Small Things (Out of the Box Book 14) Read online

  Morgan would pick up the pieces; she always did. And Eddie would be all the better for it. They all would, Greg thought as he entered his office, ignoring Morgan’s hushed whispers of reassurance and the sound of gentle sobbing he left behind him in his wake.

  9.

  Augustus

  Sunrise in Steelwood Springs found me knocking on the landlord’s door at the apartment building where Tweedledee and Tweedledum had been living before I’d taken their car out on the slopes. I found myself appreciating the raw beauty of the Colorado morning. They didn’t exactly have mountains in the part of Georgia where I’d grown up—unless you counted Stone Mountain, and no one really did.

  “My name is Augustus Coleman,” I said to the guy who opened the door at the building. “I’m here on behalf of the Steelwood Springs police.”

  The landlord was a stocky guy, wearing a stained white shirt and plaid pajama pants, gut overflowing the bounds a little. He had a mustache that looked like it was straining the bounds of his lip too, overgrown and brambly, but the growth had kinda turned in on itself rather than expanding outward, like he made sure and established clear boundaries with the thing. “Yes …?” he asked with a little bit of an accent.

  “Ah, what’s your name, sir?” I asked.

  “Yusuf,” he said, looking at me with a little bit of a squint.

  “Hello, Yusuf,” I said. “Like I said, I’m with the police. We caught a couple of your tenants getting themselves into some trouble. I was wondering if I could take a look around their place?”

  He squinted at me, impassively, then opened his door and opened up on me a little. “Was it those idiots Jacob and Keith? In 2A?” He waved me off. “No, never mind. I know it was those idiots.”

  “Good guess,” I said.

  “I will get the keys to their place,” Yusuf said, dipping back inside for a second and emerging with an overstuffed key ring that looked like it might have a thousand keys on it. I glanced around; the apartment building had maybe eight units. He shut the door and led me toward the stairs. “I never liked those two. Always causing problems. Noise complaints. Breaking things.”

  “Yeah, they mentioned something about a broken sink,” I said, fishing as we went up the staircase. It was an internal one with old brown carpeting, but the walls were freshly painted, a neutral beige. The place was old, but it was pretty well taken care of.

  “I had to call a plumber for those morons last week,” Yusuf said, throwing up his hands and causing the keys to jangle. “You know what they do? Try to put a pizza down the garbage disposal. Whole pizza, the idiots.”

  I frowned as we approached 2A. “What happened?” Because it felt like a pizza wouldn’t be any match for a garbage disposal with a steel blade and all.

  “Idiots not turn on water first,” Yusuf said in disgust. “Motor burned out. Cost me five hundred dollars. Was fortunate that plumber give me discount.”

  That perked my ears up. “Did you know this plumber?”

  “Referred to me by a mutual friend from the old country,” Yusuf said, picking out the right key from his ring of hundreds on the first try.

  “Where’s the old country?” I asked.

  Yusuf gave me a sidelong look, curiosity at my curiosity. “Turkey,” he said flatly and then opened the door.

  “Interesting,” I said, doing my best to avoid any sandwich-related jokes. They would have been so easy to make, because I was in the mood for a club. Skipping breakfast does that to me.

  I stepped into the apartment and was greeted with a familiar, burnt aroma. “Damn,” I said.

  “Dammit,” Yusuf said, recoiling from the scent. “This is no smoking apartment! Will cost a fortune to prepare for new tenants and get the smell out.”

  I passed by an ash tray filled to the brimming with old cigarettes and wondered how Yusuf could have missed the deep-seated aroma of cigarette smoke until now. I suspected it had seeped into the walls by this point. I noted the pipes on the table and had another suspicion confirmed. Naturally these boys weren’t just sticking to tobacco. “Huh,” I said, noting the bag of residual green they’d left on the table.

  Yusuf made a sound deep in his throat, his fingers over his eyes. “You want to confiscate that?”

