by Kelly Meding
“Either. Both? I don’t know. All I know is the vibe was freaking weird.”
“Yeah.” He lifted his left hand and inspected the visible fingers, flexing each one as though testing to see if they were still attached. The bandage looked tight.
“Sorry about this morning.” The words got out before I could stop them.
Ethan shifted on the bench and stared at me. “For what?”
I hadn’t meant to apologize out loud. “Not being more useful. Not shooting them both and stopping this faster. You getting smashed into a wall. Take your pick.”
“You were very useful this morning. You did the best you could against two very powerful Metas. My getting smashed into a wall wasn’t your fault.” He pulled a face. “Besides, you’ve seen my track record for attracting injuries, so it was probably inevitable.”
“We’re all pretty good at getting ourselves hurt.”
He wrapped his right hand around my left and squeezed. I returned the gesture, grateful for the support and the understanding. It’s what I loved most about my friends—I didn’t have to explain things. They knew. We gazed out past the training exercises to the Manhattan skyline, and I couldn’t help wondering what it had looked like fifty years ago. Long before destruction cut down its tallest buildings. Before the world’s tallest fence rose up around it and all bridges were destroyed. When it had once been a thriving metropolis full of the hopes and dreams of its residents.
Long before the battles between Rangers and Banes destroyed it all.
We sat there until our cell phones buzzed with identical summonses back to the War Room. Teresa and Marco were still there. She handed us a tablet with the information we needed.
“I found a marriage license from the state of Georgia,” Marco said, “between Jennifer Elizabeth Cunningham and Derek Alan Thatcher.” The date was the year before the official outbreak of the War. “The marriage was invalidated two months later because it came to light that Thatcher was only seventeen.”
Ethan gave a start. His mouth puckered up. I did a few mental calculations to peg Thatcher’s age at thirty-seven or -eight. Made me wonder if Thatcher looked older or younger in person. His nonwife was twenty-nine when she died, making her twenty-four when they were married. Interesting.
“The age of consent in Georgia is sixteen,” Teresa said, answering a question I hadn’t dared ask.
“What about her son, Landon?” I asked. “Any proof he’s Thatcher’s?”
“The original birth certificate lists Thatcher as the father,” Marco replied. “Jennifer changed it to no name a month before the end of the War. I also aged the photograph of Landon several different ways. His features still match the photo of our burglary suspect.”
I thumbed through the information on the tablet, my stomach twisting up tight at the thought of our impending mission. “Fabulous,” I muttered.
“Derek is not going to react well to this,” Ethan said.
“You think?”
“I’m serious, Renee. He and Freddy have always argued the loudest and strongest for the children living on that island. Derek has supported everything Freddy has said or done to keep their kids safe. Finding out his own son has been alive and kept from him all these years?” Ethan shook his head sadly. “This isn’t going to go well.”
Freddy McTaggert—aka the Bane formerly known as Jinx, Ethan’s biological father, and the father of Ethan’s eight-year-old half-brother Andrew. Freddy, along with Thatcher and a few other loyal followers, had avoided contact with the prison authorities for months in an effort to protect Andrew and another child from being taken from them. I might have zero sympathy for Derek Thatcher as a Bane, but he was a father, and my heart hurt for the horrible truth we were about to lay on him.
For once in my life, I would be absolutely content to let Ethan do all the talking.
Four
Play the Board
Thirty minutes later, Ethan and I took a puddle-jumper over to Ellis Island. The prison’s main observation tower had been built on the site of the old Main Building just after the end of the War. Five stories tall and as boring as a rolling pin, it served as the activity hub for everything that happened in Manhattan and at the dozens of other checkpoints around the island’s secured perimeter.
It also had interrogation rooms. We waited on one side of a floor-to-ceiling glass wall while two armed prison guards escorted Derek “Chimera” Thatcher into the other side. A guard attached one end of a chain to his ankle restraints and the other to a bolt in the floor. The security measure was a little ridiculous, since Thatcher could transmutate the steel chains into soft links of tin if it pleased him to do so.
I’d seen photos of Thatcher, of course, but he seemed different in person. Taller, larger. He was handsome in a classic movie-star way, his thick brown hair streaked with silver, and gray eyes that glittered even from ten feet away. His side of the interrogation room had a single chair, but he chose to stand. Except for his shabby, out-of-style clothing, he looked like someone you might stumble across at a coffee shop, waiting for his latte.
And if you did stumble across him, you’d probably stop to ogle.
“Ethan,” Thatcher said with a nod, then gave me a curious look. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.”
“That’s because it isn’t one,” I said with a little more snap than I’d intended. I hadn’t actually planned on saying that at all, but my mouth was working on its own today.
Next to me, Ethan stiffened. “Play nice,” he whispered. To Thatcher he said, “This is Renee Duvall. Renee, Derek Thatcher.”
Thatcher’s thick eyebrows rose. “Ah, yes, you’re the one they called Flex.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for the inevitable jokes or leering looks that often came from a combination of my old code name and my ample figure. The latter had worked wonders in Las Vegas, but people nowadays spent more time wondering about my cleavage than my ability to do my fucking job. I was a superhero, goddammit, not a pair of tits.
