by C. L. Stone
“No.”
“So you do like me.” He wriggled an eyebrow at me. “You’d have gone on a date with me if we’d met under normal circumstances.”
“Maybe.” Couldn’t help it. I didn’t do easy commitments. Never had been able to. Whenever I got asked out in high school, I always turned down the first request and waited until the guy asked again before I’d agree to it.
He smirked. He shifted and I moved over a little until he could relax on his side, propped up on his hand and looked down at me. His other hand moved up, tugging a strand of my hair away from my face. “I’ve got those wiggle sparks for you,” he said quietly. “You don’t want to rush anything. I get that, but I swear, I haven’t felt it like this before. Stop thinking about what we should be doing. I wouldn’t ask just any girl to move in with me right after I met her. If you really feel strongly about it, you can still sleep on the couch, or we’ll figure something out.” His hand trailed down, and his palm met my belly again. “But if you feel any spark in there, if you’re not repulsed by the idea of us together, just stay. You can contribute if you want, but you don’t have to. I’ll won’t ask. You’re not costing us anything extra.”
My insides trembled again. This was everything I needed to hear, and the worst thing he could have told me. It was exactly what I needed: him, a place to stay, someone who understood I was starting from nothing was afraid I would eventually get kicked out. He was looking for my brother. Without my knowing about it, he’d been on the hunt and helping me. Trying to fix things.
Marc was here right now, with me, helping me again. It wasn’t enough to help me with Wil. He was giving me a foothold, and at the same time, telling me to stay.
But I couldn’t answer him, because my situation with Brandon niggled at the back of my mind. Axel’s kiss was etched in me. Raven’s hard stares, his touch, his brisk attachments made me crave him. They each tugged at me in different ways. I closed my eyes tight, unable to look at him anymore, because I was sure once he learned the truth, he’d take it all back. He couldn’t feel that way about me if he knew his other friends were that into me and that I shared those feelings.
And with that thought, I swallowed hard to push the pain back. I couldn’t be lured in by daydreams of him and his promises and then later get thrown out. I started pushing him off, pulling myself up.
Marc resisted, capturing my hand and trying to draw it in. “Don’t...”
But I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t risk hurting any of them and getting kicked out of this group I’d been growing attached to.
It might just kill me if they did.
As if answering my silent pleas, the driver’s door opened. Marc sat up quickly and I did, too, putting space between us.
“Get a nice nap, you two?” Axel asked. He sat behind the wheel and then turned to look at me right behind him and then eased, looking at Marc. If he saw anything, he wasn’t going to say so.
“What’d she say?” Marc asked. He moved, jumping into the front seat of the car and settling in. He glanced once at me, a bit of the pleading still in his eyes but it started to fade. I wondered if he thought I’d heard Axel coming and that’s why I moved away from him. It was like he understood, but was hurt that I felt the need to hide ‘us’ from Axel.
While they weren’t watching me, I fixed myself, and rubbed my hands across my face, trying to get out from under the spell Marc had cast.
Axel pulled the glasses off of his face and rubbed at his eyes. “Randall died here. Random robbery homicide. No suspects. No witnesses except a few people working late at the Chinese restaurant who heard the shots fired.”
“Happened here?” Marc asked, and then scanned the place, as if it was happening in front of him now.
Axel shrugged. “He left the office late that night. He’d been walking to his car, caught a couple of bullets in the chest and someone took his wallet and phone. They found the wallet a few blocks later with everything taken out except a couple of ID cards. His cell was turned off, so they couldn’t follow it. The police are still looking for information, but they don’t have any leads. They think it’s connected to several other attacks that have happened in the area. Though those have all been robberies, but no homicides. Until now. The police are saying he must have resisted and so they shot him.”
My eyes kept darting to Marc, but I shook off the overwhelming thoughts about him and what we’d done and focused on Axel and what he was saying, getting back to business. I curled up a bit and stared out the window. I was looking for Mr. Jones’s ghost. “Robberies in Isle of Palms?” It was a ritzy place to get mugged.
“Yeah. What’s the world coming to?” Axel rocked his head toward the rental agency. “But as far as I can tell, this lady doesn’t know a thing about a communication core.” Axel shifted in his seat, and he scanned the area again. He took out his cell phone and started typing into it.
“What’s wrong?” Marc asked.
“I don’t like this,” Axel said. “Kayli’s right, this guy doesn’t seem to have any connection to a secret communication service. There’s no sign of a profit of any sort. This guy doesn’t seem all that intelligent, either. I mean, he had an okay business going...”
“He still worked,” I said, catching on. I snapped my fingers, suddenly getting it and pointing at them. “Because he’s not the owner. He’s just a user.”
The boys looked at each other and then turned, looking over their shoulders at me.
I kept going. “This guy owned vacation homes, right? And he’s been in the black, even with the recent dead zone of a tourist season there’s been lately. I bet he uses a secret phone to appeal to people who are looking for indiscreet services. You know, like guys trying to find a secret spot to take their mistresses. Look at his office,” I said, pointing to the corner of the strip mall it was nestled in. “These are million dollar vacation homes he was renting out, right? Simple business. But he was here, doing business as usual. I mean he was working when he got knocked off. If I had extra cash stashed away, like the million I’d earn running a secret communication thing, I’d be travelling and letting other people run my business. You don’t make a bunch of money like that and not spend it. I don't think he owns this core. I think he’s just a lead. He was a target because he had one of their phones.”
