Music: Out of the Box 26 (The Girl in the Box Book 36)

by Robert J. Crane

  He looked at me evenly, as if trying to decide what sort of emotional feedback he was getting from me and what it meant. “You got it under control?”

  I felt that same cold, clammy feeling in my stomach and on my skin that I’d felt for months. Since I’d walked out of that interrogation room and into a White House press conference where the President had announced me as his new solution to the metahuman policing problem. “I don’t know.”

  Foreman just nodded slowly. “How bad are these people?”

  “TBD.” I forced a smile. “But not good.”

  Foreman nodded slowly. “I know what it’s like to have enemies that you can’t entirely see.” He looked around us slowly. “Do you know any of their names?”

  “A few,” I said, keeping my voice at a level where not even a dog could have heard it.

  He nodded. “I’ve got another for you, then: Russ Bilson.”

  I gave him a slow nod in return. “I know.”

  Foreman leaned back again, clutching his ankle where it folded over his other knee. “How are you going to handle it when you do get to the...heart of the matter...with these folks?”

  “I’m open to suggestions.” I drew a slow breath. “This is unlike any enemy I’ve ever faced. There are so many of them, hiding in the shadows. And it’s not like Sovereign, who would have destroyed the planet, or Harmon, trying to kill us all, or Hades with his nukes. Hell, it’s not even like the Clary family trying to kill me or that Scottish bitch who wrecked my life.” I shook my head. “They’re spiders in a web that I’m tangled in, and I don’t know if they’re violent, if they’ve got evil intent. All I know is they’re applying pressure to me, pushing me, trying to wrap me up, control me. And I don’t entirely know what to do about it. What the right thing to do is.”

  Foreman did not answer me, giving me a long moment where he stared down at the place where his pants leg didn’t quite meet his fine leather loafer, giving me a view of his socks. They had a Tennessee Titans logo printed on them, tiny, about the size of my fingertip, dozens and dozens of them forming a pattern. He seemed to be studying it. “They pushed you into this job?”

  “With a little less grace than when you did it.” I tried not to smile. I failed.

  “I did it to save the world,” Foreman said, not looking up. “And all I did was put the government behind you for a mission you were already on. I like to think there’s a difference between what I did then and what’s happening to you now.”

  “There is,” I said.

  A flash of relief greeted me as he looked up. “Then I’ll say it plain—these people seem to intend to enslave you outside the law on these matters. Put you to work on their will. Coercion via blackmail is still slavery by a kinder name, and I know what I’d do if someone said they were going to do that to me.” There was a hint of anger in his eyes as he stood and put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re a clever lady, Sienna. You know where the lines are, and you know your profession. I think you’ll do just fine—so long as you go slow...and keep it quiet.”

  With that, he turned and walked out of the hotel lobby. I watched him go and wondered if I’d misunderstood him, or if he’d really just suggested I handle them like I did almost every other villain.

  Lethally.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  I woke up the next morning to a bright, sunny blue sky hanging over the glass and steel skyline of Nashville. After I blinked the sleep out of my eyes, I took a long shower and started to get ready for my day. It didn’t take too long, fortunately, because I woke up ravenous.

  On my way out to grab breakfast, I picked up the police radio Mayor Brandt had Metro leave at the front desk. It was a handheld unit, able to be clipped to my belt, but with an extension I could mount on my car to extend the range.

  The extender was easy to install. Simple suction cup on top of the car roof, plug in the outlet, and I was done. I noticed, not for the first time, that they’d put windshield-mounted flashing lights and a siren up front, and a quick inspection of the trunk found that, indeed, they had equipped the car with an AR-15 and a Mossberg 930 semi-automatic shotgun with ten rounds. I checked the loads because I was curious: double ought buck with a couple rifled slugs at the end of the magazine. I also found an ammo belt with extra magazines for the AR and more shells of each kind for the shotgun. Digging a little deeper I found still another gem Chandler hadn’t mentioned—Remington’s new V3 Tac-13 shotgun, a five-round semi-auto model that was just a little bigger than a pistol. Perfect for close quarters, it even had a sling harness so I could carry it on my back if things got heated.

