The bedroom was pristine.  The bed, crisply made.  All the books in the bookcase, in alphabetical order and the spines never bent.  The fresh pink paint, glistening like the surface of a pool of rose petals.  Amy said the color looked like Pepto Bismol.  They had repainted the pink even though she hated it.  There were studies that showed that color had calming effects and made people less violent.

Although if recent events were any indication, those finding were highly dubious.

Horus rubbed the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief.  The office felt hot although the digital readout showed the temperature at sixty-eight Fahrenheit.  When he finished mopping his brow, there was a trail of red streaking across the white linen.  A tentative finger felt his cut.  It was bleeding again, but just slightly.  The gash still marked him even if the scrape had faded.  He pressed the hanky back to it and waited for Amy to be shown into her room.

She'd been kept in the wolf pen since the incident and the lack of a window had prevented them from continuing their sessions.  Horus counted himself lucky he hadn't been ordered to don a hazmat suit and give her face-to-face counseling.  The past week had almost been a vacation, but that was over.  Maxwell demanded that he be there when Amy made her return.  He had overruled R.J. and wouldn't listen to the administrator's objections that Horus was doing little to help Amy's psyche and may even be doing harm.

   R.J. might have been attacking Horus, but it was clear the man was carrying the blame around on his own shoulders.  Horus could practically see the guilt dragging him into a stoop, like a proverbial albatross around his neck.

Horus wasn't mad at R.J.  In a way, he was grateful.  He would have been happy to be dismissed for any reason.  If his employer didn't have that envelope of evidence against him, he wouldn't leave his house.  The specters of Kyle Silver were multiplying.  And they were coming after him.

But if the bastard had risen from the grave, could Horus be convicted of his murder?  How did the law deal with resurrection?

The door between the two enclosures opened on the pneumatic hinges and Horus pocketed the handkerchief. The drops of blood on the fabric seemed to add weight to it.

Can she smell the blood through the glass, I wonder?

He wasn't sure where the thought had come from but a chill rose out of the depths of his gut.

 Amy stepped in, glancing about suspiciously.  She was dressed in her customary black sweats.  Her face was drawn back inside the hood of the sweater.  The lights sparkled on her flickering eyes as they tried to examine everything.  It was as though they were searching out deeper secrets hidden beneath every surface. 

She passed the dresser and her hand gently caressed the music player.  It sat in a squat docking port with two small speakers.  The screen lit up her palm as it crossed in front of it.

At the dressing table, she lifted up a hairbrush and ran her thumb across the bristles.  She kept walking until she stopped to scrutinize it in front of the office window.  Horus shifted uncomfortably, while she acted as though he wasn't there.

"Amy, I think we should talk."

She dropped the brush on the chair and turned away from him, heading for the night table. 

"About what?"  Amy picked up and put back down the new bottle of moisturizer.  Same brand as before but now full and the seal unbroken. 

"About what happened.  You changed when you weren't supposed to.  That's why we had to move you to the other room."

"I know."  She flipped through the new paperback of I Shall Wear Midnight.  The last page she had read was dog-eared.  Could she tell it was done by a different hand than hers?  "R.J. told me."

R.J. shouldn't be communicating with her.  It didn't matter what he was going through, he was interfering.  Horus would have to bring it up with Wiley.

She slapped the book down hard against the table.

"It's all the same."  When she looked back at him, her face was flush, eyes narrowed, hands in tight fists at her sides.

"What is?"

"Everything.  Everything is exactly the same."

"Yes.  We felt that continuity was important.  Do you like it?"

"No.  I never did.  This place sucks.  Everything about this place sucks."  She went back to the dresser and started pulling out drawers and shoving them back in shaking the bureau with each slam.

"If there are things we can do to make it better, please tell me and I will try to work with you."

"You suck."   All of her banging caused the stereo's remote to fall to the ground.  Any kicked it across the room.   "Where's Jamie?"

Horus scratched at his beard.  There was an evil temptation to tell her exactly what had happened.  He wouldn't mind shocking her and seeing her hostility melt into grief.  Hadn't Gracie done much the same thing months ago?  But the vengeful thought only lasted in his brain for as long as a blink.  She was just a young girl.  She needed protection.  Coming to terms with something like this wasn't going to be easy.  He would need to proceed slowly.  "I think it's best we discuss that at some other time."

"I killed him, didn't I?"

*** 

The kitchen was a heart of life in the large, dark, empty house.  The only indication that there was anything beyond the circle of pot lights was the relentless crash of drums and guitars from the stereo.  Napalm Death's latest album was playing at a high clip.  Someone could be screaming at the top of their lungs and no one would hear, but so far, none of the neighbors had complained.

The frying pan was too hot and the rendered fat sputtered and popped sending hot grease into the air.  Using a fork, Emily took the bacon out and placed the crisped pieces on a folded sheet of paper towel.  She then shoved the pan to the back of the stove, off the burner.

Emily couldn't seem to get the hang of the ceramic top stove that came with the rented house.  The last time she had cooked, it was on one with old-fashioned ring burners.  She had probably been making this very meal.  It was the only thing she knew how to make without a recipe in front of her.  And bacon macaroni and cheese had been Aaron's favorite.