Marc furrowed his eyebrows, sitting back. “His phone’s on the underground system. That’s why it was stolen.”
I nodded. “We find out where he bought it from, we’ll figure out where this core is, who owns it...”
“He wouldn’t have a bill,” Axel said. “It’s anonymous.”
“We need a cell phone,” I said. “Couldn’t Corey track down this core if we give him a cell phone that worked with the network? That must be how they found it. We could make a couple of calls and track where the signal goes.”
Axel rocked his head in a nod. “We could do that. We’d have to find someone else who owned a cell phone on the network. And then we have to hope they’d let us borrow it long enough to run...” Suddenly, his own cell phone started going off. He pulled it out and checked it. He put it on speaker and held it out. “Corey, tell me some good news.”
“Not this time,” he said. “The phone Kayli stole just got wiped.”
“Come again?”
“I was rooting around when the entire data set blanked out. Must have been done remotely while I had it on.”
“What could do that?”
“I don’t know. Something sophisticated.”
“If it’s sophisticated, it’s traceable. Make sure it’s dead, or let Kevin or someone get rid of it.” Axel hung up. He sat back a little, staring out the windshield, silent. Suddenly, he punched at the steering wheel. “Damn.”
“We’ll find him,” Marc said. “He’s not going to get himself killed.”
Axel glared out the windshield. “We don’t have time to trace a bugged cell phone. I really don’t like not knowing what’s going on.”
Marc sat back, rol
ling his head along the headrest. “Let’s think for a moment. This underground cell service. It’s still cellular. We could set up something to listen for unusual signals. Then we can source a cell phone or tower.”
“We don’t have the time to set that up, and then wait for a chance something has come in. I don’t know if we’ve got anyone trained on this side of the globe. I mean, it’s Charleston, for Christ’s sake. This shit happens in New York or Washington.”
“You want to call in the Feds on this?” Marc asked. “Or CIA? Or local police? I mean, this is usually beyond what… what we do.”
Axel sighed, shook his head. “Believe me, I want to. I’m considering it, but I’ve got some reservations. By the time they caught up with what we know, they’ll still be ten steps behind.” He shoved a finger across his brow, gliding back and forth. “They’re not going to pull a civilian like Brandon out in a swoop and destroy evidence to possibly one of the biggest assets they’ll come across in this area. They’ll see this cell phone service as a way to identify local crooks. ‘Corey’ currently looks like he’s involved with it, and given his record, he might be facing a trial at the least. And we run the risk they’ll start a full investigation that will take months before they act just to catch bad guys who need a secret cell phone service.”
I piped in. “Do we know anyone local that listens? Tracks signals?”
“The Academy just links into NSA and FCC networks,” Marc said. “I think the FCC looks for illegal signals, if they know about them. But only if they know there’s something to listen for. Maybe the NSA.”
A particular smoking Irish guy came to mind. I’d met him briefly, but he could be our best shot. “Doyle does it,” I said flatly. “He might know.”
Both of their heads shook, like they thought I was joking. They stopped, turned and faced me.
I widened my eyes at them. “What?”
“Who’s Doyle?” Marc asked.
“That friend of Blake Coaltar. Didn’t I tell you guys about him?”
“The one that hacked our video cameras?” Marc asked.
“No,” Axel said, shaking his head. “No, we’re not seeing him.”
“Why not?” I asked. “You need someone who does that stuff. He does it.”
“That guy sounds like he’s just asking for the FCC and the FBI to visit. And he’s friends with Coaltar.”
“So?”
“So you aren’t going.”
I grunted, and sat back with my arms folded. “Or we could wait for you guys to get lucky. Maybe Corey could rig up enough satellite dishes, computer systems and so forth that this guy already has set up.”
Axel twisted his lips, shaking his head. “It’s a bad idea.”
Marc shrugged. “Have a better one?
He glanced around the parking lot and swiveled his head around. “Let’s grab some breakfast first. I’ve got a few things I want to try before we resort to talking to this Doyle.”
“Gotta love her brain, though, right?” Marc grinned. “If we were really trying to get into this core, or even solve these murders...”
Axel sliced his hand across the space between himself and Marc. “Let’s focus. This guy the German said died because he owned the core, it has to be someone else if it isn’t this Randall guy. This means they’ve killed multiple people. If we can connect the two deaths, and then point the police to any leads, or even get the FBI involved if we have to, we’ll be good to go. Right as soon as we find Brandon, we can send the police after them. Our goal now, though, is to get Brandon out as soon as possible. We can sort out this underground network later.”
Tension mounted in the car. Axel didn’t seem to be in the best of moods. I glanced at Marc, who appeared sympathetic. The longer we went trying to find where these guys were, the chances were greater they’d find out that Brandon wasn’t their guy, and he could get killed.
