Human beings were odd creatures.  Mostly, they were tedious and dull.  They inched through their lives like automatons, too wrapped up in their own petty dramas to notice the ruts they were digging.  The ruts that would be dug so deep they would end up as graves.  But despite that, they constantly did the unexpected.  They persistently subverted expectations and made the world a very uncertain place.

Major Delgado drinking herbal tea was only the most recent in a lifetime of baffling surprises.

   "Coffee keeps me up."  His voice was low and his lips barely moved.  He kept the index finger of his right hand pressed to his temple.  The rest of his hand hung loosely blocking the side of his face in a casual manner.  He didn't need to do it.  A magazine rack and a poster blocked the window sufficiently to shield any view of him from the outside.

He was nervous about meeting her.  He hadn't wanted to do it at all, but Barbara Gracie refused to take no for an offer.  It was a practice, which served her well all her life.  But Delgado didn't yield to her completely.  He had held his ground on refusing to meet at her home, citing the risk of possible DTAA surveillance.  So she had accepted his offer of coffee in the anonymous space of a chain bookshop.

She'd waited for him as instructed in the DVD section on the second floor.  It was a deserted back room with little for her to do except flip through movies she had never seen and never would see.  Muffled explosions provided background noise as a film featuring giant robots flashed in strobing pyrotechnics on the wall-mounted TV screens.  The images, for all their hyperkinetic movement, had the same dull flatness of all fictional exploits—cardboard cutouts masquerading as reality.

Barbara hadn't liked waiting, but she admired Delgado's precautions.  Anyone who joined her, even if they only poked their head in, would immediately fall under suspicion.  But no one did until he showed up.

However, it seemed that no level of safeguards would put Delgado at ease.  Sitting in the store's coffee shop, he barely touched his tea.  He seemed to be waited for his employers to burst in on them and haul him away for insubordination and treason.

Barbara sipped her ice-tea, leaving a trace of lipstick on the clear disposable cup's rim.

Delgado was worried about discovery, but he must be even more concerned about Tray's murder.  He was here with her in spite of his qualms, drawn out by the lure of the possible conspiracy surrounding it.

That night in the apartment, when the two of them were alone with the corpse, he had said, "I don't like this. It's too neat."

It wasn't said as a revelation.  He was merely forcing words out as a way to deal with Barbara's theory, which must have come like a punch to the gut.  His eyes were strained and anxiety pulled the skin on his face tight as he reviewed the crime scene for himself.

"I agree."  Barbara was doing the math in her head but each calculation only lead to another string of variables and unknowns.  "It must be the work of the Agency?"

"No."  The reply came swiftly to his lips like a sharp yes, sir or no, sir while talking to a superior.  His next words came out with more care, while his brain tried to rationalize what was happening.  "The DTAA doesn't kill people.  Even if they viewed him as a monumental threat, there are other simpler ways of dealing with it.  But—"

"But?"

"I feel like I'm being set up."  He bit his lip as he made another pace around the room.

Simpler ways.  Delgado was right.  If they wanted him out of the way, the DTAA had the power and the reach to do it without this much trouble.  They could have made him disappear without a trace as they had done to Amy.  So why stage it and get their own company to clean it up?

The alternative was even more alarming.  Tray may have been killed by someone totally unrelated to the government.  Why would someone go to such trouble to eliminate a lowlife like him?  Barbara could only think of two reasons.  It was either personal or someone was targeting Music Box employees and just picked off the weakest member of the herd first.

"We need to find out who did this and why they're setting you up."

"There is no we."  He stopped in front of her and placed his hands on her upper arms.  His skin burned with anxiety and the heat ran through her body warming her.  "I'll figure this out.  You stay out of it.  You have to go now.  The cleaners are almost here."

"You need my help."  She was reluctant to break the hold he had on her arms, but she didn't want to give him another chance to protest.  She pulled away and on her way out the door, she called over her shoulder, "I'll be in touch."

Delgado was a capable man.  If she needed someone to protect her and keep her safe, there was no one else she would prefer to have by her side.  But he was too trusting.  He placed too much value on appearances.  He wouldn't have even known about the murder if not for her.  Getting to the bottom of it wasn't something he could handle on his own.  Crawling through the muck and the dark recesses of a killer's psyche wasn't something he was prepared to do.

At a half-hour before closing, the coffee shop was almost deserted.  They'd been sitting there not speaking for almost five minutes.  It was time to get to business.  "What have you learned about Tray?"

Delgado waved his hand at her as though it could lower her volume.  "Keep your voice down."  He scanned the room looking for listeners.  Two bored baristas were sluggishly cleaning up for the night.

Barbara cocked an eyebrow and waited.

Delgado gave in.  "Not much."  

He kept his head bowed looking down at the table as if he were afraid someone might be trying to read his lips.  "There was an autopsy.  It didn't find anything surprising.  No sign of a struggle.  There was a crazy cocktail in his system of alcohol, barbiturates, and heroin.  Time of death was placed within sixty minutes on either side of thirteen-hundred hours.  I pulled security footage from the area.  Nothing was usable.  The camera at the back entrance of his building was busted.  It could have been done by the perpetrator, or it could have been like that for days."

"Is that all?"  Barbara unfolded her arms and reached for her cup.

