by C. L. Stone
“What you and I did wasn’t the same, and you know it,” he said louder, his voice dripping with something deeper, too, pleading. “Sweetheart, look at the whole picture. Arson and larceny aren’t petty charges. If you need someone other than me to tell you this isn’t good, I’ll take you to the police station myself and let them talk to you.”
No need to go that far. “This could mean anything,” I said. “You want me to go with you because they got charges dropped? They may have been wild when they were younger, but if charges were dropped recently, that’s good, isn’t it? Doesn’t that mean they weren’t guilty of anything?”
“If this isn’t enough to prove you should leave, check the phone again. There’s more.”
I forced myself to look at the phone, afraid to see any more.
There was one more photo. It was an email from a Mr. Hendricks, directed to some email without a name, only an email address with random letters and numbers.
The Academy is too dangerous a threat to ignore now. Three of my students have been arrested in a matter of a couple of weeks, all thanks to them, and Mr. McCoy is still missing. I may be next. I’m convinced they have something to do with these continuous bomb threats. Mr. Blackbourne insists on continuing his investigation of it, possibly controlling evidence. I can’t believe the school board would be so blind. We’ll have to take matters into our own hands.
“It’s a high school,” Blake said. “In Charleston. This Academy took over part of it, from what Doyle was able to figure out. Mr. McCoy is the vice principal.”
“What does he mean he’s missing?”
“They took him,” he said. “This Academy took Mr. McCoy. One day he was there, the next, vanished. Their principal has been looking for him and suspects the Academy was the cause. This Mr. McCoy may know something the Academy doesn’t want anyone to find out.”
“Who is Mr. Blackbourne?”
“Another one of the Academy’s people, planted in that school under the ruse of a new academic supervisor or something like that. Doyle is trying to track him now, although he’s having a hard time. He can only catch him while he’s at the school.”
I slumped in the seat, releasing a heavy sigh. I stared out the window at the flashy tourist billboards, not really reading, just looking at the pictures. A missing person was not something I could ignore. A school in danger of being under the control of the Academy? What did they want with a school? None of it made much sense to me.
But I couldn’t deny it. I swallowed hard and then picked up the phone again, focusing. People were missing. Bomb threats on a school. Terrorist-like actions. I’d been duped and I didn’t like it.
“I didn’t know.” I said quietly.
“Tell me how you got involved,” Blake said. “What do you know?”
I stroked a finger across my brow, not liking revealing this information, but he shared a lot with me. If he believed this, he’d risked a lot looking for me. No wonder he was acting so cautious before. “They caught me lifting wallets at the mall.” I stopped there, trying to figure out a way to talk about this where I didn’t feel like someone as bad as the boys appeared to be.
He slid his eyes at me when I took too long. “Why?”
“Long story.”
“Tell me.”
I grunted. “I couldn’t afford my rent that week. When I didn’t have enough to cover, I’d go out and...borrow a little.”
His mouth opened a bit, even as he refocused on the road. “Don’t you mean steal?”
“Don’t judge,” I said. “I had a job, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t just supporting myself.”
He sliced his hand through the air and then grabbed the wheel again. “Fine, okay. So you were pickpocketing. They found you doing this?”
“Yes. They caught me by planting one of their guys as a target. When the trapped me, they told me…they made the Academy out to be a security team of some sort. They wanted me to help them.”
He stopped at a light and then turned to me, looking at my eyes. Those gold flecks shined, curious. “With me, right? They picked you up because they needed someone like you to get to me?”
I nodded slowly.
“The party,” he said. He paused, tapping at the steering wheel. “You took my wallet?”
I bit my lower lip. Busted.
He smirked, shaking his head. “So you weren’t just looking for an opening with the whole spilled champagne trick.”
“Worked, didn’t it?”
“You didn’t take anything from me,” he said. He rolled forward as the light turned green. “It didn’t work.”
“I did,” I said. “I took your wallet.”
“But I’ve got my wallet now.”
“I put it back.”
He slowly turned his head, glancing at me. “You did it twice?”
“They wanted your key card to your office,” I said. “So I took your wallet, they took the key card, and then when they brought it back after checking it out, they had me put your wallet back so you wouldn’t know.”
“And that didn’t strike you as devious?”
I couldn’t explain it. I’d said the same thing to the boys in the beginning, hadn’t I?
A burning started deep inside me, wanting answers and frustrated that I couldn’t come up with any.
What fired me up worse was that I still wanted to make excuses. I wanted to go back and demand proof that they weren’t flat out bad guys.
While I was thinking, Blake wove through the last of St. Augustine, passing by homes now. We’d be out of the city soon. “Sweetie,” he said quietly. “Darling. Sugar pie. Listen, these aren’t good guys or—“
“I’m not exactly a saint,” I snapped. “Neither are you.”
“I don’t know what they told you, but they thought you were a criminal and they picked you up because they thought you would understand. Why did you even follow them down here?”
