False Hearts (False Hearts #1)(5)

“On the way home from work on the MUNI.” My voice has stopped shaking, and I feel as though I’m no longer attached to my body. That I’m just a floating head. I have taken full control of my emotions, like Mana-ma always taught us to do in the Hearth.

“Which line do you take?”

“Clement Lot.”

“You do understand we’ll be checking the cameras.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

Officer Oloyu narrows his eyes. At first, he thought he had me. Now, he thinks I’m being secretive, and he’s right. But there’s not much more he can do without concrete proof, and I’m not giving him anything. Even if there was anything to give.

“Can I have any details of the case, or is it all confidential?” I ask. “Maybe if I understand what’s happened I can think of someone who might wish to harm my sister. Whose body did they find? Was it a guest of the club?” I’m desperate for more information. Anything to help piece together what happened tonight. Murder. The word keeps pulsing through my mind, until it doesn’t even seem like a word anymore.

“We can’t name the victim,” Officer Oloyu says. The unspoken: not to you.

Thanks for nothing. “Right. Well, if you can’t tell me anything, and I have nothing to tell you, is there anything else you need? Or can I go home and clean up the mess you made of my apartment?”

“I don’t appreciate your tone, Miss Collins,” Oloyu says. “You don’t seem overly upset by tonight’s events.”

Fuck you, I want to say. You don’t have the first clue how I’m feeling. Instead, I look at him calmly. “Am I free to go?”

“For now.”

“Good.” I stand and clutch my purse, and then I bend down and look him in the eye. I’m pleased to see him move back slightly. “I’m not upset because I’m sure she’s as much of a victim in this as whoever died tonight.” I lean back and pull my collar down. It’s a good way to unnerve others. In San Francisco, where everyone has made such an effort to appear flawless, nobody likes to see such obvious signs of imperfection. Tila taught me the trick. For all she changed her face and hair to not look like me, she kept the scar.

Oloyu looks at the scar with a mixture of fascination and embarrassment.

“You can’t spend sixteen years with someone, every minute of every day, and not know if they’re capable of murder or not. I’ll do whatever it takes to clear her name.” I push my collar up and walk out. His eyes on my back make the hairs on my neck prickle.

*

Officer Oloyu follows me from the interrogation room to the hovercar, and we rise and fly along the coast of the bay toward my apartment in Inner Sunset. The last thing I want to do is see more of him, and I wonder why a senior policeman is taking the time to chauffeur me back instead of some rookie. I haven’t seen any other police officers except for the two who took Tila away—it’s almost as if they don’t want anyone else to see me.

I ignore Oloyu and stare out the window. It’s full night by now, and San Francisco glitters below us. The sight of it helps me forget my anxiety and terror, at least for a moment.

I love this city. It’s the complete opposite of Mana’s Hearth. In the Hearth, the lake is ink-black at night. In San Francisco, the algae farms make the bay glow green. To my right is Angel Island, and the ruined Alcatraz, the building too decayed by the salt and wind to visit, and the man-made islands where the rich live in their sumptuous houses. The Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge lead toward the city skyline. Billboards advertising Sudice products flash their garish colors: implant upgrades, a new Zeal lounge downtown, the virtual reality center next to Union Square Mall. The car passes between buildings: greenhouse skyscrapers with their lush, forest-like interiors, multi-level apartment towers, most of the windows lit, small silhouettes staring out the windows toward the bay.

Scattered throughout the city are revenants risen from the Earth after the Great Quake of 2055—antiquities of architecture preserved and joined with their modern counterparts in a hybrid of old and new: Coit Tower, the skyscrapers on California Street and near the Embarcadero, the old iconic Ferry Building at the base of the newly built air hangars above and the piers jutting out into the gentle waves of the bay. And there, just coming into sight, the TransAm Pyramid, twice as large as the old Transamerica Pyramid. I can’t look away from the glowing top floor, home to Club Zenith.

San Francisco.

Our new home after we’d left the Hearth. At first, we’d hated it. It was too different, too new, and we’d had to learn about its ways while struggling with our newly separated status. Eventually, we’d grown to love it. The freedom it gave us. The opportunities. Now, I fear I’ll grow to hate it again.

Officer Oloyu clears his throat. I turn to him, trying to bring something approximating a smile to my face, but it fails.

“I’ll tell you a little about the case,” he says, grudgingly. “I’ve been given the go-ahead by my superior.”

Why the change? “All right,” I say, slowly. The flashing lights of the city play across his face, catching in his eyes.

“You are not permitted to share this information with anyone. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“The victim has not been formally identified yet, but another hostess says they called him Vuk. He was tall, muscular, wore a sharp suit. Tipped very well. Spent a lot of time in the Zeal lounge. Tila was one of his favorites.”