Grounded (Out of the Box Book 4) Read online

  I didn’t get too many of these jurisdictional squabbles. Most of the time, if they’d seen what metas could do, rank-and-file cops were relatively happy to get these cases off their desks. “You want me to leave?” I stuck my thumb over my shoulder at the door. I wasn’t trying to sound nasty, but I hadn’t had the best morning. I extended the rolled-up file back to him like an offering.

  “My case still not good enough for you?” He looked at the file like it contained what he’d threatened to leave on Maurice’s porch. “I see how it is. You get a call from London, England, you’re there in about a minute, tea with the queen and all that—”

  “I did not have tea with the queen—”

  “—but a working cop in Atlanta’s inner city calls up with a story about killing going on that’s right up your alley, you just pass it on by.” He nodded his head, had his lips pursed. Attitude. He was giving me attitude. “Like I said, I see how it is.”

  I felt my eye twitch a little at the corner. “Do you, now?”

  “Clear as day.”

  “Clear as out Maurice’s back door at midnight once you’ve unscrewed the lightbulb, more like.”

  “Maurice is a gastroenterologist,” Calderon said. “Lives in the suburbs. That brother has a pool with ambient lighting all the way around. Looks like something out of the Caribbean. He can see just fine.” He blew air out of the corner of his mouth and put his hands on his hips. “Well, you gonna sit down or what?”

  He hadn’t offered me a chair, but since I got the feeling that Calderon was a prickly personality—something I had maybe a little experience with—I knew how to deal with it. “Sure,” I said and then sat down on the air, using Gavrikov’s power to eliminate the downward force of gravity on me. I put my legs up like I was in a recliner and just sat there in mid-air, staring back at Calderon, whose eyebrow had risen involuntarily. “You want to talk about the case?” I asked, totally nonchalant.

  I watched his lips purse, warring with each other until a smile won out. “Damn, girl, you can’t let anyone else win a round, can you?”

  I smiled back. “Nope. Case?”

  He made that hrm noise again and rolled his desk chair under him to sit down. “Your brother tell you the basics?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Girl gets killed by gunman, gunman gets struck by lightning. This was all a year ago?”

  “Last April,” he said, pulling out a green legal file of his own with pictures that didn’t have the digital blur that marred my copies. “So, a year and two months later, we get these guys.” He pulled out much larger, autopsy-style photos of two bodies on morgue slabs, taken from above. “Kennith Coy,” he pointed me to the guy on the left, whose dark skin was marred horrifically along his arm with burns, “and Roscoe Marion.” He indicated the one on the right, who looked a little like the mob boss from the original Batman movie after the Joker had joybuzzed him. I could see bone and cooked flesh, and if I had had a weaker stomach, I might have felt ill.

  “Any tie between these two?” I asked, staring at them.

  “Not any obvious ones,” Calderon said. “Mr. Coy lived in the English Avenue neighborhood, Mr. Marion was a little south in Vine City. Coy was on parole—small stuff, repeated larceny charges—and Marion was a factory worker, no past history in his adult life. Not even a traffic ticket.”

  “What else do you know about the attacks?” I asked, taking my eyes off the photos to look at Calderon.

  “I can’t even prove these were attacks,” Calderon said, studying me evenly. “Last year, though, I had a witness on that one. These two are just a really nasty suspicion.”

  “So they could have been legitimately hit by lightning,” I said, glancing back at the autopsy photos.

  “We did have a rather heavy storm,” Calderon conceded, “but there’s no hint of damage on the ground from strikes anywhere else. I’m not exactly a weatherman, but … I don’t know, it doesn’t feel right.”

  I nodded. “Agreed. This is how it usually happens, too.”

  He looked up at me in surprise. “How what happens?”

