I turned my back on him, opening the car door and clearly signaling that this conversation was over. All things considered, I felt proud of how well I was keeping my temper when I really wanted to explain to him that he was a bigger fuckwit than the alien fuckwit I was currently attempting to hunt down before he killed anybody else. And outdoing the fuckwit killer in fuckwittery wasn’t something to be proud of, in my opinion. Especially when the fuckwit was also a penis pustule. I was beginning to realize that my use of ridiculous nicknames had gotten out of hand while I hadn’t been paying attention.
“Can I come?” said the fuckwit supreme.
The question took me by surprise. “Huh?”
“Can I come with you? To work? I know you’re on the trail of some aliens. I just know it, because you’re acting all cagey again.”
“Okay.” I slammed the door and shook my finger in his face. “Number one, this is how I normally am when someone shows up at my house without calling me first, during the day when I wouldn’t normally be here, and then sticks his nose in my business when he knows I don’t like it and my business is often confidential. Number two…” I shook my head angrily. “I can’t come up with a number two. I’m leaving now. Next time, just call, will you?”
“I just want to help,” he said, sulking like a little boy.
Honestly, how did this guy deal with a bunch of undergrads? With an attitude like that, he ought to be one of the students, not a teacher. Maybe that was the problem. He’d gotten used to their immature ways and thought maybe they’d work on me.
“Let me do my job, then,” I said.
I yanked the car door open, sat down, and closed the door behind me before he could say anything else. After I stared at him pointedly for a few moments, he stepped away from the car so I could start it and pull away from the curb. I took a long breath, hoping to calm myself, but it didn’t work. I’d never handled fuckwits very well, and not even the prospect of catching the alien one—finally—could erase the annoyance I felt.
Perhaps I had to cut Erich Bieber from my life after all. As soon as I thought about doing it, I was flooded by twin feelings of guilt and relief. I had to admit that I wanted to be done with him. He tried so hard to be friendly, but it just came off as exhausting to me, who’d made a life out of maintaining careful walls between myself and most people. I wasn’t really doing him many favors by stringing him along, and clearly he still held feelings for me. A clean break would probably be best for us both.
Once I’d made that decision, I felt much better, and I turned my attention to the fuckwit at hand. That alien was going down. All I had to do was find him.
CHAPTER 35
After I left Erich in the proverbial dust and took off to find my alien, I realized I had no idea where I was going. Distracted by my ongoing snit, I’d started driving toward the office on autopilot, but that wasn’t where I’d intended to go at all. But where was my first site? Sadly, the maps had gotten all discombobulated when I’d dropped them, and the locations were obscure enough that I wouldn’t be able to recall them without the aid of the maps. I nearly rear-ended an SUV trying to make sense out of them and had to pull over to the side of the road to put everything to rights. I swore myself hoarse in the process too. Stupid people coming to my house for stupid, incomprehensible reasons and messing me up in the process.
Eventually, though, I sorted myself out again and I pulled back onto the road. That’s when I noticed the black sedan a few cars back. It caught my attention when I glanced at it, because I amusedly observed that it was exactly the same kind of car I’d expect Agent Morgenstern and his generic G-men to drive. It had tinted windows and a glossy black exterior that screamed a driver who had a stick up the ass. And if you asked me, Morgenstern should have had “stick up the ass” tattooed on his forehead as a warning label.
After I took a few turns, I glanced up and realized the car still hung out back there, never getting closer than two cars behind me. Suspicion gripped me, and on a whim, I pulled into a convenient Shell station despite the fact that I still had two thirds of a tank. But I swung into a spot in front of the tiny shop behind the pumps and sat there for a moment. The sedan continued on down the street, and although I waited for a couple of minutes, it didn’t reappear. I didn’t drop my skepticism, though. Instead, I swung back out onto Monroe, drove about a quarter mile, and glanced up to see the car there again. I scowled at the rear view and looked for the right place to stop and confront this fucker. I wasn’t about to let him, her, or it tail me all the way to my alien. Better to make that clear early on.
