“Thanks, man.”
“Tell Grace I said goodbye.”
“Bye, Writer Luke,” Grace called over to him.
“Let’s get to breakfast, and see what we can discover down there,” I told Grace after I hung up the phone. Confession had taken a terrible burden off my shoulders, and I could see how it was used as a way to relieve people.
It really helped to talk about these things, but without evidence, I don’t think he would have bought it.
Hell, I wouldn’t have believed me.
“I was going to suggest that.”
I gave her a funny look.
I had the sense that she was putting thoughts in my mind, but then again, maybe I was thinking my own thoughts. But this was only the start of the problem. It would always be hard for me to tell if I was the one thinking something, or if Grace was thinking something for me.
We would become increasingly symbiotic in that way.
Breakfast at the Omni was decent, and there was no waffle machine, so I had to suffice with potatoes, eggs, cinnamon rolls, cereal, and bagel, all of which were delicious. I sat in front of Grace, sipping coffee, when I saw just who I was looking for.
“That’s our guy,” I whispered as a businessman sat down across from us, with a pretty hefty briefcase in tow. I didn’t know why he had such a large briefcase, but it would come in handy for what needed to be done later that day.
Grace turned to look at him, and as soon as they locked eyes, he pushed his chair back, stood up, and came over to our table.
“Do you mind if I join you?” he asked.
“By all means,” I said with a grin.
“My name’s Chip Parker.” He smiled crookedly at me. He was in his forties, and the business card he gave me indicated he was a regional manager at a project management company. He was fit, bald, and had bushy black eyebrows.
“What would you like Chip to do first?” Grace asked me.
I was nervous about all this, but that nervousness was considerably less than the nervousness I’d felt a few days ago. I was hardening, toughening up, and as I pulled my list out of my back pocket, I tried to look as nonchalant and confident as possible.
You have this, Gideon, Grace’s voice whispered in my head.
“The first thing we need is your briefcase, Chip,” I told him.
He set his briefcase on the table, popped it open, and began taking his iPad and all the papers out.
“Do you have a car with you?”
“Just a rental,” he told me.
“Put your stuff back in the briefcase and take it to your rental car. Put all of your belongings in the trunk, and bring the briefcase back to us.”
“Sure thing.”
It felt strange to be able to tell someone to do something like that. For a split second, I thought that maybe I had psychic abilities, but the reality of our situation washed over me like the Cold Bucket Challenge. It was all Grace’s doing.
The thought that I may have a super ability reminded me of finding my picture on Grace’s drive.
“It’s not what you think it is,” she said as we waited for Chip.
I knew in my heart I wasn’t a superpowered individual. It was clear; I’d never remotely exhibited anything that would have made me think I had some type of power or sway over the natural environment.
I’d never accidentally lifted something with my mind; I’d never blasted someone with a fireball that appeared spontaneously in the palm of my hand; and I clearly did not have healing capabilities, as evidenced by the future scar on my face.
“Later,” she told me. “We’ll deal with that later.”
Chip returned with an empty briefcase. “How’s this, boss?” he asked me.
“Boss?” I looked at Grace.
“I thought you’d like that touch.”
“Chip, we’re going to need your help today. Please, sit.”
He coughed in his hand and took a seat before me.
“The first thing I want you to do is to go get a bunch of healthy snacks and bottles of water. I also want you to go to a military surplus store and get a bulletproof vest, and possibly one of those assault team helmets. There may not be one of those stores here in New Haven, so you might have to go to Bridgeport or possibly even Hartford. You know what I mean. I need two lab coats, and two sets of scrubs – one for a male and one for a female. Also, get me a backpack.”
“Great – so food, medical clothes, backpack, and a vest. Is there a particular way I should pay?”
“That part doesn’t matter to me. Just pay with whatever you have, put this stuff in your trunk, and bring it back here. You’re going to be our driver tonight. And tomorrow, you’re not going to remember any of this.”
“Okay, should I steal a car for you? Or would you like to borrow my car?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “We’ll get the cars. I know how much of a pain it can be dealing with rental car insurance companies. Don’t worry about the vehicles.”
“Sounds good,” he said, his bushy brows pressing together as he nodded at me.
“Grace and I have a few errands we need to run, but we plan to meet you back here in a couple of hours. What room are you in?”
“Room 301.”
“Great, once you finish gathering the supplies, I want you to go back to your room and wait for us there. Do not take any calls, do not watch any TV, and do not use the internet. Just relax. Got it?”
Chip stood and offered us a curt little nod. “I’ll see you two later.”
Chapter Twenty-Three: Cherry Blossoms Revisited
It didn’t take us very long to find our first vehicle. As soon as we left the Omni New Haven, we saw a nature-y looking guy get out of his Toyota Tacoma to pay a parking meter. Grace approached him. He realized that the Tacoma ‘wasn’t his truck’ and readily handed me the keys.
“Tell him he sold his truck and that he decided to take up biking.”
“That’s a great idea,” the man said almost instantly. “I think I’ll take up biking.”
