A Karma Girl Christmas (8 page)

After spending almost twenty-four hours at the newspaper, I went home. I opened the door to my apartment, tossed my keys onto a nearby table, and flipped on the lights. Piles of cardboard boxes greeted me. After our honeymoon in Hawaii, I was supposed to have moved in with Matt, and most of my things had already been packed away.

My thoughts turned to Matt. Where was he? Had he seen the story? Was he sorry he’d lied to me? Or was he with Karen? Picking up where they’d left off?
 

Had he ever really loved me?

My eyes traced over the boxes. Hearts and other silly cartoon figures wearing lacy veils and diamond rings decorated the cardboard. The jagged pieces of my heart scraped against each other. The wedding, the honeymoon, the happily ever after. All gone. A few tears leaked out of my eyes, but I smacked them away. I’d done my crying on the way to the newspaper. I wouldn’t do any more.

I dug through one of the boxes, found some wrinkled sweats, and walked into the bedroom. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the dresser. My auburn hair stuck out at funny angles. Dark purple circles ringed my eyes. Hurt and anger burned in the blue depths. I looked more than a little crazy. I felt that way too.
 

To top it off, I still wore my wedding dress, although I’d chucked the unbearable shoes hours ago. I smoothed down the ruined gown. The wear and tear of the day had turned the snow-white fabric a bland beige. The diamond in my engagement ring sparkled in the dim light. I’d been so happy the night Matt had given it to me. So sure of my love for him, and his for me. Now the ring just reminded me of broken promises, shattered dreams, and my own blind stupidity.
 

I yanked the ring off my finger, marched over to the dresser, and pulled open a door on my jewelry box. I stared at the ring a moment, then stuffed it in the back of the drawer, and shut it. I turned a key, locking it away.
 

I won’t be fooled again
, I vowed.
Not by anyone
.
Never again
.

Chapter Two—Karma Girl
      

From that day forward, I was on a mission.
 

A mission to unmask every single superhero and ubervillain in the entire world. Oh, I wouldn’t get around to all of them, but I was determined to out as many as I could, as fast as I could.

No one would be deceived as I had been. No woman would come home to find her boyfriend slipping into a neon pink codpiece. No man would be puzzled over why his wife had a strange collection of whips and an odd affinity for black leather. No mother would wonder why her son could never be on time for anything. Not if I could help it.
 

I started out small. After work and on the weekends, I traveled to neighboring towns and cities on my crusades, learning all I could about their respective superheroes and ubervillains. I looked at their Web sites and promotional materials. Read their poorly written autobiographies and rambling manifestos. Even bought a few plastic action figures for research purposes. Naturally, all of the superheroes and ubervillains had colorful names like Killer and Slasher and Halitosis Hal. The only things more flamboyant than their names and personalities were their costumes. The two groups never met a skin-tight, spandex outfit studded with rhinestones they didn’t love.
 

All the superheroes and villains had strange, sometimes frightening powers, like the ability to move objects with their minds or shoot red-hot flames out of their fingertips. Since the goals of the heroes and villains were at odds, they often engaged in long, lengthy battles that destroyed bridges, overpasses, and municipal buildings. Some of the bigger cities had several superheroes and ubervillains all battling it out for supremacy and leveling skyscrapers right and left. And they all wore masks to hide their true identities and thus avoid paying for the public property they decimated on a weekly basis.
 

I had plenty of time to spend on my mission. My dad had died in a car crash when I was a kid, while my mom passed away from breast cancer a few years ago. I didn’t have any other family, and Karen had been my only real friend. Everyone else had been Matt’s friend before they were mine. They all drifted away like smoke after my story came out. In a week, I went from the belle of the ball to an outcast. I preferred it that way. There was no one left to lie to me, no one left to hurt me.
 

I perused police reports, scouted out battle sites, and examined torn bits of masks and costumes. I worked up flowcharts of people kidnapped and saved by villains and heroes. I even recorded powers and weaknesses and costumes and symbols in a color-coded journal. I’d always had a knack for organization and a good memory, and both helped me immeasurably as I sifted through mountains of raw data.
 

