Tainted Waters

by Leah Cutter

  “It felt good. Right,” I told her. “More so than ever before.”

  Sam nodded, her hair moving silkily against my chest. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel,” she said. “Like you’re doing good in the world.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I’d thought it was just the training that taught that,” Sam admitted. “I had no idea if you’d feel that way ever.” She paused, then said, “It’s been about six months since you came into your gift, right? That’s when this feeling generally kicks in.”

  I kissed her hair and thought. It made sense. The training was evidently really hard. The drop–out and suicide rates were high.

  The Jacobson Consortium would want the blessed to feel that what they were doing was right, to make all that training worth it.

  Or maybe that was how the name, the blessed, actually came into being. Not that I was blessed with a gift, but because I felt blessed when I used it.

  Which was just all kinds of fucked up, and not something I was used to in the slightest.

  “I’d really like to keep using my gift,” I told Sam. “Regularly.” Not on the sly, as we had been, with me kind of helping her out.

  I didn’t want a regular job with the suits. And I really didn’t want to go work with the police. None of the PAs I knew, or Sam knew, had their own private practice. They all hired out as contractors.

  The paperwork and licenses were a complete and total bitch if you wanted to work on your own, along with regular government inspections, that you had to pay for, of course. In addition, you had to be a full corporation, which meant corporate setup fees and taxes. So no one just starting their career would go independent. And once you started working as a contractor, setting up your own practice was even harder with the non–competition clauses.

  It all made sense. The Jacobson Consortium didn’t want any competition. All those contractors went through them, for a fee, of course.

  However, I wanted to use my abilities legitimately. To help people. It had felt really good.

  “I can try again with my friends the Fitzpatricks,” Sam offered. “See if they can help you find something.”

  I shook my head, knowing she’d feel my chin moving across the top of her head. “No. I don’t want you owing any more favors. I don’t want to give you any more reasons for resenting me.”

  “I don’t resent you,” Sam said softly.

  I sighed. It was an old argument. She claimed she didn’t resent me. But then she’d act as though I wasn’t living up to some sort of bargain that she’d set up in her head—that she’d done this thing for me and I needed to do something (never specified) in return.

  Neither of us would ever end up winning it.

  “I think,” I said slowly, testing the waters. “I’ll go talk with my old friend Josh.”

  Sam stiffened all along my side. “If you think that’s what it will take,” she said.

  “What choice do I have? There’s no one legit who will hire me.” And I possibly had my friend Josh to thank for that as well.

  “Be careful,” Sam said. She leaned up and kissed my cheek before settling back down with her head on my chest.

  “You see something?” I asked, curious.

  Sam shook her head. “No. But the Jacobson Consortium have turned out to be more devious than anyone expected.”

  I didn’t bother replying. Of course they were. They were originally a government organization, run by spooks, now privatized.

  And you never got between a hungry congresscritter and their money.

  Ξ

  Of course, I didn’t try to make an appointment with Josh at his office. That would have been too ordinary. Too mundane.

  Not enough fun.

  No, Josh still worked an undercover gig as a barista at one of the local coffee chains. Around Christmas time he’d had to wear the stupid antlers that were part of the company’s logo.

  He was a corporate spy for the Jacobson Consortium. Since Hunter was out of his jurisdiction now, I wasn’t sure who he spied on, who he kept in his program. Probably other homeless guys, who, like Hunter, had paranormal abilities but who’d fallen through the cracks.

  Cracks deliberately placed there by the Jacobson Consortium. Cracks that would let the odd ones fall through, so the consortium had a constant supply of guinea pigs to try their new drugs on, the drugs that would enhance someone’s paranormal abilities.

  The drugs that ended up being horrifically addictive.

  I’d only taken them once, a milder version that supposedly wasn’t addictive.

  But I already had what all the doctors labeled an addictive personality.

  Me and drugs were always going to get along just fine.

