, and to be honest, I couldn’t find anyone willing to take the now three-year vacant job. The temporary agency refused to send another replacement after the last one was nearly shot by an enraged wife whose husband had hired me to get JPEGs of her cheating on him.

My gaze moved swiftly from the desk to delicious.

And there he was, in all of his hatchling, bio-engineered glory. As I entered the lobby, slow and professional like, I allowed myself time to drink him in. Trey. He looked yummy in his jeans and tee-shirt, a nice creamy white that made his dark, ebony skin seem brighter. His double helix tattoo on his neck shimmered and announced to everyone that Trey was a hatchling, an engineered human being, not born but whipped up in a Petri dish. His arms had bulked up since I last saw him, which only made him more delectable, and he seemed in fairly good spirits. Each time we met, my breath always managed to escape in puffs of mixed emotions. The feeling of a cinderblock on my chest made breathing difficult.

Damn him!

Hello, again, Cybil. Trey’s voice held a husky whisper of heat that sounded a bit like loss or maybe regret. 

I could feel it drape itself across me, and I immediately felt smothered. As the fire of seeing him again waned, the cold wash of reality conjured up more memories of misery and tear-filled nights than I could count or cared to acknowledge.

My fingernails bit into my palms