02 Seekers (23 page)

“This is all paperwork for the club,” Alex said from her place near the desk. “Nothing

legitimizing abductions, murder, and mayhem.” She raised an eyebrow at me, and I smiled.

“I still think we should’ve taken advantage of that first club’s dirty little secret,” Spider said.

“Of course you do,” I replied. “You have the mind of a blackmailer.” I dug through another filing cabinet that wasn’t locked, trying to find my focus again around the sound of the music.

“Messing with mob-esk types probably isn’t a good idea right now, though. We’ve got enough on our plates.”

“You know…the Seekers are sort of like a mob,” Alex said thoughtfully as she read a piece of paper.

“A mob who has no loyalty to family,” I said.

“And one who doesn’t put dead horses in your bed,” Alex said.

“Well, there is that,” I said.

Spider opened the door to the cabinet and eyed the room for a second time now that his task was complete. “No computer. It might be in a different room…” he suggested.

“We’re not risking it,” I said as I started to thumb through the files in the cabinet.

“Third one from the back,” Spider said, pointing over my right shoulder.

“You looked through this already?” I asked, annoyed he hadn’t told me.

“Didn’t have to.” He pointed at the third file from the back. I saw that its lettering was larger than the others and had my first name written in elegant handwriting. There were more flourishes in my five letter name than I had thought possible. I pulled the curiously named file from the drawer, my mind racing over possibilities.

All three of us jumped at the sound of a door banging open from somewhere down the hall.

Deep, masculine voices slowly approached our door, voices which didn’t take super hearing to notice. “I’m tellin’ you, I heard something.”

“A mouse crapping, maybe,” the second voice said. “You always think you hear something, and it always turns out to be nothing…”

“Whatever, just help me look.”

All three of us started moving at the same time. Alex was to the window first. I helped her out, then Spider, who, with my added frantic push, landed with a hard thump. With the folder

clamped in my mouth I dove out of the window and hit the metal stairs hard. My hands stinging from the fall, I ran down the stairs as fast as I could. Alex and Spider were already at the end of the street. They didn’t wait for me, but I didn’t want them to. They split up, going in opposite directions like we had planned. We would regroup at the theater later, when we were sure we weren’t being followed.

I slowed down once I was off the side road and went in the direction of Canal Street, giving them space to get away. On the corner, a jazz quartet played, filling the streets with a soulful sound I loved. Wanting to be close to the melancholy peace of their playing, I ducked into the open bar they were in front of. I settled on a red stool, enjoying the anonymity of the darkness of the interior. Trying to look casual, I waited to see if anyone followed me in. Thoughts of drinking, of hidden secrets, of buying and selling, of flirting and loving, were all meshed together in the symphony of normal human thought, but nobody was unduly interested in me, no one even

looked twice. Except for one person.

“Can I getcha something?” The bartender leaned forward to talk to me, his bright white teeth a beacon in the dark.

“Soda,” I said. “Can I have this paper?”

“Sure.” He put a glass of coke in front of me as I slid the paper across the bar.

The title of the paper immediately jumped out at me. POLICE STILL HUNT FOR ARSON

SUSPECT. I read the first few lines of the article, enough to know the police still didn’t have a clue as to who had set the fire at my hotel. The people in the blaze still remained a mystery, no one coming forward to claim them as family or friends. Around my sadness that the real people in the fire, the people who were our stand-ins, might never have their stories told, I was glad for the mystery. It meant Alex and I stayed safe.

Hiding the file with the horoscope section of the paper I looked inside. The file contained a single photo. I felt an instant jolt of recognition when I saw it: it was Daniel. He was looking behind him, his eyes searching, perhaps feeling the eyes of the photographer. His dark hair and green eyes stood out against his white linen shirt. His face was changed – tense and full of darkness. The bank clock beyond him dated the picture. It was from two days ago. I turned the picture over. Written in that same elegant writing was: Jackson Park. Tomorrow, noon.

Jackson Park was the park with the church. It was the park I spent so much time in. Did that mean Daniel was in the park, and I had missed him? Or did it mean he would be there tomorrow?