  Luckily, I was also a stubborn, whirling bitch, and like hell if I was going to let some drug control me.

  It was mid–morning by the time I made it to the hipster coffee shop. I mean, sure, it was a chain and all. They still had prime real estate in the Uptown neighborhood.

  It was like stepping into a freezer walking into the shop. I would have bet they kept it that cold to drive away customers, but there were at least a half–dozen hearty souls sitting at the scattered tables, sipping their lattes and shivering.

  Josh recognized me right away. He also looked frantically behind me.

  Was Hunter continuing to “stalk” him? Hunter was very careful when he did it, standing outside of the one–hundred–yard restraining order, then just staring at Josh.

  It made Hunter laugh.

  God help me, I missed the crazy loon.

  “What do you want?” Josh asked as I came up the counter.

  “That’s a rude way to ask a customer their drink choice,” I pointed out politely.

  Josh rolled his eyes. “You’re just lucky I don’t call the cops on you.”

  “You forget, I’m working with the cops,” I told him.

  “Yeah, right,” Josh said, obviously not believing me. “They don’t work with drug addicts.”

  His comment stung. It was too close to what the nice supervisor had said to me when I’d applied for the worst shift available, at Sam’s urging, just so I could get my foot in the door.

  “I guess it’s lucky that this place will hire drug addicts,” I told him sweetly. “I mean, doesn’t Hunter have evidence of you tripping with him?”

  I said it loud enough that the other baristas working behind the counter could hear me. At least one sniggered.

  Josh couldn’t help but be an asshole to everyone.

  “What can I get you?” Josh said, as fake a smile as he could muster plastered on his face.

  “I’d like a tall mocha. Extra whipped. And, actually, I’d like to talk,” I told Josh.

  “I haven’t seen him,” Josh said bluntly. “I know he escaped from jail. He isn’t hiding with me.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. I would think that Josh would be the last person on earth that Hunter would turn to.

  And possibly, that was the point. Josh was the last person on earth Hunter would turn to. If I was looking for Hunter, Josh would be one of the people I’d go see.

  “No, it’s actually about that other thing,” I told him.

  “What, the cops?” Josh asked.

  “No. A job,” I admitted.

  The smirk Josh shot me made me wish I’d been better at the sort of fighting Hunter had tried to teach me, just so I could have reached out and smacked the hell out of him before he even knew what was coming.

  “I’ll be right out,” he said smugly.

  I didn’t want to have to rely on Josh, or anyone in the Jacobson Consortium, for a job.

  But he might have been my last hope.

  Ξ

  I don’t know if it was Josh’s general smugness, asshattery, or just egomania, but he agreed to let me take the contract he wanted me to sign home with me, instead of insisting that I stay there and sign it immediately. Probably in blood.

  I knew it was a bad contract. I didn’t have to read the lega
lese to know that.

  But Josh knew he had me over a barrel. It was either him and this contract, or no position what–so–ever.

  Fortunately, despite it being Friday, I didn’t have a shift at Chinaman Joe’s until later. Sam met me for dinner, insisting that we meet at the cutest place she knew of, looking out over Nicollet mall in downtown.

  It was three stories up, facing Nicollet. It was a private sort of restaurant/club. No advertising in the elevator, no sign in the hallway. I walked down this white corridor with weird–ass modern art lining the walls—orange and green lines and circles, painted on rough white linen, framed.

  It looked like something my mother would have loved.

  The door to the restaurant also didn’t have a sign. But at least the French doors leading in had glass window panes, so I could tell I was in the right place.

  The Maître d’ was in a tux—older white dude, fat, bald, with black glasses that had been hip half a century ago and were now coming back. He was at least a head shorter than I was, but he still tried to look down his nose at me.

  “Reservation for two? Monroe?” I asked politely.

  Hey, better to be nice than to have him spit in my glass.

  He gave me the once–over, obviously questioning whether I carried lice or not. With a sniff, he turned and said, “This way, please.”

