Masks (Out of the Box Book 9)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Right,” Mr. Penny said, brushing a little overhanging brownish-blond hair off his forehead as he spoke. “I have the extension paperwork here that you filed, and there are a few areas of concern for us …”

  Jamie paused, swallowed hard, and felt like her chair had just dropped her a solid inch without warning. She checked, but no, it was still in the same place; it was her stomach that had dropped. “I know that the last thing you probably want to hear from people you’ve lent money to is that they need more time and more money, but …”

  “It’s not our favorite thing to hear,” Penny said, looking a little distracted, a pen poised over a clipboard that had materialized in his hand, “but when a small business is expanding quickly, it’s not unusual.” He looked up and she saw green, green eyes. And that smile … “Looking over your numbers, I see some positive signs. Your growth in revenue over the last five years is impressive. Your margins are the sticking point.”

  “They’ve been a little hampered, I know,” Jamie said, pushing her own blonde hair back behind her ear. “I’ve had to hire more people than I anticipated to keep up with the demand.”

  “Have you thought about outsourcing?” Penny asked, looking at the papers.

  “Uhm, I—I would really rather keep the products made locally,” Jamie said, feeling as though Captain Frost had just blown a breath of cold wind down her back. “We were founded on Staten Island, and the idea of shutting things down here, I mean—I employ forty-eight people—”

  “Sure,” Mr. Penny said, and he started to drum his pen on the clipboard. “But there are opportunities to manufacture your designs for a lot less cost overseas, which means you could … well, actually make money within the next few months.”

  “I just … I can’t do that, Mr. Penny,” Jamie said. She felt like screaming in her own head; not only was this fairly handsome man asking her to do something she desperately did not want to do, but he was doing it so politely she felt bad for refusing. “I know these people and I can’t … look them in the eye and put them out of a job.”

  “Well,” Penny said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. His motion gave Jamie a clear look at his legs, which seemed pretty muscular under the khaki pants. She forced her eyes back up to his. “If you have to close your doors, you’re going to have to do that anyway, but there are other options we could look at to expand the margins before embracing such a … drastic measure. But you’re essentially butting up against the wall for growth. If you add any more people, your expenses are going to soar to the point where you’ll either have to raise your prices considerably or you’ll need to shut down.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “We can probably bridge you with at least some of the loan you’ve asked for. Your credit’s still good, and we’ve backed you thus far, and we do have high hopes things are going to take off for you, but … speaking frankly, just between you and me … if you can’t get your margins up, and soon, you’re going to continue running this business as nearly a non-profit.” He shrugged. “Which would be fine, if that’s what you were registered to do. But you’re not. It’s a for-profit company, and if you don’t turn a profit …” He made a face, all filled with sympathy. “Then it becomes a very expensive hobby in which you lose money and time and … well, years of your life. I’d hate to see that happen.”

  Jamie just sat there, listening, feeling like a frog was stuck in her throat. She knew that everything he said was true, with one additional twist of guilt: If I wasn’t Gravity Gal—ugh, that name—I could be doing more around here to make things take off. Like I was before …

  She forced a polite smile. “You … had some other ideas for helping to make us profitable?”

  “A few, yeah,” he said with a certain youthful energy. “If you look at this …” He was probably almost twenty years younger than she was, and Jamie closed her eyes for a second, trying to put aside dirty old lady thoughts about a much younger man in order to try and get her business back on track.

  11.

  Sienna

  I wasn’t quite so happy a few hours later when I had to squeeze into the belly of a giant tin can that was going to be propelled through the sky by explosive jet fuel, but at least I got upgraded to first class. I found my seat by the window and stowed my carry-on bag, which had enough clothing to last me for a few days, plus a couple cycles of accidentally burning it off, a perpetual hazard of my job. I also had eight burner phones packed as well as some additional credit cards and a couple forms of ID, which probably made me look like a terrorist, but this was all standard traveling gear for me nowadays. Joining my new organization had made my life easier in most ways, but standing in line at security checkpoints while the TSA ran a wand over me was still a pain.