Why did the folder have my name on it instead of Daniel’s? My leg tapped an irregular beat on the floor. Had I found the nest? And, more importantly, did they know about Daniel? Had his cover been compromised?

“Hear about that fire?” the bartender asked. I glanced up and saw that he was watching me. I didn’t need the visuals from his brain to know he was hitting on me and using the story in the paper as a conversation starter. His face said enough.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Crazy right? That sort of thing never happens here.”

According to you. “Yeah…crazy.”

“I’ve heard that it was a mob hit. The owner is connected or something.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve heard it was done by half angels,” I said.

He laughed and nodded knowingly. “I hear ya, I hear ya. I hope they catch them at any rate. I know the son of the housekeeper who died. They were close, ya know? It’s hit him real hard.

Want another round?”

I hadn’t even touched my coke. “No.” I put a couple of dollars on the bar and tucked the paper with the folder inside under my arm.

“Come back and see me!” he called.

I didn’t reply. Instead, I walked out with a million more questions than I had walked in with.

“Where have you been?!” Alex demanded as soon as I appeared in the doorway of the stage.

The kids were still awake and were gathered on the stage talking quietly. Alex and Spider were taking turns pacing in front of the door like a pendulum on a particularly agitated clock.

“Wanted to make sure I wasn’t followed,” I replied absently.

“Were you?” Spider asked.

“No.”

“What’s in the folder?” Alex asked.

I pulled the picture out of the paper and handed it to her. She and Spider studied it. “Who’s the dude?” Spider asked.

“Jackson Park?” Alex asked. She had turned the picture over. “Was that where this was?”

“Definitely not,” Spider said. “That’s a bank from near the trade center. Who’s the dude?”

“You sure?” I asked Spider.

“Is it a yuppie idiot easy to con?” he asked back.

“It has to be a meeting place for tomorrow, then,” Alex said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“But which part of the park? Who are you supposed to meet? Did Daniel leave this for you?”

Alex asked.

“I dunno,” I said. “None of that changes the fact that I’m going to be there tomorrow at noon.”

“That’s stupid,” she said. “You’re just going to hang out there?”

“What other choice do I have?” I asked.

“You could break into the club again…” Spider suggested. “Find out more about who you’re

dealing with.”

“It’s too dangerous,” I disagreed.

“Could be.” Spider pointed at the picture again. “So, who is this?”

“Daniel.”

“I would have thought he’d be better looking,” Spider said.

I made a face at him. Alex was staring at the picture. “This feels like a trap,” she said.

“What feels like a trap?” Eli appeared behind me.

Spider’s quick voice explained everything, and the picture passed to Eli for examination. “This is your friend?” Eli asked.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“Which club?”

“Maquis,” Spider answered.

“Oh,” Eli said.

“Oh? ‘Oh’ as in ‘Oh, that place is totally a nest for Seekers’ or ‘Oh, I have gas’?” I asked.

“Just…oh,” Eli said. He turned the picture around and pointed at the words. “Spider?”

“Jackson Park, tomorrow at noon,” Spider said quietly.

Eli nodded in understanding and handed the picture back to me.

“I’m going to go,” I said.

“I figured,” Eli said.

“You’ll be there?” I asked.

Despite my uncertainty about him, and the fact that over our week with them I hadn’t gotten in a single conversation with him, I wanted him there. I sensed he would do what needed to be done.

That part of him was very obvious.

“I owe you,” Eli said.

“How did you do it?” I asked before he could walk off. “How did you survive for so long

without being found?”

He leaned forward and his impassive face twitched. I wasn’t sure if he was fighting a smile or a frown. “I hid,” he said. He walked into the darkness of the lobby without another word, pulling his hoodie over his greasy hair as he walked.

“Why do you keep testing him, Clare?” Alex asked.

“Because he annoys me,” I replied.

“There’s more there than you think,” she said.

“How do you mean?”

She tapped her head. “I can just tell. He isn’t closed off to annoy you. Something happened…

something profound. He’s trying his hardest to make sense of all this. Just like we are.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Did you see that with your gift? Or do you like him?”

