Prisoners (Out of the Box Book 10)

by Crane,Robert J.

  “He’ll be out for a while,” the paramedic assured me. Middle-aged guy, no nonsense, gave me a confident look. “We won’t chance him waking up before we get him transferred to the Cube.”

  “So you’re going to send him back there?” I asked, and noticed there was a cop lingering pretty close to the prisoner.

  “That’s the directive,” the cop said. His hand was resting on his Glock, ready to pull if Lorenzo moved. Two other cops were standing a little further back, also keeping a wary eye on Lorenzo. “We’re just waiting for the feds to show up for transport. District Attorney says they’re going to make an example of this guy—plus the others that came after you earlier.” The cop rolled his eyes. “Glory hound will probably do it, too.”

  I kept my mouth shut; a glory hound prosecutor looking to make an example of a meta who had committed a crime didn’t sound like a bad thing to me, especially if they were going to lock them up in the Cube until trial. The idea of the Clarys and Lorenzo being kept in a county jail made me sweat. “Who was the last guy?” I asked, nodding at the corpse, which they hadn’t even bothered to cover up with a sheet.

  “Fintan O’Niall,” Perugini answered as the paramedics rolled Reed’s gurney away, toward the ambulance. I knew the name, and kicked myself for not connecting it earlier. We’d brought in ol’ Fintan when we picked up Anselmo and Lorenzo in Italy. Figured they’d hang together—though now two out of three of them had been pretty much hung separately.

  “Reed did a nice job on him,” I said, nodding at the shotgun discarded on the lawn. It wasn’t like my brother to put rounds in someone. He must have been suitably pissed to go that route.

  “Pfffft,” Perugini said. “I did that, not him. That is my shotgun. He still plays with his piddly little pistol, like drawing in pencil.” She waved at the carcass. “I prefer the bold strokes of a paintbrush.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly it all made sense. “You certainly brushed him out.”

  “He asked for it,” Perugini said matter-of-factly. “This fool thinks he can come into our home, threaten us?” She spat on the ground, probably angrier than I’d ever seen her, which was saying something since she had regularly been furious with me throughout our acquaintance.

  “Is he well enough to travel in a plane?” I asked, and she glowered at me. “Chartered flight? Private plane? With medical care?”

  “Yes,” she said, and a little of her suspicion died. “Why?”

  “I’m going to have Ariadne charter you a jet out of here,” I said, fishing for my phone. “Kat and Augustus will go with you—”

  “Leaving you alone?” She raised an eyebrow and the glower made a triumphant return. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, pretty sure I wasn’t lying. “I want you all out of the way, though, and hidden.”

  “And who will help you?” she asked. “Reed would not condone this, you see.”

  “I’ll get help if I need it,” I said. “But right now I’m worried about the rest of you.” I gave the paramedics a look; they were loading Reed into the back of the ambulance. “These people, these prisoners … they know my weak point is the rest of you. They can come at me all day long, like the Clarys did, and it’s just going to end in a mess for them. But if they come at you … any of you,” I said, nodding at her, and she seemed to take the comment in the spirit I intended it, by softening the glower to a low glare, “they win, even if I perform a colonoscopy with a shotgun on them afterward.” I glanced at the body of Fintan again. “Which, I see, you have some experience with.”

  “It was simple skeet shooting,” Perugini said dismissively. “My father taught me when I was young. Reed held him up, and I took him out of the sky like a clay pigeon.” She stuck a thin finger in my face. “If you get yourself hurt or killed while he is recovering, he will be most displeased with us both. And he will take this anger out on me, and I will have nowhere to go with it if you die.”

  “I’ll do my best not to die,” I said. “Life with a surly, passive-aggressive Reed sounds like a hell I wouldn’t wish even on you.”

  She wagged that thin finger again. Geez. Everything about her was thin. “You had better not.”

  I nodded once, and she stalked off to the back of the ambulance where she yelled something in Italian at one of the attendants, who just looked at her blankly. “Watch his head, idiota!”

  “I was, ma’am,” the paramedic said, straining to keep polite.