  “Kids with powers,” I said, “getting into trouble the first times. They start small, testing things out. Seeing what they can do. Then they push the envelope for their own gain—rob a convenience store, shoplift ’til they get caught. They start to develop this sense of invincibility—not like teenagers need much help in that department.” I feigned a light laugh that was matched by Calderon, though he had a little smile on that I realized was his very subtle way of reminding me that I wasn’t that far out of my own teenage years. “They get bolder. Start to think they’re special, that they can’t be stopped. Ego run amok, really, because they’re different and better than anyone else.” I leaned back again. “Sometimes local PD disabuses them of that notion, hard. Sometimes I get to. Either way, it’s probably like what you see; most people don’t just randomly commit murder at age eleven. There’s a build-up, a steady movement over the line, then over again. Metas are just better at getting away with it because they can outrun the cops.”

  “Huh.” Calderon folded his arms, leaned back in his own chair to match my posture. “Seen that a bunch of times, have you?”

  “More than I can count,” I said. “Most of the time I don’t get to them until they’re so far up their own asses that they’re beyond help.”

  “Maybe if you’d come a year ago …” he suggested, not so subtly this time.

  “And done what?” I asked. “I’m not much of a detective, to be honest. Don’t have the training. I’m apprehension. I’m the hammer. I’ve solved the occasional mystery, but I’ve also been fooled more than once by clever criminals who were smarter than the average. It’s my good luck that most criminals, especially the meta ones, lean hard on their brawn and make dumb mistakes because they think they’re better than everyone else.” I shrugged. “Give me some ego-fueled thief that’s hyped to be stealing because he wants to wear the fancy jewelry and drive the sports car and live the life, and I’ll knock him down every time.” I held up the file in my hand. “This guy, though? He scares me. He’s quiet. He’s playing a game that only he knows the rules to, and he’s not jumping off buildings and having lightning fights in the middle of the street while trying to take a bank vault. He’s been quiet for over a year, and no one’s heard a whisper of him the whole time?” I stared at Calderon. “CIs? Snitches? Word on the streets?” He shook his head. “That’s worrying. It means this guy isn’t knocking over armored cars for cash in his spare time, isn’t heisting casinos with a flash of lightning. He’s just doing his thing, whatever that is.”

  “Killing people,” Calderon said, hands behind his head, tight look on his face. “Seems like his thing is killing people.”

  “Yep,” I said, staring down at the photo and tossing it lightly back onto his desk. “Seems like it is. And he’s a patient killer, too. Which makes it personal, I would think. Worse yet, he waited for a lightning storm, which means he’s going to try to cover his tracks. A hothead would just go off zapping people at midday, damn the consequences. So he’s got power, brains, calculation.” I leaned forward. “Tell me about the first victim.”

  “Mm,” Calderon said. “Flora Romero. Worked at a homeless shelter.”

  “Not her,” I said. “Lightning man didn’t kill her. He killed her killer.”

  “Joaquin Pollard,” he said. “Another man with a checkered past.” He rooted around on his desk for a minute and came up with a thin file. “Priors, some known associates, none of whom would cop to knowing anything about what Joaquin was up to since his last stint, not that I had a lot to offer them. Whatever he was up to killing Flora Romero, it remains a secret.”

  “Maybe a robbery?” I asked.

  “Joaquin had done some armed robberies in his time,” he said. “Very possibly there were some that had gone bad in this exact way that he never got tied to. Hard to say for sure at this point.”

  “What did your witness see?”

  “Saw Joaquin
catch up with her after a run,” Calderon said, face inscrutable. “Saw him hold her at gunpoint. She said something to him, but the witness—it was a kid, six years old, caught outside in a storm, scared half to death by the thunder—said he saw the shot, saw her fall. Pollard turned to leave and lightning man came out of the shadows and blindsided him with a flash. Kid just sat there, blinking it out of his eyes, and when he could see again, lightning man was gone.”

  “You trust this kid?”

  Calderon sighed. “I’ve re-interviewed him twice. Story is basically the same. He’ll never forget the night he saw some metahuman shoot lightning out of his hand.” He stared at me with those smoky eyes. “You ever seen someone who could do that?”

  “During the war. Name was Eleanor Madigan.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “It’s not her, is it?”

