Boyfriend from Hell (Saturn's Daughters) Page 23

  Oh, crap. Just when I’d thought I was finding my way, the cops had my number again. I was pretty sure daughters of Saturn weren’t invulnerable. My leg could still break if I was pushed down stairs.

  26

  Andre’s Mercedes sidled up to me before I even made it out of the Zone. He gestured for me to get in. Rather than be hauled around like a gunnysack again, I complied silently, slamming the door.

  “Cora conjures snakes when she’s mad,” he said conversationally. “Started a few years back when one of Frank’s clients came after her with a shotgun. Put the fear of God in the bastard when a python swung down and stared him in the eye.”

  “I wasn’t mad when I imagined catching the invisible thief.” I leaned my head against the window and did my very best not to think, because I really wanted to make those goons walk naked through the park and I knew I didn’t dare.

  “No, you do insane things when you’re mad, like stealing Escalades from thugs. But it’s probably all connected somehow. Tim doesn’t disappear when he’s mad. Sarah turns to a chimp when she’s frightened. Some of us eventually learn control.”

  I glared at him for that us. “You’re putting two and two together? Cora conjures snakes and you just get math?” I asked, just to keep from answering the question in his voice. “If you’re included in that ‘us,’ what else do you have going for you? That’s hardly enough for a guy who’s lived here all his life.”

  “I was Special Ops, trained for war and accustomed to harsh situations, stewed in chemicals on the battlefield and since birth. My father worked for Acme at one time. I may be immune to the worst of it, but I’m not entirely immune. I just try not to do anything dramatic. But you and Sarah are the only ones who receive rewards for your actions.”

  “Cora always looked like that?” I asked jealously, focusing on the shallow rather than his limited revelations.

  “Not when she was a kid, but she grew into it. And that’s another thing—most of us grew up here or lived here a long time. Even Sarah has lived nearby since before the flood. We have chemicals in our blood. You’re the only newcomer. I think you’re an entirely new development. I want to believe the Zone has claimed you for its own purposes. For our purposes.”

  He pulled the car into the garage and closed the door. I slammed out and started for the stairs.

  As we took the steps beneath the street, I finally got a handle on the discrepancy in his story line. “You want to believe in a magical dispenser of justice, but you don’t want to believe Max is still around. Your two and twos are all about what you want, not what is.”

  “They buried Max,” he said curtly. “He’s gone. Let him go.”

  “He won’t go until he gets whoever killed him. He was investigating the Zone. I’m thinking you’re the one who wants to keep Zone secrets.”

  “I did not kill Max! Cripes, Clancy, you’re a head case. But I don’t believe you’re talking to a dead man in your mirror. Weird in this life, yes. In the next? Hardly.”

  Not arguing with nonbelievers. “Whose kitchen is this?” I asked, changing the subject by admiring the fancy kitchen.

  “Mine. And thank you for cooking for my dad. He won’t leave the house anymore, and home-cooked meals aren’t my specialty.”

  Damn, I wanted to like him. But I’d watched Andre at work for too long and knew he wasn’t to be trusted. He lied without blinking. Maybe they taught that in Special Ops school. There was far more to him than he was letting on. I’d let the comment about his trying not to do anything dramatic pass by because I wasn’t ready to deal with it. If attacking with AK-47s wasn’t dramatic, I’d hate to imagine what was.

  Upstairs, Milo greeted us at the door, wrapping himself around my ankles in welcome—or a blatant plea for kitty treats. I calculated that Andre was just like Milo, playing nice to get what he wanted. I simply wasn’t sucker enough to buy what he was selling. I opened his father’s refrigerator door as if I were in my own home, found apples and cheese, and sat down at the table while Andre talked with his dad in the front room.

  Frustrated that the painful disaster at my former school was coming back to haunt me, leaving me vaguely nauseated and feeling hunted, I pulled Max’s Vanderventer file out of my backpack. I knew I needed to be studying, but I was hiding in someone else’s house for a reason. I wanted to know the name of the nasty player out to get me.

