by C. L. Stone
Corey went to the table and opened the box. Raven got up, joining him. They poked at the food, splitting it between them.
“Okay,” Axel said, standing by the doorway. “Catch us up. What’s going on?”
Brandon silenced the movie and sat on the corner of one of the beds. “Mrs. Gunther had it out with the old slob next door,” he said. “She was asking him to water his yard and he said no. That’s all I’ve got. Three hours of neighbors bickering about the lawn.”
“And nothing from the tour group?”
“Fred was the quiet type. He may have a few beers with one of his co-workers, but he went home right away for his daughter. When they talked about him, they said all he talked about was her.”
“We still can’t find Luanne,” Marc said. “She disconnected the last cell phone number we could find on her. Her Facebook has been dead for a week or two. No one talks about her. Her friends that we could find didn’t mention a new place, they kept giving us the old address and phone number.”
“I don’t like it,” Axel said. He tossed his shoes to the floor and then sat on the opposite bed, sitting back on his hands.
I stood, unsure where to sit. “Maybe she’s out looking for them. She’s missing her daughter.”
“Maybe,” Marc said. “What bugs me is that there’s no contact information we know of. Wouldn’t she tell her friends about her new number in case they find the daughter?”
“Where does she work?” Axel asked.
“She doesn’t,” Corey said with a mouth full of tuna steak. He swallowed and sipped from a bottle of water. “She gets a check from him every month. And she makes cash deposits on occasion, but nothing regular. Just enough to cover bills she pays with a debit card. Outside of the child support, she doesn’t have an income.”
“But the girl is living with him?” I asked. “How is the mother getting support if the daughter is living with the father?”
“We don’t know,” Corey said. “Fred was paying for child support and given every other weekend on the divorce decree. If Sara is living with him, then they’re doing it without the court’s permission.”
“But he has a custody bond,” I said. “They don’t give you those unless you threaten to run off or something happens. And now they’ve got Mrs. Gunther’s money because he screwed up somehow. And what I don’t understand is why the bond agency was there when she paid them off.”
Axel rubbed a fingertip across his brow. “The money presented to the court was by the bond place, not Mrs. Gunther.”
“So?”
“They’re double dipping,” Axel said. He twisted a little to look back at me. “She may have paid them off, but the government is still holding money in their name. They may still be hunting. If they get to him before the deadline, the bond man gets the money back and he could try to keep Mrs. Gunther’s money.”
“They can’t do that,” I said. “That’s… stealing. Isn’t it?”
“Her giving them money saved her house from being used as collateral,” Axel said. “It was insurance in case he skipped. However, there’s still a chunk of money in their name with the police, and the police only want Fred back. Paying them off only guaranteed they wouldn’t come after her house, but it doesn’t officially stop them from trying to find Fred and turn him in.”
“We need to find him before they do,” I said. “Maybe we can negotiate a return somehow?”
“Even if we turn him in, they still get the money. There’s no legal reason for them to return it.”
“What if the charges get dropped? What if the courts tell them to? Can’t Mrs. Gunther sue them for it?”
Axel tilted his head, like he was thinking. “That still wouldn’t get her money back. One thing at a time, though. We’re still missing three people.” He waved his hand through the air. “First thing we need is to find Fred before he figures out a way to disappear and we lose him. Or these bounty hunters find him first.”
Marc stood up and stretched. “Well then you guys have to stay. I have to take Bambi back home.”
I blinked at the nickname. My tired brain was slow to register what he was talking about. I started shaking my head. “We can’t go home.”
Marc and the others focused on me. “What?” Marc asked. “What about Wil?”
How was I going to explain this? Sorry, guys, but I just don’t trust you enough to expose you to my brother.
In the end, I was looking straight at Corey. I don’t know why, but it was like I expected him to understand why I couldn’t leave right now.
Corey slowly sat up a little, studying my face. “Because he ran away from you? You don’t think he wants to see you?”
I bit my lip. Sounded good to me. It was even true. I had been worried when he ran off that it was my fault he did it in the first place. Was he unhappy? I’d never noticed.
“Bambi,” Marc said quietly. He stepped forward slowly toward me, his arms open. “You don’t know why he left.”
“I think I just want to give him time,” I said. “Even if we went to find him, I don’t know if I want to approach him. He left without telling me for a reason. I don’t know why and I don’t want to go into a tirade and scare him off for good.”
Marc’s mouth tilted into a smile. “That sounds reasonable.”
Did it? Because it sounded to me like I was chickening out of confronting him. If I’d been a reasonable sister, I’d demand to see him, drag him back anywhere with me.
But I wasn’t. I was a thief with a rogue group of criminals that I didn’t know at all.
Brandon tilted forward to look around Marc. “We could send Kevin,” he said. “We could tell him to wait for Monday morning and go talk to him.”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t like them knowing where he was. I wished I could talk to Blake. Was he still following me around? Did he even know what was going on?
“You don’t want Kevin to scare him off?” Corey asked.
