Starlight Cuckold

The smell of ozone and stale coffee hit me before the airlock finished cycling. I had my plasma cutter in one hand and a salvage claim in the other, and neither one was worth a damn in a place like this.

The station was called The Rusted Nail, which told you everything you needed to know about the imagination of the people who ran it. A hollowed-out asteroid on the edge of the Kestrel Belt, all flickering neon and grated floors, the kind of place where you could buy a hot meal, a warm body, or a cold death, depending on your credit and your luck. I'd been here three days, chasing a lead on a derelict freighter that was supposed to be packed with unregistered cargo. So far, all I'd found was a hangover and a growing suspicion that the whole thing was a setup.

I should've trusted that suspicion.

The bar was called the Gravity Well, and it lived up to the name. Everything in the place pulled you down, the smoke, the noise, the weight of too many desperate people in too small a space. I found a corner table with a sightline to both exits and ordered something that claimed to be whiskey. It tasted like engine degreaser, but it did the job.

That's when I saw him.

Patrick sat two tables over, nursing a drink and pretending to read a datapad. He was good at pretending. The gray at his temples and the worn trench coat gave him a tired, harmless look, like a man who'd been beaten down by the universe and had learned to accept it. But his eyes, those pale blue eyes, kept flicking up from the screen to scan the room. Cop's eyes. I'd known enough cops to recognize the type.

He wasn't looking at me. Not yet.

I took a slow sip of my drink and considered my options. A detective on a station like this meant trouble. Either he was chasing someone, or someone was chasing him, and either way, I didn't want to be caught in the crossfire. I had my own problems. A missing freighter, a client who'd gone silent, and a credit chip that was running dangerously low.

But then he looked up. And he looked right at me.

Not the way men usually looked at me on stations like this. Not the hungry, calculating appraisal of someone sizing up a mark. This was different. Recognition. Like he knew something about me I didn't know about myself.

I didn't like it.

He stood, picked up his drink, and walked over. Casual. Unhurried. Like we were old friends meeting for a drink instead of two strangers in a bar full of criminals.

"Karine," he said. Not a question.

I didn't answer. I just rested my hand on the grip of my cutter, which was still holstered at my hip.

He noticed. Of course he noticed. He smiled, a tired, crooked thing that didn't reach his eyes, and sat down across from me without waiting for an invitation.

"Name's Patrick," he said. "I'm a detective. And before you decide to cut my throat with that fancy tool of yours, I think you should know something."

"I'm listening."

"The freighter you're looking for? The one you've been chasing for three days? It doesn't exist."

I kept my face still. I've been doing this too long to give anything away for free. "You're going to have to do better than that."

"I could. But I think you'd rather hear it from him."

He nodded toward the bar. I followed his gaze, and that's when I saw the man who'd hired me. The man who'd promised me a fortune for a simple salvage job. He was standing at the end of the bar, talking to a woman I didn't recognize. She was tall, elegant, dressed in a sleek black jumpsuit that looked out of place in a dive like this. And she was staring right back at me.

No. Not at me. At Patrick.

The woman smiled. Slow. Deliberate. Like she'd just won a bet with herself.

And then she started walking toward us.

Patrick didn't move. Didn't flinch. He just took a long pull from his flask and set it down on the table between us.

"You asked for a better explanation," he said quietly. "Here it comes."

The woman stopped at our table. Up close, she was even more striking. Sharp cheekbones, dark eyes that seemed to absorb the neon light, and a mouth that curved into a smile that was equal parts invitation and threat. She looked at Patrick first, then at me.

"Karine," she said, and her voice was low and smooth, like warm oil. "I've heard so much about you. The salvager who doesn't play by the rules. The woman who walks away from every deal with her skin intact."

She pulled out the chair next to Patrick and sat down. Close. Too close. Her knee brushed against his under the table, and I saw something flicker in his eyes. Not surprise. Something else. Something darker.

"I'm Mara," she said. "And I have a proposition for you."

"I'm not interested."

"You haven't heard it yet."

"I don't need to. I've been on this station long enough to know that anyone who smiles like you do is selling something I can't afford."

Mara laughed. It was a rich, genuine sound, and it made my skin crawl. "I like her," she said to Patrick. "She's sharp. You didn't tell me she was sharp."

"I didn't tell you anything," Patrick said. His voice was flat, but there was an edge to it. A warning.

Mara ignored him. She leaned forward, and I caught the scent of something floral and expensive, completely out of place in the reek of the Gravity Well. "The freighter is real," she said. "But it's not carrying cargo. It's carrying something else. Something your client didn't tell you about."

"And what's that?"

"A witness. Someone who knows things that certain people would rather keep buried. My people."

I glanced at Patrick. His jaw was tight, his hands wrapped around his flask like it was the only thing keeping him grounded.

"Your people," I repeated.

Mara nodded. "I work for an organization that values discretion. We've been tracking this witness for months. Your client is one of ours. He hired you to find the freighter, but he didn't tell you why."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I need your help."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "You just said you've been tracking this witness for months. You've got an organization behind you. What do you need a salvager for?"

Mara's smile widened. "Because the witness isn't on the freighter anymore. She's here. On this station. And she's not alone."

She reached out and placed her hand on Patrick's arm. He didn't pull away. He didn't even look at her. He just stared at me, those blue eyes burning with something I couldn't name.

"She's with him," Mara said softly. "She's his wife."

The word hit me like a fist to the chest. Wife. Patrick had a wife. A witness. A woman who was supposed to be dead, or missing, or something else entirely. And Mara was sitting here, touching him, smiling at him, like she owned him.

I looked at Patrick. He looked back at me. And for the first time since I'd met him, he looked afraid.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should've told you."

"Told me what?"

"That this isn't just a salvage job. It's a trap. And you're already in it."

The bar seemed to go quiet around us. Or maybe that was just the blood rushing in my ears. I thought about my cutter, still holstered at my hip. I thought about the exits, both of them, and how far away they suddenly seemed. I thought about the credit chip in my pocket, the one that was running low, and the client who'd lied to me, and the woman sitting across from me with her hand on another woman's husband.

And then I thought about the way Patrick was looking at me. Like I was the only thing in the room that mattered. Like he was begging me to understand something he couldn't say out loud.

I didn't understand. Not yet.

But I was starting to.

"Okay," I said. "Tell me everything."