Storm of Lightning

  “Chuck, listen to me here. I know you love Julie, which is why you need to be especially careful right now. Give her some time to get her head back on right, you know? If you post bail and she runs, then there’s no turning back for her. If she’s caught, no judge will let her out again. If she’s not caught, you’ll never see her again. It’s a no-win situation.”

  “Yeah.” He groaned. “You’re right. Again.” For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Charles said, “I’m going crazy just sitting at home. How long are you going to keep me suspended?”

  “At least until her first court date,” he said. “Look, heaven knows you can use the time off. Take a trip or something. Go see your boys. Or go up to Coeur d’Alene. There’s some great fishing up there. You’ve given your all to the force for fifteen years; you deserve the break.”

  Charles took a deep breath. “All right. Maybe I will.” He opened the car door. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “That’s what friends are for. See you.”

  Charles saluted him, then got out of the car. He stepped back as the chief backed out of his driveway, then drove down the street.

  * * *

  As soon as he was down the road, Davis took out his phone and dialed a number.

  “It’s me. We just left the jail. She didn’t tell him anything. He’s thinking about posting bail, but I’m pretty sure that I talked him out of it. . . . Yeah, I know. Don’t worry, it won’t happen. He’ll talk to me first. If he tries to post bail, we’ll arrest him, too. She’s not going anywhere. . . . Yes, sir. . . . We still have his place staked out, a man on both ends of the street. If anyone tries to visit him, I’ll let you know. If anything happens, I’ll call. And please thank Captain Marsden for the bottle of Scotch. No one knows Scotch like an Elgen.” Davis hung up his phone. “And no one pays like one either.”

  Earlier that day

  The sun was just dawning when the four of us—Taylor, Gervaso, Ian, and I—pulled off the ranch road onto the freeway. The night before, while Gervaso had been packing the car, Jack had tried to talk Gervaso into letting him come with us, but Gervaso wouldn’t budge. This was a covert operation, the fewer along the better. And, with Jack, there was the added risk of someone recognizing him. The same was true for Ostin, who had also asked to come. This was the first mission I’d been on without him.

  Gervaso provided Taylor and me with hats and sunglasses to help conceal our identities once we reached Idaho. We couldn’t take the odd chance of running into a former classmate or neighbor or even a stranger who recognized us. For all we knew, our faces had ended up plastered on milk cartons.

  The drive from southern Utah to Boise took a little less than ten hours. It felt strange being back in Boise, especially when Gervaso drove past PizzaMax. I had mixed feelings about that place. I had mixed feelings about the whole city. It should have felt like home, but nothing felt like home anymore. I didn’t think it was the city that had changed. It was the whole world that had changed. Or maybe it was just me.

  It was a little after five o’clock when we reached Boise, rush hour, which is what Gervaso had planned on. The more cars there were, the more difficulty the Elgen would have finding us. I thought again of what Ostin had said. The best place to hide a penny is in a jar of pennies. The last time we were in Boise, the Elgen had been hunting us. We were pretty sure that they still were. Why else would they have framed Taylor’s mother if they didn’t think it would draw us back? We needed to be ready for them.

  On the way to Taylor’s house we drove past Meridian High School. The marquee read:

  CHEERLEADER TRYOUTS

  WED–THURS AFTER SCHOOL

  Taylor didn’t say anything. Just past the school, Gervaso stopped the car on a side street, and Ian and I changed places—he got in back with Taylor, and I got in front with Gervaso.

  “I’m first going to make a slow pass down the street to check things out,” Gervaso said. “The Elgen set this trap, so we should assume they’re watching. Ian, I want you to watch closely for anyone suspicious. Also for any cameras panning license plates. This car’s plates won’t set off any alarms, but it’s not an Idaho plate, and that still might cause them to take a second look.”

  “I’ll recognize an Elgen guard,” Ian said. “But if they’re not in uniform, I won’t know if someone belongs around here or not.”

