Tinsel In A Tangle

She let it dangle there. “I’m Aria Harp.” For the first time in a long time.

He raised an eyebrow and dropped his hand. “You live here?”

“I did.” She laughed with an edge of hysteria. She’d been scared of coming inside. Scared the house would feel oppressive, but without her father’s presence it was just a gracious old house with beautiful bones. “I might again.” Seemed inconceivable. She’d sell it. She’d have the money to pay Pari and the synthetic stone maker and no idea what she’d do with herself then.

“Do you need to sit down?”

She shook her head. Choi was looking at a shell-shocked, shaven-headed woman who’d just walked back into her childhood home and heard the love of her life was going to prison. She wasn’t at her best. “I will be when you and your friend out there get out of my house.”

“We’re looking for information on Cleve Jones. We understand he once lived here as a ward of Professor Harp.”

That wasn’t something she could deny, too many other sources could corroborate. The Harp family had hidden their crimes in plain sight. “That was a long time ago.”

“Do you mind if we take a look around?”

She folded her arms and scowled at him. “Yes, I do.”

“Are you in touch with Mr. Jones?”

“Are you in possession of the opinion I’m the helpful type? Or maybe you have a warrant?”

Choi gave a shrug, not a very agent-like gesture, but designed to disarm her. “We can

get one.”

“I haven’t had contact with Cleve in a decade. What exactly are you hoping to find?”

“Won’t know till we see it, Miss Harp.”

“Won’t be happening today then, because as I said, I’m not feeling helpful.”

Choi broke eye contact, briefly. “Did you win in Vegas?”

They’d been checking up on her. There were a million tiny things she’d done outside the law in Vegas and all up and down the country over the last ten years. She hadn’t murdered anyone or stolen their fortune or hurt their children, but she’d thieved, connived and conned her way into respectable criminality, and cops, agents, investigators of any kind were not her friends.

“What happens in Vegas—”

He cut her off. “Not if it’s something we’re interested in.” He pointed at her head. Her doppelganger hadn’t been shaved.

“I want you to leave.” She’d close up the house and disappear. Get an agent to sell it. Apart from these clowns, no one knew she’d been here and a new alias was easier to organize than the effort to outfox the law when it was on your tail. If they had enough information to convict Cleve, there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

He’d confounded her expectations ten years ago and he’d done it again.

He’d stolen Celestia from her, but in everything else he’d proven true.

Choi made a hand gesture that brought the other agent into the room. “We’re not interested in you, Ms. Harp. Bigger fish. But I wouldn’t go back to Vegas any time soon, and you might want to think about a career that doesn’t involve counting cards or hustling tourists.” He took a document from Agent Rickard’s hand, opened it and handed it to her as he stepped past.

“Stop. Wait.”

It didn’t matter what the document said, legal or otherwise, she couldn’t prevent the two men moving through the house. All she could do was follow them, through the kitchen, up the stairs, opening doors she knew had led to disused rooms ten years ago and would be just as uninteresting now.

On the second floor, Rickard gave her an amused smirk as he exited her bedroom but said nothing as he took the stairs to the attic. She followed him up, Choi coming behind. She was the filling in a law enforcement sandwich that made her feel ill. Surely Cleve would’ve cleaned this room out like he’d done her father’s. But if he hadn’t, if he’d left it much like hers had been left, there could be any number of things that could incriminate him from burglary tools to balaclavas.

She almost walked into Rickard at the top of the stairs. The attic was empty, returned to the unused storage room it’d once been, not a bed or a box to show it had once been lived in. It was also the only part of the house not kept clean. Rickard was the first to sneeze. Choi pushed past them, frowning when he walked into the middle of the space, his jacket shoulders collecting cobwebs. Whatever they’d hoped to find was long cleared away.

“What has Cleve done?”

Choi sneezed and turned back to her. “You’re not in touch with him, so why do you care?” He sneezed again.