Our Lady of the Ice

  And that was why Marianella had invited Eliana to this party. Eliana had recovered the documentation and not looked; or if she had looked, she hadn’t acted on it. Marianella suspected she hadn’t looked. Anyone who knew would report her or blackmail her. Or sell her out to Ignacio Cabrera, as her late husband had apparently done.

  Marianella shoved the thought aside, storing it for some other time—tomorrow, after the party, in the harsh light of day. Eliana Gomez deserved her attention now. There was no amount of money Marianella could give Eliana to repay her for saving her secret, for keeping her secret. The least Marianella could do was bring her some new business.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ELIANA

  “I have just one more person I’d like you meet. Is that all right?” Lady Luna led Eliana through the maze of party guests. The lights were so bright in the house, brighter than Eliana remembered from the last time she was here. Maybe she shouldn’t have had the third glass of wine.

  “Sure, that’d be great.”

  Lady Luna beamed. They’d spoken to three people already, two women and a man. All three of them had the glossy, aristocratic bearing Eliana was used to seeing only on television, but they’d been polite enough to her, and they’d taken her business card and tucked it away as if they intended to use it later. Eliana knew it couldn’t hurt, having her name out in this crowd. If they all paid as well as Lady Luna, she’d be out of Antarctica within the year.

  “This is Eveline Quiroga.” Lady Luna stopped in front of a middle-­aged woman in a slim green dress, streaks of gray in her dark hair. “Eveline, you remember that matter we were discussing a few weeks ago? I have someone who might be able to help.”

  Mrs. Quiroga turned her gaze to Eliana, who had the urge to shrink away but didn’t.

  “You can call me at my office,” Eliana said, handing her a business card. “Whatever the matter is, I work quickly and discreetly.”

  Mrs. Quiroga looked over the business card and then slipped it into her handbag.

  “A woman investigator,” she said in a cool, sophisticated drawl. “I suppose that fills a niche.”

  Eliana plastered on her politest smile. “I’ve been told it does.” She was used to being condescended to, and by people far more practiced at it than this Mrs. Quiroga.

  “She does excellent work,” Lady Luna said brightly. “I can personally vouch for her. I’d be happy to speak about it with you sometime.”

  “Is that so?” Mrs. Quiroga looked at Lady Luna and then back to Eliana. “I’ll think about it. Excuse me.”

  She floated off into the party, wineglass held up. Eliana wanted another drink, dizziness be damned.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Lady Luna said.

  “About what?”

  “Oh, you know, Eveline. She’s like that with everyone, at least until they prove themselves to her. I should have warned you.”

  Eliana laughed. “I can handle it.”

  Lady Luna sipped from her glass of wine, gazing out over her party. She seemed different this evening, more glamorous and less flighty. Classy, that was it. She was classy tonight. In certain ways Lady Luna reminded Eliana of her own mother, who had faked sophistication on several different occasions during Eliana’s childhood. And like Eliana’s mother, Lady Luna seemed to be faking her classiness, or at least some of it.

  Eliana wondered what sort of woman lay behind Lady Luna’s facade, if she was as spirited as Eliana’s mother had been. Eliana thought she could like Lady Luna, if that was the case.

  “I’m going to get another drink,” Eliana said, and Lady Luna smiled in acknowledgment. Eliana left her alone and walked over to the bar. The andie was watching the party much as Lady Luna was: unmoving, contemplative.

  “Hey,” Eliana said. Then, out of habit, “Nice to see you again.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” He smiled, and Eliana was still stunned by the way a smile could look so genuine and so artificial at the same time. “Would you like something to drink, Miss Gomez?”

  “You know my name?”

  “I remember you, yes. Would you like another glass of wine?”

  Eliana nodded and watched as he pulled out a clean glass and opened up a new bottle. The wine sloshed, red and thick. He handed it to her.

  “I missed you when I came out here to deliver Lady Luna’s docu­ments.” Even as she spoke, Eliana wondered what she was doing. Playing the damn detective at a party, and for what? There was no case. No one was paying her to investigate Lady Luna or her old-fashioned and highly regulated electronic butler.

  “Did you?” His voice was inflected with a cool politeness.

  “Yeah.” Eliana arranged herself on a stool. Funny what alcohol did to you. She’d rather talk to the robot than to any of the guests at the party. “Lady Luna give you days off?”

  “Why would I need a day off?” All of his words sounded rehearsed, but this question sounded more rehearsed than anything else. “I’m sure I was busy elsewhere on the estate. What day was it?”

  “Last Tuesday.”

  “Ah yes, well, I was tending to the wheat. I’m sure that’s why I missed you.” He turned away from her, putting the wine back into place along the mirror. Eliana sipped from her glass. Mr. Vasquez had taught her how to read people, as much as you could teach that, but this was an andie. Hard to tell what she was seeing.

  “I was just curious,” she said when he turned back to face her.

  “A useful trait in your profession, I’m sure.” He gave her a sly smile, which put her at ease.

  “Do you like working for Lady Luna?” she asked.

