Sally opened the back door of her Hyundai Elantra. “Uh, let me get the cage out.” She carefully pulled out a cage fit for a mouse-sized mouse.
“You…you said you wouldn’t…” Aurora looked stricken.
“I’m sorry! The company just told me you were a valuable bioengineered mouse. They left out the part about you being an amazon.” Sally opened the trunk and set the cage in. “Uh, you may have to sit up in the front with me. The back is way too small for someone your height.”
Stonebraker and Finley exchanged dour glances with one another. Neither of them were small, but they couldn’t argue with the logic.
“Fine, Ms. Dimalanta.” Stonebraker awkwardly slid into one of the rear seats; Finley took the other. “But what exactly is your plan? We need to have somewhere the company can keep an eye on our—uh—on Aurora, and secure enough that she can’t escape.”
“I’m not going to try to escape,” Aurora muttered sulkily, folding herself into the front passenger seat. She had to push the seat back and tilt it back far enough to make Stonebraker grunt in irritation.
“We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t successfully escaped multiple times.”
Sally sighed, pulling out of the station parking lot and back onto the road. “I think there’s an office we can set her up in.”
“I’ll make a call.” That was the first thing Finley had said.
Stonebraker turned to him, lifting her brows. “To whom?”
He didn’t respond to her, slipping a Bluetooth earpiece out of his inner jacket pocket and pressing a number in one of his contacts. “I want to check if we have lodging available for a person of interest in the Bishop case that Hammer and I are working on.”
“Lodging?” Sally said, glancing at him in the rearview mirror.
“Mouse of interest,” Stonebraker muttered. “You mean mouse of interest.”
He held up a finger, not looking at either of them. “Uh huh, exactly,” he said in response to whoever was on the other end of the call. A pause. “It is.” Another, longer pause. “Indefinitely. And confirm they accept pets.”
That got Aurora to turn around and stare at him.
He glanced at her briefly, giving her a slight shrug and holding up his finger again. “Great. Let Hammer know.” Pause. “Thanks. You too.” Finley put the earpiece away.
Stonebraker stared. “Is your firm putting her up in a motel room?”
“No. Ms. Dimalanta, head to 500 J Street, please.”
“Uh, legally, don’t we—I mean, the SPCA—have custody of Aurora?” She turned south on Seventh toward the center of downtown, though.
“And according to your boss,” Stonebraker chimed in, “you’re supposed to be an observer. You can’t just redirect the six-million-dollar mouse here on a whim.”
“You do have custody, Ms. Dimalanta, so you have the legal right to veto the arrangements we’re offering you. However,” he turned to Stonebraker, “Nanolab also has the right to secure whatever facility she’s in, and a hotel room with one entrance and exit will be easier to secure than an office at your animal shelter. I’m helping you both out.”
“Uh huh. You just said you weren’t putting her up in a hotel room.”
“I said we weren’t putting her up in a motel room.”
“Okay.” Sally shook her head. “As long as we’re not breaking any laws, we can take a look.”
J Street was one way in the wrong direction, so Sally had to drive a couple of blocks out of the way and circle around. “Uh, here?” She pulled up at the edge of Downtown Commons, an entertainment district set around the Golden One Center, edging toward the address Finley had given here. “Really?”
He pointed ahead. “Turn in that driveway and pull into the valet lane.”
Aurora stared out. She still looked nervous, but her natural curiosity had overtaken her, and this was the first city she’d been taken to.
Sally did as instructed. From the outside, the Sawyer Hotel had the kind of clean, minimalist aesthetic that brutalist architecture so often aimed for and so often missed. It wasn’t warm and cozy, but rather cool and sleek, inviting in a different way. The short driveway looped under an overhang that provided space for the hotel entrance, a ramp down to Downtown Commons parking, and the entrance to the offices of the Sacramento Kings, the local NBA team.
