by Paul Duffau
“I shocked Mitch first,” he said.
“Keep going,” said Blaine.
“We tried it on his arm first—”
Blaine was shaking his head. “You did it more than once?”
Hunter blinked, then grinned. “Yeah. First time on his arm, and Mitch here says, ‘Oh, it’s like a bee sting, wonder what it’s like through clothing,’ not thinking it through. He’s like that, jump in and figure it out as he goes.” The grin got wider, and Blaine visibly relaxed.
Hunter continued, using his hands again to make his points.
“Anyway, I shock him in the leg and he yelps like a big baby. Then he wants to shock me.” Hunter shook his head. “I didn’t want to, but he lunged at me and caught me by surprise in the stomach.”
“That’s battery,” said Blaine, writing a note on his pad.
Thanks, Hunter, that’s a big help.
“It was a prank, and if it was battery on his part, then I guess I’m guilty, too.”
Blaine clearly did not want to ascribe the same crime to Hunter. While he sorted out his response, Mitch watched another man walk in.
Cop.
Confident, not in a uniform, dressed neatly but casually. Medium height and build, but in an indefinable way, he arrived with a larger presence.
He did a swift assessment, taking in Mitch, the cuffs, Blaine, the stun gun, Hunter, all in one fast, perceptive sweep of the room.
“Blaine, why is the second suspect not in restraints?”
Blaine stiffened. The tips of his ears reddened, and he stammered as he replied. “He’s the, I mean, it looked like he was, uh, the victim, Lieutenant.”
The man stood there staring at Blaine.
The flush spread across the rest of Blaine’s face. He pulled another pair of restraints out.
“Right away, sir!”
The man waved his hand and Blaine halted.
“Too late, but you endangered your own safety.”
Blaine swallowed and waited for direction.
“Take that one,” the lieutenant said, pointing to Hunter, “and get his statement. Take him outside while you’re at it. Who taught you to get statements with both suspects together?”
Blaine bundled Hunter out of the garage, tension plain in his shoulders as he left. Mitch tried to feel sorry for him, but it was too funny watching Blaine act like one of the girls busted by a teacher for fawning over a football player. His amusement ended when Blaine was safely out of earshot.
“Tell me, Mitch,” the man said, “why is it that my officers have been out here twice in less than a week?”
Déjà vu hit as the lieutenant used his name. He transferred his gaze to the stun gun on the floor, avoiding the new cop’s face.
“I’m just lucky?”
“It doesn’t seem terribly lucky to me.”
Mitch didn’t have an answer for that, so he kept his mouth shut.
“I want you to start at the beginning, and you’re going to tell me everything that happened, no matter how small, okay?”
His words were friendly enough, but Mitch could feel . . . distaste emanating from the cop. A surge of resentment, bitter-tasting, made his face twist. The expression wasn’t lost on the lieutenant.
“You don’t like me now, contemplate what happens to you if you lie to me. Now, talk.” As he spoke, his hands moved in a graceful arc. It reminded Mitch of the way Hunter spoke, hands gesticulating, pointing or swooping like a conductor directing an orchestra.
Mitch dragged the words out reluctantly, and more honestly than he intended.
“Hunter and I hang out together sometimes. Today, he came over ’cuz I told him that I had a stun gun—”
“Where did you get the stun gun?”
“From the kidnappers,” Mitch said. He winced as the words emerged.
Stupid! So much for not admitting to felonies.
The cop absorbed the information as though he expected it.
“So go back to the start of the story, back to the attempted kidnapping.”
Mitch felt a sense of relief at the word “attempted.”
She’s okay.
Mitch dutifully began to tell the story again, while ignoring the voice in the back of his head that tried to warn him that he was talking too much, being too truthful. The words rattled out in a rush, heedless of his inner censor. Shocked, he listened to himself describe the attack, his efforts to help the girl, his injuries, everything. Even the effect of her touch.
