by Gwenda Bond
“The thing is,” he said, “he asked if I’d ever seen a pretty blond girl hanging around here. But there was something more out-there than that.” He was suddenly uncomfortable, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He looked at Melody. “It might make you feel weird.”
“I’m the queen of feeling weird lately,” Melody said with a hoarse cough of a laugh.
Her fingers circled her wrist, and I wondered if the motion was automatic now. Devin handed her the water, and she dropped her hand to take it, with a disconcerted glance at her wrist. That answered that question. She hadn’t known she was doing it.
“Go ahead,” she said, unscrewing the top on the water.
Dante went on. “So I hadn’t even answered his first question. It was like he knew I must have seen her. Um, you. He asked if I’d been working at this spot for a few days and so I nodded. You can tell that from the state the mural’s at. It’s really coming along…” He looked evasively at his shoes. “But then he asked if the girl, the pretty blond girl, if she seemed happy. He asked me if you seemed happy,” he repeated to Melody. “That’s weird, right?”
“Anything else?” I asked, saving Melody from having to answer.
“Yeah,” Dante said. “He asked me her name.” Maddy gasped beside him, and he put a reassuring hand on her arm. Her eyes went to it, widening. “I didn’t tell him. I told him that people might get the wrong idea with him asking questions like that in this neighborhood and that I had to go. I told him he should stay away from the Boss’s property.”
Oh, that was good. “How’d he react?” I asked, exchanging a look with James.
“He laughed,” Dante said. “He said that wasn’t possible.”
Hmmm. More evidence he worked for Moxie in some way. And his whole line of questioning to Dante further strengthened the connection to Melody’s situation too.
Somehow.
There was only one more question I had for Dante, mainly to confirm my suspected answer was correct. “What’d he look like? Can you describe him for me? Or sketch him?”
“Don’t have to,” Dante said.
He pulled a phone out of his pocket and tapped at it. Then he held it out.
It was the Daily Planet’s mobile site. And the story he’d found was one of Perry’s stories about James’s dad and corruption. One of the stories that got him sent away to prison.
“It was that guy,” Dante said. He expanded a photo of ex-Mayor Worthington’s face. “He looked like him.”
I didn’t look at James, but it took effort. I heard Devin say, low, “Don’t stress, man, we’re on top of this.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Look, I need to talk to Melody alone, do you mind… ?”
“That’s all I had to tell you.” He angled his body so he faced Maddy. “Walk me out?” he asked.
She clearly wanted to say yes, her mouth opening to form the word, but James cut in. “She probably wants to check on her sister. I’ll show you the way,” he said.
“No need,” Dante said. Without turning away from Maddy, he added, “See you at school. You want to get coffee tomorrow, after last period?”
“I’d love to,” she said, with zero pause. “See you tomorrow.”
That made him happy. It made me happy, too.
He smiled at her, and then headed to the door. “Thanks, Dante, we appreciate it,” I called after him, and he waved a hand in acknowledgement before he disappeared into the dim hallway.
James was still frowning after Dante left. Now that was the disapproving scowl I’d come to know.
“What’d you see?” I asked Melody, but once again, I could have guessed. An uneasiness, like standing on the deck of a boat rocking on waves, passed through me. I could already guess because we’d gotten the report from the other side of the twin bond already from Dante, courtesy of the guy who looked like Mayor Worthington. I believed Dante’s account of what he’d said, of his interest in her.
And Melody confirmed it. “The building, the old one we went to, I saw the outside of it. I was messing with the wristband.” She touched her wrist. “He was, I mean. And then I—he—touched one of those keep-out B graffiti tags that guy, um, you know—”
Her eyes skated to the door.
“Dante is his name,” Maddy supplied.
“Do you like him?” Melody asked.
“Why would you care? So you can insult my taste or so you can steal him?”
Maddy flinched at her own words. I could tell she hadn’t meant to say that. She carefully did not look at James, only at her sister. “Sorry. Finish your report,” she mumbled.
I made a mental note to ask Maddy if she and her sister had always been like this with each other, and to press her for a real answer. This felt like a rift, and rifts were created by an event.
But rifts could be bridged. And I was confident (er, mostly) that was what a friend would do.
“I saw him. Dante,” Melody said, more timid than usual. “And the mural behind him. No wonder the guy thought to ask him about me.”
So the stories matched up, as I’d suspected. This had taken place this afternoon. Dante and Melody had both come straight here.
“Why’s he looking around the abandoned building, though? Do you think he’s having side effects like you are?” I asked. But I didn’t expect an answer.
“What he asked Dante about her being happy,” Maddy said—to me, not to her sister, sitting right in front of us—“Can she feel how the guy’s feeling? Is that part of the twin bond thing?”
I turned a questioning gaze on Melody. “Do you feel anything?”
Melody sniffed. “No… He feels empty. Like he’s pulling on me, to fill himself up. If that’s not crazy… Wait. What twin bond?”
I did not want to reopen that can of worms. “Mad, did you get a chance to ask if she remembered the name Dabney Donovan?”