We were running out of time.
TURTLES
Axel veered into a McDonald’s. Three egg sandwiches later, splitting one with Marc, stealing his hash brown, and downing my own coffee and half of Axel’s, I was finally feeling awake and ready. The only reason why we stopped at all was because Marc insisted we couldn’t continue to work like this on an empty stomach, and Axel could drive and eat at the same time. Marc bitched about the coffee, but downed his own as quickly as possible.
I didn’t want to eat anything. I wanted to stay angry, but after I started, I felt better, still angry, but better.
“She really is a pit,” Axel said as he drove toward downtown Charleston again.
“I think she eats more than I do,” Marc said.
“I’m right here,” I said. I wasn’t really perturbed they were talking about me like that. It was kind of amusing, but I’d been starving so I would have eaten anything. Did I really eat that much?
They both chuckled. Axel in a grumbly, stoic way. Marc’s laugh was light, proud. He kept smiling back at me like he’d won something.
It was the edge of disaster staring me in the face. I pushed that thought away. “Where are we going now, anyway?” I asked.
“We’re going to drive around for a little bit, and try to lead these guys out into the open. If not, we need to find another phone on this network,” Axel said. He weaved his way into downtown traffic, taking roads that were heavily congested. “I don’t want to take plan B, though. It’ll take too long.”
“I still say we could go check out Doyle. Can’t we just tell him to be on the lookout now while we deal with plan A? Save us some time in case we have to do plan B?”
Axel shook his head, and a lock of his dark hair fell against his face, almost in the way of his glasses. “My problem is still timing. The longer we’re waiting, the more likely Brandon is discovered. It would be different if they weren’t killing people over this, but now it looks like they are. How long will it take us to even convince this Doyle guy to do us a favor when we don’t know anything about him? He may not be that easy to convince to help us.”
I sighed. Maybe he did have a point. Doyle was more than likely our best bet at finding a secret underground cell phone network, but who was to say he would help?
Marc pushed his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. “I hate being chased.”
“Do we have anyone following us?” I asked. I looked behind us, trying to pick out cars.
“Uh huh,” Axel said. “Two of them. Team A is three cars behind us, Team B is in the other lane, behind Team A.”
I tried studying our surroundings, but I couldn’t see anything beyond the car right behind us. I was too close. I tried checking the mirrors. “Are you sure it’s them? How did they know where to find us?” I asked.
Marc redirected his pointer finger, aiming it at my face. “We sent someone who looked like you to our apartment. And made sure her team could get her back out and take them for a ride around Charleston. But now they’ve lead them back to us.”
I dropped my mouth open. “Where’s our team?”
“Following the bad guys,” Axel said. “Now that they’ve been able to identify which cars are the ones scouting for you, we’re basically leading them where we want while they are looking for an opening. It’s not easy when there’s two cars with several people inside. We want to take one out and question them without alerting the others.”
I studied the cars, as if I could see through them and figure out who was following us, trying to remember the German’s face and pick him out. “How did you get them to switch and follow us? What girl? How do you know?”
Axel held up his cell phone. He eased the car forward as space became available through traffic. “We’re not just sitting on our asses. I’ve been getting updates. When one of our own is in danger, we call it in. We’ve got a lot of people out there now scouting for Brandon. More than you might think.”
I was impressed. I didn’t know the Academy that well, but it seemed they were working this as best as they could. “Can’t we do something to hurry it along? Th
ey want me, don’t they? They’re looking for an opening? Let’s lead them somewhere.”
“They may not do anything during the day and in public,” Axel said. “And this is the best way for us to stay safe while we’re figuring out an opening. We can’t risk our necks and all get caught by these guys.”
I breathed in, sitting back. Axel was making circles around downtown, and then looped onto the Mark Clark Expressway. There would only be so many times he could make circles before he’d need gas, or the people following us figured out we were leading them on a goose chase because we knew we were being followed. “What happens at night?”
“Hopefully, this will be over before then.”
“What if it isn’t?”
Axel shrugged. “I might drop you off at the hospital with the others.”
“Why the hospital? What’s up with that? How is a hospital keeping Corey safe?”
“Who is going to try to kidnap any of us in the middle of something like a hospital? There’s security and video and people being monitored continuously. It’s second best outside of being inside a police station.”
As crazy as his idea was, it did make sense. Still, I kept looking out the back window. “So we’ll drive around all day.” That didn’t sit well with me. Being chased all day? No. I was too used to being the hunter, not the hunted. I didn’t like it. “Can’t we do something else? Shouldn’t we speed this up somehow?”
He adjusted his rearview mirror. His eyes were intense, a storm brewing behind the otherwise calm exterior. “Would you like to go somewhere?” he asked. “We’ve got one team behind us. I’d rather have two or three, just in case. They’re headed this way.”
“How can we trip these guys up? Let’s just ram this car into theirs and get this over with.”
“We’re doing this as fast as we can. The best thing we can do right now is keep them busy. Eventually, this team is going to need to take a break, and they might head back to where Brandon is. As long as they don’t know we’re looking at them, we’ve got some advantage. It’s what we need right now.”
