Here is the next chapter in my upcoming new Finder novel. Enjoy!
Chapter 2
Half a dozen thoughts raced through Vince’s mind. Chief among them was a mournful thought that at this rate, his expensive dinner was going to be stone cold before he got to enjoy it. Silently, he set the dumpling down on his plate and studied the man sitting across the table from him.
He pegged the waiter to be in his early twenties, with a slim build and a look in his dark brown eyes that said he’d seen far too much of the darker side of Zyga Station than he should have at his age. He had a round face, a shock of curly black hair, and his dark brown skin was a few shades lighter than Vince’s own. The way he’d handled the tray told Vince that he’d probably worked here for a while, though the Finder wasn’t sure he ever remembered seeing him before.
The young man also looked dead serious.
Vince lifted an eyebrow in polite surprise. “You want to kill your brother?”
The waiter nodded.
“You do realize that’s against the law, don’t you?”
“I don’t care.” The young man’s hands clenched even tighter. “You don’t know what he’s done.”
After the many years he’d spent working on Zyga Station, Vince could imagine, but he tactfully refrained from commenting. Instead, he shook his head slightly. “I don’t find people so that my clients can kill them.”
Put them in jail, perhaps, or send them to treatment facilities, but not arrange things so they’d end up dead.
At least as far as he knew.
A look of frustration crossed the waiter’s face; his mouth pursed and his eyes flashed. “I don’t—I’m not—” He huffed out a breath, pent-up anger suddenly gleaming through the cracks in his solemn facade like a glimpse into a vat of molten metal at a refinery.
Vince recognized that anger. It was the anger of someone who’d had all they could take from someone they loved and didn’t know where else to turn. He drew in a breath, let it out slowly, and made his decision.
“You mind if I eat?” He nodded down to his plate, which was still steaming faintly. “While it’s hot?”
The waiter blinked at him, his thoughts temporarily derailed. “No. I—uh—” He shook his head, shifting uneasily in his seat. “I’m on break.”
Vince nodded and deliberately relaxed back into his seat, trying to put the younger man at ease. He picked up his dumpling again. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
His waiter eyed him, and then he inclined his head in a sharp nod. “My name is Corwin Antwerp. I’m training to become an electrical engineer, but I’ve worked part-time here—” he waved a hand to indicate the noodle shop, “—for three years to help my momma pay bills and keep our apartment.”
The dumpling tasted just as good as he’d anticipated. Vince chewed happily, even as he listened to Corwin’s story.
“It’s been me, Momma, and my brother Dent ever since Dad died.” Corwin shook his head. “He worked for the Corps, got killed in some freak accident. I was seven.”
That, too, was not an uncommon tale on Zyga Space Station. Zyga Mining Corporation—the Corps—as everyone called it, was the largest employer in the Cartha system.
“Anyway,” Corwin shrugged, as if to dismiss the memories, “it’s just been us three since then. Dent’s two years older than me, with what Momma’s always called a boatload of potential.” A shade of bitterness colored his otherwise flat tone.
Swallowing a bite of noodles and vegetables, Vince reached for his water again. “I’m guessing you don’t think he’s used any of this potential?”
“It’s not just me.” Corwin’s dark eyes flashed. “Ask anybody—they’ll all tell you that Dent’s never amounted to anything. He wanted to, when we were kids, but in high school he’d rather play games than do his work.” He slashed an impatient hand through the air. “That isn’t the problem—every kid would rather play games than study. The problem is that he never grew out of it.”
Vince used his chopsticks to take another dumpling and dip it into the sauce. “What did your momma want him to do? Work for the Corps?”
“Heck, no. She didn’t want him anywhere near the Corps. He’s good with machines—she wanted him to get a job with the shipyard. Good money, if you know what you’re doing.”
That wasn’t surprising either. Vince swallowed the last of his dumpling and nodded to Corwin. “Who are you training with?”
