Fake: The Scarab Beetle Series: #3 (The Academy) (5 page)

Marc’s eyebrows squished together, causing a wrinkle between them. “Back up a minute. What? Who do they have?”

I began explaining, starting from when I was asleep and Brandon and I were attacked, all the way to where they disappeared down the road with Brandon in the back seat. “But they still think he’s Corey.”

“Holy shit,” Marc said, his mouth slack for a moment. Then his entire composure changed. “Adrien,” he barked.

“Avery,” Avery barked back.

“Sorry. Avery. Drive to...” Marc took out his cell phone. He started typing into it. “You know the fountain downtown?”

“The pineapple? Who doesn’t?”

“Head there.”

“If you say so.”

Marc typed at his cell phone. He looked up at me, his mismatched eyes darkened, studying me. His hand went out, touching my chin.

His touch stung as he brushed his finger along the scrape. I pulled back, smacking his hand. “Don’t worry about me. We have to go get Brandon.”

“Do you need a doctor? Anything else hurt?”

I felt scraped everywhere, and bruises, and I was sure to be sore later. It didn’t matter to me right now. I’d take some Tylenol later and call it a day. Brandon first. “I said don’t worry about me. Brandon might get killed. They’re after this...core thing. They called it Murdock’s Core. They wanted Corey to get access to it. They’ll probably kill him or use him to get Corey to do what they want if they find out he’s not the real Corey. We’ve got to get him away before they find out they’ve got the wrong one.”

“On it,” he said, showing me his phone. He’d sent a text to Axel. The texts were innocent enough.
Let’s all eat pineapple salad. Bring enough for a girl who loves to eat. She needs new summer clothes, too. We should take her shopping.

I’m guessing this was code for meeting at the pineapple and that I needed clothes. I was wondering why he was using code at all. Did he suspect these guys were listening in?

“What supplies? What can we do? Can you find what this guy wants? This core? If we can get Corey to get them access to it...”

“We need to evaluate these guys and see just how dangerous they are.”

“I know, but maybe we can make a trade and then...”

Marc brushed a fingertip along his eyebrow. “They said the owner of the core was dead. It could be they killed him. If that’s the case, we’re going to have to be careful. This isn’t like we give them what they want and expect them to behave. And we don’t know if what they want is going to lead to more deaths, or worse.”

The German didn’t specify why he wanted this core. I still didn’t even know what it was. I imagined it was some sort of hacker thing that made money or was valuable and they could sell it. I mean, why go through the trouble without it being worth a lot of money? Still, it seemed like they went through a lot of trouble to get to us when there had to be easier ways of getting what they wanted. Brandon said they could get hackers to get what they want. But the German wanted Corey specifically. I wondered why.

“If they are willing to threaten lives to get it,” I said, “then they want it soon. They could have waited with a couple of good hackers willing to cooperate. Either they have a limited access window or there’s something else. What do we do?”

“If that means they think Corey is their best bet, we might have a bit of time. They won’t kill Brandon if they think he’s their ticket into this core. They’re going to look for ways to make him cooperate. That means they’ll be looking for ‘Brandon’ or you, or one of us. We’ll have to work quickly and catch up. He said Corey already had the information.” He tapped at his phone, and then started focusing on it. “I’m checking his email.”

“You know his password?” I asked.

He smirked and rolled his eyes. “I know everyone’s password.”

“You don’t know my password.”

“It’s your mom’s name and your birthday.”

I planted my foot on his leg, pushing him in the seat. Angry impulse.

He gripped my ankle and used it as leverage to tug me, sending me sliding onto my back in the seat. “Stop it. I’m trying to type.”

I grunted, and corrected myself. I wanted to hit him, but had a feeling he’d do the same thing and it’d be pointless “How’d you know?”

“Corey figured it out when we were looking for you the last time.”