“I wanted to learn more about the Academy,” I said.
“But why did they come to Florida? I thought at first you were after me again.”
“Someone’s grandmother,” I said. “It’s complicated, but a member of the Academy had a grandmother in trouble.”
“Helping family?” he asked. “Sounds like mafia to me. You need to get out of this.”
“I can’t,” I said. I swallowed, closing my eyes as I sat back. It was too late for me.
“But...”
“It isn’t about me,” I said. “My brother. Wil.”
“You have a brother?”
My eyes popped open and I smacked his arm. “Don’t lie to me. Did you know about him?”
He shoved my arm away and then rubbed the spot where I hit him. “Don’t go biting the hand, sugar. I only knew a few things about you. I don’t remember learning about a brother. If I saw it somewhere, I didn’t think about it. I was only looking for you.”
“I have a brother going to school in Charleston. The last time I went home, I couldn’t find him.”
“What happened?”
“He moved out. I don’t know where he is and I can’t call him. But the guys--this Academy—they have records. Mine and his. I had them helping me look for him and then found out they have all this information on me.”
“We’ll go back,” he said. “We can go get your brother.”
“I didn’t want to find Wil until I knew what the Academy was about,” I said. “If Wil is missing to them, that’s good. It gives me time. They’ve got files on both of us. I need to get those back and then I can look for him and get him out of this mess.”
He turned the car into the parking lot of an outlet center, parking in one of the spaces and shoving the stick into park. He threw off his sunglasses and twisted in the seat, studying me. “What do you mean?” he asked. “What files?”
“They have all this information on me. Birth certificates, social security numbers. Everything.”
He sucked in a breath. “Dangerous.”
I nodded, my heart po
unding and not easing at all. How could I have been so stupid? Maybe they had worked together on this. I mean, how is it this many hot guys work and live in the same place, and they all started flirting with me at the same time? I swallowed back the emotion, trying to smother the anger welling up inside. It was like everywhere I turned now, I was slammed again by betrayal.
It was worse when I considered that some of them had kissed me, and I’d let them when it might have been an act. I tucked back the thoughts before I lashed out and broke something.
Blake tapped his fingers against the middle console, tracing the edge of the leather. “Sweetie, I hate to ask this, but... are you sure Wil’s gone of his own accord?”
I stared at him for a long moment, not registering the question. “What do you mean?”
“What if they have him?” he asked. He looked up, meeting my eyes. “How do you know they didn’t take him?”
“I don’t think they did that.”
“They could. They’ve already done it. They took you.”
I sat back, grinding my teeth. It didn’t seem likely that they’d taken Wil, but now I was conflicted. Wil being missing didn’t make sense to me at the time. I’d never have believed it a week ago that he’d disappear without telling me.
Then Wil was still going to school? If I were going to run off, I wouldn’t keep going to school.
But it was the guys who told me he was still going to school. Would they lie about it? If they did, why? So they could string me along further? “I don’t know,” I said. “If that is true, then I really have to go back.”
“You shouldn’t go anywhere near them. I’ve had Doyle going through whatever he can to find information about this Academy. Once we find what we think is a team, they don’t seem to have a connection to the others. Each group is isolated. No obvious phone calls or emails, not even encrypted ones. This is a strange system, because it’s like each little cell works independently without needing to contact the others, at least that we can tell. Not all of them are like your group. The few other members we have identified seemed to be upstanding citizens of the community. There’s one that’s president of the Rose Society in Charleston, for Christ’s sake. But because they work in small groups, none seem to stand out as being in charge.”
Corey and Raven said Axel was in charge. It had confused me, but maybe that’s how they worked it out. If they claim Axel is the boss, they only expose their own group, and don’t point fingers at who is really in charge. “They appeal to someone. I overheard a conversation about a group… family meeting.”
Blake huffed. “Mafia.”
“Maybe. And maybe I should find out. Wouldn’t that be better if I stay? I could figure out how they’re doing this.”
He made a face, shaking his head. “You’re dreaming, sunshine.”
“Why not? They already wanted me to join them. I should take them up on that.”
He grasped my forearm, focusing on me. “I don’t like it,” he said. “You’d be bait. If they found out you were getting in to dig out information, then you’d be the one who would disappear next.”
I was convinced I had to do this. If they were as bad as Blake thought, and they appeared to be, someone had to expose them. “But if you’re working with me, and Doyle helps, we could figure this out. We’ll find out who the leader is, and figure out the truth.”
“They’re criminals. You don’t want to go undercover with them. If you get caught by the police while with them, they’re not going to know or understand. You’ll be implicated right along with them as an accessory, even if you don’t do anything wrong.”
“If they are that bad, and no FBI or CIA people are checking them out, shouldn’t we?”
He paused, still clinging to my wrist. He smoothed his thumb over my skin, massaging slowly. “I don’t like this idea.”
