by Jamie Quaid
I’d already jotted down the license plate of the Lincoln. I wanted a bug of my own to plant on the man or the car, but the Zone messed with technology, which was probably why we were seeing actual spooks here instead of bugs.
I was about to shrug off the bunch of them, when the suit made his big mistake of the evening.
A half-starved hound loped up to him, hoping for a scrap of some sort. And the big lout in his polished Italian loafers kicked the poor mutt out of his way as if the creature were no more than an empty beer can.
No one kicked dogs while I was around.
I was off that building and flying toward the street before Schwartz caught me mid-stride and bodily lifted me from the ground. His arm was strong, and he held me a bit closer than necessary. I was liking the sensation of hard male crushed against my breasts, except he was in my way. Rather than battering one of the good guys, I furiously visualized the Lincoln’s tires exploding.
And they did.
While Schwartz and I watched in stupefaction, the suit’s tires exploded one by one. The dog ran off in terror. Schwartz flung me back to my hiding place. And the corporate spook stood there, immobilized, phone in hand.
I did a victory dance and scored one for the Zone, but it was probably better for all concerned that I stayed out of sight. I slid deeper into lurking shadows just before the suit turned in my direction. Yep, the suspicion in his eyes meant he believed I’d done it. Max’s fireball and the wind thing and the rapist’s swamp monster death had given me a real bad rep.
I’m not swearing I had anything to do with previous oddities, but even I couldn’t prove I’d just blown up four tires because I’d thought about it. This was the Zone after all. Maybe it read minds. I wanted to try blowing up the spook to see what happened, but with Themis and Max both warning me against my propensity for violence, I gallantly refrained. Who was I to question the denizens of hell or heaven, or maybe even the Zone.
Intelligently, Schwartz intercepted the suit before he could make a move toward the building where I was hiding. I kind of had the notion that the cop wasn’t helping me so much as protecting the spook. My victory dance had probably been a little off-putting.
“Problem, sir?” Schwartz asked politely. “These things happen down here. It’s usually not safe to leave a fancy car for very long. Chemical reactions, you know. I’ll call the tow service. Would you like a taxi?”
I almost cackled. He was smooth, was the good detective. After frying Max and cutting a rapist in two, blowing up tires seemed pretty tame, and I didn’t dwell on it for long.
When Schwartz ambled up after the tow truck left with our suit, I held out my hand. “You’re good,” I told him, “and I give credit where credit is due.”
He didn’t take my hand but gave me the Look, the one cops do so well. “Do I dare walk you home, or will you blow up my ears for asking?”
“It’s the Zone, Schwartz, not me. I wasn’t anywhere near that car. You were there.” I was developing an unhealthy ability to lie blithely. Not knowing what was truth, I could brush off anything. “Wouldn’t it be better if you stayed here, looking after the more defenseless females?”
“It’s the defenseless males who cross your path that I’m worried about. Your car’s in back. How are you getting home?”
“Not by car. Really, I’m fine, Schwartz. And if Andre asks you where I’m living now, you won’t have to lie.” Pearl might have told him by now, but he didn’t have to know for certain.
“Andre bothering you?” he asked, eyes narrowing.
“Andre ought to bother everybody. Beware of men with power over you. That’s my maxim.” I shoved my fingers in my jeans pockets and stared him down.
“You may be officially nuts.” He backed off, just a little.
“I have finals this week. My future is on the line. I’m allowed to be crazed. Thanks, Schwartz.” And just as I’d turned to go, I realized that keeping his mind occupied with something besides me might ensure that he wouldn’t be on my tail all night. And speaking of tails . . .
“Oh, Schwartz, if you’re not married, I can hook you up with Cora. Just give the word.”
I’d seen the way he’d looked at her. I figured he was just as horny as me. We were as totally incompatible as I was with Andre. Of course, I’d thought Max was my kind, and look how well that had worked out.