The cop interrupted the gushing confession, anger plain on his face.
“So you believe that because she touched your chest”—the distaste in his voice was like vinegar, biting and acidic—“your injuries were healed.”
Mitch felt his stubborn gene kick in. His face flushed and radiated heat. Frickin’ cop thought he was lying.
“I told all this to the old cop that interviewed me that night,” Mitch said.
The cop froze. Mitch saw gears turning in the man’s head.
“Officer Pho is about thirty-five,” he said, enunciating the words carefully.
It was Mitch’s turn to freeze, and the cop saw it.
“Describe the man who interviewed you before.”
The hackles on Mitch’s neck rose at the tone of the cop’s voice, cold like the worst day in February.
“Older, like maybe sixty, gray hair, really green eyes.”
“Name?”
“He called himself Mercury, said he was an investigator.”
For the next ten minutes, Mitch felt his brain picked to pieces as the cop probed for ever-increasing detail. Once Blaine wandered in to ask what to do with Hunter, but the boss cop sent him away with the wave of a hand. Mitch tried to hold back details, but they spilled out. Shut up already, he thought, watching anger building on the face of his inquisitor, but the tumble of words continued.
The cop never took a note, but Mitch knew he was mentally recording every detail about Mercury, even some that Mitch didn’t consciously remember, every word that the old man had said. Then they moved on to Mitch’s life, his routine, what school he went to, his relationship with Hunter.
Finally, the cop relented.
“Go get that business card he gave you,” directed the cop, “and tell Blaine to bring your friend in here.”
Mitch held his arms out, demonstrating the impossibility of getting anything while cuffed.
The boss cop tilted his head over as though Mitch might be mocking him.
“Fine,” he said. Using a folding knife from his belt, he carefully cut the bonds.
Mitch scurried for the door to the house, rubbing circulation back into his hands. He opened it to the smell of pizza—dinner—and strode across the kitchen. His uncle was in his chair, beer open, while Blaine and Hunter sat at the dining room table.
“The other cop wants you guys in there,” Mitch said as he passed.
The card was sitting on top of his dresser, right where he left it. He grabbed it and turned, then stopped. Snatching a pen, he jotted the number from the card onto a scrap of paper.
He walked/jogged back to the garage. Hunter seemed bemused at the angst that Mitch was feeling. Mitch gave him a screw you eye roll as he delivered the card, which only made Hunter smile more.
“Blaine, get the stun gun, put it in an evidence bag.”
The young cop hustled to follow his superior’s order.
“You two.”
They both turned to face him.
“Teenage boys should be locked in closets until the testosterone wears off.” He paused. “You were stupid, both of you, especially you,” he said, indicating Mitch. “Withholding evidence is a criminal offense. However, it seems that the person who interviewed you impersonated an officer of the law, making this a gray area. Next time, call us first instead of making us come to you.”
Hunter bobbed his head in assent. Mitch shuffled his feet without answering.
“Also, this is part of an ongoing investigation. Don’t discuss it with anybody else, period.”
“What about our parents?” asked Hunter.
The cop stared at him, then replied. “Okay, but nobody else. I find out you’re compromising my investigation . . .” He left the threat hanging in the air, gave them a frankly hostile glare, and left.
Blaine returned with a clear plastic bag with illegible words written on the side in black magic marker. He slid the stun gun into the bag, sealed it, and took it with him to his cruiser.
Only when the cops were gone did Hunter speak.
“Dude, what kind of trouble did you stir up this time?”
Mitch wondered the same thing.
One thing he knew, though—he had to get rid of the permit in his back pocket, pronto. . . . Tomorrow, he thought. The idea of going to McKenzie’s scared the crud out of him. Right now, the slim rectangle felt like an anvil, and the deep water was already closing over his head.
Chapter 12
Kenzie locked the door of the stall and leaned her head against the painted steel. She heard the scraping sound as someone else entered the girls’ bathroom, retreated to the commode, and sat down, her backpack stuffed with books on her lap.