“Look, guys,” I said, slicing my hand through the air. If they were letting me make the call, then I’d tell them what I wanted. “We’ve got stuff to do here. I’ll call the school and confirm he showed up for class. That’s all I need to know.”
The guys exchanged looks and then Marc shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Your choice.”
“Then we should all get some sleep,” Axel said. He pointed at Corey. “Did you wire up Mrs. Gunther?”
“I’ve got a camera facing her door from the street lamp,” he said. “We’ll see if anyone shows up. Tapped her phone line, too.”
They started talking about other ideas on how to track down the missing Gunther family. I excused myself to go wash my feet, change into boxers and Corey’s T-shirt and use the restroom. I took my time, wanting a moment alone.
I stared at the phone, wondering how I was going to contact Blake. Maybe I could just use code. I know he said not to text or call because they could hear, but I was listening to them all talk and move in the next room. He said he’d get rid of his phone, too. I didn’t want to get caught, but I needed an outside voice.
I thought about it and then used the cell phone’s internet service to send a text message via an anonymous email service. There was a chance he wouldn’t get it anyway, but I wasn’t sure of another way to contact him. Maybe if Doyle was on call, he’d forward it somehow.
Kayli: It’s me. Are you still watching me?
There was a long wait. Maybe he was trying to figure out who was talking.
Blake: Tell me something I should know.
I had to think about it for a moment. He wanted to confirm it was me somehow. What could I tell him that the boys wouldn’t figure out?
Kayli: You drive a Batmobile.
Blake: Batman’s car doesn’t go as fast as my Mercedes.
I had to smile at that.
Kayli: Any word on my brother?
Blake: Doyle broke into the school’s computer network. He's marked as having shown up at school. But there’s a problem.
Ka
yli: What?
Blake: Remember Mr. Hendricks?
It took me a minute to remember. The email Blake showed me earlier about the school came to mind.
Kayli: Is he missing now?
Blake: No, but the school your brother goes to is the one he’s in charge of.
My heart thundered hard. That was right, they had a team at that school. Marc had mentioned it and I’d forgotten until now. I hadn’t realized it might be the same one.
They could have faked his records, showed him as appearing in school. They could tell me anything they wanted without fear of being proven wrong, because they were altering official records.
Kayli: I have to know for sure.
Blake: Do we need to go back?
Kayli: I can’t. I’d have to go back with them. I can’t leave now.
Blake: Do you trust me to send Doyle in to find him?
I breathed in heavily and let out a sigh. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I did. Despite my own messed up feelings about Corey and the others, Blake was more like me than they were. He was on the outside, like me. He was dragged into this because of me and now he was risking himself to help me. I didn’t really understand why, but he was there now. He was bringing Doyle in on it, too.
Kayli: I just need to make sure they aren’t keeping him. I don’t want to scare him if he did run off. If he isn’t with the Academy now, I don’t want the Academy to find him because we tracked him down.
Blake: I’ll have him take a picture, if we can, just to confirm. We’ll find him.
I put the phone away and breathed out slowly. After a minute, I ran water and then stuck my hands into the sink, letting the cold chill through me as I stared at how it sparkled under the light. I welcomed the numbness. The brief moment of quiet to myself felt like relief after a hectic day. My emotions were wound up.
I needed sleep. I needed a fresh look on it all. I needed strength to reevaluate what I was doing. Maybe I was just afraid of the Academy and pretending to be with them meant I didn’t have to go up against them.
It was temporary, because one day I’d learn the truth, and either I entered under false pretenses and had to live with the consequences, or they were really horrible and I would then have to betray them all.
It stung in so many places inside of me that they could all look at me, and possibly pretend to care about me and about where my brother was. It killed me because despite knowing what I did, I believed them about Wil. They really didn’t know where he was.
Would it mean if I found him, they’d use him to manipulate me?
♠♠♠♠♠♠
I insisted on sleeping in the bed with Corey, mostly because I knew Corey could keep his hands to himself and no one questioned this. They put on another movie, but I fell asleep halfway through it. I woke up briefly as the light went out in the bedroom; someone was talking quietly in the living area.
The police siren in the distance woke me. After a slight heart attack, believing it might be coming for me, the siren started to fade again. I settled back, staring at the ceiling, groggy. I felt the sheets, smelled the bed, and remembered I was in a hotel. I stirred and turned over, starting to drift into sleep again, willing my eyes to close.
The outline of a male body dragged my attention from the depths of sleep. I was in a hotel bed with someone next to me; my sleepy brain registered it to be Wil.
In the shadows of the room, I thought for a moment I really did see him. I saw the short hair, the goofy grin on his face, even while he slept.
I leaned in as my brain tried to tell me to look at him. I needed to see his face full on. I needed to make sure. I needed to see Wil.
Wil had been missing.
That thought drove my eyes to widen and I woke up in a snap. He was here! He found me! I sat up quickly, ripping the sheets away from my body.
No.
My heart thundered against my chest, my breathing raced with it.
The shape was too different, and it forced my brain to wake more and finally figure out what was going on.
Corey. He was dead asleep, with the blanket pulled over his shoulder and facing away. We were in Florida.
