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agricultural domes that actually produced agriculture. The documents probably protectedLady Luna from city censure if Cabrera exposed her connection to him—that would explain why she didn’t want to go to the police too. Probably he was going to hold them over her head as leverage. Eliana had a hard time believing that Lady Luna couldn’t figure all that out on her own, but she didn’t say anything about it. That was a lot of money on the desk.
    “Look.” Eliana pushed her chair around so she could look Lady Luna in the eye. “I may seem like I’m new to this whole investigation scene, but I’ve been doing it long enough that I’m used to dealing with Cabrera.” This wasn’t entirely true, but Eliana was willing to count her dalliances with Diego. “So no worries there. You gave me that big stack of cash”—she pointed at the desk—“to get your documents back. I’ll get ’em back. Maybe that’s all I’ll do for you, but I’ll get them back without peeking and without letting them leak. Sound fair?”
    Lady Luna nodded and drew a forefinger across the underside of her right eye, as if to wipe away a tear. Her makeup didn’t smear at all. “Thank you, Miss Gomez.”
    “I’ll come by your house this afternoon, take a look around, maybe talk to the robot. It does, uh, talk, doesn’t it?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “Good.” Eliana leaned back. “Was there anyone else at the house last night?”
    “Oh, no.” Lady Luna shook her head. “The android is the only staff I have.”
    Eliana nodded, although she didn’t say anything. That was a bit eccentric.
    “I let my human staff go when my husband died,” Lady Luna said. “Things were—easier that way.”
    Eliana smiled politely. Excitement sparked in her blood. The first case of the winter. Mr. Vasquez had warned her about the winter cases. They were trickier, he said. Dangerous. She should expect to run into Cabrera.
    Eliana wasn’t worried. She had Diego. And the money on the desk was a lot to add to her visa funds.
    Lady Luna stood up, smoothing out her skirt, rearranging the furaround her shoulders. “I look forward to working with you,” she said. She had collected herself and was back to being the woman on television. “That money is only your retainer, of course. I’ll pay you the rest when my documents are returned to me. Would you like me to write down the name of my house?”
    At first, Eliana only registered the question about the house. She ripped off a clean sheet of paper and handed it to Lady Luna along with a pen. As Lady Luna wrote in elegant, practiced strokes, Eliana glanced down at the money on the desk. Lady Luna’s voice echoed in her head. I’ll pay you the rest. That wasn’t all of it.
    Eliana wondered what the hell those documents could be.
    *  *  *  *
    That afternoon, Eliana took the Sunlight Express, the train that left from the docks. She’d never ridden on it before. This was a rich person’s train.
    It was nicer than the city trains, she supposed, although the compartments were windowless and the decor was the same overwrought turn-of-the-century style as the amusement park. Eliana sat down at a table, lit a cigarette, and splurged on a fernet coffee and watched the little flames flickering in their glass globes on the tables. Seemed a stupid idea to her, letting fires burn on a moving train.
    The train was mostly empty. No one was in the dining car but her and the bartender, who leaned up against the wall and flipped through a newspaper. When Eliana had seen that Lady Luna’s house had a name, Southstar, instead of an address, it hadn’t surprised her. Of course she lived in one of those domes that lay outside the main city dome. A private dome for the privately wealthy, with its own private maintenance drones, its own private power plant. One of those things no one even bothered to complain about, because complaining was just a reminder that the people who ran the city didn’t have to give a shit