The moment the car stopped, a valet approached from one side and a bellhop from the other, simultaneously opening Aurora’s door and Stonebraker’s. The valet’s brows lifted fractionally as the mouse hesitantly stepped out, but he didn’t otherwise react to the site of a nude, fur-covered seven-foot-tall woman. The bellhop gawked for a second before slipping back to professionalism.
Sally looked bewildered as she held out her keys to the valet. “No luggage?” the bellhop inquired.
“No. Can you let the concierge know Mr. Finley from Hammer Keller is here?”
“Yes, sir.” He headed into the hotel.
Finley turned back to the group. “Shall we?”
“Let’s.” Stonebraker said it grudgingly. She and Sally flanked Aurora as they entered.
Inside, the hotel kept up the modern look, but the colors shifted to pale wood, tan tile, and natural light everywhere. “Everything looks so…expensive,” Sally murmured.
“We get a good rate.”
A neatly trimmed fifty-something man in a grey suit, a splash of color provided by a startlingly magenta pocket square—perfectly matched to thin stripes in his tie—came over toward them, all smiles. “Mr. Finley.”
Finley nodded. “Cary.”
“And we have…ah.” Cary looked up at Aurora, mouth slightly open.
“Miss Aurora here,” Finley indicated the mouse woman, “is going to need clothes and sundries for her stay. Can we get a shopping consultant sent up to the room to meet her?”
“Of course, of course. I’ll have Jenny come up.” He nodded politely to Aurora, then his smile stiffened slightly as he leaned toward Finley, speaking sotto voce. “Are there any humans staying in the room?”
“Yes.”
It took a second of frozen silence before the concierge gave up waiting for any elaboration. “Wonderful.” He pulled two keycards out of his inside jacket pocket. “Room 366.”
“Thank you.”
The group headed to the elevators, Aurora looking all around the lobby, occasionally waving to people gawking at her.
“You shouldn’t be attracting attention to yourself,” Stonebraker said reprovingly.
“I’m a seven-foot-tall mouse woman. I don’t think there’s any way for me not to attract attention to myself.”
“Point taken.”
They got onto one of the elevator cars, Finley punching the button for the third floor.
“Although, why are you seven feet tall?” Stonebraker crossed her arms. “I know that’s not normal for Dynamice.”
Aurora grinned at her, in a manner less cute than deliberately unsettling. “Not yet.”
Stonebraker squinted up at her. Sally swallowed nervously.
The elevator doors opened, and Finley led them down the hall.
As far as hotel rooms went, it was as well-appointed as the lobby had suggested it might be, with a similar mix of modernism and warm wood furnishings, two plush-looking queen beds set against one wall. The in-room coffee maker was a Nespresso machine.
Aurora walked around, and sat on one of the beds. “I like beds,” she announced, to no one in particular.
Stonebraker looked at Finley. “So who’s the human staying in the room with the mouse?”
“Ms. Dimalanta, if she’s available. If not, we’ll get one of our interns.”
Sally’s eyes widened again.
“And does Mr. Bishop know he’s paying for this?” Stonebraker crossed her arms. “Because I know your firm’s not eating the cost of staying at a Kimpton.”
“We’ll work out arrangements. Ms. Dimalanta, are you free for some shifts here?”
“I, uh, wow.” She ran a hand through her hair, looking around the hotel. “I can certainly do tonight.”
“Excellent.”
“When do I get to see Ted again?” Aurora asked, looking at Finley.
“I don’t know. We’ll get a bail hearing arranged as quickly possible—”
“What is that?” She sighed, looking down. “I can’t look things up anymore because of her.” She pointed at Stonebraker.
“A bail hearing? It’s money you give a court as a bond, a measure of trust, to be let out of prison before your trial. If you don’t show up for the trial, you lose the money. The more you’re considered either a danger or a flight risk, the higher the bail amount.”
“We’re going to push to have bail set as high as possible.”
“And we’ll push back, Ms. Stonebraker.”
A knock came at the door. Finley stood up, peered through the keyhole, and opened it.