  I pulled my phone out and dialed a number. It rang twice before it was answered. “Damn, girl, in the middle of the night? This better not be a booty call.”

  “You just keep making it weird between us, Veronika,” I said. I heard the faint sound of tired laughter through the phone. “I need your help, and damned sure not that kind.”

  “For pay, I hope, because in spite of how I might tease you, we’re not quite to the point in our relationship where favors get traded back and forth yet.”

  “For pay,” I said. “Reed got racked up by a couple parolees, and I’m sending him to San Fran to recover along with the rest of my team. Others might come after him, and I want you to keep an eye on him.”

  She was pretty quiet for a second. “Damn. Okay. I’m in. But if you’ve some bucks to spread around, can I recommend—”

  “My firm will cover it,” I said, already jumping ahead. “They’ll cover it all. I want you to have some backup.”

  “Pretty sure Colin wouldn’t mind running picket duty around wherever we’re staying, and Phinneus is always up for playing overwatch,” she said, all trace of tiredness vanished. “You want me to put it together?”

  “Please do,” I said. “And Veronika—”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, and I could hear her already moving on the other end. “I’ll protect them like they’re my very own. No harm will come to them. But I gotta say, I was watching the release ceremony earlier … and that was a lot of fish being let back into the sea. You really think they’re gonna come after your brother and your other minions?”

  “I very much doubt it,” I replied. “I think they’re going to come for me.”

  She drew a long breath through gritted teeth. “Man, I feel bad for those guys.”

  “You should,” I said. “Take care, Veronika.”

  “I’ll take care—and take care of them. Go do your thang, and do us ladies proud.”

  “You know I will,” I said, and hung up on her. “You know I will.”

  14.

  I stayed to watch Lorenzo Benedetti get taken into federal custody, and I ended up getting a show. Lucky me.

  The ambulance had cleared off by the time the feds arrived, and they’d even taken ol’ Fintan’s cold carcass to the morgue by the time the boys from DC showed up. I had hoped it’d just be local FBI guys that would come to do the transport. Them or the marshals.

  I was not nearly that lucky, and I knew it the moment the black SUV squealed to a stop and Scott Byerly popped out.

  He wore what was fast becoming his new trademark, a grimacing scowl that found me in the darkness immediately, where I was standing at the edge of a circle of the local cops, entertaining them with stories of past collars. I had them laughing about this jackass I had run across in Florida who’d fled into the swamp on foot when Scott came out of the darkness, stalking toward me, Guy Friday a few steps behind him, and a hush fell over my new friends in the Eden Prairie PD.

  “Well, well, well,” Guy Friday said, speaking through his gimp mask. “What do we have here?”

  “Have you asked me that before?” I watched him with a practiced indifference. “Don’t you ask me that every time?”

  “I keep hoping the answer will be different,” Friday said smugly. He cracked a smile; Scott did not.

  “What we have here,” I said, gesturing to Benedetti, who was still IV’d up with tranquilizers, “is today’s catch, fresh from the Mediterranean by way of the Cube. He’s been prepared with a meat tenderizer, lightly air dried, and is now suitable fo
r transport to the cell block from whence he so recently came.”

  “Hilarious,” Scott pronounced sounding like a surly teenager.

  “Well, I was just going for original per Friday’s request, but thanks,” I said. “Tell me—why are you suddenly my stalker ex?”

  Scott looked at me with dry heat, smoky eyes looking like his power was fire, not water. “Oh, I don’t know. Because you stole my memories and you’re a killer?”

  There was a stunned silence in my little circle of new friends. “But what have I done lately?” I asked, and one of the cops snorted. They all broke out in laughter a second later. Even Guy Friday smirked, and not smugly, for once.

  “Oh, you think murder is funny, do you?” Scott shot back at them, and the cops quieted pretty fast.

  “I didn’t murder anyone,” I lied, rolling my eyes. “I kill in self-defense—”

  “Your self needs a lot of defending,” Scott snapped.

