Read Online The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Free Book Online Page B

fresh-cut vegetables, some meat, and a spice mixture. He had no idea what she was going to make, but he knew it would be good.
    “Since the Peyti Crisis, I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Hell, since Anniversary Day. Since I couldn’t get home.”
    “Luc, we’ve talked about that—”
    He held up a hand, silencing her, then instantly regretted it. He didn’t want to treat her like staff, but he didn’t apologize either.
    “Let me, Gerda,” he said.
    Her lips thinned. She leaned back in the chair like a petulant teenager, and he almost—almost—smiled at the movement.
    He’d been married to her long enough to know better than to smile at anything in a serious discussion.
    “You remember that Retrieval Artist? Flint?”
    She nodded.
    “Before the crisis last week, I asked him to get me information on the explosions—what materials were used.”
    “Luc, you promised you wouldn’t get involved.” That exasperation again.
    He hadn’t promised. He had dodged. He had believed, after he had traveled to trace the zoodeh, that someone in authority would take over the investigations he was running.
    He had hoped it would be Flint, but Deshin was just beginning to realize how stretched everyone was, and how clueless.
    He didn’t argue with his wife. He couldn’t.
    “I know you’re worried for me,” he said. “And—.”
    “It’s not just me,” she said. “Paavo is afraid for you. He knows how close you came to dying on Anniversary Day. I don’t know how he knows, but he does.”
    Deshin’s cheeks flushed. He hadn’t wanted his boy to know, but it was hard to hide information from Paavo. The boy was getting good at ferreting out a lot of things he shouldn’t know.
    Another sidetrack.
    Deshin nodded, working hard to keep his focus on Gerda.
    “I’ve been talking to Flint, and my people have been following the official investigation.” Deshin made certain his tone was slow and measured. “They know nothing more than they did six months ago. And yet we all agree on one thing: there will be another attack.”
    She shook her head. Denial.
    “Gerda,” he said softly. “You know it too. That was the first thing you and Paavo thought of when you saw me.”
    She closed her eyes and bowed her head. She wasn’t denying anything.
    “I used to make fun of people who stayed in war zones,” he said quietly. “Especially people who had the money to escape. I wondered what kind of delusion kept them in place.”
    She raised her head, eyes open now. She was watching him closely.
    “Now, I know,” he said. “It’s a feeling that things just can’t get worse. Nothing else can happen. We’ve been through it all.”
    That guarded expression had returned to her face. If the circumstances were different, he’d kiss the expression away.
    “Gerda,” he said, “I’d like you and Paavo to go to Earth until this is all over. Somewhere with fantastic schools, somewhere pretty or with great weather or lots of history. Somewhere that will nurture our son.”
    “ You nurture our son,” she said.
    “I protect our son,” Deshin said. “And I’ve been trying to come up with some place safe for him. There’s nowhere on the Moon right now. And you know it.”
    Gerda stood. She walked over to the counter, and put her hands on two of the bowls as if she were thinking of doing something with them. Only she didn’t.
    “You’ll come with us?” she asked with her back to him. Her posture told him she already knew the answer, and she didn’t want to see it on his face before he spoke.
    “No,” he said.
    “Because of business .” She had never spit the word like that, never made it sound so very hateful, before.
    “No,” he said.
    She whirled. Her face had gone gray.
    “Then what?” she asked.
    “There’s an investigation that only I can do.”
    “ You? ” She said in that same tone, the one he’d never heard before. “You’re going to work with the authorities? You ?”
    It was a sign of how stressed