Intimate Relations, Rebecca Forster [best ereader for manga .txt] 📗

the curtains around the bed. I looked at Enver. I thought it was funny this sad little man was so dramatic, but Enver was hardly breathing. He knew what she was. You should have told me, Enver."

Enver Cuca turned his head as if his wife had slapped him. Emi looked triumphant. The edge of her lips tipped up.

"Ding Xiang called to her. 'Roxana' he said. The doll stirred as if she had been sleeping. She got off the bed, and smiled and spoke. 'Hello, Ding. I've missed you'. Ding said 'we have guests'.  The thing said 'Enver. Emi. How nice to see you. Sit down.' He did not say it was us in the room. He didn't have to. She saw us. Then Ding Xiang asked her how she was. The thing said 'a little tired'. How can a thing be tired?"

Emi shivered. The pride she had felt in her accomplishment was gone leaving her with a mix of disgust, terror, shame, and grudging fascination. Now that she'd begun she was determined to finish the story

"She thought. She saw. She cried. What Ding Xiang gave me—what I put in her head— made her a woman. Ding Xiang loved her. Enver loved her. What was left for me who made her?"

Emi hands were clenched so tight her knuckles were white.

"Ding Xiang went away again. He told us when the people came and saw her they would want many more companions like this. He told us to be ready, as if we should be happy to make more. I did not want a world of those companions. My husband was sick with love for this one thing. He did not want anyone to have a companion like her. I knew what had to be done."

Tears rolled down Emi's cheeks. They were hot, angry, tortured tears that spoke of human pain.

"I heard you speak to her like you used to speak to me. You made her look like a goddess. I made her move like a woman. It was him, Ding Xiang, who made her wicked. I had to do something to stop it. I wanted you back for me, Enver."

"You killed Roxana." Finn said, his voice flat.

"I did not mean to." Emi buried her face in her hands and sobbed only once before hands fell away. She looked at Finn and confessed to him. "I didn't know the woman was upstairs. I didn't know Ding Xiang's plan to show the companion and the woman together. It was always just the companion on the bed. Always."

Emi shook her head, her hands clasped and unclasped. She gasped for breath as her eyes went from Finn to Cori, searching for some understanding.

"You saw her eyes. You heard her voice. Would you know? Even if it wasn't dark, would you know the difference between that thing and the woman?" With one great breath, her shoulders rose and fell. She looked at Enver, but spoke to them all. "Don't you see? She wasn't real. None of this is real."

28

"The DNA on the dress from the dumpster is Emi Cuca's," Cori said. "And the blood she tried to wash off was Roxana's. And Roxana's blood was on the inside of the smock where the dress rubbed against it. I can't believe I missed that extra layer when I patted her down."

She swiveled her chair and filed the report in the box she would be sending to the D.A.

"I wouldn't have known that smock wasn't her dress, and I sure cannot make sense of these contracts. I think the Cucas handed themselves over to Ding Xiang completely." Finn tossed his reports to Cori for filing. "Access to their unit, their bank accounts, their computers, and all with the threat of deportation hanging over them. Ding Xiang came pretty close to getting everything he wanted."

"Except love," Cori laughed. "Too bad making a woman was the only way he was ever going to get that."

"'Twas about more than love, Cori. That man knew the value of his software and Emi's socket joint. He was on the verge of realizing a new world order," Finn said. "And there were four men from Asylum who were going to be in on the ground floor."

"The whole Asylum thing seems like a lot of drama for nothing," Cori mused. "Why not just call the guys with money and go for it?"

"I doubt Ding Xiang really needed investors. I think what he wanted were men who were powerful, embedded in the mainstream, and shared his vision. They also had to possess a certain unhealthy attitude toward the fairer sex. Asylum members had already proved themselves open to indecent pleasures and a willingness to pay for them. In that context it makes all the sense in the world."

"Too bad Stotler didn't make the cut."

"I'm thinking Mr. Stotler is a bit cold for Ding Xiang's liking. The man actually tried to protect the companion Roxana, after all. Stotler has no such soft spot," Finn said.

"Yeah, but in the end Ding Xiang saved his own butt," Cori reminded him as she held out a piece of paper. "Speaking of which, there's a message for you."

Finn reached across their desks, took it, read it, and tossed it.

"Bev is back in her apartment," Finn said, half smiling as he glanced at Cori. "But I've a feeling you knew that."

"Someone's got to have your back," Cori said without apology.

"I'm one lucky man to have you," Finn said. "Still, I am sorry she has been banished from Shangri-La."

"Stotler will snap his fingers for her now and again," Cori assured him.

"And I'm sure if Mr. Stotler snaps, Bev will be happy to jump." Finn shook his head, not in dismay but in confusion. His ex was a mystery these days. "Still, I'm happy she had nothing to do with the murder."

Cori thought she should tell her partner that she was glad too, but she answered her phone instead.

"Lapinski's here." Before the phone was on its cradle, the man himself appeared.

"Hello,