What a messed-up family. And nobody even saw it.
Paperwork, file folders, and spreadsheets were fanned over the table, and Celia was bent over them, chewing on the end of a pencil. Arthur sat next to her, leaning back, hands resting folded on his lean chest, looking amused. He always looked amused. It was his mask, so that he never had to let on if he was horrified by what he read in the minds around him.
“Smells good,” Anna said to Suzanne.
“Thank you, Anna. Can you give me a hand? Get out the cheese and lettuce from the fridge?”
Anna dropped her bag by the wall and went to help.
“And how was school?” Arthur asked.
“Fine.”
“Of course it was,” he said wryly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “It always is, and why not?”
She blushed. He knew something, he always knew something.
Her mother huffed at them both. She looked tired, Anna thought, and remembered their conversation from a week or so back. She was busy, of course she was busy. But there seemed to be more going on. Her short red hair, same bloody color as Anna’s, was disheveled, as if she’d been running her hands through it, and her face was pale and puffy. Suddenly, her mother didn’t look right at all. Just tired, she’d say if Anna asked what was wrong.
“What’s fishy?” Anna asked instead.
“Hmm?”
“You said something was fishy.”
“Oh. West Corp’s getting sued.”
Anna stopped and stared. “What?”
Celia shook her head. “Don’t worry, we get sued all the time. Usually it gets cleared up before ever going to court. But this suit was brought very publicly and very frivolously. I just have to figure out what the ulterior motive is.”
Suzanne directed Anna to chop lettuce and shred cheese for burrito toppings, and she did so, slowly, listening with interest to her mother’s arcane explanation. “Why sue?” she asked.
“Oh, lots of reasons. They assume West Corp has deep pockets, they want to embarrass the company, they want to embarrass me, they want to delay the planning committee vote, they want to distract us from something else entirely. All of the above.”
“How do you find out? How do you stop them?”
“Hmm, developing an interest in corporate politics?”
Heaven forbid. “Just asking.”
“We look to see if there’s anything suspicious in the public record, if there’s anything obvious they’ve done that attention would need distracting from. If they have any plans brewing that would be served by throwing roadblocks in front of West Corp. Trouble is, there’s not much on this company at all. Like they exist on paper and nowhere else. So I may have to turn to gossip and find out if anyone’s heard anything.”
Anna’s mind had started turning over a plan. She remembered what Eliot had said about someone trying to take over the city, not through terror and violence but through business and politics—the Executive. Maybe this thread was part of that web. Blocking West Corp certainly sounded like someone trying to influence the city’s workings. All Anna had to do was follow that thread. Maybe Espionage could take that on. Except that she still wasn’t talking to Teddy for ditching her in the face of danger. And she’d given up the whole vigilante thing because she was hopeless at it.
But this was personal. And if she didn’t want to talk to Teddy, maybe Eliot would help her.
“Enough business,” Suzanne announced. “Food’s up.”
While Arthur helped Suzanne with the food, Anna contrived to help Celia clear off the table and got a look at some of the pages, including the name of the company that was suing West Corp: Superior Construction, with an address in a downtown skyscraper.
Suzanne called for Bethy, who ran in and launched into a bunch of chatter about homework, and Anna finally realized that Bethy didn’t talk so much about her homework and math quizzes because she was worried, but because she actually liked math. Definitely taking after their mother. Anna almost felt better, knowing that at least one of them would be able to take over the business.
“You guys remember I’m leaving on that trip tomorrow, right?” Celia said. “Don’t destroy the place while I’m gone.”
Anna smirked, because the instruction was perfunctory, the kind of thing she’d said when they were nine. She was trying to be funny.
“What’s the trip for?” Bethy asked.
“I’m checking out a real estate development in Clarkeville for investment potential. Never trust the brochures, you know. It’ll only be for a couple of days.”
“Well, have fun. Take pictures,” Bethy said cheerfully.
“Will do.”
Everything was normal, nothing to worry about. Her father wasn’t looking up from his food.
“Be careful and hurry home,” Suzanne said.
“I always do,” Celia replied.
* * *
That night, Anna grabbed her backpack full of gear and went looking for Eliot. He’d never bothered e-mailing her, which pissed her off, and it was time to call him on it. While riding the late bus to the campus, she followed his progress on her mental map from the gym to Pee Wee’s and hoped he would stay there long enough for her to catch up with him. He did. She swung open the front door, stomping in out of the cold—and Eliot was sitting in a booth with a girl. A cool college girl with dyed purple hair and a ring in her nose. They had books and papers spread over the table, and they were smiling at each other. Study date or something.
Anna felt like throwing up right there, she was so mortified. Eliot hadn’t e-mailed her because why would he? Why would he find her, a lowly high-school kid, even the least bit interesting? Worst of all, he looked up and caught her eye right before she turned around and stomped back out.
She was across the street and halfway to the bus stop when she heard him shouting.
“Hey! Hey, Rose, wait up a second.” His footsteps pounded.
She slowed, then stopped. Reluctantly. It would have been more dignified to keep on walking. She didn’t need him.
