Dragon Justice Read Free Page B

was an honest one. He simply couldn’t avoid the overlap: even
with his walls up, he was hyperaware of every strong emotion that passed through
Torres, and the girl never felt anything halfway. It should have been annoying
to his more cynical, jaded self, the way she threw herself wholeheartedly into
every step of her life and dragged him along, via the Merge, without even
realizing it. Instead, the experience amused, exasperated, frustrated, and
invigorated him, sometimes all at once.
    He let it ride. The first rule of dealing with the Merge, they
had discovered, was not dealing with the Merge, and so far, he had been able to
ignore the other, totally unprofessional urges. Mostly.
    The fact that Bonnie took other lovers had been established—by
her—early on. Also established: it was none of his damn business. She kept her
private life private, but the Merge… If she knew how much leaked, even when she
thought her walls were up, she’d be horrified. And mortified. Thankfully, she
was as particular as she was omnivorous, and they had been few and far between
lately. He always knew, though.
    He waited a minute, just letting the Merge-connection wash over
him, and the sense of surprise and excitement faded, her thoughts settling into
the focused hum that meant that whatever was making her quiver was
work-related.
    Work was within his purview. Ben tapped his pencil against the
desk, resisting temptation for all of ten heartbeats.
    *new job?* he queried his partner.
    *interesting problem* Ian sent back, not so much words as a
perception of something sharp and dark, versus Bonnie’s sense of shiny.
    Ben tapped the pencil harder.
    *too much* he suggested, with just the sense of scales tilting
too far to one side. The past few months they’d been getting a steady stream of
work, from piddling jobs like the one they’d tested Farshad on to the more
complicated blackmail-and-possible-murder case he’d given Sharon, Pietr, and
Jenna.
    There was silence from Ian, which could mean anything from
disagreement to his being attacked at knifepoint by the supposed client.
    No, if that were the case, even if Ian were his usual cool
self, Torres would have reacted. So: he was being ignored.
    In its own way, that was reassuring. Torres and Stosser both
had the kind of focus that didn’t miss much. Whatever was going on there, he
could safely ignore it for now in favor of…
    Ben paused his pencil-tapping. Actually, there was nothing
pending on his desk. Lou, their office manager, had the day-to-day things
running smoothly, and with the exception of Ian’s new project, whatever it was,
nothing new had come in needing his attention.
    Ben exhaled, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing did.
Everyone was either out on a job or finishing up their paperwork. Nothing new
needed to be evaluated and assigned. That meant he was free to pick up the job
that had come across his desk this morning. Not a PUPI investigation; something
from his previous line of work. He’d given up his sidelines while they got PUPI
running, but not gotten out of the game entirely.
    This project would only take a day or three, and it would be
good to get out of Big Dog mode, use his other skills before they got rusty…and,
he admitted, get himself out of Bonnie’s immediate vicinity, give the connection
between them time to cool off a bit. She’d been single for a couple-three months
now, but every time she did hook up with someone, he could feel himself hovering
between an all-out confrontation or sliding the knife in deep, in places only he
knew about. He was capable of both, he knew. Both would end badly.
    Yeah, time away would be a good thing.
    *taking a few days off* he told his partner and got a
distracted mmm-hmm back. Not that he needed permission, but with Ian it was
better to clear the decks anyway, in case he had something tucked up his sleeve
that Ben would be needed for.
    Looking at the packet of papers on his desk again, he picked up
the