  “That's not my jam,” I said, making my way over to the sink. The apartment was a two bedroom, and the bedrooms were on the wall to the right past the living room area. To my left was the kitchenette, and I made a beeline for it, squatting down and opening the cabinets under the sink. I stuck my arm under my nose, burying my face in my sleeve to stave off the stink of smoke, cigarette and otherwise. It was pungent in there, and I was looking forward to getting out as soon as I could, because it was damned near making my eyes water.

  “Dammit,” Yusuf said mildly. “Do you think this will affect how soon I can put this place back on listings?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, looking past the garbage disposal that hung under the sink like a big, chunky black cylinder and felt for the water supply. I traced the pipes with my fingers until I came across something that felt like an offshoot of soft, plastic cabling. I grasped at it, giving it a squeeze. Yep, plastic, and roughly the strength of medical tubing. Following it back to its source, my fingers found a soft bulb that I pulled down under the disposal so I could look at it.

  “What is this?” Yusuf said, coming up behind me.

  “I’m thinking it’s the reason you got a discount on your plumbing job,” I said, staring at the clear plastic bulb. I tugged it down and found a mechanism at the bottom that looked like it functioned as a dripper to allow whatever had been in the bulb to seep its way into the water coming out of the sink at a slow rate. I unscrewed it at the source and was rewarded with a water drip. “Oops,” I said, prompting Yusuf to get down on all fours to peer at what I was doing.

  “Need to turn water off first,” Yusuf said with worried urgency. “Otherwise you’ll flood the apartment.”

  “Yeah, I got it.” I cranked the little knob beneath the sink.

  Without prompting, Yusuf stood up and turned the sink on. Water rushed out at first, then died precipitously. “Okay, you remove it now—but carefully.” And he padded over to one of the drawers next to the old, yellow steel oven, throwing it open. “Ugh! Pizza in the drawer! Who does this?”

  “These boys aren’t exactly MENSA members,” I said, unscrewing the device as a trickle of water bled out and into the bottom of the cabinet. If Scott had been here, it wouldn’t even have been an issue, he’d have cleaned it up lickety-split. I lifted the bulb up and stared at it in the light streaming in through the small kitchen window.

  It was a simple tube connected to a bulb that had been filled with liquid. I gave it a quick sniff, and it damned sure didn’t smell like water. It had a chemical scent to it, and it wasn’t the sort of smell you’d expect from a water softener or anything of that sort, either. “Yep,” I said, “this is the thing.” I took a snap with my phone and immediately texted it to J.J. and Reed.

  “What is it?” Yusuf asked, alternating between staring at it and taking some worn yellowed towels and putting them under the sink to clean up the mess I’d made.

  “I think this is how your boys developed super powers,” I said, looking around for a plastic bag or something to put it in so it didn’t drip everywhere. I finally settled on a cup from the cabinets, because there were no Ziploc bags or Tupperware to be found in the minimally furnished bachelor kitchen.

  Yusuf just stared at me. “Super … powers?”

  “Yeah,” I said, dangling the cup in front of him. “They developed metahuman abilities.”

  Yusuf looked at me inscrutably. “Hmph. They have been mouthier these last few days. Filled with unearned confidence, I would say.”

  “Yeah, well, be glad you didn’t tell them that,” I said, “because they might not have appreciated the critique. Now … about this plumber … did you catch his name?”

  “It’s Omar,” Yusuf said. “Omar Cardiff. You need h
is number?”

  Hmm. Those boys didn’t have his name as far off as I would have thought, though his last name made me kinda wonder what was going on there.

  “Considering he did this?” I jangled the cup again. “Yeah. I need to talk with him. Preferably somewhere that doesn’t have any other people around. Know any places like that?”

  Yusuf shrugged. “I have property up the mountain a little ways. Currently for rent. I am using it for Airbnb right now. You could book it. Nearest neighbor is three miles away.”

  “Hmmm,” I said. “And you can send Omar out there to meet me for a … ‘plumbing job’?”

