her, skittering over every inch of her skin.
She tells Hollis she should go home. But Hollis says she should stay there. In case Ez has anything. And a flight to Hawaii from Arizona would be easy.
Does she even want to go home? Sheâs been avoiding it for so long . . .
Hannah spends her mornings hiking Sabino Canyonâshe tries to outrace the heat, though she never does. The third morning, sheâs running the overlook above Sabino Creek. Down below, the cottonwoods are at the start of their bloom: clusters of fat red flowers dangling down, waggling in the breeze like chastising fingers. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
And then, down there in the creek, walking around: a whitetaildeer. A doe with her belly hanging low. Hannah stops. Watches for a while as the deer stoops and drinks, tail flicking. A few flies buzzing around her hind end. Ripples radiating out from around her legs.
Hannahâs right arm tightens a little. Her trigger finger twitches.
An absurd muscle memoryâeven back then, even when she was a child, she wouldnât have shot a pregnant doe. Her mother would have stripped her hide for that. But still, seeing an animal like this, itâs like the ghost of a memory rises up and she hears her motherâs voice: Deer that size would fill the freezer for winter.
Suddenly, a buzzing at her hip followed by a quick chirping ring. Her phone. Hannahâs surprised she gets a signal out here, but she grabs it and answers it and by the time she looks back up the doe is boltingâtwo splashes and an arcing jump before the deer ducks down through the underbrush and is gone.
Itâs Copper. âTheyâre stonewalling. Asking for a warrant. Their representativeâsome cocky prick someone-or-other named Espinosaâsays theyâre a private corporation, theyâve done nothing wrong, and until thereâs a formal connection . . .â He sighs.
Above Hannahâs head, a pair of vultures orbit each other as if bound by a single axis. âI feel like Iâm in a holding pattern.â
âBecause you are in a holding pattern. We all are.â
âMaybe you want to send someone else to deal with this.â
âSo far, weâre not sending anybody.â A pause, like heâs considering his next words. âHannah, I understand you had plans to go home, but this kind of thing? Itâs why I need you. Itâs why we pay you. Unless you want us to pay somebody else.â
She knows the Bureau has other people like her on its payroll. Futurists arenât common, but they arenât rare anymore, either. The FBI also has a stable of hackers, philosophers, authors, other professional miscreants, and future-facing weirdos. If they canât get her, her stock sinks. If she bails on this, she bails on future consults.
âItâs fine. Iâm in.â Her own words sound stiff and angry because, she realizes, she feels stiff and angry. Itâs not Copperâs fault. Heneeds what he needs. She is a tool and he needs her to do a job, end of story. She decides to switch tacks. âYou find anything else about the body? You didnât just call me to deliver this non-update, right?â
âOh, thereâs more. First up: We found something in the lake. A container.â
âWhat kind of container?â
âWe donât know, exactly. Itâs not typical for anything. Itâs a lab container used for shipping. Picked it up on the lake floor not far from the dock. Weighted down with rocks.â
âSend me a photo. You get an identity on the body?â
âNo. We still donât have a national database of dental records or DNA, and with no idea of who he was in the first place, we donât have anywhere to start. Weâre having someone work on a potential facial reconstruction. The nose is a problem, since it was mostly gone, but the reconstructionâll give us something to feed to the recognition