  I didn’t know what the TBI and Metro police thought I’d get up to while I was in town, but I did appreciate that unlike the FBI, they’d loaded me up like John Wick for worst-case scenarios. It was a vote of confidence I certainly didn’t feel at my job lately. I mean, I’d practically had to offer sexual favors to the armorer in New York to get a Gatling gun in order to face off with Grendel on my last misadventure, and my boss—unknowing—hadn’t been real happy with that.

  Here in Tennessee, they were handing me some major tools of destruction, and the case thus far hadn’t required me to even fire a shot. It was a sea change, attitudinally, over what I’d become used to since taking the job. And a mark in their favor that, at least before we’d had a major chaos (AKA Sienna) incident, they truly seemed dedicated to letting me run wild and free. That was not common. Not anymore.

  Once I’d finished all that, I sat in the driver’s seat for a few minutes and let the car run, the darkness of the hotel garage shrouding me as I checked my messages. I glanced at my mirrors every few minutes to make sure someone wasn’t sneaking up on me (even though I’d parked with my trunk almost against the concrete wall of the garage) until done. Nothing new from the office, no further notes from Chalke, nothing but a text from Hilton blathering her excitement at how great our next step was going to be and how she was already in the process of her move to DC. Holloway, I assumed, was sour about it, as he was about nearly everything. That was a man who bought his Corn Flakes with urine already in them.

  Yay. My shit was presumably in transit, and the FBI hadn’t sent me so much as a tracking number. Good thing I had very few possessions in my apartment and almost nothing I cared about. It took the sting out of the privacy violation. Also my lost luggage had shown up on my door sometime between midnight and three AM, looking like it had been transshipped via Syria.

  I got breakfast at an artisanal, make-your-own-pancakes place south of downtown. It was pleasant, and gimmicky in a cute way. I stared at the complete lack of notifications on my phone, waiting for something to happen. I had the police radio turned way down, and all the action was quiet stuff, like traffic stops and paramedic calls.

  It’d probably be like this most of the day, I figured, for a mid-sized city like Nashville. It wasn’t a hardcore murder capital, like St. Louis or Baltimore, or big enough to have a massive number of shootings and gang violence, like Chicago.

  Still, I listened as I chewed down syrupy goodness. It went on quietly up until I’d just paid my check.

  “All units, officer needs assistance,” the radio crackled. “Vicinity of 8th and Bradford.”

  I pulled up my phone, meta-speed, and tapped in the address as I walked out of the pancake place, leaving behind the luscious smell of syrup and the sizzle of pancake batter. It only took a second for the result to come up: it was six blocks away.

  Hopping into the BMW, I started it up and hit the lights and siren. I sped through the next three intersections before having to slow down and let a semi through before running the next light. A couple turns later and I was on Bradford, houses blurring past in sequence. Some were old, some looked brand new, as though the neighborhood was in the middle of turning over.

  There was already one Metro PD car parked on the corner, lights flashing. I slowed as I rolled up, no sign of cops anywhere nearby. I put the window down and listened, hoping to hear the sounds of a foot pursuit
.

  I did. Feet slapping in the distance, breaking through the sleepy morning. Someone yelled, “Stop! Stop right there!”

  It was at least a couple blocks over, buildings between me and the foot chase.

  Flooring the gas, I took the next corner with squealing tires, using my meta reflexes and a couple tricks I’d observed from Angel Gutierrez to drift and accelerate out of the turn. The BMW handled my maneuver beautifully, tires catching just when I needed them to.

  I could see a cop running a couple blocks down. I pressed the pedal down and the BMW’s engine roared. Sirens in the distance told me that backup was on the way.

  I’d have this wrapped up before they got here.

