[Cavan] Death in the Margins

[Lynzie Austin]

Death in the Margins

The runner ran as the runner always did, quiet as it wanted to, but that was always louder than most runners of its make and model. Occasionally Ellie would think that it was time to retire the beast, but it would never be time. It was too reliable, more importantly, it was home. The damned rust bucket was home. 

Ellie stood in the kitchenette with a PADD in her hand, a look of pure, unadulterated and undisguised disgust on her face. “Cassia Vane,” her voice dripped with only could be described as contempt with a dash of malcontent. “Author of A Captain’s Desire, A Rogue for an Andorian, Twilight’s Mercenary—”

“Eternal Flame,” Reynie finished the title with the exuberance of a fangirl, short of clapping his hands. “It’s a masterpiece of the genre, doll. Tender, yet while remaining—”

“Ridden with smut?”

“I’d say a tad spicy m’dear Vulcan lass,” he sniped from the pilot’s chair.

Ellie's lip curled. “Spicy. You're describing a woman who wrote a scene where a Klingon warrior and a Betazoid diplomat—”

“Exchange cultural insights,” Reynie interrupted smoothly, spinning his chair to face her. “Through the universal language of respect. You make it so sound tawdry.”

“I make it sound like what it is,” She set the PADD down with a definitive thunk. “We are investigating a murder, Reynie. Not attending a book club. Cassia Vane is dead. Someone put a neurotoxin in her champagne. The prime suspect is her on-again, off-again boyfriend, who conveniently has no alibi and a documented history of dramatic public outbursts.”

Reynie held up a hand. “Kaelen Rish is a complicated man. Their relationship was passionate. There's a difference.”

“From where I am standing,” Ellie slumped into the chair opposite. “‘Complicated’ and ‘passionate’ are a lot of polite words for exhausting and toxic.”

He opened his mouth to retort, then closed it. A slow, knowing smile spread across his face instead. “You really don't like her, do you?”

“I do not like anyone who makes a living selling unrealistic expectations about love to lonely people,” Ellie said flatly. “It is giving… charlatan behavior. Predatory.”

Reynie stood, crossing the small space to stand in front of her. He took her hands in his, his thumbs brushing her knuckles. “And yet,” he said softly, “here you are. In love. With a man who quotes her in his sleep. Living proof that even cynics get a happy ending.”

“I am not a cynic,” Ellie scoffed. “This is not some romance novel and I tolerate your nonsense.”

“Tolerate,” Reynie’s voice dropped to a low chest grumble. “You adore my nonsense, dare I say, you quite enjoy it.”

The Runner dropped out of warp with all the grace and delicacy of a vase being thrown by a rampaging toddler. It really was time to bring it back down to lower orbit to work on the gravimatrix, but that felt like admitting some kind of fundamental flaw inherent in the ship’s inner workings that Ellie was not prepared to do–so instead, she braced herself, but not her coffee as it poured onto her lap. Cathulu voiced her cat complaints as she was flung from the oh-so-comfiest spot on the bed. Reynie, who had been mid-flirt, now found himself grabbing for the nearest handhold while simultaneously trying not to laugh at the expression of pure, cold fury on Ellie's face.

“Not. A. Word,” she said, dabbing at her trousers with a tea towel.

“I wasn’t going to—”

“You most certainly were.”

He bit his lip. He absolutely was.

Sidling up alongside the Queen’s Gambit, Cassia Vane’s personal luxury yacht felt both humbling due to its grotesque size and overuse of opulent gold hull plating.  It looked less like a starship and more like a floating chachki that belonged on the Las Vegas strip next to neon signs offering adult services at a discount rate, a barge devoted to the author’s ego. 

Ellie, dampened with coffee, stood with the aura of a cat pulled straight from the bath. “After I change, let us go investigate this author that has really started out the morning with a bang from the great beyond.”

Reynie fell into step behind her, squeezing her waist as he barely regained his composure. “She has that effect on people. Terribly inconvenient. Also, your trousers are still dripping. ”

She peered over her shoulder with a look that would make the most hardened man’s bits shrivel into their abdomen. “You are on thin ice, Aralim Reynard.”

