Box of Frogs

‘You heard me,’ I snarled. ‘The truce,’ whatever it was, ‘means nothing to me.’ I jabbed him again in the chest. ‘You came to me. Don’t forget that part.’

  The look in Timmons’ eyes suggested I’d just committed the ultimate heresy. ‘You … you … can’t do this.’

  I wasn’t doing anything – yet. ‘I can do whatever I want,’ I said airily, as if I knew exactly what was going on. ‘Now tell me who Rubus is and where I can find him.’

  ‘I only want dust!’ he whined. ‘Morganus will hear about this. Mark my words, Madrona, you’ll regret this. Even if you kill me, you’ll get what’s coming to you.’

  I started. Kill him? I might have been playing the role of tough guy – or gal – but I wasn’t sure when death had entered the equation. I opened my mouth just as Timmons did the same. He wasn’t trying to chat any longer, though; his pupils became pinpricks and his eyelids narrowed into slits. His cheeks bulged and then, with bared teeth and in a manner akin to a crocodile, he snapped at me.

  I sprang back. What the hell? He lunged in my direction and I flung up my hands to shield myself. He didn’t touch me, though; instead he barrelled past me, yanking open the room door and escaping into the corridor. I darted after him, only to hear one high-pitched laugh as he disappeared round the corner.

  I was about to go after him when another door opened and a couple emerged. ‘Morning!’ said the woman cheerfully. She took her partner’s hand and they ambled away in the same direction as Timmons. I fumbled a half wave and, cursing under my breath, retreated into the room.

  Heart pounding against my chest, I wasted no more time. I hastily pulled off the robe and grabbed some clothes. Real clothes. The crappy superhero costume, which hadn’t helped me at all, could stay crumpled on the bathroom floor. I wriggled into the jeans I’d bought from the charity shop and hauled a Led Zeppelin T-shirt over my head. Without bothering to untie the laces, I thrust my feet into the pair of canvas shoes I’d also purchased and sprang back to the door.

  I’d barely turned the handle when the phone rang. I hesitated. It was Timmons. It had to be. Whatever manner of beastie super villain he was, he had decided it was easier to confront me over the airwaves than in person. I debated for a split second and then turned to answer it.

  ‘Hello!’ trilled a female voice that most definitely wasn’t Timmons. ‘I’m not sure if I have the right room or not. This is Julie Chivers. We met last night?’

  My brow furrowed and I almost hung up but something stopped me. ‘Yes,’ I said slowly. ‘This is …’ Joan? Madrona? The Madhatter? ‘Me,’ I finished lamely.

  ‘Excellent! I’m in the hotel lobby. I was rather hoping I could take you out for breakfast.’

  I grimaced. This was hardly the time. I was about to tell her that when a soft rustle outside the door caught my ear. I tiptoed over. This time I didn’t open the door, I did the sensible thing and peeked through the spyhole instead. When I saw who was out there I immediately stiffened. Three men. And I recognised them. It was the assassination-hungry arsebadgers from the golf course: McNasty One, Two and Three. No doubt Timmons had called up the cavalry to bring me down.

  I’d succeeded against them once because they’d apparently not coated their bullets with rowan but I doubted I could count on such good fortune the second time around. Well, regardless of how many creepy buddies of indeterminate ethnicity Timmons sent my way, I’d escape them all.

  ‘Julie,’ I said quickly and quietly into the receiver as I scurried over to the window and hoisted it open. ‘Breakfast sounds fab. Did you bring your car? If you start up the engine right now, I’ll meet you out front.’

  She murmured acquiescence. I hung up and hopped out of the window, taking care to close it behind me. I was halfway across the hotel car park when I heard the sound of splintering wood; they’d not wasted much time in breaking into my room. I grimaced at the thought of abandoning yet another potential clue. Risk versus reward, however – and I had to protect myself first. Superhero though I may be, I wasn’t invincible. And I wouldn’t find out anything if I ended up dead in a dreary hotel room.

  I scooted round to the front of the hotel just as Julie arrived in her car. She wound down the window but I didn’t wait; I simply hopped into the front seat next to her.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said, glancing in the rear-view mirror. As expected, my old golfing buddies hadn’t taken long to establish how I’d escaped from the room. They were already racing across the car park towards us.