“I’m not married and I’m not hooking up with Cora, but thanks for the thought.” The good detective gave a salute and marched back to the club.
Pity I didn’t do lawmen. They couldn’t be trusted to turn a blind eye when it was needed. But as long as we each knew where the other stood, Schwartz and I would get along.
18
It had been an excruciatingly long day. I was ready for my own bed in my lovely new home. I pulled the hijab out of my purse and wrapped it around my hair as I slipped from the alley toward the front of the Victorians, skipping the sidewalk and clinging to the shrubbery. Shimmying up the post was not a task I wanted to tackle in my exhaustion.
I stopped short and swore at the sight of a glossy black Escalade sitting across the street. I’d left my car at the club to make them think I was still there. I’d never driven it to my new place. How could the rat finks have found me so fast? I hadn’t had time to change my locks. If spies had bugged my new place, I was taking somebody down.
I was working up to a righteous fury, debating raining bricks on their windshields or ripping the roof off the SUV, when a muscled arm seized my waist for the second time that night. I only had to smell his musky aftershave to recognize my attacker, and that didn’t stop me.
I hated people who take advantage of my size, even if I was no longer a shrimp. I swung my elbow back as hard as I could and slammed into a familiar hard diaphragm. I simultaneously aimed my sneaker heels at his kneecaps and bounced my head backward to take out Andre’s too-perfect nose.
Prepared, he dropped me before I could do any damage. “You’re going to have to trust me, Clancy,” he whispered harshly. “You can’t take on the world by yourself.”
“Trust you?” I asked in incredulity, hating that he knew where to find me but knowing it was inevitable. “Why don’t I just start carrying asps in my pockets?”
“Not a bad idea. If we can’t get rid of these assholes, I’ll have to call in Cora. Give me the keys to your car.”
Standing in the shadows between overgrown shrubs, Andre held out his hand to me while keeping an eye on the street. He so obviously expected me to do as told that I was insulted.
“What has Cora got to do with anything?” I asked, ignoring his outstretched hand and inching forward, debating dashing for the door, except I knew it was locked.
I wasn’t afraid of Andre. I just didn’t want him hanging around, helping me all the time. I didn’t like being obligated personally to someone who was my boss. It was bad mojo. Worse yet, I liked his bad-boy sexiness even better than Schwartz’s hard-body good looks, and that was a really bad sign. My hormones were jumping like grasshoppers.
“Ask me another time. Just give me the keys, Clancy. Let’s see what happens if I drive your car past these bastards.”
Andre was too slick, too polished, too deceptive, too everything for me to trust him, but he was there, and the spies were really starting to tick me off. I actually liked the idea of seeing what would happen when he drove past in my Miata. I didn’t particularly like leaving it at Chesty’s if it could be taken somewhere safe—away from my new place.
He waited patiently for me to do as told, and my stupid hormones must have responded to his manliness, because it sure wasn’t my brains at work. I dug out the keys and smacked them into his palm.
“Are you going to wear a wig?” I asked spitefully.
He didn’t bother to smile as he shoved the keys into his pocket and checked the street again. “You let Max drive your car. They’ll just figure you’ve got a new boyfriend. I’ll lead them back to your old apartment. Wait until they’re gone before going in.”
“What if they’ve already bugged the place?” I demanded.
He finally gave me an amused look. “Pearl would sooner let in bats than anything smacking of officialdom. It should be interesting now that you’re here.”
He didn’t give me time to question any of his assumptions. He took off at a lope toward the alley, leaving me to contemplate blowing up the Escalade’s tires. But if I did, Andre couldn’t lead them away. I’d really have liked to know if I could blow them up now that I wasn’t in the Zone, though. The temptation to experiment was powerful.
Andre had been right to ask what I was. I didn’t know myself. In a few short weeks I’d gone from passive, mousy student to angry avenger capable of blowing up tires, not to mention winds and cars. My old Escort was someone else’s fault, admittedly, but had my fear and anger somehow condemned Max to a purgatory between heaven and hell?