  I handed Milo a piece of cheese and began reading Max’s atrocious handwriting. I earned scholarships because I’m not dumb and because I can read fast—once I learn to translate gibberish. I was halfway through the file with a muscle in my jaw jumping when I pulled out my compact and opened it.

  “You’re Dane Vanderventer’s cousin?” I asked Max when he appeared.

  He scowled. “Second cousins. Took you this long to find out? What have you been doing, sleeping with Andre?”

  I snapped the compact closed. Men are a pain in the ass.

  I snapped it back open a few pages later. “Your butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth grandmother owns half of Acme?”

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s old news, Justy. Not relevant. Her husband and Dane’s grandfather were brothers. They died and left their fortunes to the grannies. They’re old witches more concerned about their wealth than chemicals. Don’t get sidetracked.”

  “Then tell me what the hell I’m looking for!” I shouted . . . just as Andre entered with a peculiar expression on his face.

  He glanced from the mirror to me. “Magic mirror?”

  “Unless you have something useful to say, Andre, go back to work.” I defiantly left the compact open. Max watched me warily.

  I could tell Andre was looking over my shoulder at the mirror. I didn’t know what he could see, but Max’s eyes narrowed, so I knew he was looking back.

  “You should have killed her, man,” Andre said sardonically, speaking to the mirror. “She’s mean, she’s secretive, and she doesn’t play well with others.”

  Guess that answered one question—I wasn’t the only one who could see Max, at least while I was holding the mirror.

  Max snorted. “That’s what I love about her.”

  Andre didn’t seem to hear Max’s voice, since it was inside my head. I quickly dismissed the fake male camaraderie and went straight to the big stuff.

  “You love me?” I asked in incredulity. “That’s a load of crap, Maxim MacNeill. My questionable charms are why you used me—because you knew I was tough.”

  “So, I had other things on my mind,” Max admitted. “But that’s changing. You’re changing, Justy. Get me out of here so we can work together. There’s weird shit going down at the plant that’s being covered up, and Dane’s part of it. I don’t think even the grannies know.”

  “Give me something, anything, to nail Vanderventer, Max,” I pleaded. “I don’t know how to get you out of there, but Vanderventer is here and I can reach him.”

  Andre snorted and straightened. “If all he’s telling you about is Dane, then he’s useless. You’d learn more from Paddy, if he was coherent.”

  “Leave Paddy alone!” Max shouted. “He wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

  “Paddy?” I asked, before remembering the senile old guy wandering around Ernesto’s kitchen. He’d warned me to stay away from his “family.” “Is Paddy related, too?”

  “Dane’s father. He’s harmless,” Max asserted. “He tried to prevent the chemical spill and got cooked. Brains on chemicals, not pretty. He lives in his office these days.”

  “Acme cooked Paddy’s brains and that’s why you want to bring them down?” I asked in incredulity. Now I knew why Paddy looked familiar—he had Max’s eyes.

  Andre squeezed my shoulders. “Max, if you’re in there, you better understand that your girlfriend can wish your family to hell if they make her mad. Acme makes chemical weapons for the government. You should be teaching her some common sense instead of inciting her to breaches of national security.”

  Andre’s touch woke me up to the dangerous rage b
uilding inside me. I glowered, closed the compact, and put my head in my hands.

  I’d actually visualized catching a thief and caught one. Maybe I ought to visualize Max free from wherever he was. He had been a bad boyfriend, but he didn’t deserve hell. I concentrated on visualizing Max by my side, but it just didn’t happen.

  “It’s not funny, Andre,” I muttered, twitching away from his grasp. “I could have turned the kid into a gorilla. I have no idea if I could have turned him back.”

  “Setting a gorilla loose down here might attract attention,” he agreed solemnly, but he backed off at my reminder that I was a loose cannon. “I’m thinking you’d better limit your imagination to immediate punishment like hand-slapping and not get into anything long-term like gorillas.”

  “Thanks, that’s real useful, Legrande. Just drop me on another planet without a guidebook, why don’t you?”

  “That’s what I’m saying, Clancy. Study. Stick to school. Leave the bad guys alone. Let me take care of business until you get the hang of whatever in heck you’re doing.”

