I was considering heading over to talk to Ben when he saw me and headed in my direction. I met him halfway.
“Hello, Olivia.” He towered over me, and I resisted the urge to stand on my toes. I did stand up as straight as possible, not that it helped.
“Hi, Ben. Were you here when it happened?” I nodded towards the scene.
He shook his head. “I got here a few minutes ago.” He looked around and shivered. His face was tight with strain.
I took a risk and asked, “Have you heard anything?” I left it open as to how he may have heard anything, but his mouth turned down in a frown so I knew he understood.
“No,” he said sharply. “I told you, I don’t use my abilities.”
I held up my hands, palms forward in a conciliatory gesture. “Okay, okay, I get it.”
He looked down at me, eyebrows drawn down. I touched his arm gently but pulled back when he jerked away with a startled gasp. “Don’t touch me.” He drew a deep breath. “It makes it harder not to read you.” He stepped back from me. “Um, maybe you should talk to someone in your family about learning how to shield. They’re all good at it.”
“Oh, sure, good idea.” Especially if I was going to continue to run into him all over Portland.
We stood in an uncomfortable silence before he spoke again. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt.” He looked down at his feet, and then looked at me from under his long eyelashes. I caught the glint of green from his eyes.
I flushed and said, “Um, well, me too.”
Before we could continue our scintillating conversation, Emma and Zoe came over. Hugh was still standing near the police barrier watching the crowd.
Emma frowned at us. “Why are you still here?”
I guessed she meant me. “Didn’t we go through this earlier? It’s a public place.”
She sneered at me. “Yeah, but now it’s a crime scene, so you need to go away like everyone else with nothing to do.”
“Well, isn’t this what we do? Solve crimes like this?” I waved a hand at the destroyed statue of the Umbrella Man.
“Yes, we do.” Emma cocked her head to include Zoe. “But you don’t. Dad hasn’t cleared you for patrol, so you don’t get to play with us. You’ll only distract us; if there is a fight, someone would have to babysit you,” she said.
Well, screw her and her attitude. “Oh yeah, well, I’ll just hang out with Ben then.”
As I suspected, Emma didn’t care for that idea. She grabbed my arm and pulled me away saying, “No, you won’t. He’s” – she avoided my eyes – “not safe to hang around.”
Sure, Emma, I thought, you keep telling yourself that’s the reason you don’t want me hanging around Ben. I jerked my arm from her grasp and set my feet. “Stop telling me what to do.”
We faced each other while Zoe sighed. Hugh came up beside her, holding his phone to his ear. Before we could continue arguing, I was startled by the next person who spoke.
“What are you doing here?” Jack’s voice was sharp and accusing, like he’d caught me doing something wrong.
I faced him. “Hey, Jack.” I couldn’t help the guilty glance over my shoulder at my cousins.
He looked good, sunlight catching the glints of gold in his hair. He wore jeans with a dark blue t-shirt. His ever-present messenger bag was slung across his shoulder. The frown on his face made him look older. I stuck my hands in my pockets and stared at him.
His gaze took me in and then slid past me to my cousins. I glanced back to see them watching us curiously. Still on the phone, Hugh shook his head with a warning glint in his eye.
Ben was still nearby. His head was tilted to one side in a considering stance. His straight black hair fell over one eye, and he brushed it out of the way with a habitual gesture. My stomach lurched at the sight of him, and I forced myself to look back at Jack. That wasn’t much better because my stomach also lurched at the sight of Jack. He had crossed his arms over his chest.
“Olivia, can I talk to you alone?” Jack asked.
I nodded and followed him a discreet distance away from my cousins.
Jack stopped and said. “Who’re they?” He nodded back at my family while his fingers gripped the strap of his messenger bag.
“My cousins, from Mom’s side of the family.” My nostrils flared as a gust of wind carried the smell of explosives and worse towards us. “Jack, I don’t think –” I started to tell him we should talk later.
“You don’t like your mother’s family.” Jack frowned at me.
I shrugged, impatient to get past this topic. “There was a kind of rift after my mother died. The bank robbery sort of brought us back together.” I looked down, digging my toe into a crack in the brick. “It’s no big secret or anything.”
