Tay brightened. “At least I’ve finished editing the material Ari started. We’re meeting her mother and an aunt from Israel at the café after school. You coming?”
“I want to,” Liv said, “but my…uh, my bodyguard won’t let me. I’m supposed to go straight home.”
Maddy pulled away from the table to inspect Liv. “I thought we had that all squared up. You’re wearing your blue shirt and chinos. How about the sheepskin sneakers?”
“Yes.” Liv watched Maddy extend her long legs to reveal the same shoes.
“I bought these yesterday,” Maddy explained, “so we’d dress alike. You remember the plan I texted you last night?”
“It’s kind of complicated….”
“No, it’s simple. You pretend you need the toilet and rush into the café but head for the men’s room—Chase will make sure it’s clear. I’ll be in the women’s john. When your bodyguard checks, she’ll sees my pants and shoes in the stall. She waits a while, then I come out, and she realizes it isn’t you. She leaves the café to look for you. Bye-bye bodyguard! We have all the time we need with Mrs. Kelly.” Maddy swiped her hands together.
Liv sighed with relief. She couldn’t wait until school was over.
Day 6—Thursday
Stealth sat in a window booth at the café. He didn’t feel like himself in the sport coat he only used when those government people came to give him money. Sometimes they were CIA; sometimes, Department of Defense. They met him here today, just as they did every other month or so, always saying the same thing: “Of course, we don’t understand your sci-fi weapons, but if the eggheads at DARPA say your specs are useful, we’ll be back.” Then they handed him an envelope with cash. Stealth would use the money to buy equipment for more experiments.
His phone showed 3:30, time for the students to come in. Brandon liked to watch the girls, and Brandon deserved a treat. He had a hard night ahead of him. Stealth shut his eyes, but the images of sagging, mottled flesh wouldn’t fade. Queasy, feeling his stomach knot and then surge, Stealth bolted toward the men’s room.
He couldn’t touch anything in there, so he left his gloves on and used a paper towel to handle the tap. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, Stealth dipped it in cold water. He dabbed the wet cloth against his forehead.
Your hair’s falling out, Brandon said.
Stealth held back kinky, brown curls.
It’s not! Stealth is only twenty-five.
Stealth’s going baldy, baldy, Brandon jeered.
Shut up! What do you know?
His anger and the smells around him made Stealth gag. He had to get out—get out! Fighting panic, Stealth reached a trembling hand toward the door. It swung open before he could get there. A girl rushed in, moving so fast she collided with Stealth.
Titties! Brandon cried gleefully. I felt titties!
Stealth’s head swam. He staggered backward.
“I’m sorry.” The girl jumped away from him. “Chase was supposed to be in here making sure no one else was.” Her eyes focused on Stealth’s face. “You look sick. Are you okay?”
He stared at her. She had a Sidley emblem on her shirt. Stealth felt Brandon clamoring to see through his eyes.
A boy came in. Athletic type, smelled of ocean. He was beautiful—bright hair, languorous eyes. “Sorry I’m late,” he told the girl. “You should have waited for me to check this room.”
“No time. I ran into the café before Holly could react. I thought you were already in here. And look—” She waved toward Stealth. “I burst in on this poor man.”
The boy said to Stealth, “My B. You weren’t, uh, doing anything, right?”
Stealth shook his head.
“Liv’s hiding. Her tail won’t look for her here. There’s another girl in the women’s john pretending to be her. We’ll be out of your bubble in a sec.” He cracked open the door, listening.
In the hallway, a shrill, female voice called, “Liv? Olivia Smallwood! Where
are
you?” Footsteps stomped past. The boy shut the door, a slow smile spreading across his sensual mouth. He winked at the girl beside Stealth.
Someone knocked on the door. Stealth heard a girl’s voice say, “She’s gone.”
“Coast’s clear,” said the boy, holding the door open for the blonde. She grinned. Before leaving, she told Stealth, “Thanks for not giving me up. You’ve been great.”
“Don’t mention it, Olivia Smallwood,” Stealth whispered to the empty room.
I like her! Brandon declared. Why can’t we collect her?
She’s not Stealthie material
.
I don’t care. You always choose the Stealthies. Why don’t I get a pick?
Because…because they can’t just be anyone. They have to be special.
Yeah—special. Like that first girl? At least, this one has nice boobs.