I didn’t know and I was afraid to find out.
I pulled out my compact and aimed it at the street.
“Friends of yours?” I asked.
Not hearing an answer, fearing Max had left me for good, I turned the mirror back toward me. From what I could tell in the dim light, Max was scowling.
“Friends of my family’s,” he said. “Couldn’t swear to it, though. Where are you and how long have they been out there?”
“They’ve been camped at my apartment all week. When I got the new place, I thought I’d lost them.” If anyone had seen me talking to a compact, they’d have had me locked away, but the streets weren’t crawling with people. I probably should have asked Max questions, but I was afraid of breaking down in tears. I don’t suffer emotion gladly, and I was having a hard time accepting that I might actually be talking to my dead boyfriend. Insanity seemed safer.
Instead, I leaned against the porch where I could keep an eye out for Andre driving by. None of the houses along here had security lamps, or bothered turning on their porch lights, so the shadows and overgrown shrubbery were nicely concealing.
“His family owns most of the chemical companies in the Zone,” Max warned. “I told you to stay the hell out of there.”
The way he said his family sounded familiar. Wasn’t that what the gray-haired guy, Paddy, had said—Stay away from his family? That was just stupid. Not the same. I shook off the memory.
“If you’d left me your fortune,” I said mockingly, “I wouldn’t have to work and I’d be long gone to the Pacific Northwest, now, wouldn’t I?”
“I didn’t know I was going to die!”
“Maybe you’re the one who should have stayed the hell out of the Zone.” I was having mixed feelings about this whole situation and taking them out on someone who couldn’t fight back. Uncool. “I’m sorry. You have no idea what it’s like being me right now. And I don’t want to know what it’s like being you. If I can find some way of sending you to the light or whatever, I’ll do it,” I promised.
“I’m damned well not going anywhere until I nail whoever did this to us. Let me learn more. And get away from those goons!” Max shouted in that macho way of his I used to ridicule.
The Miata knocked up the street. Probably had a piston going . . . if Miatas had pistons?
“Gotta go,” I whispered, closing up the compact.
I watched with interest as the car rolled past the Escalade. A Honda bike put-putted from a street at the top of the hill, falling in behind the Miata at a distance. Punks.
The SUV stayed where it was, so I did, too. Fortunately, the May evening was warm. I really needed sleep, but I was too tired to shinny up to my balcony. My muscular new calves ached from the badly fitting shoes and from standing up for so long. Running probably wasn’t in the equation, either. I’d overdone it showing off today.
My phone buzzed about fifteen minutes later. My eyes were too weary to check ID. “Yeah?”
“I’m at the apartment. Where’s the SUV?” Andre.
“Still here. A Honda bike followed you out. You’ll have to go in. Take a look around and see who else is there,” I advised.
Cursing, he cut me off. Let him know how it felt to be followed. But I was too exhausted for fury. If the SUV didn’t move soon, I was going over there and knocking in a window. Maybe I’d leave on the hijab and pretend I was a Muslim terrorist. That seemed like the kind of thing that might put the fear of God into Max’s uptight family. Why on earth would they be spying on me? Did they think I’d run off with the family millions?
Or did they really think I was hiding Max? If so, who did they think they’d crisped?
I didn’t want to think about his family, but I’d had enough time to work through the spy’s thought process. I had to assume the suit at Chesty’s had communicated with the spooks in the Escalade, so they knew I’d left the Miata at the club and that Andre had just driven it to the old apartment. They couldn’t have known where I’d gone, but they probably knew it had to be on foot. They’d somehow guessed the Victorian, possibly by following the truck. They still didn’t know for sure that I lived in any of these houses—except I hadn’t been with Andre when he’d driven the Miata to the apartment. That had been a mistake.
So I was correcting it now.