He put his hands up in surrender. “Fragile. Easily shattered. I’m well aware of my place in the ecosystem, doll.”

She disappeared into the sleeping quarters to change, muttering something about “gold-plated eyesores” and “smut peddlers with a vendetta against dry clothing.” Reynie turned his attention to the Queen's Gambit. Up close, the yacht was even more absurd. The hull wasn't just plated in gold; it was etched with floral patterns and what appeared to be actual, hand-carved nude cherubs holding tiny, gilded harps. It was the kind of vessel that screamed “new money and no taste” in every single language of the known cosmos.

“Commander Faruska to Captain Reynard,” the Gambit hailed with a staticky crackle over the comms. “We have you on approach. The docking port is ready for your arrival. Be advised —Mister Rish is having a bit of a dramatic episode, frankly a bit, well, uhhh, agitated upon the news of your arrival.”

“Acknowledged. My thanks. We specialize in agitated Commander,” Reynie replied smoothly. “Reynard out.”

When, at last, Ellie re-emerged from their quarters in a fresh all black catsuit free of coffee, she had a look on her face that could curdle milk–but she was at the very least, packed and prepared for departure. Despite the fact that she was utterly silent as she put the last of her tools into her kit. Reynie docked the Runner, allowing for the ships to cycle the airlocks before braving the tap on Ellie’s shoulder for them to leave. 

The airlock cycled with a soft, albeit expensive hiss. The doors slid open, revealing a corridor that was less starship and more tacky boudoir. Carpet in deep burgundy, walls upholstered in velvet, sconces casting warm, flattering light on absolutely nothing of consequence. Ellie stepped through, her boots silent on the plush flooring. Her expression had not shifted to anything resembling professional neutrality. Reynie followed, close but not too close, like a man walking behind a cat that had not yet decided whether to scratch or ignore him.

Commander Faruska awaited them in the main salon. She was a stout, silver-haired Trill with the weary eyes of someone who had been dealing with an absolute douche bag for far too many hours. Her uniform was crisp of that of a premium hotelier (a little trashy, but the point was clearly made that they were on a civilian vessel all the same), but her patience was visibly frayed.

“Doctor Cavan. Investigator Reynard.” She nodded to each in turn. “Thank you for coming. The body is in the master stateroom. I'll have a steward escort you.”

“Not necessary,” Ellie said, her voice flat. “Point in the direction and I can find it.”

Faruska blinked, glanced at Reynie, who offered a small, apologetic shrug, and then pointed down a corridor lined with more velvet and gold leaf. “Third door on the left. We tried not to touch anything until you've scanned.”

Ellie was already moving.

Reynie lingered for a half-second. “The boyfriend?”

“Salon. Starboard side. He’s been very... vocal.” Faruska lowered her voice. “Keeps talking about a pseudonym and a first novel and someone named ‘Ylena.’ None of it makes sense.”

Reynie's investigator instincts pricked. “Ylena?”

“That’s what he said. Something about Cassia isn’t who she said she is,” Faruska looked at Reynie with a ‘just shoot me already’ face. “I’ve known Cassia since Primary school, I wouldn’t be slumming it on some civilian ship for some promise of latinum. He’s just producing words out of his overly dramatic mouth.”

Reynie filed the name, Ylena, away and offered Faruska what he hoped was a sympathetic smile.”Duly noted, Commander. I’ll have a word with him after we’ve seen the scene. Perhaps a familiar face will calm him down.”

Faruska snorted. “Or set him off again. Either way, he’s your problem now.” She turned on her heel and strode back toward the main salon, muttering something about “overpaid civilians and their dramatic love lives.”

Reynie hurried to catch up with Ellie, who had stopped in front of a set of ornate double doors. She was staring at the gold-plated handle as if it had personally offended her ancestors. “Ready?” he asked softly.

“No,” she said. “But I am never ready for the entitled rich to die in ways that inconvenience my schedule.” She pushed the doors open.