A tall, generically fashionable brunette in a similar uniform to the concierge’s stepped inside, portfolio under one arm, and beamed. “Mr. Finley? Hi, I’m Jenny. I’m your shopping consultant.”
“Excellent.” He waved her in. “But actually,” he gestured at Aurora, “you’re here for her.”
“I—” Jenny stopped, mouth opening and closing several times without making any noise. Then she turned to Finley with a confused, distressed expression. “Is this…is this a joke?”
Aurora’s ears lowered, and she gave Jenny a sullen look.
“This,” Finley said, “is Aurora. She’s a Dynamouse Max. Legally speaking, she’s her company’s stolen property”—He nodded toward Stonebraker—“and her charge.” A nod toward Sally. “For your purposes, though, she’s our client, and your customer.”
Jenny cleared her throat, and forced a smile, clapping her hands. “Okay!” Somehow, you could hear her pronounce the exclamation point. “So, uh, what does Aurora need help shopping for?” She looked between Finley and the mouse.
“Everything,” Aurora muttered.
Jenny looked startled, maybe at Aurora’s speaking, maybe at what she said, or both. “You…don’t have anything?”
The mouse shook her head. “The only clothes I ever wore are in Ted’s car, and they wouldn’t fit me at this size, anyway.”
“I, uh, okay. Well. I bet we can find your—um—personal style.”
Sally, who’d been watching silently the last few minutes, made a little groan. “I can’t believe ‘shopping consultant’ is a real job.”
Jenny looked at her, seemingly unruffled. “I’m trained as a fashion consultant, but I can help with many other purchases, and coordinate them all.” She turned back to Aurora. “So, let’s start with…hmm. What’s your favorite color?”
It took the mouse a few seconds to think of an answer. “Purple.”
Jenny tapped her chin. “That could look good with silver fur, I bet. Hmm. All right, I’m going to give you a catalog to look through to see if anything catches your eye while I take your measurements.” She set the portfolio and her purse down on the bed, taking a dress catalog out of the former and a tailor’s tape measure out of the latter.
Stonebraker’s phone buzzed. She stood up, moving away from the rest of the group. Finley stood, too, moving away from Aurora to give her a sliver of privacy. Stonebraker gave him a sour glance and moved closer to the door.
“They’re what?” Stonebraker said distinctly, sounding nonplussed. “Slow down.”
Finley arched a brow fractionally. Aurora and Sally both looked over. Jenny, with the consummate professionalism of an experienced shopping consultant, didn’t react.
“Uh huh.” Stonebraker lowered her voice. “You’re sure.” A long pause, during which she closed her eyes, visibly gritting her teeth. “All right. Yes.”
She put away her phone and looked at Aurora. “How much can you share with the other mice when your nanobots are fully functional?”
“I can—”
“Cannot answer that without advice from her lawyer,” Finley interjected sharply.
Aurora blinked. “Um.”
“You’re not her lawyer, you’re Bishop’s,” Stonebraker protested. “She doesn’t have any right to attorney-client privilege.”
“That hasn’t been established either way, so at this time, we should err on the side of maximal protection for her. If you want her to answer, explain what the question is about.”
“The question is about other Dynamice Max models starting to ask—verbally, I mean, in English—what happened to Aurora. By name. Not just ones back at our labs, but ones in the field.”
Finley arched both brows fully, then nodded. “I see.”
“Do you? What I see is a lot of trouble. Will your ‘client’ answer my question now?”
“If she'd like to.” Finley nodded at the mouse.
Aurora looked at Stonebraker silently for several seconds, then turned away, holding up the catalogue to Jenny. “I like this one.” She pointed.
Stonebraker scowled. “I have to go. I will be back.”
“Have a lovely day,” Sally called.
She paused, narrowing her eyes at the SCPA worker, then stormed out of the room. “Do not let that mouse out of your sight, and keep track of when the other two leave,” she said to one of the police officers stationed outside.
“I hope I get to eat her one day,” Aurora said conversationally, and pointed at another catalog picture. “This one’s nice, too.”