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Friday was a balmy day, warm but with a breeze to cut the heat that still lingered from summer. The Barton farmer's market took full advantage of it, and we got stuck in a traffic jam outside the North Gate, mostly made up of carts. It was clearly a lost cause trying to get the car into town, so we parked it by the roadside and headed in on foot. Cindy grumbled about her shoes, and I was glad I was wearing the new sneakers she had gotten me. They looked frumpy, but at least they were comfortable...
Of course, I couldn't keep my nose out of everything, and we got separated as soon as we got to the fountain. Busy telling a fishmonger that his fish was rotten, watching two men try to fix a broken table, and finally telling a large man with skin the color of chocolate that the "the darker your skin is, the smarter you are" theory that he was expounding at the top of his voice from the fountain's rim was bunk, I didn't notice that Cindy had gone on without me. No worries though...as I pushed through the crowd near the station, I could hear her before I could see her.
"I told you," she was shouting at a man in the tan uniform of a city worker, "this building is the property of GAIA 9! Take your posters somewhere else!" She grabbed the edge of a poster the man had clearly just pasted to the wall, yanked it off, and threw it onto the steps. "Now clear out before I make you clean that wall!"
The man muttered somthing about GAIA 9 being run by the govenment, but Cindy had already stormed inside. I was about to follow when I saw the poster blowing down the steps. I glanced at it...and felt as if I'd been turned to ice. It was a "WANTED" poster, offering a reward of 10,000 gold for information resulting in the capture of a man wanted for train robbery. The face that stared up from it was a sketch, and not a very good one at that, but it was a face I recognized at once. The face of the man who had given me the cloak I clutched around myself as I stared at the poster. The face of Yama.
"Whatcha looking at, girl?" the city worker's voice interupted me. "Ya seen that guy?"
"I wouldn't tell you if I had, you rude disgrace to Barton," I snapped back, snatching up the poster and crumpling it into a ball. "Clear out like Cindy told you!" I hurried into the building. As soon as I got in, I shoved the poster into my purse and ran for Cindy's office.
She wasn't there. I sat down and draped my cloak over the back of the chair, my mind still on the poster. I knew Yama couldn't have done something like that... He must have been framed. At least it explained why he'd had to go back to his cave... A pang of longing swept through me, and I stroked the tip of the whip that Angel had given me, and which I still wore, looped around my chest and waist, with the end trailing behind me like a long tail. Its cool smoothness was strangly comforting...
Then I heard the voices, coming from the hall outside. One, Cindy's, was saying, "...look at how the ratings would soar if we were right! We could say that we knew more then the police or anyone else, and people would watch..."
I recognized the other voice too...it was the man who had tried to get me fired for "lying" about my trip to the Cliffs. "But what if we're wrong?" he asked.
"It won't do any harm," Cindy said. "After all, we're talking about the Sniper! Everyone's been wrong about him. And there's been a huge amount of sloppy handling of the case..."
"And I assume you want to do the investigating?" the man asked. The next moment the doorhandle started to turn. With no time to think and only an instant to act, I dived behind a file cabinet. There was just enought room between it and the wall for me to squeeze in, and I hoped the end of my whip didn't show. I couldn't see what was going on in the room, but I heard footsteps and Cindy saying "Of course I am!"
"No way," the man said.
"What do you mean, no way?" Cindy asked indignately. "I'm the best investgative reporter here...no, make that the only one, and you expect me not to do the special report on the Sniper?"
"I don't think there will be one," the man said.
"Why not?" Cindy asked in a wheedling tone. "It'll be great, it'lll show people how badly the people who should be handling this are doing their jobs, how much is being swept under the carpet..."
"It might also get you killed," the man said quietly. Cindy started to say something, but he cut her off. "You keep saying you think there's going to be another shooting. Have you even considered that if you keep sticking your nose into this, you might be the victim?"
Amazingly, Cindy burst out laughing. "I've got it!' she crowed. "That's why it's getting ignored, everyone's afraid! Just the right place for fearless little me to step in..."
"Cindy, are you listening to me?" the man shouted. "It's not going to do the station any good if you get yourself killed on this wild goose chase! Goodness knows, we can't afford to lose you!"
Cindy's voice was icy when she next spoke. "I think that the word afford sums up our entire conversation, Mr Hi. All you seem able to think about his how potentially unprofitable an investigation may be. You may leave my office now...I have work to do."