The master stateroom of the Queen's Gambit was a study in excess. A circular bed dominated the center, draped in crimson silk. Real red rose petals, shipped from Earth at God-only-knew-what expense, were scattered across the floor, the bed, and the body. Cassia Vane lay on her back, one arm flung out, the other resting on her stomach. Her gown was gold, her hair was pinned in an immaculate coif, and her face was frozen in an expression of mild surprise. She looked less like a murder victim and more like an actress waiting for her cue. The champagne flute beside her bed was half-full. The bottle in the ice bucket was a vintage that cost more than the GDP of most planets. 

Ellie pulled out her tricorder and began to scan, her voice flattening into the clinical monotone she reserved for the dead. “No visible trauma. No signs of struggle. The neurotoxin would have been painless—a few seconds of dizziness, then cessation of neural function. She probably did not even know she was dying.”

Reynie circled the room, his penlight beam cutting through the dim, romantic lighting. “No signs of forced entry. Nor signs of a struggle. Either she knew her killer, or she was expecting someone.”

“Or both,” Ellie murmured, frowning at her tricorder readings. “The toxin was synthesized from a compound found only in the Talaxian borderlands. Not exactly something you pick up at the corner market.”

“So our killer has resources or connections in the far reaches of the Delta quadrant,” Reynie stopped by a small writing desk, cluttered with datapads and handwritten notes. “And a grudge. Look at this.”

Ellie joined him. The notes were drafts of letters, unsent, all addressed to someone named Ylena.

I'm sorry.

I should have told you the truth.

If you're reading this, I'm already gone.

The handwriting grew shakier with each line, the final note barely legible.

She knows. She's always known. And she's coming for everything I took.

Reynie looked at Ellie. “Bringing back the million dollar question: Who’s Ylena?”

Ellie scanned the notes, her brow furrowed. “I do not know. It seems Cassia Vane was afraid of her and that fear might have gotten her killed.” She placed the datapads into specimen bags, just in case, tucking them into her bag securely. “ Go meet the boyfriend. I want to hear what he has to say about this ‘Ylena’—and why Commander Faruska, who's known Cassia since primary school, has never heard the name before."

Reynie nodded, pausing only to glance back at Ellie scanning the body, one last time. Cassia Vane, Queen of Interstellar Romance, surrounded by rose petals and unanswered questions. Somewhere in this gilded nightmare was the truth.

*****

Reynie found Kaelen Rish exactly where Faruska had said he'd be. The starboard salon, pacing a groove into the plush carpet. The man looked like he hadn't slept in days, his tunic rumpled, his eyes wild. A half-empty glass of something amber sat on the bar, untouched for hours by the look of it.

“Mr. Rish,” Reynie said, his voice deliberately casual. He didn't offer his hand. He didn't need to. He simply wandered into the room, hands in his pockets, taking in the details. The expensive art on the walls. The signed first editions on the shelf. The photograph of Cassia and Kaelen on a beach somewhere, both laughing, both looking like they’d stepped out of one of her novels. Which would make sense, since Kaelen was the cover model of the bodice rippers turned bedfellow. “Investigator Reynard, at your service. Mind if I ask you a few questions? Nothing formal. Just... clearing things up.”

Kaelen stopped pacing, eyeing him warily. “You’re not going to read me my rights? Threaten me with a prison sentence?”

“Not unless that’s something you’re into,” Reynie replied quickly. “Or should I? Did you do something that warrants me doing some rights reading?” 

All the color washed from the man’s face. “No?” Kaelen said more of a question than an actual statement. “I loved her. I didn’t do a damned thing.” 

“So I hear you’ve said,” Reynie picked up a small figurine from a side table. A miniscule crystal swan, delicate and absurdly expensive. He turned it over in his hands, admiring the craftsmanship. “Commander Faruska mentioned you’ve been talking about a pseudonym. A first novel. Someone named Ylena.”

Kaelen flinched at the name, his perfectly-sculpted jaw tightening in a way that was probably meant to look brooding but just made him look like he'd bitten into something sour. He ran a hand through his artfully disheveled hair—the kind of disheveled that took at least forty-five minutes and forty-five types of products to achieve.

“Ylena,” he repeated, the name catching in his throat like a swallowed sob. “Cassia... She didn’t like to talk about Ylena. Said it was before. Before the fame. Before us.”