“Every time I think we stay back together, I realize that you’re not telling me everything, maybe even something big. Now I find out you’ve got cousins that go to school with us.” Jack met my eyes. “I know that guy.” He glanced at Kevin before taking my hand in his. “What’s going on, Ollie?”
I pulled my hand away, annoyed that he thought he was the one who should decide when we got back together.
Hugh called out, “Hey, Olivia, we’re going if you want to come. Unless you want to hang out with your friend.” I caught the sneer in his tone that said, unless you want to hang out with a normal.
I acknowledged his invitation with a nod and turned back to Jack. “I’m okay, just getting to know my cousins again.”
Jack stared at Hugh, who waited impatiently with Ben, Zoe, and Emma. “Are they okay though? I saw them after Vera blew up, sort of poking around the damage, and now they’re here.”
I spoke quickly to hide my spurt of panic. “Well, I bet lots of people happened to be at both places. I mean –” I managed to stop before saying I’d been at Vera’s destruction. “You’re here, and it sounds like you were at Vera.” Which was interesting.
Jack flushed. “Yeah, okay, I guess you’re right.”
Zoe shouted, “Come on, Olivia!”
“Look, I need to go.”
Jack looked so sad I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out, but he stepped back so that my hand fell short. “Olivia, I’m sorry. Go on, I’ll see you at school.” He turned and walked away.
I felt deflated. Dammit, why did he seem to always come upon me when something weird was happening? I felt tears well up in my eyes and impatiently rubbed my hands across my face. No time to cry; there were cousins and crimes to deal with.
Chapter 14
I was disappointed to learn Hugh’s Subaru was parked nearby. I said as much to Zoe. “Why didn’t you guys run here in stealth mode?” Stealth mode was Kevin’s name for the way supernormals can become unnoticeable to normals when we want to, usually when using our abilities. According to Aunt Kate, who referred to the ability as Glamour, all supernormals instinctively had the ability, but it had to be refined to be controlled. She suspected I’d used a little bit of Glamour in the bank robbery without realizing it, which explained why the witnesses were willing to believe my story.
Zoe snorted at my question. “We were already out driving. Did you want us to park the car and run here?” At my questioning look, she said, “Hugh, Lange, and I were going to Ruby Jewel’s for ice cream sandwiches. And then Mom called us, so…” She trailed off.
“Where was Kevin?”
Zoe shrugged. “He said he had a thing, but he met us at the square.”
I pondered telling Zoe my suspicions about Kevin and Anna but decided to wait until I could ask one of them first. And after witnessing the death and destruction at the square, the question of whether or not two people had a date wasn’t a top priority at the moment.
While Hugh unlocked his car, Ben stood back with his hands in his pockets. He said, with his eyes on me, “I need to go catch up to Mom and Dad. They’re parked on the other side of the square.”
“Are you going to come over to the warehouse later?” Hugh asked.
“Yeah, I think
so.” Ben glanced at me and then at Emma before turning and walking back towards Pioneer Square. I watched him go, wondering for the first time how he’d heard about the explosion so soon after it happened.
We piled into Hugh’s car. As the smallest, I ended up in the suicide seat between Zoe and Emma. We rode to the warehouse in silence. I didn’t know what everyone else was thinking about, but I was trying to piece together the events leading up to the explosion. Had I seen anything unusual? All I could really remember was how upset I’d been at Emma.
I wanted to ask Emma if she’d noticed anything odd before the blast, but we pulled up to the warehouse before I could figure out a way to ask without annoying her.
Aunt Kate and Uncle Dan were waiting for us in the classroom area. Aunt Kate stood in front of two of the large monitors, tapping her finger against her lip. She was saying to Uncle Dan when we walked up, “Dan, do you see how the blast pattern radiates out from this side of the statue here?” She used a laser pointer to circle a spot on the monitor. “Hi, kids.” She acknowledged us.
I was surprised to see post-explosion overhead photos of Vera and the Umbrella Man on each monitor. “Where did these come from?” Had Aunt Kate hacked into the police database? How had she gotten a post-explosion photo of the Umbrella Man so quickly? I glanced at the clock, surprised to see it had only been twenty minutes since the explosion.
