Control: Out of the Box (The Girl in the Box Book 38)

by Robert J. Crane

  “So...what do we do now?” she asked, that raw, excited energy of her second wind practically oozing out of her. “Make the list? Start asking questions?”

  I stifled a yawn. “You can get a start on it if you want.” I shut my laptop. “But me? I'm done for the night.”

  “What? Why?” Hilton stood up straight, and reminded me of a meerkat popping its head out of a hole. So excited.

  I tried to hide my wan smile, but I didn't try too hard. “Because,” I said, attempting to keep from sounding like the wizened old hand at this, “we have nothing immediate to pursue. The diary was our best lead and it got stolen without a trace. Everything else is background, and a lot of it, like questions at Bilson's office, is being handled by the team the director already assigned. So...yes, you can go get extra credit and start compiling a list of people to talk to, friends to interview, all that...but I'm flat beat and I'm going home, because all that is likely to yield absolutely nothing in this case.”

  “How can you be sure?” Hilton asked, sounding vaguely insulted by my assertion. “How do you know without trying?”

  “I don't,” I said, lifting my laptop bag and slinging it over my shoulder. Unwieldy and annoying, it came with the damned thing and looked like a man purse. “And I'll pursue the leads, all of them, including following up on the canvassing. But with fresh eyes, and tomorrow.” I couldn't stifle the yawn this time as I headed for the exit, leaving Hilton radiating disappointment I could nearly feel, even with my back turned as I walked out. “Because in my professional opinion...we've hit a wall.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Dinner was beef pad Thai, takeout from a little place around the corner. I ate it in silence, alone, staring at my laptop as I read up on Bilson's past. Sifting through the life of a dead man felt macabre, and the quiet of my apartment made it worse. I'd take a bite of soft noodles and seasoned meat and chew while reading laudatory puff pieces about the impact Bilson made on Washington society through the years.

  When I finished eating, I crashed out to sleep in my recliner, laptop still purring on my lap like the pet I didn't have. The last thing I thought about before I conked was my brother, a distant memory of the last time we'd seen each other – actually seen each other, in Revelen almost a year ago – on my mind.

  So it wasn't a surprise when I found myself on an empty street in Bredoccia, the capital of Revelen, the ground thankfully not covered in blood the way it had been when last I'd been here.

  “Are you trying to relive my greatest hits or something?” Reed asked me, normally calm face peering around in search of the carnage he'd loosed on this very spot. This was where he'd saved me from an army of Russian mercenaries...by sweeping them up in a windstorm with a ton of debris and turning them into shredded taco meat. Seriously, it was one of the most impressive displays of sheer grossness I'd ever seen.

  And he'd done it for me.

  “No,” I said, folding my arms in front of me. “Contrary to the prevailing opinion about me, I don't particularly enjoy bloodshed. It's icky. I was just thinking of our last actual, in-person visit when I drifted off.”

  “This is how you were thinking about me?” He made a face, tossing his long, chestnut hair back over his shoulder. It was loose tonight, not in its usual ponytail. “Not a pleasant memory? This?”

  I opened my mouth to protest, to say something like, “Maybe it was PTSD since I thought I was going to die here!” Something that would make me seem more innocent than I was.

  But this was Reed, so to hell with that. “Honestly, this is a pleasant memory for me.”

  He stuck his tongue out in distaste. “Ew. I thought blood was 'icky.'”

  “Hear me out,” I said, turning to face the square where the action had gone down. “It's May now, right?” I did the math in my head. “Yeah. May. Last time I saw you, here, it was last June.” I looked at him sideways. “It's been a year since I've seen a truly friendly face, Reed. Not counting Friday, or my grandmother, or Harry's brief cameos. I've been in Washington and New York and some points in between but...this sucks, man. I thought after Revelen, after two years of running...I thought I was out. But no, purgatory continues. Indefinitely, or so it feels.”