Two, maybe three girls entered.
“My god, how can she not realize how big it makes her ass look?” one of them snarked.
Kenzie recognized the voice. Alicia Rowbury, heiress to an internet fortune. Two girls laughed, high and mean, to agree with the lead bitch.
Kenzie breathed as softly as possible. She willed the pack to go away, prayed they wouldn’t notice the door that stayed closed too long.
Instead, they lingered, probably touching up the makeup they wore. She caught a whiff of flowery perfume overriding the clean pine scent that lingered from the cleaners, and wrinkled her nose.
Set on verdant grounds with elegant white-painted buildings, All Friends Private Academy boasted of the number of students who went on to the Ivies, or Duke, or Stanford. The institution was very private, relentlessly educated the sons and daughters of the new wealthy, and lied in its name.
With overly loud laughs, the other girls left, and the ensuing silence settled on Kenzie. She wanted to run away from the school, or just run, run until she was as far from her life as she could get. She kept her eyes closed, trying to ignore the voice of her father nearly yelling at her, except he would never lose control enough to actually yell. Against the black background, the scene rewound, and replayed, a rumination that left her exhausted in the morning, and hiding in the bathroom during lunch.
“You used magic on Meat!”
He had found out about the boy, that she’d healed him. She couldn’t tell if he was more disgusted at the waste or worried at the risk of exposure.
“You do it all the time,” Kenzie had said, arms crossed and fists balled, leaning against the marble of the kitchen island. Long and flat, it was like the deck of an aircraft carrier parked in the house. Her dad had stood on the opposite side and lectured, palms flat on the black stone.
“My use of magic is condoned by the Family and is used in furtherance of the goals for the Family. What you did was unsanctioned. Did you even calculate the cost?” He punctuated the speech by leaning in as he pointed a finger. “The boy’s a waste, even for Meat.”
“He tried to help.”
“You know nothing about him. Saving him from the natural results of his own actions and exposing yourself was foolish.”
“It’s not like I flashed him!”
She had managed to shock him silent. The muscles at the side of his jaw popped out, and she thought she could hear him grinding his teeth.
When he responded, the words contained so little warmth as to sound brittle. He began to recite the details.
“Mitchell Merriwether lives with his uncle, Henry Merriwether, because his father is in the Orofino prison in Idaho for the shooting death of one LeighAnn Merriwether, his mother. That was six years ago. He was present, watched it happen, and by his own admission at the time, did nothing to stop it. Interviews with the people at his school indicate that he is an antisocial influence, though apparently competent at mechanical tasks. He’s Meat, and damaged Meat, at that. The call that I went on was to his house—he injured his supposed best friend by shocking him with a stun gun. That stun gun, by the way, was previously used in a crime, namely the attempt at kidnapping you. He didn’t tell anyone about it, putting him on the same path as his father.”
Kenzie had stopped listening. Now, in daylight, she still felt a surge of sympathy for this gangly boy.
That’s why you run out into the street, she realized.
“That’s the kind of Meat that you wasted magic on,” her dad said, mistaking her silence as acceptance, if not agreement.
The depth of his callousness to Mitchell, his contempt for ordinary people, made her lash out with words. “You stand there and preach about how great we are compared to someone like Mitchell. When we’re at the Glade, all everyone talks about is being one—not a person, but one part of Nature. That, and how to use your magic,” she waved her hands in a meaningless gesture, “to help the Family. And they always make it sound like the Family includes everybody, don’t they, but what you really mean is ‘use it for us.’ Well, too bad, Daddy, but I used it to help someone who tried to help me. Too bad he’s ordinary, but he at least cared enough to help me. You couldn’t even look me in the eye when you took my ‘report,' didn’t ask if I was okay?”
“I have my job—”
“I don’t care—”
“Do not speak to your father that way.”