We needed to get to a place where there was money, which would likely be parts of Hamden or Orange, two smaller cities not far from New Haven. Hamden was closer, so I drove the Tacoma there first.
I took Whitney Avenue, went the back way so we’d come out near the Stop and Shop and found our target. I parked in the lot of a Bank of America, and we waited for people to pull up in their cars.
Grace was able to access someone’s memories just by seeing them, and doing so allowed her to quickly decipher if they were wealthy or not.
So, as a warm breeze blew up from the south, whipping at a discarded McStarbucks bag, we waited for our marks to arrive.
Anyone who was wealthy was called over to the truck, where I did the talking, and Grace did the rest.
“I need you to get the ten thousand dollars you owe me,” I told an older woman with a Louis Vuitton bag. “Get it in cash. Just bring it back here and we’ll call it even.”
It was surprisingly easy.
The people would go in the bank, come back with cash, give it to us and leave, their memories scrubbed by Grace.
Thirty minutes later, we’d accumulated about forty grand, no small feat.
For a disguise, Grace had morphed into a brunette in a hoodie with yoga pants and a pair of sunglasses. She looked hot, mysterious … like she could be the lead female in the next Transformers installment. I was in my Yale cap and sunglasses – a creeper if there ever was one, but definitely incognito.
With forty thousand in the glove compartment, we changed locations, taking the highway to Orange, Connecticut, where we found a Wells Fargo set in a building that must have been built in the seventies.
We only managed to get ten thousand out of this one before a security guy started poking around. Of course, Grace could have done something to him, but he may have had a body cam, and I didn’t want anything to be on a camera.
So we moved on.
We now had fifty thousand dollars ca
sh, something I never even dreamed of holding before. But we needed more, and I wanted to make sure there was enough to cover us for a while just in case we had to barter.
Sure, Grace’s ability was on our side, but a little cash money never hurt anyone.
It only took us a moment driving down Boston Post Road to find another bank, this time of Chase, where we netted thirty thousand.
Eighty grand should definitely be enough to tide us over for a bit, I thought as I merged back onto the highway.
Even though I was feeling tough, and even though a very childish part of me wanted to fan myself with the money or make it rain like I was in a rap video, I was completely terrified.
I had to keep reminding myself that I’d broken bad. In a big way.
But it wasn’t as easy as it sounded, and it got me thinking about all those who had broken bad. How did they sleep at night?
This is your life until you’re either caught …
Or else.
“Quiet, Writer Gideon,” Grace said. “And take me back to the cherry blossoms.”
I thought about this for a moment. Wooster Square wasn’t far from our hotel, and we could simply circle the square if we thought something looked suspicious.
“Yeah, let’s go there.”
We took the exit on I-95 that passed by the dozen Latin American food trucks set up along the wharf. Then a left under the highway, and we drove in front of Ikea and that weird building that had been erected before it – some concrete monstrosity from a forgotten age.
We got to Wooster Square, and once I saw that the coast was clear and there weren’t any quasi-federal agent types poking around, I parked the truck.
“Let’s make it quick,” I told her. “And let’s try to stay near the truck, just in case.”
“You worry too much,” she said with a soft, yet comical smile. She bent forward, kissed me, and got out of the truck.
Feeling emboldened, I got out too, and I didn’t even pay the meter. I wasn’t planning to be there for very long anyway.
The cherry blossoms that line the street still had a few more days left before their petals would start falling. Grace was in heaven, moving toward the trees, her arms spread wide as she spun and looked up at the blossoms. She never seemed happier than when she saw those trees.
Maybe they represented something else to her … the first taste of freedom, perhaps.
After all, they were the first thing she saw of the real world (if you don’t count my street on a dark and stormy night or my less than comfy basement apartment). Just standing near the square brought back a series of memories. The pizza restaurants had already fired up their ovens, and there were a few people in the center of the square, walking their dogs and living the good life.
“Are there cherry blossoms where we’re going next?” she asked me.
I hadn’t decided yet where we were going next, but I knew it was somewhere other than Connecticut, and definitely not New Haven. “You know, I have no idea,” I told her. “But wherever we’re going, there will be pretty flowers.”
“I don’t know if there are prettier flowers than these.” Grace reached up to one of the trees and pulled down a cherry blossom. She sniffed it, laughed a little when she saw the look I was giving her, and threw it over her shoulder.
“You didn’t have to stop,” I told her. “I was admiring you.”
“Uh-huh.”
Not really an answer, but that was fine. It really nice just to see her happy, and to realize that this brief little interlude, our walk through the cherry blossoms, brought her so much joy.
We took a quick walk around the square, and I couldn’t help but feel nervous the entire time. Even after she spoke inside my head, I still felt that familiar tension in my chest, a tension telling me that we were being watched and that they may come for us at any time.
No matter how many deep breaths I took, the sensation always returned. It would be a feeling that would come to define my life for the next few weeks and months.
After we left Wooster Square, I gassed up the Tacoma, paying in cash, and we returned to the hotel’s underground parking lot.