  His disgust softened, erasing from his tanned, youthful face. “I know. It's been tough without you, too. I'm bummed we couldn't meet up while we were both in Tennessee.” He was quiet for a moment. “I miss you.”

  “Same,” I said. “And Augustus, Jamal. Ariadne, of course. Scott. Kat. Harry. Hell, everybody.” I cracked a smile, but it was bitter. “I miss my favorite restaurants. I miss Minneapolis, Reed. I miss being...home.”

  He smiled, but it was sad. “New York and DC aren't home?”

  “No,” I said quietly. “They're so busy. I walk down the street and people shout at me. 'Slay Queen!' Or worse, after the stupid Guy Friday thing.” I felt my own heart melt a little. “Hell, I even miss him, Reed. I miss Friday.”

  “I thought he was 'Swole H', now,” Reed said bitterly. “I'd have thought you'd fit right in in either of those cities. There's a lot to see, you know.”

  “I know,” I said, a touch defensively. “But I think I've kind of realized...I'm not a 'connected' kind of person. And this is a 'connected' kind of town. New York, too. Like, I've met a few of my neighbors and they're nice enough. Same with some of my colleagues. But...” I shook my head. “I didn't ask to come here. I had to, to deal with this Network bullshit.”

  “You didn't have to deal with it alone,” he said quietly.

  “I don't want you in these people’s crosshairs, Reed.” I fixed him with a hard look. “I spent two years on the run because they pushed Harmon's lies to the entire world. I can't have that happening to you. I don't want it on my conscience. Not any of you.”

  He let out a long sigh. “Well...there are less of us now than there used to be.”

  “I know,” I said. He'd told me about the tough choices he'd had to make to keep the agency afloat in my absence. I knew it wasn't easy on him. It couldn't be, given how many people he'd had to cut and how that impacted him. “I know you're doing your best.”

  “We need you here, Sienna,” he said. “Your name is enough to keep business flowing in. Without you?” He shrugged. “We're doing what we can.”

  “How's Eilish doing?” I asked.

  “Fine.” His face tightened again. “How's your assassination case going? I heard Gondry drop the Network's name. Does that mean things are about to hit the fan?”

  I kept a straight face. “TBD, but it was certainly a shock to the system, hearing him dump that out there.”

  Now Reed smiled. “I'll bet. So...when are you coming home?”

  I let out a long sigh. “As soon as I can. I promise.”

  “I know you've talked to some of the others up here, but not that often.” He looked at me slyly. “So...what are you doing on your free nights? Talking to Lethe? Harry? Your 'Mimaw?'”

  “All the above,” I said. “And maybe a few other people.”

  His eyes danced. “Anyone I know?”

  I kept my expression indifferent. “Maybe. Want to play a game of pool?”

  His amusement vanished in an instant. “I'm pretty sure you have a rigged table, given this is all in your head, but...” He shrugged broadly. “Sure. Why not?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Julie

  She was typing up the broad strokes of her remembrances, kids already asleep after the first time she'd spent with them in...well, forever, it felt like...when Dom came into the bedroom behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “Mmmm,” Julie said, a little smile sneaking out. Yes. This was the moment. Maybe, finally, they could–

  Then he thrust his tablet in front of her eyes. It took a second for them to adjust–

  And Julie almost rammed her face into the screen when they did.

  Sources say low-level White House comms department employee fired for problem drinking and sexual malfeasance in breaking scandal, the
damned thing read.

  Julie's jaw flapped up and down twice, three times, as she tried to form words. “What...what...what?!”

  Dom slid around her, his own expression utterly impassive. “You tell me. What is this?”

  Julie just blinked at it. “I...I don't know. Does it mention me by–?” She made it a couple lines down to find...yeah. There she was. By freaking name. Julie Blair, in black and white.

  “You sure you didn't see this coming?” Dom asked. She recognized the guarded look. His trust was wavering.

  “No!” She stood up, almost delivering her laptop to the floor in a rush. “I have not been drinking...on the job,” she finished lamely. “Or really, hardly at all, until yesterday. And I mean, come on...I got fired. A bender is not out of the question when you've been canned without warning.”

