Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
The woman beamed. “Where are my manners? I’m Mi-ja Park, named after both my grandmothers, wouldn’t you know it? Apparently they’d get jealous otherwise, so I got Mi from one and Ja from the other and, well, Park was my husband’s name, Ju-won Park, God rest his soul.”
Eleri had long ago learned the socially acceptable things to say when dealing with non-Psy, the words rote by now. “Thank you for the welcome. Is the room ready or should I go into town to wait?” In actuality, she’d just head out to park in a private spot where she could review her files.
“Oh, no need for that.” The innkeeper waved a hand. “I’ve got it all set up for you. Come along, dear.”
The outside air was balmy, no hint here of winter’s cold breath, though they were a week into January.
Eleri’s diminutive host insisted on showing her to her room, chattering all the while. “Have you got a bit of Korean in you, too? The cheekbones say you might.”
“It’s possible.” Eleri’s genetic makeup was a mélange more complex than Mi-ja could imagine; she’d been born into a family who’d run calculation after calculation on the best genetic matches for extreme Psy ability.
They’d succeeded in that Eleri was 9.2 on the Gradient. Too bad she’d come out a J and not a prized pure telepath to carry on the family legacy as comms specialists. They’d have accepted a telekinetic, too, of course, even a high-level M. But a J with only the most minor F ability? Far too pedestrian in terms of the status Eleri could deliver to the family unit.
Housing and feeding her until she was old enough to be shipped permanently to boarding school had been—to their mind—more than could be expected of them. The cold truth of it was that they were right; under the regime of the Council, unwanted children like Eleri had suffered an unfortunate number of convenient accidents.
“I see a bit of Scandinavia in you, too,” Mi-ja continued with a musing look. “Such lovely greenish hazel eyes. But then you have that beautiful brown skin.” She hurried on. “This here’s your personal parking spot, right in front of your room.”
She opened the door and stepped into the room before handing Eleri the old-fashioned key. “Call me if you have any problem at all, or just come to the office. My son, Dae, does all the maintenance, so I can have him over here in a jiffy and he’ll sort it all out.”
“Thank you.” Eleri fought her natural inclination to rush the older woman out the door; she needed data, and the same instinct that had brought her to this town now told her that Mi-ja Park would be an excellent source to cultivate.
“I’m here as part of a cold-case investigation run out of Nevada,” she said, because cold cases from other jurisdictions made for good cover stories.
No one could prove or disprove anything if she stayed vague.
Mi-ja’s eyes lit up. “Oh, anything I can help with?”
“To be honest, the link to Raintree is tangential at best but needs to be checked out to close the file. The primary participants are all deceased, and the DA wants it off his desk.”
“Oh.” Mi-ja made a face. “Just paperwork, then? Nothing exciting?”
Eleri nodded. “Exactly so. But Raintree strikes me as a great place to which to relocate. I’m wondering how other Psy like it. Do you have many in town?” Because her target was Psy—the victims’ brains had borne every hallmark of a vicious telepathic attack.
No changeling or human could’ve done that, not even with the most advanced weapons on the planet. The task force had also, thanks to the lines of communication fostered by the Trinity Accord, managed to rule out anyone affiliated with the Forgotten—the descendants of Psy who had dropped out of the Net at the onset of Silence.
While the Forgotten weren’t about to entrust information about their people to just anyone, they had an innate empathy that meant they’d been willing to talk off-the-record with the task force in an effort to help catch the killer. Which was why Eleri knew that the Forgotten had been intensively tracking their descendants over the past few years.
“There are zero indications of anyone connected to our people in that region,” the liaison had said, “but even if we’re wrong on that point, you’re talking about someone with enough psychic power to need to be in a neural network. I can confirm that we have no one in our network in that area.”
Someone could be traveling in and out, but that didn’t make sense; the entirety of the crimes spoke to a killer with intimate familiarity of the region.
That left only one option: Vivian, Kriti, and Sarah had been murdered by one of Eleri’s own kind.
Mi-ja clapped her hands—delicate, the skin fine with blue veins beneath—in renewed excitement. “Oh, how wonderful! I told Dae that now the Psy don’t have that strange Silent thing anymore, they’ll travel for leisure. So many more potential visitors!”