  At least he didn’t tell me to “walk this way.” I don’t think I’d ever manage that amount of swish, even with my hips. Not without dislocating something.

  He led me to a small table that was right next to the windows, overlooking the street. I didn’t want any alcohol—I was all nerves, as if this was one of Sam’s and my first dates. Instead, I ordered us a bottle of fizzy water, something I knew Sam would appreciate.

  God, why was I so nervous? I found myself looking toward the door, longing for a cigarette.

  When I saw Sam in her fine tan slacks and pink silk sleeveless top, I realized what was causing my nerves to go haywire.

  Sam had invited me to a very nice public place in order to break up with me.

  That was the only thing that made sense. Particularly since she looked so happy to see me.

  Sam was rarely happy to see me. Not unless the lights were off and our clothes were soon to follow.

  Still, I had to pretend, didn’t I? That was what got us into this fucking mess. Me, thinking that I could go back to being the little suburban princess and wiping the mud from the gutter off my glass shoes.

  “Hi there,” I said, standing up, pulling out her chair, taking her bag and placing it closer to the window, out of the way.

  “Fizzy water?” I asked, holding up the bottle, ready to pour her some.

  “Please,” Sam said. Her look gave away nothing.

  Did I really want to try to sit through an entire meal with this sword hanging over our heads?

  “Did you go to see Josh?” Sam asked, innocently enough.

  “Yeah,” I said. I pulled out the contract and passed it to her. “That’s what he wants me to sign. Basically, my life for the next four years, my soul, and my firstborn.”

  “Is that all?” Sam asked, rolling her eyes. She took it and glanced at it, then focused in on the paper.

  I swirled the water in my glass. I’d known it was a shit contract.

  Sam’s reaction just proved it was much worse than even I could imagine. And I could imagine a lot.

  But then again, I wasn’t a lawyer.

  “Cassie—you can’t sign this,” Sam said, looking up at me. “They could, in fact, own your soul.”

  I’d been kidding about the owning my soul part. “I’d like to see them collect on it,” I told Sam.

  She grimaced. “I’ve seen some egregious contracts, but this one takes the cake.” She gave a low whistle. “They would be paying you well.”

  “And I’d be peeing into a cup regularly,” I told her. “All forfeit if I fail one of their drug tests. Not that they can’t put me on their own drug trials at any time.”

  Sam actually went pale at that. “That can’t be legal,” she said. “They can’t make your accepting their drug trials as a condition of your employment.”

  I shrugged. I’d known it was what Josh had wanted all along.

  Another guinea pig. One more willing, less crazy, than Hunter.

  “It would never stand up in court,” Sam said.

  “But I don’t have the resources to sue them,” I said. “Plus, there’s that whole thing about an arbitrator, toward the end.”

  Sam just shook her head. “You’re not signing this,” she said plainly.

  “Do I have a choice?” I asked. “If I want to keep doing work, good work, meaningful work, it’s either dance with the devil we know or not at all.”

  “Let me try one more contact,” Sam said, sliding the contract back across the table to me.

  “No,” I said. I was surprised at how firmly I was able to say that.

  I could never say no to Sam. It was one of our biggest problems.

  “No more favors. No more calling in friends,” I told her.

  “At least wait until Monday,” she requested.

  “Why? What happens Monday?” I asked. “Or this weekend?”

  “You can think about it. And maybe I can talk you out of it,” Sam said. “Plus, aren’t we going out to the Aquatennial? The milk–carton boat races? Maybe we can stop a mad bomber and you won’t have to take Josh’s offer.”

  I stared at Sam, dumbstruck. “So you’re not here to break up with me?” I asked.

  Crap. I’d said that out loud, hadn’t I?

  Sam looked perplexed. “No,” she said slowly. Then she looked around. “This is the absolute last place I’d do something like that.”

  “Really? Why is that?” I asked, sliding my hand across the table, brushing my fingertips on the soft spot on her wrist.