This time, I pulled onto a side street clearly marked as a dead end. The sedan slowed as it passed but didn’t take the bait. I drove down a ways, far enough to be out of view of the main street, pulled into a convenient spot shielded by a tree, got out of the car, and waited.
After a couple of minutes, I began to think that I’d been wrong, or they’d realized I’d made them and gotten spooked, or maybe whoever it was had decided I was more trouble than I was worth. Regardless, standing here felt like a waste of time. The curtains of the house I stood outside kept twitching, and I wondered if the occupant had already called the cops. The house in question sported no fewer than seventeen lawn gnomes. I counted them, since I had nothing better to do.
I’d just spotted one additional gnome, partially shielded by the overgrown garden, when the sedan rolled into the cul-de-sac. I almost missed my opportunity to take them by surprise out of lawn gnome related distraction, but I recovered quickly enough to leap out in front of the car and take a picture. The tinted windows probably bounced my flash right back at me, but it was less about the photo and more about the desired effect on the occupants of the car. The picture probably wouldn’t show a thing, but I didn’t know for sure and neither did they. If they were up to no good, they’d be forced to confront me and attempt to delete the picture just in case.
The car rolled to a stop and stood their idling. I dropped the phone into my pocket and walked around to the passenger side window, since it was the closest. The window stayed closed, the darkened glass offering me no glimpse of the people inside save the slightly darker outline of someone sitting there. I rapped on the window with my knuckles.
After a moment, it opened, revealing the face of Erich Bieber.
“I can explain,” he said, looking stricken.
But I needed no explanation after I took a look at the man in the driver’s seat. Agent Morgenstern gave me a smarmy smile and a little wave. He was still angry about the dog thing. I could tell. Of course, I didn’t give a crap, especially after this little revelation.
“Well, now I know why you were so interested in what I’m doing,” I said. “Can’t figure out what to do with the device you stole from our labs?”
“So it is a device?” asked Erich, his eyes lighting up. “I thought so!”
“It’s broken,” said Morgenstern. “We’d love to coordinate with you on how to fix it.”
“So now you want to cooperate?” It seemed like I couldn’t possibly get any angrier than I already was, but apparently these two douche canoes were overachievers in the pissing people off category. “You should have thought of that before you broke into my lab and stole my sample and then tried to accost me in the park. I’m not giving you anything but the finger.”
“It’s not your lab, Audrey,” said Morgenstern with thick condescension. “We all know that.”
“Well, it sure as hell isn’t yours,” I fired back.
“Hold it, you two,” said Erich, putting his hands out the window in a pacifying gesture. “Listen, Audrey, we want to coordinate. You know what we’re up against. We’ve got to work together if we’re going to keep people safe from the alien menace.”
“It’s a very nice pitch,” I said, feeling suddenly exhausted by the entire thing. I wished I’d cut Erich off sooner. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone off and joined the Men in Black if I hadn’t pulled him into this whole thing after VJ Sankaran’s death. Bu
t the guilt I felt didn’t do much to curb the annoyance and anger that came with it. “But it’s a no go. Morgenstern made it obvious from the get-go that you’re not interested in sharing your toys. And I don’t work for mysterious shadow agencies. People are only that oblique if they have something to hide.”
“Of course we have something to hide,” said Morgenstern. “The presence of the alien menace from the American people. It’s our sworn duty to protect the human race at all costs.”
“And who protects the human race from you?” I asked dryly. When no answer came, I nodded. “That’s what I thought. I’m leaving now, and I’m not going to make it easy for you to follow me. Good luck keeping up.”
Erich blinked at me, not quite getting my meaning, and Morgenstern swore up a wholly unimaginative streak. I climbed back into my car, which I’d parked facing out toward the street, started the engine, and sped off before they could even begin to complete the three point turn that would get them facing the right way. Although my bright red car stood out like a sore thumb in the spotty traffic, the lead helped me. I swung down the first side street I encountered and sped down it at a rate that would have earned me one hell of a ticket if someone had been watching. But there were no uniforms here, and only the main intersections sported cameras. I kept turning at random, trying to put as much distance between me and the sedan as possible. Still, I kept catching glimpses of it. The grid-like streets helped them just as much as they did me.