  I was sitting in my seat, staring out the window at the workers tossing suitcases out of one of those luggage cars, when I heard someone step up next to me and start going through the standard traveler motions. Grunts and a low clearing of the throat told me this guy was about to hoist a carry-on bag up to put it in the overhead bin. He made kind of a big production of it, and I heard him say, “Excuse me,” to someone trying to get around him. He sounded way too peppy.

  I kept my head riveted on the goings-on outside my window. I had some reading material for the flight, which was two hours from Minneapolis-St. Paul to LaGuardia in New York. I could have made the jump myself in about an hour or less if the stupid FAA hadn’t revoked my cross-country flight privileges when I left government service. I kept telling myself I had to take the good with the bad, but fortunately New York had given me blanket clearance to fly subsonic all over the state. I doubted I’d need to jet up to Poughkeepsie for any reason, but it was nice to have the option. Luckily Minnesota had already granted me the right of flight in-state, but I didn’t exercise it as much as I had before because I didn’t want to piss them off and risk them revoking it.

  “Excuse me,” the guy next to me said as he grunted his way into his seat. He hadn’t touched or disturbed me, which made me wonder why he was excusing himself. I turned around and confirmed what I’d already suspected when I’d caught a glance at him out of the corner of my eye: he was a salesman, and he likely wanted to network or connect or something. I could tell by his grin.

  “You are excused,” I said and turned back to the window. I cursed myself for even saying that much a moment later when he took it as a license to engage.

  “Heck of a summer so far, isn’t it?” he asked, peppy, peppy and more peppy. I wondered idly if he’d guzzled ten Five Hour Energy shots before getting on the plane or if this was just his natural state.

  “It’s all right,” I said, trying to skirt the line between being rude and giving him an opening. I’d had a great summer so far, not that he needed to know that.

  “Hard to believe it’ll be Labor Day in a couple weeks,” he said with a low, fake chuckle. “It’s all gone so fast. We’ll be up to our eyeballs in snow here in just a few short months!”

  “True statement,” I said, and turned to look at the guy. I held in a big sigh and watched as his eyes got big as he recognized me.

  “You’re her!” he said, his enthusiasm impossibly bumping up a few levels. And I thought he’d already reached his ceiling.

  This happened a lot; people were perpetually recognizing me, but then they couldn’t remember my name or called me by someone else’s. One time someone—some beautiful someone, who I will love forever—thought I was Anne Hathaway. That made my day, because I’ve looked in the mirror, and Anne Hathaway’s figure I do not have.

  “I’m her,” I said, my own enthusiasm muted somewhat by the fact that this shit was old. Like, super old. Like Janus old.

  “Did you see that thing that happened in New York this morning?” he asked, like I was just jetting to the Empire State for shits and giggles and maybe Hamilton. He lowered his voice like it was scandalous. “Things are getting crazy there, aren’t they? Two heroes now, just running through the streets all lawless—”

  “New Yor
k City still has laws,” I said, shrugging. One of them was that I couldn’t bring a gun into their city, which annoyed me to no end because it forced me to rely on shooting bursts of flame at anyone who engaged me at a distance. They were a lot more likely to survive 9mm bullets, frankly, but whatever, I didn’t make the laws and I didn’t get to ignore them anymore, either.

  “But, I mean, these people are vigilantes, aren’t they?” he asked, leaning in, which I found even more annoying. His breath smelled of spearmint Tic Tacs, and I feel about spearmint like Taylor Swift feels about Katy Perry.

  “They’re giving the NYPD a helping hand,” I said, subtly backing off without making a horrid face. “I suspect if the city of New York decided it really didn’t want citizens helping them out, they’d make them stop.” At the point of a gun, probably, but it’d get done.