  “Taylor can touch him and see what he sees,” I said.

  “Brilliant idea,” Gervaso said. “Look for anything out of the ordinary. We also need to see if Taylor’s dad is home before we break into the house.”

  “What if he is?” Taylor asked.

  “We’ll come back at night after he’s asleep,” Gervaso said.

  “Put your sunglasses on,” he said to me. “Taylor, you and Ian need to duck down.”

  “Then I won’t be able to see,” Taylor said.

  “Ian will see for you,” Gervaso said.

  Ian took Taylor’s hand, and they both lay sideways in the backseat, with Taylor lying against Ian. I looked ahead, trying to act normal.

  Gervaso slowly turned onto Taylor’s street. “Here we go,” he said.

  “That tan car on the right,” Ian said. “It’s a police officer. He’s got binoculars.”

  “Why would the police be watching their house?” I asked. “They wouldn’t be expecting anyone.”

  “What is he doing?” Gervaso asked.

  “He looked at us, but he’s not concerned.”

  “That’s my house up on the right side,” Taylor said. “The tan one with aspens on the side.”

  “There are two cars in the garage,” Ian said.

  “That’s my mother’s van and my father’s truck,” Taylor said.

  “I can’t slow down any more without looking suspicious,” Gervaso said. “So look quickly.”

  “I can’t see anyone in the house,” Ian said. “The lights are all off, so I don’t think he’s there.”

  “It looks empty,” Taylor said. “But that’s my father’s only car. He wouldn’t have left without it.”

  “Maybe he went for a walk,” I said.

  “Or maybe someone picked him up.”

  “All I know is that the house is empty,” Ian said after we’d passed. “The front dead bolt is locked.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Looks like we’ve got another one of Boise’s finest up ahead,” Ian said.

  “Why would there be police here?” Taylor asked.

  “Maybe they think the drug cartel will come looking for the drugs that went missing,” I offered.

  “That’s a possible explanation,” Gervaso said.

  “Wait,” Ian said.

  “What?”

  “I’m not positive, but it looked like that cop was holding an Elgen handbook.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No.”

  As we drove past the officer’s car, he glanced up at us but showed no concern. I pretended not to see him.

  “If they’re working for the Elgen, they’re most likely looking for Taylor, not us.”

  “I was right,” Ian said. “It’s an Elgen book. The Elgen guard insignia is on the cover.”

  “The Boise police are working with the Elgen?” I said.

  “My dad isn’t with the Elgen,” Taylor said angrily.

  “I never said he was,” Gervaso said, trying to calm her down. “If he was, the Elgen wouldn’t be staking him out.” We reached the end of the street, then kept going.

  “Now what?” I said.

  “We wait until it’s a little darker; then we sneak into the house.” He asked Taylor, “Is that the school behind your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the best way to get to your house without being seen?”

  “There’s a gate for the school along Hampton Road. We can park there, then follow the fence up to my house. There’s an opening in my next-door neighbor’s fence that we used to climb through. It comes out behind a row of bushes, so we can sneak into my
backyard and go in through the back. My parents keep a key under a rock near the door.”

  “That gives us about an hour before dark,” Gervaso said. “Anything you want to do while we’re here?”

  No one spoke for a moment; then I said, “Can we go to PizzaMax?”

  “Is that a pizza place?” Gervaso asked.

  “Yes. We passed it on the way here.”

  “We can’t go inside,” he said. “But we can order to go and eat in the car.”

  “I’m good with that,” I said.

  “How can you think of food at a time like this?” Taylor asked.

  “How can you not?” I replied.

  She frowned. “Now you sound like Ostin.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Even though it was almost twilight, Taylor and I still wore our sunglasses as we drove into the restaurant’s parking lot. Being back at PizzaMax filled me with unexpected emotion. I realized that I hadn’t really asked to go there for the pizza. I was hungry, but there was something psychological driving me there. In many ways, PizzaMax was where everything changed. It’s where I first met Dr. Hatch and Zeus and Nichelle. It was where my mother was kidnapped. Nothing in my life was the same after that night . . . especially me. It was the place where my fantasy of security was finally shattered.

