Boyfriend from Hell (Saturn's Daughters) (31 page)

Could I really dispense informal justice? And if I did, would it cause unanticipated harm elsewhere? I was itching for revenge, but I didn’t want to be a vigilante.

“Do you know which of these jerks are still on the loose?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

Tim nodded eagerly and checked off two names.

“Very useful, man,” I commended him, tucking the information away for future pondering.

“The tattoo turns gold when you do whatever it is you just did,” Andre said nonchalantly.

I glared at him. I hadn’t done anything except ponder justice. “I need food and study time before I can employ more traditional means of hunting jackals. What are you doing with him?”

The kid was eagerly slurping down a Coke that Bill had given him.

“Let him rent the empty apartment and keep him out of trouble,” Andre said with a shrug.

Decision made, justice administered. Scary, but not the bad kind of scary. More like the
Man, I really hit that hoop
kind of power-proud scary. I couldn’t let it go to my head, though.

Which meant I couldn’t visualize two goons into a zoo. I needed to be alone so I could pull myself together. Maybe I could talk to Max a little. I needed to be reassured that I was still just me, although me branded with the scales of justice. I wondered when that had happened. I wasn’t prone to checking myself out in mirrors and I didn’t have a man in my life to see me naked anymore—which meant it had probably happened after Max died.

If I really had caught a thief and set fire to a senator, I was no longer in a position to keep my head down and my mouth shut. Although it might be wise if I practiced doing so before power went to my head. To be or not to be—that was always the question.

My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number. That could just mean the Zone was hungry for meatballs.
What the heck . . .
I answered because it was simpler than making a decision.

“The administration at your former school just forwarded your records, along with the criminal charges filed against you,” Schwartz said. “The top brass are breathing down my neck. Someone wants you gone. Lie low, will you?”

Oh, crap.
Just when I’d thought I was finding my way, the cops had my number again. I was pretty sure daughters of Saturn weren’t invulnerable. My leg could still break if I was pushed down stairs.

A
ndre’s Mercedes sidled up to me before I even made it out of the Zone. He gestured for me to get in. Rather than be hauled around like a gunnysack again, I complied silently, slamming the door.

“Cora conjures snakes when she’s mad,” he said conversationally. “Started a few years back when one of Frank’s clients came after her with a shotgun. Put the fear of God in the bastard when a python swung down and stared him in the eye.”

“I wasn’t mad when I imagined catching the invisible
thief.” I leaned my head against the window and did my very best not to think, because I really wanted to make those goons walk naked through the park and I knew I didn’t dare.

“No, you do insane things when you’re mad, like stealing Escalades from thugs. But it’s probably all connected somehow. Tim doesn’t disappear when he’s mad. Sarah turns to a chimp when she’s frightened. Some of us eventually learn control.”

I glared at him for that
us
. “You’re putting two and two together? Cora conjures snakes and you just get math?” I asked, just to keep from answering the question in his voice. “If you’re included in that ‘us,’ what else do you have going for you? That’s hardly enough for a guy who’s lived here all his life.”

“I was Special Ops, trained for war and accustomed to harsh situations, stewed in chemicals on the battlefield and since birth. My father worked for Acme at one time. I may be immune to the worst of it, but I’m not entirely immune. I just try not to do anything dramatic. But you and Sarah are the only ones who receive rewards for your actions.”

“Cora always looked like that?” I asked jealously, focusing on the shallow rather than his limited revelations.

“Not when she was a kid, but she grew into it. And that’s another thing—most of us grew up here or lived here a long time. Even Sarah has lived nearby since before the flood. We have chemicals in our blood. You’re the only newcomer. I think you’re an entirely new development. I want to believe the
Zone has claimed you for its own purposes. For
our
purposes.”

He pulled the car into the garage and closed the door. I slammed out and started for the stairs.

As we took the steps beneath the street, I finally got a handle on the discrepancy in his story line. “You
want
to believe in a magical dispenser of justice, but you
don’t
want to believe Max is still around. Your two and twos are all about what you want, not what is.”

“They
buried
Max,” he said curtly. “He’s gone. Let him go.”

“He won’t go until he gets whoever killed him. He was investigating the Zone. I’m thinking you’re the one who wants to keep Zone secrets.”

“I did not kill Max! Cripes, Clancy, you’re a head case. But I don’t believe you’re talking to a dead man in your mirror. Weird in this life, yes. In the next? Hardly.”

Not arguing with nonbelievers.
“Whose kitchen is this?” I asked, changing the subject by admiring the fancy kitchen.

“Mine. And thank you for cooking for my dad. He won’t leave the house anymore, and home-cooked meals aren’t my specialty.”

Damn, I wanted to like him. But I’d watched Andre at work for too long and knew he wasn’t to be trusted. He lied without blinking. Maybe they taught that in Special Ops school. There was far more to him than he was letting on. I’d let the comment about his
trying
not to do anything dramatic pass by because I wasn’t ready to deal with
it. If attacking with AK-47s wasn’t dramatic, I’d hate to imagine what was.

Upstairs, Milo greeted us at the door, wrapping himself around my ankles in welcome—or a blatant plea for kitty treats. I calculated that Andre was just like Milo, playing nice to get what he wanted. I simply wasn’t sucker enough to buy what he was selling. I opened his father’s refrigerator door as if I were in my own home, found apples and cheese, and sat down at the table while Andre talked with his dad in the front room.

Frustrated that the painful disaster at my former school was coming back to haunt me, leaving me vaguely nauseated and feeling hunted, I pulled Max’s Vanderventer file out of my backpack. I knew I needed to be studying, but I was hiding in someone else’s house for a reason. I wanted to know the name of the nasty player out to get me.

