The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind (The Frost Files)

by Jackson Ford

  “So Ultra’s clothes are shedding microfibres…” I say.

  “And Steven Chase knows about it,” Paul finishes. “He bribes Hayden and Salinas to look the other way. Either one of them could have turned him in.”

  “Yeah,” Nic says. “But I mean… is that really it?”

  “Is that really it, how?” Annie asks.

  “It makes sense, but why would someone kill them? It’s not…” He fights for the right word. “It’s not personal. It’s the kind of thing you bring a lawsuit over or stick on WikiLeaks. It’s not the biggest issue in the world, right?”

  “Only cos you don’t pay attention.” Mo-Mo has come out of his weed fog in a major way. “You know that the Hudson River in New York dumps three hundred million fibres into the Atlantic every day? That’s one river! And here—”

  “I get it,” Nic says, raising a hand. “I do. But why would somebody start killing people over it? It’s not like it’s going to stop the problem.”

  “Killing?” Mo-Mo looks around at us. “The hell are you guys into?”

  “And I keep saying—” Carlos points at the screen, at the picture of Javier Salinas. “—it’s not enough. We go after the wrong guy or if he’s dead already, that’s it.”

  I follow his finger, taking in Salinas. He’s right. So is Nic. None of this hangs together—not in a way that makes sense yet. We are navigating in the pitch-dark by holding our hands out in front of us, hoping we aren’t about to walk off a cliff.

  But when the only alternatives are standing still or just running away, what choice do we have?

  I turn to Mo-Mo, hold out my hand. Confused, he takes it.

  “The United States government thanks you for your service,” I say. “Also, we’re gonna need your car.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Teagan

  Of course Javier Salinas lives in Burbank.

  Of course this insane clusterfuck of a day would end up with us driving right into a towering inferno.

  Sweat pools at the small of my back as we walk back outside. Smoky air digs into my eyes and throat and nostrils, thin fingers with long nails.

  It doesn’t help that fire is what everyone else is talking about. We’re just coming out of the library, Mo-Mo’s car keys in hand, heading across the manicured lawns towards the side street where his Prius is parked.

  “So it’s an evac warning only?” Nic is saying. “Not an order?”

  “For now,” Paul replies.

  “Will he even still be up there?”

  “We gotta go find out,” Annie says. “Only way.”

  “We can’t call ahead?”

  “We just did. No one answered, remember?”

  I turn the problem over in my head, trying to find an angle, something we haven’t thought of. There isn’t one. This is the only lead we have, the only place we can go. The longer we stall or second-guess ourselves, the better chance Burr and his team will have of catching up to us, and the better the chance the other psychokinetic will kill Salinas.

  If it hasn’t happened already.

  “So what exactly are we gonna do when we get there?” Carlos says as we reach the street.

  “We just be careful.” Paul sounds resigned but determined. “We identify ourselves to Salinas, let him know why we’re there…”

  “Yo, Teagan.” Carlos turns to me. “What are you gonna do if the dude with the rebars actually shows up?”

  “Dunno. Never fought another me before. I’ll figure it out.”

  “Figure it out? No. Uh-uh. We go in there with a plan, or we don’t go in at all.”

  “What do you want from me, man? If he does show up, you get Salinas and get out of there.”

  “We aren’t just gonna leave you.”

  “Second that,” says Nic.

  “Yeah, Nic, you know that whole thing where I destroyed your apartment with my mind? Imagine two of me. You’ve seen what I can do when I’m pissed, and I’m pretty sure the other guy can do even worse. You don’t bend a metal bar around someone’s throat with your mind unless you—”

  I stop because right then the sense of disconnect—of distance—is so strong that it turns my stomach to lead. I finish the sentence in my head, words I don’t even want to think about saying aloud. Unless you’re more powerful than ever. Unless you’ve become something… more.

  I’m not the same as these people. As Annie, Carlos, Paul. As Nic. I look like them, talk like them… but I’m not them. They know it. I know it. What are we doing, pretending we’re all on the same side?

