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

by Robert J. Crane

  What the hell, I wasn’t doing anything else. After giving him a couple minutes to disappear into the woods, I conjured up a wind and let it blow me in that direction. Not too fast, but fast enough Yolanda wasn’t going to catch me.

  Once I was out of sight of the protest, I dropped altitude into a gap in the woods. Unsurprisingly, I found Mr. Sees-the-Future waiting for me right there, leaning against a tree, arms crossed, examining his nails.

  “All right, go ahead,” he said as I fluttered to the ground.

  That caught me off balance. “Go ahead with what?”

  “Get all those bad feelings out, champ,” Harry said, still studying his fingernails. “You might want to hurry, though. That annoying Flashforce reporter is heading this way, and if you yell for too long, she’ll find us in about, oh...four and a half minutes, give or take. I’ll have to take off before that, because I really don’t need to be caught on film with you. It’d put a major kink in your sister’s plans.”

  I clenched my teeth. “You want to know what I hate?”

  “Besides people who don’t use their blinkers?” Harry asked. “And ones who talk during movies? Oh, and let’s not forget—people who play online shooters with their headset mic on but who don’t actually talk to their teammates? They just sort of sit there and have conversations with the people in their house, sharing all sorts of personal details you could easily live without—while their team loses from lack of coordination.”

  I blinked, taken aback. “Yes, okay, I dislike all those things.”

  Harry grinned, and I’m sure he knew I found it infuriating. “So we’re in agreement there. But yes, I know what you were going to say—you’re so very unhappy with me. If you were any less pleased with me right now, I’d be on your enemies list, somewhere between people who reach the front of a fast food line and still don’t know what they want to order, and people who film themselves licking food and then put it back on grocery store shelves. For fame.”

  The fact that Harry was preying on my dislike of people who did...well, all those things...only added to my irritation with him. It almost felt like he was reading my mind, though really he was essentially just plucking them out of other realities where I’d vocalized my feelings about them. “Yeah. All that. But—”

  “You’re unhappy because you think I’m wasting your time here,” Harry said. “To which I say—I am not.”

  Having my argument ripped away from me was more irritating still, even though he clearly understood my feelings on the matter. “I am hovering over a bunch of irate people incensed over their working conditions and dealing with the closest thing to a victimless crime that I could be without arresting teenagers for loitering outside a movie theater.”

  “It’s a little more serious than that, Reed,” Harry said. “If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have pushed you to come here.”

  “Yeah, it’s the push that’s the problem,” I said, a little heat boiling over.

  “It really is, isn’t it?” Harry asked, that smug grin splayed across his lips so damned infuriating. “You just don’t like being out of control, do you?”

  “I handled it fine when I was with Alpha,” I lied.

  “No, you didn’t,” Harry said.

  “Oh, did I tell you that in one of the unused probabilities you just ran through in your head?”

  “You don’t have to,” Harry said. “It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? You worked independently when you were with Alpha. Over here, in the wild lands of America, far from their European operations, which is where they were strong. I’m older than the average meta, Reed. I’ve been around. I knew the players, what they did back in the day. Mostly because I was trying to avoid them.”

  “Fine, I worked alone until Sienna came along,” I said. “Until she had me working with her, then stuck me with...this.” I shook my head. “I don’t like dancing to your tune, especially when I don’t see the point. This is—”

  “Beneath you?” Harry offered.

  I didn’t like how that sounded, so I tried to take a second and reframe it. “The lack of seriousness suggests...yeah. Maybe.”

  “You need to be here, Reed,” Harry said. “Though you might not see it yet.”

  I shook my head, felt a stupid smile spread across my face. “Did you bring me here to put me in place to help Sienna?”

  “Nope,” Harry said. “In fact, you can’t help her right now. To do so, or to have her come to you...it’d be the undoing of everything she wants to accomplish this year.”

  “When did you two plan this out?” I asked. “Did you know before Revelen—”

  “I knew it all, always,” Harry said. “If you’re asking when she knew...it was after Revelen. Everything except one part, anyway.”

  “Which part?” I asked quietly, pretty sure I wasn’t going to get an answer.

  “I warned her to take the job when the FBI chief offered it,” Harry said, now quiet himself. “Told her to take the next job offer that comes along, and said it in a way that guaranteed she’d remember it when it rolled up to her door. I told her that well before she went to Minnesota to help Angel. Before she was surrendering. I gave her that much. Everything else...” He shook his head. “Well, it’s take it as it comes, almost. This is a tough hand. The cards she drew are not in her favor, and the enemies she’s up against? They play meaner than it would appear from the outside. You should know that. You’ve talked to Andy, after all.”

  My cheeks burned at the name. Andy Custis had been one of the family of IT specialist metas that helped this group of enemies hide the evidence of Sienna’s innocence for years. He was...indisposed at present, taken captive by us just before the Revelen incident. We’d kept him on ice ever since, but the trail to his family was cold, and they were missing, completely. “Is dealing with the Custis family part of Sienna’s plan? Or your plan?”

