Jane almost told him to pull his arms in to cut the wind resistance. The Handyman was the last person in the world she wanted to help—especially if he was trying to save Evan's slimy neck. She shook her head and dropped down to help Penny, who had rolled away from the car and was struggling to sit up. The teen was covered in snow melt and mud, visibly wobbling, with a cut on her cheek from a sharp rock. Jane cast caution to the wind and let herself go completely visible and solid, and wrapped her arms around Penny.
"Evan?" Penny twisted around in Jane's arms.
Evan's car had stopped with the front wheels hanging in mid-air, spinning fast enough to blur. The brake lights flashed wildly as Evan fought for control. Out of phase now, Jane couldn't see Kurt, but she could imagine him floating three feet out from the cliff edge, holding up the nose of the sports car with one hand, probably smugly pleased with himself.
The car's rear lights flashed white as Evan tried to put it into reverse. Then the engine died. Jane flinched, feeling the flash of energy that had killed all the electrical systems. Silence reverberated through the quarry.
Jane swore she heard a whisper of laughter, chiming in the crystalline cold air. Then the car groaned as Kurt pushed it backwards, putting all four wheels on solid ground.
Kurt came out of phase with his cell phone already open and pressing buttons. When he said he was calling Evan's uncle to meet them at NCH, Evan went into full-scale spoiled brat mode, daring to give orders. He accused Kurt of sabotaging his car and ordered him to fix it, right then and there.
Kurt didn't bother arguing. He just stepped behind Evan and applied pressure to spots on the back of his neck, and two seconds later the snot folded like a wet paper doll.
Jane was grateful he knew that technique, but refused to say so, just because he managed to come up with a plan of action faster than she did. What could she do, though? Responding to his hand signals and tips of his head, she distracted Penny while Kurt pushed the car back down to the path through the quarries and got it working again. Short of flying, it was the only way out of there for any of them.
With Penny in the front seat of Evan's car, and the boy still unconscious in the back seat, Kurt drove them back to the orphanage. Jane followed in Ghost phase, to support the story he gave Penny. Supposedly Kurt had been showing her around town and she would follow the three of them to the orphanage in her car and drive him home.
For a few seconds, Jane played with the idea of just ditching him right there, flying back to her apartment, and leaving him to hoof it back home from NCH. He couldn't fly when she got far enough out of reach that he couldn't "borrow" her Gift. He had admitted that much. Then again, he hadn't told her the limits of the range of being able to tap into her Gift. There was a big difference between fifty feet, fifty yards, and half a mile.
She couldn't do that, though. Besides the fact that Angela wanted them to make nice and be friends, she couldn't quite trust him not to rat her out if she inconvenienced him. After all, he had a place here. She was still the newcomer. Even though she certainly felt as if she had come home at long last, there was no guarantee that Kurt couldn't turn his Gifted friends against her, as well as the rest of the town.
Besides, she had Penny to protect. Jane needed to testify that even though the girl had been at the quarry, it was against her will.
"She'll be just fine," Mrs. Elliot, the administrator, assured Jane and Kurt an hour later. The three stood in the front foyer of the main building, watching the tow truck drag away Evan's car, following the big black vintage Cadillac that his uncle drove. For some odd reason that Jane felt sure had to do with Kurt's Handyman gift, the green sports car wouldn't work. "Penny's a good girl, and I think she learned a vital lesson without too big a scare. Thank the good Lord you were there."
"Jane's become really protective of this town. Especially Penny," Kurt said. "Even if we hadn't been there, she probably would have sensed something was wrong and gone looking for her." He rested a hand on Jane's shoulder and squeezed. And kept squeezing, giving a miniature massage right in the most painful spot of her tense muscles.
From anyone else, the touch would be soothing. Jane could almost relax into it. But, of course, this was the Handyman. Her nemesis. Reluctantly, she stepped out of his reach and held out her hand to shake Mrs. Elliot's.