  I once watched a show on the History channel about old men going back to battlefields where they had fought as young soldiers. There’s something in us that wants to see the place where we once battled.

  Gervaso parked our car backward in the parking spot to facilitate a quick getaway should we require one. Then, leaving us there to wait, he went inside, and returned twenty minutes later with an extra-large pizza with garlic bread and sodas.

  “That’s a busy place,” Gervaso said. “It holds more people than you’d think.”

  “It’s always crowded,” I said. “My mother and I used to come here for special occasions. This is where I was when I first met Dr. Hatch.”

  “It was on your birthday,” Taylor said. “I was supposed to come too. But I’d already been kidnapped.”

  “You really met Dr. Hatch here?” Ian asked.

  “Right over there by the light pole,” I said, pointing. “Hatch wanted to see my powers in action, so he sent a GP to steal our car. As I handed the GP the keys, I shocked him. Then Hatch appeared out of nowhere, clapping.”

  “Creepy,” Ian said.

  “Yeah. Then Nichelle did her thing and I passed out. That’s when they kidnapped my mother.”

  “Why didn’t they take you?”

  “I think they wanted both of us. But before they could take me, Ostin and a bunch of people came out of the restaurant.”

  We sat in the car and ate, though Taylor didn’t eat much. She was too upset.

  Gervaso seemed especially anxious, carefully eyeing everyone coming in and out of the restaurant. By the time we finished eating, the sun had fallen behind the mountains.

  Gervaso looked back at us. “Everyone ready?”

  “I’m ready,” Taylor said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  Ian nodded. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

  Two undercover police cars were still parked on Taylor’s street when we returned, though not the same cars or officers. I figured that there must have been a shift change.

  We turned onto the road past Taylor’s, drove to the end of the street, turned, and then again passed Taylor’s street, parking on Hampton Road, which ran along the south side of Meridian High. Fortunately there was enough light from the moon that the three of us wouldn’t be standing out like walking glowsticks.

  Ian took one last long look around as we got out of the car and made our way along the school’s wood-slat fence to Taylor’s backyard, about seventy-five yards from our car.

  “It’s right here,” Taylor said. She walked up to the wooden fence and ran her hand down it until she found the loose slats and pulled two of them aside. “I can’t believe that after all these years no one’s ever fixed this thing.”

  “Do they have a dog?” Gervaso asked.

  “No dogs,” Ian said before Taylor could answer.

  “There’s a woman inside playing the piano. And a cat.”

  “That’s Mrs. Glad,” Taylor said. “She teaches piano to half the kids in the neighborhood. Her husband owns some kind of metalworking place, so he’s always working late.”

  “Is anyone in Taylor’s home?” Gervaso asked Ian.

  “No. Still vacant.”

  “What about their cars?”

  “They’re still there.”

  “I wonder where he is,” Taylor said. “If he’s at work, his car wouldn’t be there.”

  “He’s not at work,” Gervaso said. “Remember, he’s been suspended.”

  “What if he doesn’t come back tonight?” I asked.

  “If he’s not back by tomorrow, we’ll have to hunt him down,” Gervaso said.

  “Maybe he went on vacation,” Ian suggested.

  “With his wife just incarcerated?” Gervaso said. “I doubt it. Not if he loves her.”

  “Of course he loves her,” Taylor said tersely.

  We crossed the back of the neighbor’s yard, then, on all fours, crawled into Taylor’s backyard behind an overgrown hedge. It appeared that all the lights were off except for one—a small dome light in the kitchen.

  “Are we still safe?” Gervaso asked.

  “Still safe,” Ian said.

  “Does your home have an alarm system?”

