Grounded (Out of the Box Book 4) (16 page)

“I don’t see a car.” Some dude with no neck came walking up, tall as Schwarzenegger but eight times as big across. He nodded at both of us, and it was kind of a challenge. “Why are you here if you don’t have a car?”

“I’m looking for directions,” Sienna said. She did not even bother to be sweet about it.

“Try the diner on the corner,” No-neck said.

“This is clearly not that much-vaunted Southern hospitality I’ve heard about,” she said, easing toward him.

He just looked at her through jaded eyes, standing next to a sedan that was waiting its turn for service. “Get your sweet ass on out of here before I show it some hospitality with my—”

I cringed, already knowing what was going to happen. She didn’t disappoint.

She had a hand on the back of his head and just slammed it right into the sedan in front of him. It echoed through the shop, and I swear he hit so hard I saw stars on his behalf. I felt my whole face just make that pained look, like “OOH!”

No-Neck’s head bounced back up, eyes rolling, legs looking a little rubbery, like he was going to drop. He was blinking furiously, like he was trying to figure out if he was awake or asleep. “Whaa …?” he managed to get out.

“What’s your name?” Sienna asked. She’d taken her hand off the back of his head and just stood there a pace away, watching him wobble. He looked like he was going to pitch face-first into the hood on his own this time.

“T-Tony,” he said finally, focusing in on her face. “Wh-who are you?”

“My name’s Sienna, Tony. Do you know where I can find Darrick Cary?”

Tony focused on her. “D-Darrick?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I need to pick up something from him. Where is he?”

Tony looked like he was losing that fight with staying awake. “W … who are you again?”

She just shook her head. “Tony … this is going to hurt you more than me.”

“Wait!” I said, holding up both hands. “You’re going to kill this poor bastard.”

She looked at Tony, who was registering none of the conversation we were holding before him. “He was really rude a minute ago.”

“I am not going to argue that,” I said, still holding up my hands. “But does he really deserve to die over it?”

“I think he’ll get a concussion at best,” she said.

“You hit him like that again and Tony’s going to lose the capacity for speech,” I said. “If you want people to like you, maybe you ought to consider not beating the crap out of everyone you run across that offends you.”

“Tell me where I can find Darrick Cary,” she said, and there was a darker overtone as her hand found the back of Tony’s head again. He didn’t even seem to feel it.

“All right!” I yelled. “All right, just let me call Taneshia. She’ll know.”

Sienna looked at me like I was an idiot and pushed Tony aside. He fell back on his haunches, dazed, and just sat there. “Taneshia? That girl I met last night? You think she’s going to know where to find a drug dealer?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Because she’s been known to indulge from time to time when she’s partying. Straight A student, too. You got a problem with that?”

“I told you that I don’t care about the drugs,” she said, and turned back toward the entrance to the garage door. She walked past a desk and rang the bell on it rapidly until a guy emerged from the back room with a pissed-off look on his face. She paused, gave him a ‘don’t give a crap’ look and said, “Tony’s got a concussion. You should take him to the hospital.”

“Who the hell are you?” he asked. Dude looked like he was about to turn purple.

She was already gone. “She’s a lady with a really bad experience with … uh … tires,” I said, making up bullshit that didn’t even sound sensible while trying to back out the door myself. “You should really get him checked on, though,” I said, nodding at Tony. “Hit his head or something.” I ducked out of the garage door and left the stifling smell of oil and rubber behind, wondering exactly who I was following at this point.

I dialed up Taneshia on my phone as I walked out of the garage. I could see Sienna a little further down, near the sidewalk, a phone of her own held up to her ear. Taneshia answered on the fifth ring.

“What is it?” she asked, sounding a little panicked, a little out of breath.

“I need to ask you something,” I said.

“What?” Panic went to concern, about two degrees lighter.

“I, uh … need to know where I can find Darrick Cary.”

There was a pin-drop silence on the other end of the phone. “Say what?” Taneshia finally asked.

“Darrick Cary,” I said. “He was, a, uh, friend of the one of the victims, if you know what I mean. I—I mean, we—need to talk to him.”

The silence wasn’t good. Neither was the answer. “You want me to give the name of a dealer to someone who’s probably going to go over there and mess him up?”