  “I told her some of the most probable ways it could unfold,” Harry said. “But I’m as much at a distance in this as you are. New probabilities are becoming clearer because of choices made in the process. Some things I thought were certain fell by the wayside. When you try and predict too far out, there are too many paths, it starts to get hazy—except the big events, the ones that come from outside of Sienna’s world. These people, this Network...they’re not your traditional boss fight, to use a phrase you’d understand. They are not coming at her head on. They know better. They’ve studied her, and the only way to make sure that they don’t act in haste—and before we’re ready to deal with them—is to keep her where they think she’s wholly under their control. That means you and me and all her other friends are out of the picture so far as they can see. They have her isolated and alone, surrounded by people who are at best indifferent and at worst actively working against her. That’s the game, Reed. I know it sucks. It wouldn’t have been my choice, sending her into this. But you should know what she’s up against.”

  “Fine, she’s in deep,” I said. “Then why are you out here in the woods with me?”

  Harry stared off into the distance over my shoulder. “Because she’s not here to pick up the slack you’re carrying...and someone needed to help.”

  “That is such shit, Harry,” I said. “Why don’t you just—”

  “Time to go, Reed,” Harry said, slipping behind a tree, calling back to me as he went. “Take flight. You gotta get back anyway. Oh, and wrap it up, bud. Talk to your girlfriend and move forward, will you?”

  “What? I—” Footsteps crashed in the brush somewhere behind me, and I cursed. Harry was already gone, quietly disappearing under the shade of the trees. I swore under my breath and listened.

  Yolanda. I could hear her heavy breathing as she came this way, drawn by the sound of my not-so-peaceful tones.

  With that, I put the wind beneath my feet and lifted off, up above the canopy and back into the darkening sky.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  Sienna

  “This is like ‘Murder on Music Row,’” Chandler said as he joi
ned me on the balcony of the Ryman, looking down on the paramedics doing their work on the mobsters. “Except Music Row is that way.” He pointed, presumably in the direction of this mythical Music Row.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. He started to explain, and I held up a hand to stop him. “Not a request for info, Chandler. Some other time, okay?”

  “Anything to be had here?” Chandler asked, apparently not at all offended at being shushed. That was the mark of a good partner to me these days. Someone who didn’t get all worked up about Sienna being Sienna.

  “Our boy got recruited into a mobster’s scheme—I think.” I waved a hand over the remaining carnage. About half the mobsters had been taken away by ambulance. They were readying the rest to move ’em out, presumably so the janitors could come in and clean the place up for...whatever was coming next to the Ryman. “It didn’t go quite like anyone planned.”

  “Any charges to be filed?”

  “Against Brance, probably,” I said. “If the mobsters want to press. I’m having trouble seeing how anyone else gets hit on this one, unless Brance gets caught and rolls, specifically implicating someone in the scheme.” I shook my head. “I actually think I ran across a smart mobster on this one.”

  “Oh?”

  “His execution was a little sloppy because Brance is a loose cannon—and probably not exactly a willing accomplice—but he did a solid move here.” I leaned over the balcony, peering down at the mobsters. They were still discombobulated from Brance’s aural assault. Some of them had lost eardrums. “But I think overall he might have hit on something, because how the hell do you prove an audio attack happened? There’s no tape, no recordings thanks to Brance’s power frying electronic recording devices. There’s not a lot of provisions in the criminal code for assaults you can’t see.” I shook my head. “I mean, even fire blasts and meta punches are visible, they leave an obvious mark, there’s defined laws against them, you can collect physical evidence to substantiate, but Brance...his attacks are nearly evidence-free.”

  “No surveillance footage survived?” Chandler asked. “Surely, in this place of all places, they have something, at least?”

  “Fried like Nashville Hot chicken.” I shrugged. “And I’m not sure what this location has to do with—”

  “Oh, come on!” Chandler said. “The Ryman! This was the home of the Grand Ole Opry for decades! The—” He gave up. “Never mind. You’re a philistine. Or too modern. One of those.”

  I chuckled. “One of those, for sure.”

  Chandler settled into a silence for a few minutes. “What, uh...what song did he sing?”

  I blinked. That was a funny question. “To do this, you mean? The attack?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know.” I looked around for anyone to answer that question, and finally just shouted down at one of the mobsters. “Hey! You!” A total mobster-mook guy, half as wide as he was tall, looked up at me, blinking in disorientation. “What song did this guy sing?”

  Mobster Mook’s face crumpled in concentration. “How the hell should I know?”

  “It was an old one,” one of the Asian bodyguards called up to me. “Joe Diffie tune. ‘Is It Cold In Here.’”

  “Oh, I love that song,” Chandler said.

  The bodyguard shrugged. “It’s all right. Diffie had better ballads. Like ‘Home.’”

  “What does that mean?” I asked. “That he sang that song?”

  “It’s a fairly obscure tune,” Chandler said. “It’s from the 90s. Was a decent hit but mostly forgotten in today’s country environment. Great song, though. This guy Brance...he’s a student of country music. Like me.” He glanced down at the bodyguard. “Like him, too, apparently.”