  “Hmm,” he said, nodding, like I’d given him something to really think about. I could see by his eyes that he was just trying to formulate the next thing he was going to say, though. “I’ve watched some of your exploits, and I gotta say …” he chuckled again, like this was all part of one hilarious joke we were in on together, “your job is so dangerous—putting yourself out there fighting all these bad guys.” He shuddered, like it was twenty degrees in the airplane or something, and giggled like a little boy. “It sounds like the worst job in the world to me.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Worse than manscaper?”

  That caught him off guard, and he scratched self-consciously at his chest in such a manner that I mentally cringed. “Well, at least that’s less dangerous,” he said lamely.

  “Clearly you’ve never had to shave Chewbacca.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, now suddenly preoccupied with his cell phone. He had it out and was typing away with his thumbs like a pro. I took this as a sign that he was done with me, blessedly, and put my head against the bulkhead. I didn’t intend to go to sleep, but I ended up drifting right off with the summer sun shining on my face through the window.

  I woke up when the plane touched down, kind of astounded I’d slept through the flight but not at all displeased. I got antsy flying commercial, probably because I wasn’t in control and because I couldn’t feel the wind on my face. Also, I wasn’t the biggest fan of reading since I'd spent years doing it to kill time while trapped in my house, and while I had a few movies loaded on my iPad, I got twitchy watching them on flights. Also, I’d seen everything I had multiple times.

  Thanks to being in first class, I was one of the first off the plane, and I drifted through the crowds at LaGuardia, ignoring the temptation to feed at one of the innumerable restaurants around me. I was saving myself for Shake Shack. I carried my bag snug on my shoulder as I left the security area and descended toward the baggage claim, where I was suddenly very regretful that I hadn’t travelled with sunglasses.

  About a billion flashbulbs went off as I came down the escalator, blinding me and making me both sorry and grateful for New York handgun restrictions all in one. The paparazzi were waiting for me, with more cameras than I’d believed still existed in the US. Hadn’t everyone switched to phones already?

  Apparently not, judging by the strobe light effect of the flashbulbs all around me. I got mobbed as I walked out of the security exit, barely able to see through the crowd to the double doors past the baggage claim and the bright daylight beyond. I heard about a hundred voices shout, “Ms. Nealon!” and I suddenly remembered that my super-peppy seat neighbor had texted right as we were taking off. Maybe it was innocent, or maybe he’d tipped off the jackals that I was coming to town. Either way, I was not disposed to think of him kindly.

  “What brings you to New York, Ms. Nealon?”

  “Hamilton,” I said, pushing my way through the crowd without committing felony assault. It was not easy.

  “Does it have anything to do with the incident on Wall Street this morning?”

  “Why, what happened on Wall Street this morning?” I asked, playing innocent. “Did somebody knock over a bank or something?”

  “Ms. Nealon, what do you think of Captain Frost and Gravity Gal? Have they inspired you to come up with your own superhero name?”

  That one evinced a scowl, though I was trying to keep my head down as I waited for my checked bag. Damn me for not squeezing everything into a carry-on. “Everything cool is already trademarked,” I said.

  “What about Power Girl? Or Mega Girl—”

  I spun on the crowd of reporters. “If anyone calls me ‘Fill-in-the-blank-Girl,’ I will slap them so hard in the balls that they’ll spit them out like watermelon seeds.” I scanned the crowd, which had fallen into a stunned silence. “I see you believe me. Good.” I caught movement on the conveyer out of the corner of my eye and scooped up my suitcase, which was, at Ariadne’s suggestion, adorned with a pink tassel. So I could recognize it, and, apparently, soften my image in front of the entire world since a boatload of paparazzi took about a thousand pictures of it. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go haggle with a scalper for theater tickets.” And I flew over their heads and shot out the door.

  The hot, humid New York summer hit me full in the face. I landed on the pavement just as a black sedan screeched to a stop in front of me, the mob of reporters at my heels. Lieutenant Allyn Welch was waiting behind the wheel. “Get in,” he said.