  “If Dane Vanderventer was driving the limo that knocked over those kids, he’s going to pay,” I warned. “And now that I know who he is, it’s doubly suspicious if he was down here the day Max died.”

  “Dane Vanderventer is a conscienceless bastard who is guilty of so much worse, you’d have to send him to hell to make him pay,” Andre warned. “While he might deserve it, you deserve better than acting as a minion for the devil.”

  Yeah, that was kind of my thought—or would have been, if I believed in the devil. Jury was still out on that one. I scooped up my books and Milo and headed down the hall to lock the door of my assigned room behind me. I needed my privacy back.

  My damned phone rang again. I hadn’t been this popular in school. But in case Schwartz wanted to give more bad news, I opened it. A vaguely alarmed text message with Max’s phone number scrolled past: there are challenging aspects in your chart. what are you doing?

  Oh, I don’t know, messing with the Universe? Wasn’t that what I was supposed to do? I was pretty certain Max didn’t mess with charts and that I must be dealing with freaky Themis. I was annoyed enough to type back, Toying with bullies, and left it at that.

  I opened my netbook to my Facebook page and raised my eyebrows at a message from my mother: Your grandmother is worried about you. How on earth did you find her?

  Themis was really my grandmother? And sending me idiot messages? That was just about par for my course. Had catching the thief really disturbed the Universe? Well, that, on top of showering thugs and exploding tires and . . . Cosmic shake, rattle, and roll, I guess.

  There were so many ways I could answer that. For the sake of family harmony, I simply responded: She found me. Your mother, I presume?

  That was all the socializing I could tolerate for a while. We were obviously not a chatty family. I collapsed on the bed with a law book and let Milo sleep on my middle.

  But I couldn’t concentrate. I needed to prove I hadn’t killed Max. I needed to find out who had. That should take the pressure off me, keep the cops off my back by diverting their interests elsewhere.

  I probably shouldn’t have stolen the Escalade.

  I really truly did not want to be tortured with the arrest scenario again. I didn’t take rough handling with a smile. If I’d had the ability to create tornadoes back in my college days, an entire precinct would have been gone with the wind. Along with a crooked provost or two.

  So—who would cut my brakes and why? I really would have to work that out, wouldn’t I? Damn. Nothing was ever simple.

  I ran my hands into my newly thick hair and tugged. It hurt. The hair was real. My legs were real. Tim, the invisible kid, was real. I was pretty sure it was too late to move to Seattle and a normal life—especially if my boyfriend would visit me from hell wherever I went.

  It would have been nice to believe Max really did love me, but wishful thinking didn’t do anyone any good, and it certainly wasn’t going to bring Max back or change my newly weird life.

  I could wield justice. I could get even with bullies.

  The question remained, what price did I pay to do so?

  27

  I cooked up a pot of Spanish chicken for supper—enjoying the luxury of having a sliver of time to spare and someone to cook for. Julius was appreciative, and he made relaxing company, unlike his annoying son.

  I fell asleep early over my books.

  I woke up at 3:00 A.M. thinking about Vanderventer being hospitalized for burns. And remembering that the Invisible Kid should now have a place in the apartment right below me. Why lie awake and fret when I might be able to do something for a change? I craved the freedom of actually having the power to act. Was that how people in authority felt every day when they got up?

  I’d always despised authority figures, and now I might be one. Sort of. Freaking weird.

  I crawled out of bed and donned jeans and a Henley and my new athletic shoes. Dropping Milo into my bag—he was outgrowing it already—I sneaked down the stairs to the second story. I didn’t know which apartment had been vacant, but I heard a TV in one. Would the kid have a TV already? Maybe that was how he spent his stolen cash.

  But he’d given me the info on Dane and his granny, so I was willing to offer him a chance to redeem himself.

  I knocked softly. Remembering that Tim was terrified of bullies and most of the world, I slipped a note under his door rather than shout and risk waking Andre on the floor below.

  He opened it a moment later and watched me warily.