“Rose.” When she didn’t turn, he stepped around until he faced her. Him and his smug college boy expression. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Why didn’t you e-mail me?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I didn’t have anything to e-mail about.”
That wasn’t the point … She stopped short of stamping her foot in frustration, which would have made her feel like she was about six years old. That was something Bethy would do. “Well, I’ve got something, and how was I supposed to tell you about it?”
“Seems like you’re doing just fine,” he said.
She maneuvered around him. “You’re busy. This can wait.”
“No, seriously, we’re just brushing up for a chemistry test, it’s not important. What have you got?”
She didn’t have anything, now that she thought about actually trying to explain it. “It may be nothing. But you know about the planning committee? The downtown development project?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s been in the news.”
“There’s some weird stuff going on behind the scenes—one company trying to block another from having any influence. It reminded me of what you said about the Executive, and I thought this might be something he’d try.”
“What’s your proof?”
“We have to go find the proof, but I can’t do it on my own. There’s a company, Superior Construction. It’s a front, and we need to find out who’s really running it. Actual evidence. The trail stops at a law firm. I want to find out who hired the lawyers to front the company.”
“Corporate espionage.”
“Yeah, kind of.” “Espionage” made her wonder if she ought to call Teddy and get his help as well—this was exactly his thing. But no, she decided, that would take too much time. Eliot was here, ready to help, better to get it done now. She pulled a page from her pocket. “Here’s the name and address of the firm, McC
losky and Patterson. They’re in one of the downtown offices. I couldn’t find much about them online, just a plain business page.”
“Horizon Tower—I know that building,” Eliot said. “Lots of good ledges. I can get us right to their floor. You think if we find out who hired them, we’ll find the Executive?”
“It’s just an idea.”
“No, I like it. It won’t even take long, just a quick look through filing cabinets.”
“And hope the place doesn’t have good alarms.”
His grin turned sly. “We’ll worry about that when we get there. Let me just go tell Becca that something came up.”
Punk jacket and a nose ring and her name was Becca? Anna waited, watching her breath fog, telling herself over and over that this was a good idea. It was almost a date, even.
No it wasn’t.
He returned quickly, backpack over his shoulder.
Anna asked, “Do you need to go get your suit?”
“Already in the bag.”
Anna suddenly didn’t feel so weird, if she wasn’t the only one doing that. “You want to take the bus?”
They set off side by side, walking along the street by the quad.
“Is that how you do your superheroing? You take the bus?”
“Hey, it works,” she shot back.
“Why don’t we take my car.”
“Can you get around without the traffic cameras IDing your plates?”
“Believe it or not, I’ve been doing this at least as long as you have.”
“Probably longer,” she muttered, and Eliot did her the courtesy of not responding to that. He steered her around the block to a student parking lot. She searched the rows, guessing which one was his—one of the beaters or one of the fancy, obviously parent-bought-and-gifted models? One of the latter, it turned out: a two-seater coup halfway to being an out-and-out sports car, all silver and streamlined. It had local plates.
“Nice,” she observed. So, he was rich, or came from a rich family.
“Thanks,” he said, his tone mirroring hers. Which meant he knew exactly what the car said about him.
If he’d grown up in Commerce City instead of Delta, he probably would have gone to Elmwood. They’d have grown up together, a couple of rich kids in their rich kid world. She probably would have avoided him. He unlocked the car and gestured her to the passenger seat. Leather interior, natch.
He guided the car out of the parking lot and onto one of the westbound arteries. If she thought hard about it, she’d acknowledge that she’d just gotten into a strange man’s car and she hadn’t told anyone where she was going. Horror movies started this way. No superhero code of honor was going to save her if he turned out to be a psychopath. She couldn’t say why she was pretty sure he wasn’t a psychopath.
“How long have you been doing this?” she asked finally. “How’d you get powers?”
“Born with them, near as I can figure,” he said. “I didn’t get struck by lightning or anything. They didn’t show up until I was about fourteen. I’ve mostly kept secret about them. You and your friends are the only other superhumans I’ve met.”
He turned off the main boulevard after a few blocks. The side streets weren’t so busy, and surveillance coverage wasn’t so pervasive. “What about you?” he asked.
“Me, too. I mean, my power didn’t show up until a few years ago. I had to experiment with it for a long time. I’ve really only started using it in the last year.” She didn’t say a word about inheriting her powers, that she was part of the famous West family, that her father was the world’s most powerful telepath. “You haven’t told anyone? Siblings, parents, anything?”
His smile turned pained. “No. I don’t think they’d understand. My mother isn’t around much—she’s a concert pianist and travels a lot. My father—he’s kind of a control freak. If he knew what I could do, he’d find a way to monetize it, never mind how I felt. It’s kind of a cliché, isn’t it? Big wheel corporate tycoon, never had time for his kids who now resent him. I ought to be grateful. If he kept better tabs on me I wouldn’t be able to do this.”
“Oh, you’d find a way.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Yeah.”
