The Whole Truth (The Supercharged Files Book 1)

by Jody Wallace

  How could I describe his sexual prowess when I only had one kiss to go on?

  I took a long sip of my soda. I’d avoided discussions like this with my normal friends in the past, considering how full of hyperbole they tended to be. “There’s not much to tell.”

  Lou cackled. “Not well represented down there, is he? Hon, it isn’t the size of his equipment, it’s what he does with it.”

  “That’s what I hear,” joked Ursula, who didn’t care what men did with their penises. Because she’d never publicized her sexual preferences, nobody got the joke but me. Too bad, because it was funny. I covered a grin with my glass.

  “How long have you been with Walker?” To Samantha’s credit, she didn’t mention John.

  “Not long.” I pumped the straw up and down in my ice, realized how vulgar it looked, and shoved my hands under my legs.

  Samantha, directly across from me, propped her elbows on the table. “Did you jump him before or after he lost his fade?”

  I thought about Atlanta and the cactuses and the kiss in the lab today and said, in all honesty, “He jumped me.”

  “How funny!” Ursula hooted. “Never would have thought he had it in him. Not even after he dropped fade. He just doesn’t do it for me. No offense, Cleo.”

  “None taken.” Beau was too male for Ursula and too much of an asshole for everyone else, unless his personality was a fade as well.

  No, there was no way somebody could fake being that much of a turd.

  “Can you change your appearance?” Sam asked Ursula. “I had no idea chameleons could do that.”

  “Not me, and I’m good.” Ursula was about to elaborate when our orders arrived.

  As soon as the waitress departed, Lou asked me, “Why in the world was he hiding himself with that fade?”

  “It’s his business if he wants to downplay his appearance. It’s not like it interferes with his job.” I crunched into a triangle of my very tall sandwich, avoiding the toothpick stuck through the middle. “If a girl comes to the office in comfy pants and no make-up, it could be argued she’s doing the same thing.”

  “Good point about downplaying appearance. This place can get to you.” Ursula speared a tomato with her fork. “I understand where he’s coming from.”

  “You think he’d have the courtesy to show his coworkers his real face,” Samantha said, because she was queen of courtesy. Then she grinned. “And his real ass.”

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about.” Ursula waved her tomato. “The way everyone sexually objectifies everyone else. It’s demeaning. Everyone has different preferences, you know? Everyone likes people for different reasons.”

  I squinted at Ursula, but she wasn’t lying. Why did she like Samantha, if it wasn’t for Samantha’s pretty face and big tits? Sam’s personality wasn’t much better than Beau’s.

  “I didn’t say I’d sleep with him now that he’s hot,” Samantha demurred. “I just want Cleo to tell us about sleeping with him.”

  “With a fade like that, he ought to be in law enforcement or a PI agency. My son would hire him.” Lou finished her last potato skin and stirred more sugar into her iced tea. “He’s wasted as a management consultant. Is it true he can go invisible?”

  How had they heard? I hadn’t told anyone but John. Maybe it was semi-common knowledge I’d somehow missed. An easy thing to do when my instructor, Mr. Fade, told me it wasn’t possible.

  “I don’t know.” I took another bite of my sandwich and stared at the layers as I chewed, wondering how I could switch the conversation to how much we all loved our jobs and would never betray YuriCorp.

  “Well, the little stinker can’t do it now and won’t be able to again. Makes you wonder what other things people hide,” Lou said darkly. “Not everything shows up in the Registry.”

  “He’s not a bad person,” I said. When Lou started complaining about evil supras and our community’s lack of supervision, I felt targeted and uneasy. “Underneath the hostility, he’s a different man. I wouldn’t be with him otherwise.”

  “Maybe not him, but somebody else,” Lou insisted. “Suprasenses aren’t innocuous. Sam is a perfect example. Kiddo, you know I love you, but you pushers grab people without blinking. Give your powers to somebody without morals and—”

  Samantha acted like she was going to pet Lou’s arm. Lou smacked her hand, and Samantha laughed. “Come on, Lou, let’s not get gloomy. Let’s just pry Cleo for details.”

