Grounded (Out of the Box Book 4) (17 page)

“Man,” he said, shaking his head. “When I was a kid, I used to read about superheroes in comic books. People who would strive for good, save the world.” He stopped shaking his head, just looked askance at me, and I felt the wounding I’d just inflicted. “You? You’re not like that at all.”

“I never said I was.” I folded my arms. “The whole world has been telling you I’m not a hero.”

“I wanted to be like you,” he said, so crestfallen that I felt like I’d kicked him square in the balls. I felt the pain of what I was doing to him, that gnawing heartache deep inside, but I held it down—like I always did.

“I hope you never are,” I said quietly. “I hope nobody is ever like me. I’m not a hero. I’m a bulwark. A wall. The line. I’m this way so no one else has to be.”

“And you wonder why you’re lonely,” he said, his words so quiet and devoid of accusation that they shouldn’t have hurt.

They hurt like hell anyway.

“Where’s Darrick Cary?” I asked.

“Behind an old furniture shop ten blocks up,” he said, pointing. “Parks his car back there.” I started to lift off the ground. “I guess you’re going alone, then.”

“It doesn’t hurt me to be alone,” I said. “Not nearly as much as you think it does.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s why you slept with that cop last night,” he said. “Because it doesn’t bother you at all to be alone.”

“Kid,” I said, more than a little menacingly, “you don’t know me.”

“I’m not a kid,” he said, disgusted, “and I think I know you well enough after seeing that,” he gestured back at the tire shop, “to see a few things about how you work inside. I may not know the whole deal, but I’ve seen wounded people before. I’ve seen damaged folk. You don’t have the monopoly on a bad past, okay? You just maybe hold it in until it explodes violently better than most do, as if that’s supposed to be a good thing. Do they give a gold medal in the Olympics for repressing all your feelings?”

“What about you?” I asked, letting myself drop to the ground. “You’re so … so buoyant it makes me sick. Oh, there’s always another way—a sweeter, kinder, gentler one. Darrick Cary is one of the good guys who should be protected—”

“I don’t think he deserves to die or get concussed for what he does, no,” Augustus said.

“You don’t think anything should happen to him, clearly,” I said.

“I’m not the police.”

“Oh, but you wanted to be,” I said. “You wanted to be a hero. What do you think a hero does? We’re supposed to be the triumph of the rule of law that keeps us grounded as a society. We’re supposed to be justice—”

“What part of bashing some sexist pig’s head in reflects justice in your world?” he asked. “Is that the penalty for being a dick? Because I didn’t see that codified into law anywhere. Must have missed that.”

“Well, the U.S. Code is like 40,000 plus pages, so it probably is in there somewhere,” I said, deflecting. “I’m trying to protect civilized society, okay?” I paused, realizing the absurdity of at least part of my argument and making a minor concession. “Except for the Tony thing. He did piss me off just a little.”

“You’re ‘trying to protect civilized society’?” Augustus asked. “Well, you’re going about it like that big, furry white dude.”

I searched around for the answer for a moment. “The Big Show?”

“No, the cartoon one.”

I tried again. “… Sergeant Slaughter?”

“No!” Augustus said, annoyed. “Are you obsessed with the WWE? I’m talking about the one that’s all like, ‘I’m gonna love him, and hug him, and never let him go!’ And then he kills Bugs Bunny!” He paused and lowered his voice. “In this example, Bugs Bunny is a free society.”

“I got that,” I said. “I’ve seen
Winter Soldier
. My brother makes …” I paused, letting my voice drift off, “… used to make this argument frequently.”

“But he got tired of it falling on deaf ears?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe he just realized the futility of arguing idealism in a world where some people can explode with the force of a nuclear bomb, or force every single person with any weapon to turn it on themselves, or … the list goes on.” I looked at him, and I felt a soul-deep sadness settle over me. “Laws … are for humans. And as annoying to me as Kat’s show is, they got the title right. We are ‘Beyond Human.’ And I want human laws to apply, I really do. But there’s no one out there who can enforce them … except me.” I held my hands out. “Lucky me.”

“I will never believe that the ends justify the means the way you’ve been doing it,” he said. “I believe in heroes, in people doing the right thing, not getting dragged down by the expediency of shortcuts.”

