Even Villains Have Interns (3 page)

He loosened his collar and opened up Andrew’s
file. Yale graduate, law school, served in the army JAG for twenty
years before retiring to the civil sector and joining Subrosa
fifteen years ago. Delilah? Nothing. No background, no schools
listed, no experience.

No super villain alive had such a weak cover
story. Most the ones he’d met had not just one backstory, but
several alter egos with the paperwork to prove who they were. And
super villains didn’t play the role of neighborhood vigilante. That
was strictly a Good Guy thing.

So, what? She was FBI maybe? CIA? Some other
black-ops government group who needed a plant and thought no one
would check her cover story? Homeland Security might try to pull
something like that. Or the DoD. Although they could have at least
made some effort to make sure her history passed a cursory
inspection.

Unless she wasn’t meant to pass inspection.
Maybe she was bait.

His head started to hurt. Would it kill people
to just tell him the truth? A little up front honesty was all he
wanted. “Hi, my name’s Delilah and I was trained by assassin monks
in Antarctica to fight the hordes of rabid polar bears descending
from Canada.”

Or not. He shut off the computer as an email
popped up on his work account. That could wait until morning. Right
now he needed to wash the reminder of Lake Michigan—and Delilah
Samson—off his skin.

Dear Daddy,

Yes, I have every intention of visiting
the
Splendor of Gems
display
at the museum when it comes to town. There’s an event there
tonight, coincidentally. Or not: I suspect it’s because of this
fact that you emailed me while you should have been lecturing the
freshman of the University of Texas about the dangers of
uncontrolled experiments.

I’ll ignore the news headlines about the
rocket your students made last week if you ignore my social life,
or lack thereof. Deal?

Busiest,

Delilah

“You look better,” Travys said as he walked into
Delilah’s office carrying a shoebox and kicked the door shut behind
him. “And you don’t smell like sewage.”

“I told you, I fell in the lake.”

Her intern looked skeptical and slightly
thuggish in his Chicago Bull’s leather jacket.

“We need to get you a trench coat.”

Travys pursed his lips and shook his head
rapidly. “Chicago Gangster is not a good fashion on boys from the
hood.”

“Neither does a leather sports jacket that looks
like you stole it during a fan frenzy.”

“I like it.” He stroked the sleeve and pouted.
“The red brings out my eyes. Gem tones always do.”

She paused then raised an eyebrow at his mocking
tone. “When did I say that?”

“When you had to go to the fall harvest ball
thing in a red dress like some overpriced assassin.”

Delilah leaned back. “Oh, right, the Dior gown.
I looked amazing.”

“Yes,” Travys agreed with a very masculine
smile, at odds with his still-boyish face.

She wagged a finger at him. “None of that. Baby
brothers are supposed to play with LEGOs and cars, not ogle
girls.”

“I’m not formally adopted,” Travys
protested.

“Don’t argue semantics with an expert, kid. As
far as the Powers That Be are concerned, you’re my baby brother and
I shall treat you as such. No girl will ever be good enough. Your
room will never be clean enough. And I will question your personal
style on a thrice weekly basis.”

“Thrice?” His eyebrows rose. “Thrice? Really?
Thrice
?”

Delilah shrugged. “It’s the appropriate
word.”

“Yeah. I bet. You know, my English professor at
the college is single. Want me to find out if he’s available for
New Year’s Eve?” Travys gave her a grin that bordered on a leer.
“Maybe you could ‘thrice’ each other a bit.”

She picked up the hot chocolate on her desk.
“You see this? My aim is amazing.” She gave him a warning look and
sipped the cocoa. “So, what’s in the box?”

“Uh-uh,” Travys said with a shake of his head.
“Tell me why you weren’t out with Alan ‘Mister Amazing’ Adale last
night. The date was on your calendar.”

“I skipped it to play footsie with some
hoodlums. What’s in the box?”

“What’s wrong with Adale?” Travys persisted. “Is
he a skanky-manwhore? Does he have a disease?”

In town for less than twenty-four hours and
already he was scrutinizing her social life. “Did my sister write
this script for you? Because for a second there, I could have sworn
you were Angela.”

Travys rolled his eyes.