  It’s a horrible thought. Poisonous. Wrong.

  “You’re still gonna need a plan,” Carlos says.

  Annie scowls. “Way I see it, we gotta bring this guy down.”

  “Bring him down,” I say. “As in, kill him?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe.”

  “Uh, yeah, we’re not doing that.”

  “Oh, OK. So you got an idea how we deliver him up to Tanner, then?”

  “No. But—”

  “Why not knock him out?” Nic says. “We can do that, right?”

  Suddenly everyone is looking at me. It’s not a comfortable feeling.

  “A taser would work,” I say.

  Annie makes a show of patting her pockets. “Think I left mine in my security-guard outfit.”

  “What if the police are there?” Carlos asks. “They might be ahead of us on this.”

  “Then we just roll on by. Figure out something else.”

  “Yeah,” Annie says. “Pretty sure they’ll just let a carload of escaped fugitives who are probably all over the system just roll on by.” She looks towards the library and sniffs as if there’s a scent she’s trying to place. “Gimme the phone,” she says to Paul.

  “OK?”

  “Got someone who might be able to do a drive-by before we get there. Scope the place out.”

  “You know his number by heart?” I say.

  “Her. And no. I’m gonna go ask Mo-Mo if I can log into Facebook real quick, see if it’s there.” She points at me. “Figure out how to stop this guy. Use your voodoo.”

  She turns, starts striding back towards the library.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Paul says to me. “Let’s assume you actually subdue this… individual. What then?”

  “Um… we go to a bar and get shitface drunk because we’ll be in the clear?”

  “Be serious. How are you planning to prove to Tanner that this person, whoever they are, is the killer?”

  “I’ll have a few witnesses,” I say, gesturing at him and Nic. Carlos unlocks the car, the bleep-bleep too loud against the hush of the campus. Annie is heading across to the library doors.

  “Yes, well, none of us is exactly in Moira Tanner’s good books any more,” Paul says. “And there’s the small matter of us still being sought by the the LAPD.”

  “Paul, come on. I’m figuring this out as I—”

  A screech of tyres. Very close, and very loud.

  All of us look towards the lawn where Annie is, maybe fifty feet away. It’s lit up with headlights, although it’s a second before the vehicle comes into view.

  It’s a van. Gleaming white. It jerks off the road, like a predator switching direction to chase prey, and rumbles up onto the grass, pinning Annie in its headlights.

  Even before it comes to a stop, the side door is opening, figures leaping out onto the grass.

  Tanner’s men. They’ve found us.

  Except it isn’t them. They’re not in uniform for one thing, and they’re wearing… ski masks? What the hell?

  Annie turns towards us. Despite the distance, her expression is clear. Stunned, angry terror.

  “Annie?” Paul goes from a jog to a sprint in half a second. “Annie!”

  The first figure reaches her, wraps an arm around her neck. She twists away, shouting, throwing a wild punch that takes the guy in the ribs. By then we’re all running, Nic alongside me, Carlos bringing up the rear, all of us yelling Annie’s name.

 
The second figure grabs Annie’s legs as the first wraps his arms around her midsection. They’re big, both of them, bigger than even she is, and they haul her to the van. She’s screaming now, fear mixing with her fury.

  I throw out my PK energy, looking for something to grab on to. But I’m not supercharged, and they’re too far away. I’m closing the distance, but I’m not going quick enough—Annie is already half inside the van, a third set of hands visible on the door frame, ready to slam it shut. In desperation I grab the first thing I find with my PK, the lid of a trash can, hurling it at them. It lands a good ten feet short.

  “Annie, no!” Paul yells.

  Annie vanishes inside the van, her screams cut off as the door slams shut. With a squeal of tyres, it accelerates away, roaring into the night.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Teagan

  As the van disappears, I send out a last urgent burst of PK. I’m twenty feet away, and it takes everything I have to push it that far. If I can grab a wheel, even an axle, stop it from moving…

  The PK just brushes the van’s back right hubcap. Then it’s gone.

