Denerim Confidential

Chapter 7

Naia woke earlier than she would have liked to find the tip of her nose ice-cold. The heat was on the fritz again, apparently. With a soft groan, she rolled her face into her pillow, but her stirring had woken Dog, who yipped in displeasure and tried to dig under the covers to join her.

Guess we're awake.

She scratched affectionately behind Dog's ears, then pushed back the tangle of blankets, rolled out of bed, and flipped the light switch.

Naia's alienage apartment was a bare-bones one-bedroom on the third floor of a converted warehouse. It was more space for less money than shems would pay outside the alienage, but the tradeoff was that Naia's human landlord—who lived as far from the alienage district as he could get without actually leaving Denerim—often played fast and loose with niceties like working heat. Fortunately Naia was handy.

She sat cross-legged in front of the old metal radiator and opened her tool kit, swatting away Dog's curious paw. She'd taken to keeping it on the floor by the heater because this happened at least once a month; the radiator was old and various parts of it shook loose or tightened on their own as the metal expanded and contracted. A few tweaks, and Naia heard the reassuring hiss that meant it was working again.

Since she was up, Naia turned her water as hot as it would go and stood in the shower until she didn't feel half frozen any more. Then she dried her hair until it was hot to the touch, knowing that going out in the winter cold with wet hair would be an unpleasant experience.

She had just returned from taking Dog out for his morning bathroom break when her phone rang.

"It's me," Juliet said without preamble. "Did I wake you?"

"I wish," Naia said, grabbing for pen and paper. "Any luck?"

"Donnic was in. I've got some addresses for you."

*

Naia looked up at the building where Sean Harven had lived and took a deep breath, letting it out in a puff of steam, where it condensed into fog in the cold winter air. Her heart was beating just a little bit faster and she fought back an almost manic smile.

Damn, this feels good.

Years ago Varric had helped her see that a career in burglary, while quite a lot of fun, was also quite likely to land her in jail, and that was only if her propensity for burgling Denerim's criminal element didn't get her killed first. These days she tried to channel her thrill-seeking into more productive channels. She liked her work; she was a good investigator, and most days she thought she hit that nice sweet spot between playing with fire and playing it smart. But her spirits always lifted when she got to take her lockpicks along for the ride.

Sean Harven had lived in a squat three-story building made of yellow-orange brick, trimmed with rusted bars on the ground floor windows. Naia had a couple of opening gambits for getting into an apartment building; usually she pretended to be a one-night stand, or for bigger buildings where people were less likely to know all their neighbors, she fumbled for her keys as a real resident approached.

Her tricks weren't necessary today. On a hunch, Naia tried the knob to the outer door and gave it a gentle push. It yielded with a slight creak. The loose way the knob turned in her hand told her that the lock was broken and had been for quite some time. The linoleum-floored hallway that Naia entered was dimly lit. Half of the overhead lights were dead, and the other half flickered unpleasantly, casting a pale yellow hue over everything. She felt an unexpected pang of kinship with Sean Harven, whose landlord also obviously did not give a shit.

After surviving the trip through the unpleasant-smelling stairwell, Naia found herself at the door to Apartment 212, sliding her hands into the thin cotton gloves she used to conceal her fingerprints in situations like this. The cheap, brittle lock on the splintered wooden door did not even require lockpicks, to her disappointment; she only had to insert a thin metal strip between the door and the doorjamb to coax the deadbolt open.