  ‘I’m sure we could get breakfast here,’ Julie began.

  I shook my head. ‘Drive.’

  The urgency of my tone must have filtered through. She put the car into gear and, wheels squealing, drove out of the car park. I spotted Timmons coming out of the hotel’s front doors with a mobile phone clamped to his ear and his goons running up to join him. All four of them glared nastily after us.

  I relaxed into the seat. As vexing as it was that the best option was to run away, I couldn’t have made a better getaway if I’d had months to plan it.

  Chapter Seven

  I was prepared to dump Julie as soon as we were far enough away from the hotel to be safe but my stomach was grumbling and a decent breakfast seemed prudent. Besides, I figured that the least I could do was to sit with her as she’d requested. Maybe the poor woman had no friends and was looking for a good mate to hang out with and beat up the occasional man. It turned out I was half right.

  ‘I want you to be my bodyguard,’ she said without preamble, once we’d made our food orders.

  I choked on my coffee. ‘Excuse me?’

  She smiled. ‘You’ve proved yourself far more competent than Mark. Not to mention that you’re obviously not the slightest bit star-struck.’

  I wasn’t star-struck because I still didn’t know who she was. I used a napkin to pat away the coffee dribbles on my chin and pretended to take her job offer seriously. ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘You’ll be amply compensated,’ Julie assured me.

  I’d already been amply compensated by the golf-course goons; I wasn’t short of money. ‘I appreciate the thought,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure my schedule will allow me to take up a full-time position.’

  She tapped her perfectly manicured nails against her cup. ‘It’s not really full time. It’s barely even part time. I’m on set most of the day and the production company have serious security, so I only need you when I’m not working. Three nights a week and maybe the odd weekend or two, tops. Honestly, it’s easy money.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about me,’ I pointed out. Hell, I didn’t know anything about me. ‘I could be a psycho killer.’

  ‘Your name is Joan Smith.’ She smiled at my expression. ‘The hotel receptionist told me. People take one look at me and generally fall over backwards to give me what I want. That’s why I like you. You don’t want anything from me. You’re different.’

  Different was certainly a word for it. ‘Look, Julie,’ I said. ‘The thing is, my name isn’t Joan. I think it’s Madrona but I can’t be completely sure. I’ve got amnesia. I woke up in the middle of a golf course two nights ago and I can’t remember who I am or what’s going on.’

  Her eyes widened fractionally but she didn’t miss a beat. ‘Amnesia? Wow! That’s why you don’t know who I am!’

  ‘No,’ I said, without thinking. ‘I remember pop-culture stuff and how to drive and things like that. I just don’t remember me.’ I shrugged. ‘I guess the old me didn’t watch your soap opera.’

  ‘Oh.’ Somewhat deflated, she leaned back.

  ‘So,’ I said, the very definition of earnest optimism, ‘I can’t work for you because I have to spend my time trying to find out who I am and why people are trying to hurt me.’ And what dust is. And why I have super powers. And who Rubus was. And Morganus. And where I could get some nux from. And… Gasbudlikins. It was never-ending.

  Julie mulled this over for only the scantest of moments. ‘But that’s why this job is perfect. Most of your time will be
your own. I’ll give you somewhere to stay –I’ve got some excellent guest quarters in my house. You can work for me occasionally but mostly work for yourself. And,’ she added with a triumphant flourish, ‘I can help you out more than you realise. A few years ago, Stacey, my character, was hit on the head by her son’s girlfriend’s fiancé and she got amnesia as a result. I know all about the condition.’ She rolled her eyes at my expression. ‘Don’t look at me like that. It might be a soap opera but we still do our research and try to make everything as realistic as possible. I can already tell you that, if your name is Madrona, we’re onto a winning start. I’ve never heard that name before so I’m sure a simple internet search will help us. And have you considered the police? They could put out an appeal. Someone might have reported you missing.’

  ‘I don’t want the police involved,’ I interjected hastily.

  ‘Is that because you’re a superhero?’