  Yusuf gave me another noncommittal shrug. “I told him I would use him again after he gave me discount on sink.” He frowned at the cup in my hand. “Now I find out he cost me tenants—bad tenants, but still tenants—and ruined my sink. Now I have to get another plumber out to fix this. Yes, I will gladly help you take him to jail so I can sue him without him running off. In jail, process server can find him, no problem.”

  “You got an interesting set of priorities there, Yusuf,” I said, “but I appreciate the help.” I looked at the little device in the coffee cup. “When can we get this thing rolling? Because I need to talk to Omar, like … now. Before he gets the idea to empower any other morons like he did these two.”

  10.

  Sienna

  “I’m looking for a Jon Wiegert,” I said into the phone once my call was picked up on the other end. Friday was staring at me with his skinny face blank as ever, and a bare amount of sunlight streaming in through my thick curtains suggested to me that the sun was well up outside. I was feeling the fatigue from not sleeping, too, but what the hell were you supposed to do when an idiot collapses at your safe house door?

  Certainly not take a nap on the couch with him in the place. I’d probably wake up to find it on fire or something.

  “Y’all ain’t got Google where you are?” Jamal Coleman shot back at me over a slightly buzzing connection. He sounded distinctly unimpressed. He was also keeping his voice down, which told me that one of his co-workers was probably in earshot.

  “You are my Google, Jamal,” I said. “Also, my sunshine.”

  He grunted. “Jon Wiegert is an extreme sports personality, okay? Famous. You didn’t need me for this. Seriously, Google. It will save you and me time. Man’s got a channel of his own with millions of followers.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and put him on speaker. “But if I didn’t call you, how would I get my daily dose of human social contact?”

  “Do … do I not count for that?” Friday asked, sounding genuinely perplexed.

  “No,” I said.

  “Try getting out and talking to people,” Jamal said. “Leave the house. Stop having Amazon ship everything to you, including your groceries.”

  “Should I take it as a weird sign that you’ve bothered to investigate how much e-commerce I’m participating in? Are you stalking me, Jamal?”

  “No more than anyone else.”

  “Hey, while I’ve got you on the phone,” I said. “Do you know who knocked on my door last night?” Friday pointed at himself. “Yes, I know that you know,” I covered the microphone, “I’m asking him.”

  “Uhmmm,” Jamal said, and I could tell he didn’t really want to even bother to pretend to care. “The pizza delivery guy?”

  “You’re a terrible stalker,” I said. “I haven’t had pizza in weeks.” Believe me, I felt it, too. Tight shoulders come at a price, and that price was cheese and doughy crust.

  “You’re not going to make me look this up, are you? For real?”

  “Guy Friday,” I said.

  “I don’t know who that is. Wait—is that the white ape in the gimp mask?”

  “I’m not an ape,” Friday said indignantly.

  “More of a gorilla,” I said. “Oh, here he is.” Google results popped up for Jon Wiegert. “You weren’t kidding, Jon boy is mildly famous.”

  “See how easy that was? Try before you dial next time. And why have you got a great white ape in your house?”

  “Seriously, I am not even in the same species as those things,” Friday said with rising irritation. “Not even the same—order, or whatever.”

  “Humans are part of order primates, so technically you’re wrong,” Jamal said helpfully. “Unless you’re actually something else completely, like a mushroom.”

  “Can confirm,” I said, and Friday looked wounded again. His reactions really did explain the mask. “So, here’s something Google isn’t answering—where can I find Jon Wiegert right now?”

  Jamal took a deep, theatrical breath. “Hang on,” he said, like he was so put upon.

  “You know, technically, you do work for me,” I said. “You could act at least a little like you’re eager to do the job at hand.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said without an ounce of actual contrition. “I’m so excited to Google this for you—got him, by the way.”

  “You really are a magician,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’s magical how I went to his website, clicked on the tab that says ‘EVENTS,’ and saw that he’s in the High Sierras this morning so he can skydive into a snowboarding run. Amazing, in fact, like conjuring water out of air.”

