Chapter 80 | Kai Is Getting Jealous

Chapter 80: Chapter 80 | Kai Is Getting Jealous

Patricia Webb arrived at nine exactly.

Kai had been in the lobby since eight-forty. Shira rolled in at eight-fifty. Mira came down at eight-fifty-eight with the RF-7 case and stood near the entrance without saying anything about arriving two minutes before a nine o’clock appointment.

Patricia Webb had the expression of a woman who had sold everything to everyone and found all of it equally manageable. She shook Kai’s hand, unlocked the ground floor unit, and pushed the door open.

"I’ll walk you through it," she said.

Shira was already inside before the sentence finished.

—-

The hallway was wider than their current living room.

Kai noticed Shira’s chair moving differently in it — the new suspension doing what it was built to do on flat surface, the chair responding instead of resisting. She went through the hallway and into the living area without pausing.

The living area had the corner light he had noticed from the street. Two windows. Morning light from the east, afternoon from the south.

Shira stopped in the center of it.

She looked at the east window.

She looked at the floor between the window and the far wall.

’She’s measuring the form space,’ Kai thought. ’She’s working out whether there’s room.’

He said nothing.

Patricia Webb said nothing either.

Mira walked the perimeter of the living area with her cane, the other hand trailing the wall at intervals. Not subtly. Just — mapping it the way she mapped everything now.

"Second bedroom," Patricia Webb said

The second bedroom had the east window too.

Shira went straight to it.

She looked at the window. She looked at the floor. She looked at the wall on the left side.

She still said nothing.

But she stayed in that room longer than the others.

Kai moved to the threshold and crouched. He pressed his palm flat to the floor join. Level. Smooth. He moved to the next one. Same.

He looked up.

Shira was watching him do it.

"Clean," he said.

She looked at the window again.

"The morning light is better than the current apartment," she said. To the window.

"Yes," Kai said.

"The floor space between the window and the wall."

"Adequate," he said.

She looked at it for another moment.

Then she turned her chair and went back to the hallway.

Mira appeared at the second bedroom doorway.

She held the board up toward Kai.

Previous occupant.

"Retired hero," Kai said. "Physical injury. She lived here six years."

Mira lowered the board.

She wrote something and held it up toward the east window rather than at anyone.

Good choice.

Patricia Webb looked at the board.

She looked at Kai.

She said nothing about it and moved them to the third room.

Back in the lobby Patricia Webb produced the documentation.

She quoted the full price.

Kai transferred the purchase deposit without asking her to repeat it.

She looked at the confirmation.

She looked at him.

She looked at the confirmation again.

"Settlement in ten days," she said. Very professional about it. "I’ll send the full documentation today."

She shook Kai’s hand. Nodded at Shira. Left.

The lobby was quiet.

Kai looked at the ground floor unit door.

Shira looked at the ground floor unit door.

Mira looked at the approximate direction of the ground floor unit door.

Nobody said anything.

Then Shira said: "Dorothy Callahan needs to know."

"When it’s confirmed," Kai said.

"It is confirmed," she said.

He looked at her.

"You transferred the deposit," she said. "It’s confirmed."

’She’s right,’ he thought.

"I’ll tell her today," he said.

Shira turned her chair toward the exit.

"Let’s go," she said.

================

Three days later a man knocked on the apartment door.

Mid-thirties. Built like someone who had been training since before he could vote. Hero association badge on the jacket. B-rank insignia.

He looked at Kai.

"Is this the Renmei household," he said.

"Yes," Kai said.

"Shira Voss," the man said.

Kai looked at him.

The man’s expression was not threatening. It was something else — the look of someone who had been searching for something for a long time and was not sure what to do now that he had found it.

"She’s here," Kai said. "Who are you."

"Carson Webb," the man said. "B-rank, second division. I ran with her third year Vanguard circuit. I’ve been trying to find her for fourteen months."

’Fourteen months,’ Kai thought. ’Since the incident.’

"Wait here," Kai said.

===

He knocked on Shira’s door. Three knocks.

"Come in."

She was at the desk. She looked at his face before he said anything.

"There’s a man at the door," Kai said. "Carson Webb. B-rank second division. Says he ran with you third year Vanguard circuit. He’s been looking for you for fourteen months."

Shira went very still.

She looked at the desk.

"Carson," she said. Not a question. Just the name landing.

"Send him in," she said.

Carson Webb walked into the apartment the way people walked into places they had not expected , eyes moving faster than his face.

He looked at the living room. The kitchen. The two closed doors.

Then Shira wheeled herself out of her room and they saw each other.

He stopped.

She stopped.

Fourteen months in the space between them.

"You got a new chair," he said.

"You look older," she said.

"Fourteen months will do that."

"Sit down," she said.

He sat.

Kai went to the kitchen and made tea. He made three cups. Brought them out. Set them on the table. Sat at the far end with his notebook and opened it and looked at it without reading anything on the page.

’She sounds different,’ he thought. ’Not better. Not worse. Just — different. Like a frequency I haven’t heard from her. More like herself somehow. Like someone turned something back on.’

He kept his eyes on the notebook.

’Don’t make it into something. She knew him before. That’s all.’

Carson said: "I looked for you after the incident. The registry pulled your license. Your family sealed everything. No current address."