In the end, it was ridiculously easy. There was always someone the superhero saved over and over and over again, whether it was a wanna-be girlfriend or a boyfriend or a kindly widowed aunt. All you had to do was find that special person and see who was closest to them. Then, bada-bing, bada-boom, you found your superhero.
 

As for the ubervillains, their hunger for money and power tripped them up. Most villains had buckets of cash gotten in less-than-legal ways and were often involved in shady, land development deals.
 

Accidents involving radioactive materials also raised a big red flag, since radioactive waste was a great way for heroes and villains to get their powers. So were magic rings, bites from rabid or otherwise altered animals, and the old-fashioned, natural, genetic mutation.

I soon learned that I had a knack for uncovering secret identities. All you had to do was dig long enough and hard enough and deep enough, and you’d uncover that one piece of information that would solve the riddle. I’d find a scrap of evidence, something seemingly inconsequential, and everything would fall into place. The dots connected. The picture cleared. I’d always loved puzzles, from crosswords to jumbles to word searches. Uncovering the identities of superheroes and ubervillains was the ultimate human jigsaw puzzle. And I was rapidly becoming a master.

Six months after my botched wedding, I left the
Beginnings Bugle
for a larger newspaper that wanted me to uncover the identities of the resident superhero and ubervillain. Three months later, the Kilted Scotsman and the Blue Berserker woke to find their faces splattered all over the front page. The public found out what the Scotsman really wore under his kilt, while the Berserker went, well, a little berserk over the whole thing.

A few months later, I went on to another newspaper.
 

And then another ...

And another ...

And another ...

I left a trail of unmasked superheroes and ubervillains in my wake. Of course, not everyone was happy about my private vendetta, my endless exposés. The superheroes begged me to stop my activities or retract my stories, while the ubervillains tried to bribe or threaten me. But nothing could match the righteous fervor that had awakened in me. Not threats, not money, and especially not tearful pleas.

Nothing satisfied me more than a good unmasking.

#

Three years after my first superhero unmasking, I hit the jackpot.

The editors at
The Exposé
in Bigtime, New York, hired me to uncover the identities of the Fearless Five, a group of superheroes, and their enemies, the Terrible Triad.
 

The Fearless Five and the Terrible Triad were legends, not just in Bigtime, but throughout the world. They had the strongest powers. They waged the biggest battles. They engaged in the most amazing escapes and the most elaborate schemes. They were the crème de la crème of superheroes and ubervillains.
 

What made the puzzle so tempting, so intriguing, was the fact that little was known about any of them. Oh, countless stories had chronicled their escapades, but no one had a clue as to their real identities. They would be tough puzzles to solve, but I was up to the task.

After all, I was Carmen Cole, reporter extraordinaire.
 

The job proved harder than expected. I worked for three months and came up with nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. I started with the superheroes like I always did, because they were easier to unmask. Ubervillains were naturally more conniving and not shy about killing people to keep them quiet. But the Fearless Five had covered their tracks well. I pored over police reports and mocked up flowcharts galore, but nothing linked the heroes to anyone. They were ghosts who showed up, battled evil, and saved the world before bedtime.

Then, one day, I got a break. A kid called in and said he saw a man in a tuxedo transform into Tornado, a member of the Fearless Five. Such tips were not uncommon, and most of the reporters at
The Exposé
hung up on the crackpot callers. Not me. I visited the kid, who gave me a description of the man in the tux. I had a sketch artist work with the kid, then took the drawing and compared it to the men I thought might be Tornado. I narrowed my list down to three suspects, then dug deeper until I unmasked my superhero.

Tornado was Travis Teague, a wealthy businessman specializing in wind power. How clichéd. But I was sure. I could feel it deep down in the pit of my stomach. A couple of weeks later, I verified my suspicion by capturing Teague turning into Tornado through the use of a hidden camera. My inner voice crowed with pride and victory. I notched another superhero exposé on my belt.

