Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [60]
Once out in the corridor, Troi took a deep breath and frowned. Again, she had come up hard against Asmund’s wall of self-discipline—a discipline born of hiding herself from herself. Of course, she had gotten some insight into the blond woman by virtue of their conversation—but nothing she could offer to the captain as an indication of Asmund’s guilt or lack of it.
As for easing the woman’s pain…perhaps she had made some headway there. But not as much as she might have hoped.
All in all, an unsatisfying conclusion.
* * *
Riker bit his lip as the doors opened to reveal Cadwallader’s quarters. Come on, he told himself. The sooner you get this over with, the better.
She was sitting by the computer terminal built into the bulkhead, wearing her mustard-and-black uniform. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi.” He was glad she hadn’t changed yet for dinner—particularly when he saw the very feminine green shift folded neatly over the back of a chair.
Cadwallader turned and followed his gaze. “Not very neat,” she apologized, “am I? I just can’t help it. Leaving clothes all over is my vice.”
“Tricia…” he began, but she was already up out of her seat and across the room. Picking up the dress, she held it before her. Riker could see that it was translucent in places—all the right places.
“You like it?” she asked. “I know it’s bad form to show a date your dress before you’ve got it on, but—” She shrugged. “What can I say? Mum never trained me quite right.”
He had known this wouldn’t be easy. But he hadn’t expected her to be so damned excited—so vulnerable.
“Tricia…”
She replaced the dress on the chair. “This is appropriate, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve never had dinner in a holodeck. How does one dress for a meteor storm? Or a hot, steaming jungle—”
“Tricia!”
She stopped short, surprised by the tone of his voice. “Excuse me. Did I say something wrong?”
Riker cursed himself inwardly. He hadn’t meant it to be like this. “No. It’s not your fault. It’s just that—” Here came the hard part. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
He might as well have told her he was a Romulan in disguise. “I beg your pardon?” she said.
“You know,” he told her, “with both of us being officers…” It sounded lame and he knew it. But what else could he say?
Certainly not the truth—that she was a suspect in an attempted murder investigation, and that it prevented him from getting emotionally involved with her. If he listened to his heart instead of his head, if he kept on going the way he was going…it would be too easy to let something slip, something that would help the assassin achieve success the next time.
Not that he believed Cadwallader was the assassin. Far from it. But if Riker let out some detail of the investigation, and she unknowingly passed it on to the guilty party…
“Will,” she said, “there are lots of officers who have…relationships with one another. It’s not as if we’re even serving on the same ship.” She looked at him in a way that made his heart sink. “Or is there some other reason? Perhaps the bit of difference in our ages?”
He steeled himself, shook his head. “No other reason. I like you, Tricia. I like you a lot. But I just don’t feel comfortable with…with what’s happening between us.”
She smiled ruefully. “That’s too bad,” she told him. “I thought—well, never mind what I thought.” There was just the slightest trace of huskiness in her voice. “I guess I’ll see you around, then, eh? Maybe in the gym or something.”
Riker nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised.” And before he could falter—before he could change his mind about the line he’d drawn between his feelings and his duty—he turned and left the suite.
Even after he was outside in the corridor, the doors to Cadwallader’s quarters closed behind him, he could see her expression. The disbelief. The disappointment. The embarrassment.
He felt like something one would scrape from the bottom of one’s boots.
It was strange. The more time passed without any other incidents, the more it seemed that the sabotage