  “Because these big mean boys keep trying to hurt me,” I said, playing a little sulky and wounded, “and no big, strong man will come and save the day for me.” I put a finger on my lip, pouting—like an ass, and making my voice sound like a little child as I went. “Whatever should a little girl do in such a cwuel, cwuel world?”

  That did it for the cops, they burst into laughter again and started to walk off. Knees were slapped, chortles were had, Guy Friday let out a guffaw or two, and Scott just got redder and redder. He waited until the officers had wandered away, leaving me standing next to Lorenzo with Scott glowering at me and Friday lurking over his shoulder, about half pumped-up into his muscled form. “You think it’s hilarious how you’ve gotten away with everything?”

  “I haven’t gotten away with anything, Scott,” I sighed. He looked like he was going to stroke out right there in front of me. “Also, you’re here for this criminal,” I pointed at Lorenzo, “not me, since I had nothing at all to do with this incident.”

  “But you had a little incident of your own earlier, didn’t you?” Friday asked.

  “Why, yes,” I said, in mock dismay, “I was the tragic victim of a home invasion perpetrated by a gang of ne’er-do-wells that just so happened to be paroled this very day. Why, I think I should sue the government for releasing them, because they seem to have put me into harm’s way—yet again—but I doubt the Supreme Court is going to be very receptive to my case.”

  “Seems unlikely they’ll be sympathetic,” Friday agreed.

  “They can join the club,” Scott said, high voice an octave higher. He sounded like he was in pain from this whole thing. I felt a little bad for him. But not that bad, since the last time we’d met he’d admitted he wanted to smash my face in with a sledgehammer.

  “Go on,” I said, “say it.”

  He froze, face losing a shade of red. “Say what?”

  “Warn me that you’re watching me,” I said, letting out a slow sigh. “That you’re dogging my footsteps. That I ought to be careful, because if I so much as step outta line, you’re gonna get me.” I tried to make the last part sound comical. “Oh, and just ignore that I delivered those four home invaders back to you alive and in working order, because that cuts against the grain of your ‘Sienna’s a murderer’ profile.”

  “Yeah, why didn’t you kill them?” Friday asked. “It would have been self-defense, easy.”

  “I’m glad you asked, Friday,” I said sweetly, then glared at Scott. “Because I’m trying not to kill people anymore. It’s this whole new-leaf thing I’m trying to turn over. Not that anyone seems to notice.”

  “I bet Nadine noticed,” Scott said with pure venom.

  I didn’t smile. “I’m sure she did, wherever she is. Skiing in Switzerland, probably. Did you ever get in trouble for sleeping with the object of an FBI investigation, by the way?”

  “Allegedly,” Scott said through clenched teeth.

  “Oh, sweetie,” I said, “‘alleged’ doesn’t hold any water between the two of us, remember? That benefit of the doubt thing you refuse to extend to me?”

  “You will go down,” Scott said, leaning in close to me, breath on my ear.

  “Not on you,” I said tightly, “not anymore.”

  “Oohhhhhh,” Friday crowed like a locker room reject. “She smoked you, bro! That was pure ownage. Pwnage, I think they call it.”

  “Shut up, Friday,” Scott said, ashen and near whispering now. “Get Benedetti, and let’s get out of here.” He turned hateful eyes on me once again, and I had to try hard not to blanch at the sight of him, of all people, looking at me that way. “You will pay for what you’ve done.”

  “I’ve been paying for everything I’ve done since the first time I saved this city,” I said bitterly. “I’ve lost lovers, friends, my parents, people I’ve cared about, and some morons just turned loose a jail filled with people who are way more violent and pissed off at me than you are. If you think anything you have to threaten me with comes close to the shit I’ve dealt with all my life up until this very moment, Scott—” I rose off the ground, looking down on him as I hovered above him, “—you’re kidding yourself, rich boy. Do your worst.” And I left him there, red-faced and sputtering, and soared off into the air where he couldn’t follow.

  15.

  “Where are you?” I asked the moment J.J. picked up the phone, the air whistling past my face as I soared across the sky. Night had fallen over the Twin Cities, and both Minneapolis and St. Paul were lit up ahead of me, dual skylines glowing with a million little lights.