  Dom finally broke, nodding. “It just sounds from this like that was the reason you got fired.”

  “But it can't have been!” Julie found she was yelling, and really didn't mean to be. How could any of this be happening, though? “I wasn't drinking until yesterday, and definitely not on the job!”

  “Okay, okay,” Dom said, back to soothing, his misgivings gone from his tone. “You've got the lawyer appointment tomorrow.” He glanced at her laptop, now overturned on the bed. “Get your story all typed out?”

  Julie put her hand on her forehead. Had it suddenly gotten hot in here? To coincide with this bullshit showing up in the press? “Almost,” she said, and suddenly that gnawing sensation in her stomach was growing to black hole status. “I should...” She gestured lamely at the laptop.

  “Yeah, I'll leave you to it,” he said, retreating from the room quietly, taking his tablet with him.

  It occurred to her, after he left, that the old Dom would have said something supportive on the way out, but she didn't have any time to think about it. She needed to get her story straight for the meeting with the lawyer tomorrow. Clearing the air with Dom could wait until after that, and so Julie dutifully returned to her typing.

  The black despair that people were saying terrible things about her, though? That didn't leave her alone, unlike Dom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Sienna

  “Hey, Sienna.”

  Someone called out to me outside my apartment as I was walking out the next morning. They didn't approach, which would have been detrimental to their health, just called to me from down the block, through the bustle of the morning rush. Having been the recent recipient of an ambush in the street made me assess them coolly, with care, and ready to leap if I heard the squeal of tires or felt the agonizing pain of a sonic gun.

  No such thing happened; in fact, I recognized the guy in question.

  Mike Darnell, ace reporter for Flashforce.suck, the internet's best source for cute cat pics and formerly the home of most major scathing articles on Sienna Nealon. Oh, sure, they'd dialed their Sienna hate back after Revelen, and offered enough tongue bath clickbait about my awesomeness to help feed the “Slay Queen” mantra following that.

  Of course their love for me died down after Friday's stupid Socialite post, and now they'd receded into covering me 50/50 with hate and love, enough to give me whiplash at the Jekyll/Hyde tenor of their coverage. How could they write a listicle one day about the “Ten Ways We Wish We Were All Like Sienna Nealon” and the next put out a feature on “Why Sienna Nealon is Low-Key Retrograde (And Why That's Problematic).” I didn't really understand the second headline, but it sounded bad.

  “You know,” I said, “normally I'd take a guy following me all the way from New York as a bad sign. Stalker-ish, even. But with you, Darnell, I'm gonna chalk it up to 'persistent.'”

  “Just in town doing some shoe-leather reporting on a story,” Darnell said. He really was an old-school guy; I'd read his dispatches from Afghanistan and Iraq, where he'd embedded with the troops, as well as his reportage from scenes of various civil unrest and riots both domestically and abroad when he'd been with the Times. Darnell didn't follow the new school of journalism, the keyboard warriors that I saw so often these days, printing stories spoon-fed to reporters by sources with a vested interest. This guy went places and saw things, often where bullets were flying, and he came back and wrote about it all. That marked him as worthy of respect, even if it didn't move me immediately to comply with whatever he wanted from me.

  Which is to say that if any other reporter had shown up outside my building and called my name, they'd have seen nothing but my back as I went on about my day, leaving them in the dust. “Does it involve me or are you just hanging out down my block for shits and giggles?” I asked.

  Darnell's smile vanished. “It could involve you. What do you know about this Network that the president mentioned yesterday?”

  Now it was my turn to smile. “The FBI doesn't comment on cases in progress, Darnell. You know that. And I'm not a press person, anyway.”

  “Off the record,” Darnell said, flipping his phone screen around so I could see it wasn't recording. People were passing us on either side, and I was catching a stray look here and there.

  “Off the record...I'm still not a press person.”

