"If you're late?"
"Use your judgment."
"I hate it when you say that."
"I know."
Street southwest was old money that had stopped announcing itself, the Aldric residence stood behind a stone wall stretching half a block and the gate code worked on the first try, either proof that Percy was dependable or that someone had shared the code specifically for her.
The south entrance was a plain service door in a side wall, left unlocked and leading into a narrow hallway lit by a lone overhead strip. Just inside, on a small shelf, sat a takeout-style paper bag. Inside was the promised wire rig, analog, a transmitter no bigger than a thick pen cap and a slim receiver on a lanyard. Beneath them lay a handwritten note in the same tidy script as the card, 'The receiver stays with me, you'll know when you're live.'"
In a small bathroom off the corridor, she secured the device, pressing the adhesive strip to her sternum before straightening the collar of her jacket. She'd worn a wire twice before, once in her second year and once during a case she never should have been running. Both times it had felt like carrying a second heartbeat, just slightly out of sync with her own, this time was no different.
She located the main rooms by tracing the hum of conversation, the gathering was small, eight or nine people scattered across a sitting room that felt staged rather than inhabited, its furniture selected more for the image it projected than for comfort. Walter Aldric stood by the window, a man so practiced in displaying authority he might have forgotten it was an act. At seventy-one, still broad-shouldered, he carried the calm of someone who had never needed to command a room, because the room had always shifted to accommodate him.
Albin Szymanski was easier to spot than his photo suggested. He stood near the far door, holding a glass he never sipped from, he seemed to serve a purpose in the room, like a load-bearing wall, essential but unnoticed. No one looked at him directly, which in itself felt like a form of attention.
Percy lingered by the fireplace, he met her eyes briefly before turning back to a woman in a cream blazer who seemed to carry most of their conversation, nothing about his relaxed posture hinted he'd spent part of the morning on a chilly park bench watching Mira run.
She was welcomed into Percy's firm as a legal associate, a convenient fiction that went unquestioned, her arrival seemingly expected by someone. That expectation had been conveyed in the subtle way expensive rooms spoke, with a quiet shift in the air, a woman offered her a drink, she chose sparkling water and settled where she could take in the widest view.
For forty minutes, nothing happened that seemed to matter. Aldric spoke to three different people, Szymanski left once for the hallway, then came back. Percy flowed through conversations with the ease of someone whose work demanded being everywhere at once while leaving no sign he'd been there.
Then Aldric headed for a door at the far end, which Mira guessed led to a study or office, something with a lock. Szymanski followed without a word. Percy excused himself from the woman in the cream blazer and crossed the room, stopping beside Mira on his way.
"Two minutes." He said in her direction without turning toward her.
She waited a minute and a half, then followed.
The study was smaller than the sitting room and felt warmer, with a desk in the middle and three chairs set up in the casual way of a meeting. Aldric sat behind the desk, Szymanski stayed standing, Percy claimed one chair and Mira took another, angling it just enough to keep both doors in view.
For the first time, Aldric turned his full attention on her, the kind of measured gaze that had been shaping judgments about people for fifty years.
"Arthur says you're useful." His voice was calm, "In our line of work, useful is high praise."
"I'll take it." Her tone stayed light.
"He also mentioned you were the detective on the platform nine incident this morning." He said it as if noting the weather, an event that had happened and was now shelved.
"Yeah." She met his eyes without wavering.
"These things happen sometimes when people lose sight of the nature of their arrangements." He twirled his pen once between two fingers, "Are you someone who understands arrangements, Detective?"
The wire against her sternum lay perfectly still, the adhesive snug against her skin, the receiver sat in Percy's pocket. She had no way of knowing what he was doing with the recording, whether the chain of custody was intact, or if she was sitting across from the man who'd ordered Diane Collier placed on a marble floor, wired to a device feeding straight to the people who'd sent her here.
She thought of Diane Collier's hands, intact nails, no sign of struggle, "I understand them better than most."
"Then perhaps we can speak plainly." Aldric paused.
By the door, Szymanski shifted his weight, a subtle move but the first unprompted one she'd noticed. It told her the tone of the conversation had just shifted into territory he'd been anticipating, though she hadn't quite realized it yet.
She smiled, "I'd prefer that.
Aldric spoke for eleven minutes without saying anything that could be used against him, it was a skill Mira had seen before in men of a certain age and comfort, those who could paint the whole picture without ever naming the subject, who could sketch the framework of a plan without placing a single brick you could later identify. He talked about complexity, about the friction when oversight bodies lacked the know-how to grasp what they were seeing and about the advantage of having someone on the inside who understood where the system fell short.
Mira listened with the attention, quiet, unreadable, giving the illusion of openness while serving as a mental recorder sharper than any device strapped to her chest. She noted the pauses, the flicker of Szymanski's gaze from Aldric and back again, the way Percy's hand rested open on his knee, a gesture that might have been ease or the deliberate stillness of someone keeping careful count.
"What kind of timeline are we talking about?" She waited two beats after Aldric before asking.
He looked pleased with the question, "The platform nine issue needs to be resolved within the week, the investigation should run its course." He twirled the pen again, "There are other matters, we’ll get to those separately, once trust is in place."
"And the girl?" Mira asked, she kept her voice steady and slightly detached.
"A contractor who thought she had more leeway than she did, when people step outside these arrangements, there are consequences detective." He said without hesitation.
The room stayed the same temperature, somewhere in the house a clock ticked; she'd noticed it since she arrived but only now paid it real attention.
"I'll need forty-eight hours; there are procedural boxes I have to check or the absence raises flags. After that, the platform nine file goes wherever you need it to go."
Aldric held her gaze a moment longer than the words alone called for then he gave a single nod, "Arthur will handle the details."
He stood up which meant the meeting was over, Szymanski opened the door, Mira stood up and walked back into the sitting room where remaining guests had thinned to four and someone had refilled the drinks. She took position near the far window, held her water glass and did not look toward the study door.
She stood by the far window, holding her water glass, avoiding any glance toward the study door.
Percy appeared ninety seconds later and crossed her without appearing to cross her, "South corridor, five minutes."
She took seven and headed down the south corridor to see if the trust she'd placed in Percy, though technically she hadn't was worth it, or if she was just walking into the same trap Diane had once fallen into.
To be continued...