Scare Crow (6 page)

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather come and work in the store? With me?” He paused
for a second. “We’d be able to hang out a
gain.”

I knew that nothing came without a price. While I was grateful, I did not want to
lead Jeremy on. He was better off without me; he just didn’t know this
yet.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Je
remy.”

“Sure thing,” he quickly responded. “I was just saying that because the pay’s better
at the s
tore.”

After we hung up, I realized that I would have to be more careful whom I sought favors
from.

When everyone had finally trickled out of the house, it was past lunchtime. I left
an exhausted Meatball snoozing under my bed and took a bus down
town.

The bus stopped outside my bank. There was a huge lineup leading up to the cashiers.
While I waited in line, I fished a pen and a bubble-gum wrapper out of my purse and
pulled my pendant off my
neck.

Before he died, Bill had given me a silver chain with an angel pendant. It was a humble
present, by Sheppard standards, but I never took it off. For years, I had assumed
the pendant was a thoughtful gift, but Cameron had advised me otherwise. What I had
once thought were product codes under the pedestal on which the angel sat were in
actuality numbers for a bank account that Bill had put in place for me. I had no idea
how much money was in the account, but from what Cameron had said, it was substantial.
Enough for me to make plans; enough for the baby and me to survive Spider and Vi
ctor.

While I waited in line, I quickly transcribed the sequence on the bottom of the pendant,
keeping an eye out to ensure no one noticed what I was d
oing.

“I’d like to access the money that’s in this account,” I announced as I got to the
next available cashier. I handed her the bubble-gum wra
pper.

The cashier looked about as old as I was. Her dark hair came down to her chest and
ended at a point, like arrows to her abundant cleavage. She picked up the wrapper
by the corner as if it were diseased and stared for a mi
nute.

She gazed up, doe-eyed. “I’m not sure I unders
tand.”

“I need to get the money that is in this account out of this account and into my hands,”
I rephrased for her, like she was a five-year
-old.

“But this isn’t an account nu
mber.”

“It isn’t an account number
here
. The account is offs
hore.”

When we finally understood each other, the clerk directed me to the second floor,
where I sat on the chairs by the elev
ator.

Cameron had told me that the account was in a Cayman Islands bank. I had assumed getting
money out of the account wouldn’t be as simple as going to a cashier and asking for
it. I just didn’t have any idea how to go about it. So I sat waiting for the personal
banking manager, hoping he would
know.

Another kitten walked up to me. She had a little bit less cleavage showing, but still
left little to the imagination. Her blouse was so tight it looked like the buttons
were torpedoes in wai
ting.

“Ms. Sheppard?” she asked. I nodded, and she led me to an of
fice.

When she sat down, I realized she was the banking manager. The multiple degrees on
her wall still gave me some hope that she might be able to hel
p me.

I handed her the bubble-gum wrapper. “The bank account is in the Cayman Isl
ands.”

She took a look at the paper and wrinkled her forehead. “Are you sure you wrote the
numbers down corre
ctly?”

She handed me the piece of paper back. I knew I had copied them exactly as they were
on my pen
dant.

“They’re the numbers that were given t
o me.”

“Well, your numbers don’t add up,” she told me. “They’re not bank account numbers
anyw
here.”

She turned her computer screen and showed me what she meant. “All banks follow a certain
code in setting up bank accounts. The codes may not be the same in all countries,
but each country has its own identifier so that there is no repetition in bank account
numbers across the w
orld.”

She showed me what the numbers for a Cayman Islands bank account should look like.
It was obvious that the sequence on my pendant was far too long and complicated to
be a bank account nu
mber.

I thanked the account manager for explaining something that she had probably learned
on her first day of training and left the bank empty-ha
nded.

I knew that Bill would not have made a mistake. And I knew that Cameron would not
have lied about the money that Bill had left me. Cameron had once showed me something
Carly had devised to avoid detection by the authorities—an encryption sy
stem.

I sat on the bank’s steps and unfolded the bubble-gum wrapper. Now that I took the
time to really look at the sequence, it looked a lot like their encryption system.
And I realized that I would not be able to access Bill’s inheritance unless I could
crack Carly’s
code.

“
Merde
,” I muttered. I never swear in Eng
lish.

I stuffed the wrapper back into my bag and stomped
away.

People like Spider and Carly did not exist in the normal world. They only existed
in Cameron’s world. So finding Spider was going to be tricky, especially since I didn’t
even know his pre-underworld name. But I had an idea where to find Shield, also known
as Victor Orozo, my brother, Bill’s uncle. He trekked between wo
rlds.

When I got to the police headquarters, it was almost dark; the days were already getting
shorter. There were so many steps leading up to the edifice doors that I almost did
a Rocky dance at the top, but I was way too winded and t
ired.

I pulled the hood of my jacket over my bright red hair before walkin
g in.

Past the doors of the Callister City Police Department, it was total mayhem. People
getting lugged around in handcuffs. Two women screaming at each other by the water
fountain. Some guy in pajamas walking around with a sign that he had written in blue
crayon on the back of a cereal box. According to his sign, only God could make him
pee in a
cup.

Luckily, the line up to the desk was fairly short and moving quickly. It wasn’t until
I got to the front of the line that I realized that this was a lineup just to get
a number, and the number that the little red printer spit out told me that there were
at least fifty people ahead of me. And there was only one clerk serving clients. Seemed
like the whole city was ahead of me t
oday.

I took a number and looked for a seat. The only one available was between someone
who looked like she was possibly a hooker and an old man who was doubled over and
seemed like he might have already peed himself. I was exhausted but stood and waited
my turn. I found free wall space and leaned agains
t it.