Jerk faces. They were snooping in my emails? I was going to say that was wrong, but not too long ago, I read his criminal history, via Blake Coaltar, who showed it to me. I hadn’t sought out the records, but I did read them and I felt like I was setting a double standard if I complained out loud.

“Dude,” Avery said. “You read her emails? That’s bullshit.”

I didn’t need his help, but I was floating at his reaction. I smirked at Marc, silently gloating that someone else knew snooping was wrong.

Marc swung his phone in a motion toward him, but looked at me. “Who is this guy?”

“Friend from high school,” I said.

The moment I said it, Avery looked up through the rearview mirror, meeting my eyes. I guess he expected me to say he was just the cab driver. Avery smiled at me. I guess I scored a few points.

Marc chuckled. “You have friends?”

Couldn’t blame him for thinking that. I didn’t expect it, either. “Surprised me, too.” I leaned over, getting in Marc’s way on purpose and trying to look at his phone. “Is there an email from this guy?”

“Looks like he must have deleted whatever email he was talking about. Hopefully it’s still in the trash bin.” He put a hand on my head, pushing it over. “Will you sit back and let me take care of this?”

“Am I supposed to sit still with Brandon kidnapped? No way. Find out where this guy lives. I’ll take care of him. Just point.”

“What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to find a set of Tasers and then do the same thing. We’ll bring him back to that warehouse and then...”

“No,” he said, although he was smirking as he said it, like he didn’t wholly want to tell me no.

“Why not? Call Raven. He’ll do it with me if you don’t want to.”

“The first thing we need is to connect with Axel. We don’t need these guys to find the real Corey and we don’t need anyone getting heroic. First step is information gathering. We need to find out where Murdock’s Core is.”

My mouth fell open. “We’re going to give this guy what he wants? You just said--”

“We need to get to it before they do. At the very least, we’ll know where they’ll be, even if we don’t know when. And we know they’re wanting it and will head there, so we can at least monitor and capture them that way if we don’t locate them before that point.” He showed me his phone, where Axel had replied already about meeting us. “We need to prepare, though. We don’t know what we’re up against. Or who. It’ll be better if we find that information before we confront them.”

“Will Corey help us?”

“No,” he said. He squinted at me and shook his head slightly. “Because he’s not going to know about this. Limited liabilities.”

Limited? I understood he didn’t want anyone else kidnapped or killed, but Corey should know about his brother. “But we need Corey to get to the core.”

“We are, he’s just not going to do it knowing his brother’s life is on the line and risk him being exposed. If they find out they’ve got the wrong guy, they’ll be after him next. So he needs to lay low. But Corey won’t like that once he hears his brother is being held against his will. We’ll have to feed Corey information carefully and give him space to work. So don’t tell him about Brandon. Don’t worry. I’ve got Raven with him now.”

Did I agree with this? I’d be pissed at them all if my brother was in real danger and they were keeping that info from me. Maybe he was right, though, in a way. Maybe Corey knowing his brother was in trouble would make it worse right now. “They’ll be okay?”

“Maybe.” He sat back, and planted his hand against my calf, slowly sliding his palm up and down along my skin in a soothing motion. “Are you okay?”

I furrowed my eyebrows at him. “Yeah?” I didn’t mean to make it a question, but I wasn’t sure why he was asking. I’d already told him I wasn’t worried about the scratches.

“You’re pretty calm for someone who just got kidnapped.”

“You’re pretty calm,” I said in an accusing tone. The truth was, now that Marc was here, and the others were starting to get into action and help, my hate managed to roll back into a simmer, still bubbling but waiting to strike out at the right person. It was amazing how my confidence lifted around the boys. Fear didn’t work into the equation, only anger and revenge. I wanted to help, I had a desire to pay the boys back for everything they’d done for me and this was a big way to do it. I was focusing on controlling myself until I could get to Brandon and get him out. The goal of saving someone changed my fear into something else: drive, perhaps, or controlled determination.

Marc continued to stare at me, massaging my leg. He was waiting me out. He wanted a real answer.

