by Izzy Szyn
“So it appeared that I picked up where I left off,” commented Amy. “Is that why you started coming into the coffee shop?” Maybe that’s why they started to flirt with her?
“Get that idea right out of your head,” Noah said. “We flirted with you because the minute we met you, we wanted you.”
“Noah’s right,” Vanessa told her. “We went to The Bean Dive to see if we could detect anything.”
“Vanessa is very good at reading people,” Noah explained.
“The minute I saw you, I wanted you in handcuffs for an entirely different reason,” admitted Vanessa. “But we both agreed you had no idea about what was going on, other than what people were talking about. If you’d been responsible there would have been a look in your eyes. It’s sort of hard to explain.”
“We’d only planned to stop in that one time,” Noah told her. “But the incidents kept happening and there were more and more calls from Williams to have you arrested, even though we knew you weren’t involved.”
“That’s what I keep going back to,” Amy stood up and started to pace. “The whole area effected has been around where I live and work. Williams has made it no secret that he doesn’t want me around, but I don’t think he is smart enough to frame me. The only reason I believe that he is in charge of the banks is that he was born into it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he needed his fingers and toes to count.”
“But if it isn’t him, then who?” Vanessa asked.
“He does have four sons,” Noah pointed out. “One of which was in The Bean Dive.”
“Graham? He’s an ass. He made my life miserable in school. But he was also getting into trouble all on his own,” Amy remembered. “As far as I know, no one knows of my connection to Williams. I never said he was my father publicly. That was one of the conditions I had to agree to. Believe me, that was the easiest thing.”
“Let’s look into Graham a little more deeply,” suggested Noah. He typed in his name and Graham’s smug face popped up on the monitor.
“Wait, I’ve seen him hanging outside of your apartment building,” Vanessa said.
“You have?” Amy couldn’t contain the shock in her voice.
“Yeah, it was the first time we visited you at your apartment,” Noah replied. “Damn, he’s been under our noses all this time.”
“Do you really think he’s Hinderer?” Amy asked.
“But why would Williams try to deflect the blame on you?” Vanessa asked.
“Maybe he knows?” suggested Amy.
“Son of a bitch has no problem throwing an innocent woman under the bus to protect his psycho son. I think this calls for a visit.” Noah walked over to a closet to get out their costumes.
For the first time Amy wished she had a costume to wear, she wanted to confront him. But if she did, she could be compromising their identity. “Amy?”
“Al, I didn’t even see you,” Amy replied.
“I’ve got something for you,” Al told her.
“What?”
“Follow me,” Al told her. He opened a panel next to the closet that contained Calypso and Dark Master’s costumes and pulled something out. “This is for you.”
“Me?” Amy took it. It was her favorite color green. A lime green mixed with threads of white. It was silky to the touch. It was also sort of sexy.
“I started making this the first time I heard them talk about you. I knew that it would just be a matter of time that you’d be here. So I took the liberty of making one. I did a search on you and found out your favorite colors. I hope I wasn’t too forward.”
Amy started to tear up that this man had so much faith that she would be joining them. “Thank you.” She said before hugging him.
“Well, put it on,” urged Vanessa, already dressed as Calypso.
Amy stripped off her robe and put it on. It fit like a glove, but wasn’t too clingy. Walking to a mirror she looked different. Wow this was her? “I also made you this.” Al said wrapping something masklike around her head. She could see perfectly fine.
“I feel so official,” Amy said.
“You’ve been a part of us since we met you, it just took a little while to get you here,” commented Noah. “You’re sexy as hell, and you’re ours.”
“When we get back, we’re going to start building up your muscles in the gym,” Noah informed her.
“Gym? What did I do wrong to you?” Amy wondered if this was the time to admit that she was enrolled in martial arts training, and that she was good at it.
“Nothing, but sometimes these crooks don’t go down easy, and like to fight,” Noah answered. “We want to make sure that you’re as safe as possible.”
“Have to say this costume is sexy as hell. The crooks might take one look at her and surrender,” commented Vanessa. “You did a great job, Al.”
“Thanks. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.”
“Let’s go talk to your sperm donor.” Noah told her.
“Okay.”
After Amy got in the middle of the Dark prowler. Noah sped out of the tunnel. Bright sunshine blinded her for a second. “Press that button,” Noah instructed.
“Okay. This is cool,” she told him as a sunscreen descended, blocking the glare of the sun.
“That's one of my favorite things about this car.” Vanessa confessed.
“Wow, look at the traffic jam up front,” Amy commented when the phone in the car panel rang. Automatically Amy started to answer.
“Go ahead,” Noah told her. “You are part of the team now.”
“Okay.” She picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Who is this?” The voice of the commissioner came over the phone.
“Artemis.”
“Why are you answering the phone? Where is Dark Master or Calypso?”
“Right here.” She answered.
“Why then are you answering the phone?”
“Dark Master said I could,” she answered.
“Put the phone on speaker, sweetheart,” Noah told her.
Doing as he suggested, he said, “Commissioner? “
“Why is Artemis answering? “
“She's now part of the team,” Vanessa informed him.