"We're glad to have you back in Neighborlee," the woman said as she shook Jane's hand.
That stopped her cold and Jane stammered, "You know—"
"That you were once one of our students? My, yes." Mrs. Elliot nodded her silvery-white curly head. "Despite all those records that vanished a few years ago, we do manage to keep track of all our graduates. Besides, Angela let us know of the connection. It's nice to know when someone who started out so badly in life made such a good showing."
"Vanished?" Jane knew she was starting to sound like a bad echo, but she couldn't help it. If Mrs. Elliot hadn't said "a few years ago," Jane would have been ready to think there was a conspiracy. As in someone knew part of her unofficial mission was to investigate all the other Lost Boys, and start making connections, and they were determined to frustrate her.
"Mrs. Silvestri was quite incensed. We were finally upgrading all our paper files a couple years ago—more than a century of them—putting them into a computer, letting other child welfare networks have access. Answering some questions, actually, about all the abandoned children who have ended up at NCH over the decades. The records were just...gone." The administrator clicked her tongue and shook her head.
"That's too bad. I would have liked to have looked through those records. Just to see if there was something there that maybe..." Jane shrugged. "Everybody would like answers, you know?"
"There's a lot of that going around," Kurt muttered. Jane shivered, seeing a sparkle of interest in his eyes.
What did he read into her statement?
Wait a minute. He was one of the abandoned children, too. Wouldn't he be interested in knowing about his past, any details of how he had come to live at the orphanage?
Just to play devil's advocate... What were the chances Kurt and his Gifted friends had those missing records?
Finding out would mean more than making nice with him, continuing the truce Angela had decreed. It would mean opening up, sharing information, being honest and trusting him. Could she do it?
"I really have to get on home," Jane said, speaking more to stop the speculations than because she wanted to leave. She thought of begging Mrs. Elliot to let her look through the records that remained.
"That's right," Kurt said. "You have a business to run. A very successful one, too."
"Yes, and our dear Penny just loves working for you," Mrs. Elliot gushed. "Thank you again for watching out for her."
Kurt explained that she had left her car around the corner, out of sight of the orphanage buildings, so the lights wouldn't disturb the children any more than they already had been, with the excitement of Penny come back after hours, in Evan's car. They walked down the curving driveway and out of sight beyond the trees in silence. Jane didn't even look at him as she went into Ghost phase and leaped up into the air. He followed. She felt his presence, a sense of warmth through the icy air. It might have been amusing to leave him down on the ground, shouting at her. Or would he just fume in silence and plot revenge?
The flight back to her apartment was silent, giving Jane plenty of time to think. She had started piecing together the incident at the quarry on her flight to the orphanage, and now she had more time to think about it. She had only one conclusion she could draw.
"You caused the accident, didn't you?" she half-snarled when they reached the roof of her building.
"Not me." He held out both hands, palms facing forward, as if to ward off attack. "Somebody else."
"Like who?"
"My guess? Some friend of Penny's." He gestured down at the alley behind her building, where the lights from other apartments-over-businesses filtered through curtains. "We can argue out here, where
some of your neighbors could hear. Or, we can go inside and talk. Your choice. But we are going to talk, one way or another."
"I don't have much choice, do I, Handyman?"
"My name is Kurt," he said, when Jane just gestured for him to follow her and phased out to pass through the ceiling into her apartment.
You're the Handyman, aren't you? She muffled a chuckle. It was ridiculous, arguing like this, him outside and her inside.
When I'm working. I was hoping, after what happened, we could be friends. He paused as he slid down after her.
Jane was pleased to see that he hadn't quite mastered the trick of talking and phasing through solid objects at the same time. She was rather protective of the talents she considered her private territory. Being around someone who could mimic anyone's special powers made her feel like the dunce of the class, all over again.
"I doubt it."
