by Gwenda Bond
I shouldn’t be arguing against my own case. But… “You were nominated for a Pulitzer.”
“We don’t do this for awards.” He waved his hand to indicate the walls around us. “They’re nice, and I was proud of my stories. I put everything I had into them. But if awards are more important to us than the truth, we have no business being here. So, you called me here for a reason. What’s our next step?”
Of all the ways I’d imagined this conversation going, this was not one of them. He was on board. He was going to help us.
Our next step.
I hadn’t even been forced to beg.
“James’s dad called Moxie and Ellis tonight. He has them motivated to threaten his freedom again. But I know now where the evidence is, the stuff he had on Moxie. We need to get it, and get someone on our side who can arrest them. Maybe—” I’d been putting this together in my head on the way over. Maddy’s request changed things a little, but my general idea might work. “If James’s dad tells Moxie and Ellis he’s changed his mind and is willing to hand it over, we can keep them occupied tomorrow while we work out the arrest part. But we need somebody who can handle the court side too, who’ll defend James’s dad and go after Moxie and Ellis.” That’s when it occurred to me. “Devin said his mom isn’t a fan of Moxie.”
“Angela Harris? Runs the public defender’s office, well respected. We could go to the DA’s office, but—” He shook his head. “They have to have someone on Moxie’s payroll. They’ve tried to bring him down, but the cases always fall apart early on. I think Harris would listen to what we have to say. She believes in justice, and she’ll take up Worthington’s cause if she thinks he’s innocent. We’ll need the arrests to happen in public, so we can make all this known if we’re going to clear his name. Before they have time to try to clean up the mess. You’re sure Worthington’s innocent?”
“The evidence should show it.”
“And we can get to the evidence?”
I’d bluffed a little with James about how easy that would be. Here was hoping that Devin was out there scouring the plans for City Hall and discovering some magical way for me to access the ceiling in the mayor’s office without getting caught in the process.
“We don’t have a choice. But it’ll be complicated, and probably a good thing you have someone under eighteen to do it.”
“Why?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Well, how much trouble can a minor get into for B and E into the mayor’s office? In broad daylight.”
He blinked at me again.
“Forget I said anything. It was a joke. You’ll be busy getting Devin’s mom on board. We’ll set a rendezvous point around City Hall, and leave the rest to me and James.”
I waited, and it occurred to me I may have said too much about the location of the goods.
Finally, he nodded. “You are not, under any circumstances, to get arrested, Lane.”
We talked for a while longer, coming to an agreement about how we’d proceed the next day. Perry was on board with acting fast, before Moxie had a chance to get wind of our plot or to do something to James and his family. I had to buy the morning free to try to get Melody clear, because when the rest of these dominoes started to fall—well, we couldn’t have her still standing in the way of them.
CHAPTER 25
Perry insisted on seeing me home. So I texted Taxi Jack: I have an escort, so go home and I’ll add an extra tip next time. Which will probably be tomorrow. Part of me expected a fight, and that the car would be waiting when we left the Planet, but he was nowhere to be seen as we walked a block and then navigated across town by subway. We were quiet, possibly paranoid that Boss Moxie’s spies were everywhere.
They probably were.
“I’ll go on from here alone,” I told Perry when we reached my stop. I hopped off the train. “It’s less than a block. Well, a block and a half. But close.”
It was also well after midnight.
“Your parents don’t know you’re out, I’m assuming? I’m walking you.” Perry stepped off the train seconds before the doors closed, and held up a hand when I started to protest. He kept talking as we hit the stairs up to the street. It wasn’t crowded, but there were a few other people on the sidewalk. “I’m not going to tell them what happened. Not tonight. But no more sneaking out for the job. You’re too good a reporter and I don’t want to have to fire you. You need to recognize some rules are rules for a reason, there to protect you.”
I ignored the ridiculous part about rules and protection. Affronted, I asked, “Fire me?”
Like I hadn’t just brought him the story of the year. I sniffed in the cooler night air, pulled my jacket tighter around myself.
“I said I don’t want to have to.” He paused on the sidewalk until I pointed ahead. We turned onto the block where our brownstone was.
He went on. “And, yes, I know you’re thinking you can’t believe I called you out on this after you brought me this story. I am impressed that you put all this together. But you’re only sixteen. You’re still in high school. Not an adult.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, feeling a keen sense of betrayal.
“You might not even want to do this with the rest of your life,” he added.
“I will punch you,” I said.
“No, you won’t,” Perry said. “I was kidding about that anyway. I know another lifer when I see one.”
My disgruntlement faded.
We made quick work of the rest of the walk, and when we reached the brownstone—dark, thankfully—I waved and he headed back the way we’d come.
I twisted the doorknob oh-so-quietly, praying my mom was sound asleep. And… I made it inside. So far, so good. The living room was dark, and my knee banged a coffee table. I swallowed my ouch, and soft-shoed toward the hall and Dad’s study. I’d grab the lock picks so I was ready for morning, then try for a few hours of fitful sleep, wake to check in with SmallvilleGuy.