Everything was going according to plan.
We called the cab with an actual driver – no AI this time – and he arrived about six minutes later.
Our cabbie was a Puerto Rican guy with a pair of thick black sunglasses on and a cross tattoo on the side of his neck. He seemed pretty laid back, but of course, I would never know his true personality due to the fact that Grace had already taken over his mind just about as quickly as it took someone to blink.
“Take us to Hamden,” I told him as I got in. “Drive us around one of those fancy neighborhoods.”
“You got it, amigo.”
We cut down Whitney Avenue, Yale on our left and right, as we took the back way to Hamden. Or maybe it was the front way.
At any rate, it felt kind of odd to be driving through Yale with the notion that we’d be assaulting one of their facilities later. Then again, if all the well-dressed students walking around only knew the kind of shit their university was getting into …
But all that could be exposed later.
I mentioned the fact that it was Yale University in Mutants in the Making, and if the book got popular enough, I was sure Yale would release some statement denying it. But like most denials released by governments, corporations, and universities, there was usually more than an ounce of truth to what they were discrediting.
To the richer neighborhoods we go! I thought, switching my inner musings over to the fact that our plan was coming to fruition.
“Only one more car to go,” I said excitedly.
“A convertible?” Grace asked.
“We’ll see.”
We took a left on Mathis Avenue and drove around aimlessly, looking for the right vehicle. After about five minutes, I spotted a brand new Dodge Charger parked in front of a large white house with a nice picket fence and a fancy veranda. The Charger was black, fierce, and the way it was shaped reminded me of a panther about to strike.
“That’s the one,” I told our driver. “Wait here until we get our vehicle; once we get it, you’re free to go, sir.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. I counted out a thousand bucks and stuffed it in the front pocket of his T-shirt, instructing him not to look at it until later.
“You got it,” he said with a smile.
Hopefully the owner is home, I thought as Grace and I walked to the front door.
“I have a feeling he or she may be,” Grace said. I knew she couldn’t tell the future per se, but I did get an uneasy feeling about the way she said that.
We knocked on the door, waited, knocked again, and on the final knock, a man opened the door, hastily covering his body with a robe. He was in his thirties and fit, with a lantern jaw and a full head of hair.
“Ah, he’s cheating on his wife right now,” Grace said, her eyes turning white.
“Good to know,” I mumbled under my breath.
“How can I help you?” he asked. “Would you like the keys to my car?”
“Yeah, that would be nice,” I told him. “Give me the keys to your car, and then go back to doing whatever it is you were doing in there. If anyone asks you about the car, I want you to say you let your friend borrow it. I also want you to delete any information you have on its VIN number or license plate number.”
“Got it,” he said, turning away from the door.
I had to remind myself that I wasn’t the one who was a psychic, but it sure as hell felt like it. The better Grace and I got at tag-teaming our marks, the more it felt like I too had a superpower. Later I’d have to constantly remind myself that I didn’t have any powers and that I was just a normal guy.
But it felt pretty cool in the moment. And the tiny voice at the back of my head told me we should go to Vegas if we got the chance.
The cheating man returned a few moments later with his wallet and a woman on his arm. She wa
s also in her thirties, heavier than him, with nice features and light hazel eyes.
“What’s the meaning of this?” she asked, but by the time she got the last word out, Grace had taken over.
The woman just smiled at us as the man dropped the keys into my hand.
I started speaking again. “I want both of you to forget about this car. You’ve never seen this car, you never bought this car, and you’re going to spend weeks trying to figure out why people keep telling you that you have a car when you don’t.”
“Sounds like it’ll be challenging,” he said. “But I’m always up for a challenge.”
“That’s the spirit,” I told him, a bit surprised by his answer.
I thanked the man and the woman, wished them luck in their adultery, and as we turned to leave, I waved at the cab driver.
He took off, and Grace and I got into the Dodge Charger.
Boy, was it a beast.
As soon as my foot hit the gas pedal we were off, tires peeling out as we hit the hard streets of Hamden, Connecticut.
I sped up to a stop sign only to slam on the brakes.
“Wow!” Grace laughed.
“Just testing them,” I told her, feeling like an utter badass.
I fishtailed a bit as I got used to the feel of the vehicle. The dashboard was the exact opposite of the BMW we’d stolen a few days back. It was fierce, aggressive, and masculine, and I noticed that I could turn on auto drive with a simple flick of a switch.
Not bad.
We fueled up, returned to the hotel, and drove into the Omni garage, parking a few spots down from our Tacoma. I could now check ‘two cars’ off my list.
We found Chip Parker in his room on the third floor. He stood once we entered and greeted us. “The trunk is filled with food, as you requested. I’ve got the bulletproof vest, a ballistic full-face helmet, and the medical clothes.”
“Let me see the vest.”
The body armor was as I expected, the helmet something else entirely. It was black, with straps that went around my chin, and an attached piece that covered my face, still allowing me to see but adding just a little bit more protection from debris.
Cherry Blossom Girls Box Set Page 16