Remnants of Trust. Elizabeth Bonesteel

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       CHAPTER 12

       A nd to think I was actually worried about him.

      Elena watched from the entrance to the pub as Çelik lifted a glass, surrounded by his usual crowd of acolytes. He said something she could not hear, and they all laughed uproariously as he drank. He had not changed at all, apparently, not in the nearly eight years since she had worked for him.

      Not that she flattered herself that she knew him. She did not think anyone could truly know a man like him. She was not sure there was anything genuine in there for anyone to touch.

      She could not, from this angle, see the prosthetic, although she spied the cane Bob had told her about lying on the bar behind him. Bob had tried to talk her down from her anger: “However he acts, Elena, he’s in considerable pain right now. That’s not going to improve anyone’s disposition.”

      She did not have to ask Bob why he had let Çelik leave.

      “He is DEFCON-1 pissed off,” Jessica had told her, catching Elena in the hallway before she entered the pub. “But he’s thinking. Or at least he was, before they swarmed him after that speech. You think he believes his own bullshit?”

      Elena hadn’t heard the speech, but she could imagine it. “No,” she said. “But I think he knows what they need to hear.”

      Jessica’s eyes had narrowed then, and Elena braced herself for compassion. “What about you, Lanie?” she asked. “What do you need to hear right now?”

      Elena inhaled, exhaled, smiled. “Mostly,” she said, “that you’ll stick with me when I finally have a fucking meltdown over all this.”

      Jessica had reached out and rubbed Elena’s elbow, and for one moment she had thought about falling into her friend’s arms and sobbing until she couldn’t feel anything anymore. Instead she had put her hand over Jessica’s and squeezed, then let her go.

      She nudged her way through the crowd of men and women around Çelik, avoiding their eyes. The man himself watched her over his glass, gaze shrewd and sober. When he was off-duty, she recalled, he often had a drink in his hand, but it was usually the same one over several hours. She was not convinced she had ever seen him drunk.

      He waited until she was directly in front of him. “Something I can help you with, Commander?” he asked easily.

      Just like that, the others fell silent, waiting, and she felt her annoyance deepen. He was always surrounded by toadies, and she had never understood the appeal. He was one of the brightest people she had ever known; she had no idea why he wasted his time with such obvious gestures. “I’d like a word in private, Captain,” she said.

      Behind her someone snickered. She ignored it.

      But Çelik, as he always had, took her seriously. “Leave us alone, please,” he said, and the others dissipated like so much smoke. He waited until they were gone, then took a sip. “Still brimming with judgment, I see. How’ve you been, Shaw? Managed to recover from your lousy career move?”

      It took more resolve than she liked to admit to keep from arguing with him. She had argued enough at the time, albeit from a much more vulnerable position. He had thought moving to Galileo was a choice to take the path of least resistance. She had agreed with him. Where their opinions differed was on exactly what resistance she was avoiding. He had refused for nearly six weeks to sign off on her transfer request, but in the end, the reference he gave to Greg was not only honest, but complimentary. Çelik could be spiteful, but he was never unprofessional.

      “May I speak with you candidly, Captain? There are some things I’d like to ask you that may seem rather blunt.”

      “Are there СКАЧАТЬ