Dragon Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

a lifetime of devotion. And having a Council
friend was never a bad thing, despite what my lonejack-raised coworkers
believed.
    I tested my conscience and came back with a quick response.
“Sure. Ping me.”
    I watched her leave, enjoying the view her knee-length pencil
skirt gave me, then brought myself back to the business at hand. My core hadn’t
quite topped off, but it was good enough. Time to get moving. Stosser would
expect me to have something to report, come morning.
    Not an answer: even the Big Dog wasn’t that unreasonable. But a
little girl was missing, and finding out who took her was my job. No fucking
pressure, right.
    I had a number of contacts among the fatae, both through my
mentor and my own social circles. Bobo, the Meshaden who acted as my occasional
bodyguard and gossip-bringer. Danny, the half-faun P.I. who did side work for us
occasionally and had connections into just about every shadowed corner of the
city. Madame, the Ancient dragon who lived in a penthouse cave high above the
cityscape and had her talon on the pulse of everything scandalous in the society
world, human and otherwise. But even as I ticked off names in my head, I knew
that if I wanted the most up-to-date details that other people wouldn’t want
known, if time was of the essence and cost not really an object, there was one
place to go and two people to talk to.
    For various interpretations of “people,” anyway.
    * * *
    I didn’t have the patience to deal with the
stop-and-start motion of a cross-town bus, so I hailed a cab. Stosser would damn
well approve the expense, even if we were doing this pro bono.
    Once upon a time, meeting up with The Wren had been a thing of
awe—after all, she was The Retriever, at least in the States—the most talented
(and Talented) of current-thieves. Then we’d become building-mates, and friends,
and I almost stopped thinking of her in a professional manner.
    Almost. Not quite.
    The past year or so, we’d lived in the same building—she’d
gotten me my apartment, in fact. But about a month ago, when the planned condo
conversion of our building fell through, she’d moved uptown. I didn’t blame
her—our building was cozy and had a sense of living energy in the actual
construction that made Talent feel comfortable, but it was also kinda cramped
and rundown, and her sweetie lived uptown anyway, so…
    It wasn’t like we saw each other every day, anyway.
    I gave the cabbie Wren’s new address and leaned against the
seat as the car jolted forward, moving into traffic. Pulling the file Stosser
had given me out of my bag, I opened the folder and studied the report in more
detail, putting aside what the Lord said and concentrating only on the
established facts. Kids sometimes went missing with no supernatural elements
involved, and I’d learned the hard way about not checking
every-damn-possibility. Especially if anything contradicted what the client gave
us. But the notes didn’t give me anything new, or even problematic. Parents
still married, so not a custody battle. No other relatives who might be
problems. Family decently middle-class, not the sort to be targeted for ransom.
Both parents worked in academia, teachers, so it’s not like there was the high
probability of coercion or blackmail, either, unless PTA meetings had gotten a
hell of a lot tougher since I was in school.
    The cab dumped me out on the corner rather than fight the
delivery van double-parked and blocking traffic, and I walked the half block to
“The Westerly.” I had laughed when I saw the name on the formal, cream-colored
change-of-address card delivered in the mail a few weeks before. Seeing it,
though— J’s building was called Branderford. I wanted to live in a building that
had a name. And a doorman. And…
    And, pointless. I couldn’t afford an apartment in a building
with a name and a doorman. Not yet, anyway.
    Doormen in New York City are more than guys—or women—who open
doors and accept deliveries.