  “It didn’t,” Taylor said.

  “If they installed one, they would put stickers on the windows,” Gervaso said. “Ian, can you see an alarm?”

  “I don’t see any wires around the door.”

  “How about motion detectors?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “All right,” Gervaso said. “Just be prepared.”

  “I’ll get the key,” Taylor said. She crept up to the back door, then squatted down and looked under a stone, lifting the key from beneath it. Then she got up, unlocked the door, and went inside.

  “You’re next, Michael,” Gervaso said. “Then Ian.”

  “Okay,” I said. I stood, ran to the door, and slipped inside.

  There was a single light on above the kitchen sink. Taylor was standing to the side of the kitchen, looking at a large family photograph on the wall.

  “I can’t believe I’m finally home,” she said. Then she reached out to me. “Come with me. I want to see my room.”

  I took her hand, and we walked out of the kitchen and down the hall. For a moment she stood in her room’s doorway, just staring inside. I looked over her shoulder. “What are you thinking?”

  “It looks exactly the way it did the day I left.” She turned back to me. “They were expecting me back. They never gave up on me coming back.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “They love you.”

  I followed her into her room, which was only illuminated by our glow. It was feminine, with a four-poster bed and pink-and-red polka-dot wallpaper adorned with large pictures of Taylor cheerleading. Pinned to the wall above her bed were two felt flags, one goldenrod, the other purple, with the word “WARRIORS” next to a picture of Meridian High School’s mascot.

  On top of her bed was a mountain of pillows and her cheerleading outfit, which looked freshly pressed and laid out, as if it were just waiting for her to return and put it on. Against one wall was a white antique three-drawer writing desk beneath a cork message board. The desk had a pewter desk lamp on one side hanging over a framed picture of Taylor and her two older brothers.

  I picked up the picture. “Do you think about them very much?”

  “All the time,” she said softly. “I’d give anything to talk to them.” She corrected herself. “I guess anything but risk everyone’s lives.” She breathed out slowly. “Why do I have a feeling I’ll never see this again?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Finally I took her hand. “We better ge
t back with the others.”

  We walked back out into the hallway and out to the front room, where Gervaso was standing near the front door. He held a small penlight in his teeth. He had taken the cover off the light switch and was doing something with the wires. Ian was sitting backward on the couch, staring at the wall, which would seem weird for anyone but him. To Ian pretty much everything was a window.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “The cops are bored,” he said. “That one keeps picking his nose.”

  “Thanks for sharing that,” Taylor said. She sat down on a love seat.

  “How does it feel to be back home?” Ian asked.

  “It feels sad,” she said. “Like a morgue.”

  “That’s because no one’s here,” he said.

  “Or maybe because I’ve buried so many of my memories here,” she replied.

  “What are you doing?” I asked Gervaso.

  “Just throwing him off a little when he gets here. Sometimes the simplest distractions are the best.”

  He put the switch plate back on and had begun to screw it into place when Ian said, “Someone’s coming. A police car.”

  “One of the undercover police?”

  “No. It’s a third car. This one’s marked and has a rack on top.”

  Taylor walked over and took Ian’s arm. “That’s my father in the passenger seat.”

  “Who’s that with him?” Ian asked.

  “I think that’s his boss. The chief.”

  “They’re pulling into the driveway.”

  “I’m going to the kitchen,” Taylor said.

  “They’re in the driveway,” Ian said. “He just shut off the car. They’re talking.”

  “What do we do if the chief comes in with him?” I asked.

  “We go out the back door,” Gervaso said. “Ian, tell us if the chief starts to get out of the car.

  “Will do.”

  For a moment none of us spoke. Then I asked, “What’s going on?”

  “They’re just talking.”

  “Can you read their lips?” Gervaso asked.

  “No. Now they’re shaking hands. Taylor’s dad just opened the car door.”

  “Is he armed?”

  “No. He’s not in uniform.”