Reality (The Girl in the Box Book 52), page 3
“I'm just tired, Reed,” I said. I shouldn't have lied, but I did. Well, half-lied. You couldn't get by on as little sleep as I was lately and not be tired. But I wasn't “just” tired.
“I was minutes behind you, you know,” he said.
“I know.”
“You could have waited,” he said. “Minutes could mean your life.”
What life? I didn't say. “What time is it?” I asked instead.
“Close to five.”
I sat up on the hood, the shocks squeaking at my movement. “I gotta wrap this up and give my statement so I can get home and feed the fur babies.”
“You looked comfortable there,” Reed said softly, his eyes warm and slightly glistening.
I stared at him, almost blankly. “I was cold; my blood was settled.”
His brow tightened. “'Death lies upon her like an untimely frost...'”
“The time of frost is coming, though.” I spared a taut smile as I rose up and started past him, ready to give my statement.
“Why are you quoting Shakespeare?” he said, stopping in my tracks. “Eilish told me you busted out a verse from King Lear. The 'wheel of fire' bit, she said.”
“It's so nice to work with literate people,” I said, turning slowly to face him.
My brother stepped closer. “You don't even remember him.”
“Shakespeare? Bit before my time.” I felt the evening chill upon my face, as the blood drained out of it. My misdirect neither missed nor directed him elsewhere. So he did know. He did notice. “No. I don't remember him.”
“Then why are you walking around like a widow?” he asked, putting a warm hand on my arm.
Inside me, I placed another block of ice around my heart to keep at bay these strange – unexplained, unexplainable – feelings that had been vexing me day and night of late. “Because I am one,” I said, unable to just leave him without an answer. Behind me, I could imagine the pain on his face deepening as I left him there to do the next things that needed to be done.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Eilish
I didn't want to, but I overheard some of Sienna and Reed's conversation between the bits of my own statement. As Sienna passed me, I glanced at her, and the momentary surprise flickered across her face. Caught in her own head, in her own world, she'd forgotten I was here.
“You're not saying you're the sweetest flower in all the field, though, are you ye?” I asked, as lightly as I could. It was from Romeo and Juliet. Act IV, Scene V – when she fakes her death to try and escape Verona to reunite with Romeo. I recognized it of course, as obvious to me as the deepening worry of her brother. She missed a step, almost stumbled, but caught herself with her powers. “Not that you're not fair,” I hastened to add.
She seemed to think this over for but a moment. “I am extremely unfair,” she said. “Though perhaps not as unfair as death, real and actual. After all – I don't kill babies or the innocent.”
And with that grim pronouncement, she trudged off, head held high – but a distinct lachrymose sense hanging about her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Scott Byerly
He woke just before six and tried to slip out, but she caught him just after he'd put his pants on. So he stood there, bare-chested, trying to think of what to say in reply to her sweetly whispered, “Hey. You leaving?”
Dawn's early light was slipping in through the blinds in the one-bedroom apartment. There was an aroma of sage or some New Agey shit in the air, strong his nostrils, probably stronger than she smelled it by quite a lot, for she was human and he was not. “I have to get into the office,” he said, not stopping as he pulled his undershirt over his head, the white fibers stretching over his muscular physique.
“Can I see you again tonight?” she asked, so full of hope. That was troubling.
“Probably picking up my next assignment today.” Scott felt his guts tense. This was always the prickly moment in these things; better to end it swiftly, not let it linger. “I'll be heading out of town again. Don't even know where, yet, or for how long.”
“Oh.” He could barely see her face in the shadows. In truth, he didn't quite remember what she looked like. Though he could see chestnut hair in the semi-dark, her features were shrouded. “Well, when you get back–”
“It'll be a while,” he said. “But if you want to give me your number, I can, uh...maybe reach out when I get back. If I have time.” There. Noncommittal, but slightly open. He didn't want to give her the impression that he was looking for anything other than this, after all. Strings were for puppets. He was more of the “fly free” type. “Just really busy these days, you know.”
