“What it means is that the model is attractive to wealthy men. Wealthy men have wealthy wives or well-off ex-wives. Those wives want to look good for their husbands or potential husbands. They see a wealthy man with a model, and they want to look like her. Specifically, they want to wear what she’s wearing in hopes of pleasing their men. So I let Sam take out my models, wearing my latest designs. The models get some exposure, Sam has some fun, and my business goes through the roof. Everybody wins.”
Fiona’s logic made sense in a weird sort of way. I hadn’t thought she had anything more than a pretty face and hot disposition going for her. Maybe there actually was a brain beneath that golden hair. Still, I didn’t like the Sam having fun part. Not one bit.
Fiona tore into a biscuit and slathered it with butter. “Speaking of well-off ex-wives, I did have a problem today with Joanne James.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? And how is Joanne today?”
Although Joanne James was one of Bigtime’s wealthiest women, she also was a notorious miser. The divorcée never met a penny she couldn’t pinch a few more cents out of. I’d come to dread any society event she was involved in. Joanne James’s champagne was not only flat, but watered down. Her cheapskate tendencies were another reason I’d always thought she might be an ubervillain. Evil types didn’t like to part with their money, not a nickel of it, unless they absolutely had to.
“She tried to tell me that I had charged her too much for the couture gown I designed for her. I had a written contract right in front of her with the exact price and her signature on it, and she still insisted I was overcharging her. I wanted to scorch her with my eyeballs. I almost set her dress on fire with her in it. Who does she think she is trying to cheat me? I’m Fiera, for crying out loud. Protector of the innocent. Defender of democracy. I don’t cheat people.”
Fiona’s hair hissed and sizzled. I scooted away from the sudden flare-up. Maybe I should cut down on the bitchy remarks. Making Fiona, er, Fiera mad could be hazardous for my health.
Fiona raged on for another ten minutes about Joanne James and her cheapskate tendencies. I made mental notes. The hot-tempered fashion designer had quite a way with words. She spat out several four-letter ones I’d never heard before.
While Sam tried to calm Fiona down, I gathered up the rest of the dirty dishes, dumped them in one of the stainless steel sinks, and rinsed them off. A chill swept over me, and my vision blurred. The room spun around, and I put my hands on the countertop to keep myself from falling.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked, putting a hand on my back. His warmth drove away the cold and ignited a fire of a different sort deep inside me. What was it about him that affected me so?
I shook my head. The world returned to normal, but I felt tired. My head throbbed. “I’m fine. It’s just been a long day. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. Good night.”
I left the kitchen, trying hard not to collapse. I didn’t want to get dragged back down to the sick bay. Sam started to follow me, but Fiona called out to him. Sam hesitated.
“I’ll be fine.” I waved him away. I needed some time to myself right now. Time to think.
“Call me if you need anything. Anything at all.”
Our eyes locked. I shivered at the heat in his gaze. I needed something, all right. Him. That was the problem.
Sam headed back into the kitchen. I crept through the manor with one hand on the wall. After about five agonizing minutes, I reached my room, shut the door, and collapsed on the bed.
I stared up at the ceiling, and my thoughts turned to Sam. I closed my eyes, remembering every detail of the evening. His quick wit, his smile, his laugh, his voice. The way he kissed me. The way he touched me. The way he melted my defenses. If Fiona hadn’t walked in, we would have made love in the kitchen.
Damn.
I sighed. It was for the best, though. I didn’t need to get any more involved with Sam Sloane. We could never have a future together. There was too much bad karma between us.
My inner voice chided me. I was already in too deep. I’d learned so much about the billionaire-turned-superhero tonight, and I wanted to know even more. What his hopes and dreams were, how and why he’d become a superhero, whether he thought about me as much as I did about him.
Sam.
His brilliant silver eyes were the last thing I thought of before my strange symptoms overcame me.