  As I sprint across the grass, it roars off, heading east. I come to a stop as the van makes a hard right, vanishing down a side street.

  “Jesus.” Paul has his hands on his head, staring in horror at where the van was.

  “Who…” Nic can’t finish the sentence, gasping for breath.

  The Prius screeches in alongside us, Carlos behind the wheel. “Get in!” he yells, his words audible even through the closed windows.

  We pile inside, Nic and I in the back, Paul in the passenger seat. Carlos punches it before the doors close, taking off in the direction the van went.

  Those weren’t Tanner’s people—and if they were, why take Annie hostage when they’ve already got Reggie? No, this was something else.

  Nando Aguilar.

  How the hell did they know where to find her?

  If anybody can catch up, it’s Carlos. He’s already locked in, head tilted very slightly forward, hands at ten and two. He reaches down for the stick shift, cursing when he remembers it’s an automatic.

  “There!” Paul points. The back of the van is visible for a split-second, vanishing into a side street between two buildings that look like smaller versions of the campus library.

  “On it.” Carlos’s voice is a low growl. He works the wheel and the gas, skidding us into the narrow alley. A parked truck looms in the windshield, coming fast enough to make me lean back in my seat.

  “Watch out!” Nic yells.

  Carlos slides past it without slowing, the back of the car fishtailing. We rip past the truck with maybe an inch to spare. “Front-wheel drive,” Carlos shouts back. “We’re fine.”

  But we’re not. The van is gone.

  We zip down a few more streets, navigating through the narrow confines of the campus, but it’s nowhere to be seen. Eventually Carlos brings the car to the kerb.

  “Shit,” Paul murmurs. “Oh, shit.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard him swear. Not once, in the entire time I’ve known him.

  I lean forward, head between the seats, still breathless. “We can’t stop.” I swallow hard. “They might still be in the area. If we—”

  “That was MS-13, wasn’t it?” Carlos says.

  The car falls silent. For a good five seconds.

  Nic: “Who were those people?”

  Paul says nothing, staring into the distance.

  “Paul?” Nic says.

  “I told her not to.” He doesn’t move. “I said I could help her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  Carlos cuts the engine, turning the key with a very precise, almost decisive movement. He looks like he wants to smash Paul’s face against the dashboard. “Why the fuck did they just grab Annie?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Paul says. “We hid the van. Yeah, we would have been late, but—”

  “Been late?” Carlos almost snarls.

  “And what are you talking about?” I say. “I told you the cops found the…”

  Except I didn’t tell him.

  I told Carlos and Reggie.

  I didn’t even think to mention it to Annie and Paul. At that point, it didn’t seem important. Who cared if the cops had the van, when they were after us anyway?

  “Are you sure?” Paul says.

  “Yeah.” Nic closes his eyes. “Pretty sure.”

  “Teagan, why didn’t you tell—”

  “Doesn’t matter. What the hell is going on here, Paul?”

  Paul leans back against the headrest. “You don’t understand. She needed money. Her mother has cancer, and they don’t have health insurance.”

  “She could have asked us.” Carlos is almost pleading. “Asked you. Or Tanner. She—”

  “I told her to. She wouldn’t.”

  Annie’s words, from before. I ain’t asking that bitch for a goddamn thing.

  “She wanted to earn it,” Paul says. “She’s always been like that, ever since I’ve known her. Annie doesn’t take charity.”

  “Except from MS-13.” Nic is rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  “Nah,” Carlos says. “The MS don’t just lend money. That’s not how they work. What did she do for them? What was she getting a cut of?”

  Paul sighs. It’s almost a contented sigh, like he’s relieved to have this off his shoulders. He doesn’t mean it that way, but now I want to smash his face against the dashboard.

  “They wanted her to take a shipment up to Bakersfield,” he says. “They needed a clean vehicle, one they could hide the drugs in. It was supposed to be an easy job…”

  “Oh, man,” Nic says.