Fine, then. It would have to be a speed race. I pulled onto the highway and sure enough, the sedan thundered up the ramp after me before I could get out of sight. By this time, though, I had a plan. I threaded through the traffic at a higher rate of speed than was probably safe. This was the first time I’d really put Candyass through her paces, and the car performed beautifully. I pulled a little farther ahead of the sedan but failed to lose it entirely. Good. I grinned but kept up the speed, weaving in and out from between minivans driven by scandalized mothers and hybrids full of hipsters. The sedan stayed on me, and as I pulled onto the off ramp, I used the car’s hands free device to drop Erich a text.
“Thanks for following me back to the precinct,” it read. “Prepared a reception committee for you.”
I waited until the last minute to send it to them, so it arrived just as we pulled up to the building. Of course, I hadn’t called out the squad, but they didn’t know that. And just my luck, a big row of police cruisers sat out in front of the building, with a bunch of uniforms standing there, shooting the shit. Morgenstern took one look and took a hurried right hand turn to avoid driving right past them. I laughed and laughed and laughed. It felt good to put one over on them. Not just because they’d pissed me off, but because of what his fear meant. Morgenstern and the yahoos had gone to some trouble to enter and leave the building undetected. Either he was incredibly shy or he wasn’t quite as untouchable as he wanted us to believe.
My good humor lasted as I popped into the lot and traded my car out for a police issue sedan that looked a lot more run down than Morgenstern’s. That was just fine by me, because I wanted to remain unnoticed. I drove to the first site on my map, finally, and as I pulled off to the side of the road, I found myself unexpectedly emotional. My eyes filled with tears, and I wasn’t entirely sure why. It took a couple of minutes to get my seesawing emotions back under control.
After I’d calmed down, I tried to figure out what had gotten into me. I had to admit that I felt incredibly betrayed by Erich’s behavior, but that didn’t make much sense. Why did the betrayal bother me when I’d already decided I didn’t want anything to do with him? We hadn’t been romantically involved; hell, we’d barely been friends. But it still stung, for reasons I couldn’t understand. I’d decided to cut things with him loose to avoid the pain and suffering, but it came up and bit me in the ass anyway. It didn’t make much sense, but then again, emotions rarely did. That was why I avoided romantic entanglements.
There was nothing to do about it now, though, except for throwing myself into work. The best course of action would be to neutralize the fuckwit so the Men in Black would have no reason to mess with me anymore. They’d go off and bother someone else for a change and take Erich Bieber with them. With that new source of determination atop the already strong urge to knock this alien asshole to kingdom come, I got out of the car.
CHAPTER 36
The first site marked on my map looked highly promising. In fact, if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought I stood in front of the same access tunnel I’d climbed out of post-attack. A lot of the details were consistent between the two—both stood on a long road leading out of town, on a stretch with relatively few houses and minimal traffic. Tall brown grass bordered the roadside, which dipped down into unkempt, scraggly brush and the occasional tree. A weeping willow draped its branches over the exit and probably dropped a crapton of leaves into the sewer system in the fall, but I loved it anyway. Willows had always been my favorite trees.
I crunched my way through the brush to take a look at the tunnel. As expected, the entrance was littered with natural debris. Dried leaves, fallen branches, and whips of dead grass. Before I made my way to the entrance, I stopped to take a look but failed to spot any tracks. Although their lack suggested this wasn’t the right place, I couldn’t be sure until I took a look inside. My shoes left prints, but they were shallow and probably would blow away with the slightest wind. Besides, I might have an eye for detail, but I sure as hell wasn’t one of those hunting and tracking type women who could follow their prey for a mile through the wilderness, kill it, and sew a pretty cape out of its hide. I wasn’t all that confident in my ability to spot a trail if its maker took the effort to hide it. But while I might not be able to track a small animal, I felt confident that I’d be able to spot any markings that would indicate aliens dragging heavy objects around.