"What did I do? Want to tell me that? I'd think after working together to rescue Penny from that juvenile delinquent, you'd be a little friendlier towards me."
"Considering you decided I was a threat and tried to pull the welcome mat out from under my feet the last few days?" She almost laughed when he colored and looked away, and she realized he felt embarrassed about that.
What was with some guys? She paused, giving him a chance to apologize, but of course, he just looked at her, his eyes widening a little with discomfort. No, he was one of those guys who couldn't seem to find the words. The question was if he would be one of those guys whose inability to apologize was charming. Some guys weren't able to apologize because they could never admit they were wrong in the first place.
She sighed, pushing those thoughts away. Yes, it angered her, and wearied her, to know the friendship she thought she was developing with Kurt had been destroyed by his sudden load of suspicion and paranoia.
"I would be a little friendlier, maybe," she said, "if you hadn't caused all that trouble with nearly throwing Evan's car over the cliff."
"That wasn't me." The words came out stiff, almost growled. Gee, did his feelings get hurt because she didn't believe him the first time he denied guilt?
"Oh, yeah? I didn't notice any other Gifted hanging around the quarry tonight." She slumped down into the futon, and deliberately neglected to offer him a seat.
"That's just it. You didn't notice. Neither did I. New talent emerging, is my guess. Maybe somebody who likes Penny and hates Evan-the-snot." He settled down on the floor, his back against the hassock.
"Someone you missed, just like the Old Poops missed you and your friends," she murmured.
"Oh, that makes everything really clear." He snorted, but grinned wearily at her, and she found herself grinning back. "How about we start off with some explanations?"
"Such as?"
"Who are the Old Poops? I'm assuming they're the ones who yanked you out of here as soon as you started going invisible, when we were kids."
"That about sums it up. How come they didn't notice you?"
"Me and Lanie, we found each other when we were just little rug rats. I'm guessing we developed our talents a lot sooner than most kids, and it came on us slow enough we figured out what we could do, what we shouldn't do." He unzipped his leather jacket and looked around her apartment, just a few casual glances that somehow didn't make her feel invaded. Points for him. "Anyway, we read a lot of comic books, and we figured out what we were, or at least made some good guesses, and we learned how to protect ourselves by following the rules the superheroes followed in the comic books."
"Different is dangerous," she offered, her voice soft. "Attract as little attention as possible. Never use your Gifts out in the open where the wrong people might see."
"Pretty much. When we discovered Felicity, we helped her hide what she could do. It was kind of fun, us against the world."
"Hiding from the house parents."
"Hmm, pretty much. But we had Angela to encourage us. And then Lanie got adopted out, and her folks..." He chuckled. "They're not your normal grownups. When they realized Lanie could kinda-sorta fly, they didn't freak, didn't send her for testing, didn't let the Men in Black find her. They gave us a lot of good advice and accepted us for what we were, through the years. Remind me to tell you some time about the year we decided we were aliens dropped on Earth by accident, and we tried to make contact with the home planet."
"How old were you?"
"Middle school. Those were great times, when we didn't realize how much danger we really were in..." His face seemed to darken and grow weary. "Then you grow up and you realize that the town that has protected you all these years, that has made it possible to be as weird as you wanted until you could figure out what you were, what you could do, needs as much guarding as it gave you. Neighborlee is the—"
"Weirdness capital of the world. Yeah, you said that."
"Lanie is the one who says it. She's kind of our brains." He sighed. "Look, I'm trying to say I'm sorry. I just figure anyone who comes from outside, they're not on our side. After what happened at Christmas, with those three kids coming after Lanie... Maybe coming after all of us. It's kind of hard to trust outsiders." A shrug. "You're not an outsider, though. Even if Angela wasn't vouching for you, it's hard to say you're not one of us, not after tonight."
"About those kids who tried to hurt Lanie—"
"Don't ask. They just vanished. We don't know where they went, but we figured the ones who sent them after her took them away."