But Thatcher didn’t say anything else. Hell, he didn’t even take a few seconds to check me out, which was both confusing and gratifying.
“They used to call me Flex,” I said. “But we don’t hide what we are anymore, so the code names are more for show than necessity.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “We’ve given up our code names, as well.”
He spoke so conversationally that I wasn’t sure how to take the comment.
“So to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” Thatcher asked when I didn’t reply.
“We have a few questions for you regarding a current case,” I said. So much for me letting Ethan do all the talking.
“Ask away, although I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I decline to answer.”
I glanced at Ethan, who shrugged one shoulder as if to say, It’s your show now. To Thatcher I said, “Do you know a man named Landon Cunningham?”
He blinked. “I don’t.”
“You don’t?”
“No, I don’t know a man named Landon Cunningham.”
Oh, he was good. “Let me rephrase that, then. Have you ever known or been acquainted with a male named Landon Cunningham?”
He gave me a bland look, even as something hard turned his gray eyes to steel. “I think you already know the answer to that question, Ms. Duvall. Yes, my late son’s name was Landon Cunningham.”
“When’s the last time you had contact with your son?”
“Is that a joke?” His voice had adopted the same cold edge as his eyes, and he took a step toward the glass partition. His hands had tightened into fists.
Ethan made a soft noise, probably warning me to tread lightly. He might like Thatcher for whatever reason, but I had no feelings toward the man one way or the other. He was just another suspect who had answers we needed. Answers Teresa would do anything to get.
“No, it isn’t a joke,” I replied. “Did you find it humorous?”
“Not one goddamn bi
t,” Thatcher snarled. “If you’re really as smart as you pretend to be, you know my wife and son died fifteen years ago while I was stuck in here.”
The hit to my intelligence stung. “Wife? Your marriage was annulled.”
“We never acknowledged that annulment. Despite what the law said, Jennifer and I were always married in our own eyes.”
“That’s sweet.”
“Don’t patronize me, or this interview is over.”
The fact that he hadn’t told me to go straight to hell and take my questions with me was encouraging. We had his attention.
“We’re not here to piss you off, Derek,” Ethan said.
“Then why are you here?” Thatcher asked. “What does my family have to do with this supposed current case?”
“Your family is the case,” I said. “More specifically, Landon is the case.”
He glared, any control he had over his facial expression gone. “Explain.”
Ethan approached the glass and turned the tablet around. He’d displayed three photos in order—Landon at three, the aged version of him, and the photo of our suspect. Thatcher practically pressed his nose to the glass as he studied them, his face crumpling in anger and disbelief.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, his voice barely audible over the speaker connecting our two sides of the room.
Ethan explained the burglaries, our run-in with Jack and Jill, and how we identified “Jack” as Landon. Thatcher paled slightly while Ethan talked, but he didn’t interrupt. Just listened. “This is impossible,” he said when Ethan finished.
“Because they died in a fire?” I asked.
“Yes.” The single word came through like a slap to the face.
“We’re looking into that in greater detail,” Ethan said. “But our evidence suggests that Landon survived the fire and is the boy we saw last night in Pennsylvania.”
“Alive.” He repeated the word, testing it out. “What about Jennifer?”
“I’m sorry, we don’t have any information on her.”
Thatcher nodded slowly. “And the girl in that photo? Do you know who she is?”
“Not yet.”
“And your only evidence that this is Landon is a manipulated photograph.”
“It’s compelling evidence, Derek. You can’t deny the resemblance between you and our suspect, and the age fits with the timeline.”
Thatcher backed away from the glass and cast a glance around the room, as though answers were stuck to the walls waiting for him to find them. He crossed his arms over his chest—no, wrapped them around himself—before facing us again. His voice was rough when he asked, “What do you want from me?”
“After the War ended, no one wanted to acknowledge ties to Metas,” Ethan said. “Could Jennifer have faked her and Landon’s deaths in order to hide?”
“We loved each other,” Thatcher said.
“That wasn’t his question,” I said. I had sympathy for the bomb we’d just dropped on Thatcher (and where that sympathy was coming from, I couldn’t tell you), but we also had a job to do.
“No. No.” He shook his head emphatically. “No, Jennifer would never do that. We gave Landon her name to protect him. We had very little contact that final year. I tried to keep them safe, damn it.”
“So you haven’t seen or spoken to either of them recently?”
“How would I have done that?” He swept his arms out to his sides. “I’ve been stuck in here for almost sixteen years! As far as I know, my wife and son are dead.”
Over the years, I’d seen people in pain—friends, strangers, clients, you name it. Sometimes I tried to comfort them, sometimes I didn’t give a shit what they were feeling. Today I found myself stuck in a strange tide between the two, cresting in a swell of sympathy while an undertow of He’s a Bane, he deserves this dragged at my feet.
“I’ve never even seen their graves,” Thatcher said softly, more to himself than to us.
Ethan nudged my elbow. He made a face that I agreed with—the interview was over. We’d done enough damage for one day.
“We’ll keep you informed,” Ethan said.
“All I want is the truth,” Thatcher said. “For once, I just want someone to tell me the truth.”