  “She’s pretty dead, so I doubt it,” I said. “Also, she was British, so unless your witness heard—”

  “Witness didn’t hear anything,” Calderon said, and I caught a hint of defensiveness that told me he’d bonded with the kid. “Didn’t see the face, either. There was a hood, and the flash pretty much blinded him. He saw the electricity fork, could describe it curving through the air in slow motion, but that was about it for the mystery man. Loud crack of thunder in the air at the time.”

  “Sounds like a dry hole,” I said, sitting back up.

  “There are one or two things you could look at,” Calderon said, letting my perfect set-up pass. “I didn’t get a chance to look in on Flora Romero’s life very much last time. With her murderer dead and the department wanting to write off Pollard to a lightning strike, I didn’t get to dig. You might consider starting there.”

  “You’re not coming with me?” I asked, letting the trace of a smile play across my lips, a little invitation for Marcus Calderon to step into a different world.

  Calderon didn’t bite, and I saw him cautiously shut the door behind his eyes. “I’m kinda busy here, and I don’t think I’d be able to get my boss to clear me to go on this fishing expedition. Also, some dude throwing lightning out of his hands? I pull my pistol and all I do is get a jolt that sends me to the ground, dead?” He shook his head. “No, this sounds like a job for Supergirl.”

  “I’m no Helen Slater,” I said and stood, switching the gravity back on.

  “No, but that girl you used to roll with looks a little like her,” Calderon said, and I felt myself flinch a little as he went fishing. “Petite, blond hair, flavor of the month, on every magazine cover—” He paused, looking at me, and smiled. “So, you are human. Jealousy and all.”

  I tried to smile, but failed. “Metahuman, but close.”

  “Pssshhh,” Calderon said. “Same ballpark. Don’t let ’em get you down. It’s all just real loud noise, that grumbling.”

  “Don’t let them get me down?” I gave him a cockeyed look. “Weren’t you the one running an orchestrated campaign to give me shit from the minute I walked in?”

  “Yeah, but you heard me talking to Maurice,” he said, almost apologetic, “I give that to everyone.” He extended a hand. “If you need questions answered, I presume you have my number.”

  I took his hand and gave it a shake so firm his eyes widened. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.” I paused, almost to the end of the row. “Where should I start with Flora?”

  “She worked at a shelter,” Calderon said. “One of the bigger ones in the area. It’s in the file. I’d start there, if it were me looking things over.”

  “You’re the detective,” I said, and started away again.

  “And you’re the hammer,” he said to my retreating back. “Try not to bust up anything important, now, all right?”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I muttered and headed back through the lobby to the street.

  4.

  Augustus

  I was buzzing all the way home after work. I played with the dust subtly, careful not to get caught by anybody and all that, for the rest of my shift. That wasn’t like me. People noticed, so I had to lay off a little toward the end, kept making like it was just the shock of Mr. Cavanagh and Mr. Weldon dropping by and saying nice things to me, giving me my fifteen minutes. I was all smiles, and I don’t think anyone had any trouble believing that I was just about as high as a kite from that experience.

  But it wasn’t just that. I mean, I was still shaking with excitement from that, but this was even bigger. This was me, finding out something awesome. Something special. I mean, I always knew I was a special person in my own way, but I thought it was gonna be, y’know, my work ethic and perseverance that carried me to the top. Nah, though. I found something in myself that nobody else even saw.

  I walked home from work, hot sun beating down on my back. I was sweating even though I’d changed out of my coveralls and put them in my backpack. I was in shorts and a shirt, and I was sweating after about ten minutes. I hadn’t even noticed, though, because I was fooling around with the dirt the entire time. I could make a clump move now, like almost a handful. Some people might take that as discouragement—“Oh, hey, why don’t you just pick it up with your hand and throw it?”

