Reality (The Girl in the Box Book 52), page 4
“Huh,” Augustus said, handing back my phone. His voice lowered a bit. “No luck finding her?”
I shook my head. “Wherever she is, she doesn't want to be found.” And I'd looked. Boy, had I looked. Her employees, deeply pressed by my light threats of violence, had finally shared with me an email Cassidy had sent them saying she was going off the grid and to keep running the company in her absence. Cassidy was a recovering drug addict, and though I'd sponsored her in AA, and felt responsible for her well-being, I had to respect her privacy. I only hoped she wasn't on a months-long bender in the deep woods somewhere, high in some drug house, or dead in an alleyway.
“I can make Colorado work,” Augustus said, “and work for us. You're going to need to fly the flag, though, y'know? I need a minimum of like two, three days out there, preferably in regular contact with some sort of publicity-making apparatus during that time, okay?” His wheedling tone made it clear that these were important conditions, and the look on his face said I'd be letting him down if I somehow failed by doing something like flaying a reporter alive. Which I probably wouldn't do.
Probably.
“I will try,” I said, the concession coming out of me about as easily as one of my teeth under the influence of a pair of pliers. Wielded by a toddler with focus problems. Slowly and painfully, that's what I'm saying.
“I'll call the governor,” Augustus said. “This'll be a big payday for us – and that means for you, too.” He leaned a little closer. “You saving up for a down payment on a house?”
“I think I would just about have to buy one outright at this point,” I said, “based on the conversations I've had with banks.”
Augustus grimaced, then nodded. “We could make that happen for you if you did one of these little tours for us once or twice a month. Take about a year, but...it's doable. Lot of money flowing around right now.”
“I wouldn't mind if some of it ended up in my pocket,” I said. TBI paid well, but not well enough to afford a house in Nashville anytime in the next few years, even if I saved every dollar I made there. I might be able to afford a cardboard box in Bocktown by the end of next year at my current pace.
Everybody out in the bullpen stiffened like my dogs when they heard the rustle of their food bag opening. I caught it a few seconds later, and so did Augustus.
Someone was coming up to our door. Someone wearing some form of heels.
There was a bell, and it jangled lightly as a woman ducked into the office. She was wearing tight blue jeans that showed off a figure I'd have killed for, and a tasteful top made by some fashion brand that I wouldn't dare invest even one of my fleeting dollars in, knowing for certain it'd be burned or shredded off my body within weeks. Her shoes were cowboy boots studded with gemstones.
I recognized her almost immediately, and clearly Eilish did too, because she gasped.
“Maesie May,” Eilish said, her lilting accent twisted by clear delight. I would have sworn she was about to swoon. “As I live and breathe.”
“Hey,” I said, coming over my desk in an easy drift so Maesie May could see me. “Funny running into you here.”
Eilish's face, pale and with eyes like spotlights, flew to me. “You – you know Maesie May?”
Maesie May answered before I could. “Been a while, Sienna.”
“Indeed it has,” I said. “A year and a half since we met in Old Burd's down on Broadway?”
“You were just visiting then,” Maesie May said. “Now you're a real-deal Tennessean. And I was little leagues–”
“I've been watching you climb those Billboard Country charts,” I said. “Really like your last album.”
She flushed a little. “I'd love to say I came just to catch up, but a friend of mine's got a real problem, and I was hoping you might be able to help her.”
I looked around; Augustus, Scott – they looked as perplexed as I did. Reed had even stuck his head out of his office, and wore a frown. This was not a usual request. “What kind of help can we give?” I asked. “And who is it?”
“Scarlet Sahara,” Maesie May said, causing Eilish to almost swoon again, because Scarlet was way bigger than Maesie, the biggest damn starlet singer to blow up since Beyoncé. “I been opening for her for the last six months, and, well...someone's trying to kill her.” She slightly chewed her bottom lip. “And near as we can tell...that someone's a meta.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Oi, that's amazing,” Eilish said, coming around the cubes at her. “Can I just say I am such a huge fan of both you and Scarlet. If there's any way I can help – any at all – I'd be glad to–”
Maesie May stared blankly at her. “I'm sorry, you are...?”
“Eilish,” she said, thrusting out a pale, freckled, shivering hand for Maesie May to shake. Maesie, to her credit, did, but it was a highly awkward affair, mostly because Eilish seized hold of hers and was pumping it furiously.
“Uh, why don't we talk in my office, Maesie?” I asked, cutting in. I'd approached stealthily, by air, to rescue her from the bubbling Irishwoman. I figured if I didn't save her, Eilish was going to shake her hand right off. “By the way, this is Augustus, the big boss of our operation.” I nodded to Augustus, who was waiting in the wings a few steps away, clearly about to take action of his own to save Maesie if I failed. “You can give us the details and we'll see if we can, uh...help?” I looked to Augustus for direction on this; I didn't think bodyguarding or private investigation was quite in our wheelhouse, but...
“Absolutely we can help,” Augustus said, sliding in and separating Maesie's hand from Eilish's delicately so he could shake with her – very briefly, and then, hand on her shoulder, steered her toward my office. Reed slunk our way, too, apparently drawn by the bright lure of celebrity. Or boredom. Or worry for me.