“Yeah,” she said, but her voice had fallen. “Sure. I guess I just thought...” She fell into silence.
“Hey,” he said, and slid back to the bed beside her, but maintained a short distance between them. Breaking contact – that was what this was about. But he still didn't want to be an asshole. Too bad he didn't have an empath's powers to go along with his water abilities. “We had fun, didn't we?”
“I just,” she said, voice so soft, “thought maybe...after we talked last night...you felt like I did. That this wasn't just...that it was the start of something.”
“I am out of town more than I am in it,” Scott said, looking at her across the bed. Now he could see her features plain, and she was pretty enough. Her name still escaped him, though. “You wouldn't even be able to count on a date with me, because even when I'm here, I'm working. I'd just disappoint you in the end, so...” He tried to maintain a stoic, sad smile, “I'd rather disappoint you now, after we've had one good night together than later, when you realize that I'll never be what you need me to be. Because I can't be.”
“That's...honest, I guess,” she said, turning her face away. Her voice dropped considerably, and she added, to herself, “I wish you'd been this honest last night.”
But then this might not have happened, Scott thought, and his face burned. “I should go,” he said instead.
“Right,” she said. “The office calls.”
“It's saving lives,” he said, picking up his wrinkled dress shirt off the soft carpet. “What's more important than that?” And he slipped his shoes on, headed for the door.
“Love?” she whispered – but not loud enough a normal person could hear it, so he pretended not to as well.
He made it down to his car, still fastening his cufflinks. His tie was stuffed in the pocket of his sport coat, but what she'd said still stung him. Messing with his hair in the mirror of his Audi TT RS Coupe, he found it more than tousled by the night on the unfamiliar bed. He should have left after they'd finished, but he'd been tired, and she'd been...sweet.
Scott Byerly stared into his blue eyes reflecting back at him and for but a moment, felt a brushing touch of regret. It passed, though, as it always did and a dark humor sprouted in its place within. “Who has time for love?” he asked as he started the car and looked away from his reflection.
Not him. He put the car in drive and pulled out. He'd parked it last night rear-in to the space, leaving it ready to make a quick exit when he needed to. It was becoming a habit.
CHAPTER NINE
Sienna
I fed the dogs and Emma, showered, redressed myself, and made it out the door before Reed did. He caught up to me at the office, of course, but he didn't say anything about our night and I didn't go out of my way to bring it up. We sat in our separate offices, me alternating between looking at my computer screen and out at the bullpen, which had the largest crowd I'd seen here in...well, quite some time.
Augustus broke my reverie when he rapped his knuckles against the jamb of my open door. “You busy?”
“Just doing some digging,” I said, glancing at the TBI interface open in my browser window. My quarry from last night stared back at me from his mug shot, looking somehow twice as ugly as he had when he'd been covered in soot and plasma, face lit by fire and unquenchable rage. “Into the guy that tried to kill me last night.”
“Uh huh,” Augustus said, and I saw a brief war within him as he debated closing the door but finally left it open. Everyone could hear us through it anyway. “I hear you're quoting Shakespeare. And not Twelfth Night or Much Ado, either. You're going dark with it.”
“You're just mad because I'm leading the office fantasy football league and I don't even know what a tight end is.”
A subtle shadow of irritation passed over his face. “That's not fair.”
“She says she's not fair,” Eilish's voice cracked in from the bullpen. Her strawberry blond locks peeked up from behind her cubicle wall.
“I've always found her quite fair,” Scott said, slipping into the bullpen from the office door, shirt unbuttoned, bringing with him a hard whiff of sage, the stink of sex and regret wafting off of him with it. As usual. “Fair as in–”
“Yes, we all got the dating allusion,” Augustus said, now looking quite pained at his decision to leave that door open. No time for regrets.
“I think I figured out what a tight end is,” I said, musing aloud. “It's the opposite of the girls Scott's knocking off nightly.”