  He smiled again, beckoning me over to the side of the building, out of the streaming crowd flowing around us. I followed, mostly because of him, and also because it only required a few steps of effort. He lowered his voice to the range where only me and a passing dog could hear it, and said, “I might know a member of this Network.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Don't suppose you'd be interested in doing your civic duty and helping the FBI on this case?”

  Now I knew why he was smiling. “If a certain FBI agent could provide a very background comment, I could be possessed to share a very informal tip about this Network, as well as the evidence that got me to the story.”

  I tried to hide the pained look. “You've got me over a barrel here, Darnell. What the hell am I going to tell you that's not immediately going to put me in a ringer? I'm one of two people working this case from the inside.”

  “I know the VP's briefed in on everything,” Darnell said. “So's Chalke. I can paint it as coming from either the top level of the FBI or–”

  “'A high-level source in the White House?'” I asked. “I could live with that.” I made a face; horse-trading was so Washington DC. “Fine. Show me yours and I'll show you mine.”

  Darnell looked around. “Dave Kory. CEO of Flashforce.”

  I stared at him through my shades. “Interesting. Evidence?”

  “Comment first.”

  “What would you like the comment on?” I asked. Probably should have narrowed that down before I'd agreed to the name swap, but hey. I needed names of Network members, right?

  “Two things,” Darnell said. “One–”

  “Hang on. You gave me one thing, but I'm supposed to give you two? I'm calling foul.”

  “Two small things for one big thing,” Darnell said, “and the evidence to support it. You'll be pleased when you see it all, trust me.”

  He probably couldn't see my eyes narrow beneath my sunglasses, but I bet he could feel my displeasure. “Go on, then,” I said.

  Darnell leaned closer to me. “Is it true that the VP has had about enough of Gondry's shit?”

  I threw my arms wide, overacting in my guilt. “How the hell should I know that? I've been to the White House four, five times, and just met Barbour for the first time yesterday.”

  Darnell played it cool, just watching me, no sunglasses. “Can you confirm it or not?”

  I sighed, looked around. No one was watching us. “In my opinion...yeah. Not to give you too much to destroy me with if you out me as a source–”

  “I don't burn sources. I'll keep you out of this.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “I had a call with her yesterday and the tone was definitely in the range of exasperation.”

  He nodded, scribbling furiously on a palm-sized pad with a real pen and real paper. “What's your feel for why she's upset with h
im?”

  “My read is not extensive,” I said, “but I think she doesn't like the fact that he's all over the place on policy, fighting all the battles, all the time instead of choosing one front and plowing ahead. That said, I think he might be on her last nerve about this China policy swerve. She mentioned donors to me, as in they might have trouble funding re-election because of Gondry's stand on this issue.”

  Darnell nodded, wrapping up his notes. “That jibes with what I've heard, too.”

  I looked sideways down the street. I really didn't want to be caught talking to a reporter, and he was just scribbling in public while standing next to me. Outside my apartment. “Oh?”

  He gave me a quick look. “There's no one surveilling you.”

  “That you know of,” I said. I self-consciously brushed my hand against my pocket, hoping my cell phone was buried deep enough in my jacket that the Network couldn't hear our conversation. Whatever. If they did, they'd know I was after them, which is what I was supposed to be doing for the investigation anyway. They didn't know I was both aware of them and aware they were my enemy.

  “I stood out here for an hour waiting,” he said. “No one came by twice, no one shot me a stray look, no one's sitting in the parked cars. Back to the point – the story I'm getting is that Barbour was credibly in line to step up and run for president this time, now that Harmon had reached the end of his final term. She'd done her time in state government, in the legislature, and HHS, and would have been a hell of a contender in the primary against Gondry, who was always going to run after finishing up his tenure as VP.” His lip wavered with some kind of amusement. “Whoever took out Harmon,” and he looked at me significantly, while I just stood there and tried to be so cool I'd make a cucumber look like a baked squash, “didn't do her any favors.”