Reynie set the crystal swan down, setting his pinky down onto the table first to ensure it wouldn’t make a sound. “Before the us implies there was an after. You two had a complicated history, I understand.”

Kaelen's eyes went wide.. “Complicated is... it’s not a strong enough word. It was epic, Investigator. We were like fire and ice. Passion and pain. Every time we broke up, I wrote her poetry. She’d send back handwritten letters with lipstick kisses. Once, she set my hovercar on fire.”

“Twue wuv,” Reynie deadpanned under his breath.

“She said it was the only way to get my attention,” Kaelen sighed, clutching his chest. “And it worked. It always worked. Until…”

“Until she started talking about Ylena?”

Kaelen nodded, sinking onto a velvet settee with the kind of dramatic collapse that belonged on a holovid. “She changed. About six months ago. Started getting these... messages. Anonymous. She’d read them and go pale. Lock herself in her study for hours. Wouldn’t let me see.”

“Messages about what?”

“About her. About who she really was.” Kaelen looked up, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Cassia wasn't always Cassia, Investigator. She told me that once. When we were... good. She said she’d built the name from nothing. That there was someone else…someone who helped her, who believed in her—and Cassia... she…”

“She took the credit and ran with it?” Reynie asked with his head tilted as Ellie slunk silently in behind their backs. She crept against the far wall without drawing either one’s attention. “Leaving this Ylena behind perchance?”

Kaelen nodded miserably. “She said Ylena was unstable. That the story would have died if she hadn’t—” He stopped, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe anymore. I just know that Cassia was scared. And now she’s dead. And everyone thinks I did it because I found out about the will.”

Reynie’s eyebrows rose. There was literally a body on the floor in the next room and the discussion of a will was already being tossed around? He forced his face back to neutral. “The will?”

Kaelen waved a hand, the gesture almost petulant. “She wrote me out. Said I was ‘emotionally exhausting’ and ‘dramatically incompatible with her creative process.’” He sniffed. “As if that's a reason to disinherit the love of your life.” 

“That’s bound to make anyone angry–”

“I wasn’t angry! I was hurt!” Kaelen’s eyes flooded with big blubbery tears, pressing his hand to his heart like he was pledging fealty to Cassia. “I loved her more than life. I would never hurt her ever. Whoever sent her those messages… that’s the bastard who did it.”

Reynie studied him for a long moment. The tears were seemingly real enough. The grief seemed genuine, too. But there was something else lurking beneath the theatrics, that tremor of fear that had nothing to do with being suspected of murder. “These messages,” Reynie said carefully, “did you ever see one? Read one? Or did Cassia keep them all to herself?”

“She... she showed me one. Once. Near the beginning. Before she started locking herself away.”

“What did these messages say?” Reynie asked with a sympathetic lilt to his tone. 

“It said... ‘I know what you did. I know who you are. And I'm going to take back everything you stole.’” Kaelen wrapped his arms around himself into a buckling sob. Reynie pinched the bridge of his nose, there wasn’t anything else much useful he was going to get from the theatrics of a crying mess–genuine or otherwise. 

“Did she ever call the authorities?” Reynie attempted to steer the conversation back to no avail. Kaelen just shook his head, said something that sounded like ‘No’ as he blew his nose into an overpriced, overly decorated, silk bespoke heirloom handkerchief. 

Reynie sighed internally. The man was a faucet with no off switch. He waited, patiently, like a man watching a particularly tedious one-man show for Kaelen's sobs to subside.

“She didn’t want anyone to know,” Kaelen finally managed, dabbing at his eyes with the handkerchief. “She said it would ruin everything. Her reputation. Her legacy. Us.” He gestured vaguely at himself, as if his presence in the equation was self-evident.

“Us,” Reynie repeated flatly. He inhaled sharply. “Oooohkay.” Allowing the word to come out slowly as though he was diffusing a very tickity time bomb or convincing a near one-year-old it was nap time without a bottle. 

“Yes, us,” Kaelen confirmed, nodding vigorously as if Reynie had simply misheard him the first time. “I was her rock. Her port in the storm of fame. If people found out she was being threatened, they’d think I was involved. Or that I couldn’t protect her.” His lower lip wobbled dangerously as he curled his biceps to suggest there was no way that a man of his caliber couldn’t protect his lady fair, then put his arms at his side like limp noodles. “And I couldn’t protect her. Obviously.”