It wasn’t hard to eavesdrop on the reasons why people were there because all of them
were bellowing their issues at the police clerk. And everyone was there to complain
about something. A noisy neighbor. Police brutality. Stolen wallet. Police brutality.
Bailout. Police bruta
lity.

I, too, was there to complain, in some measure. The difference was that I would be
asking for the sheriff and my complaint would rock law enforcement and the underw
orld.

Victor was a police officer, who longed to rule the underworld. He had abused his
status to steal me from Cameron with the hopes of using Cameron’s love for me to control
him and the underworld. Victor was a bloodsucker, but Cameron could not touch him
because he was a police officer; killing a police officer, like killing a rich man’s
daughter, brought too much unwanted attention to the underw
orld.

I, on the other hand, was not bound to the underworld and had no aversions to killing
Victor. I also had no way of making this happen quickly, before the baby came. The
only way I could protect the baby from him was to get him off the streets and put
a spotlight on him. After that, anything Victor did or planned would be watched, including
putting a hit on me. One day, when I was ready, when he wasn’t looking, I would come
find him and seek justice for what he had done to R
occo.

I imagined myself going into the police protection program. But I knew there would
never be a safe place for me once I ousted Victor and his enterprise. Luckily, Victor’s
reign over the underworld had petered out after Bill and Cameron had taken over. If
I could figure out how to get hold of Bill’s inheritance, then I could hide us, better
than the cops w
ould.

When the water fountain ladies’ argument turned to fisticuffs and hairpulling, two
police officers came to pull them apart. It took me a little while to recall where
I had seen them before. It was the third officer who came to help them that refreshed
my memory. He was a tall baldheaded guy with sunken eyes and puffy cheeks that reminded
me of beanbags from a summer-camp toss game. I had once whispered to this man through
a locked door. I had once stolen his gun and held it to his head. The baldheaded officer
was named Mickey. And his fellow law enforcers were also Victor’s min
ions.

I was an out-and-out moron. How could I have not assumed that at least some of the
men under Shield’s reign would have also been police officers? One dirty cop will
attract more dirty cops. Street thugs, dirty cops—all bad guys are genetically created
to gravitate toward each o
ther.

Callister’s police department was the most dangerous place for me to be, and yet there
I was, idiotically defenseless. I turtled inside my hood and slid down the closest
hal
lway.

I could hear the women scuffling in the short hallway while Shield’s men tried to
pull them apart. The hallway had only one door, metal, and it was locked with a card
scan. At the end of it were two glass cases that stood side by side. I used the reflection
in the glass to watch what was going on behind me and find an opportunity to es
cape.

When pajama guy chimed into the chaos and started screaming his legal woes behind
Shield’s officers, more officers started pouring through the metal door. I stood as
close to the glass as I could, trying to stay out of their way and field of vision.
The hallway was a really bad place to be stuck. Moron. Out-and
-out.

While I was observing the show, something in one of the glass cases caught my eye.
The first one was a trophy case, containing mostly baseball and football trophies
and a few Little League thank-you pla
ques.

It was the second case that made my breath feel as though it were turning to
fire.

It started with a picture of Victor receiving some kind of medal of honor, shaking
hands with Callister’s city sheriff, who looked giddy, like he was rubbing elbows
with a rock
star.

Then there were newspaper articles. “Victor Orozo Cracks Down on Organized Crime.”
“Orozo Biggest Drug Bust in History of USA.” The last one read “Callister’s Victor
Orozo—Elected President of the National Police Associa
tion.”

And then there was a picture of Victor at the White House, standing next to the president
of the United States of America. All smiles. All
sham.

Newspaper articles, pictures, certificates, plaques, and trophies, all in admiration
of Victor Orozo, Callister’s hometown hero. There were even a few letters from children
depicting how Victor’s charity work had changed their lives. Could the whole world
be so blind to this psychopath? Or perhaps everybody was in o
n it.

I quickly came to the realization that Victor was not just another dirty cop. He was
the top cop. The leader of their union. He was much smarter than I ever wanted to
give him credit for. His grasp, the underworld’s grasp, ran deep in everyday life.
Children, families, the good people of Callister City believed he was one of the good
ones, believed that the police officers who walked their streets were there for them.
But they were there for themselves. And their sociopath union le
ader.

While the entire corrupt Callister police force was breathing down my neck, or at
least it seemed like it, I had no other choice but to wait, keep myself hidden in
the corner, and pray. I was a turtle wedged in a corner while the hammerhead sharks
sifted through the seaweed for easy
prey.

Eventually, the women were cuffed and dragged away kic
king.

Then pajama man was thrown out of the buil
ding.

The traitorous officers disappeared behind the armed door once a
gain.

And I didn’t wait for something else to draw the sharks again. I calmly walked out
of the station, keeping my hood over my flaming red
hair.

I had to climb through the back doors of the bus, stealing a ride home, because I
didn’t have any money left. I hadn’t stopped running from the time I left the Victor
worship wall until I took a seat on the
bus.

Victor shaking hands with the presi
dent.

Victor union leader, leading all police organizations in the
USA.

I didn’t know what all this meant, but I was acutely aware that if Victor’s minions
were all police officers and that if Victor was their union leader, there was no safe
place for me t
o be.

While I was walking home from the bus stop, I spotted our landlord down the street.
He owned at least five other houses on our street and was making his rounds to collect
rent checks for the year. It was dinnertime—he had the same good sense as a telemarketer.
I ran the rest of the way home and called Meatball over as soon as I got my foot in
the
door.