Chapter Eighteen
For the next two days, I worked feverishly on Malefica’s identity, stopping only to eat and collapse into bed at night. There were no more intimate moments with Sam. No more long talks. No more make-out sessions in the kitchen. I kept my distance from him, and he did the same. I didn’t know whether to be hurt or relieved the superhero didn’t press the issue. It was for the best, but I still wanted him desperately. Dreamed about him even.
After dinner, the others put on their superhero suits and went out to apprehend the criminals who prowled the streets of Bigtime. There were no run-ins with the Triad, but it was only a matter of time. Malefica, Frost, and Scorpion were out there somewhere, plotting their next move. They were up to something. My inner voice constantly grumbled about it. I just didn’t know what it could possibly be.
While the Fearless Five made the streets safe, I was left alone to pace the halls of Sublime. I never went with the Fearless Five on any of their forays into the real world. They kept that part of themselves separate from me, and I respected their privacy.
But that didn’t keep me from watching them on TV. Every night, I went down to the underground library and tuned the monitors to SNN, the Superhero News Network. The round-the-clock TV station was dedicated to, you guessed it, all things superhero. From in-depth profiles to the latest action-figure and video-game releases, the station covered everything that had anything to do with superheroes. But the station got its biggest ratings from its live coverage. At least once a day, the anchor went out to some reporter on the scene of an ongoing superhero-ubervillain battle. Or one of the reporters interviewed Swifte or some other hero about his latest, greatest rescue of a grandma wandering into traffic or a kitten from a towering tree. Sometimes, they’d even read the latest diatribes and demands from ubervillains like Mad Maria or Noxious or Captain Sushi.
I sat down, put my feet up on my table, and flipped on SNN. When I’d first come to Bigtime, I hadn’t watched SNN. I hadn’t wanted the station’s stories to influence my own reporting or color my investigations into the Fearless Five.
But now, I watched the channel every night. It was the only way I could keep track of the Fearless Five on their missions. The only way I had of knowing whether or not Sam was coming back safe and sound. That had suddenly become very important to me.
I sat through a program about how the Invisible Ingénues were, well, invisible to men and had a hard time finding dates. Suddenly, the anchor touched his earpiece. His words grew sharp and clipped.
“We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to take you out live to the streets of Bigtime.” The anchor turned to two chairs that looked empty. “Sorry, girls.”
“Don’t worry. We’re used to it.” A soft, feminine voice floated through the monitor.
“We now take you to our woman on the street, Kelly Caleb. Kelly, what’s the situation?”
The camera cut to a young, thin, pretty blond woman with a wide smile and unnaturally white teeth. “Well, James, it seems that Bigtime’s favorite superheroes, the Fearless Five, have cornered a gang of armed robbers in an alley across the street. The superheroes picked up the robbers’ trail after they tripped the silent alarm at Jewel’s Jewel Emporium in downtown Bigtime. Let’s see how the Five are faring.”
The camera zoomed over to the alley, and I perched on the edge of my seat. I had an urge for popcorn.
A body flew out of the dark hole and landed with an audible crack on the sidewalk. The robber, who was wearing black clothes and a tattered ski mask, let out a low groan. Five more bodies followed in quick succ
ession.
Striker strode out of the shadows, followed by Fiera and Mr. Sage. My mouth went dry. Good grief, the man knew how to wear leather well. Especially on TV. I wasn’t the only one who thought so. The camera panned across the street, where a large group of twenty-and thirty-something women stood behind a police barricade.
“Striker! Striker! He’s our man! If he can’t spank us, no one can!” the women cheered in unison.
They shook their booties and waved and clapped. A couple of them even sported cheerleader uniforms and sparkling, silver pom-poms. Tramps.
Kelly Caleb trotted over to the superheroes as fast as her stilettos would let her. She ignored Fiera and Mr. Sage and stuck her microphone in Striker’s face.
“Striker, Kelly Caleb with SNN. What’s the situation?”
Striker seemed baffled by her obvious question. He gestured at the moaning, groaning robbers. A couple of cops came over and started slapping handcuffs on them. “The robbers have been apprehended, as you can see. The police are taking them into custody.”