  “What was the, uh, provenance, of this place again?” I asked, looking around the Ryman. “Original home of the Opry? Which was, uh—”

  “The longest-running show on radio,” Chandler said, sounding a little like a fanatic praising his object of worship. He checked his watch. “It’s actually about to start in a few minutes. I wonder who’s on tonight...?”

  “Where?” I asked, seizing him by the sleeve. “Where is this happening?”

  “Oh, uh, they moved to a new theater over by Opry Mills Mall. East of the city.”

  I gave one last look around the Ryman. There was nothing else to be had here. “Take me there,” I decided, heading for the exit. Maybe I’d find Brance, still chasing his dream. Maybe I’d find nothing.

  Either way, it’d beat just standing around here, waiting for something to happen.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

  Brance

  He didn’t make it very far before the last two days settled on him like a cloud, a fog that choked him out of consciousness. He passed the tall tower of WSM 650, unable to even muster a smile at that little piece of history.

  Brance saw the Moores Lane exit moments later and took it, coasting up the ramp and looking for a place to park. He passed an Outback Steakhouse, a gas station glowing green, before turning into a Publix parking lot. He was already having to blink his eyes quite a bit, fighting to keep them open.

  The street lights were already on, the sun having dipped below the horizon before he’d even stormed out the emergency exit of the Ryman. It was all the way down now, night settling in. The temperature was dropping; it’d probably hit the fifties tonight, maybe the high forties. Nothing compared to February in Wyoming, but cold.

  Pulling into a spot at the back of the lot, he looked around. The place was still relatively full, people still out doing their shopping. He put the truck in park and got out, not bothering to stretch his legs before crawling into the back seat of the King Cab.

  He covered up with a blanket, drawing his legs close in, curling up. The truck had been his dad’s, a hand-me-down that he’d never liked. Brance would have preferred a car, something smaller, but now he was appreciating the extra width and the long back seat.

  Man, it would have been great if he could have made it, Brance thought weakly, his thoughts already starting to fade. He should have been wired, terror infusing his veins. But he was tired. He felt like he’d been running for weeks. The lack of sleep was catching up with him.

  Closing his eyes, he faded out, leaving all the worries of Jules, of broken dreams, of Sienna Nealon—all of them behind him as he sunk into a deep slumber.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  Reed

  When I got back to the gates of Lotsostuff, I found the crowd had died down, their enthusiasm sapped after a long day of yelling and chanting grievances. Alan Kwon was nearby, still tirelessly taking the occasional photo of the diminished crowd. I estimated about a quarter had trickled away, and more were pulling off, ready to call it a night and (presumably) return tomorrow.

  Ben Kelly was waiting just inside the gate, looking up into the sky. The moment he saw me he waved me down, and so I dipped, cutting through the chill evening air to land just behind the fence inside the warehouse property. My shoes and the wind stirred up the dust as I came down, turning Ben’s black suit a slightly lighter shade.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Ben coughed, dusting himself off, one eye squinted closed like I’d blown some dust into it. “Been looking for you.”

  “Found me, you have. What’s up?” I took a look over my shoulder. The crowd was shrinking even now, people in overalls trudging back toward the parked cars that filled the nearby lot and lined the highway leading up to Lotsostuff.

  “Um. Well.” He was still squinting, but now it seemed to be in contemplation of what he wanted to say, not because I’d blow dirt granules in his eyes upon landing.

  “Come on, spit it out. I don’t have all night and I assume neither do you.”

  “I just, uhm,” Ben said, really warring with himself, “I thought having you here...things would go differently.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You mean you thought nobody would try and burn down the warehouse?”

  “No. I don’t k
now,” he waffled. “I just thought...hero! Here in Murfreesboro!” He made some hand wave gestures that I interpreted to be magic. “All your problems are taken care of!”

  “Yeah, I don’t have godlike powers to change human nature,” I said. “There are two sides who have a genuine conflict here. I can’t move those entrenched positions with the wind.”

  “I just thought...a hero,” he said again, enthusiasm flagging. “I thought you could...”

  “Save you?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Ben said quietly. “Now I realize it sounds kinda...stupid.”

  “Saving someone jumping from a building is easier than trying to untangle the problems of reality,” I said. “Actually, no, sometimes it’s not, because sometimes the person jumping? Genuinely wants to jump and will fight to keep you from saving them. Which is sort of analogous to this, I guess, in that it doesn’t seem like your boss really wants the help. At least not like you do.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said, “Mr. Mills is complicated, I guess.”

  I wanted to bemoan the day Facebook had introduced the “It’s complicated” relationship status, because damn if it hadn’t become the default for people trying to explain the tangled webs we humans got involved in. “It doesn’t seem that complicated. He seems like he just doesn’t give a shit about talking to his workers about their concerns.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Ben said.

  “Is that so?” I asked. “Or do you just not want to believe it’s true?”

  Ben thought that one over for a moment. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on here other than there’s two groups of people who badly disagree about what needs to happen to make their lives work. Your boss says, ‘No, you can’t have more money or the improvements you want,’ and meanwhile the workers say, ‘You’re killin’ us. Let off, pay us better, give us our breaks,’ or whatever the secondary complaint they have is. Time off, maternity leave—all that.”