“You're letting a known criminal work with you?” He asked. “I know you mentioned that you were considering it. Wasn’t sure that you were serious.”
“Commissioner, we all know that she's not a criminal,” Noah said.
“Commissioner?” Amy spoke up. “I’ve got reasons to believe that Graham Williams is Hinderer, and that his father knew about it all along.”
“Isn't that a coincidence? He's in my office demanding her arrest. Said we’d been coddling her long enough,” Commissioner James told them.
“I want just five minutes with that man to kick his scrawny ass,” Amy replied. “I’m tired of that son of a bitch trying to stop me from making a living.” She had to smile to herself when she heard the commissioner covering up his laugh with a cough.
COMMISSIONER’ S OFFICE
“They're on their way,” James informed the arrogant piece of shit in his office. He never liked him to begin with. Too many people kissed his ass. When he thought of Artemis, he had to hand it to her for the revenge she used. She may have gone about it the wrong way, but no one was hurt, except those that deserved it.
“I want her in a cell,” Williams demanded.
“For what?” challenged James. “As far as we can tell there’s no evidence to support that she’s behind everything that’s been happening here in Quail City.”
“Are you conveniently forgetting that she hijacked the airwaves the night before last?” asked Williams.
“I never understood why you keep demanding that she be put in jail,” commented James. “She’s your daughter. Or is that the reason? You don’t want any reminders walking around Quail City to let people know that you’re not as family value oriented as people would like to have you believe? That you cheated on your wife? I got the feeling that she doesn’t want you in h
er life any more than you want her in yours. Why is it so hard to just ignore her?”
“I can’t believe you’re taking her side,” Williams said to him. “I'll have your job.”
James sighed in relief when Calypso, Dark Master, and Amy walked in. It took him a second to register the new costume she wore. Damn, if he were thirty years younger, and single, he’d go after her himself. What disturbed him even more was the look in Williams’ eyes. No man should look at his daughter that way.
“Glad you’re here Williams, saves us the chore of having you picked up,” Dark Master said to him.
“Picked up? Why me? And what the hell is she doing with you? Dressed like that? She needs to be in a cell where she can’t do any harm,” sputtered Williams.
“Commissioner, would you like to do the honors and read him his rights? Also, Williams might need a lawyer,” suggested Amy aka Artemis.
“Lawyer?” Williams repeated. “Why on earth do I need a lawyer?”
“Did you honestly think that Dark Master and Calypso were so stupid that they wouldn’t have connected the dots?” Amy asked him.
“Actually we didn’t connect the dots until you pointed it out,” Calypso said proudly. “She’s got a real knack.”
“Pointed what out?” James asked. Would he finally have what he needed to put this son of a bitch away?
“Can I borrow your computer?” Artemis asked.
“Go ahead,” Commissioner James waved her towards his computer.
Artemis sat on his chair, “Can I get your login pass codes? You can change it before we leave.”
“Sure,” James bent over and typed in the information that was requested.
“This would be easier with two monitors, but we’ll work with what we got,” Artemis told the commissioner.
Commissioner James watched in awe as Amy’s fingers flew over the keys. He barely hunted and pecked, and felt smart when he finally mastered emails. No wonder Dark Master and Calypso were insistent in getting her to join them.
Dark Master walked over to stand behind her. “As you can see Commissioner, this is a map of Quail City. Now Artemis, type in the events as they happened.”
Amy was having a blast, something inside her kicked in when she confronted Williams. She was so close to kneeing him in the balls. If her knee could find them. There was something seriously creepy about the man. She silently thanked whoever was watching over her that he wasn’t in her life growing up.
She typed in the events from the past few months, watching the dots pop on the map. “How does she know the events if she didn’t have anything to do with it?” Williams asked.
“I have a freakishly eidetic memory,” Amy answered. “It came in handy during my hacking days.”
“You mean you just look at something once or twice and remember it?” Commissioner James asked.
“Yeah, it was also handy in school. I’d just read the books at the beginning of the school year, and pretended to pay attention in class,” Amy replied.
“What were your grades like in school?” James asked.
“A’s mostly, with the exception of chemistry class. I shouldn’t be allowed near chemistry stuff. Oh, and art class, too.” Amy replied.
“What happened?” Noah asked her.
“Umm, it’s really embarrassing,” Amy answered.
“What did you do?”
“Well, we were doing a thing that mixed stuff together, and I missed a couple of things and put them in the wrong order and this weird green stuff came out. Than in art class we were doing pottery and everything I put in the kiln exploded. My paintings looked like paint exploded,” Amy replied. “It was pretty bad.”
“Make a mental note not to let you do anything scientific,” Dark Master teased.
“Let’s get back to dirtbag,” suggested Amy.
“Good idea,” Commissioner James replied.
“So you see where all the incidents occurred?”
“Yeah.” James answered.
“My apartment, my mother’s place, and my job are all around where they happened,” Amy pointed at the locations. “Now, I know he isn’t that bright and can barely operate a cellphone, so I know he didn’t do it, but his son Graham does. He liked to brag back in high school how awesome he was with computers. He made my life hell in school, and has come to every place that I ever worked and harassed me. There were times I swore that he got me fired on purpose.”