  “Serious mojo,” I said. “Speaking of which, I’ve got a new big bad that I’m dodging, and I need you to do a little digging for me.”

  Jamal groaned again. “Okay. Let’s try this again from the top: have you attempted to Google yet?”

  “Bleh. That would involve me having to type on this little bitty screen keyboard, and then I’d have to try and read through the results … I’d rather you just do it for me.”

  “You want me to pre-chew your food for you, too, baby bird?”

  “No, I just want to know how Greg Vansen—V-A-N-S-E-N, a metahuman assassin by trade—manages to somehow appear and disappear at will. At least according to Friday.”

  “Maybe he’s a teleporter,” Jamal said indifferently.

  “Maybe,” I said. “It’d sure be nice to know for certain, though, wouldn’t it? And I doubt that’s Google-able. If Google-able is a word.”

  “If it’s not now, I’m sure it will be soon,” he said, and I heard him tapping away in the background. “You’re gonna have to give me a while to try and find this Greg Vansen. Kind of a common name, I’ll need to sift resul—hang on. What’s this?”

  “Wonderful news, I hope,” I said, and Friday cocked his head at me like a curious dog. “Happy, happy, joyful news, the sort that involves gumdrops and peppermints and—”

  “What? No, there’s no gumdrops.”

  “But peppermints, right?” I asked.

  “No, I’m looking for this Greg Vansen, and I managed to come up with an NSA map of active cell phones tagged to that name by sifted conversations, and—dammit, what the—Sienna, maybe this is a coincidence, but there’s a Greg—no idea if he’s a Vansen—whose cell phone is—shit, this sounds like a low-budget horror line, but—”

  “Ohhh, man,” I said, getting a sinking feeling.

  “It’s coming from inside your building.”

  “What does that even mean?” Friday asked, still unable to shake that stupid expression he seemed to constantly wear. Now I sorta missed the mask.

  “It means—” I started to say, already in motion.

  Greg Vansen appeared like magic, like he was throwing off his invisibility cloak. He was a short, stocky guy, about my height, and when he appeared, it would have been amazing enough if it had just been him.

  It wasn’t just him.

  Because in his hands was an M2 Browning, a crew-served machine gun that the military usually either mounted on a tripod, or on the top of a Humvee. Somewhere that the impact of the massive .50 caliber bullets leaving its immense barrel could be absorbed easily, because those suckers, once they left the shell, were the length of one of my fingers from knuckle to tip. Probably the same diameter, too.

  If you wanted to kill so
meone real fast, an M2 Browning was a damned good way to start.

  “Any last words?” Vansen asked, as he brought up the Browning, aiming it at Friday …

  … and me.

  11.

  Augustus

  Birds were chirping, I thought I heard crickets making noise in the distance, the sun was shining down …

  And I was standing on the side of a damned mountain outside Steelwood Springs, in front of what Yusuf’s Airbnb page had described as, “a rustic escape, situated in the foothills and with a commanding view of the Rocky Mountains.”

  Yeah, I had a “commanding view” of a mountain all right. It was up just a little ways from me, and I stared at it. It stared right back, covered in ice and snow from what I guessed was a recent snowfall, but not recent enough for there to be any on the ground down here.

  Funny little side effect of the drug that President Harmon had hit me, Reed and Scott with—I could feel the rock in the peak now. It was a strange, almost vestigial awareness. I could go to sleep and not really notice it, but it was there, always, like an army waiting quietly for me to issue a command. Or maybe like an Amazon Alexa, just sitting there doing nothing until I asked it to do something.

  I was still getting used to the new powers, honestly, embracing the scale of my abilities, but every once in a while, when faced with a massive lump of earth sitting in my view … I did get this weird feeling like the earth was looking at me going, “Well? Whatchoo need? If you’re going to do something, let’s get on with this. I ain’t got all age.”

  (Age, see, because earth doesn’t move so easy or quick, get it? Get it? Aww, man, that joke kills with other earthmovers like me. All two of them that I know. Not even enough to put together a poker game.)