  The police officer was running after the perp but was easily half a block back. The sidewalks were uncrowded, the neighborhood of single-family homes giving way to two-story apartment buildings and shopfronts. The perp was running past one now, a Mexican grocery in what had once been a house. He had brown hair and wore a black shirt, and when he threw a look back over his shoulder, he was grinning at the cop he was leaving in the dust.

  Then he saw me, BMW bearing down on him with flashing lights, and his smile vanished.

  “That’s right, dipshit,” I said, mounting the curb and listening to the BMW’s chassis squeal in protest at the bump. “You’re not getting away.”

  I rode the empty sidewalk until I was only twenty feet behind them, then jerked the BMW’s wheel as I let out a blast on the horn. I popped the emergency brake and sent the car into a sideways skid. When it had slowed down enough, I threw it into park and flung myself out the door, hitting the ground at a run without missing a step.

  “Ahhh!” the perp yelled, surprised at my sudden appearance a couple feet behind him. He’d had to look forward to dodge a cafe table sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, and when he’d looked back, I’d been there where a BMW had been bearing down on him a moment earlier.

  I hit him in the kidney. Not hard enough to rupture anything, but hard enough to make him jerk like I’d applied an electrical current to his lower back. He let out a cry, and as soon as he’d relaxed, gripping where I’d struck him, I kneed him in the gut and he folded like origami. I slammed him over the cafe table and cuffed him in about two seconds flat. Then I pushed his legs out and gave him a quick pat down, discovering a pistol secreted in his waistband. “What have we here?” I asked.

  “What...the hell...?” he groaned, trying to touch himself at that spot on his back where I’d made him hurt. “It’s...that’s not...mine.”

  “That means it’s stolen, right?” I held it delicately between my thumb and forefinger so as not to mess with any fingerprints on the weapon. “Carrying a stolen pistol? So naughty.”

  “I...” He sagged on the table, giving in to his pain.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” I said. “Really suggest you employ that now, because anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law and might annoy me. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you, but you should really question why you’re out committing crimes instead of trying to procure the kind of work that would allow you to afford an attorney. Okay?” I patted him on the back, somewhat gently. It might have come off as a little bit of a slap between the shoulder blades that caused him to jerk involuntarily in pain, but hey, when the adrenaline is pumping, sometimes I don’t know my own strength.

  “Where’d you come from?” The cop in pursuit came huffing up. His brass name plate read Collins. He stopped a couple yards away, trying to catch his breath.

  I shrugged. “I was eating breakfast a few blocks away. Figured I’d give you a hand.” I placed the pistol I’d recovered from the suspect on the table, far from his reach. “Found this in my search of him.”

  “Thanks,” he said, looking at the perp. “I was just talking to this guy and he bitch-slapped me and ran.”

  “You were going to search me, man,” our perp mumbled, sounding pained.

  “Yeah, and now we’ve done that,” I said. “It’s just that now you have a backache and stomachache to go along with being busted for possession of a stolen weapon. Next time just let it happen and you can avoid the pain.”

  “This isn’t fair,” he mumbled. “I was getting away.”

  “Yeah, life’s a real bitch like that,” I said, nodding to Collins to take over. He did, and I heard him start the familiar refrain of reading the guy his Miranda rights—again. Sirens were getting closer now, as I sauntered back to my BMW, pulling the radio off my belt. “Situation contained. Perp is in custody.” I glanced at the street sign, then scanned the address, reporting it in to dispatch.

  Dispatch came back a moment later, but it was fuzzed and crackling. “Who is this?”

  “Oh, right,” I said, remembering the designator they’d assigned me. “This is Echo One...on scene.” I felt a little thrill run through me, one which was magnified when the dispatcher answered back.

  “10-4, Echo One,” the dispatcher came back a moment later. “Good work.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Jules

  This was the idea.

  “In here, come on.” Jules waved a hand, beckoning Brance forward into the building and out of the blazing sunlight. He’d gotten the kid a pair of dark glasses and a cowboy hat. The combo was helping to hide his face, which wasn’t famous yet but still had the Metro PD out in force looking for him. To Jules’s eyes, Brance was a good-looking enough kid, fit enough to look nice in jeans, but of a type that was a dime a dozen in this town.