Stealth felt Brandon getting sullen and drawing away. Outside the men’s room, he couldn’t reach his twin at all. What if Brandon wouldn’t do what had to be done tonight?
Look! Brandon said suddenly. There’s a whole table of Sidleys. I want to watch them.
Stealth’s eye was caught by that table, too. Besides Olivia Smallwood sat two girls, two women, and two boys
—
the blond and a brunet with full, luxuriant lips, a chest meant to be seen bare, with jeans low on his hips and—
Brandon interrupted the fantasy. I want strawberry gelato. Go stand by the cooler and pretend you don’t know what you want. We’ll hear what they say at the table. Take your time, but buy me strawberry.
With his back to the table, Stealth peered into the cooler, not seeing anything, just listening.
A woman with the Sidley group said, “I want to thank you all for trying so hard to find my Ariel. It makes me…” She cleared her throat. “It makes me glad to know my daughter she has such good friends.”
“Our plan will work, Mrs. Kelly,” Olivia Smallwood’s voice said.
Kelly…Isn’t that one of our Stealthies? Brandon asked. They’re talking about us!
Stealth knows. Be quiet.
The mother said, “My sister, Zarah, has come from Israel to help. Zarah works for...” She exchanged words in a foreign language with a second woman. “…for the government.”
Another woman’s voice, probably the aunt’s, said, “There are many people in Israel who plot to do harm. We study them. This man who took Ariel, this kidnapper, we would say he’s—”
“What’ll you have?” a clerk asked Stealth.
“Not now!” Stealth barked. The clerk cringed. Stealth lowered his voice. “Can’t decide.”
“I’ll come back.” The clerk edged away.
Stealth missed most of what the Israeli woman said about him. All he got was “Sharana and I will look over your work carefully. What will you call this video series?”
“‘Be a Hero’—that’s what we want him to be,” Olivia Smallwood answered.
“An interesting twist. It may work—
if
the kidnapper gets the message.”
“Oh, he will,” another girl said. “Everyone watches YouTube. We have email chains and phone trees set to make sure there’ll be epic hits.”
A boy’s voice with an accent added, “Newsmen on TV mention viral videos. We have press releases ready to give them.”
“Sidley’s letting us hang a banner, and we’ll hand out flyers in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill. Kids from Natalie Porcini’s school in the South End will pass out flyers, too,” a girl put in.
“Natalie Porcini?” the aunt asked.
“She was the first kidnap victim, Zarah.”
“Could you, like, look at the files right away?” Olivia Smallwood asked. “We want to post as soon as we can.”
“I’ll call you,” the mother said.
When the clerk came back, Stealth pointed to the strawberry tub, which was new and untouched. He could eat from it and get Brandon off his back.
Stealth felt cool air sweep across him, saw movement by the door from the corner of his eye. He looked over his shoulder as a cop and a woman with bushy, red hair strode into the café.
That’s the one from the subway. We saw her yesterday at the school, too.
Stealth handed a bill to the clerk and took Brandon’s gelato to the booth by the window. He leaned back and listened.
“Miss Smallwood,” the cop said, “please come with us now.”
“No! I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“It would be better if you accompanied us voluntarily. I don’t want to use restraints.”
They’re being mean to her, Brandon hissed. See? She is Stealthie material.
Stealth risked a look. Olivia Smallwood trailed after the cop and the redhead like a prisoner.
He barely touched his key to the Beacon Street door before the nurse’s aide wrenched it open. “Mr. Tinsley! You are late. I worry you will not come before I go to the train. Your sister, she bring chocolates today, so your mother’s sponge bath will take much time.”
Frowning as he stepped into the foyer, Stealth inquired of Brandon,
Why
?
Everything needs changing. Chocolate gives the Momster diarrhea, Brandon told him.
Stealth’s shoulders sank. An ordinary bath took two people two hours. While Brandon and the aide were busy swabbing sweat, mold, fungus, urine and feces from the six-hundred fifty pound Momster before slathering her with creams, Stealth couldn’t work on his project. He shrugged at the aide, who’d been at the house now for...what? Two or three months. Young and curvy, Marisol came from South America. Brandon liked her. Stealth didn’t. She reached for his hand or tapped on an arm when she talked.