Kelly opened her mouth to ask him something else, when a woman shoved past her.
“Striker! I love you! Be mine!”
The woman, one of the pom-pom carriers, wrapped something that looked like a bra around Striker’s neck, pulled his head down, and kissed him on the mouth.
I gasped. The brazen hussy!
The kiss went on…and on…and on… I threw my Rubik’s Cube at one of the monitors. It bounced off and dropped to the floor.
“Get your hands off him, you slut!” I shouted.
Fiera came to Striker’s rescue and yanked the woman off him. “That’s enough of that,” she snapped. “Have a little respect for yourself, lady.”
For once, I was grateful to the hotheaded superhero. Any other time, I would have thought Striker looked like a clown with a white bra draped over his black suit. But I wasn’t in a humorous mood now.
“Time to go,” Mr. Sage said. “Kelly, thank you for your interest and stellar reporting, as usual. Until next time.”
Mr. Sage kissed her hand. Kelly blushed and stuttered something incoherent. Smooth. Very smooth. Mr. Sage was another hero who knew how to work the media.
The Fearless Five jogged away. The women screamed for Striker to stop. Bras, panties, and other articles of clothing sailed after the sexy superhero. My hands curled into fists. A large, black van skidded to a halt at the end of the street. The door slid back, and the superheroes dived inside. The van sped away, trailed by sex-starved women shouting phone numbers and lewd suggestions.
I snapped off the monitor and glared into space. Striker wasn’t their man. He was mine. I sighed. No, he wasn’t mine either. No matter how much I wanted him to be.
*
Another day passed, and I was still no closer to uncovering Malefica’s identity. I threw down my pen in disgust. I’d been over and over all the information I had. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Malefica might as well have not even existed as far as I was getting.
I picked up a Rubik’s Cube from my makeshift desk in the library, slid the rows of colors round and round, and muttered obscenities about Malefica’s parentage.
“Carmen, that’s not very nice,” Henry chided, staring at me over the top of his computer monitor.
“Well, Malefica’s not a very nice person,” I snapped.
I finished the Rubik’s Cube, put it down, and scooted over to the far side of my desk, where I had started a jigsaw puzzle. I’d completed the border yesterday. Now, I was trying to fill in the center of the puzzle, a picture of purple pansies. However, the cheery colors did little to ease my frustrations.
After a few minutes, the puzzle pieces blurred. My head started to throb. I groaned and closed my eyes.
“Another headache?”
“Unfortunately.” I rubbed my aching temples.
According to Chief Newman, I was still feeling the aftereffects from the dart Frost had shot me with. The chief hadn’t been able to identify the exact drug the ubervillain used. I reached for the giant bottle of aspirin perched on my desk, poured two pills out of the plastic bottle, and swallowed them.
“Maybe you need a break,” Henry suggested. “We’re going to do some training this afternoon. Would you like to watch?”
“Training?”
“It’s something we do once a month. We go through battle simulations, plot strategies, test our powers, things like that. War games. It’s Sam’s way of making sure we stay fresh and sharp.”
I eyed the piles of papers on my desk. Anything sounded better than sorting through more boring articles detailing Malefica’s impeccable sense of style and expensive tastes. Plus, I was more than a little curious to see the Fearless Five in action again.
“Let the games begin,” I said.
*
Henry led me down a hallway I hadn’t explored. This one twisted and turned like a snake writhing along the floor. It went deeper and deeper underground until it seemed as though we were in the middle of the earth itself.
We reached a thick metal door, and Henry punched in the 555 code. The door slid open, revealing a long hallway with various doors branching off it. Sam, Fiona, and Chief Newman stood in the center of the hallway, already in costume.
“There you are, Henry. We’ve been waiting for you,” Mr. Sage said.
I drank in the sight of Striker. His black leather suit hugged every part of his firm body. Our eyes met. The superhero shot me a quick smile, which I shyly returned.