She exhaled, setting her mug down. “He’s too
good to be true. I dated a boy like him in high school. Halfway
through our second date I slipped a little. I wanted him to tell me
why he liked me and since I was sixteen and could make him be
honest... he was.”

“How bad was it?”

Delilah tightened her grip on the mug. “He asked
me out because I was almost as hot as my sister, and he heard I was
easy.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter anymore. “I don’t need a
repeat experience.”

Travys eyed her thoughtfully. “What if Adale
actually likes you?”

Delilah laughed. “What if Neptune is made of
green cheese?” She shook her head. “Men are not attracted to me for
my personality. They think short skirts mean I’m open to the idea
of a one-night stand. Forgive me for being a little gun-shy. Now,
what’s in the box?”

“Some of my mom’s stuff. A couple of bills from
after she left, a note from my grandma, an invite to the school’s
parent night.” He pushed the shoebox across her desk until it
bumped into a pile of papers.

“How’d your dad take your visit home?”

“He’s not my dad,” Travys said as he sat down.
“He’s a loser. A dick that stood up for me once in his entire
life.” He glared out her window for a minute, then shrugged. “He’s
back in jail. He got caught with some dime bags. Stupid. I mean...
dime bags? He makes trash look classy.”

Delilah didn’t contradict him. Chris Freeman was
the kind of man parents prayed their child would never meet:
charismatic, abusive, and self-centered as a spinning top. His
motivation lasted right up until he had cash to burn, and then he
was gone. Travy’s mom had kept them from living in the street by
working double shifts at a hair salon and sometimes picking up temp
work at the call center for New York’s cab companies. She’d been
missing since spring of 2032, when Chris had gotten out of jail and
Travys had tried to commit suicide.

Angela, Delilah’s older sister, had saved
Travys’ life and taken a bullet to her arm for the trouble. But
Travys was a bright kid; he’d finished school and graduated with a
GPA that earned him a full ride scholarship to the University of
Chicago.

“What are you doing with the house?”

He twitched a shoulder. “Nothing. I’m not sure
who even owns it, so I just cleared out my stuff and Mom’s. Chris
can make the payments if he wants to keep it.” He scuffed his foot
on the ground. “She’s not coming back.”

“Who? Your mom? No, I think at this point it’s
safe to say she isn’t planning to return to New York.” Delilah
lifted the lid of the box and placed the contents in front of
her.

“She’s dead,” Travys said with absolute
certainty in his voice.

Delilah looked up at him questioningly. “What
makes you say that?”

“Same thing that told me Wiley Johnson wasn’t
going to make it through high school alive. Every time I saw him, I
couldn’t see it. I couldn’t picture him in the cap and gown, you
know? He was the nicest guy, super smart, funny, everybody liked
him. And then some drunk hit him walking home from school. Three in
the afternoon. Bright light. Crosswalk. The driver ran over him
like he was a speed bump.

“It’s the same thing now. I can’t picture my mom
coming back to me. I’m never going to see her again. Never.” His
voice caught, the edge of a sob peeking out.

“I’m sorry.”

His eyes narrowed. “Did you know?”

“I guessed.” She sighed. “Travys, your mom is a
wonderful person. I have utmost respect for her, but she’s also the
perfect victim: alone, scared, vulnerable… Female,” she added. “She
was on the run, and no one knew where she was. Isolation makes a
person an easy target. The fewer people who know where they are,
the fewer people will notice them missing.”

He frowned, lips trembling as he bit back more
tears. After a minute he said, “Do you think—do you think she
wanted to come back? She didn’t, like, make herself stay gone?”

Delilah tried to catch his eye, but Travys was
staring resolutely at the wall behind her. “You filled out your
mother’s personality profile yourself, and your grandma verified
it. She didn’t have the mentality to be a suicide. If she was going
to do something like that, she would have done it years earlier.
No.” Delilah shook her head. “I think she ran home to Atlanta to
get help, planned on coming back for you, and something unexpected
happened. Right now, all we have is conjecture. Who knows? Chris
going to jail could be the best thing to happen. If she’s out
there, she might finally feel safe enough to try to contact you
again.”