  “But the sign inside says not to trust rides from unlicensed cabbies—”

  “Get in before the savages catch up with you,” he said, and I took heed, tossing my luggage over the seat into the back. I jumped in, and he tore away from the curb before I’d even closed the door, clearly as happy to get away from the damned press as I was.

  “Good flight?” Welch said, the air from the open driver’s side window blowing through his thin hair, rendering his comb-over even more of a mess.

  “Got a little bumpy at the end,” I said, watching the cluster of paparazzi that we were leaving in the dust. “I hope it’s not a sign of things to come.”

  12.

  Jamie

  When Mr. Penny the banker had left, Jamie stayed in her office and put her head down on her desk, giving her forehead a good thud against the wood a few times—gently, of course. It always had to be gentle these days, otherwise she’d break right through the desk.

  “How’d the meeting go?” Clarice asked, sneaking into the room almost soundlessly. Almost, because Jamie had meta hearing now, and the click of the locking mechanism was like a cannon shot to her.

  “He was a really nice guy,” Jamie said, lifting her head to rest her chin on the surface of her desk. She pushed hair back over her head, then folded her hands in front of her and just laid there, chin on the desk, as Clarice came in and sat down. She had a little buzz of excitement about her, vibrations Jamie could practically feel across the empty space between them. “He had ideas for how we can make things run better around here. How we can maybe get into profitability, finally.”

  “That’s good,” Clarice said. She was the soul of encouragement. “And he wasn’t mad that you were late?”

  Jamie closed her eyes. “Didn’t seem to be.”

  “That’s … interesting,” Clarice said, and it sounded like there was more to tell.

  Jamie opened her eyes. “What’s interesting?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Clarice said, holding back. It was clearly something, and it only took her a second to break, leaning forward, eyes alight. “He was kinda impatient before you got here.”

  Jamie concentrated, trying to put it together but failing. “I … don’t see whatever you’re—”

  “He was impatient and irritable with me before you came in—”

  “Maybe he’s a racist.”

  “—and he’s totally cool when you come in?” Clarice ignored her jibe, giving her a knowing look. “I saw how he was talking to you. I think you walking in turned his attitude around.”

  “Uck,” Jamie said, slumping so that her face pressed against the paper calendar pages that lay across her desk. The paper
was cool and a little scratchy against her cheek. “He’s probably five years older than Kyra.”

  “You could be a cougar,” Clarice said, clearly taking this possibility and running with it. “All, mrow and—”

  “Please stop,” Jamie said.

  “I mean, did you see that boy? He was built—”

  “I just want …” Jamie said, lifting her head off the desk. She stopped, the raw weariness of the use of her powers to cross to Manhattan and back this morning, the stress of saving Nadine Griffin, arguing with her and Frost and Kyra, and then remembering that her life was waiting with an urgent appointment of its own back here on the island … “I just want things to be smoother. I want the business to work. I want for everyone here to be okay.” She lifted a hand and gestured around the walls separating her from her employees. “I just want everything to be okay.”

  And I want for things between me and Kyra to be better.

  Clarice looked at her pityingly. “I didn’t hear anything about a man in there anywhere, and it makes me sad for you. Squad goals don’t have to be the only goals in your life.”

  “But they’re the only ones I need to bring to work,” Jamie said, pulling herself off her desk. She looked out the windows into the building’s interior and saw, fortunately, no one in the hall. Her office was a little off the beaten path, but normally she would have lowered the blinds before indulging in such a blatant display of self-pity as putting her head on her desk. No time for that, she thought, pulling her hair back and grabbing a binder out of the drawer. She whipped a ponytail into shape in seconds while Clarice watched her with something between envy and annoyance, and then Jamie shut her desk drawer firmly, a symbolic closing on a disastrous morning.

  “All right,” she said, trying to fill her voice with renewed energy. “It’s going to be a better afternoon—”

  “Because a handsome banker with a cute butt and gorgeous eyes walking in to hand you money and profitability is just a bust of a start to the day—”