Chapter Ten: The Stakeout

Monday.

Some time before dawn, Mia had picked up Iris at the train station. She could tell that all this travel back and forth between Hazakura and the city was wearing on her cousin: Iris's eyes were ringed, her posture unusually slumped. Mia herself was tired, too: she'd been up half the night finishing a brief and paperwork for a hearing at the end of the week.

She pulled the car into an anonymous parking garage some five corner blocks away from the loan shark office. "Sure you wouldn't rather just stay in the car?" Mia asked, shutting off the ignition. She was only half-serious: part of her hoped Iris would at last give in, and stay out of danger.

But the other half of her knew it wouldn't happen. Iris shook her head firmly, and slipped out of the car without another word.

As they walked toward what Mia hoped would be their last confrontation of Dahlia Hawthorne, both remained silent. Mia could only guess what Iris was thinking: how terrible it must be to hate your sister! The thought was absurd when placed in context of Maya, who was about as loathsome as a beagle puppy. And it was worse to know her own aunt Morgan had caused it, by throwing her own daughters away like so much trash.

But the harder Mia thought of something kind or encouraging to say to Iris, the more her mind froze with the effort. They'd already talked about Dahlia with Maya as a comforting filter, had cried together about their lovers, had bonded over coffee and wine as cousins. She thought—no, she knew—that Iris's life had been more exciting and happy than ever before when she was pretending to be Dahlia, and hoped that her own influence on Iris had been even half as pleasant.

They'd talked about everything, it seemed. Everything except what would happen if they didn't succeed. If this didn't work, and Dahlia escaped. Worse yet, if she killed someone else: if Iris died, or if Dahlia somehow found her way to Phoenix again. Mia didn't think it was possible, but then, she'd found the security at the witness-protection facility to be a bit lax.

Finally, Iris asked, very quietly, "Where are we going to wait? Er... stake out?"

The jocular police phrase, spoken in Iris's delicate soprano, almost made Mia laugh nervously. She swallowed the urge, and said, "There's a restaurant, a dialysis clinic, and an old abandoned hotel on the block. We can have breakfast at the restaurant, sit in the waiting room of the clinic until lunch, then I guess... sit in the hotel lobby for awhile."

She paused to sigh: she'd planned all this out, but knew something else would go wrong. "Anyway, I think the loan office only has one entrance. Unless it's got an underground back door. Whatever. This isn't going to work."

"Yes, it is," Iris said, in a tiny voice. Mia looked over to see her face white and pinched. "It has to."

Sighing only inwardly this time, Mia reached over and put an arm around her. "Yeah. You're right."

Breakfast came and went without a sign of Dahlia. They moved to the dialysis clinic around ten, and a nurse watched them suspiciously for three hours after Iris signed them in under a fake name. Right about the time Mia thought they'd finally be called in for treatment, they moved to the hotel.

The doors were not, as she'd assumed, open. But neither were the alarms operative, so when Mia broke a window toward the back of the building and slithered through, no bells blared, and the police didn't show up to arrest them for trespassing.

The afternoon came and went. Not a single person entered the loan office: not even, apparently, anyone who worked there. It looked like a light was on upstairs, and on their way past after breakfast, Mia had casually checked to make sure the door was open. But no one appeared on the street except a few rough-looking specimens of humanity, trudging in or out of the dialysis clinic.

"Could it be the wrong Monday?" Iris repeatedly asked in a timid voice. "Could this be the wrong loan office?"

"I don't know," Mia answered every time. "I really don't know, Iris."

As dark fell, Mia could clearly see that a light was on in the upstairs office of the building. She stared at it, wondering in frustration why it was on. Could someone be there? The person would have arrived well before dawn, and hadn't left for any meals. It seemed hardly possible.

Mia looked over at Iris, who had dozed off almost half an hour before, still sitting bolt upright in a dilapidated chair. Why bother waking her? It was obvious that Dahlia wasn't coming.

The streetlights went on; Mia checked her watch, and was startled to see that it was almost ten o'clock. She'd forgotten how long the summer days lasted. Now that's suspicious, she thought with alarm. Ten o'clock, and no one's come down to lock the door?

Making up her mind, she stood up, reaching over to shake Iris: her cousin blinked wearily up at her. "I'm going in," Mia said. "I can't wait any more, and it's just weird that we haven't seen anyone."

Iris didn't reply, just levered herself up from the chair and followed.

The front door of the loan office squealed tremendously as she opened it all the way, and Mia froze halfway through entering, suddenly afraid someone would leap out at her.

But the irrational terror fled as soon as it had come: there was a small foyer and secretary's area downstairs, with a staircase at the back leading to the second floor. Mia could see, just from the street lights outside, that a plant nearby had been watered. So it wasn't abandoned.

"Hello?" she called out, tired of waiting. "Is anyone here?"

No answer, of course. Mia walked over to the stairs, dispensing entirely with caution, peering only briefly up before mounting them. "Mia!" Iris hissed, terrified. Mia ignored her cousin and continued up to the door at the top of the stairs. After a moment, she heard Iris dart up after her.

"Hello?" she called again, and opened the door.

Iris screamed at the sight within, and Mia felt her heart stop for a moment. Then she reached into her pocket with a trembling hand, groping for Iris's arm with the other.

"Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?" said a dispatcher's voice, soothing and calm.

"Someone's been stabbed," Mia said, her mouth dry. She forgot about trying to grab Iris, who had subsided into hysterical little sobs, and was in the process of fleeing down the stairs. Mia moved forward; the man was lying face-down on the floor, one hand extended toward the desk. She couldn't quite tell because of all the blood, but it looked like a letter-opener sticking out of his back. "Um... I think he's dead."

"Okay, ma'am, just stay calm," said the dispatcher, although Mia thought her voice had been remarkably serene, considering the situation. There was a slam from below: Iris running out the front door, probably. "Could you tell me where you are?"

"One-ten Smithfield Street." Mia knelt down next to the man, feeling an irrational stab of grief. She hadn't known him, and between the fake suntan and the obnoxious orange patterned silk shirt, got the impression he'd been a shady character. But something in her was thinking of Diego.

Then it hit her. The man had been stabbed. "Oh, my God," she said aloud, forgetting that she was talking to an emergency dispatcher. "Oh, my God, she used a letter opener, not acid." A weapon already conveniently on the premises, so she didn't have to waste the one she already had.

"Ma'am, are you in any danger? I've alerted the police to your emergency. They'll be arriving in a few minutes, but you should leave the premises if you feel endangered."

The man moved, ever so slightly, and moaned. "He's still alive," Mia whispered, but she couldn't think over the pounding of her heart, didn't have a clue what to do. If Dahlia had done this before dawn, where was she now?

Mia could only think of one answer: and the clinic was almost two hours away by car. Oh, my God. Phoenix and Diego.