  I blinked at her. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Last night you said you were a superhero. I imagine that you’d want to stay under the radar if that’s true.’ She smiled as if amused. This was certainly a far more light-hearted Julie than the one who’d been under attack last night.

  ‘I’m not crazy,’ I said stiffly. ‘Besides, you can’t talk. You didn’t want to call the police last night and you have an even better reason to request their help than I do.’

  Julie didn’t take offence. ‘I already explained about that.’

  I met her eyes. Keen intelligence gazed back at me. I sighed and pushed my hair out of my eyes. ‘I’m not normal.’ I wasn’t quite sure why I was trying to talk myself out of this almost perfect job.

  She laughed. ‘Darling, none of us are normal.’

  ‘What I mean is that I wasn’t kidding about the superhero thing. I do have weird powers. I don’t know where they came from or what they mean but,’ I shrugged, ‘I really do think I’m a superhero.’

  To her credit, she didn’t get up from the table and run away screaming. ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘You saw what happened with the Taser,’ I said. ‘When your bad guy tried to use it on me. Nothing happened. I felt a bit of a tickle and that was it.’

  ‘I thought it had just run out of juice or something.’

  ‘No. I was able to use it on him a moment or two later. There was nothing wrong with the gun.’ I looked down at the table. ‘I can also do things with time. Slow it down so I can gain the upper hand, I mean.’

  She arched an eyebrow. ‘Really? What else?’

  ‘I don’t know. I told you, I’ve got amnesia. There might be lots of other things that I’m capable of. There might be nothing.’

  Julie regarded me thoughtfully. ‘I still don’t see any reason why you can’t come and work for me. If you do have super powers, you’re the perfect bodyguard. And I can help you experiment to discover your potential. There might be more untapped magic inside you that you don’t know about.’

  ‘You’re taking this very calmly,’ I told her. ‘Don’t you think I’m nuts?’

  Her answer was frank. ‘If it weren’t for you, goodness knows where I’d be right now. Chained to a radiator, if I was lucky.’ She reached out for my hand. ‘Mark was twice your size and came at a premium cost, and look what happened to him. You succeeded where he didn’t. It stands to reason that there’s far more to you than meets the eyes. Besides,’ she grinned disarmingly, ‘this sounds like it’s going to be a two-way street. We need each other.’

  It seemed too good to be true. I’d effectively told her I thought I was Supergirl and she’d not blinked. Plus, she was offering me the perfect job, at the perfect time. ‘Tell me about that man,’ I said slowly. ‘The one who attacked you. You were obviously expecting something like that because you’d hired Mark to protect you.’

  For the first time she looked uneasy. ‘A few … incidents have occurred.’

  ‘Such as?’ I pressed.

  ‘Nasty letters. Someone calling my home and breathing down the phone. That kind of thing. I didn’t think much of it to begin with – I get a lot of nutty fans. Then things escalated. You saw Mark checking the bottle of pills?’ I nodded. ‘I was poisoned,’ she told me flatly. ‘I almost died. Someone spiked a bottle of water that I took to the gym. We checked the CCTV camera but they were too smart to get caught that way. Then there were the body parts.’

  I stared at her. ‘What?’

  Julie shifted in her seat. ‘Not human. There was a cat’s leg, all bloody and bound up. Then a dog’s tail.’ Her mouth turned down. ‘They were shoved through my letterbox.’

  ‘Someone was sending you a message.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sick. I pushed aside my disgust. ‘Do you still have the letters?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I threw them out.’

  ‘And the … animal bits?’

  She made a face. ‘No.’

  I wrinkled my nose. It didn’t give me much to go on. ‘Do you have reason to suspect anyone in particular?’

  Julie raised her hands helplessly. ‘No. I have a list of people who’ve crossed the line. Fans, people like that. My agent drew it up for me. Mark has a copy. We’ve been through it but I don’t think there’s anyone on it who fits this profile.’ There was something about the way her eyes shifted that suggested she wasn’t telling the whole truth. Rather than put me off, I was more intrigued.