Reynie watched the limp noodle arms, the wobbling lip, the tragic lack of self-awareness of a man who ultimately knew he was useless and buried it under spray tan. Something shifted in his expression—less investigator, more... fellow traveler in grief. “May I see the messages?” he asked quietly.

Kaelen looked up, eyes red. “What?”

“The messages Ylena sent. You said Cassia showed you one. Did she keep them? Archive them somewhere? They must be somewhere.”

Kaelen blinked, the theatrics subsiding an honest thought flickered across his face. “Her personal terminal. In the study. She password-protected everything after the first few. Wouldn’t let me near it.”

“Is the study locked?”

“No. She never locked it. Just…” Kaelen’s voice dropped. “Just told me not to go in there. Said some things were private. Even between us.”

Reynie nodded slowly. “I’m going to need access to that terminal. And I’m going to need you to stay here while I work.”

Kaelen’s brow furrowed. “You're not going to arrest me?”

“Why? Do you think I should?”

“I— I don’t think so.” He sounded uncertain.

Reynie patted him on the shoulder, more a gesture of pity than comfort. “Then stay put. Let me do my job. If I have questions, I’ll find you.”

*****

Ellie pressed herself deeper into the shadowed alcove, hidden behind the heavy velvet drape. Through the gap in the fabric, she watched Reynie leave, his footsteps soft on the carpeted corridor. Kaelen remained on the settee, dabbing at his eyes with the handkerchief, muttering something about “unappreciated devotion” and “the cruel cruelty of cruel fate.” She waited. Counted to thirty. Listened to Kaelen’s breathing even out into something less theatrical. Then she slipped out of her hiding spot, silent as a shadow, and made her way to the study.

Reynie was already there, standing before Cassia’s private terminal, Dottie in his hand. He glanced up when she entered, unsurprised. “Couldn’t resist lurking?” 

“Gathering intel on Mister Hopelessly devoted after I sent Cassia’s body to the cryo-storage,” Ellie crossed her legs as she sat in the plush burgundy velour chair, bringing a PADD to her lap. “He was alone. Crying into his handkerchief. Practicing his tragic profile in the reflection of the viewscreen. It all seems performative.”

“Darling, it always seems performative with these kinds of people,” Reynie plugged Dottie into the console. “If he tilts his jaw to the left, it will make him seem more sympathetic to the mourning fans, I’m sure.”

“Not the sympathetic head tilt,” Ellie scoffed.

“Oh, indeed,” Reynie gave her a wink.

“And I do not suppose he had anything useful to give you like a password, did you try ‘throbbingmember6969’ or maybe ‘velvetsnake—’”

“6969?” Reynie chuckled. “No, but I know what to try on that lockbox now.” He cleared his throat. “Dottie, m’dear, I need you to do that thing you do.”

“Breaking and entering, Aralim? How delightfully illicit.” For the first time, Dottie sounded absolutely thrilled to bits, one could almost say cheerful. “One moment.”

The terminal flickered to life. Reynie leaned in. Ellie abandoned the comfort of her chair, coming to stand behind him. “There is a folder marked ‘Ylena.’ Encrypted. Accessing now.”

The folder opened. Ellie's breath caught. Dozens of messages. Rows and rows of them, dates spanning six months, all from an untraceable address, all with the same cold formatting.

I know what you did.

I know who you are.

You took everything from me. Everything we built together.

I'm going to take it back.

I've been waiting.

Twenty years is a long time to think about what you did.

I've had time to plan.

Each file brought up a passage from one of Cassia’s books. Ellie felt her stomach drop. Reynie scrolled through the messages, his jaw tightening with each one. “They’re not just threats. They’re annotations. Corrections. Like someone grading a stolen paper.”

Ellie leaned closer, her eyes scanning the text. The passages from Cassia’s books were highlighted, bracketed, dissected in the margins of each message.

This was mine. You changed the ending. You made it weaker.

To be continued….

When I'm done with finals and have more time once more