by C. L. Stone
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Really quickly?” I asked. “He just needs to know you’re not going to end up in a cardboard box.”
Corey made a sound like he was choking. Raven smiled in a way that said he was holding back a laugh.
She smiled pleasantly, but touched at her neck like she was nervous. “Well, if you think you could help. I don’t want to trouble you.” She rose from her overstuffed settee by putting a lot of pressure on the arm rest and then the cane she used.
I thought she was about to fall over. Corey jumped up immediately and tucked his hand under her elbow. “I’ll help,” he said.
She blushed and hem-hawed about this, until Corey asked her where to go and she gingerly pointed to a hallway. She kept her computer in the bedroom.
When they were out of earshot, Raven started chuckling.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
“He’s taking an old lady to her bedroom.”
I had to laugh at this. I stole Corey’s plate and Raven and I divided the rest of the pie between us. After, Raven took the plates and stood up, heading to the kitchen.
I was going to sit and not touch anything, but I didn’t want to be alone with the Jesus babies and old people smell. I hopped up and followed.
Raven placed the plates by the sink and then started up the water. He dug under the sink, and found a bottle of soap.
“You're going to do her dishes?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Shouldn’t we not touch her things?” I didn’t mind being nice, but weren’t old ladies particular about how their dishes were washed?
“She’s a grandmother of a friend,” he said. “We want to leave a good impression.” He started unbuttoning the sleeves of his shirt and rolling them up, but doing so revealed the tattoos.
I grunted and then shoved him aside. “Don’t do that. She’ll walk out here and go into shock. Roll those sleeves back down and move over and I’ll do the dishes.”
We worked together quietly. I was listening for the old lady to come back as I washed. Raven dried. When my part was done, and he had dishes left to dry, I returned to the living room, hoping to pretend to have been sitting on the couch when they came back in. If she nagged about how her dishes weren’t washed properly, I was going to point at him.
There was a gentle knock at the front door. Raven was still in the kitchen and no one returned from the back bedroom, so I took liberties.
Part of me wondered if it was Blake Coaltar. Would he be that stupid?
Instead, I was met with the mailman. He held out a large brown package and some envelopes. “Oh!” he said. “Is Mrs. Gunther not in?”
“She’s busy,” I said. I offered to take the mail and he placed it into my hands. “Thanks,” I said.
“Tell her I said hello.”
After he left, I searched the living room for the place where Mrs. Gunther stashed her mail. If I was an old lady, where would I...
I found an antique letter desk near the back beyond the dining room table. Bingo.
The desk had various papers, envelopes and stacks of stationary. I was going to simply place the current mail on top when I spotted red lettering on an official looking envelope.
On the corner was a bond agency logo.
Bonds? Like bail bonds? I glanced over my shoulder and checked out Raven, who was wiping down the counter and the sink with a sponge.
I took the envelope from the collection. There was the word Urgent printed in red on the back. Who was in jail? Their Academy member? Is that why he couldn’t come fix all this himself? Maybe if I had his name, I could find out.
How do you open an envelope without anyone finding out? Open it the exact same way they did, and stick it on top of the old mail pile. If they catch it later, they’ll never think twice about who opened it, only why they didn’t really read it the first time.
There was a letter opener in a fancy dish on the desk. I used it, tearing at the crease. I pulled out the paper and unfolded the letter.
There was a lot of legalese, but it basically said Mrs. Gunther put her house up as collateral. If she knew the person’s location, she should notify them right away. The date on the paper said it was printed up a few days ago. Second notice.
My head rocked back as I re-read the letter. Custody bond. Fred Gunther. Daughter needs to be located.
The custody bond thing sounded familiar. Some kids I knew in school were secured with them, to which fathers often complained about, and mothers held over their heads with venom. They were issued by the court as insurance: take off with the kid, and we’ll keep the bond money. In exorbitant amounts, bond agencies loaned you the money for a fee, much like bail bonds. If you skip town, bounty hunters come after you, and you go to jail and the bond is given to the system. Something like that.
The amount matched the missing number Mrs. Bernard had said was missing from Mrs. Gunther’s account.
Couldn’t be a coincidence.
My pie-fueled brain put together the pieces. Mrs. Gunther gets a letter from this bond agency that her son and his daughter ran off, breaking a custody agreement. Fred shows up, begging for help? Or she realizes he must have taken off with her after she got the first notice. Mrs. Gunther, not wanting to lose her house or her grandson, sacrifices her savings and pays off the bond. She stays silent about the ordeal.
Then Harry got notice, thanks to the Academy being nosy, that a huge chunk of money was missing from her account. Mrs. Gunther didn’t want to worry him, but then told him she was missing money because of a shady investment, and if she lost it later in her fake pyramid scheme, it was her own fault.
And when we showed up at the scene, she claimed there was nothing to worry about. I made small, frustrating noises in the back of my throat. The lying little old lady. I couldn't believe it.