Scott stopped, blushing to his white collar, which was smudged with a lipstick stain. He faux-clutched at his heart, as though I'd wounded him. “Ouch.” Glancing down at his desk for a moment, he added, “But probably fair.”
“She's not fair,” Eilish added again, broken record.
“But I am just,” I said, looking back at my computer screen and the mugshot staring back at me.
Augustus rubbed the bridge of his nose, then sauntered over and looked at my screen. “Gerry Cordell. Now in custody.” He looked to me. “Problem solved, right?”
“Not quite,” I said, and pointed to the corner of the TBI profile where his story was told in his convictions. “Mr. Cordell is in custody – and a huge piece of girlfriend-murdering shit, no less – but he was a wanted felon before this. Bank robber, convenience store stick-up artist, home invader, drug dealer – you name the crime, he's probably done time for it.”
“Another failure of the system,” Augustus said. “All right. But you brought him to justice.”
“Sort of,” I said, no thanks to Eilish. I'd had a different form of justice in mind for Cordell, which she'd interrupted. I saw her beyond the rim of the cube, still watching me. “Cordell is wrapped up, but he's got an accomplice that's still at large.” And I clicked the link to bring up that profile.
“Eddie Greene?” Augustus stared at the picture looking back at us. “Looks like a wedding singer at the whitest wedding you could ever be invited to. One with goat yoga, and Peloton gifts for the bridesmaids. Pumpkin spice drinks at the open bar.”
“I'd like to go to that wedding,” Eilish said.
“I wouldn't,” Scott said.
“You sure? They have bridesmaids. Lusty ladies sad and jealous over their friend tying the knot,” I said, taking the opportunity to deliver another quality burn that flushed his face red. “I'd think it'd be a target-rich environment for you. Or is it like getting too close to the fire?”
He looked like he wanted to respond, but he didn't. Instead he looked like I'd pinched him hard, frowning sourly, then took his tie out of his pocket and dropped it on the desk. The very same he'd worn yesterday, because he hadn't bothered to go home to change, clearly.
“All right, I see unfinished business here,” Augustus said. “This looks like TBI stuff to me, though. Know where he is? You gonna go get him real quick? Because I could use you here, to be honest. We have jobs rolling in by the day. Hourly, really. Hundreds of requests, you know?”
“I'm walking a tight line here,” I said. “Do too little for TBI–”
He put his hands up in surrender. “I know, I know. We operate here both with their help and at their sufferance. And I think it's obvious we are all about pitching in when the state asks, mostly gratis. It's a good arrangement, them giving us access to law enforcement databases and all, cross-deputizing us...” He leaned in closer. “...But we are buried right now, Sienna. You've been working like a fiend since you got back three months ago, and I see the needle moving here in Tennessee in the crime stats...and I'd really like to deliver that to our clients in other states, y'know? They are begging for relief. Or at least the appearance of it.”
“There's only so much of me to go around, boys,” I said, catching Eilish and Scott still looking in from the bullpen. Reed was watching, too, from the door to his office, not saying a word.
“You even show up in a state and crime will drop there,” Augustus said. “DC and Baltimore have both piped down since you showed up there in June. Texas saw a ten percent drop after your visit.”
“I think we might have killed a lot of the bad guys on that one,” I said pensively. “Or...someone did.” I looked sidelong at Reed, who looked away. In fairness to him, Augustus had a big part of that one, too. But he didn't look nearly so guilty about it.
“If I could just get you for a few days,” Augustus said. “Send you to one of our favored states, the ones that give us a ton of business? Maybe work out a schedule where a few days a month you go elsewhere, lend a hand with the locals in key cities...it'd help. It'd help a lot.”
“Help them?” I asked, sensing something more here.