I still had my deposit security gear in my messenger bag. I pulled out the shackles and, still wearing the hijab, crossed the street. I don’t know whether the driver even saw me coming. He was on his phone, discussing deviltry with his evil associates. I yanked open the door, Maced him, snapped cuffs on his wrists, and hauled him to the street before he knew what hit him. I ground my heel into his phone and hopped up to the driver’s seat. They were going to seriously regret thinking one lone spook could keep up with me.
The seat and wheel were unfortunately set for a six-foot-plus goon, but the extra length in my legs kept me from having to stand on the gas to get it going. I might have run over the guy’s foot as I pulled away. I didn’t bother checking the rearview mirror to find out. Mad wasn’t even beginning to cover how I felt at that point.
I drove the $75k piece of equipment to Max’s favorite biker club, the one where Lance and Gonzo usually hung out. I didn’t know anything about the high-tech spy gear in back, but I was betting a few of our war vets did, or they’d know someone who could find out.
My phone buzzed again as I parked the monster truck. This time, I checked caller ID in the overhead light as I opened the door.
“I took care of it,” I answered and told Andre, before turning off the phone entirely. I really didn’t want to hear his shouts of fury, not any more than I meant to take out the compact and have Max yell at me, too. Men didn’t get to be the only vengeful mavericks.
Leather-clad hulks were already strolling out of the bar, surrounding the vehicle. When I jumped down, they eyed me with suspicion. Most of them hadn’t seen the new, improved me, so it took a moment before bells began to ding in their thick, pot-smoked heads.
“Tina?” one asked, coming up to study me closer. “What have you been doing with yourself, babe?”
“Hiding from Max’s killers.” I threw that out there just to stir the hornets. Nothing they liked better than a little outrage. “The jackasses have been following me around in this, and I got a little tired of it, so I thought I’d hand it over to you. Take it apart, find out anything you can, then sell it for parts.”
I wanted to add that Max had said the SUV probably belonged to his family, but I refrained. Max was theoretically dead after all, and tolerance for craziness only went so far. “Lance and Gonzo are on the case, so give them what you find out.”
“Babe,” one of the guys drawled in awe, surveying the equipment inside, “we’re going to party on this one. We’ll throw Max a real Irish wake.”
“Make sure you invite me. Can someone give me a ride?”
“We’ve got Max’s bike, babe. Take it. He’d want you to have it.”
One of the more scarred vets wheeled out the old Harley. I knew him as Crazy, because he literally was crazy. PTSD did no one any favors. But I wasn’t turnin
g down his offer.
“Fair trade,” I agreed. I hugged a few necks, they copped a few feels, and then I hopped on the bike, roared the engine, and howled off. The Harley was solid metal, better than the plastic Miata any day.
Gloating all the way back to the Victorian, I coasted down the alley so as not to wake the neighbors, found the gate, and rolled the bike inside. I leaned it against a shed that looked as if it needed the Harley to hold it up more than the bike needed support.
I slipped through the shrubbery and checked the street to see if my victim was still around, but there were no black vehicles and no men in chains visible. The spy had been rescued. Now that I was safe and sound, I turned on my phone and called Andre. I got his voice mail, of course. He was mad and probably not speaking to me.
“Leave the Miata at the apartment,” I told him. “The bums will need another SUV and Lincoln after this evening. I’m going to bed. Good night.”
I unlocked the front door and slipped upstairs to the apartment without seeing or hearing a soul. The note to invisible Themis was gone from my door, although the gum still stuck. Since only tenants had keys to the front door, now I had to worry about my neighbors. And their guests. But not tonight.
Milo leaped happily to greet me, or to beg for more food. It’s hard to tell with cats.
I did a quick survey of electric outlets. There weren’t many, and none of them seemed to be bugged. Milo wasn’t growling. I was hoping I was clear. If I stayed home all day Sunday and ordered a locksmith on Monday, maybe this place would be safe.