I was caught in a dilemma. Was it none of my business? Do I tell Raven and Corey? This old lady just lied to them, and I wouldn’t have cared, but the little girl was missing, and Mrs. Gunther was covering up for it. There was a mother out there missing her daughter. That was a big deal. The jerk face father ran off. He wouldn’t have a bond on him in the first place if he wasn’t at risk of this. If he took off with her and was abusing her or did it to spite the mother, then I was really going to pummel him if we were the ones to catch him.
I went back to Raven, who was putting away the last of the dishes. I folded my arms over my stomach and leaned against the counter. How far would they take this? Would we have to stop? Would the Academy want to get involved if the police were already interested in getting Fred back?
Raven dropped the sponge into the sink and rinsed off his hands. He turned his head, looking at me. His dark eyes narrowed on my face. “What?” he asked.
My head jerked back. “Huh?”
“You’re thinking.”
“How would you know?”
“Your lips wrinkle when you think too hard.”
I touched my fingers to my lips, like I might be able to feel what he’s talking about. “No, they don’t.”
He dried his hands and threw the towel toward the sink and started after me.
I backed up, my butt hitting the counter.
He planted a hand on either side of my hips, capturing me. He leaned in, his body an inch away from me. “Tell me.”
There were too many reasons to tell him: a missing child, a lying grandmother, another chance to figure out the secrets to this Academy. There were reasons not to tell him, too: not our problem, I wanted to get back to Wil, and Coaltar could show up any second. Still, the gnawing at my insides wouldn’t let me just walk out the door now. “There’s a bond note on Mrs. Gunther’s desk.”
Raven’s broad face tilted. He lowered it until his nose nearly touched mine, the face stern. “You went through her mail?”
“Maybe.”
The corner of his mouth lifted slowly, until the smirk bunched up his cheek. “Proud of you, little thief.”
&nbs
p; Wasn’t the answer I was expecting, but I’d take it. “She didn’t lose her money in a Ponzi scheme. She paid off the bond so the bond agency wouldn’t come after her. This Fred guy kidnapped his own daughter. I think she paid off the bond so the bounty hunter wouldn’t be involved anymore.”
He frowned and backed his head up. “Not good.”
“What do we do?”
He straightened and turned around, pacing briefly across the kitchen floor. He rubbed a palm against his forehead. “Axel.”
“Call him?”
“And stop Corey from wasting his time.” Raven pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll go outside and call Axel. You go find Corey.”
“What do I say?”
“Don’t know. Lie.” Raven yanked his phone out of his pocket and headed toward the front door. He stepped out to the front porch to make his call.
For the moment, I checked my own phone. No new messages. I didn’t know what Coaltar was up to, but hoped he stayed away long enough. There was a little girl at stake here. I sent him a quick text to tell him I was busy and don’t come around unless I said. No reply after a minute so I walked down the hallway to find the others.
The bedroom had a frilly, oversized bed and a makeup table turned into a computer desk in the corner. Corey was crouching beside the computer chair. The old woman sat on a chair in front of him, using the mouse on one of the oldest computers I’d ever seen.
“Try clicking here,” Corey said, pointing to the screen.
“This thing?” she asked, and she slid the mouse cursor to the side, clicking on a link next to what he had been pointing at. “What does that do?”
Corey made a noise like a moan-grunt. He masked it by rubbing his hand over his mouth before he continued. “No, not that. Go back and try again.”
Poor Corey. He was falling for the ruse. I knocked gently at the door frame. They turned, staring.
“Uh,” I said. “Can I help?”
Corey’s eyebrows scrunched together. The old lady started to shake her head. “Oh no, dear,” she said.
“Hang on,” I said, holding my hand up. “I may not know too much about a lot of things, but I think I know a computer virus when I see it.”
The woman looked at me as if I could rescue her. “You... do?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, widening my eyes. “Happened to me not too long ago. You know how these viruses are. It can make computers act up. Makes money in your bank account look like it’s gone. Sets your Facebook account to send out spam messages. Once I got an email from an Egyptian prince offering a million dollars. Turns out it was just a virus.” I stepped forward and pointed to the virus scanner that was on. “Try clicking on that.”
The woman changed course with her mouse and clicked on what I asked. Quickly. She was eager to do anything that wasn’t going to reveal the true reason why the money was gone.
As I fake-trained her on how to use the virus thing to scan, Corey shook his head, made some noises and gave me all manner of stares to ask me to back off and let him work.
I jerked my head toward the door, trying to tell him to get lost. When I had the woman scanning the system, I pointed Corey toward the door, and flailed my hand at him, motioning that we had to go. He didn’t listen.
The virus protection program came up with two non-interesting pieces of malware. I pointed to the two and made my eyes wide. “See? You had viruses,” I said. “I betcha if you run the cleaner, that’ll fix everything.”
“Well, I’ll be,” she said. She clicked to allow the computer to clean itself. “You are probably right. I’m so sorry you all had to come all this way for something I could have done. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Corey sighed and shrugged. “I guess that solved it.”
The grandmother smiled, and if I hadn’t known her for the snake she was, I probably would have fallen for it, too. “You poor dears.” She stood from her chair. “Here. Let me fix up a quick basket for you to take home.”