“Not yet,” Maddy said. And to Melody, “Do you?”
Melody was nodding. “Doctor Donovan, yes, I think that was him. Tall and weird. I never heard his first name, though.”
Excellent. “That much is great.”
“So, what’s the twin bond thing?” Melody asked, curiously eyeing her sister.
“A theory,” I said. “Maddy can fill you in.”
Maddy scowled at me. “I will not—”
Perry strode through the door, his dress shoes clicking on the tile beneath our feet. He had on one of those knock-off suits he wore. Once again, I was saved by an interruption. Sort of.
“Hello, cub reporters,” he said, looking around. “I thought I’d better check to make sure you’re working on news stories. You are, correct? Working on news stories? Because I’m seeing a lot of features go up. They have their place, but expectations are high, and…”
He stopped, blinking at Maddy and Melody.
“This is Melody, Maddy’s twin sister,” I said.
“The one that James…” Perry started, but then obviously remembered that if he did know James had a crush on Maddy’s sister he shouldn’t mention it out loud. I wanted to kick him.
“Is friends with,” James said.
“Right,” Perry said. “James’s friend.”
Maddy was scowling more.
“What are you working on, though?” Perry asked. “That’s why I came by. You set expectations and so far, you’re not living up to them.”
Ouch. I had to bite back the urge to counter with the truth. Instead, I went with almost-truth. “Um, I’m working on a hot take…” Perry’s eyebrows lifted, interested. “. . . on street art, a mural in Suicide Slum.”
Perry’s eyebrows fell. “There is news to be had in Suicide, but the hot stuff is hardly the art scene. Prove the waterfront project’s a sham and we can talk.” It was a joke, and one that judged us—me—as not up to snuff.
If he only knew cracking the waterf
ront project story might not be that out of reach. We might do it as a corollary to the story he definitely could not know we were working on yet.
There had to be something in it for Boss Moxie, his elaborate scheme to get rid of Mayor Worthington, and now that Perry mentioned it that lucrative project might be the reward in question.
I was prepared to take the disappointment bullet from Perry for the moment, but of course, he wouldn’t leave it at that. “What else?” he asked.
“I actually have to… go,” I said. I still had the sheet with the three addresses in my hand. I waved it around with no explanation. “To check out a lead on something that might just be… something.”
“Ooh,” Perry said, tone flat, “something. My, that does sound exciting. I’ll tell them to hold page one for ‘something.’”
“‘Sarcasm is the refuge of the weak,’” I said. “That was Dostoevsky.”
“Russian writers, such optimists,” Perry said. “Bring me a story, Lane. A real one.”
“Can do. But right now…” I gathered up my laptop, shoving it in my bag. “I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow, guys.”
Maddy started to shake her head, as did James. Devin gave me a look of the “I know I can’t stop you, so I’m not bothering to try” variety. He was right.
“Wait,” James protested.
“Can’t,” I said, and none of them would stop me, not with Perry standing right there. I tried to imagine his mood if he found out where I was really going, what story I was really working on.
“I’ll let you all know tomorrow what I find out,” I said.
I hurried up the hall to the fire stairs, stopping inside to text my favorite cabbie. I took the stairs two at a time, and jetted out of the building’s front doors before anyone could catch me.
The cab squealed up to the curb. Rings shone on every one of Taxi Jack’s fingers, and I thought he might have added another gold chain to the mix around his neck. Probably paid for by my tips.
“Howdy, partner. You look like you’re in a big spender mood today,” he said, flashing a gold tooth. “Where to?”
I climbed into the backseat and flashed a handful of twenties I’d saved for this kind of special occasion. After I saw his be-ringed fingers tighten on the wheel in eagerness at the sight, I passed him the list of addresses.
“I told you already that a nice young lady like you should avoid this section of town.”
“But I need to drive by these three addresses.” I smiled at him. Innocently.
“Just drive by?” he asked.
I rubbed a twenty between my fingers, holding it up to show him. “There’s a great tip in it for you.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t usually go there after dark.”
It was still a while until sunset. “We’re just driving by. We’ll be done before darkness falls.” He wasn’t convinced, because we hadn’t started moving yet. I added, “Partner.”
“This for the big story you’re working on?” he asked. “Same as the other day?”
“A reporter never reveals her sources or her secrets,” I said.
But he clearly took that as a yes, because he put the car in gear and careened into traffic. “I’ll have to be snappy if we’re going to make it out before dark,” he said.
“Whatever makes you feel better.”
“You want to hit these in this order?” Jack asked.
“Whatever makes sense,” I answered.
I stared out the window at pre-sunset Metropolis: so many people were walking around, hurrying out to dinner or back to the office to finish up that one last thing before they went home for the night. Kids sighing at overprotective parents, people going in and out of stores, no one worrying about the truly bad guys out there—villains as extreme as any made-up ones, willing and able to play with people’s lives like we were all just small movable pieces on a chess board. So light, so easy to move.
I wondered if the scientist I hoped to find would even remember the pretty blond girl he’d experimented on, if he would recall telling her to contact him about any side effects.