Once we were all inside, door closed, Eilish lurking without, ears surely perked to listen, I said, meta-low, to Augustus, “We do bodyguarding and private investigations now?”
He answered me in kind, with a voice ripe with amusement. “We do anything that pays well and is okay with law enforcement, Sienna. Bodyguarding and private investigation is both of those, especially to a big piggy bank like Scarlet Sahara. You know how much that girl is worth? Just south of Taylor Swift money. Hell yes we will help her. We will help her and help her and help her. She has never received such good help as we will give her...for $10,000 a day.”
I couldn’t tell whether I was looking at Augustus with respect or loathing or somewhere between. Probably somewhere between. “When did you become such a shark?”
“We're a valuable commodity, Sienna,” Augustus said. “That makes our time valuable. Charging accordingly is just smart business.”
“So that's where I was going wrong,” Reed said, just a touch of acid in his tone. He looked mildly surly now, but leaned against the wall by the door and said, “Maesie, I'm–”
“Oh, darlin',” she said in that aw-shucks way of hers, “everyone knows who you are. All the girls in my crew would kill to be here with the handsome brother with the lady-killer locks.” She paused, looking up as if for inspiration. “I think there might be a song in that, somewhere.”
“I'd love to hear it,” Reed said, sounding a little choked. And pleased. Poor boy, he so rarely got his due.
“Maybe you can tell us a little bit about what happened to Ms. Sahara,” Augustus said, sliding around behind my desk as he offered Maesie a seat.
“Well,” Maesie said, taking the proffered seat and plopping her sparkly boots up on the edge of my desk, “she's been having the usual stalker problems for a good long while now. That's pretty normal, unfortunately, for someone who's as big a deal as her.” She shrugged. “Hard downside of being a pretty and famous woman – you're going to get some feedback from the slugs out there. Most of them are just thirsty dudes who ain't known the touch of a woman since before the first Iraq war, probably. Some just don't know how to talk to people and say terrible, dull-witted idiocies. Some are malicious big-talkers, you know? All hat, no cattle. But...you get a few, here and there...”
“Those are the ones that pretty much belong in our villain gallery,” I said. “Aspiring assassins, I assume you mean?”
“Or rapists,” she said. “We all know what happened to Connie Stevens, and it's not the sort of thing you forget.” She patted a lump visible in the belly of her T-shirt now that she was sitting. A gun, I was sure. “I handle it a bit differently than Scarlet, because I'm just famous enough to be known but not quite hard pressed or wealthy enough to afford personal security. Also, I'm straight white trash, so I been handling my own problems my whole life.” She sighed. “Anyway...Scarlet, she just fired her security last night because someone got in and we found her in a pool of her own blood this morning. Still alive, but clearly slapped around. Ugly bruises. Busted lip.”
“Damn,” Reed said softly.
“Damn,” Augustus said, his hand flexing into a fist.
“Damn,” Eilish's voice came from outside my door. “I mean – uh – damn you, Scott! You left the seat up again and I bloody near fell in!”
“What?” Scott's voice, somewhat muffled, came from much deeper in the bullpen. Clearly not eavesdropping.
“Yeah, I think it was a wake-up call for her,” Maesie said. “Like...that her guys, even though they've been with her forever...they can't protect against whoever's coming for her.”
“Most security guys, even the top ones, they're behind the curve on metahumans,” Augustus said. “They were trained in the old world, you know? And things have changed. There's not even a complete list of all the types of metahumans, really, and there are plenty no one has any idea about. Did you know there's a type of meta who can change their face?”
“Holy shit,” Maesie said. “For real?”
“For real,” I said sourly, giving Augustus a sidelong glare. He'd never run across a face-changing meta; I had.
“Our agency has more collected experience with metahumans than anyone else,” Augustus said. God, he was a smooth salesman; my glare didn't even slow him down. It was like he was walking through my eyebeams undeterred. Actually, if you put a dollar on the ground in front of him, I got the sense he might do just that to get ahold of it. “That's why we're the best choice when it comes to protecting yourself from unknown threats.”
“Wow,” Reed whispered, meta-low. Augustus glanced at him, gave him a little brow-waggle indicating great confidence, and then nodded back at Maesie.
“That sounds great,” Maesie said, and looked right at me. “Scarlet's hiding right now with a couple of my galpals – you know, raised like me, on a steady diet of Miranda Lambert songs and hunting with their daddies,” and here she patted the gun-lump in her waistband. “But she's got a tour going on, a different city every night, so she needs to get mobile again, like now.”
“I am actually about to have to leave town on a job,” I said, thinking again of Eddie Greene and Steelwood Springs.
“But Sienna's not the only professional we employ,” Augustus said. “We have several choice bodyguards on staff. Only the best people, with tons of experience.”
“PICK ME,” Eilish's voice burst through the door, with great force, but somehow meta-low at the same time. Maesie May didn't even notice, but both Reed and Augustus clearly did, and their heads both tilted slightly, their eyes fluttering–
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered under my breath. Had she just used her powers on my brother and Augustus?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Eilish
“What are you even doing over there?” Scott asked, watching me over the cube wall as he shuffled some papers and stapled them before walking them over to the bin on Augustus's desk and dropping them there, another report disposed of.