That was my plan.
Until I realized something was wrong. The light in Dad’s study was on.
I was almost positive it hadn’t been when I left. He confirmed it by appearing in the doorway a heartbeat later, a dark silhouette.
“Where have you been?” he asked, his voice a hush.
The house around us was silent except for the hum of the heating system. Lucy and Mom must have been sound asleep upstairs.
I was busted. There was no point pretending otherwise.
I continued toward him. When I was a foot away, I said, softly, “Working. I thought you were too.”
“I have an interagency meeting in Wichita tomorrow,” Dad said, keeping his voice low, controlled. “But my flight got canceled. I’ll go out in the morning.”
This was a deceptively civil exchange.
He retreated into the study. But I knew our conversation wasn’t over. So I followed without him having to ask, and then took the chair in front of his imposing wooden desk.
Dad had a slower gait when he was tired, and he employed it to go over and pick up the framed photograph of our family. The one where I was the lone scowler. The one where he hid the key to his goodie stash.
My heart picked up its pace. This wasn’t good. I had put back the key, right? I’d been in such a rush to get back to the kitchen. And he wasn’t supposed to be home.
Tiredness wasn’t just in the way he moved as he walked back toward me with the photograph. His expression was weary, his face pale. I pictured him sitting in the terminal at the airport for hours, waiting for a flight before he gave up and decided to come back and try again tomorrow. He was still in his uniform.
He reached me and extended the photograph toward me. “Take it,” he said.
I did so, and felt along the back instinctively. There was nothing there.
“Dad,” I started, searching for some explanation to rattle off. Some cover stor
y.
“No. No excuses,” he said and lumbered around the desk to take his own seat. He considered me, folding his hands in front of him. For the third time in one night, I sat across from a powerful authority figure. Somehow I didn’t think this would go as well as my confabs with the ex-mayor or Perry had.
But I marshaled my arguments to make the attempt. “Dad—”
“No. Keep it down. Your mother told me about your girls’ night. I don’t want her to know about this. It would ruin it for her, make her feel tricked.”
My eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t fooling her. We were having fun. And you can’t just decide what people know and don’t know. She should make her own call.”
His lips quirked up on one side. “That’s my daughter, so contrary she’s now arguing that I should probably inform her mother I caught her sneaking in forty-five minutes after midnight.” He lifted one of his hands and pointed to the photograph currently in a death grip in my hands. “Look at it.”
It hardly seemed possible the key could be missing and he didn’t know I’d been “borrowing” it and items from his stash, but maybe. I stared down at our faces, frozen on that day. Here I was again, facing off against Dad, like I had right before it was taken.
“I think more people should get realistic portraits like this.” I held it up for his inspection. “It might catch on.”
“This is no time for jokes.”
“Gallows humor.” I placed the photograph on his desk.
“You’ve been stealing things from me,” he said.
“Borrowing,” I clarified.
“Some of those things are dangerous.”
No kidding. Like the prism flares. Even a lock pick was dangerous in the right hands.
Hands like mine.
“I’ve only borrowed a couple of little things. Nothing big,” I said. It wasn’t an outright lie. “And I returned them.”
“Well, it stops now.”
“No kidding. You put the key somewhere new. I’m guessing someplace harder to get to.”
He smiled at that. “You’re right.”
Crap. That meant no lock picks in time for the morning. There went my plan for getting into Ismenios.
“Fun talk,” I said, and rose, fighting down a surge of panic. We’d have to regroup on the fly in the morning. Dabney Donovan’s whistling still gave me the shivery creeps, and my original idea was to avoid confronting him directly. But there might not be another way… “I’ve had a long night. If we’re not telling Mom, can I get some sleep?”
“Sit. Down.”
It was the General’s command voice. Even I didn’t disobey that. Not unless it was absolutely unavoidable. I sat, my palms damp.
“Yes, Dad?”
“We’re going to try an experiment. I have to go out of town tomorrow, for my interagency meeting. I’ll be back Friday night. You are grounded for the next twenty-four hours, but it’s going to be up to you to police yourself. You’ll go to school, then come straight home. If you abide by this, I might actually not tell your mother once I’m back. As long as you know you will never leave this house so late without asking permission again.” He paused. “If you can’t manage to police yourself, then we’re going to have a more serious chat.”
My head was shaking no in reflex. Tomorrow wasn’t a good day for this.
I swallowed the truth. “Got it.”
Which, again, wasn’t a lie. I did understand the agreement I’d be violating.
“Go get some sleep,” he said. “I know you think you’ve found your calling, and maybe you have. But you can’t worry your mother.”
Or you. You’re really the one who’s worried.
“Got it twice,” I said. “Have fun in Kansas City.”
“Wichita,” he said. “Goodnight.”
I left and climbed the stairs to my room. What tomorrow held was a mystery, but I couldn’t see any way to observe the terms of the agreement. I pushed aside my concern about what Dad would do when he found out I hadn’t come straight home after school.