  I tapped my mouth. This did indeed seem like a job for someone who believed they were a superhero – and it certainly beat tramping the streets searching for random people in need of help. ‘Okay,’ I began. ‘I’ll help…’

  Her face broke into a wreath of smiles. ‘Thank you! Thank you so much!’ She reached into her pocket and drew out a key. ‘This is for my house.’ She passed it to me, grabbed a napkin and scribbled down the address. ‘I’ve got to be on set in an hour and I won’t be home till after eight, but you can go and make yourself comfortable. It’ll also give you some time to do your own investigations into yourself.’ She bounced up and planted a kiss on my cheek. ‘This is going to be great, Madrona. You won’t regret it.’

  Before I could say another word, she scooped up her bag and launched herself out of the café as if she were afraid that I’d change my mind. The door had just clanged shut behind her when the waiter appeared with two plates in his hands. He glanced at Julie’s empty seat.

  ‘Ms Chivers has gone?’ He was visibly disappointed.

  The salty aroma of bacon hit my nostrils. ‘Yep. Just as well too.’ I grinned at the plates as if they were long-lost friends. ‘I’m starving.’

  ***

  Although I wanted to get to Julie’s house before she returned from work so I could investigate her home security, I had more than enough time to focus on my own problems first. I drew up a mental list, prioritising each item. As soon as I’d finished eating, I made a beeline for the city library, using the directions of various passers-by in order to get there. There were no signs of Timmons and his crew nor of tall Amazonian women nor, disappointingly, of green-eyed Dark and Despicable. That was a good thing, I tried to tell myself. I almost believed it.

  The library building was satisfyingly old and impressive. Fashioned out of granite, it was a large, imposing, circular structure with towering grey stone columns at the front and smaller versions encircling the third-floor façade. It didn’t look in any way familiar to my poor damaged mind but I was still impressed. I loped up the stairs at the front and entered.

  A sign dangling from the ceiling directed me to the line of computers. Sitting down at the only empty monitor, I tapped on the keys. A login screen appeared. With neither a username nor a password, I glared at it for a long moment, as if I could will it to permit me access through sight alone. When that didn’t work, I sighed audibly and stalked to the front desk.

  The bespectacled clerk, whose attention was wholly on the screen in front of him and whose name tag proclaimed him as Ernest, completely ignored me. I coughed loudly. Without glancing up, he held up his in
dex finger indicating that I should wait.

  ‘I want access to the computers,’ I said in an overly loud voice. Several people turned their heads to look at the person who was daring to interrupt the librarian from his game of Solitaire.

  ‘Just a moment.’ Ernest still didn’t look up.

  I drummed my fingers on the reception desk and regretted it almost instantly when pain flared up through my arm from my finger. I yanked my arm back and cradled it against my body. Bloody hell, it hurt. ‘Ernest,’ I said. ‘If I were going to pick a name for a librarian, it would be Ernest. Are you called Ernie for short? Do you have a friend called Bert? Are you earnest, Ernest? You look earnest. I…’

  He looked at me. Excellent. I smiled at him beatifically; that was better.

  As if the weight of the world were on his shoulders rather than that of a few books, he sighed. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I would like to access the computers.’ I paused. ‘Please.’ See? I could be nice.

  ‘Are you a member of this library?’

  Probably not. ‘Nope.’

  ‘I’ll need your name and address and two forms of identification. You’ll need to fill in this form,’ he said, pulling out a lengthy sheet of paper attached to a clipboard from a drawer. ‘And then you can book a computer.’

  I stared at him. ‘I don’t want to move in, Mr Wiffle-Waffle. I just want to use a computer.’

  ‘Mr what?’

  ‘Ernest. Mr Ernest.’ I smiled again. It didn’t appear to appease him.

  Using the tip of his index finger, he slid the bridge of his glasses up his nose. ‘We can offer you a temporary membership for today but you’ll still need to fill in the form. And show me ID.’

  ‘I don’t have any.’

  Ernest didn’t appear in the least surprised. ‘Then I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘I…’

  A grey-haired woman arrived and peered at me. ‘I’ll deal with this customer, Ernie,’ she said. ‘You go take your break.’

  ‘It’s your funeral,’ he said darkly. He didn’t waste any time in stomping off.