“That’s sweet, kid,” I said, condescending as hell. He looked a little pissed at it, and I couldn’t blame him. “Don’t lose that.” And before he could answer, I flew off, heading in the direction he’d pointed, strangely content that I’d lost the argument with him, at least in his own mind.

Because it meant maybe he
could
be a hero.

And I’d long ago given up hope that I ever would be.

She just flew off, just like that. Not another word, not a hint that she’d like to stay there and argue all day but she couldn’t, just a patronizing as hell bit of bull, and off she flew.

I dug my phone out of my pocket and called my momma. Sienna Nealon may not have been a hero, but she was right about one thing—I wasn’t going to go losing my desire to do the right thing just because she did.

“Hey, Momma,” I said as Momma picked up.

“What are you doing calling me during work hours?” Momma asked, already on alert.

“Mr. Cavanagh gave me the day off to help Ms. Nealon,” I said, using last names and titles to show deference. If I hadn’t and I’d been standing in front of her at the time, Momma would have smacked me winding. “So that’s what I’m doing—helping. You got yesterday’s paper nearby? I need to know the name of the other man that got killed in the lightning storm.” I couldn’t remember, honestly, if I’d even heard it at all.

“Sure,” she said, and I already knew she did. She had a stack of papers next to her couch that went back at least a week at a time. I heard her rustling for a couple minutes, thankful for the distraction. “Here it is … killed in the evening … lightning struck two places in … victims were identified as Kennith Coy, 32, and Roscoe Marion—”

“Roscoe,” I said under my breath, barely believing it.

“You knew that man?” Momma asked.

“I should,” I said, staring up into the sky. Sienna was already gone, flown off to her next destination. “He worked at the factory with me.”

I found the furniture store without much trouble. It was one of those big box chain retailers in a mall that looked like the recession hadn’t been too kind to it. There were a few stores in the middle still open, but the rest of the strip had closed down and both big anchors on either end were shuttered. The hints of the store’s name were still on the facade of the building, stained in place by years of rain over the sign above the doors. The windows were boarded though, and I drifted over a dirty, messy roof that was strewn with litter to find a car in the back alley behind the store.

I had to admire a couple things about Darrick Cary. First of all, he picked a good spot. The mall backed up to a small area of woods, and I could see some trails that wound off, probably coming out less than a block away. He also could run straight back or straight ahead in his car and the “alley” created by the mall was wide enough it would take more than a few cop cars to cut him off. I would estimate ten to twenty, assuming he didn’t drive off into the woods and lose them in there somehow. It didn’t exactly look like an expansive forest or anything, more like a half block of forgotten woodland in the middle of the urban area, but still.

The second thing I admired him for was his car. It was a brand new, cherry red Corvette, parked at an angle that would make it easy to tear off at any sign of approach. Cary had clear sight lines in either direction, and if someone came at him from in front or behind, he’d see them coming a hundred yards off. If they came from the woods, he’d have a good fifty feet of movement over clear ground as a head start. He’d also parked between two doors to the back of the mall, giving himself a decent fifty feet of clearance from the nearest one as well, which was a loading dock. Those didn’t open quietly.

All in all, he had himself a little slice of tranquility to do his business. He’d probably scoped it out pretty well, making sure that he had an easy escape, and that any potentially hostile customers who might try to rob him would be guarded in their approach to him. It certainly wasn’t a street corner where someone could come at him from any direction, and if I’d been limited to two dimensions in my approach, he probably would have been out of there before I could have asked him anything.

But I can fly, so I just dropped down in front of his hood with a terrible thump. It was a mark of my respect for Augustus that I didn’t land on the hood, but even the dramatic entrance that I’d gone with scared the hell out of the man in the driver’s seat of the Corvette. He jumped in his seat, letting out a short scream. I mean, I didn’t land quiet. I used full Wolfe powers to heal the impact as it was happening, because otherwise it would have broken both my legs. It still hurt, by the way.

But as I looked into Darrick Cary’s saucer-wide eyes, I knew I’d had the intended effect.