I handed Milo a piece of cheese and began reading Max’s atrocious handwriting. I earned scholarships because I’m not dumb and because I can read fast—once I learn to translate gibberish. I was halfway through the file with a muscle in my jaw jumping when I pulled out my compact and opened it.

“You’re Dane Vanderventer’s
cousin
?” I asked Max when he appeared.

He scowled. “
Second cousins. Took you this long to find out? What have you been doing, sleeping with Andre?
”

I snapped the compact closed. Men are a pain in the ass.

I snapped it back open a few pages later. “Your butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth
grandmother
owns half of Acme?”

He rolled his eyes. “
That’s old news, Justy. Not relevant. Her husband and Dane’s grandfather were brothers. They died and left their fortunes to the grannies. They’re old witches more concerned about their wealth than chemicals. Don’t get sidetracked.
”

“Then tell me what the hell I’m looking for!” I shouted . . . just as Andre entered with a peculiar expression on his face.

He glanced from the mirror to me. “Magic mirror?”

“Unless you have something useful to say, Andre, go back to work.” I defiantly left the compact open. Max watched me warily.

I could tell Andre was looking over my shoulder at the mirror. I didn’t know what he could see, but Max’s eyes narrowed, so I knew he was looking back.

“You should have killed her, man,” Andre said sardonically, speaking to the mirror. “She’s mean, she’s secretive, and she doesn’t play well with others.”

Guess that answered one question—I wasn’t the only one who could see Max, at least while I was holding the mirror.

Max snorted. “
That’s what I love about her.
”

Andre didn’t seem to hear Max’s voice, since it was inside my head. I quickly dismissed the fake male camaraderie and went straight to the big stuff.

“You
love
me?” I asked in incredulity. “That’s a load of crap, Maxim MacNeill. My questionable
charms are why you
used
me—because you knew I was tough.”

“
So, I had other things on my mind,
” Max admitted. “
But that’s changing. You’re changing, Justy. Get me out of here so we can work together. There’s weird shit going down at the plant that’s being covered up, and Dane’s part of it. I don’t think even the grannies know.
”

“Give me something,
anything,
to nail Vanderventer, Max,” I pleaded. “I don’t know how to get you out of there, but Vanderventer is here and I can reach him.”

Andre snorted and straightened. “If all he’s telling you about is Dane, then he’s useless. You’d learn more from Paddy, if he was coherent.”

“
Leave Paddy alone!
” Max shouted. “
He wouldn’t hurt a flea.
”

“Paddy?” I asked, before remembering the senile old guy wandering around Ernesto’s kitchen. He’d warned me to stay away from his “family.” “Is Paddy related, too?”

“
Dane’s father. He’s harmless,
” Max asserted. “
He tried to prevent the chemical spill and got cooked. Brains on chemicals, not pretty. He lives in his office these days.
”

“Acme cooked Paddy’s brains and that’s why you want to bring them down?” I asked in incredulity. Now I knew why Paddy looked familiar—he had Max’s eyes.

Andre squeezed my shoulders. “Max, if you’re in there, you better understand that your girlfriend can wish your family to hell if they make her mad. Acme
makes chemical weapons for the government. You should be teaching her some common sense instead of inciting her to breaches of national security.”

Andre’s touch woke me up to the dangerous rage building inside me. I glowered, closed the compact, and put my head in my hands.

I’d actually visualized catching a thief and caught one. Maybe I ought to visualize Max free from wherever he was. He had been a bad boyfriend, but he didn’t deserve hell. I concentrated on visualizing Max by my side, but it just didn’t happen.

“It’s not funny, Andre,” I muttered, twitching away from his grasp. “I could have turned the kid into a gorilla. I have no idea if I could have turned him back.”

“Setting a gorilla loose down here might attract attention,” he agreed solemnly, but he backed off at my reminder that I was a loose cannon. “I’m thinking you’d better limit your imagination to immediate punishment like hand-slapping and not get into anything long-term like gorillas.”

“Thanks, that’s real useful, Legrande. Just drop me on another planet without a guidebook, why don’t you?”

“That’s what I’m saying, Clancy. Study. Stick to school. Leave the bad guys alone. Let me take care of business until you get the hang of whatever in heck you’re doing.”

“If Dane Vanderventer was driving the limo that knocked over those kids, he’s going to pay,” I warned. “And now that I know who he is, it’s doubly
suspicious if he was down here the day Max died.”

“Dane Vanderventer is a conscienceless bastard who is guilty of so much worse, you’d have to send him to hell to make him pay,” Andre warned. “While he might deserve it,
you
deserve better than acting as a minion for the devil.”

Yeah, that was kind of my thought—or would have been, if I believed in the devil. Jury was still out on that one. I scooped up my books and Milo and headed down the hall to lock the door of my assigned room behind me. I needed my privacy back.

My damned phone rang again. I hadn’t been this popular in school. But in case Schwartz wanted to give more bad news, I opened it. A vaguely alarmed text message with Max’s phone number scrolled past:
there are challenging aspects in your chart. what are you doing?

Oh, I don’t know, messing with the Universe? Wasn’t that what I was supposed to do? I was pretty certain Max didn’t mess with charts and that I must be dealing with freaky Themis. I was annoyed enough to type back,
Toying with bullies,
and left it at that.

I opened my netbook to my Facebook page and raised my eyebrows at a message from my mother:
Your grandmother is worried about you. How on earth did you find her?

Themis was really
my grandmother
? And sending me idiot messages? That was just about par for my course. Had catching the thief really disturbed the Universe? Well, that, on top of showering thugs and
exploding tires and . . . Cosmic shake, rattle, and roll, I guess.