“A box comes for you.” Marisol pointed to the hall table. “And your sister, Miss Karina, she leave a note.”
Stealth inspected the package addressed to Brent Tinsley, the name that didn’t feel right, didn’t suit Stealth anymore, but there were the tools he ordered. He took off his gloves to open the note from his sister. A scrap of paper fell out. Stealth left the real estate agent’s business card on the rug.
She’s really going to sell the house! Brandon cried in a voice filled with terror. I can’t live anywhere else. Tell her!
Doesn’t care. Karina’s all about the money.
Stealth’s chest tightened as he read the note. He’d heard the argument before. Mother had to go to a place where people could help her lose weight, Karina insisted. Besides, the house cost a fortune to operate, and there was no reason two people needed nine thousand square feet on six floors, especially when one was bedridden. Everyone would be better off with the house sold.
She can’t do this! Brandon screamed.
She can
, Stealth told him.
She has a piece of paper that puts her in charge of everything.
We could buy the house.
Don’t have twelve million dollars
.
Would have been closer to the target if you hadn’t messed up with the first Stealthie.
That was an accident.
Just like your death
.
Oh, no, bro. You saw the car coming when you pushed me. You owe me. You’ll always owe me. Get more Stealthies.
Need to figure out who can help with the project. Need time. Need—
Screw the project, Brandon cut in. Just go for ransom. What about the girl at the café?
Marisol tapped Stealth’s arm. “This house is to sell? I lose my job?”
“No!” Stealth yelled at Marisol and Brandon. He stalked to the elevator and stabbed the button for the third floor, but the thought of what he’d find there—the smells, the Momster lying in her tomb of flesh—was too much. Closing his eyes, he pleaded with Brandon to take over.
When the elevator arrived, Brandon moved aside for Marisol to enter. She said, “The buttons, they do not work for the fifth floor.”
Brandon smiled. Marisol was pretty. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of everything.”
Day 6—Thursday
Holly sat in the back seat of Officer Vogel’s cruiser with Liv glowering beside her.
“This running away business,” D. Vogel said, “has to stop, Miss Smallwood.”
“I wasn’t running away! I had to be at the café to talk with Ari’s mother. What we’re doing is
important
. Why can’t you understand?”
“The department believes you’re at high risk of kidnap.”
Liv dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. “I’m not anybody special. Ari was—is. Her father’s a state senator. Kyle’s family is rich, so maybe the kidnapper wants money. The other girl… I don’t know about her, but she’s probably important, too.”
“You’re a witness. That makes you special,” Holly said.
“What do
you
know? You’re not a cop.”
“No,” Vogel said, “she’s not. She’s your guardian’s appointed agent. That means you have to obey Miss Glasscock just the same as your grandmother. You’re a minor. It’s the law.”
Was it? Holly didn’t know if he was bluffing or telling the truth. Liv seemed shaken by the idea, so fact or fiction, the cop’s argument worked.
The cruiser stopped in front of the Smallwood house. Officer Vogel left the flashers on while he went to open Liv’s door. He said to Holly, “Wait here a minute,” before escorting Liv to the house. Holly watched the housekeeper’s eyes go wide after she answered the bell. Jen spoke to the man a minute before nodding and closing the door behind Liv.
Vogel returned to the car, opened Holly’s door and said, “Good thing I was patrolling Charles Street.”
“It was.” Holly’s memory rewound the scene. She bolted from the café and made it halfway to Beacon when she stopped, realizing that Liv could have gone another way. Frantic and angry, Holly couldn’t decide what to do. Then the cruiser pulled alongside her and the cop she met by Sidley called through the window, “Lost her again?”
Holly held out helpless hands. “She needed a restroom, ran down this street and disappeared into the café. I wasn’t far behind her, but somehow, she got away. Maybe…” Holly pointed toward the fruit market, where Indian corn, gourds and leering jack o’ lanterns mocked her. “…she went in there.”
“Yesterday, she doubled back to where she started. I say she’s at the café.”
Holly slapped her forehead. “Of course!”
“Wait for me to park, and I’ll go with you.”
Holly watched him stash the cruiser in the street behind Beacon. He came back, shaking his head, saying, “Runaways. They have all sorts of tricks.”
“Liv’s not a runaway. She saw her friend kidnapped. Liv might be suffering from PTSD or panic attacks or—”