  And the last puzzle piece clicks into place.

  The night before, back at Paul’s Boutique, Annie and Paul were talking about fixing something in the van. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but she must have been about to load up the drugs and take them north—which she never got to do, what with Reggie calling the red light. Maybe she thought she’d have a chance later on, but that was before she and Carlos had to dump the van. And before the cops found it.

  This is what Annie was talking about when she said we needed to be straight with each other. She thought it didn’t matter right now, because she thought MS-13 wouldn’t be a problem until later.

  “What was it?” Carlos says. “Heroin? Coke?”

  “Heroin.” He sounds wretched. “I don’t know the street price, but—”

  “How many bags?”

  “Maybe five?” He makes a shape with his hands, like he’s holding a basketball.

  Carlos whistles. “Two million. More.”

  “Jesus fuck.” I can barely get the words out.

  “She was going to get ten per cent,” Paul continues. “Now the van is in an impound lot somewhere. And if the cops look closer…”

  “How do you know all this?” I ask.

  “She asked for my help.”

  “Yeah, but why? You’re telling me she couldn’t have just asked to borrow the van for a while, then done this herself? Hid the drugs in the walls or whatever? No way. Why did she even involve you?”

  “You think Annie knows how to take a van apart and put it back together?”

  “One of her contacts then. Someone must have had a car or a truck or—”

  “Nothing clean. Nothing that could have slipped by the cops, which was how she sold it to MS-13.”

  “Pinche pendejo,” Carlos says through gritted teeth.

  “I don’t get it.” I sit back, trying to run this all through my head. “Why’d you help her in the first place? She came to you because she needed the van, but why’d you say yes? If I’d come to you with this, you’d have gone fucking nuts. You’d never have let me do it.”

  Paul says nothing. He turns his head, looking out the window.

  “Hey. Paul.”

  “I trust her.”

  “You trust her? She’s using our van to ship drugs. How in the hell are you coo
l with that?”

  “I didn’t say I was cool with it.” I’ve never seen him this uncomfortable. Like he wants a sinkhole to open up and swallow him, us, the car, the whole world.

  Carlos punches the steering wheel. Hard. A sharp, jagged blast of the horn echoes into the night, making me jump. He turns to Paul. “You know what these people do?”

  “Of course I—”

  “They cut you. Over and over again. I seen it in Mexico. They don’t stop, even if you give them what they want. Everybody they take out is a warning.”

  “I was just trying to help her.” Paul’s voice is a shaking whisper.

  “Help her?” Carlos shakes her head. “Motherfucker, you just killed her.”

  “And I still don’t get why,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell Reggie? Why—”

  “Because I’m in love with her!” Paul twists in his seat, bellowing the words.

  In the silence that follows I can just hear the car’s engine ticking as it cools.

  “OK,” Nic murmurs.

  “Paul,” I say. “That’s—”

  “That’s what?” He looks over his shoulder at me. “That’s what, Teagan? What were you going to say?”

  I don’t know what I was going to say. I try to put Paul and Annie together in my brain and can’t do it. They’re just too different.

  “How long?” Carlos says quietly.

  “A few months.” Paul sags in his seat. “Remember the Thousand Oaks job?”

  A vague memory: black limos, a scowling bodyguard, a listening device I ghosted through the shadows towards the underside of one of the cars. A job that went off without a hitch, and which I’d forgotten about almost as soon as it happened.

  “I gave her a ride home,” Paul continues. “She… I mean, we passed this diner where they do pancakes. Du-pars, on Fairfax.”

  Du-pars. I’ve been there before, more than once. A white house with a big red-lettered sign in front of it, looking like time travellers from the 1950s dropped it there.

  “She asked if I’d been there before, I said no, and suddenly she was insisting we pull in and get some food.” He shakes his head. “I think she was just hungry, to be honest, but we… we got to talking. More than we had before.”