Carmen 1, Fearless Five 0.

#

The day the story ran, the entire newsroom gathered around to toast me with champagne and pizza. Even the newspaper’s publisher, Morgana Madison, attended. In a way. She took in the rowdy scene from the windows of her office, which overlooked the newsroom. She was always up there, overseeing her massive media empire, while we slaved away earning her more millions.
 

I spotted the publisher and raised my glass. Morgana smiled and raised her own glass in response. Superhero exposés were terribly good for the bottom line, and there was nothing Morgana Madison cared about more than that. She was in the newspaper business to make money, and she didn’t hide her ambition.

Normally, I would have waited until I’d uncovered all the heroes’ and villains’ identities and written one big exposé about everyone, but my editors insisted we run the story about Travis aka Tornado Teague right away. I went along with the plan. I was, after all, the golden child. I’d uncover the others’ identities soon enough.
 

Now, I was reaping the rewards of my clever brilliance, and so was everybody else. Everyone except Henry Harris, the newspaper’s technology reporter. He was the only person not joining in the festivities. Instead of drinking, he crouched at his desk near the back of the newsroom and stared at his computer screen. His fingers stabbed the keyboard with rapid strokes. Henry was a bit of an odd duck, with his nose always glued to his computer or buried in some book about the latest, greatest, technological advances. I liked him, though. He was nice, polite, and always helped me unfreeze my computer when it freaked out.
 

I grabbed an extra glass of champagne, strolled over, and plopped it down on his desk.

Henry blinked like an owl. “Oh thanks, Carmen. I didn’t realize it was time for the toast already. I guess I just lost track of things.”

“No problem, Henry. Come on, join the rest of us. We’ve got free booze and pizza, courtesy of the company.”

“Well, I really should finish this story—”

I pulled Henry out of his chair and into the middle of the newsroom. I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. This was one of the best days of my life, and everybody was going to share in it, whether they liked it or not.
 
      

“Speech! Speech!” one of the junior reporters shouted.

“Yeah, Carmen. Tell us why you do the things you do,” someone else asked.

“It’s like … karma,” I said, espousing my unmasking philosophy, which everyone had heard many, many times before. “We all know that villains cheat and steal and lie, but the heroes do it too. They lie to their friends and families. They make excuses and let down those closest to them time after time. That’s bad karma. One day, all that lying is bound to catch up with them. I just make sure it happens sooner rather than later. What goes around comes around. It’s karma.”

“Hear, hear,” Henry said in a quiet voice.

I clinked champagne glasses with Henry and the rest of my drunken colleagues. I’d never felt so exhilarated in my entire life. I was floating, flying, soaring. I was on top of the world. Now that I’d unmasked Tornado, the rest of the Fearless Five would soon follow. After that, I’d tackle the Terrible Triad.
 

My phone rang, jarring me out of my smug, self-satisfied reverie. “Carmen Cole.”

“Carmen, it’s Chief Newman,” a deep Irish voice rumbled in my ear.
      

“Hey, Chief. What’s up? Calling to congratulate me?”
 

I’d spent many hours going through files with Bigtime’s chief of police, and the two of us had developed a good working relationship. The chief also wanted to learn the identities of the Fearless Five and the Terrible Triad. Both groups had destroyed their fair share of Bigtime, and Newman wanted them to foot the bill for the cleanup and repairs. Not to mention all the unpaid parking tickets they’d accumulated with their souped-up supercars and vans.

“Not exactly.” He paused. “I’ve got some bad news, Carmen. It’s about Travis Teague. He’s dead, Carmen. He committed suicide.”

My champagne glass slipped from my fingers. It shattered on the floor.

Excerpt from HOT MAMA,

Book Two in the
Bigtime paranormal romance series

PART ONE—WEDDING BELLS

Chapter One

My wedding day.
 

It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. A time of joy and celebration and new beginnings. The day every girl dreams of from the time she’s old enough to play dress-up in her mother’s clothes.