  Samantha was right—I’d rather lie about Beau’s penis than discuss people with hidden suprasenses who might use them to harm others. More than either of those things, I’d rather ask Samantha what I’d come here to ask so I could reveal her for the traitor she was, which depressed me more than I wanted to admit.

  “We need police,” Lou insisted.

  “Why, when we look after one another?” Samantha smiled at her. “In fact, your lunch is on me today for helping with that little situation. Between the two of us, I believe we fixed it.”

  “Situation?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Samantha said, but her mask said, He’ll never threaten Alex again.

  Somebody had threatened Alex and never would again? That sounded menacing—especially if Alex and Samantha had needed help with the situation.

  “You don’t owe me anything. That boy had it coming.” As she spoke, Lou studied both me and Sam, her gaze chilly. Whatever she’d done to ensure the “boy” got what he deserved, she had no regrets.

  “What boy?” I hoped my former PI friend wouldn’t wonder about my curiosity, but any revelations about Samantha might help me when I questioned her.

  “Never you mind.” Lou stripped the meat off a barbecued rib. “But it’s things like that which prove my point. We need law enforcement to handle our criminal element.”

  After a loaded silence, Ursula said, “Here’s what I want to know, Cleo. Has Beau ever gone invisible when you’re trying to talk about the relationship?”

  Lou and Samantha laughed. I didn’t.

  “Wouldn’t that be just like a man?” Lou shifted gears effortlessly. I swallowed.

  “What’s he look like naked?” Samantha wiped each of her fingers on a napkin and eyed me like she wanted to grab my arm and squeeze the information out of me. “How big is it?”

  My ears, nose and cheeks burned. I hadn’t wondered that myself. Ever. Not the first time I’d met him and not since. “Why are you so obsessed with me getting laid?” I pointed one of my club sandwich toothpicks at Samantha like a sword. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Ursula raised an eyebrow and glanced between Samantha and myself. “Do you like to think about Cleo having sex, Sam?”

  “Come on, are you saying I’m gay? I don’t care about Cleo’s love life.” Samantha rolled her eyes, which looked funny through her mask. “I have a boyfriend.”

  Why was that a lie? Was her liaison with Alex a different kind—the espionage kind?

  I had to get her alone. The owners of Merlin’s, sensitive to their patrons’ needs, had installed blankets in the bathrooms. The female tendency to potty in packs was about to come in handy.

  “Samantha,” I said, “I just remembered something about that thing Yuri was talking about and he wanted you to give him a call. We should go call him.”

  Lou tsked me. “This is not a working lunch, it’s a gossip lunch.”

  Ursula studied me from across the table. “If you’re not comfortable discussing this, Cleo, we don’t have to.”

  “Yes, we do,” Samantha protested. “I’ve talked about Alex and Clint. It’s Cleo’s turn.”

  “All right. The first time we...” I paused and clapped my hand to my lower belly. “Gosh, I think I started my period.” I jumped up, careful not to skid on the peanut shells, and motioned to Samantha. “Can you bring me something in the ladies room?”

  “Don’t you have the lost ark in your purse? I can’t believe you don’t have a tampon.” Samantha sighed and followed me. “Be right back.” />
  As soon as we got into Merlin’s small bathroom, I checked the stalls. Empty. Samantha leaned against the sink. I hovered by the door with my hand on it, ostensibly to keep people out but in reality so I could yank it open and run if she came at me with judo hands.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  First I needed to ascertain my safety. “Do you currently have any weapons in your possession?”

  “Why, do you want to hurt somebody?” she asked with a laugh. “Wait, you don’t mean me, do you? I just want to know about Walker. The man is a cipher.”

  “Do you have a gun or pepper spray? Anything like that?”

  “I left the Glock in my other purse,” she said with no mask.

  I took a big breath, held it, and gusted out one quick sentence. “Are you leaking information out of YuriCorp?”

  “What?” Her face reddened. When she shook her head, her perfect hair caught on her lipstick. “I can’t believe you’d ask that. Pop-Pop told you to trust me.”