Because I was thinking about something else.
Wichita.
Crossing to my computer, I keyed in the passwords and pulled up Strange Skies.
The next night’s sighting was scheduled to take place at coordinates not far outside Wichita, Kansas. Not far from where Dad and I had seen the teetering rock tower and encountered the flying man two years ago, something we’d never mentioned to each other since that night.
“This is an unwelcome coincidence,” I said.
But my gut told me it was no coincidence at all.
*
My fingers were back on the keyboard pre-dawn the next morning. SmallvilleGuy’s name showed as logged in to chat, but he might have left it that way.
SkepticGirl1: You there?
Sleep had been a dreamless miracle, like I was in that glowing blue tank across town instead of my bed. I hadn’t expected to grab so much as a wink, but I had a feeling my body sensed I’d need it for the day ahead.
Mob bosses and mad scientists and spooky mental links to somehow sever, oh my. Plus, my dad in Kansas, probably up to no good. And TheInventor was out there hacking to figure out who was on the task force.
Worlds that weren’t meant to collide were about to.
SmallvilleGuy: I’m here. Came in a little while ago. Bess is finally almost well. Nellie Bly made me give her an extra bottle. She wouldn’t stop looking at me with those big eyes.
SmallvilleGuy: How did things go with Perry?
I sucked in a breath, the many events of the night before flooding back. Deciding where to start wasn’t easy…
SkepticGirl1: Before I tell you about that: I think my dad might be part of the interagency task force.
I waited for the shocked response and waited and, finally, after half a minute, it came.
SmallvilleGuy: How do you know?
SkepticGirl1: He caught me last night, coming home after talking to Perry. And he said his flight had gotten bumped but he was going to an interagency meeting in Wichita.
SmallvilleGuy: So he didn’t outright say it?
SkepticGirl1: No, but I think we can assume. The coordinates for tonight? I looked them up. They’re exactly where my own sighting happened.
SmallvilleGuy: I know.
I frowned at the screen and made an entry in my mental ledger of information that didn’t quite add up.
SkepticGirl1: How? I never got that specific about the location.
SmallvilleGuy: I haven’t checked the coordinates myself, but seems like you must be right if your dad’s involved.
He hadn’t exactly answered my question, but I backed off. We had something bigger to discuss.
SkepticGirl1: Okay. So, I don’t have much time—do you think we should tell TheInventor about this? We can if you think we should. But, you know, if my dad finds out that I’ve been on the boards, bad things will happen. He’s already about to lower the ax. Off with her head, etc.
SmallvilleGuy: Can’t let that happen. I like your head on your shoulders. It’s good there.
He was always able to do that. But his joke had made me feel better.
Much.
How did he know to do that when we’d never met for real?
SkepticGirl1: I was serious last night. If it comes to a big reveal, it comes to that. But I’d rather it not.
SmallvilleGuy: Agreed. I don’t think we should tell TheInventor. He doesn’t know who you are.
Now this was an interesting twist.
SkepticGirl1: You trust him still?
SmallvilleGuy: I do, but not with your secrets. Not even with all of mine. He as much as said he has his own reasons and he’s not necessarily sharing them with us.
SmallvilleGuy: I trust him to help us and to do what we discussed if he can. But… that’
s far enough. When in doubt, I ask What Would Lois Do?
SmallvilleGuy: I trust you and your gut more.
I found my fingers rising to touch the screen. I was smiling.
SkepticGirl1: So we’ll keep that to ourselves then. It shouldn’t matter. Either he gets the info and scares off Insider01 with his message… or not, and we deal with it.
But I was feeling more optimistic about the plan. If my dad was part of this task force, I could imagine his reaction all too easily. He’d urge retreat, find a different method to attack their problem. They hadn’t turned up anything that resembled a lead that we knew about, and if they had, they wouldn’t be continuing to post fake sightings.
My phone buzzed beside me and I saw Devin’s name pop up in a text message. Followed by Maddy’s. And then James’s.
They’d restarted our group confab from the other night. I was beyond fully awake now, and all the way into wired territory.
SkepticGirl1: I’m going to have to take off. Today’s the day. James’s dad pushed things. We have to act fast. Perry’s recruiting help from Devin’s mom. She’s a lawyer.
SmallvilleGuy: What does that mean? What are you going to do?
SkepticGirl1: A game of misdirection not unlike our own. But the first thing we have to do is get Melody safely separated from the clone. Which probably isn’t going to be easy. After that, it’s a matter of tricking Boss Moxie and his mayor friend to the Worthington manor at the right time for me to rifle through the mayor’s office, us to get a warrant for their arrest, and arrange for James’s dad to be seen in public at just the right moment and them to do likewise and get handcuffs. Easy, right?
SmallvilleGuy: I could barely follow that. Lois, I want to know everything, when you have time. And you can only tell me if you aren’t hurt. Or in jail.
SkepticGirl1: Relax, the most dangerous thing I’m doing is crawling around in the ceiling at City Hall.