  “Neither of us could break things here,” Sam said, giving me a cheeky grin. “You think you’re the only one capable of throwing a complete fit?”

  I sat back, relieved. “Samantha Monroe, one might say you had a temper on you,” I told her.

  “And quite a mouth. So let’s eat, and talk about timelines, and see if there’s some other work you can do besides taking a job with this slime.”

  I hesitated. “It’s that bad, huh?” I asked, moving the contract to the side.

  “Worse,” Sam said. A gleam came into her eye. “You sign that, and I may have to sic your mother on them.”

  I gave a fake shudder, but wondered at the same time.

  I would have to sign that contract. I knew it. It was my only chance at legitimate work.

  But maybe I could sic my mother on them first.

  Ξ

  I told Sam that I’d meet up with her at Lake Calhoun on Saturday. I knew it would be nuts, so I just took the bus from my place up there.

  I sat at the back of the bus in my shorts and sleeveless top, sweating under my bra, and wondering about the genetic makeup of some people. A group of Japanese tourists—mostly teenagers, with a couple of adults riding herd—excitedly chattered nearby. They were all completely covered, with long–sleeved shirts, full–length pants, and hats.

  If I could have asked them in Japanese, I would have inquired about their lack of gloves.

  But while I was sweating up a storm, the vinyl seat sticking to my thighs, they all looked fresh and cool.

  Sometimes, it just didn’t seem worthwhile chewing through the ropes in the morning.

  We passed near Josh’s coffee shop. There was a line out the door. Good. I hoped the asshole wore holes in his shoes, hopping for his customers.

  I didn’t want to work with that shithead. Didn’t want to sign such a bad contract.

  But it was the only deal in town for me.

  I didn’t get feelings like Sam did, about things that were going to happen, or people or things. Until I’d taken the poisoned pearls, I didn’t have any abilities at all.

  The feeling I got when I used my powe
rs, though, told me I was doing the right thing. It sounded stupid and corny and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at myself.

  It was also true. I needed to use my powers, for good, not evil. And on a regular basis.

  But how could I do that without being gainfully employed by a company that used post–cogs?

  I let the Japanese tourists get off the bus first, laughing at how the first thing they did was pull out their cell phones and take pictures of themselves. I made my way across the street with a barrage of other people, heading toward the pavilion.

  Where, if I had any luck at all, I’d find Sam in a cute sundress, showing off tantalizing amounts of skin.

  As I stood, smoking and ignoring the glares from all the health nuts, I realized I kept looking around, looking at guys’ faces.

  This would be a hell of a place to set off another bomb, to send another fucking “message.”

  I nodded to the uniform who was doing the foot patrol thing. I didn’t fit the profile, but he was being careful. I didn’t envy him. This crowd would be enough to drive anyone interested in order nuts.

  Sam came up soon after that, wearing culottes and a short top. She looked like a complete preppy. If I wasn’t dating her, I’d probably be making fun of her.

  Then she came up and kissed my cheek.

  Eat your heart out, I wanted to crow at the cop giving us the stink eye.

  “This your entry for the Ms. Minnesota contest?” I asked. “Queen of the Lakes?”

  Okay, so I still was going to give her crap about her outfit.

  Sam rolled her eyes at me. “I suppose this is your entry for Ms. Butch, summer?”

  I shrugged but still smiled at her. It was good to see her, good to not be fighting.

  “Any news?” I asked as I slipped my hand into hers and started leading her toward the beach, where the sand sculpture competition was still going on.

  Sam grew serious and shook her head. “No. Pre–cogs don’t think there’ll be another bomb here. But…”

  “But?” I asked, stopping. The guy walking behind us cursed as he nearly stumbled into us.

  “Watch it,” I said sharply, pulling Sam closer.

  Maybe coming here was a bad idea.

  “I just have this feeling,” Sam said slowly. “And so did another couple of pre–cogs. Something might happen here. But it isn’t set yet.”