Dragon Justice by Laura Anne Gilman Read Free Book Online

should scoot,” I said, getting up. “Tell Wren I said thanks,
and I’ll try to bring by a housewarming lasagna or something this weekend,
okay?” I hadn’t had much time to cook lately, which might have been half my
problem: I de-stressed by feeding people. Taking an hour or two to myself would
be a very good idea and keep the wheels here properly greased.
    “You’re not going to hang around and help me bully Valere into
ordering curtains?” He held up one of the shelter magazines, with Post-it notes
stuck all over the pages.
    “Oh, hell, no. You’re on your own for that one. If you hear
anything…”
    “Yeah, you got it. Go, before I start asking your opinion on
carpets.”
    I laughed and left.

Chapter 3
    I’d walked out of Wren’s apartment with no useful
information but, thanks to PB’s comments, with the beginnings of a plan: hit up
Danny for details on what the smaller Cosa -fry were
doing. It made sense that PB and Wren had come up dry, in retrospect: PB’s main
gig was as a courier who asked no questions and spilled no secrets. When he
looked, he looked big picture, citywide. But a little girl might fall between
the cracks, especially if there wasn’t something Dire involved. A private eye
who worked for whatever cases came along would be able to see the smaller
details.
    And I already knew that Danny, a former NYPD patrolman, had a
weakness for kids in distress. He’d drop anything not-urgent, and maybe even a
few things that were, to help me out.
    I didn’t feel good about using his soft spot that way, but I
was going to do it, anyway. It helped to know that he’d do exactly the same
thing if the situation were reversed.
    The afternoon sun hit me a few steps down the street, like it
was trying to coax me into taking the rest of the day off to sprawl on the Great
Lawn and read the newspaper front to back. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d
actually had time to do something like that.
    And today wasn’t going to be that day, either. I ignored the
siren call, intent on my destination, weaving around the slower-moving clumps
with the agility of practice. Not that I was looking forward to going back down
into the subway: three seasons of the year they were fine, but once we got into
summer… Ugh. Manhattan was a relatively small city; why the hell couldn’t
everyone I needed to talk to be within a ten-block radius?
    The 6 subway downtown to Danny’s office wasn’t bad, though;
relatively uncrowded, and the air was flowing properly. And it took less time
than a cab.
    I leaned back against the plastic subway seat and tried to even
out my breathing—and my thinking. Sometimes, kids get lost. The fact that I
didn’t want to think about it, that it made my gut hurt, didn’t change that. If
someone hadn’t implied fatae involvement, this little girl would just be a
poster on a cop-shop board somewhere, another Amber Alert on the wires. And if
there wasn’t anything to do with the Cosa
Nostradamus…
    PUPI’s mission statement did not encompass the Null world, to
quote directly from one of Stosser’s usual “we are here to help you” speeches.
Didn’t matter. Even once the Fey were cleared, I knew already I wasn’t going to
let this case go. A dozen years ago I could have gotten lost, too. My dad had
been loving but kinda loose about parenting, and if I hadn’t found J, if he
hadn’t found me, been willing to mentor me…
    Being Talent didn’t mean you got a pass on the rest of the crap
life could hand out. Mentorship was supposed to be a safety net and a lifeline,
but it didn’t always work out that way. And Null kids… They didn’t even have
that.
    I got off at my stop, giving a hairy eyeball to the guy who
tried to use the in/out crush at the door as an excuse to grab my ass, and made
my way to Sylvan Investigations.
    I didn’t bother knocking, and the door, as usual, wasn’t
locked. Danny’s office still looked like it was straight out of Dashiell
Hammett, with a front