Critical Space by Greg Rucka Page A

over, saving the original for our files, by which time Moore said he had to be going. I escorted him to the door, we shook hands, and then he left.
    I went back to my desk and filed the contract, then cleaned up the empty plate and mugs, dumping Moore's cigarette butt down the toilet. I washed the dishes and put them away, wiped down the counter in the coffee room, and rinsed out the dregs in the pot. Then I went back to my desk and sat down behind it. The lights were off and the shadows were growing long. To my left, opposite the couch, hung the framed covers from
Time
and
New York
magazine, and a couple of the front-page photographs from different papers. In the dimness, the newspaper shots reminded me of the slides I'd seen earlier in the day, the way the details blurred and the grays ran together.
    When the light grew too faint for me to see what was inside my office I spun my chair and looked out the window. Traffic down below was backing up as more and more cars tried to squeeze their way into the tunnel, their headlights and taillights reflecting white and red off glass and painted metal. Once in a while the sound of a horn or a siren seeped in from the city around me, but other than that it was quiet.
    I thought about Antonia Ainsley-Hunter, about how much I genuinely liked her, about how impressed I was with the way she used her life. I was proud to have protected her.
    I was proud that she trusted me to do it again.
Chapter 5
    Ten days later, Dale and I were working in the conference room when the temp at the front desk buzzed us on the intercom. We'd spent the morning on a risk analysis for the area around De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx, where Lady Ainsley-Hunter would speak in the morning on the second day of her visit. She was going to address the students in the school auditorium, then do the meet-and-greet with members of the local Together Now chapter. Dale and I had driven the area, checking the approaches, then done a walk-through. We'd snapped three-dozen photographs and drawn maps, then dropped the film off at a one-hour place and grabbed lunch.
    Now we were back in the office, trying to determine what the safest route to and from the school was, rather than the quickest. Dale was tacking the relevant pictures to the corkboard at the far end of the room and I was going through the Hagstrom atlas of the five boroughs, tracing out our route and transcribing it longhand onto a legal pad. Natalie and Corry were at the Edmonton, performing yet another walk-through of rooms.
    When the intercom on the phone beeped, I poked the button with the pen. "Yeah?"
    "Mr. Kodiak?" the temp said. "A Ms. Chris Havel is in reception. She doesn't have an appointment. She says she has something to give you."
    "I'll just bet she does," Dale muttered, thumbtacking another photograph to the corkboard.
    "Tell her I'll be right out," I told the intercom, then came off the button, capped my pen, and got up.
    "If she only brought a copy for you, I'll be insulted," Dale said.
    "If she only brought a copy for me, you'll have every right to be," I said.
    She was waiting at the end of the hallway, smiling as I approached. It'd been almost seven months since I'd seen Chris Havel last, and she didn't look different, but there was a new air about her. Her short hair was artistically disheveled, and her skin had the luster that people get from either healthy living or expensive salons. What I knew about her led me to believe it was the latter. She had a book-bag hanging from one shoulder, black leather, Italian, and that was new; her old book-bag had been canvas, olive drab, Kmart. In her left hand she had a paper shopping bag.
    "Thanks for seeing me," Chris said. "I probably should have made an appointment, huh?"
    "I can give you ten minutes without the world ending," I assured her, then gestured to my office. When we got inside, she moved straight to the gallery wall, studying each frame. I settled behind the desk and waited for her