“I take it you haven’t told anyone, either. Outside of your friends, I mean.”
It would have been easy to tell him everything—so nice, to be talking to someone who understood. If she revealed enough clues he’d figure it out on his own. She’d have to tread carefully.
“No, I haven’t told my family. I don’t even know why. My mom’s kind of the same, corporate control freak. She’d be way too interested. Same with my dad. But I think … I’m sure they know something’s up. I mean, this is Commerce City, if your kid is sneaking out in the middle of the night, she might just have superpowers. But at this point I don’t know what to tell them, so I just keep quiet.”
Away from campus, the buildings climbed higher, becoming a forest of glass and concrete. The sky above was a hazy patchwork.
She asked, “Did you want to come to Commerce City for college because of its superheroes?”
“Sure. You guys have the tradition. I was hoping to meet some of them. You, I mean. And, well, here we are.”
She wondered what her parents would say if she told them she wanted to go to college in Delta and get away from Commerce City. She wondered if she would still be able to pinpoint their locations from that far away.
“This looks good.” He found an alley leading to a loading dock a block away from their target. It was even legal parking, since the No Parking signs were business hours only. “Ready to suit up?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He had a cover for the car, which would camouflage it. The thing did stand out, but under the dark canvas it seemed more like part of the scenery. He wore the leggings of his skin suit under his jeans, which meant he was pretty hard-core—always ready to leap to the rescue. He had to switch shirts, and she tried not to stare at his muscular chest. The guy did work out, after all. Probably knew all kinds of martial arts. She should have done karate instead of soccer.
She should also maybe think about getting a real uniform, if she was going to keep doing this. The dark coat and ski mask looked silly next to him.
“You come up with a name yet?” Anna asked.
“What do you think of Leapfrog?”
“Kind of lame,” she said.
“Yeah, then no.”
“You have to get your picture in the paper if you want someone to come up with a cool name for you.” Though that didn’t always work out. A few years ago, a vigilante with superspeed showed up busting crime in torn jeans, a T-shirt, and a cloth mask. The papers called him Blue Collar because of the clothes, never mind what his powers were. They’d be likely to call Eliot Greenie, assuming the pictures they got were in color.
Keeping to shadows, they made their way to Horizon Tower, the fifty-story skyscraper housing the law firm. The building was fifteen or so years old, and not one of West Corps’ projects, so Anna didn’t know as much about it as she would have if her mother was keeping tabs on it. The fake-bronze framing around the mirrored glass lining the exterior was already looking dated, part of a style that was hip and cutting edge at one time but had been quickly abandoned for more classic designs. Eliot was right, though—the upper floors were tiered, offering him lots of good landing and launch points. She sighed. Looked like she’d be spending another night hanging out in doorways and stairwells.
The sound of a car engine traveled up the street, and Anna grabbed Eliot’s sleeve and pulled him flat against the concrete wall around the building’s base. A white police sedan slid up the street and kept going. Didn’t see them, and probably wouldn’t see Eliot’s car under the cover.
Eliot looked up, studying the façade. No lights showed through any of the windows, and from the back they couldn’t see if anyone was keeping watch on the lobby. West Plaza had a guard at the front desk twenty-four hours a day. “Can you t
ell if any security guards are wandering around?” he asked.
“No. I can only find specific people, not people in general.”
“Oh. Too bad.”
Whatever.
He walked to the end of the alley, craned his neck back, and pointed. “That one. That ledge will get us to the right floor. If we can’t get in without triggering an alarm, we can leave fast enough.” And the car was a block away, so they’d have time to get away before anyone found it.
“You have a phone? Maybe I can call you and sound some kind of alarm if I see something out here.”
“Don’t you want to come?”
“How am I supposed to get inside?”
He looked at her, looked at the roof ledge, and back at her. “I’ll take you.”
“You can do that?”
“As long as you won’t get scared.”
Her heart flipped over a couple of times. “I won’t.”
“Then hold on tight.”
His arm wrapped around her middle, and he pulled her close, so their bodies lined up right next to each other and she couldn’t help but put her arms around his neck. She could smell him, feel his muscles moving under her grip. He was solid, and she had an urge to wrap not just arms around him, but also her legs, and dig her fingers into his shoulders, and clench her toes. He was so warm, and she could just curl up. She had to work really, really hard to seem completely cool and normal. Professional. Just a fellow superhero doing the superhero thing. No matter how much her insides had turned into complete goo. When his grip on her tightened, tucking in right under ribs, she thought her brain might melt.
His knees bent, he reached up with his free hand, and launched.
It felt like a roller coaster or an elevator in free fall, wind zipping past her face, whipping at the locks of hair that had escaped from her hat, chilling her hands. The ground was gone, and her legs dangled. She yelped rather than screamed—didn’t have time or breath for a scream. Her muscles clenched even tighter, securing herself to Eliot. She was trying to hold tight to a rocket. Her eyes watered, tears streaming. She didn’t even think about looking to where they were going. The world was a blur, scrolling past too quickly, and she held her breath, waiting for the landing.