“Jockeying for position, you silly sod,” I said, slightly hunched over just before the door to Sienna's office. I was catching every word, but if they opened the door I could plausibly deny – to Maesie, anyway, the only one whose opinion I really cared about – that no, I wasn't having an eavesdrop, I was getting coffee from the kitchen. “Would you kindly go back to work and forget I ever did this?”
“Okay,” Scott said, losing that brow-furled glare at me as my power took gentle hold of him, and he no longer gave a shite about my busybodying.
“...Sienna's not the only professional we employ,” Augustus was saying. “We have several choice bodyguards on staff. Only the best people, with tons of experience.”
This was my moment. My bloody time. I'd been putting it in faithfully 'round here. But now came an assignment with a chance to genuinely rub elbows with the stars – and deal with a stalker, no less?
It was tailor-made for me. Who better to deal with a stalker – almost certainly some twisted man – than the woman who can wrap all men around her tiniest finger?
“PICK ME,” I said, letting my desire and my power combine to cast the wish of my heart out into the world. I could say I didn't mean to do it, but in truth...
...of course I bloody did.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sienna
Augustus shook his head slightly as Eilish's words blew through his brain, as if trying to plow through the effects of a perfume or a head rush. “Actually,” he said, “you've already met one of our professionals when you came in. E–”
“Scott Byerly,” I said, cutting right over him without apology, a hot anger threatening to burst from my every frigging pore. “He's your man.” I looked sideways at Augustus and lowered my voice to outside Maesie's range. “I need Eilish to come with me to Colorado.”
“What?” Augustus asked dully.
“What?” Reed asked, just as dully. Freaking hypnotized.
“WHAT?” Eilish asked from outside the door. Not bothering to hide her dismay.
“Yep,” I said, putting my foot right down with such finality that even Reed and Augustus, clearly snookered by Eilish's power play, just sort of stood there in a stupor and stared right at me. “Scott's the best pick for this. He's going to handle this one.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Eilish
“No no no nononono,” my voice took on a pained, singsongy quality as I listened to that witch – God, but I hated her in that moment – take charge of the room and lay the bloody hammer down on my glass dreams.
I could have thrown it out there again, and with more force, but...
...then it'd be obvious what I'd done. Well...more obvious.
So I slunk back to my cubicle in defeat, tail tucked firmly 'twixt my legs. “Enjoy your bloody assignment of a lifetime,” I said to Scott as I plopped down in my seat.
“Huh?” Scott's voice was thick, dream-like. “...What did you want me to pick you for, Eilish? I'm perfectly willing, I just need to know what for? Wife?” he asked, hopefully. “Because I could make you a happy woman, make you–”
“Oh, sod off, Scott,” I said, “I wasn't even talking to ye, was I? I don't need you to pick me for anything. Let it go.” And like that, my siren spell released its hold.
“Whoa,” Scott said after a moment. “That was weird. For a second there I felt so...” He clammed up. Wise, on his part.
“What's that?” I asked, a bit savagely.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. Guess he didn't want to admit that for a second there, he would have done anything I asked, up to and including jumping out the window or running a letter opener over his wrists.
“Yeah,” I said, scowling. “That's what I thought. Nothing.” Which was what I'd gotten from my stupid decision to open my mouth just now. And to step in and save Sienna's life last night. Bloody worse than nothing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sienna
“You know who I'm talking about?” I asked, the aura of mind control finally fading from my office like a stink of a bad fart.
“Tall, blond hunk of man out there?” Maesie May looked deeply amused. “Girl, much like your handsome brother, everybody knows him. And I'll tell you something else – not one of 'em I've talked to would even mind being sloppy seconds to you with that boy.”
“I think he's on sloppy millionths at this point,” I said, my face inescapably reddening, “but it's good that no one thinks I 'ruined' him or something.”
“If only all the shit you ruined turned out so damned pretty,” Maesie said, offering a low whistle of admiration. “I'm sure he'll do just fine. But if you don't mind me asking – Scarlet's last outfit had ten guys on the team. Y'all really think you can do better with just one?”
“Scott's going to assess the situation,” Augustus said, sounding only a little cloudy, like he was returning to his right mind. “Based on his recommendations we'll beef up security as needed. We have additional personnel we can call upon in cases like this.”
“Who?” Reed asked, not bothering to keep his question meta-low.
“Very qualified people,” Augustus said, smile not even a little troubled by this. “So...should I send Scott back with you, or would you prefer he come by later today?”
“Oh, he is welcome to come with me any old time,” Maesie said, standing up immediately, denim rustling softly as she got up. “But right away is good. The sooner we get this girl in the hands of the pros, the better. I'm really worried about her. She's been dealing with this for a while, you can tell the stress has just sapped her drier than a Texas armadillo. Be nice to see her come back to being the effervescent personality I met when I first came on the tour.”
“Great, that's settled,” Augustus said, beaming. He took two long strides to the door, pulled it open and said, “Byerly! Got your next assignment. Come on over.”