  “It’s time the Zone acquired a posse,” I informed him. “You want in?”

  He blinked several times, flickered a bit, then opened the door wider. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “Yeah, I know that feeling. It passes.” I glanced around. The apartment had apparently come furnished. Well, shoot. Most of the stuff was better than mine. Too late to take up Andre’s offer now. “Can you turn the invisibility on and off with any accuracy?”

  “Sometimes. It’s harder when I’m nervous.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense. Harder to think when nervous. I don’t want to make you nervous, but I have a tough job and think you might be the guy I need.”

  He glanced uneasily at my shoes in the corner. “I’ll give back your shoes, but Mrs. Bodine gave all my stuff to Goodwill.”

  “If I had money, I’d take you shopping and help you buy it back, but we’ll just have to make do for now. Keep the shoes. Did you leave me the note about the limo running over the kids at the bank?”

  He twitched. “Yeah. The bastard hit Jennifer. She’s one of the nice ones who don’t think I’m a freak. I’m sorry about the deposit, but I’d just copped the bolt cutters and had to turn them back before the florist missed them. I had to take the bag then or starve.”

  “You picked the wrong damned days to rob us, but I understand the necessity of using chaos as cover. Maybe we can make that work for us. I want to nail the guy I think ran over Jennifer. Are you with me?”

  “Nail him? Crucify him?” He looked interested and horrified.

  “Mostly I want to make him pay, but first, I need to know for sure if he’s guilty. I don’t like picking on innocent people.” I’d studied my printout of the bank deposits but had no proof except that the senator was one slippery bastard. “Everyone ought to have their day in court, right?”

  “That’s why you’re here at three in the morning?” he asked in confusion. Not the brightest lightbulb in the lamp.

  “Well, you’re not actually sleeping,” I pointed out. “Neither was I. Most people aren’t at their best at this hour, but I’m betting we are. I want to make a hospital visit.”

  “You’re nuts, aren’t you?” he asked without inflection.

  “Probably. But I caught you, didn’t I? Let’s catch someone really bad this time.” Before they got me first. I was damned tired of hiding. I was thinking acting instead of reacting to threats was a better m
ove.

  To hell with cops and threats. I wasn’t going down without a fight this time.

  “What’s the plan?” He eyed the shoes with longing, probably figuring sandals were safe and I wasn’t. He was right.

  “I want a demon to think I’m a witch,” I said with satisfaction.

  • • •

  Going out the front door, holding our breaths in hopes Andre didn’t hear us, I checked to see which Victorian we occupied now that I was actually using the front door. The one with brown and yellow trim. I’d known it wouldn’t be the pink one.

  At my behest, Tim took my keys, slipped over to my apartment, and grabbed Max’s jacket and mine. Andre had had my Harley delivered to the backyard, so Tim met me there. No point in alerting any lingering spies that I was still around.

  Tim was skinny enough to wear my leather jacket. I wore Max’s. Milo rode in my well-protected messenger bag. I trusted the cat’s instincts more than I did mine. Or maybe he was just my talisman.

  I’d already Googled the news stories and knew where Vanderventer had been hospitalized. At this time of night, we could get there in an hour, but high-security D.C. hospitals wouldn’t let just anyone in. I called Tech Head, and he agreed to meet us there. After I’d given him the Escalade’s equipment, he would have walked on hot coals for me. Fortunately, it was Vanderventer I wanted walking on coals. I just needed wireless gear from the techie.

  We met in the shadows of the hospital parking garage a little after 4:00 A.M.

  Tech Head nodded at Tim. “This the guy you want wired? He’ll never get past security.”

  We both looked at Tim’s tattoos and rings. I hoped the doors didn’t have metal detectors. He shifted from foot to foot, but if he flickered, it was hard to tell in the dim light.

  “We’re about to experiment,” I told him. “Show us how it works.”

  Tech wired him up and explained the system. I could tell the kid was wound tight. I plugged in my earpiece and we tested the distance from the top to the bottom of the garage. I could hear everything Tim and Techie said. While on the roof, I also located the hospital service entrance.