“I have to,” I said. I drew my wrist from his hands, not wanting to be distracted or persuaded now. This convinced me more than ever that I had to go back. “If...if they do have Wil, I have to find him. I’ll get him out, and then do what I can to figure out what’s going on. You wanted to help Charleston before, right? It’s why we were getting rid of those drugs. If you really want to help, wouldn’t uncovering this mystery group be the best thing we’ve ever done for our city?”
His eyes locked on mine, the flecks of gold amid the hazel dancing. He touched his tongue to his lips, wetting them and then pressed them together for a moment. “I really don’t like this,” he said, finally. “But if you weren’t here right now, I’d probably be trying to do the same thing.”
“I don’t think they’d let you in.”
“If only,” he said, but he shook his head. “Can’t worry about it now. If you’re going in, I want constant communication from you. I’ll check with Doyle on the best way to do that.”
I nodded, sitting up in my seat and ready to go kick someone’s ass for lying to me. “I need you to back off, though. If they see you lurking around, they’ll want to know why.”
“If something happens,” he said, “I want your word you’ll leave. I still say we bail as soon as we can. We’ll take Wil with us. We could disappear.”
Tempting, especially as I’d thought the same thing so many times, just not with Blake. Still, I couldn’t accept that answer. “I’m not running. If they don’t have Wil, I want him out of their reach. Even if he’s safe, we still have to expose the Academy.”
“I’ll start Doyle on trying to locate him. We’ll do it your way. For now.” He sat back a little, gazing out the windshield. The sun was getting low in the sky. “And here I was going to take you to the beach house.”
A pang of guilt swept through me. He had no reason to help me and he was sitting here doing what he could, warning me, offering me a place to hide. It was hard to trust him completely, but he made it difficult to say no. “Maybe next time.”
He smiled. “So you would have gone with me? I think that’s progress.” He turned the car around, heading back the way we’d come. “Don’t use that phone to contact me anymore. I’m going to toss this one. If we hear about your brother, though, I’ll send a message.”
“Don’t…” I paused, unsure how to put it. “Don’t approach him. If he did run off on his own, and the Academy can’t find him, keep it that way for now until I can get to him.”
He nodded, revving up the car’s engine and speeding down the road, back toward the hotel. “I’m going to stay close. So if you need something, I’ll be around.”
I fell into silence with him, even though I felt there was so much more I needed to say. The new information was too much, too overwhelming to take in.
When we got close to the hotel, I was compelled to say something still. He didn’t have to help me. He didn’t have to be involved, or come back to warn me. I’d done so much damage to him. I didn’t deserve his help, but I needed to show I appreciated it. “So I guess we’re working together now. Feels like old times.”
“You mean it feels like two days ago.” He grinned. “Funny how things change when you actually listen for once. Would prevent a lot of accidents.”
He wasn’t going to let that go. “Sorry about your boat,” I said.
“I’m more thinking about you shooting me.”
Probably wasn’t going to let me forget that one, either. “...Your boat was kind of nice.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “I really must have a death wish.” He pulled into the lot of a restaurant that was across the street from the hotel. “I don’t want to get too close right now. I’ll follow you, though. If you need help, just walk away. Run off by yourself somewhere. I’ll see you.”
I nodded, pressing my palms against the leather seat. Now that I was facing the hotel again, my nerves started to shake, like just before I was going to pick someone’s pocket. Was this the right thing? Was I just asking for trouble?
I started to open the door, but Blake snagged my arm, pulling me back. He tugged me until he could press his lips to mine.
It started out as just a peck, a small kiss that was comforting, filled with a promise that he’d be there watching if I needed to run.
I reached for him, touching his cheek gently, making it last. I was thanking him.
He deepened the kiss then. He smoothed his palm along my neck, drawing me in. His lips parted, his mouth slackened. I tried to match it, learning his kiss.
I needed it, that small connection. I needed to know someone was there for me. The lies were piling up around me, and this was the last straw before I ran away from it all and gave up on everything. I needed to know if the Academy did make me disappear tomorrow, that someone might actually give a damn to look for me.
He pulled back slowly, and I understood. I didn’t want to let go, either, but I’d been gone too long already.
When he backed his head up, and that handsome smile lit up those golden flecks, my heart started doing the dare-devil pounding.
“One day,” he said quietly, “when this is over, I want to take you sailing again. Just you and me. We’ll sail right out of Charleston, and we’ll go wherever you want.”
I couldn’t think about it right now. It was too tempting. I opened the door, almost running away from him, from the idea that all I had to do was get back into the car with him and drive off. We could find Wil and then just disappear.
I shook the thought off for the final time. New mission. New plan.
As I walked toward the hotel and found my way back inside, every beat I felt inside my heart turned into a heat that infected every part of me. After Jack lied to me about money, I wasn’t very tolerant of other people lying to me, too. They swore they were the good guys. Good guys don’t commit arson and larceny. Good guys don’t kidnap a high school vice-principal.
Good guys don’t need to work in secret. I should know. I was the thief that hid away from people for so long.