CHAPTER 10: The Futurists
"Your other left, Bridget," I grinned. I threw my right arm up to block her overhand strike and drove my elbow toward her collarbone.
"Out of range, runt," she taunted. I threw out a kick and looped it around the outside of her knee. She lost the strength in her overhand, but landed a palm heel strike to my ribs. I twisted my body around and brought my leg back behind me barely in time to keep my feet. She stepped forward and came around at me; I barely blocked her kick in time to save my cheekbone.
"Acrobatics?" I flipped my wrist over to turn my block into a hold, and shoved her ankle upward. She hit the mat shoulder blades first. I backed up.
"Want to run the combination again?" She slid her elastic out of her hair and tightened her ponytail. I dragged my palm across my forehead and wiped my hands on my pants before tightening the straps on my guards.
"You first?" I raised my eyebrows at her. She nodded. As she tightened her guards I brought my pad to my chest to wait for the series of sternum strikes. Her first three were really forceful, but the next two weren't. She could tell, too.
"Could you look at my shoulders a sec?" I set the pad down and wandered to her side. She threw a palm heel strike. She was right; her shoulders were creeping down out of alignment as she repeated the strike and guard.
"Try rolling them back first?" She reset her stance and tried again. Better.
"So how are things with you and Karne, Amy," she teased. I rolled my eyes as I picked up the pad again.
"There's no me and Karne." She started the strike pattern.
"You hang out all the time."
"We work on cases all the time."
"But he's hot," she was starting to get out of breath. I rolled my eyes again.
"That makes one of us." She spun around to kick the pad.
"Oh shut up, Amy." She landed another heel strike. Time for diversionary tactics.
"He got McLynn to help him last week," I tried. She spun the opposite direction and started the second strike pattern.
"Doing what?"
"Getting some files," Bridget gasped, and I couldn't tell if it was exercise-related or shock. "He sent in a crap charge to DuPret and got some last known addresses from the investigation."
"Not the organ donor thing." Bridget finished the last combination and sank back to guard. I handed her the pad.
"Yeah, that." I started the strike pattern and sank back to start again when I felt my shoulders sinking. "Harder than it looks," I grumbled.
"No kidding." Bridget's breath was coming back. "So the organ donor thing was all crap?"
"Yeah, sort of. He wanted IDs on the bodies." I spun into the first kick and stopped to focus on keeping it low. My ballet background made it too easy for me to kick my sparring partners in the head. I grimaced when I still hit a little high on the pad. "Sorry."
"No worries. Just not in the face, all right?" I chuckled as I spun the opposite direction. "Keep your guard," she prodded.
"Right," I lifted my fist back up in front of my jaw. "So McLynn was going to scan some stuff, give it to me, and I was going to give it to Karne."
"But you didn't?"
"Didn't have to," I panted. "DuPret got so excited about Karne being wrong, and the papers being legit, that he showed the file to him."
"Hold up: DuPret showed Karne medical records?" Bridget's eyes were wide. I bet I looked exactly like that when Karne told me.
"I know." I hit the final kick.
"You guys are so going to get arrested."
"Not before we go to Vegas, Bridget." I transitioned into the second strike pattern. She laughed. "I'm serious. Can't you just see us running the craps table?"
"Oh, us! I thought you meant you and Karne were going to go to Vegas." I must've given her a mortified look. She laughed. "You'd have such precious little genius babies." She made a show of putting a dreamy look on her face. I hit the next strike extra hard.
"Sheesh." I shook my head.
"Not so fast with the combo, huh?" Bridget's tone changed back to normal. I flicked my eyes up at her. "We've got conditioning after this." I sort of laughed and groaned at the same time. Our new instructor seemed to think none of us should be able to leave walking. Even though I wasn't looking, I could tell Bridget was looking balefully at the sit up boards.
Sure enough, that's where we went next. I at least managed to wrangle one with a padded upper edge. Last class I had one with a board that dug into the side of my hip while I tried to keep my balance doing reps.
"So: last known addresses?" Bridget looked at me out of the corner of her eye. By my count we were about thirty side crunches away from starting lat work.
"Yeah." I shifted a little before my next rep. The padding wasn't as effective as I'd thought it would be. "He won't tell me what he's thinking, but I know he's got some ideas."
"He's checking out the addresses?"
"I'll bet." My back cracked loudly.
"So what are you doing?"
"Chasing copper wire." I turned to my other side and our conversation stopped during the set. Once we were back on the floor I turned to her again.
"Copper wire?" She settled into the crunch position and we both extended our legs into the air.
"Yeah," I half-grunted. "We're looking at this one neighborhood, and I found a hobby shop that sells the right wire."
"Why the hell's that matter?" She glanced at me. We'd synchronized our straight-leg crunches to leave us facing each other on the turns. My muscles were starting to burn. Right, center, left—don't drop the legs—right, center, left.
"It's part of the original problem. Anyway there's a place that sells it, and it's the same place as a lot of the addresses."
"Got it." We turned away from one another, centered, and turned back again.
"I'm supposed to meet him tonight." She raised an eyebrow at me. I rolled my eyes yet again. "Don't know how I'm going to do that if I can't walk."
"Don't make me laugh," she wheezed. Her legs wavered.
"Fifteen reps," I panted.
"Talk to you in the locker room," she grunted.
"Right." I ran through what I knew about the copper wire in my head. I thought it would keep my brain off my great desire to stop doing crunches, but it was only partially effective. I'd found a hobby shop near a grocery store. It carried a fairly broad selection of craft stuff—balsa dinosaur kits, knitting needles, acrylic paint—and nearly all the materials for making the landscapes. I guess it's pretty obvious what part it didn't carry.
I sank back to the mat at the end of the reps and filled my lungs up as far as I could. I'd bought thread, copper, fine needles, and vellum. The anthropologist in me wanted to recreate the needlework. I probably wouldn't tell Karne. The last two times I'd seen him I'd had the suspicion he was doing something he didn't want to tell me about either. It was probably nothing. And even if it wasn't, did it matter? I could know all about it, and it wouldn't change anything. Karne was going to do whatever he was going to do. It was more than a little naïve to think he'd take the safe route if I asked him. I peeled myself off the mat and headed to the showers. In a couple hours I'd see him, and I could decide before then whether I wanted to ask.