“You know I would not do that,” I said.

“Why are you all up in my business about this?” Taneshia asked. “Darrick is not an unknown person in the neighborhood. You could find ten people willing to drop on him for five bucks.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but, uh … I don’t know any of them.”

“You got to be kidding me,” she said, and I could almost hear the pained look leaking over the phone. “I was in class, Augustus.”

“This is important,” I said. “I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t.”

“I give you his name and Darrick ends up in the hospital, what am I supposed to do?”

“Send flowers?” I joked. “Kidding. He’s not going to end up in the hospital.”

“People know we’re like family,” she said. “If he gets messed up, they might get to the idea it was me that gave him up.”

“Nah,” I said, “they’re gonna think it was some dude named Tony that works at the tire place down by—”

“What?” She cut me off with fervor. “What did you do? Augustus, what are you into?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I did not do anything.” I left off the part where I just watched a superhero smash Tony’s head into a car hood. I knew Taneshia, and that was the sort of thing that would make her not so cooperative in handing over Darrick’s whereabouts.

“Darrick’s got a family to support,” Taneshia said, almost pleading. “He’s got a baby he takes care of.”

I wanted to throw out a line about how he maybe should have finished school and got a job, but it seemed … counterproductive. “I know, I know,” I said. “I will make sure he doesn’t get messed up.” I hoped. I mean, it was this or watch this lady go through the whole neighborhood like they were Tony. She wasn’t going to find any shortage of people willing to be rude to her, either, because let’s face it, this was planet Earth. We can’t export them, so they just seem to accumulate here.

“You beat up Darrick, your momma’s going to hear about this,” Taneshia said, more than a little irritable.

That got under my skin. “You’re going to tell my momma on me? How about I tell her how you buy from him? How do you think she’s going to take that, versus me maybe standing aside and watching Sienna beat the crap out of him for a little bit?”

Silence again. I cringed. I’d let my temper get the better of me.

“That’s hard, Augustus,” Taneshia said. “Real hard. Not like you at all.”

“I’m changing every day,” I said, not really sure what else to say.

“Not for the better so far,” she said.

“You got his address?” I asked, once I’d given that a minute to sink in.

“Yeah,” she said, “but don’t go see him at home—please. For his family’s sake. He does his business out behind an old mall. Parks his car out there so he can move fast if he needs to. I’ll text you the address.”

“Thank you, Taneshia,” I said, not really sure what else to say.

“Don’t thank me,” she said. “Not for this. Just … keep your promise and make sure he doesn’t end up messed up.” And she hung up without another word.

I was only a few steps outside the garage when my phone rang, buzzing hard against my back pocket. I’d had to buy new clothes this morning, and I’d gone with jeans this time. Suits just didn’t go with the Atlanta summer, not at all—like peanut butter and engine oil.

I held up the phone and saw the number. It was agency, and the last four digits told me who was calling. “Hey, Jackie,” I said as I hit the talk button.

“Hey, Sienna,” Jackie said in her professional, clipped tones. “Got a minute?”

“As long as you’re not calling on behalf of Phillips, I have all the minutes you need,” I said.

“He’s keeping his distance on this one,” Jackie said cautiously. “He knows I’m calling, but he didn’t ask me to convey anything.”

“He didn’t want to call me himself?” I mused. “That’s interesting.”

“He knows you well enough by now,” she said. “He knows you’d just ignore him.”

“He could call from your number,” I said. “Apparently that would get through on the first try.”

She just laughed, a light, airy tone. “Because you know I wouldn’t call just to chit chat.”

“No,” I said, “you wouldn’t. What’s up?”

“Well,” she said, “you’re in Atlanta.”

“If you’re calling to give me geography lessons, you’re a few years late. I may be dumb sometimes, but I know where I am.”

“I know this,” she went on, ignoring my interruption, “because I’ve got a whole heap of news articles that are piling up on my desk as we speak from the Atlanta area.”

“Unfavorable, I presume.”

“And filled with more lies than a self-aggrandizing war story told by a nightly news anchor,” she said. “I’m trying to handle it, but there’s a lot of speculation about what you’re doing down there, almost all of it unfounded.”

“When they call asking what I’m doing,” I said, “you could try answering with ‘Her job,’ though they probably wouldn’t believe it.”