Wil was still gone.
I swallowed, turning my gaze to check out the other shadows in the room. My heart, though, wouldn’t stop thundering. More memories returned. Corey. In the bed nearby was Marc. I didn’t see Raven. I couldn’t see who was in the living area.
I got up as quietly as I could, and padded across the carpet to the bathroom. My bones shivered in the chill of the room. The boys were too used to being popsicles.
I welcomed it. I wanted more. I wanted to freeze, because it meant erasing how I thought I had Wil back again. It was so like... not even a week ago. I was back in that hotel room. My father could have been in the other bed.
What if I had never met these Academy people? What if I never knew they existed?
I could have stopped Wil from leaving. I would have known sooner. I would have marched over to his school, demand he tell me what was going on.
I shook off the thoughts. It wasn’t worth it to keep the fantasy going, and I wanted to drown it in the cold. I couldn’t go back in time, and there was no way for me to know he had planned to leave.
In the bathroom, I closed the heavy door, locking it. Every step inside was ice against my feet, waking me further.
I stood in the bathroom without a desire to do anything. I just wanted to stand there in a void. I was in front of the mirror but I was staring past it. I listened for noises, at the sound of the air conditioner grinding, the sound of someone deeper in the hotel somewhere, perhaps the floor above us, walking around.
What a mess. Even now, my brain wanted to try to figure out all the answers. I was in a hotel room with a bunch of guys. Corey felt like a true sweetheart. In a way, they all had their good qualities. I would have never guessed the truth about them.
What burned inside was that in working with them, I saw myself falling into line. If Blake hadn’t shown me a glimpse at what they looked like from his perspective, I could have been persuaded to join them completely and without question. If a little crime justified the means, it was worth the risk.
Except how far did a little crime go? Arson. Fraud. Assault. These guys didn’t just fudge on their taxes. They made people disappear. A vice-principal. Axel’s story about his father was a start, but it didn’t excuse all the other arrests on his record. It didn’t excuse missing people and taking over a school and so much more.
But I was with them on this assignment to help the Gunther family. We were here for Sara, now. I’d agreed to this. I was with Axel breaking into Fred’s apartment, for a good cause, and I felt the actions were justified.
I still felt alone. I was no better than I was when I was stealing wallets, thinking one day enough good deeds would relieve the guilt. Here I was, thinking I was doing good, but was I helping or just being nosy and risking myself when I should let the police handle it?
The betrayal hurt, because just the other day, when we were looking for my brother, when Brandon was making promises to me with a kiss in the bathroom, when Corey made the same promises, with Raven and the others saying they’d look out for me, I had started to believe. Now I couldn’t erase the sight of Axel with the old woman, sharing my past with her, and Wil’s, too. I couldn’t stop seeing their mug shots, the list of arrests over the years.
My thoughts turned as bitter as the chill seeping into my feet, making my bones like ice. The more I thought it over in my mind, the angrier I got. Criminals. All of them. How could they tell me they work for the good side when they’ve all been on the bad? The Academy hired criminals, not normal kids. What did that make them? Mafia. Bad guys. And here they were doing secret things together for profit. It seemed helpful, but it was like the bounty hunters. In the end, didn’t they collect a reward? They tried to tell me they didn’t get paid, no paychecks. Yet they got money at the end of this, so this was a lie.
And who did they ask to help them
? They sought out another criminal because they thought I was like them, as Blake put it.
What terrified me was that I saw reason in it. Maybe...maybe I needed to stop lying to myself. Maybe I wasn’t ever going to become a good guy.
A knock stopped my thoughts. I held my breath. I wanted to pretend I was invisible for the moment. If I pretend I’m not here, maybe he’ll go away and leave me to drown in my bitter thoughts.
“Kayli?”
I wasn’t sure which one it was. I stayed silent. The doorknob rattled. I ignored it. I don’t know why. I just wanted to stay in the bathroom. I assumed if the door was locked, he’d realize I was probably doing bathroom things and would go away.
I moved to make sure it was clear someone was in here. I ran the water, taking some in my hands. It was cold, turning my hands as icy as my feet.
The sound of the door opening felt out of place for a moment. I almost ignored it, sure I was hearing things, perhaps from the room next door.
I glanced over, spotting Axel coming in, closing the door behind him. I averted my eyes a few times at the sight of him in only his boxers, without his glasses, his dark hair tucked behind his ears.
The boxers hung low on his hips. I forced myself to look up at him, to look at his face, his tanned, muscled chest and broad shoulders.
Out of my peripheral vision though, I was following the deep V in his Adonis belt.
I faced the sink, shutting off the water. “The door was locked,” I said. “Why are you barging in here?”
“You didn’t answer,” Axel said. He stayed by the door, keeping his back to it. “What’s wrong?”
I narrowed my eyes at him through the mirror, balling my hands into fists. “What’s wrong is I went to the bathroom and you just...”
He held his hands up, palms open. His dark eyes stayed with me. There were shadows under his eyes. Had he been asleep at all? “Tell me,” he said quietly.