“So what does that have to do with me?” Williams asked.
“You know what he’s been up to,” Vanessa said to him. “You’ve known from the beginning, but have kept silent. Instead of doing the right thing and letting the police know, you instead pointed them in Amy’s direction. The emails demanding her arrest started coming after the first two blackouts.”
“We all know she did it,” Williams denied. “That’s how she ended up getting caught.”
“Yeah,” Amy agreed. “But I didn’t do it on purpose, I accidentally hit something that resulted in the power loss. Plus, from what the reports said, there were dead squirrels found at the main source. It’s not common knowledge that one of the leading causes of blackouts are squirrels. I’d never hurt a squirrel in my life. Someone did it to distract them from the real person responsible.”
“Dead squirrels?” The commissioner asked.
“Yeah,” Amy answered. “For some reason they get up on the polls, chew on something, or do something that causes transformers to pop. If I remember correctly, Graham got in trouble for hurting animals.”
“That’s right, he did,” James remembered.
“I like animals,” Amy told them. “I used to get in trouble for feeding the squirrels. Mom will verify that they used to knock on our patio doors. I’d go outside and they’d come running, thinking I had food.”
“So you’re saying that Graham Williams is Hinderer?” James asked.
“Yes, and that this scumbag here knew all along,” Noah told him. “The first time we visited her apartment, Graham was spotted outside. I didn’t think to put two and two together at first.”
“Where’s Graham?” Vanessa asked Williams.
“You’re actually going to take her word over that of myself, an upstanding citizen of Quail City?” Williams replied.
“You may be standing, but you’re not upstanding,” Noah said to him. “Now if you don’t want to be sharing a cell with your son, tell us where he is.”
HINDERER’S HIDEOUT
Hinderer paced back and forth. Where was his father? Why hadn’t he brought her? Or her bitch of a mother? Why not get rid of both of them? He’d found a more than effective way of dealing with people who got in his way or were no longer useful.
He smiled to himself at the look of horror on the woman’s face as she slipped through the floor. Her ear-piercing screams like music to his ears.
“Look who I found,” said his latest henchman, who he also called Carlos. To him they were just a means to an end. He’d suffer the same fate as the rest of them. He carried a struggling person into the warehouse and lifted the blindfold.
“Graham Williams? What are you doing here? Why am I here?” Ruby Wilson struggled.
“Excellent. Where did you find her?”
“I nabbed her outside of the place she gets her hair done every week,” answered Carlos. “She’d been dropped off by a strange car.”
“Now we have some bargaining leverage for Artemis,” Hinderer walked over to her mother.
“Why are you doing this?” Ruby demanded. “We’ve never bothered you.”
“It’s your fault that she was born. If it wasn’t for you, then I would have gotten the skills that she was born with. Instead I got the watered down version,” Hinderer said.
“Well, your father didn’t exactly accept the word no,” Ruby told him. “He told me that no one in Quail City would convict him. That I was nobody and that everyone would believe that I was a slut.”
“You are a slut,” Hinderer said to her. “My father didn’t
have to force you to do anything. You instead tried to blackmail him after you lied and said you were on birth control.”
“You’re really crazy, aren’t you?” Ruby replied.
“I’M NOT CRAZY!” he screamed. Calming himself down, he handed her a phone. “Now call your bitch of a daughter.”
COMMISSIONER’S OFFICE
“Something’s wrong,” Amy stood up and walked over to Williams. “Where’s Graham?”
“What do you mean something’s wrong?” Noah asked her.
“Something’s happened to my mom,” Amy replied. “We’ve always somehow been able to communicate. Now where is she, you son of a bitch?”
“What makes you think he has her,” Williams declined to answer.
Amy saw the sweat starting to bead on his forehead. More than sweat will bead on him if something happened to her mother. No rock would be able to hide him. “Tell me where he has her.”
Just then Dark Master’s cell rang. “Hello?”
Amy saw from the look on his face she was right. The bastard had five seconds before she kicked his ass. It would be worth the jail time. The more Noah talked the darker his face got.
“Where is she?” Noah went up to Williams. “Your bastard has her. She’d insisted on going to get her hair done. My associate accompanied her. He decided to go and get them some water next door. When he turned to look out the window, he saw some guy dragging her out. He did say she got some good kicks in, though. Now where is he?”
Amy’s own phone started to ring. It was like the number from before, the one that had been blocked. “It’s Hinderer.”
“Don’t answer yet,” Vanessa came up to her and placed something on her cellphone. “Go ahead. It’s a tracer. Put the phone on speaker.”
“Okay.” Amy answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Amy? Graham’s holding me hostage in some warehouse. He wants you to come alone to this address.” Ruby’s voice came over the phone. “But don’t do it. I don’t care what happens to me.”
“Listen and listen good,” Hinderer’s voice came over the phone.
“Get here,” he ordered. “No cops. No Dark Master. No Calypso. Just you. Understand?