Claim Mate

"Do you know anything about the theft?"

"No." As he expected, there was no guilty spike from Sheara.

"Do you have any reason to suspect any of your coworkers over the others?"

"I trust my team implicitly... my work quad, that is. I don't know the others as well."

She paused, panned her eyes from his hand to his face, then looked away. "Then again, how well can any person claim to know another?" Her tone was bracing, her stress of the word "claim" a clear rebuke.

"Not nearly as well as we believe we do, almost invariably," he responded pleasantly.

A comment passed her lips, too low for him to hear.

"Pardon?"

Sheara rubbed at her neck; she'd always held tension in her neck and shoulders. "Nothing. Go on."

"What is your quad?"

Her brow furrowed. "What?"

"Who comprises it?"

"Oh... S'Voy, H'Jone, and H'Kyil." There was no skip of her heart rate or breathing, no muscle tension at the mention of them. Sheara was obviously at ease with her quad.

"Who, in this entire office, would have access to level nine data streams?" Perhaps that would cause a reaction. The gut instinct to mistrust or dislike, as baseless as it might seem, often led to results, and Sheara's people sense was finely-tuned.

"Everyone but the secretaries... and H'Vay's secretary would."

Dahv reined in his frustration. Sheara was being too logical. Where was her passion? Where was the fire she'd always shown for life?

"Is there anyone you... mistrust? Dislike? That feels out of place to you in the office?"

The jump in her heart rate came a split-second before her answer. "You come to mind."