  “I like it very much.” In this moment, he looked more human than robot, as if the wine were softening his edges. “Do you like working as a private investigator?”

  “Beats working in the steno pool down at the city offices.” Eliana took a long drink, and the alcohol’s warmth spread through her limbs.

  “I can imagine.”

  Eliana laughed. “Maybe. Most men can’t.”

  He blinked at her, and Eliana had the sudden dawning ache that she’d misspoken somehow.

  “Luciano! Get us a drink, will you? Whiskey, neat.” A man with steely hair sidled up to the bar, a woman about Eliana’s age ­dangling off his arm.

  The robot—Luciano, his name was Luciano—moved to fix the couple’s drinks. When he turned away from her, Eliana slid off the bar stool and moved through the liquid lights of the party.

  She just needed some fresh air.

  * * * *

  Eliana woke up the next day to the sound of banging on her front door.

  She moaned into her pillow, blinking against the glare of the dome lights pouring in through her window. They hadn’t been this bright in days.

  The banging stopped, and Eliana breathed a sigh of relief. Her head pounded in time with her heart.

  The banging started again.

  “Eliana! You in there?”

  Diego. She hadn’t seen him for a few days, not since she’d stolen the documents off Sala down at the Florencia. She’d figured he’d retreated into the underworld for a while, the way he did.

  “I’m coming!” she shouted, although she doubted he could hear her. She rolled out of bed and ran her fingers through her hair before padding over to the door. She pulled it open when Diego was midknock, his fist lifted in the air.

  “Somebody had a fun night,” he said.

  Eliana rolled her eyes and pushed the door open farther. Diego stepped inside, swooping his gaze around the room, the way he always did. The door clicked shut behind him, and he reached back and locked it.

  “At least, I hope it was a fun night.” Diego collapsed on the sofa, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table.

  “Yeah? You aren’t jealous?” Eliana grinned at him, but Diego didn’t return it. “You want some coffee?”
br />   “You still have coffee this far into winter?”

  Eliana shrugged.

  “No, I’m fine. It’s the middle of the afternoon anyway. You really do look like shit, Eliana. You should drink some orange juice.”

  “No one in the smokestack district has seen orange juice for four months.” Eliana stumbled into the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water. She leaned up against the refrigerator, sipping at it, and Diego came in to join her.

  “Seriously, though,” he said, “was it a good night?”

  Eliana peered up at him. His expression was serious, almost stern.

  “I was at a party,” she said.

  Diego took a deep breath.

  “What?” Eliana finished off her water and poured another glass. “I can’t go to parties?”

  “You can do whatever you want,” Diego said. “But you probably shouldn’t steal papers off some engineer waiting to meet with Mr. Cabrera in Mr. Cabrera’s own goddamned bar.”

  Eliana froze. She and Diego stared at each other, and Eliana felt the way she had the time her mother had caught her sneaking out of their apartment one night when she was fifteen: a weird combination of guilt and irritation at being found out.

  “You heard about that?” she finally squeaked. She took a long drink of water.

  “Yeah, I heard about it.” Diego sighed again. “You better be grateful Mr. Cabrera has no idea who you are. The only one who got a good look at you was Sala, and he’s—not an issue.”

  Eliana felt herself harden. “Why not?”

  “Because he’s not. He’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. Cabrera had him killed. For lying.” Diego’s eyes glittered. “That’s why I said you should be grateful Mr. Cabrera has no idea who you are. I only figured it out when I put two and two together. Not a lot of lady investigators in the city.”

  He was upset. He’d called her an investigator instead of a cop.

  “It was a lot of money.” Eliana drained her glass and left it sitting on the counter. Her stomach lurched, and she didn’t think she needed to fill it with any more water. “And I haven’t had any problems since.” She felt cold. Sala was dead. “Should I be worried?”

  Diego ran his hand over his hair. “Not because of this, no. Mr. Cabrera’s dropped it, and you didn’t technically steal from him. But you need to stay out of his business. He’s got too much power in this city. He says the word, and someone dies, and the cops don’t give a shit.”

  “You’re the one who works for him.” Eliana left the kitchen. She wondered if Diego had killed Sala—but only for a moment. He was an errand-runner, nothing else. He just wanted to warn her.

  The living room was too bright, all that dome light pouring through the windows. She’d forgotten how bright it could be. She drew the blinds and stretched out on the sofa, hands resting on her stomach. Diego sat down on the floor beside her.

  “Working for him is different from chasing him down,” he said quietly.

  “I’m not chasing him down! I just needed to get those documents back for my client. It’s over.” She didn’t mention the party because she didn’t want to listen to Diego complain about her palling around with Marianella Luna. Not that she’d call that party palling, necessarily.

  Eliana closed her eyes, and her headache subsided.

  “Look, I’m just worried about you, is all.” Diego’s large rough hands tugged on her hair. She opened one eye. He was staring at her with an oddly concerned expression, like she’d fallen and hurt herself. And that softened her. All she wanted right now was to be taken care of.

  God, she really shouldn’t have drunk all that wine last night.