“Roda Enterprise.” Corwin jerked his head in the general direction of the docking bays five levels below them. “I want to help keep the docks running.”
Roda Enterprise. Vince didn’t let a flicker of anything show on his face; he had far too many years of experience. But he did wonder…
“That’s how I heard about you, in case you’re curious.” Corwin lifted one corner of his mouth in a grim smile that went nowhere near his eyes. “The business with little Gemma Roda’s kidnapping and all a while back. I’m good with faces.” He jerked his chin toward Vince. “Remembered yours.”
“That would make sense.” Vince stabbed a slice of carrot with the tip of one of his chopsticks, a little tension stealing into his large frame.
The second-largest employer on Zyga Station, Roda Enterprises belonged to Terrell and Jewel Roda. A few weeks earlier, their only child, a five year-old little girl named Gemma, had been kidnapped and Jewel had hired Vince to find her. Vince had succeeded, but in the process he’d also found evidence that linked Terrell Roda to an old freighter and her crew that had vanished a decade earlier after stumbling across one of the largest unknown asteroid clusters in the Cartha system. Roda Enterprises had then claimed that asteroid cluster.
The court case was still in preliminary stages; it would no doubt last for months. Roda Enterprises was still functioning as usual, but their stock had taken a severe hit. A ripple of uncertainty and anxiety had swept out across Zyga Station. If the CEO was found guilty of murder and the entire asteroid cluster Terrell Roda had built his company—and his fortune—on turned out to rightfully belong to the Juggernaut’s crew, where did that leave all of Roda Enterprise’s employees?
It was an intended—and unforeseen—consequence to Vince’s side quest for justice.
“Anyway,” Corwin waved his hand again, sweeping Roda Enterprises out of the way, “the past few years, my brother’s just gotten deeper into trouble. If it was just the fact that he couldn’t stay off his game for ten minutes straight, it’d be one thing, but…” His mouth tightened. “He started gambling too.”
A wave of sympathy coursed through Vince, stealing some of his enjoyment of the bite of beef he’d just taken. “It happens,” he said after he swallowed. “More often than people like to admit.”
What followed was the usual list of complaints. Having used up all of his own money and then some, Dent had charmed more money out of their mother. When she finally put her foot down, he resorted to creative ways of stealing it instead.
But the final straw? The final straw was the loan he’d taken out against their tiny apartment—a loan he’d forged in their mother’s name and that had interest payments nearly as high as their actual monthly rent.
Corwin and his mother had only found out about it the same day the first interest payment was due—coincidentally the day Dent packed up his belongings and vanished.
“He’s never gonna change,” Corwin said dully. His hands, still resting on the table, were clenched into fists again. “He’s never gonna to do anything to pay all that money back. And as long as he’s alive, he’ll keep finding ways to screw us over.”
“So that’s why you want to kill him?” Vince leaned back against his seat again. “So he can’t take anything else from you?”
“He’s killing Momma,” Corwin said softly, but with a hard, implacable core of steel in his voice. “I can’t stand by and watch that.” He shook his head. “Not if I can do something about it.”
Vince nodded thoughtfully. His gaze traveled past Corwin and the circle of soft light that enveloped their table to scan the rest of the noodle shop. Some of it was habit; even if he wasn’t consciously looking for anything, his subconscious tracked everything.
After a few seconds, he looked back at Corwin. “It won’t work, you know.”
“What?” Corwin’s forehead scrunched in confusion. “Finding him?”
“You killing him.”
Vince had already anticipated the stubborn, mulish way Corwin set his jaw. Through gritted teeth, the younger man ground out, “Why not?”
“Because even if you got away with it—which you might,” the Finder added, raising a hand, “although the odds are heavily against you— you’d have to live with that the rest of your life.” He paused, then said gently, “You’d have to either tell your momma what you’d done, or else damn her to spend the rest of her life mourning one of her children and wondering what really happened to him.”
The Finder looked the younger man dead in the eye. “Are you prepared to live with either of those choices?”