My initial surveillance completed, I made my way toward the entrance with deliberation. With all the dried out growth, I couldn’t have moved silently if my life depended on it, but I could pause after each crackling step to see if I’d alerted anything to my presence. I heard nothing save the distant tweeting of birds, and once, the hum of a car on the road behind me. I stopped as it passed and waited for its noise to die before I continued toward the mouth of the tunnel.
My nerves couldn’t quite decide how to react as I drew near, flicking on the flashlight I’d remembered to bring this time. I felt excited and nervous and jittery. I’d tracked down many a criminal before, so I knew what to do, even in the absence of a partner. Part of me wanted to stop and try to reach Hardwicke again, but repeated voice mails wouldn’t solve my problem. Either he’d show or he wouldn’t. Besides, what good would he do, if he didn’t know what we were facing? He certainly wouldn’t believe me if I told him. I didn’t blame him for that—I wouldn’t have either. With every passing moment and no return call, it became more and more obvious that I was on my own here. I’d faced down the pyrex alone and lived to tell the tale. I would just have to do it again.
I stopped in front of the tunnel, and the flashlight went out.
“Stupid thing,” I muttered, smacking it.
The light flickered back on, and out of the tunnel came a small creature, about the size of the average cat. I knew immediately that this couldn’t be the fuckwit simply because of the size, but I still recoiled in surprise. My mouth clamped shut on what would have been an exclamation of surprise and probably a swear word or two. The possum didn’t care. It peered up at me, decided I presented neither a danger nor a food source, and waddled away to find a better place to bed down for the day.
I’d managed not to shout out, but still, I’d made enough noise that anything close knew I was here. Rather than wasting any more time on stealth, I decided to just walk into the damned tunnel and see what was inside before my flashlight decided to give up the ghost. As I did so, I carefully scanned the walls and floor of the tunnel for any markings that suggested someone had been here recently. There wa
s nothing in the entryway to suggest it, but I moved in further to be sure. This part of the tunnels smelled much worse than the others had—some kind of link to the sewage system, I supposed. Either way, I completed the tour as quickly as I could manage and returned to the surface to gulp pure, sweet air again.
This site had been a wash, which would have been discouraging if I hadn’t had so many others on my list. One of them would pan out. I just knew it would. I got back into the police-issue car and got out the maps to lead me to the next one.
CHAPTER 37
None of the top-tier sites on my list yielded results, unless you counted the possum and the moment where I frightened the hell out of a homeless guy taking a leak at the entry to one of the tunnels. He nearly pissed on my shoes. I did not count either of these things in the results category, and I also had decided to buy new shoes just in case he’d managed to hit me. Every time I looked down at my feet now, I thought of pee, and I wasn’t sure that phenomenon would resolve itself soon. I needed new shoes anyway, and I always ordered the same ones online, so it wasn’t like I’d have to go shopping or something equally horrible. There were ordeals I preferred to avoid whenever possible, and going to the mall fell into that category with a bang and a whimper.
Although I tried to distract myself with thoughts of new footwear and witty mental repartee, the lack of alien sightings at my carefully constructed list of locations began to wear on me. My theory had been really good, and it would sting if it ended up not panning out. I would deal with the disappointment as I’d done a million times before working this job, but I had no idea what to do next. It felt like I’d exhausted all of my modes of inquiry, and without active work on the case, I knew from experience that it would likely go cold. I had to catch the fuckwit for so many reasons. To sleep at night, to know I wasn’t completely crazeballs, to prove myself better than Morgenstern and his yahoos…maybe if I got to the alien before they did, Erich would see the error of his ways and cut off ties with them. It might be too late for us to rekindle any trusting relationship, but I still didn’t want the guy hitching his trailer to that train of dipshittery. Sticking it to the Men in Black would really be icing on the cake if I could make it happen.
Unidentified Flying Suspect (Illegal Alien Book 2) Page 18