“It'd help me,” Augustus said. “You don't see it, but I'm managing relationships with these state law enforcement agencies and the politicians behind them. See, when we present a bill for services these days, it's astronomical. As in, out of this world.” He chucked a thumb over his shoulder. “That's why Scotty here is driving an Audi without a cent of his daddy's help. It keeps Eilish in that pretty blue BMW.”
Eilish still hung on the cube wall, looking like she'd just been poleaxed between the eyes, cheeks flushed. “It's...always been a bit of a dream of mine to own one. Going way back. A little luxury for a poor lass.”
“The legend of you keeps those wheels greased,” Augustus said. “The very promise of you...is something I've been holding out to these people since you came back to the world. The problem with a promise, though, if it's not honored in a timely manner–”
“Augustus, you have not been paying me,” I said. Not cross or anything, just stating a fact, and one I didn't particularly care about. I was, at this point, more caught up in my own thoughts and grimness than filled with concern about my own continuing near-poverty. My three attempts to move out on my own and leave Reed's cheerful farmhouse behind had been stymied by my lack of rental history, my lack of first and last month's rent (which I now had thanks to my TBI paycheck, but this was a recent development), and a general reluctance of landlords to rent to a complete hazard such as myself. Similarly, the price of buying a house, not-so-great credit, and insufficient money were boxing me out of getting a mortgage, something I'd inquired about as well.
“Because you haven't been working for us,” Augustus said. “You've been working for TBI. What I'm saying is...come do something for us, hm? And you'll get paid like the queen you are. I know it's okay with your TBI folks, because I talked to Marsh about it myself and you're all clear to take a side gig with us. So come on,” he wheedled. “Help a brother out.”
I glanced at Reed, who shrugged away, drifting back into the depths of his office. Guess he didn't want to be confused with being the brother in question.
My phone chirped; saved by the bell. I lifted it and after a quick unlock, saw that it held the answer to the question I'd been asking for at least a couple hours. “Tell me something, Augustus,” I said, staring at the result on my Timekiller app, “is Colorado on your list of most-favored states where you'd like to send me to fly the flag?”
“Hell yes it is,” Augustus said, almost gushing. “Governor Murrell has been ringing me on the regular. Have you seen the shit coming out of Denver lately? That town is in a mess, and it could use a little Sienna face time to bring things down to a simmer.”
“I am willing to go to Colorado,” I said, skimming the screen of my phone. “So tell your governor to break out his checkbook. Because I've got an appointment in Steelwood Springs.”
“It would have been a lot funnier if the town's name was Samarra,” Eilish said, prompting Scott to look at her blankly. “Like Appointment in Samarra. Somerset Maugham, you know.” He was still staring blankly. “Anyone?” She received no great attention from any of us, and she looked right at me. “How do you not know this one?”
“I know it,” I said. “Can't escape Death with a capital D, no matter whether you're in Baghdad or riding away.”
“Of course you do,” she muttered.
“Why Steelwood Springs?” Augustus asked, slipping around the desk to look at my screen. His brow was furrowed now, and when he saw the app on my phone he asked, “Wait – this wedding singer mofo Eddie Greene is in Steelwood Springs?”
“Yep,” I said, looking at the results of a facial recognition scan I'd performed. It had taken a while – since like 7:00 this morning, when I'd gotten here, and found his name and picture in the database – but now I had him. “So tell 'em I'm coming, Augustus.” I stared at the grainy picture of my foe, a tall man in ragged clothing, behind the wheel, caught on a traffic camera. “Because I'm going to Colorado.”
CHAPTER TEN
“What even is this that you're looking at?” Augustus asked, peering at my phone's phosphorescent screen. He beckoned for me to hand it to him, and I did, which only prompted him to squint at it. “Wait – is this that app Cassidy Ellis designed for you? The one that churns through cameras to do facial recognition on wanted felons?”
“It's like an Around Me app for troublemakers in my area, yeah,” I said. “But it's not just that. She designed it to be deeper than that. She never explained all the functionality, so I've had to explore it myself.”
