Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39) Read online

  SECOND GUESS: OUT OF THE BOX 29

  The Girl in the Box, Book 39

  ROBERT J. CRANE

  Ostiagard Press

  SECOND GUESS

  The Girl in the Box, Book 39

  (Out of the Box, Book 29)

  Robert J. Crane

  Copyright © 2019 Ostiagard Press

  All Rights Reserved.

  1st Edition.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, please email [email protected].

  Created with Vellum

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Epilogue

  Teaser

  Author’s Note

  Other Works by Robert J. Crane

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER ONE

  The vials and needles lay out on the table, like an invitation Scout Cole wanted to accept but wasn't sure she could.

  “This is the first step,” Isaac Jensen said, his smile like a warm hug that went with that invitation, making Scout feel welcome, making her want to accept.

  God, she could listen to Isaac talk forever.

  Too bad they didn't have forever.

  “It's the real deal.” Isaac smiled. They were just...there. On the table. Vials with a slightly yellow liquid, syringes with their tiny points ready to suck it all up and inject it straight into waiting veins. “It's happening. After all this time waiting. All you have to do...is say yes.”

  His smile...it was so...

  Wide. Warm. Genuine.

  “You really did it, didn't you?” Francine Howard stared blankly at them. She put a pale hand on the scuffed surface of the table, her black nail polish a perfect contrast to the whitish grain of the wood. She picked up one of the vials and held it in her hand, a smile curling her lips below her nose ring. Her hair was raven-black with streaks of purple dyed in, and her eyes were alight with the possibilities she held in her hand.

  Scout just listened, waiting for Isaac to pick up again. She tolerated Francine and her pouty lips and their other tagalong, AJ, with his white-boy dreadlocks, but for her...

  It was all about Isaac. Isaac and his strong chin. Isaac and his beautiful smile.

  Isaac and his warm, brown eyes, and that grin that couldn't be contained.

  “It's happening,” he said, turning those eyes, that smile, on Scout. “It's really happening.”

  She nodded, afraid to look away.

  “I'm in,” AJ said, thumping his own hand on the table and picking up the second vial. He scooped up the needle with his other hand, and with a practiced motion, filled the syringe and readied himself before chuckling, his dreads flowing over his shoulders and past his slightly yellowed wife-beater shirt. “Feel like I need a rubber tourniquet for this.”

  Isaac shook his head. “You don't even need to sterilize the needle. You take this...illness, infections...they're going to be a thing of the past.”

  “Hell yes,” AJ said, and pushed the plunger. The liquid disappeared, straight into his veins, and he grimaced slightly, letting the needle hang there when he was done. Scout got the distinct impression he'd done this before, but with a different substance.

  “That's the spirit,” Isaac said, glancing down only for a moment, in thought. He was always in thought, so bright, always thinking.

  “What are we waiting for then?” Francine had already filled her syringe and Scout hadn't even noticed. She'd rolled up her sleeves and plunged it into the tattooed sleeve of ink that
covered her from wrist to shoulder. It was nicely done; Scout had admired it for a while. She didn't have any tattoos of her own yet. She was working her courage up to get the first done.

  But if they did this...she wouldn't get any tattoos. That was a downside of having an immune system that fought off any disease and kept you young. Ink wouldn't stay in your skin. Scout had read all about it on the internet.

  No point mentioning that now, though. Not to AJ or Francine, since they'd already taken the drug. They'd figure out the sacrifice soon.

  And it really was a small sacrifice to become...powerful. Scout had long wondered what it would feel like to be...powerful.

  “The end of the world is coming.” Isaac looked her right in the eyes. The others, too, were, watching. Almost hovering in the background. Expectant, really. “Scout...we could really use you with us on this. So far it's been all talk, and talk's a fine thing. But there comes a moment for action...and this is it.”

  Scout stared at the yellow vial.

  They had been talking for a while. Long talks. Talks full of feeling, ones that got to the heart of the problems – the real problems – that they could see but others couldn't. Life had always felt like an itch under Scout's skin, one she couldn't scratch, not with the longest fingernails raking across her bare flesh, not ever.

  But this...this took those late-night conversations, those puff and pass sessions where they'd hashed their way to the solutions for all the big problems that afflicted the world...and it put the power to solve them right where it ought to be.

  In their hands.