  “I know.” At least she hadn’t punched me. “Do you have anything to do with the sabotage that happens to YuriCorp employees?”

  “No,” she said, in a low voice, shoving her hair behind her ears. It made her look younger, like a teenager.

  “Can you burn people out? Increase their stress levels so much they freak?”

  “No, and I’ve tried,” she said with a clear, sullen face.

  “Do you know anything about the sabotage?”

  “Nothing more than you do.”

  I considered whether that was an evasion and decided it wasn’t. “Could Alex be getting information from you without you knowing it?”

  “He can’t do that.”

  “Does he have anything to do with the sabotage?”

  “Do you really think I’d sleep with somebody and not test them?” She wriggled her fingers. “Alex is not burning out YuriCorp’s employees.”

  “What about when I first moved here and he met us at Merlin’s? I got the distinct impression you’d told him about me.”

  “He already knew. I just told him where he could find us.” She smiled tightly. “I figured having him talk about Psytech in front of you would push you toward YuriCorp.”

  Devious. Did Alex know she’d used him instead of helped him? Great relationship they had there. “What was that about Lou helping you with a threat to Alex? What did you do?”

  “How do you... Right. The lie sight.” She crossed her arms. “There was this guy who knew something about Alex’s family and tried to blackmail Alex to get him a job at Psytech. Lou and I just...removed that knowledge from his memories. The guy was a norm. A nobody. Sometimes these situations crop up. We can’t let them blow the whistle on us, Cleo.”

  “Did it hurt him?” I asked.

  “Of course not.” Her mask added, Much.

  Lou and other erasers would play a critical role if we were ever to establish an official system of supra checks and balances, which clearly would need a branch that dealt with threats to our secrecy. Lou hadn’t been at all perturbed that she’d erased the memories of this anonymous person and hurt him, unless Samantha did the hurting part. How either of them could hurt somebody with their powers, I had no idea, but they also had the very human powers of kicking and punching and their disposal.

  “One more thing.” I wet my lips. “Is Alex your boyfriend?”

  “Yes.” She masked again, and I frowned. “Okay, fine. We agreed to see other people, but we keep fucking each other. I guess I don’t consider that a boyfriend.” Her lips tightened. “It’s not optimal. Whatever. Don’t judge me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You just asked if I was betraying my own grandfather.” Her eyes filled with tears. “How is that not judging me?”

  Ohmigod, I made her cry! Now would be a great time to run. “It’s my job to ask.”

  I stared at Samantha and she stared back. “I thought we were friends,” she finally said, her voice wobbly.

  Even when she didn’t push me, Samantha was the one I always ended up spending time with. The one I was really myself with. I guess I was the same for her. Supra powers made for strange bedfellows.

  Scratch that terminology. No bedfellows here.

  “We are friends,” I assured her, surprised at the truth in it. She grabbed a paper towel and dabbed at her mascara. It wasn’t the first time I’d made someone cry with my pointed observations, but I’d never expected Samantha to be one of them. “I’ve asked everybody but you, Al, John and Yuri. I had to know. Yuri told me I had two weeks before you and I have to do the interviews.”

  “We should probably have done them a long time ago.” She slipped a compact from her purse and dabbed her cheeks and eyelids, unperturbed by the notion of invading everyone’s privacy.

  “But everyone will hate us. Doesn’t that upset you?”

  “I’m not thrilled, but if it works, I’m all for it.” Her mask was so light it wasn’t worth mentioning.

  “I won’t be much good—as much good—when everyone knows about me. I can’t imagine a worse way for them to find out.”

  “I can.” She swiped her nose. “Are you going to ask Al and John if they’re traitors?”

  “I’m going to ask all four of you.”

  She turned to me, the evidence that she’d shed a tear due to that mean Cleopatra Giancarlo completely erased. “It’s not Pop-Pop.”

  “I have to find out for myself.” Stranger things had happened than owners trying to ruin their own companies while pinning the blame on someone else.

  “Wish I could be a fly on the wall for that,” she said. “But I don’t have that ability. I hear your boyfriend does.”