Her mother, returning from an evening meeting for work, entered from the laundry room that stood between the kitchen and garage. She wore a sour expression and had her gaze fixed on Kenzie.
That ended the argument, with Kenzie stuck in the middle, the words she still wanted to say choking in her throat as she stormed up to her room.
But she left her door open a crack, just enough that she could hear the heated discussion. Even from upstairs, she could sense the urgency in the briefing. Momentary sadness swept through her and she wondered how many other families had briefings instead of conversations.
The news that someone had interfered with her father’s investigation, impersonating one of the officers, alarmed her, and the chill of the aftereffects of the attack returned. She quelled it by clenching her teeth tightly together until she heard the hiss of blood in her ears from the pressure.
“It has to be related to the project.” Her dad’s voice was adamant as he continued, “A straight kidnap for money is rare as hell, and nobody would have gone back to the primary witness to interrogate him. Not only that, but an ordinary criminal can’t make one of my officers believe that he went to Merriwether’s house and conducted an interview. That single fact points to someone using magic, and at a very high level.”
“Only a handful of people are aware of the full ramifications of what we’re doing in the lab, all of them members of the Family.” A pause. “It would be a . . . a betrayal.”
Kenzie perked up at the emotion in her mother’s words, a hint that her mother was not only concerned with elegant, unfeeling efficiency but could feel emotions. Her hopes crashed a second later when her mother spoke again, cold steel injected into the air, replacing the scandalized tone.
“Never mind, we’ll run a security review. I’ve initiated the process at the company. You follow up on the wizard that interfered. He can’t be with the kidnappers, or he’d have known all the details.”
“Exactly—”
Her mother became contemplative, and Kenzie had to strain to hear her. “We need to address McKenzie. She’s clearly besotted with the boy. That must end.”
Kenzie blinked and swallowed.
“She knows her duty,” responded her father.
“Knowing it and accepting it are completely different things. Trust me, I could see it in her when I came in—if we leave it to her right now, she would choose the path away from magic, to try and reform the Meat that got himself tangled up i
n something that’s none of his business. History will repeat itself.”
Kenzie had her mouth open to shout a protest down the steps when caution stole her voice, and she caught the final word from her mother.
“It’s time to tell the menfolk of the Glade that McKenzie is open to courtship. She will be made to choose one of them, as is her duty. If she refuses, we will choose for her.”
The bell rang, a gentle tone suitable for the emerging leaders that the school produced. The rushing noises of students heading for class drifted into the stall. Kenzie waited until the restroom was empty, wiped away tears, and stood to go. It took all her willpower to unlock the door and step back into public.
It’s my life, she thought, and hated it.
Chapter 13
There was no place to park.
Mitch rumbled past the Graham address three times, but both sides of Lake Washington Boulevard were posted with No Parking signs. He turned around again at the entrance to Seward Park and doubled back. He slowed as he came to the huge house, a Tudor set back from the road with white gates set in brick columns guarding the driveway. The gates were open, the same way a trap is open, and he slowed more, then sped up.
Finally, he pulled into the deserted lot for the Lake Washington Rowing Club. He looked around, didn’t see anyone watching, and got out of the Camaro.
He flipped his hoodie up and tucked his chin down during the mile-long jaunt back to the house. The misty rain soaked into his jeans and the mossy-smelling damp April chill insinuated its way past the layers of clothing he wore. A boat floated by, and gentle waves lapped up onto the shore.
He huddled his shoulders and kept walking.
When he reached the address on McKenzie’s permit, he stopped on the sidewalk to gaze at the gates, the foliage rising behind the walls, and the graceful home with an upper balcony giving an uninterrupted view of the lake. He stepped forward, heard the hissing sound of car tires on wet pavement coming toward him, and stepped back to avoid the slime thrown up from the wheels. That much, at least, was the same as home.
Mitch took a deep breath and crossed the street.