  Something was holding her back, though. Scout stared at the vial, at the needle. This was a Rubicon she feared to cross, but why? Isaac was right – the time for talk was over.

  So why didn't she want to act?

  No one said anything, leaving Scout to roast over the fire of her own doubts. But why was she doubting?

  Well, that was easy. That's just who Scout was. Always had been. Always hesitant, always waiting for someone else to take the lead. Dithering. That was the word.

  She looked up, into Isaac's expectant eyes. They were soft and compassionate, not prodding her, just...waiting. To see what she did. With infinite patience.

  Isaac wasn't the kind of man who'd be interested in someone who dithered. He was so strong, so...so handsome. Scout blushed, felt the fire in her cheeks. She was so skinny and self-conscious about it, like she was insubstantial and barely worth the notice of others.

  But there...right there, on the table...this was a way to make all that...end.

  To be...different.

  I want to be different, she said to herself.

  So she grabbed the vial, plunged the syringe into it–

  “Whoa, make sure you get all the air bubbles out,” AJ said.

  She did. And she pushed the needle into her arm, injecting it.

  “I guess we're all in,” Isaac said, grinning at the three of them around the table. “Glad you came aboard, Scout.” He looked right at her. She always quivered when he did that.

  “Like you said.” She looked up at Isaac, at those eyes...and she smiled. “The world's going to end. And the time for talk is over.”

  She felt stronger already.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Reed Treston

  Eden Prairie, Minnesota

  “Negative. You do not have air clearance. Remain on the ground.”

  “Sonofabitch!” I shouted, my voice echoing around the tight confines of the Honda Accord as we bounced along Interstate 494, skimming through just-before-rush-hour traffic. We slipped through a barely-there space between a pickup truck and a late model Chevy Tahoe and into the far left lane, zipping past the exit for Highway 100, sun blaring down, summer warmth infusing the car. I wanted to throw the phone, but instead I just pushed the END button on the screen because this conversation was going nowhere.

  “Yeah, yeah, air traffic control denied you the right to flight,” Augustus Coleman said, hands tightly gripping the wheel. “Who could have predicted that?”

  I shot Augustus a sizzling glare which he did not notice. All his attention was on steering the Honda, which was new...to him, anyway. In another mark of how far the mighty had fallen this last year or two, he'd gone from a rented BMW and a downtown condo in Minneapolis to a Honda and an apartment in one of the less nice areas of St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

  “The state's already paying us barely anything on this, plus they told us no property damage and to back off at the first sign of trouble,” Jamal Coleman added, tapping away at his keyboard. “What were you expecting? Because carte blanche ain't on the menu, and them letting you take flight in Bloomington is right out, you know.”

  “I was expecting they'd let us do our damned job – which they hired us for,” I muttered, slipping my phone into my pocket before I ended up squeezing it to death in frustration. “Can you even see the guy from here?”

  “I got eyes on him,” Augustus said tightly, the Honda's tires slipping a little as he skidded into another impossible gap, this time between a tractor trailer and a garbage truck. My entire ass seized up, clenching, and I grabbed the OH SHIT bar hanging from the Accord's ceiling.

  “How?” I asked savagely, my rectum clinching violently as the Accord's hood seemed to kiss the rear of the garbage truck in front of us before Augustus shifted lanes, getting us out from behind it.

  Jamal raised his laptop up so I could see the screen. There was live traffic cam footage on it, and suddenly it all made sense. Augustus was checking the feed from the driver's seat between insane stunt maneuvers.

  “Why couldn't Angel have been here for this?” I moaned, mostly to myself. “Angel, Eilish, Olivia...I could have sent the three of them out...Angel gets close, Olivia catapults Eilish across the gap–”

  “And Irish sings her song of seduction that instantly calms the savage beast,” Jamal said, tapping away again. “Yeah, you mentioned this plan with deepest regret. Several times. Unfortunately for you, you sent two of those people to New York and the other to California.”

  The clenching in my body extended up to my jaw as Augustus put the brakes on, hard. We skidded twenty feet in a cloud of burning rubber and screeching tires, then he hammered the accelerator and launched us into a tiny gap between two cars in a bid to cross three lanes. The traffic was moving on 494, but not swiftly. There was a definite slowdown going into Bloomington, even though the start of official rush hour was still an hour off.