Tomb Raider: The Legacy

Chapter 29: Photo

"Don't tell me what I already know." She cut, implacable. "Answer my questions."

Many had told her that instead of being a forensic, she should have been a detective. She considered it a poor compliment.

"Kendrick died this morning, poisoned in the hotel room he was occupying only until he had met with you." The guy seemed, finally, willing to follow her lead. "It's been clean and fast; he has not suffered. No one will notice anything, because it looks like a heart attack, and he was no longer young. A squirt of digitalis poison in his late-night bourbon."

"What was he going to tell me that I couldn't know?"

"Nothing in particular, except that it would bring back to your attention the man named Kurtis Trent, or Heissturm, or Vance Ren..."

"I know his aliases." Marty cut in. "As I said, I haven't seen Kurtis for many years. We parted ways after..."

"... after the incident with Lucifer." She froze for the third time. This man knew everything. "I've already told you I'm one of them." He added categorically. "This drunken and homeless façade is nothing but a cover. In real life I am a successful broker on Wall Street, and I also manage the documents of the Men in Black. Now to the point: after Kendrick, you're the next." One overwhelming idea after another, Marty no longer could freeze even more. "Tonight, when you return home, you'll be killed." The individual went on. "Two cocaine addicts will stab you at the door of your apartment and steal everything along the way. No one will be too surprised: cops are easy targets for this riffraff, right?"

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did this man die? Why am I going to be killed? Why do you come to tell me all this? What's in it for you?"

The guy leaned towards her, looked up and seemed to relax, but suddenly he let out a snort. "Let's put my motivations aside. They're not important." He waved his hand lazily. "Let's say that your friend Kurtis, like his daughter, have something that my organization wants: power."

Kurtis has a daughter? Marty thought, stupefied. The man she'd known years ago could have been anything but a father. However, she was very careful not to show her surprise at this white man she didn't quite trust.

"... the brat has inherited the... shall we say... abilities of the father." He was saying. "Amplified. She's much more powerful than him, and that makes her even more appealing to us. They want her, as they wanted him."

"You butchers tried to slice his brain open." Marty spat. "I'm glad he did what he did to you."

"Agent, you shouldn't be so open about expressing such an inappropriate opinion." Was there irony in his voice? "You're a representative of the law." Yes, there was.

"Is that what the colonel wanted to tell me?" She cut off, with little desire for small talk. "That Kurtis is in danger, and his daughter too? Why me? Have not seen him for many years, and I've never met the girl."

The other, in a rude gesture that seemed disgusting to her, was scraping with his little finger the remaining cream in her cup of cappuccino, already empty and cold. "Oh, no. The poor colonel had no idea about that. He was looking for you to warn you in case a certain British police inspector came looking for evidence or testimony to support her personal theory."

"What theory?"

"Apparently the guy's an abuser."

Marty let out a laugh. Then she pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers. Her head was beginning to ache. "Is he?"

"Not at all. But don't you know? You were friends."

She knew it, that's why she had laughed. Kurtis, an abuser? She didn't know anything about his current family, but that didn't fit the man she'd known. "How old is Kurtis's daughter?"