"What did you expect?"  Delgado looked up at her forgetting his precautions.  "After the cleaners left, there wasn't a speck of dust in that place.  The body was cremated and disposed of after the autopsy.  I can't involve any of my men, in case they report me.  And there is only so much I can do in my spare time."

Perhaps he was beginning to believe his agency was involved after all.

Barbara patted the hand he gripped his cup with.  From the tension in his fingers, it was a miracle it wasn't crushed flat with tea erupting over the table. 

Placing one hand on top of another was such a peculiar gesture to comfort someone with.  But people seemed to do it a lot, so perhaps there was something to it.  Barbara did find herself enjoying the texture of his skin.  And it did seem to work; the tension ebbed from his muscles.  She almost forgot how foolish she felt laying her hand out there like that.

"It's okay.  I'm going to help.  I've been doing some digging of my own in the Box.  And—"

Panic flashed on his face, and he yanked his hand away.  "Be very careful what you say next.  I cannot know what goes on down there.  If I were to accidentally let slip that I did—I'm done."

"Don't worry.  I won't discuss the project."  She took her abandoned hand and smoothed her hair back.  "I'll be careful.  I'll only discuss the people down there.  You know all of them anyway."

Delgado's lips were drawn tight against his teeth.  Some inner debate was playing out in his head.  Finally, he let out a sigh of surrender.  "Do you actually think one of them could have killed him?  Why would anyone from the Box do it?"

Barbara smiled at that.  An actual natural smile—the questions were just too absurd not to.  "Jealousy, a grudge, or maybe just for kicks.  I spoke to everyone down there, and the question I'm left with is who wouldn't have killed him given half a chance?" 

"How does someone become that disliked in one week?"

"Tray was special."  Of course, in that respect, I'm probably more special.   "But the important thing—the thing you have to understand is that the people down there are dangerous.  You cannot trust any of them."

"Surely they're not all capable of murder.  I mean, you're not."  It was Delgado's turn to reach out.  He gripped her hand gently in his.  "It must just seem that way after the shock you've had.  Killing another human being is a huge commitment—few people have the capacity for it."

Barbara looked down at her own hand being held, a big brown knuckle resting in her palm.  She then gazed up at the poor man in front of her.  Who did he think she was?  Did he really not see the monster inside of her when he looked at her?  She pitied him his blindness.

She hadn't lied about who she was to anyone.  Not since the trial.  He should know who he was dealing with.

Her fingers tightened around his.  "You're right.  Not everyone can take a life.  Some of them had motive but wouldn't have been able to go through with it."

That put Jamie in the clear.  There was some evidence of a grudge between the two men, even though Jamie had vehemently denied it.  But even if he had been lying and was angry enough at Tray to want to harm him, he was far too weak-willed to have gone through with it.

Then there was Horus.  His reaction had screamed guilt.  Could that blubbery excuse for a man have killed someone?  Doubtful.  And unlike Jamie, he had no motive.  Perhaps he knew or suspected who did it?  Or there was always the possibility he was a secret serial killer.  There were stranger things.

"But I did get a lot of suspicious responses when I asked about Tray," she said.

"You didn't tell them he was dead, did you?"  Delgado leaned farther across the table, bringing his face close to hers.

"No.  Almost everyone thinks Tray broke under the pressure and was sent home."

"Well, that's the story that Maxwell was supposed to feed the group."

"Was it?"

"Orders straight from the sector chief.  So if they believe he's still alive, then none of them can be the killer.  Right?"

"Yes well, like I said almost everyone."

With their heads so near, it would have been impossible to miss the small signs of alertness springing up on Delgado's features.

"Emily Kendrick lied to me.  She knew that Tray was dead."

"How can you be sure?"

"I can tell."  She hoped Delgado wouldn't push it further.

What could she tell him?  That she felt the flush of emotion on the girl like a snake can smell heat?  That she sensed the silent notes of tension in her voice.  That she was practiced in noticing things no one else did because she had spent years watching people trying to figure out how to act like one of them.  Those miserable, frustrating years of her youth, when she misguidedly hoped she could learn to fit in. 

"Emily?  Do you really think she could have killed him and staged it?"  There was a skeptical tone in his voice.  But there was also desperation—that strange apprehension some people felt when trying to come to grips with believing the worst about someone else.

"No."  Delgado was right: Emily couldn't have done that.  And he was also wrong: Barbara could have done it easily. 

He had that very typical naivety that led him to think people were essentially good.  Normally Barbara despised such willful ignorance.  But she was starting to realize that it had a value.  Sitting there, she didn't want Delgado to know the worst about her.  Let there be one person in her life, who wasn't horrified by her.

"Perhaps in the heat of an argument Emily could have killed him," she said.  "Maybe in self-defense—if Tray had forced himself on her, she might have.  But she wouldn't be cold and calculating about it.  She couldn't hold up to that kind of stress.  Even if she had managed to get the needle in his vein without succumbing to doubt and second thoughts, she would have been too unfocused to manage the cover-up.  It was done by a professional."

"So she wasn't behind it then?"

"I never said that."

"I'm not following."

"She didn't kill him.  But I think maybe her lover did."

"She has a lover?"

She had called him Max.  No one in the Box called him that.