Aunt Kate was still talking to Uncle Dan, so Kevin answered quietly, “Aunt Kate probably used her ability.”
I gave him a questioning look. I didn’t know what Aunt Kate’s significant ability was yet. Since Kevin mentioned Aunt Kate’s ability, I hoped someone would take pity on my ignorance and explain it to me.
“Mom can move objects without touching them,” Zoe said from behind me.
“Nice ability,” I said, thinking of how useful it would be to clean my room without getting off my bed.
“Yeah, well.” Zoe sounded embarrassed. “There’s a weight limit. She can’t move anything heavier than five pounds.”
Seemed like a lame limit. “Oh, is that usual for that ability?”
“No, usually people with that ability can lift much heavier objects.” Lange leaned in to say more quietly. “It really pisses Mom off that she can’t get past her limit.”
“Shhh...” Emma said.
I frowned at her, and then gave a guilty start when I saw Aunt Kate and Uncle Dan watching us with matching stern looks.
“If you’re done gossiping, we have a little matter of a crime to solve,” Aunt Kate said with a bite in her voice.
I exchanged embarrassed looks with Kevin, as we all murmured, “Sorry,” and scrambled to sit down.
“To answer your question, Olivia, I flew a small camera over the origin of the blast at both sites to take these photos.” She gave the photos an assessing look. “This gives us a decent enough view of each site after the explosion.”
I was impressed. Using her ability, weak as it was, to take aerial shots was pretty smart. I almost said so, but she was already talking about what the photos revealed.
“There is no visible evidence of a bomb, but we can see there is a spot where the explosion seems to have started. Here,” she used the laser pointer to circle the remains of Vera’s bench, “under Vera. And,” she pointed at the Umbrella Man, “here right between his feet. If you look closely at the blast pattern, you can see it.”
We all leaned forward. I could tell from Hugh’s expression he was as puzzled as I was. What was Aunt Kate pointing at?
Zoe said, “Mom, what are you talking about?”
Aunt Kate and Uncle Dan exchanged a look, before Uncle Dan answered, “Look closely. Do you see anything out of place? Anything that doesn’t belong?”
Anything that didn’t belong? I squinted at the monitor showing the Umbrella Man. And then I saw it – a stick of wood as long as my forearm on the ground beside his heel. It stood out because there were no burn marks on it. That close to the blast, the wood should have been disintegrated.
I looked at the photos of Vera and saw what I thought I remembered from the scene – a matching stick of wood under the remains of the bench. It was odd and out of place, but how could a piece of wood with no visible burn marks cause an explosion?
Hugh answered Uncle Dan, “The only thing I see is that stick of wood.”
“Correct.” Uncle Dan sounded like he was teaching a class-basically like he always sounded.
“But what does that have to do with the explosion?” I asked. “I mean, it’s weird that it didn’t get blown up, I guess.”
Uncle Dan looked at me with approval. “Yes, and that’s why it’s notable. It’s one of the reasons we think someone with supernormal abilities is behind these explosions. That, and the fact that no one has seen anyone leave a bomb or even found the remains of an explosive.”
“These are well-populated locations, and these incidents happen during busy times at each site. Yet no one reported seeing suspicious activity at Vera, and so far the witnesses at Pioneer Square are saying it was a normal day,” Aunt Kate said. “At least according to the police interviews.”
I must have looked as confused as I felt. How did Aunt Kate know what the witnesses were saying? Hugh leaned over. “She’s got a source at the police department.” He waited a beat and added, “And she’s hacked into their database.”
I knew it! Aunt Kate seemed like a hacker with all of her gadgets.
Aunt Kate said in a frustrated voice, “I wish I could get a closer shot of the stick.” She set down her laser pointer. “The police don’t get the significance of it. And when I realized it was important after Vera was destroyed, I didn’t get back to the scene in time.” She sat down and took a sip from a coffee mug before saying, “However, I don’t intend for that to happen this time.” She pointed at Hugh and Zoe. “I’d like you two to retrieve the stick.”