Probably not. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d forgotten her entirely.
I looked forward to surprising him, though.
Doctor Dabney Donovan made the mistake of having luck worse than mine when he experimented on my friend’s sister. On someone who’d come to me for help.
He’d made the mistake of teaming up with a person who moved another of my friend’s father into jail.
Two strikes. I wanted to knock him out.
Soon enough, Taxi Jack’s cab left bustling innocent territory and we entered the darker, more cramped, more threatening streets of Suicide Slum. That the city allowed a neighborhood to get stuck with such a name was bad enough. That it wrote this place off was worse.
The first so-called vacant address was occupied, all right. There were shiny sedans parked in front, and guys who looked like extras from a mob movie. They wore slick suits, more expensive than Principal Butler’s even, if not as dapper. These were all black, and tailored to fit their giant muscled arms and torsos. One had a gun tucked into his waistband and made no attempt to hide it as we glided past.
“Driving by,” the cabbie said, and he didn’t so much as turn his head.
It was sketchy. But nothing about the tableau led me to believe there would be a lab coat inside. “Next,” I agreed.
The next place was several streets over and blocks away, and more of the same, sans sedans. No one fancy enough to merit such an automobile on the scene, I supposed. But there was a distinctive mix of guys in suits and guys in tracksuits coming in and out of the building, and two women in business suits who carried lawyer-esque briefcases. It still didn’t feel like the right address. My news nose refused to tingle.
“Third time’s the charm,” I said to the cabbie.
“Sun’s getting low,” he said, driving away.
“Just one more to go,” I promised.
He kept driving, slowing finally before we’d left Suicide Slum. We weren’t that far away from Dante and his mural; a few blocks at most.
I knew we were at the right place the moment I saw the three-story building. There was an image on its tinted glass door. It depicted a man in Greco-Roman-style warrior garb, armor and a short white tunic, wielding a sword against a dragon, fire flowing from its mouth. Ismenios versus Cadmus.
Melody had described a similar design on the door at the other place. Ismenios’s logo, I supposed.
“Pull over to the curb,” I said, and he stopped across the street. There were other buildings around of varying heights, a few alley openings, and the sidewalk was deserted.
My first story had involved a project called Hydra, named for a monster. And now here was another monster, that fire-breathing dragon.
I was a little tired of monsters, to be honest.
“I’m in a hurry,” Jack said, “to get us out of here.”
The building looked deserted, aside from how clean it was. Except, when I rolled down the window and stuck my head out for a better look, for a light on at the tippy-top third floor, shining like a discreet beacon advertising nefarious activity.
I passed the twenty over the seat. “Give me five minutes. I just want to get a picture with my phone.”
I moved to open the door.
“Wait,” Jack said.
And I saw why. The double—the man who was identical to James’s dad—strutted up the street from the other direction. He wore a long-sleeved black shirt and black slacks today. He paused for a second on the sidewalk, gazing up at the building, reminding me of a pet who’d escaped its leash but had nowhere to go except back to its terrible owner. I picked up my phone and snapped a photo, quickly checking to be sure I’d gotten him.
“We’d better get going, big tipper,” Jack said. The photo was
clear as clear could be. I watched while the double opened the tinted glass door and went inside. I was sure he hadn’t seen us. This might be my only chance to observe him—not that I intended to apprehend him or anything, or even to speak to him. But this was an opportunity to check out this part of the situation closer up.
Melody needed us to break this case. To find a solution.
Maddy needed me to, too. And James. That double was the key to the ruination of the ex-mayor’s life, I knew it, and Boss Moxie and whoever else was involved in this wouldn’t hesitate to turn it in the lock again. Whatever was happening inside that building, it was a huge part of constructing an ironclad corruption case against one of the most powerful men in the country.
I couldn’t sit here and do nothing. I couldn’t tell Jack to hit the gas.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, stepping out of the car before my cabbie friend could leave.
He started to protest, but his objections were silenced when I shut my door. He didn’t roar away, abandoning me. I appreciated that. He killed his headlights and let the engine idle.
My phone was still in my hand. I tapped out a message in the app.
SkepticGirl1: You there?
SmallvilleGuy: Just about to leave.
SkepticGirl1: I’m about to do something really stupid. If you don’t hear from me in 30 minutes, start to worry. Here’s my last-known location.
I sent my location, then stowed my phone in my bag and slung the strap over my shoulder.
It wasn’t fair play, but maybe this would keep him from going to the sighting.
I also trusted him to get word to my parents or the authorities, should that be necessary.
But it won’t be, I told myself. You’ll be careful.
Whatever reply SmallvilleGuy sent made my phone buzz as I crossed the street and paused in front of the monster on the door. I didn’t bother checking. I didn’t want to lie to him the way I had to myself.
Nothing about this was careful.
CHAPTER 14
I pressed my face close to the tinted glass. The building was dark inside, but not entirely. There was a thin glow coming from somewhere above, enough that I could see that the lobby was empty. It was too dim for me to see any other helpful details, but I was confident enough there was no movement in there, no one waiting just inside to grab me.
