Girl From Above #3: Trapped Read Online Free Page A

forward.
    “Bruno,” I said. The name echoed around us.
    “After what you told me about the events on Ganymede,” James began, sweeping his jacket back to rest his hand on his hip, “Captain Shepperd may be the man in custody or the man at large.”
    The commander took the pad from me and skimmed it. “Dammit.”
    “It would explain why he’s not here,” James said. “And why he hasn’t contacted us.”
    The commander lifted his gaze, his darting eyes searching the hold for answers. “If he’s in custody, the police will be watching this ship. I can’t let them see my face. James?”
    The doctor flinched. “What?”
    “Go to the Police Department and see if Caleb is there.”
    “Me? I … I wouldn’t know—”
    “I’ll go,” I said. James was already a bundle of frayed nerves at the suggestion of striding into the police station and lying. My lies were faultless. “I will ascertain who’s there and if the captain is on the run.”
    We’d tried his comms with no reply. He’d either abandoned it somewhere so it couldn’t be tracked, or the police had confiscated it.
    “Soften your appearance,” Bren ordered in his typical commander tone that crept in when he wanted to distance himself from events. “Like you did for the casinos. The people of Lyra may not immediately recognize a synthetic among them, but the police are a little more perceptive.”
    Fifteen minutes later, I was back in my high-end pencil skirt suit, with my hair clipped back—the picture of sophisticated elegance on three-inch heels. James avoided meeting my eyes while I confirmed to the commander and him that I’d report back as soon as I knew where we stood.
    I left Starscream and caught a shuttle pod to downtown Lyra. Like the rest of the entertainment planet, downtown throbbed with people high on the buzz that infused Lyra’s strips. Even the police department building glowed blue at its edges. Everything on Lyra shone. When we’d first arrived, I’d let the light bathe my senses. But after a few days, the light now burned and grated against my internal processes.
    The on-duty officer at the desk barely gave me a second glance. “Sign in.”
    I scribbled a nonsense signature that simply said “One”—James’s preferred name for me. “I’m hoping you might be able to help me.”
    He lifted his gaze at the sound of my cultured voice and finally noticed me. Something like recognition widened his tired eyes, but his heartbeat remained steady.
    “Yes?” he drawled, his Lyra accent sharp and tinny.
    “Do you have a man here by the name of Caleb Shepperd?”
    He checked behind me at the two people waiting in the plastic chairs. One was a young woman who was picking at her nails, while the other appeared to be asleep. I’m not sure what the officer expected to find, an accomplice perhaps, but when he returned his gaze to me, his suspicion had faded.
    “I’ll check for you, ma’am.”
    He turned his chair away and tapped a few commands into his holoscreen. His heartbeat remained steady, so I could assume all of this was routine, but the police were trained in dealing with extenuating circumstances. I couldn’t expect his physiological reaction to be the same as a civilian’s. There was every chance he’d recognized me as a synthetic. Fleet usually had a substantial presence in Lyra airspace, although the captain had commented on how their numbers appeared to have thinned. Either way, Starscream had already stayed docked too long.
    “Yes, he’s being processed. If you’d like to wait a while, you’ll be able to see him.”
    “How long?”
    He checked his screen. “An hour. Maybe two.”
    “It’s just … I’m his wife, and well … I really need to see him.”
    His eyebrow arched. Despite delivering my lie with perfect cadence, he didn’t believe me. Something in my act wasn’t right, be it the clothes, or the accent, or me.
    “His wife?”
    “Yes.” I chewed on my lip and played with the sleeve of my