She chuckled. “That’s a definite. They would not believe it. There’s speculation from a few quarters about whether you’re down there to have an unpleasant conversation with Edward Cavanagh.”

“Cavanagh?” I glanced over my shoulder and saw Augustus on the phone, hopefully getting the last known address of Kennith Coy’s dealer. It hadn’t been pleasant, but my little stunt with Tony would hopefully pay a few dividends. “Why would I care about talking with Edward Cavanagh?”

“Because Cavanagh developed the suppressant that the Russians stole from the government and used on you back in January,” she said. “A few outlets are wildly guessing that you’re pissed at him.”

I shrugged. “Why would I be pissed at him? I assume he developed it at the behest of some senator or congressperson—or the president.” I put some loathing into that one. I was not the biggest fan of President Gerard Harmon at the moment.

“Well, that’s good to know,” she said. “I’ll work on a line—”

“I’m investigating a murder,” I said. “A series of them, actually, linked to a meta by a local cop.”

“Yeah, but they won’t believe that, either,” she said. “They’re just going to keep digging until they find whatever they want to find. You know how it goes.” She sounded almost apologetic.

“Yeah,” I said sourly. “I know how it goes. Like a dog with a favorite chew toy, they just keep coming back to me for another gnaw.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I’ve never seen anyone take heat like this who wasn’t a banker or head of an oil company. For damned sure not someone who saved the world.”

“Just do what you can, Jackie,” I said. “It’s not like I have a good name left to sully, but I do wish they’d get off my ass at this point and just let me do my job.”

“Just be glad you can fly away at a moment’s notice,” she said, “or the paparazzi would be hounding you every minute of the day.”

I turned my head to see some guy walking by with a cell phone camera, just holding it up pointed at me. “Paparazzi? They’re professional losers. Lucky me, I just get constantly photographed by the amateur kind—every douche with a cell phone.”

“Could be worse,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I could be Kat and have the brains of a guppy, let some asshole Hollywood producer do all my thinking for me.” I saw Augustus end his call and start walking my way, so I said to Jackie. “Gotta go. My sidekick is coming this way.”

“Wait, what?” she asked. “You have a sidekick? Is it that young black guy, with the—”

“I have to go, Jackie. Like, now.”

“He’s cute. I could come down to Atlanta, maybe help you both out with the press inquiries—you know, on site …”

“Bye.” I hung up on her and watched Augustus coming toward me. She wasn’t wrong about him; he was cute. But he had this innocence about him that I found … disquieting. Not like Calderon. That guy had seen some of the same shit I’d seen and come to the same jaded conclusions. Augustus was a baby, really.

And I was making a man out of him, but not in the way that would have led to any kind of happiness for either of us.

“You didn’t have to do that to him,” Augustus said as he walked up. Credit to him, he didn’t storm, as some might have. He did, however, have a slight kicked-puppy look, that mix of resentment for the pressure I’d put on him and a sick sense of being used. I knew how that felt. It was basically how I felt anytime I looked back on how Erich Winter used every conversation we ever had to move me in some direction or another.

“Oh, I think we both know I did, Augustus,” I snapped right back.

“Why?” he asked. “Why did you have to put that dumbass, nearly-defenseless dude into the hospital for saying something stupid?”

“Because you needed to know,” I said and watched his jaw drop. “That wasn’t about Tony. Tony’s an idiot. I suspect he was born an idiot, and he’ll slack-jaw his way through life as an idiot until the day he stands under a hydraulic jack as it fails and drops a car onto his comically oversized dome, and when he dies of skull trauma, the doctor responsible for the autopsy will make millions from writing ten research papers detailing how Tony survived so long without a brain in his head. This wasn’t about Tony. It was about
you
.” I looked him dead in the eye.

“About me?” he asked. “How is you giving some dude bleeding on the brain about me?”

“Because you need to know what you’re in for, if you’re going to ride with me,” I said. “You think you know. You keep bringing up YouTube videos of me beating the crap out of people like they’re some joke, or something that happened on an off day. They aren’t. They’re what I do. I beat the bad guys, and I take the ‘beat’ part of that very literally.” I stared at him. “I don’t think you have the stomach for this.”