"No, they didn't." She fought the urge to squirm when his relaxed, weary expression turned hard and sharp again. "My... The Old Poops took them away for fixing and training. But we didn't send those kids here. Someone else sent them, and my teachers are making sure they can't take them back."
"O...kay... I guess that's good to know."
"Doesn't really help us with the current problem, does it? How the Old Poops missed you and Lanie and Felicity. How they missed you three, when they got me. And my Gift is going invisible, so that's kind of ironic they found me but not you."
"Going invisible is kind of flashy." His expression relaxed a little, warming. "We were just starting to wonder about you when you up and vanished—permanently, or so we thought."
"That might not have been such a good thing. I mean, if you made contact with me, took me into the group. It might have been a big mess when the Old Poops came to take me away."
"Might have brought you back sooner. Might have answered some questions. We've been trying to find out what happened to all the kids through the years who just vanished from NCH. Of course, we've got proof now that your teachers aren't the only ones who know about..." He spread his arms, taking in the whole town.
"Mysteries on top of mysteries."
This was all getting too heavy. Her stomach woke up, and let her know the popcorn she had eaten wasn't good enough anymore. "Hungry?"
"You could hear my stomach all the way over there?" He grinned crookedly.
Jane bit back a response that no, she hadn't. Oddly, that felt a little too intimate. She snapped her fingers, focused the Ghost field across the room, and held out both hands. The cookie jar came floating over to her. She waved one hand and sent it spinning gently over to Kurt, first.
"Nice. I can manage the bigger, flashier details, but not something this delicate." He lifted the lid of the cookie jar and the roar of a wave echoed through the living room, eliciting a bark of laughter. He bit into the first cookie he took out, heavy with peanut butter chips, gum drops, chocolate swirls, and sprinkles, sandwiched together with cream filling. A groan escaped him, muffled by gooey filling. "Cookies to die for. Marry me?" He took two more cookies, put the lid back on and sent the jar floating over to her.
"Puh-lease." Jane rolled her eyes and slouched a little further in the futon. She wasn't about to admit that she got creative and made thousand-calorie-per-bite cookies when she was frustrated.
"What? You have something against perpetuating the species?"
"Figure out what species we are,
then we can talk about— Let's concentrate on finding this new Gift, if that's what you were hinting at before. Find all of us, instead of trying to make more of us."
"Picky, picky." He grinned, making her think of an adorable little boy full of mischief, with a thin core of uncertainty and hunger for acceptance. For some reason, that made everything better. Could he have a few specks of insecurity? Doggone it. She could start liking the guy inside the gorgeous, rough-cut packaging.
At least he wasn't going to push her on that uncomfortable topic of increasing their numbers, Jane mused as she took her first nibble. Then something she hadn't considered yet cut through all her other thoughts. Jane sat up straight, nearly knocking the cookie jar off her lap.
Chapter Twelve
"You sensed something while we were out there. You sensed someone—otherwise you would have accused me of making Evan's car do that. What did you sense? You have a Gift for sensing others at work. That's part of how you borrow Gifts, isn't it?"
"I can feel vibrations," he said with a shrug. "Kind of like people would go around with divining rods, looking for water and oil and such. I can feel when we're under attack. It helps us set up defenses."
"Against others like us?"
"You better hope whatever it is isn't like us. No, Neighborlee kind of...it's kind of like a plug. Kind of like a patch on weak spots. There's something nasty out there, trying to get in, and it has to get through Neighborlee. We can use more people to keep watch. Fight it when it comes back."
"And you're the sentinel?"
"Kind of." He shrugged. "When it happens, the approach is always different. We call it Big Ugly, but sometimes, just because of all the changes, we think there's more than one enemy, more than one place the attack is coming from."
"How can you tell? I mean, tell the difference. How do you know it's different?"
"Like an antique TV set when it warms up. You know how you think you hear something, but you're not sure?"
Hero Blues Page 17