♠♠♠♠♠♠
With our arms loaded with pie leftovers and sandwiches made with homemade bread, and lots of sweet remarks about how nice we were to clean her kitchen and fix her computer, Corey and I joined Raven out by the car.
“You were right,” Raven said to me. He opened the passenger side door.
“Who was right?” Corey asked, his head turning from me to Raven. “What just happened?”
“Granny lied,” I said in a low tone. “Can we get out of here?”
Raven nodded and motioned to the car. “Let’s go.”
“Why are we leaving?” Corey asked. He got into the back as I hopped into the passenger seat. He buckled in and then reached over, clutching my shoulder to get my attention. “What’s wrong? Is it your brother?”
“No,” I said. “Mrs. Gunther lied to us. She didn’t lose her money in a Ponzi scheme.”
“Huh?”
“Kidnapping,” Raven said, as he started the car. He knocked Corey’s hand off my shoulder so he could grab onto the back of my chair and look behind himself to back the car out of the drive. “Fred, the grandson, kidnapped his daughter under a custody bond.”
Corey’s face altered from confusion to shock and then realization as he put the pieces together. “She paid them off?”
I nodded. “But that leaves Fred still gone with the daughter. And the grandmother is still out nearly all of her savings. Even if the bail bond people stop looking, the police probably are still trying to find the girl.”
“Sara,” Raven said. “I talked to Axel. Her name is Sara.”
“Sara,” I said. “The police will be looking for both of them. Granny’s going to be a suspect when they learn she paid off the bail bondsman. Isn’t that obstruction of justice somehow?”
“Axel’s on the way,” Raven said. “With Brandon and Marc. Kevin’s going to hang back and keep an eye out on the BOLOs for Wil.”
Corey blew out a sigh and sat back. “What do we do?”
“Find a home base,” Raven said. “We’ll go from there.” He turned the car out of the neighborhood and rolled out.
A HOME IS A HOTEL AWAY
When we got out of Mrs. Gunther’s neighborhood, Raven drove back toward the beach and tourist areas.
Corey held out his phone and tapped at it with a forefinger. “I see a Hampton on the beach,” he said after a few minutes of searching.
“We’re going to a hotel?” I asked.
Corey nodded. “We’ll find a place to stay and wait for the guys. I need a place to regroup and get online to figure out where Fred’s going.”
Raven leaned forward in his seat, looking out the windshield. “I see it,” he said.
I studied the area Raven pointed out, and squinted at the hotel, feeling a little odd. It was bigger than the one I’d been living in, with a fancy pool on the outside, and beach access. There wasn’t much tourist activity since it was October, but the lot was still half full. Across the street was a combination of beach homes, gift shops and restaurants.
Raven pulled up under the awning near the front doors. Corey hopped out. I waited with Raven in the car while Corey went inside and paid for a room.
I slumped in my seat, my head rocking back and forth against the headrest. “From one hotel to another,” I said.
Raven grunted. “Not the same, Little Thief. This is a much nicer hotel. Bet we get our hand towels folded into swans here.”
It was still another hotel to me. I eyeballed Raven. This whole thing was becoming a mess. Now it wasn’t so simple a job, and Axel and the others were heading down. Should I insist I go back? Could I use the excuse that I needed to be back in time for Wil? Yet, as I sat there, I couldn’t do it. I still didn’t know about the Academy at all. I was running out of time before Monday and they’d know something was up if I wasn’t insistent on seeing Wil. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you join this Academy thing? What’s it about?”
He shook his head. �
��No. Not that.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Can’t talk about it.”
I rolled my eyes, staring out the window. “That’s so stupid.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Raven grunted, tilted his head back and looked right at me. “What do you want from me?”
The edge in his voice had me staring right back, ready to square off. “Tell me what the Academy is.”
“You already know. Why are you asking me?”
The heat in my chest grew. I clenched my fist and then punched him in the arm for being a jerk who wouldn’t just answer me. “Because I don’t know the details,” I said. I pointed to my chest. “Look at me, Raven. I’m hundreds of miles from home, on a mission for some little girl and grandma with you guys. I don’t know anything about you.”
Raven snapped a loose fist back at my forearm, lighter than I’d hit him, which left me a little disappointed. His lips softened into a mild expression. “What do you want to know?” he asked in a quieter tone.
If he was going to be compliant, I guess I had to come up with something good. “Who is your boss? Who’s in charge?”
“Axel.”
“Okay, who is his boss?”
“No one.”
I rolled my eyes and sat back. I wasn’t getting anywhere. “Never mind.”
He snapped his arm out, capturing my face between his fingers. He forced my head to turn to him. “I answered your question,” he said. He clutched my jaw, holding strong and steady, and his eyes flared. “There is no boss. He’s not under orders. He does what he wants. No one fucks with Axel.”
“He’s not the boss,” I said, understanding his frustration. He was trying to explain, it was just something I was missing. “I mean, who runs the Academy?”
“We do,” he said.
“You guys are in charge of the entire Academy?”