I shot around to his window in a jiffy before he could go for the starter on the Corvette and leaned in so I could look straight at him. “Hi, Darrick,” I said sweetly. I think after all the press I’ve gotten, doing things that way is somehow even scarier than if I’d started screaming at him from the word go.

“Holy sh—!” He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, pressing his lips together like he could use them to push words out. “Wh-what do you want?”

I admit it, I let my brow rise in surprise. Most people don’t get it together that fast when I get the jump on them. “Let’s start with basics. I don’t care about your business.”

He just stared at me, one side of his face slightly raised—horror, I think it was. “Uh—what business would that be?”

“The one where you had Kennith Coy as a customer,” I said. “The one where you helped him violate his probation.”

“Hey, I didn’t know he—”

“Darrick,” I said gently. “I told you I don’t care about your business. So let’s cut the crap, okay?”

He blinked at me, twice. “O-okay.”

“I need to know what else Kennith was into that would get him in trouble,” I said. “Because I doubt smoking weed was what got him murdered.”

Cary’s eyes went wide. “M-murdered?”

I squinted at Darrick, wondering if he had a genuine stutter when a super-scary meta wasn’t bracing him for information. “Yes. Murdered. Kennith Coy was murdered by a metahuman. I need to know what he was into that could have gotten him killed, Darrick.”

“I barely knew that mo—” Cary caught himself just in time, like he thought swearing would bother me. “That … guy. Other than as a loyal customer once he got out.”

“A loyal customer, huh?” I asked, watching him with my best cop look. “His mother said you used to drop by the house.”

“Because he couldn’t leave after he got home at night,” Cary said, “and he didn’t want to get in trouble at work. Dude liked his smoke, okay? Is that a crime?”

“Yes, I believe it is,” I said, “which is why you’re having this conversation with me in a back alley behind the mall instead of in a dispensary in front of it.” I tapped my fingers on his car. “Other activities? I need to know what Kennith was up to.”

“I know nothing about other activities,” Cary said. “And the dude is dead, so I have zero reason to be defending his honor or whatever, okay? I have told you all I know.”

I frowned at him. “You seem like the sort of snake that keeps his belly low to the ground. What else have you heard?”

“About what?” Cary asked, clearly of a mind to put some distance between himself and me.

“Murders,” I said. “Disappearances. Gossip. Anything.”

“Uhm … mmm …” It was unfair to say it was amusing to watch him try to figure out what he could throw to me to make me leave him alone. “I … I don’t know. I don’t know anything about any murder that isn’t gang-related, and it’s been a quiet month even for that.”

I thought about it for a second and decided to float something, see if it got a response. “You know a girl named Flora Romero?”

He stared at me blankly. “Should I? Is this Twenty Questions?”

“What about Joaquin Pollard?”

That time he reacted. “Okay, yeah, I knew
of
him. Dude got …” his eyes widened, “… struck by lightning after killing some girl. You saying this is related?”

“I’m not saying anything.” I gripped his car door in my hand and rocked the car gently. By which I mean gently for me; he ended up going all over the place kind of wildly. “You’re the one who’s supposed to talk.”

“Joaquin, Joaquin, okay …” He searched his memory. “Okay, he was working for … uhm … he’d been in gangs at some point, but I think he was … someone hired him, maybe? This was a long time ago,” he almost pleaded.

“Who hired him?”

“Some …” He was scrambling furiously. “Some … damn … uh … I don’t know. Seems like someone from outside the neighborhood approached him. Maybe he dropped a name to friends of his, but I don’t think I ever heard. I didn’t even deal to him, he was tied up with some boys over in downtown.”

“Hrm,” I said. “Flora Romero was the girl he killed.” I waited to see if there was a reaction. “Any idea why he did it?”

“Maybe he was robbing her?” Cary asked, putting his hands up. “Maybe he was doing his job. I don’t know. Can I go now?”

“One last question,” I said, feeling like I’d struck out so it might as well be time to try one last fishing trip before I packed it in. “The homeless shelter that Flora Romero worked at ended up seeing some disappearances around the time she died.”

“And this has what to do with me?” Darrick Cary was about two steps shy of full-blown panic. “I ain’t homeless, obviously.” He slapped the door of his car.