“Why aren’t I going?” Emma asked.
Uncle Dan said, “Your aunt needs to find out if you and Olivia saw anything, since you were both at Pioneer Square before the explosion.” He gave her a stern look to quell any further questions from her.
Emma frowned at her shoes while chewing on her thumbnail as her father and cousins went over their strategy for getting the stick out from under the police. The plan was simple. Mingle with the crowd watching the scene and use supernormal stealth mode to slip in and grab the stick. Zoe was going because she was the best at using Glamour to appear invisible. Her significant ability was super speed, just like her brother. Apparently she could run a marathon in fifteen minutes – really fast and unnoticeable – good traits for stealing something from under the nose of the police. Hugh was going as support in case anything went wrong.
After Zoe and Hugh left, Aunt Kate questioned Emma first. She took Emma step by step through the moments before the explosion. Emma insisted she hadn’t seen anything unusual. She brushed over our conversation, to my relief. No need to replay it in front of everyone. She told Aunt Kate that after we talked she headed over towards the Doc Martens store. And no, she repeated, she didn’t see anything odd.
Uncle Dan sat to one side and shook his head. “Emma, you have to do better. You must always be on alert, always observe your environment.” He sighed. “We’ll add some observation work to your training schedule.”
Emma pressed her lips together but didn’t argue. I couldn’t believe Uncle Dan was so hard on her.
“Olivia, can you add anything to Emma’s recounting?” Aunt Kate typed on her laptop.
“No, I’m sorry. After Emma left me, I was hanging out with Anna, and we were getting hot chocolate when it happened.” I looked at Uncle Dan and couldn’t resist adding. “Maybe you need to give me some observation exercises this week as well.”
Emma glared at me from under her bangs, but Uncle Dan just nodded thoughtfully. Great, I had a feeling everyone was going to suffer through whatever Uncle Dan was planning for Emma.
The door from the reception area slammed open with a bang and
I jumped. Zoe and Hugh marched in with grim expressions. Aunt Kate stood up expectantly, but Zoe shook her head.
“No luck.”
“What do you mean, no luck?” Aunt Kate looked startled.
“The stick was gone.” Hugh slumped down on the couch.
Aunt Kate said with a shocked expression, “But how can that be? It was there when I flew the camera over the site not five minutes after the incident.” She shook her head. “I knew I should have had you retrieve it before you left the square.” She turned to stare at the photos. “Dammit.”
“Perhaps the police found it?” Uncle Dan joined her. “Maybe your source can tell us what was collected at the scene.”
“Yes,” Aunt Kate said absently. She was still looking at the photos as if they would reveal more secrets.
“Are you done questioning us?” Emma asked.
Uncle Dan gave a frustrated sigh. “I suppose so.”
Emma stood up and marched out of the warehouse in what could only be described as a huff. Zoe went after her. They had what looked like an intense conversation with much hand gesturing. Finally Zoe gave Emma a go-on wave.
Hugh was saying to Aunt Kate when Zoe came back, “Do you have any idea who could be setting off the explosions? Are you sure it’s a supernormal?” He pointed at the photos. “Normals do this sort of thing all the time.”
“It could certainly be a normal.” Aunt Kate walked over and turned off the monitors. “That’s why I wanted the evidence.” She faced us. “I hate to think it’s possible anyone can do this, normal or supernormal. Whoever they are, they must be stopped. And if it is one of our kind, then the police won’t be able to do much about it.” She closed the lid on her laptop. “So we need to know.” She put her laptop in her bag. “I’m going to take a look at the Vera scene.”
“I’ll go with you, if it’s okay.” I was surprised to hear myself ask. But she was right; if a supernormal was doing this, then it was our job to stop them. Maybe I would see something I hadn’t seen when I was there during the explosion.
I followed my aunt outside and through the streets to the waterfront. She didn’t say much as we walked side-by-side. When we got to the scene of the first explosion, it was eerily deserted. Normally runners, walkers, and bikers dodged around each other in a complicated shuffle, but today there was only a single runner who gave the leftover flapping police tape a wide berth.
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