“What’s she doing here?” Fiera hissed. Her hair sparked and crackled with fire. “Don’t we have any secrets left?”
“She wanted to watch,” Henry said.
He went to a door marked Equipment and punched in the code. He gestured at me, and I walked inside. The others followed.
My mouth dropped open. Rows and rows of superhero suits hung behind glass doors along one side of the room. The colorful costumes provided a bright, almost gaudy, contrast to the gray, metal walls. Another glass case contained boots and gloves and masks galore, all lined up from largest to smallest and sorted by color. Stacks of swords identical to the two Striker carried glistened from their place on steel racks anchored to another wall. Whips, utility belts, and various other odds and ends sat on stands in the middle of the room just waiting to be grabbed and used. The area contained enough suits and gizmos to equip an entire army of superheroes. I truly was in Superhero Central.
“This is incredible. How much money do you spend on all this stuff?” I whispered.
“Too much. Why do you think I’m such a ruthless businessman? Somebody’s got to pay for all of this,” Striker quipped. “Being a superhero isn’t cheap.”
Fiera put her hands on her hips. “My fashion designs accounted for a good portion of our budget last year. Certainly more than Henry’s and my father’s meager contributions.”
“Yes, well, some of us aren’t independently wealthy,” Henry replied. “Ask Carmen. She knows how badly journalists are paid, especially those at The Exposé. Morgana Madison has Striker beat in the ruthless category.”
“She’s something, all right,” Striker said in a wry tone.
A vague thought swirled around in my mind. Something connected to karma—
“Can we get started already?” Fiera asked. “I have clients I need to see later.”
The thought went down the drain of my mind.
*
Henry walked to a door marked Training. He entered the code, and the door slid open. We trooped inside. The room reminded me of a recording studio. A control panel with thousands of buttons, switches, and lights lined one wall. A window situated over the panel overlooked a sunken, metal room the size of a football field. I eyed the scorch marks on the walls and floor below. Interesting.
Striker, Fiera, and Mr. Sage clustered around a locker. Each one grabbed a silver helmet and put it on. The helmets had black visors that covered the superheroes’ eyes, along with microphones attached to one side. Henry punched buttons
and threw switches on the control panel.
“Everybody turn on your helmets,” he said.
The visors darkened, and flickering lights reflected onto the superheroes’ faces. The visor seemed to be some sort of interactive screen. Curious.
“Now the chinstrap,” Henry said.
The three superheroes ran the straps underneath their chins and snapped them to the opposite side of the helmet.
“Whenever you’re ready, guys,” Henry said.
“Enjoy the show.” Fiera gave us a mock salute.
The three superheroes opened a metal door and pounded down a flight of stairs to the room below. The door clanged shut behind them.
“Aren’t you going downstairs too?” I asked Henry.
“No, I don’t need to. This is my job—to stay in the van and provide technical support. Today, I’m running the simulation instead.”
Henry waited until the superheroes had made their way to the middle of the gigantic area. Then, he hit more buttons. “We’re going to replay the incident in the park when the Triad attacked you. Watch the room.”
I peered out of the window and scanned the walls and floor. The big metal room was a big metal room. Not much else to see—
Wait a minute. I squinted. Something was coming up out of the metal floor. It looked like…grass.
Grass?
I leaned forward until my nose pressed against the window. I squinted. My eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. It was grass.
A green, velvety carpet sprouted up out of the floor, while the roof took on the appearance of the night sky, complete with a crescent moon and a sprinkling of stars. Trash cans popped up out of nowhere, along with picnic tables. Walking trails zigged and zagged over the grass. In less than a minute, the room went from an empty metal box to a perfect replica of Laurel Park.
“It looks so real,” I whispered.
“Doesn’t it?” Henry aka Hermit said. His bow tie perked up with pride. “Computer chips and monitors embedded in the walls and floors project the 3-D images. Some other adjustments I’ve made pump in sounds, smells, wind, everything. The grass even feels real.”