“She’s dead,” Travys said flatly. “I know
it.”

“In that case, we’ll find the person who killed
her and make them pay.” Delilah shifted into his field of vision
and waited until he made eye contact. “You’re family, Travys. We
will make them pay.”

There was a knock at the door and her boss
walked in. Wil looked between them. “Am I interrupting
something?”

“Travys misfiled a client folder,” Delilah said
with a dismissive wave. “Typical new-intern troubles. I’m telling
you, we should have a boot camp for them. Make Margo in the front
office run them through alphabetizing and stapling practice before
we unleash them to touch my files. It would save me so much
trouble.”

Wil shrugged. “Margo doesn’t like the interns
any more than you do.” He tossed a padded tablet onto her desk.
“Addison Mayfield called, she’s back in town and wants priority
security at the soiree she’s attending tonight. Go check the venue.
I’ll arrange the team.”

“Am I running point again?” Delilah asked as she
opened Addison’s folder. The spoiled socialite didn’t need
security, she needed a babysitter. Possibly a muzzle. Addison
attracted trouble like flowers attracted bees.

“You’ll be inside with Emerret, Dylan, and
Emelia doing perimeter. Chad will have a three-man crew in the
communications van. If the intern’s free,” Wil said, pointing to
Travys, “you can take him along. He can shadow Dylan for most the
evening, get an idea of how these things go.”

Delilah turned to Travys. “Can you do that, or
do you need to study?”

“I’m good. The only final I’m taking is in
English, and that’s next Thursday.” He grinned. “Where we
going?”

“A place where you’ll need a suit and proper
grammar.” Delilah smiled up at her boss. “I’ll have the walk
through done before lunch and be waiting for Addison to arrive at
eight.”

“I knew you’d be happy about this,” Wil
said.

Delilah let that one slide. Private security was
the bread-and-butter of Subrosa Security. Addison might have been
spoiled, but for a security team this large she was shelling out
over a quarter of a million dollars for six hours of work. The
salary was good, and the commission for working one of these jobs
made it possible to buy all the finer things in life. “Come on,
let’s head down to the museum.”

“The where?” Travys asked, following her out the
door that swung shut and locked without being touched.

She picked her coat off the office coat-tree.
“The Field Museum. They’re opening a display of the world’s largest
gems tonight with a charity fundraiser. Tickets start in the five
hundred dollar range. Dinner and drinks are another thousand. With
the mid-term elections coming up, there will be a lot of
schmoozing.”

“I like schmoozing,” Travys said agreeably.

Delilah cut him a look. “They won’t be
schmoozing us. We’ll be the polite backdrop and stay out of the
way.” She checked her watch. “Can you meet me there in thirty
minutes? I have a little errand to run now that the dry cleaner is
open.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

Rolling her eyes, Delilah left Travys to find
transportation for himself and took a cab over to Way Quick
Cleaning, proprietor Mister Lee Way. The cab driver hunched over in
his seat, a large flat cap covering his bulbous head. “I won’t be a
moment,” she told him as she stepped out, not bothering to pay.

Having a super villain as a daddy came with
certain perks. Freddie, the cab driver, was one of them. Her
favorite minion, he was a five-foot-tall frog crossed with
who-knew-what-else; made in her father’s lab. Completely
dependable, able to drive, and good for tossing people around when
she needed some muscle, the whole not-paying-cab-fares was a
welcome bonus.

Mr. Way looked up from his e-print subscription
tablet as she walked in. “Good morning, Miss Samson. Do you have
something to drop off?”

“I do.” She held up a long, thin envelope.
“Remember Ivan, the tall Russian with the dark hair?”

“The one with the bunged up nose?” Mr. Way
frowned. “I’m not getting caught in a lover’s quarrel.”

“It’s nothing like that. Just business.”

“I don’t like that any better,” he said,
refusing to reach for the envelope.

“All I’m asking you to do is stick this in his
pocket.”

“How do you know I even have one his suits in?”
Way asked.

“Because Ivan’s a very particular man, and this
morning he would have brought in a slightly damp suit that he tried
to wash it in Lake Michigan.”

Mr. Way’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “How’d
you hear about that?”