  “What is this place?” Brance asked, crow’s feet forming around his eyes as he squinted behind the glasses. “Can I take these off yet?”

  “Not yet,” Jules said, stepping inside. Once they were in, he let Gil close the door behind them, then waved a hand in a flourish like a magician. “You see this?”

  Brance continued to squint. “These glasses are really dark. Can I—”

  “Yeah, take ’em off, go ahead,” Jules said. He waited.

  Brance looked around once he had the dark glasses in his hand, blinking a few times against the faded light as he took in the wood overtones of the room. He look around with a furrowed brow for a few seconds, then his forehead started to loosen, the lines slackening as he realized where he was. “Is this a recording studio?”

  Jules stepped behind one of the microphones, grinning broadly. “That’s right, kid.” He made a show of pretending to speak into it, though it wasn’t turned on yet. “I got you...studio time.”

  Brance’s jaw fell open, and he looked like he might seize up right there. Eyes crinkling...was the kid going to cry? Jules felt a faint shimmer of panic at this idea, a not-so-vague distaste at the idea of having to manage more of this kid’s uncomfortable emotions. What was it about these millennials, always pissing their feelings out everywhere like a dog who couldn’t control his bladder? “I...I...”

  “It’s okay, kid,” Jules said, trying to remember he was fluffing this delicate little pussy until he got what he wanted. Whoever had raised this pitiful bitch had really done a number on him, Jules was starting to realize. But maybe that would make him easier to control in the long run.

  Maybe.

  But it would be easier still if Jules could just record this kid’s voice going all high and painful, then employ it whenever he felt of a mind to do so. That’d be a lot simpler than attending to the care and feeding of Brance’s stupid feelings and his stupid self.

  Jules said none of this, though. He just held his arms wide and smiled, fueling the fires of the little bastard’s stupid dreams a bit further. “What do you think? You ready?”

  “I...I’ve dreamed of this moment for so long,” Brance said, about two steps from sputtering. “But...” His eyes welled, and Jules fought the urge to take a step back from the teary little pisspot. “I only have a song or two of my own.”

  “That’s fine,” Jules said. “Albums take months to assemble. This is just prelim
inary. Get your voice on some tracks, get a feel for things here, explore the studio space.” He maintained his grin, even though he was cribbing from Christopher Walken on Saturday Night Live in what he was saying. What the hell did an organized crime guy know about making albums?

  “Okay.” Brance nodded, a little smile starting to form. “Yeah. Yeah, this is just a start. But...cool.” Now he was grinning.

  Perfect. “Let’s get a song recorded, huh?” Jules was grinning, too, because if he could get a good, painful, screechy, murderous recording from this little shit, he could be rid of him by sundown, the body distributed throughout the city in a way that the cops would never find. “Let’s start your career off right.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Sienna

  “This looks like some mighty fine work right here,” Captain Barry Parsons said as Collins shoved our perp in the back seat of a Metro squad car. The sun was shining and a pleasant breeze stirred my hair. The smell of burgers cooking in the distance would have been a pleasant scent if I wasn’t still gorged on pancakes.

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to keep it humble. “Just doing the job.”

  Parsons was a longtime vet, and not one of the chair jockeys I so often saw in Captain positions. You could tell it just by looking at him; he looked like a man who’d done his time on the beat. “And you did it well.” He checked his watch. “We got a couple things cooking today you’d maybe like a piece of.”

  I raised an eyebrow even as I checked my phone. No messages from Chandler—or anyone else. “What did you have in mind?” I asked. “Because it looks like my schedule is open...”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Jules

  Sitting in the booth wasn’t the most comfortable place to be. Gil was behind him, hovering, like a fly buzzing your head that you couldn’t quite lay a hand on, no matter how hard you swung. “How long do these things take?”