  “He’s not...” A thought occurred to me. “Don’t tell John about Beau, okay? Let me tell him.” I had no idea if he’d even care.

  “Of course,” she lied.

  “Samantha, come on. I don’t want him to be mad.”

  “All right, all right.” This time she wasn't lying. She sucked on her bottom lip. “He won’t be mad. Maybe disappointed in you for hooking up with Walker. How many times have you professed to hate Beau? Two thousand? Three thousand?”

  Her not-boyfriend wanted to sleep with other people, and she was dissing my not-boyfriend? “Beau’s got hidden depths.” She smirked, so I added, “And he’s freakin’ hot.”

  “He is that.” She nodded in agreement with my profundity. “I still don’t get why he’d hide it. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I might.” I had a pretty good idea why he’d run the fade.

  “Just don’t ask right after you screw. How long does it last?”

  “Jeez, that’s personal.” I had no idea how long Beau could last, and I didn’t want to dwell on it.

  “I keep forgetting, you haven’t been around supras long. Since it happens to all of us, we do discuss it.”

  “Bodily functions happen to all of us, and we don’t discuss those in intimate detail.”

  “Yeah, but going to the bathroom doesn’t make us—”

  I put my hands on my ears. “La, la, la! Not listening!”

  When I finished behaving like a prude, we stood there another long moment before I said, “We should go back to the table.” Ursula and Lou, with varying degrees of interest, awaited the sordid details about Beau Walker in bed.

  “I feel like we connected today.” Samantha held open her arms. “Hug?”

  I started forward, noticed her shadowed face, and opened the door of the bathroom. “I’m not a moron. You don’t get to push the information out of me.”

  “Instinct.” She smiled at me through her mask. “Can’t help myself.”

  “Why are we friends?” I asked as we exited the bathroom.

  “Because nobody understands you like I do, Cleo.”

  If only I understood her half as well as she seemed to understand me.

  ~ * ~

  I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed it wasn’t Samantha. Relieved because I didn’t have
to break Yuri’s heart. Disappointed because I had to ask the others. Of Yuri, John and Al, I didn’t know which I dreaded more. The rest of the day passed in a blur as I considered and reconsidered various ways to approach them.

  John was out of the office and I planned to ask Yuri last, which left Al. If Al and John were innocent, I’d make everyone accompany me to confront Yuri. Yuri as traitor was so screwed up, there was no way I was going into that situation alone.

  I procrastinated so long I didn’t catch Al until he was on his way home. I trotted after him down the long, bare hallway that led to the warehouse parking lot.

  “Hey Al, I need to talk to you privately,” I whispered.

  “It’ll have to wait.” Al held the door open for me—a standard steel door, not a dumpster—and we walked into the fading summer sunlight. “Tabby will kill me if I miss dinner again.”

  I peered around the large, open lot. Weeds and broken bottles sprouted around the perimeter, and one of those self-serve pay-to-park boxes cast a long, dark shadow across the cracked pavement. Most of the other cars were already gone. “I just need a minute.” Plus a couple years to learn the fine art of self-defense in case our conversation turned ugly.

  Al stopped beside his dark blue minivan. “Is this about the job?”

  That’s what he called it when we weren’t private—the job. “Yeah.”

  “I tell you what.” Al shifted his briefcase to his other hand and jingled his keys. “Come by the house around nine.”

  I’d rather get this over with now. My stomach was threatening to empty itself on Al’s shiny black shoes. “It won’t take long.”

  “I have a state of the art security system,” he said. “Designed it myself. Anything you need to discuss will be safe and confidential. I’ll leave a light on for you.”

  “O...okay.” Our conversation might be safe, but I was worried about my health. “Will Tabby and the girls be there?”

  “Where else would they be?” He got into his van, slammed the door, and rolled down the window. “Don’t be late.”

  ~ * ~

  I wasn’t. At eight fifty two, I parked on the street outside Al and Tabby’s two story brick McMansion because the aggregate driveway was filled with a big white van. My knees knocking like clogs on a wooden floor, I inched past the vehicle. A tall man leaned against the far side, his profile limned by the house lights. He was smoking a cigarette.