  Not, me, though. I wasn’t discouraged. This was the start of something big. I’d read about metahumans when the whole thing up north came out and the president made his speech. I read the papers, I read rumors, I read everything I could get my hands on. If someone had said that at midnight on Thursday, there was gonna be a long-form essay written on a bathroom stall about metas, I would have been there at 11:59 to see what was up.

  See, a lot of people get jazzed about fame and fortune, forgetting how many people get washed up along the way. I wanted to be somebody, but I didn’t just want to be somebody famous. There wasn’t any glory in that. Everybody assumed that if you were famous, you were rich, and that was just bull. I did some research, looked around. Nobody goes broke as hard as a famous person goes broke. It’s always spectacular, watching someone who makes millions of dollars lose tens of millions. Hell, I was barely managing tens of thousands of dollars, and I couldn’t see how you could lose even one (!) million, let alone tens of them.

  I was looking forward to getting my chance to try, though, and this afternoon’s development had me even more excited about how close the possibilities were.

  I nodded at people as I passed, like always. Got that mixed assortment of nods of my own, some hellos, a few “What is this fool thinking?” looks, too. Same as always. I didn’t care. If they were looking at my face, they weren’t looking at the sand I was dragging behind me, dust in the wind, following along like I had it on a string.

  I had no idea what I was going to be able to do with this yet, but … yeah. I was excited.

  I walked in the door to my house about two-thirty in the afternoon. Shifts ran a little strange at Cavanagh. We started early, at six, and got done early, which I liked. That way, second shift was done by ten p.m., which Mr. Cavanagh suggested was better for them. I assumed he had research or something on the subject, but it really didn’t matter either way.

  This had been one of the first days in a long time that I hadn’t stayed late, and when my momma heard the key hit the lock, she must have come running, because she was standing right there in the hall when I opened the door.

  The thing you’ve got to understand about my mom is that she is a formidable woman. My dad, he was a nice guy. Got along with everyone. When we had his funeral last year, it nearly filled the church.

  But my momma was the voice you listened to in our household.

  “What are you doing home so early?” she asked, looking at me with a furrowed brow, eyes all dark. “You feeling all right?”

  “I feel fine,” I said, closing the door behind me, locking the heat outside. I could hear the air conditioner in the next room, running to keep up with the midday sun. “Better than fine.”

  “Why are you home early, then?”

  “I get done at two,” I said, a little coyly. I wasn’t
quite smiling. She cocked her head at me in that serious way that demanded an answer. “Uh, I had a great day,” I hurried to explain. “Mr. Cavanagh himself stopped by my line and took pictures with me and Cordell Weldon—”

  By this point, Momma’s eyebrows were just about stuck to the ceiling. “Uh huh,” she said, with that same air she’d had when I used to tell her that my brother, Jamal, had hit me and I hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

  “No, they really did,” I said. “It’s going to be in a paper tomorrow, I bet. I saw a reporter from the Journal-Constitution there—”

  She just turned her head and walked out of the room without saying another word. This was something she’d started doing to me once I was out of high school. I figured it was her version of “You’re too old for me to whap you over the head with something, and I’m too old to stand here and listen to your nonsense anymore.”

  She went back into the living room, and I followed. It wasn’t like I’d given her any reason to doubt my word in the last few years. “You don’t believe me?” I asked as she settled back into the chair in front of her TV. Momma was retired. Dad had left her enough insurance that after she paid off the house she didn’t have to go back to work. Having me and Jamal paying rent to her for living here helped, though, and we both knew it.

  “Oh, I believe you,” she said, not looking up from the TV. “I’m just surprised your fool self is taking a victory lap right now when all you did was get your picture in the paper.” She snapped her gaze over to me, and I could see the hint of disappointment. “We didn’t raise you to get all complacent—”

  “I’m not, Momma, I’m not,” I said, settling down on the arm of the couch so I could look at her. “I’m not complacent. I just … you know, I left a little early today. I’ll be in early tomorrow to make it up, and, uh …” I got distracted by the TV screen in front of her as a blond white girl in a bikini that seemed like it glowed green against her sun-tanned skin made her way, laughing, across the screen.