Page 18 of Under His Skin

The two lawyers were looking at him intensely. Tracht shrugged out of Alex’s embrace and stood up. “That was Vasilis. He’s invited us to his place. Why don’t we all head over now and figure out where we’re going from here.”

They hailed a cab to Anna’s house, although they had to take a back route because of all the reporters camped out near the front. Alex looked gobsmacked as they drove past everybody.

“All of these people just because of Anna?”

“Judge Tracht may only have been in office for four years, but she’s a very well-known figure on Cadmus. You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody who hasn’t heard of her,” Walter explained. “And the cases she presided over definitely favored certain interpretations of the law. She’s gained some notoriety.”

“If you recall the last event she invited us to, there were several politicians present. Between Anna and all the lobbyists Vasilis hires, I doubt there’s any station policy they haven’t had their hands in.” Tracht sighed in relief when they were able to exit the cab and get to the safety of the house.

Once, when he’d been a student on Pylos, Tracht had visited an acquaintance’s mansion. Because Pylos was a whole planet with only around 1 billion inhabitants, there was plenty of land for building enormous, free standing houses.

Vasilis and Anna lived in the one block of Cadmus that had houses, rather than apartments. It was only a tenth the size of the mansion Tracht had visited, but by Cadmus standards it was still large, with five separate bedrooms, two offices, the dining room, an expansive kitchen, a private gym, and four separate entertaining areas.

Everybody on this block worked for either Lysander or Argos. Without the salary awarded to those at the top of the corporations, there was no way to afford a house here. The property taxes alone would keep a lot of people away, never mind the actual cost of the property.

Johan was sitting in the kitchen, looking spooked when he opened the door for them.

“Uncle Hannes! I was worried about you.”

“Worry more about your mother,” Tracht said to him. He’d noticed lately that Johan was trying even harder to converse with him. He did his best to discourage Johan of those attempts, though nothing seemed to truly work. “Where is she, anyway?”

“They’re in the study. Probably still yelling at each other. We made up the guest room for you.”

Since Tracht had no interest in getting in the middle of Anna and Vasilis’s arguments, he grabbed Alex and led him to the guest room. Johan tried to follow, but one glare from Alex made him slink away.

The lawyers joined them, taking a seat on the small couch. Alex gave them one look, shrugged, then collapsed onto the bed without even taking his shoes off.

Krantz very pointedly set out an anti-recording device on the small desk. Apparently he didn’t trust the room not to be bugged, despite the fact that it was Anna’s own house.

“This is going to be… interesting,” Ms. Walter said. “A headache, but interesting. I don’t think Kuroyama particularly cares about either of you two, at least not unless it gets him closer to Anna. Under any other circumstance, I’d say a bribe would be appropriate, but…”

Krantz shook his head. “Don’t even suggest it. That would be used as evidence against Captain Tracht. We need to find out what possible ties they think Captain Tracht has to Judge Tracht.”

“Aside from her being my sister, I presume?” Tracht considered forcing Alex back up to take both their shoes off, but decided that he didn’t want to give the lawyers any more insight into their relationship. “Is there any merit to me being kept grounded? I run my own business.” He sat down on the bed and pulled his own boots off, dropping them very pointedly in Alex’s line of sight. Alex didn’t stir.

“No, but you’re a close relative. She could use you to launder her money. Theoretically. You were being honest with us when you said you’ve never done anything illegal for Judge Tracht, right?” Krantz looked him directly in the eyes. “Because we will help you either way, but it will be much, much easier for us to help you if we know the full details.”

“I have never helped Anna with any job or money related matters. The extent of our business relationship is her husband giving me contracts at the same rate that I request from other clients.” When his eyes landed on Alex, though, he pursed his lips. “Well—I don’t know if it counts, but there were a few matters she helped me out with. First and foremost was ensuring Nicolas Stone, Alex’s brother, was banned from Cadmus station.”

Alex sat up suddenly. “Wait. For real? Nick is—Nick is banned?”

“Yes, ‘for real.’ After that stunt he pulled, I wasn’t going to risk him attempting to get in touch with you again.” Tracht gave Alex’s thigh a squeeze, both as reassurance and a warning to keep his mouth shut.

Walter cocked her head in their direction. “You have his blood relative banned? You understand how that looks, right?”

“You never met Nick Stone, but I can assure you, he was an undue influence on Alex, a petty criminal who thought he was a big-time con man. He was the reason Alex got saddled with a debt in the first place. Besides, that is all unrelated to the matter of Anna’s alleged corruption.”

Krantz, being more senior, nodded in agreement. “There are probably more things to untangle here, but as long as you accepted no money from Judge Tracht and your assets are not tied to any of her accounts, we can probably prove that you had nothing to do with her. We’ll head back to the office and see about getting departure permission for the Sigrun—although depending on how things shake out, you might want to change your shipping routes once you hit Atalanta.”

“My thoughts exactly. There isn’t much keeping me here—”

The door slid open quite suddenly, and a very pissed off Anna stood on the other side. “Not much keeping you here? Excuse me?”

She looked exhausted. Normally her hair was well styled and her makeup impeccable, but now she looked all of her fifty years. Even the cosmetic surgery didn’t help against the frown lines and frazzled hair.

Tracht rolled his eyes and stood up again. “Haven’t you heard of lawyer-client privilege? You should know better than to barge in. Unless this is one of the reasons they’re trying you.”

“Fuck you.” Anna pointedly stepped into the room. “I’m the reason you’re as successful as you are, so don’t pretend you can survive without me.”

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