  “I know you are,” she said.

  Diego smiled and kissed her on the forehead. How could this man be a killer?

  And then the electricity went out.

  The darkness was sudden and absolute. Eliana sat straight up, blinking, terrified at the idea that her eyes could be open and still she could see nothing.

  “Diego?” she called out, her heart pounding.

  “I’m here.” And he was, his voice close to her ear, just as it had been on Last Night. “Nothing to worry about. We’re inside. Worse comes to worst, we’ll drag out your emergency parka. Those things are always big enough to share.”

  “I don’t have one! It wasn’t in the apartment when I moved in.”

  Diego put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close. In the stifling darkness she could feel him and smell him, the hardness of his shoulder and that musky sweet scent of his aftershave. She buried her face into his sweater. After a while, her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. It wasn’t pitch-black. A faint, silvery light came in through the window, and it seemed to shift around like liquid. Eliana could make out the shapes of her apartment: her couch, her chair, Diego. She snuggled up closer to him.

  Voices shouted curses outside on the street. Somewhere on her floor a door slammed.

  “We’re safe,” Diego muttered against the top of her head. “I locked the door when I came in.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” That little bit of gangster’s paranoia. It was reassuring to see it came in useful.

  Eliana wasn’t sure how long the lights stayed out. It felt longer than the blackout on Last Night, but her apartment stayed warm. She leaned against Diego and listened to his heart beating (fast, it was beating fast). Neither of them spoke. She watched the weird light move across the floor.

  And then there was a sound like an enormous car starting up, and the light in the window brightened and brightened until it was clear the dome lights were back on, only at twilight levels. A moment later, the lights inside Eliana’s apartment switched on again, and the coils on the radiator glowed red.

  “Oh, thank God,” Eliana said.

  Diego was already at the door to the balcony, peering out at the street. “Ten minutes,” he said. “That’s the longest it’s been out since—” He snapped the blinds shut and turned back around to face her. “You need to buy another parka,” he said.

  Eliana didn’t answer, just curled her legs up to her chest. He was right. The emergency parkas had been a staple of her ­childhood—she remembered the set hanging in her closet at home, and the cheap metallic ones they kept at the school. But it wasn’t something she’d ever thought about now that she was on her own.

  “I’ll get one for you,” Diego said. “If cost’s the problem.”

  “It’s fine,” Eliana said distractedly. She thought about the old steam-powered generators installed on every street corner. The city had sworn they’d been reactivated after Last Night for backup, and Eliana had even seen the steam puffing out of the exhaust pipes when she’d walked home. She shivered. Diego glanced at her, then walked over to the radiator and turned it up. Then he switched on the radio. A tango orchestra blared out of the set station, but he spun the dial until he came to a news program.

  “Repeat, the problem has been resolved. As of right now we are assuming the possibility of involvement by the Antarctican Freedom Fighters—”

  Diego snorted. “Please,” he said. “They need to stop bullshitting us.”

  “You don’t think it’s the AFF?”

  “Do you?” Diego slid back down into the couch beside her. “Why the hell would they want to turn off the power?”

  “So we could all truly live in Antarctica. Build ice houses and hunt seals and all that.”

  Diego laughed. “No one’s ever lived outside a dome in Antarctica. They’re in for a nasty surprise.”

  “Don’t tell Essie that.”

  “Essie’ll give up Independence the minute she realizes she has to give up her space heater.”

  They laughed together, and Eliana’s nerves soothed a little. Diego was right; it didn’t make any sense for the AFF to want to turn off the power. The Independents all c
laimed the power troubles were the inevitable result of producing energy for the mainland—that the atomic power plants had created a draw on the steam power running the city, that Antarctica needed the atomic power to support itself. Eliana shivered, thinking of that breaking-down steam power. So it wasn’t sabotage. It didn’t make the situation any less frightening.

  The man on the radio was still going on about the AFF, though. “Oh, turn him off,” Eliana said. “He’s not saying anything useful.”

  “You’re right.” Diego hopped up, turned the dial back to music. “This shit happens when the equipment’s old enough. Nothing lasts forever, you know. Bet the drones are on their way over now.”

  She almost told him not to lie to her, but then she realized, watching him fiddle with the dial, the electricity-powered transmission of the singer’s soft voice filling the room, that was exactly what she wanted him to do.

  At least right now. At least as far as the electricity was concerned.

  He joined her on the couch, and they stayed like that for a while, pressing close to each other. And although the dome lights never brightened to their earlier intensity that day, they didn’t go out again either.

  For right now, that was enough.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SOFIA

  Sofia sat waiting in the dining room of the Florencia, but there was no dancing girl this time. The Florencia was closed down for the afternoon. Cabrera did that sometimes, so he could eat a steak without distraction or interruption. She could see the remains of his meal sitting at a table in the center of the room, although she had arrived after he’d finished.

  She was alone, no Luciano or Inéz, because she wasn’t here to do the reprogramming. Cabrera had called the telephone at the amusement park’s operations room earlier. Sofia’s payment was in.