“You’re not going to make me run off to South America while you solve all this yourself, are you?” I asked. Deflecting was better than what I was really thinking.

“I probably should. I’m keeping you with me because if we split up, this guy will have an easier time kidnapping you a second time. We need to stick together. And because you’d probably run off and try to hunt this guy down on your own.”

I grunted. True.

Marc went back to checking emails. I leaned back, giving him space to work. I caught Avery looking back at us. Our eyes met. At first, he averted his eyes, looking out the window. When he looked back, he was silently asking me if I was okay really. I nodded, trying to smile and reassure him. He probably had no idea what to make of Marc, and why this was all happening. He couldn’t have been expecting this when he picked me up as a simple fare earlier. Maybe he didn’t agree with the strategy and didn’t feel he could voice his opinion. He pursed his lips, staying quiet.

I wanted to reassure him more, but the truth was, the less he knew was probably better.

“I’ve got a name,” Marc said suddenly. “Randall Jones. That’s it. Came in an anonymous email with a German IP. Tried to trace the source of the IP address further for a specific location, but I can’t do this on the phone very well. Corey could do better.”

“Randall Jones? There’s got to be a hundred of them.”

“It’s going to be someone who died recently.” He did a search on the phone again. “They said the owner was killed, right? There’s a Randall Jones in the news that died. He was a wealthy landlord in Mt. Pleasant and he was killed three weeks ago in a burglary. Not a lot of details. I think he’s our best bet. I don’t know his connection to this core they’re talking about, but he may have been involved somehow. We can get Corey looking up information the police have about what happened and we can check out his residence for now.” He released me. “The first thing we need are some clothes for you and to catch up with Axel. We’ll meet up at the fountain and figure out our next move.”

“Almost there,” Avery said.

“Hey man,” Marc said. He reached over, touching him on the shoulder. “Thanks for driving us and helping her out. Seriously. Really cool of you.”

Avery slid another glance at me. I got it. He was thrown into this, and Marc, in his own way, was basically dismissing him after the ride was over. I understood Marc was getting him out of this mess before he got in any further.

Marc had the right idea. Avery didn’t need to be here. I didn’t know how dangerous these German people were, but this was our mess, not his. “Can we pay him?” I asked. “What do we owe?”

Avery shook his head. “Naw, I turned that off when I recognized you. Kidnapped girls don’t pay fare. My momma’d shoot me.”

“Your momma’s a good woman,” Marc said. He shifted in the seat, tugging his wallet from his pants and then pulled out a thick wad of twenties. I was surprised to see it. He must have grabbed it on his way out. “But you still get the biggest tip ever.”

Avery shook his head, like he didn’t want it, but Marc shoved it at him. Avery made a face, but held out a palm, taking the cash. I knew all too well how hard it is, when you’re poor, to turn away money. “Coming up on the fountain,” he said.

Marc and I hopped out. Cool concrete touching my toes was soothing and chilling at the same time. I turned to wave at Avery. “Thanks,” I said.

He started to wave and then stopped. “Hang on, Kayli.”

I paused. “What?”

He curled his fingers at me and I approached. He reached into the console of his cab and pulled out a card and passed it to me. “In case you get kidnapped again or something.”

I checked out the card, which had his name, cell phone number and email address. It didn’t say taxi driver, and it didn’t advertise the company he worked for. I wondered if he picked his clients up ‘off the books’ of the cab company. I clung to it. “Okay,” I said. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again, but it was sweet.

He nodded, his lips tightening. “Call if you need anything,” he said. He waved and started rolling the car forward.

I watched him disappear, feeling oddly disconnected now. I suspected the only reason he was leaving was because both I and Marc basically said he should. He’d been involved so far, heard the story. The reality was, he was risking his life, too, for someone he barely knew from high school. Hopefully he went home, and had a beer or something on Marc’s cash for a job well done. He deserved it.