  “In a secret location,” J.J. said, voice lowered to a hushed whisper, “where no one can find me.”

  I hung up on him and veered southeast, flying just below the speed of sound. I stopped when I hit Burnsville, dropping just south of the I-35 merge. I went low, following the GPS on my phone until I ended up in a neighborhood of duplexes, and dropped on a front porch of a grey one that had a lit front window. I checked the house number just to be sure, then stepped up on the porch and rang the doorbell.

  A girl opened it a few seconds later, her hair black at the top and pink all the way down to her jawline, where it ended. It was a cute little bob, longer at the front of her face and getting progressively shorter until it reached scalp-length at the back of her head. She had a tiny little piercing in her nose and was wearing a tight, black, mid-riff baring tank top and baggy jeans that were flared at the ankles and really loose. It was a cool look, actually, and she maintained a jaded expression as she said, “Yes?” with just the right note of politeness.

  “I need to talk to J.J.,” I said.

  J.J.’s head popped out from behind a door just behind her to the left. “What the deuce?” he asked, his jaw hanging low. “How did you find me?”

  “I’ve known for a long time you have a girlfriend,” I said, nodding at the girlfriend in question, who was an expert at keeping a neutral expression. “Nice to meet you, Abigail. I’m Sienna.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind if I don’t shake your hand.”

  “Smart girl,” I said, and she stepped aside to let me in. “You know what’s going on?” I asked him.

  “Centipede Reed is headed for the hospital, then San Fran,” J.J. said, emerging from the doorframe wearing Pokemon boxers and a white t-shirt stained with orange around the belly. I detected—with my meta sense of smell—Cheetos residue, but I decided to take the high road and say nothing about this. The aroma of Monster energy drinks was also in the air. Yuck. I preferred Red Bull when I needed a kick. “Ariadne’s private plane charter kicked a flag I had to prevent fraud on the agency accounts.”

  “I think you should go with them,” I said, and then looked at Abigail of the pink hair and worrisome lack of judgment in men. “Both of you, if you want.”

  “I’d like to fly in a private jet,” Abigail said nonchalantly.

  “You’re worried about us,” J.J. said, sounding a little sweet about it. “You think these hapless losers will really be able to dig me out through Abigail?”<
br />
  “The hapless losers, no,” I said, because his assessment of many of the Cube’s newly released prisoners was dead on. “But they’re not all hapless losers, and we don’t know where all of them are.”

  “You’re afraid of Cassidy,” he said.

  He said it, finally giving voice to what I’d been thinking all along. “She’s more dangerous with a keyboard and an internet connection than anyone other than you or Jamal,” I said. “And she will not hesitate to put any of you in the path of people who mean to cause me harm. The floodgates are open, and until I sort out who’s going to make the most of their second chance and who’s going to screw it up … I don’t want to take any chances of my own with your lives.”

  “That’s so sweet,” Abigail said. She finally broke the stoic look to give J.J. a questioning one. “You never said she was sweet. You said she was—”

  “I don’t need to hear—” I started.

  “We shouldn’t get into—” J.J. said hastily.

  “Right,” Abigail said, heeding both our warnings as I lowered my gaze to admire her choice in wood flooring and a cheap rug at the entry. “Uhm. Yeah. We should go, huh?”

  “That’s uh … a good idea,” J.J. said, nodding. “I can pack in like five—”

  “Good,” I said, and Abigail nodded, too. “I want to escort you guys to the airport. Ariadne said the plane would be standing by, so … I want to make sure everyone gets on it, and that I see you all off to a safe distance.”

  “How far is safe?” Abigail asked with a frown.

  “Middle of South Dakota seems reasonable,” I said. “None of these people can fly, but I’ll feel better knowing J.J. is on board, in case the plane is, uh … hackable, I guess?”

  “It shouldn’t be,” J.J. said, smiling. “But I gotcha covered. I’ll go get my stuff. Abby, dear?” He smiled at her, and she headed off down the hallway with some urgency.