Is Aaron's favorite.  She gritted her teeth as she reminded herself he wouldn't be gone forever.

The water was taking its sweet time to come to a boil.  Emily cleaned off her glasses with the tail of her shirt but only managed to smear the grease around into a uniform film.  Her head bobbed up and down to the music in unconscious mosh-pit fashion.

Tired of waiting, she dumped the pasta in as soon as the water hit a light simmer.  Then she stirred the cheese sauce to keep it from burning.  She lost herself in the patterns the spoon cut into the thick sauce—creamy cheese slowly filled in the trenches erasing the fleeting figure eights.

The volume of the music dropped to a whisper and the song was reduced to little more than static.  The food and the stove were forgotten.  All her focus was aimed at the doorway to the living room.  There was an agonizing beat of worry, then Max stepped in.

"I don't know how you can listen to that crap.  The sound of artillery is more pleasant."

"You're the one who told me to bring some of my music."

He passed right by her and went to the sink.  There was the clang of steel in the basin as he dropped his tools in.  Then he turned the water on full blast and soaped up his hands.

"How's it going?"

"These things take time."  He was trying to make his voice light but he couldn't hide his discouragement.  With the soap rinsed off, he rubbed water on his face and neck, cleaning the sweat off and reviving himself from fatigue.

Emily went to the cardboard box with the kitchen stuff she'd brought and dug out the colander and a bottle of wine.  She sat the sieve beside the sink and kissed Max on the cheek.

"Well, I know you won't want any."  She raised the bottle.  "But I'm going to have a glass.  Cooking is hard fucking work."

"Pour me one too, would you?"

"Okay."  How bad were things?  She'd never seen him have a drink in all the time she'd known him.  She untwisted the cap and poured two glasses.  She put so much into his that it felt off balance when she handed it to him.

He took a huge gulp.  "Good stuff," was all he said.

"Are you worried that they'll give you hell for being away for a few days, again?"

"Nah.  If they want to try that, I'll show them what real hell is."

Emily was at the stove, so he couldn't see the amused smile on her face as she tested the macaroni for doneness.  Give all those bastards hell, she thought.

He leaned back against the island.  The hand with the wine glass rested on his hip in a gunslinger pose.  "You're not worried, are you?" he asked her.

"No.  I'm just the janitor there.  No one cares what I do on my days off."

He sighed.  "I'm sorry.  I should do something about the way they treat you."

"Don't.  It's okay.  One thing I've learned is below the radar is a good place to be.  The less eyes on you the better.  You have a better chance of conning someone by pretending to be a waitress than by pretending to be a goddamn countess."

Max snickered softly.  "It's great having you here.  I'm glad you came."

"Of course I came.  If you had fucking tried to keep me away, you would have been in big trouble, Mister."

His laugh grew to a healthy chuckle.

When she had gotten his call, Emily loaded up the car and drove the three hours to the house he was renting in Nogales, Mexico.

"How are the new guys fitting in?"  Maxwell had asked her to keep an eye on them.  Not just because he was away, but to get the inside scoop from someone who worked side-by-side with them.

"Miller is nice.  I spoke to him a few times.  Not bad to look at either.  Pretty buff for a science geek."  She winked at Max.  Just a quick flash of her eyelash to let him know she was intentionally testing his jealousy. 

   Max shook his head refusing to get drawn in.  "How about Bowman?"

"Larry?  He's weird.  Doesn't seem like much of a nurse to me.  He gives Gracie a run for her money in the crappy bedside manner department.  R.J. ripped into him yesterday.  Apparently he had been a bit rough with the girl while getting a blood sample." 

She hauled the pot of water up off the stove and dumped it out over the sink catching the pasta in the colander.  She kept it raised above the basin so it wouldn't come into contact with the pairs of the dirty pliers Max had left there.  Steam billowed up like a mushroom cloud hazing over her glasses and fogging the kitchen.

When it cleared, she said, "R.J. has gotten pretty protective of her.  What's that all about?"

"Guilt.  He's making himself sick over what happened to Jamie."

"Still?"

"Do you know he keeps Haddad's RFID chip in a jar on his desk?"

"I heard a rumor that he broke it off with that girl of his?"

"Yeah."  Max poured himself a second glass of wine.  "I wasn't a fan of him dating someone outside the bunker, but nothing about his reaction has been healthy.  I'm thinking of making him sit down with Horus before he becomes a liability."

"It's too bad. He was much more pleasant to be around when he was getting laid."  Emily poured the macaroni into the sauce and started crumbling the bacon in.  "Hand me those bowls."

She dished out the food and handed the first bowl back to Max.

"Smells awesome."  He was sporting that full smile that melted her heart.  The one that was natural and completely unselfconscious.  With his chubby cheeks, it made him look like a small boy.

"I hope you like it.  I don't have many tricks up my sleeve.  If we're going to be here a while, we're going to be getting a lot of take-out."

"Don't worry.  It won't take long.  You know how persuasive I can be.  And that garage bakes in the day and gets close to freezing at night.  His loyalty to the Torrealbas doesn't run that deep.  He'll break soon enough and tell us where they're taking Aaron.

***

Author's note: This posting is dedicated to Terry Pratchett 1948-2015