Weight of the Heart (Bruna Husky Book 2) by Rosa Montero Read Free Book Online Page B

stupid. He’s like a very small child and has this irresistible urge to eat. That’s why he’s called a greedy-guts. It’s his nature. He can’t help it. It happens to all of us, doesn’t it? We often can’t avoid doing what we do. It’s in our nature.”
    Silence. Which of them would die first, Gabi or her?
    “Look, I’m going to get up and move away. I’ll go over to Yiannis, by the door. You can retrieve your treasures if you like.”
    The rep did as she’d promised and stood by the door next to the archivist. A long minute went by with nothing happening. Then the girl’s little hand appeared from under the bed and speedily picked up the objects, like a hungry chick pecking at food. They could hear her dragging herself back toward the wall. Just then a call came in on Bruna’s mobile. It was Lizard. The rep’s heart gave an extra beat.
    “Hi, Husky. How’s it going with your little Russian?” inquired the inspector.
    “Fine. What do you want?”
    Why was she always so cutting? Why did she become nervous? Why was she so rude? Why was she always so weak with Lizard?
    “It occurred to me to put the girl’s tracker number into the computer and have a look at her record. I don’t know why I did it. I must have been bored. Anyway, I see that she bit you and that you went to the emergency room yesterday. I also see that the girl has been exposed to very high doses of radiation and that she’s dying.”
    “Terrific. Really good,” Bruna said, swallowing her bitter saliva. “If you wanted to impress me with your talent as a detective and your ability to find out everything, I can tell you that I’m even more impressed by your lack of respect for other people’s privacy.”
    “Hold on,” Lizard said, frowning. “Just stop for a minute. You always race off. You always make the same mistake. I haven’t finished yet. The bit about the radiation surprised me, as I assume it did you, so I went into the Ministry of Industry’s website to track the nuclear incident report. Here’s the important bit: there was no incident report initiated for Gabi.”
    “What do you mean? The doctor told me—”
    “The doctor did it. I checked. The protocol for a nuclear incident report was activated by the hospital, and they informed the ministry. But at some stage between the hospital system and the ministry system, the girl’s case disappeared. So I went back to Gabi’s record, and the information about her radiation wasn’t there anymore! I went back into the hospital system, and there was no longer any trace of the nuclear incident report either. In barely twenty minutes, while I was still connected, someone else was on the network deleting everything. An invisible, impenetrable hacker. Someone I couldn’t trace despite all the resources here at the police department. That was what I wanted to tell you. I wasn’t calling to impress you, Bruna. I was calling to warn you.”
    Lizard’s fleshy face had a look of genuine concern.
    “Be careful,” he added in an almost tender whisper, which penetrated Bruna’s ears like a drill.
    And then he hung up without waiting for her response.

8

    F inally, a client with money, thought Bruna as she stepped into the scanner in the luxurious lobby. She wasn’t carrying a weapon, so the bulletproof sliding door opened without any hesitation.
    “Welcome, Bruna Husky. Elevator Three please,” said the automated doorman.
    It was the only elevator with open doors. When Bruna stepped inside, it started to rise of its own accord. There were no buttons or floor-level indicators, but having counted from outside, Bruna knew there were ten floors, and she calculated that she must have gone up close to the top, if not all the way up. Mrs. Rosario Loperena had provided only the street number. The elevator doors opened, and the rep came face-to-face with a short anthropomorphic domestic robot. Given that the anthropomorphic design was so inefficient when it came to robots, clearly the