On those frustrated words, we left the interrogation room. Simon Hewitt was waiting for us outside. Formerly a prisoner of Manhattan himself, Simon was sprung months ago to help us with a particularly nasty Bane from our past. Now he was the official liaison between the Manhattan prisoners and the federal prison system. He worked in the observation tower and lived nearby with his six-year-old-son, Caleb.
“Do you believe Thatcher?” I asked both of them.
“Yes,” Ethan said.
“As do I,” Simon replied. “Derek is stubborn and quite opinionated on certain subjects, but he isn’t lying.”
“So someone who may or may not be his ex-wife faked his son’s death,” I said.
Ethan nodded. “That seems to be the theory. What we need to do now is look into those supposed deaths.”
“I’ve already put in a call to the hospital in Georgia,” Simon said. “Death certificates for Jennifer and Landon Cunningham are missing and no paper copies exist. The coroner’s report wasn’t tampered with, though. It lists cause of death as asphyxiation. The bodies were burned beyond recognition, but Jennifer’s body was identified via dental records.”
“What about Landon’s body?”
“Too young for dental records. Said the body was a physical match. Both bodies were cremated.”
“Of course they were,” I said.
“According to the article attached to the fire report,” Ethan said, “Jennifer had no next of kin. No one to claim them or follow up.”
“Correct,” Simon said.
“So both bodies were burned unrecognizably, later cremated, the death certificates are missing, and it’s becoming more possible that the dead child wasn’t actually Landon.”
Simon shuddered. “Maybe not, but it was someone’s child.”
“Sorry.”
“So who do we know that likes to alter official records and steal people’s identities?” I asked, knowing full well it was a damned rhetorical question.
They both looked at me, and their faces made it clear we were all on the same wavelength. We’d come to the conclusion a month ago that some shadowy government agency was behind the Recombinants—they had too much access and too much knowledge to be working independently. We knew they had stolen identities before, in order to hide their projects in plain sight.
The Recombinants had been intended as artificially created Metas—powerful, but controllable. We still had no idea how deeply this organization went, or how many different Recombinant projects existed. So far we’d seen the hybrid-Changelings: beings who could alter their physical shape, completely take over another human being, and who also came blessed with his or her own special superpower. We’d also seen the Ranger clones: twenty-year-old versions of our dead parents and mentors, re-created perfectly in looks and powers, and possessing everything except their emotions. The only thing we knew about the organization was that one of the people in charge was referred to as the Overseer.
We all really, really wanted to meet his person—and beat the ever-loving shit out of him or her.
“Stealing the child of a known Meta is a little out of their usual MO, isn’t it?” Ethan asked.
“Their usual MO changes every time we run into another of their projects,” I said.
“Not exactly, no,” Simon said. “The ultimate goal of the Overseer seems to be to push Metas into a confrontation with their Recombinants. You’ve already fought the Changelings, as well as the clones. What better way to push the Manhattan residents into a confrontation than to dangle their live, brainwashed children in front of them?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Brainwashed?”
“So to speak, yes. If Landon was taken away at three, there is no telling what lies were told to him about his parents, or a
bout Metas. Children are very impressionable.”
A cold snake of fear twisted down my spine as his words inched a little too close to the truth of my own childhood, and I found myself sympathizing with Landon Cunningham more than I’d admit was possible. I knew what it was like to have the adults in your life, your own mother and friends and neighbors, the people who were supposed to protect you from the monsters, become the very things you always feared. To turn your once-peaceful life into a fucking nightmare. In the end, the Rangers had saved me.
Was it too late for Landon?
“Renee?” Ethan squeezed my elbow, and I jumped. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I said.
The look he gave me said I don’t believe you, but he didn’t argue. Even if he had, we weren’t having that conversation in front of Simon—or ever, for that matter.
“Until you find Landon or his partner in crime, this is all guesswork,” Simon said.
“Marco is still working on identifying her,” Ethan said. “I don’t suppose us going down to Georgia would do any good.”
“Doubtful, but that’s probably Teresa’s call.”
“Georgia is pointless,” I said. “The guy at the warehouse is Landon. Photo aging confirms it, and the fact that he”—I made air quotes—“died under suspicious circumstances only makes it more obvious. All we’d be doing is reconfirming what we already know.”
“So what do you suggest we do, Renee?” Ethan asked.
“That’s not my area, Windy. I don’t come up with the plans, I just follow them.”
“Have you informed the authorities of your identification of one of the thieves?” Simon asked.
I glanced at Ethan, whose subtle eyebrow raise told me he wasn’t sure, either. “Probably not. Teresa won’t want to paint a giant target on this kid’s back until we’ve tried to find him ourselves.” It was just the way she worked when it came to Metas who were wanted by the police.
“That’s a dangerous line to walk.”
“Believe me, we know, but it’s how T wants it.”
In the last six months or so, we’d helped authorities capture thirteen Metas who’d committed crimes using their newfound powers. All of them had been young—too young to have known they were Meta before the Great Power Loss, and now too old not to be held accountable for their stupid actions. All of them had been turned over to the local authorities, despite Teresa’s protests. And all of them had disappeared.