Passion Model Read online

  The dark head I’d spotted was turned too far to make out the face. I tried again, several times, enhancing the images of several figures in the crowd, without luck.

  “Stop. Enhance.”

  The eyes. The set of the mouth, the arc of the chin. They belonged to a much younger man, but were still unmistakable. It was my Declan.

  It was difficult to speak through my sudden grin, but I managed. “Stop. Run Citizen profile.”

  “Citizen profile unavailable.”

  The smile slid from my face. “Run Citizen profile.”

  The answer hadn’t been a glitch. I asked another question. “Query. Profile restricted or deleted?”

  A deleted Citizen Profile would mean Declan was into crazier things than seducing on-duty Ops. Only criminals took the extreme efforts required to delete the profile which every single Citizen accumulates since birth. I didn’t want to think about what that would mean.

  “Restricted.”

  Now here was a puzzle. I ran the clip again from the beginning and thought. I touched the viddy screen on Howard Adar’s face. “Citizen Profile.”

  “Partial Citizen Profile available.”

  “Run it.”

  “Howard Frecious Adar, Citizen ranking 100,000 level. Son of Richard Adar, Newcity past Ruling Council Leader. Leader of Ruling Council for the past forty years. Married for forty-five years to Cyndira Winston Adar. Four natural children. Kantsta Adar Bullock, daughter. Farquinn Adar Lazar, daughter. Larden Adar Horat, daughter. Caldyx Declan Adar, son.”

  “Reference. Caldyx Declan Adar.”

  “Citizen ranking not applicable. Son of Howard Frecious Adar and Cyndira Winston Adar.”

  The profile continued, listing his siblings, education and accomplishments, but I barely heard the rest.

  Declan was an Adar. He was the son of Newcity’s most important Ruling Council Member. And, as far as I could figure out, he’d died six years ago.

  Chapter Nine

  Six years before I had paid no more attention to the news of the youngest Adar’s misfortune than necessary. With every viddy screen in Newcity blasting the broadcast repeatedly, it would’ve been impossible not to notice the story—but six years before I’d been living my own merciless existence in post-surgical rehab. Learning to walk again, to breathe and eat on my own, to speak, had taken up all of my time.

  Caldyx Declan Adar had been driving his custom designed hovercycle along a deserted Calypigian beach, when a monstrous, irritable beast called a Thudjid, maddened by his proximity to her nest, rammed him. He’d lain in the sand for hours before family members noticed him missing from their vacation compound. When they finally discovered him, not even their vast amounts of wealth could buy his life. Or so the news stories said.

  I was beginning to suspect a different truth. I knew all too well the stigma attached to becoming mecho. I’d lost a career and a marriage to it. How much more devastating would it be to a family as revered as the Adars? A family in which every member was held up as an example of perfection to the citizens of Newcity? People might forgive indiscretion and shady behavior, but not scars.

  I sat back in my chair and stared at Declan’s face. Instead of death, he’d become mecho, and they’d hidden him away from society so as not to tarnish the family name. Surgery had changed his features enough that not even the ever-present media had figured it out.

  Had he been a willing participant in the charade? I had to think so, at least at first. To a young man whose entire life had revolved around being recognized, lauded and imitated, suddenly becoming the object of thinly veiled disgust would’ve been too much to handle. “To thine own business attend” didn’t apply to the family that was the closest thing Newcity had to royalty.

  It had been horribly difficult for me, and I was a mere common citizen. At least I had the advantage of being able to keep my condition a secret to strangers—he would not have had that option. Living in the public eye would’ve exposed the truth before his stitches had healed.

  Yes, I could see how Caldyx Declan might have agreed to remain hidden. But no man, no healthy, intelligent man, could possibly bear isolation for long. No amount of money could replace a life. He must’ve decided to risk discovery.

  “System, match. This Citizen,” I tapped the face on the viddy screen, “photos only.”

  The picture faded, and a series of thumbnails popped up. I tapped the first. Declan in the background again, his smile brilliant enough to shine even in the crowd. I tapped the next thumbnail, and a similar picture came up.

  “Busy boy,” I murmured, quickly viewing the first ten listed. In every one, he was in the background of some party, function or sports event. Never the subject of the photo itself, and never, other than the Frank viddy story, mentioned in context with the Adar family. He’d been careful about that.

  I let System idle while I thought. Kaelyn fluttered around me until I told her to find something on the viddy to watch. She loved banal game shows I usually restricted as too annoying, so with a squeal of pleasure she went to the living room to gorge herself on the stupidity.

  What to do now? More than ever, I determined I had to see him. Since I had a pretty good idea now of where I might find him, the only question was whether or not I had the guts to do it.

  Seeking Declan out now meant more than opening my heart—it likely meant risking my job. If Howard Adar learned I’d discovered his family’s dirty secret, it might even mean losing my life. I had no doubts that one mecho R.I. Op would be no loss compared to the Adar family reputation—at least, not in Howard’s eyes. I also had no doubt he had the capability and the opportunity to remove the possibility of any embarrassment, including me.

  I peeked in on Kaelyn, happily ensconced in her favorite chair, eyes glued to the viddy screen. A woman screamed as she was told she’d just won an all-expense-paid trip to New Bermuda. The losing contestants looked glum as the electric shock equipment was hooked up to their foreheads.

  “What are you watching?” I paused to ask.

  “A dancing show.” Kaelyn giggled. “Watch them dance.”

  As she spoke, the losers of the game did start to dance. They danced so hard some of them began to smoke. I changed the channel to a less violent show, one where the losers only had to perform a humiliating feat rather than be physically harmed.

  “That’s not a good show, Kaelyn.”

  “My Gemma doesn’t like dancing?”

  I patted her head. “Not that kind.”

  She gave me a quizzical look. “My Gemma’s people are strange. On Eloven, we don’t have competitions.”

  I hadn’t known that. “No games?”

  She shook her head. “We all win.”

  I couldn’t say I liked that any better than the show she’d been watching, but at least it wasn’t violent. “Kaelyn, I’m going to go out, after all.”

  “To work?”

  “Sort of.”

  She frowned, then sighed. “All right, my Gemma.”

  I thought of something. “Would you like to go out?”

  Her fine features crumpled slightly. “Out?”

  I thought of Declan, forced to remain in hiding. “Yes. Outside. To the park, maybe, or to eat at a restaurant?”

  Kaelyn dissolved into frightened tears. “No, oh, no! My Gemma, are you angry with me? What have I done?”

  She clutched my ankles until I bent to lift her up. “No, I’m not angry. Why would you think that?”

  Her tears disturbed me. I wiped them away and rocked her in my arms until she quieted. Her hair was the texture of fine silk and smelled of spice. Her cheek was hot against mine and wet with her tears.

  “You would make me go outside?”

  “You don’t want to go outside?” I’d never asked her before.

  She shuddered. “Oh, no. Someone might steal me away from you. It’s too big out there. And it smells.”

  For a small Elovenian, used to a world full of nothing but beauty and peace, I could see how Newci