“Of course not!” she exclaimed.

Her refusal had been too quick and had been followed by the face she reserved for when she was keeping things from me. I made kissy faces at her, letting her know I wasn’t deceived. She pushed me away, rolling her eyes at my teasing, and went to sit at the front of the theater, her blush lighting up the dark surrounding her. I followed, tucking the picture of Daniel into my pocket for safe keeping.

Cora and Sprint giggled together in the corner while Ethan – who was joined by Spider as I sat –

tried to overhear their conversation. Cora and Sprint stopped talking as soon as one of them got close enough. They were making a game of it. I could have told them that Cora and Sprint were discussing Cora’s crush on Ethan, but that would have ruined the fun. Twitch sat close to the light, away from the other’s laughter and talking. His thin hands held a dusty, old book, while his mind devoured the words on the page with an overwhelming hunger. I recognized the book from Ethan’s hideout. He had given Twitch the book of poetry after all.

“We found a lead,” Alex pointed out as she sat.

“Looks that way,” I said.

“You don’t think so?” she asked.

“I’ll let you know,” I replied.

She sighed. “I am dying for a shower. And a toothbrush. I would literally do anything for a toothbrush,” Alex said.

“How many times are you going to complain about that?” I asked.

“If I don’t vocalize my desire to bathe I might just up and leave. Which would you prefer?” she asked. She raised a hand to cut my reply short. “Don’t answer that.”

“I’ll go buy you a toothbrush,” I told her.

“How will I brush them? There’s no water.”

“How do we use the bathroom?” I asked, thinking of the convenience stores we had grown way too familiar with. I had never thought I would be so glad to see the nasty bathroom of most of those places as I was every morning when I had to pee. Spider had shown us which stores were friendly and which ones to avoid…it was the best thing he’d done for us so far.

“Oh, right,” Alex replied.

I stood up and she made to follow, but I put a hand on her shoulder. “You should rest. You haven’t slept all week,” I said.

“You just want to go all ‘Dark Knight’ and brood about life and our situation while you’re gone,” she teased.

I shrugged and tucked my hands in my pockets.

“Alright...don’t take too long…” she said, settling back into her chair.

“I’ll be back,” I said.

Alex was right. Sitting in the cramped, humid theater was driving me insane. And, while the narrow streets of New Orleans were usually full of some kind of danger, at least it was private.

There was privacy in a crowd of people who didn’t know you; privacy in not having to explain why you were scowling or looked so sad. Plus, there was the added benefit of the thoughts

driving out my own to the point where, for a time, my own reality didn’t feel as closed up in my head.

I jumped down the last two stairs and breathed in the heavy air of the city. The thick balconies and beautiful, if not mismatched, architecture closed me in on thin streets that screamed out with a dark history. My pace was slow, my head bowed against the thoughts as I walked.

What was the chance I would actually find something in a club? I knew we had focused on the clubs on a whim, to have a focus for our desire to find information, but to have one of the clubs actually contain a real clue? And to have my name on that clue? I wasn’t stupid enough to accept chance as a reason. Chance was sloppy. It was easy. Nothing about my life was easy.

I stopped at the corner before the convenience store and pulled the picture from my pocket to look at Daniel’s transformed face. There was another question. There was so much tension in his body, so much darkness in his eyes. He wasn’t the Daniel I knew. How much could a person

change in three weeks? Had I changed?

I looked down at my clothes, which had picked up quite a few holes and dirt since I had started breaking into buildings and decided maybe I had. While I had spent my formative years running, afraid I would be discovered by people like the Seekers, I had never been forced on the streets.

Ellen had made sure I always had a home, had love, and enough to eat. Things had been tough, but I’d always had her. Part of me felt as if I were becoming closer to Daniel and what he had experienced when he was young, and another part of me felt light-years away from him.

Distracted by the overwhelming sounds around me and my own thoughts, I didn’t notice the

danger until it was too late. The click of the hammer being pulled back on the gun was

alarmingly loud to my alert ears. I put my hands up in front of me in reflex as a large, silver plated gun forced its way into my field of vision.