Being Invisible (21 page)

“Wow. That was fast.” I sit up
straighter to focus on the story.

“No kidding.” Colin sits beside me
on the couch and leans forward to watch with me.

We only catch the tail end of the
video before the station switches back to the news anchors.
  

“That was one of our very own
staff members here at Channel Ten News, getting the lowdown on The Vapor. Can
you imagine what it was like to be the first person to get an interview with
him?”

“First time on camera too. Talk
about your big breaks.”

I flip the channel, already
starting to feel uneasy about the whole thing.

“You okay?” Colin asks.

I nod. “I will be. I’m just trying
to absorb it. Tomorrow’s going to be crazy.” I curl up to Colin and wrap the
blanket around both of us.

“I wish you didn’t have to go back
to being my ex-boyfriend in a few minutes. Everything is so much easier to deal
with when you’re with me.”

“I know. I don’t want to leave you
again either. It keeps getting harder every time.”

“How much longer can you stay?”

Colin sighs likes he’s torn. “I
know that people are going to be looking for Vapor everywhere now. I need to
keep a low profile. And I really need to find Nagy. I’m afraid it might be a
long time before we see each other again.” He pauses like he wants to say more.
“Tell you what. How about if I stay here tonight, then leave really early in
the morning. I’ll have to go to sleep soon, but…”

Before he can even get the rest of
his sentence out, I jump onto his lap and hug him tight. “I’ll take you for
however long I can. I don’t care if you are awake, asleep or somewhere in
between.”

“It’s a deal.” Colin kisses me,
then grabs my hand and leads me to my room. After getting ready for bed, we
snuggle up and talk. Both of us purposely avoid talking any more about Vapor.
Instead, I tell him about the new music I’ve downloaded, and he tells me more
about the day we met.

 
He really did tell Drew that I was the
girl he was going to marry, the day after my party. I admit to him that we were
never planning a party, and that the whole thing was to get him to come back. He,
of course, loves the fact that he was the sole reason for a party.

Even though he said he needed to
go to sleep early, we talk for two hours before the exhaustion takes over, and
we both fall asleep.
 
We stay close
that night, his arms and legs wound around me, his hand resting on top of mine.

When I wake up, he’s gone.

I grab the pillow he slept on and
hold it close to me. It still smells like him. I close my eyes and breathe it
in. When I turn over, I notice that he left me a note.

“I don’t know when I will be able to see you again, so I wanted to
remind you that I love you more than life. And even though I can’t be with you,
I’m still fighting for you every single day. Don’t worry though, I plan to wear
my ‘what would Lucy do?’ bracelet everywhere I go, so I’ll be sure to make good
decisions.

Thanks for being you. I love you, Colin.

I throw myself back on the bed and
try to rub the emerging headache from my temples. This day is going to suck.

Okay. Let’s get it over with.

 
“Was this your plan all along? Listen to
me talk about my research for months while I work day and night to get Vapor,
then just scoop him right out from underneath me? I thought we were friends,
Lucy.”

This is the kind of week
I’m
having. Alex has been harassing me
since the day after I sent him the interview. He wants me to do a whole segment
on Vapor, find out where he eats, what makes him tick, does he dress like Chuck
Norris or just look like him? I don’t suppose telling him for the eleventh time
today
that I don’t know where he is
will do me any good.
 

I get about thirty Facebook
requests a day from people I haven’t seen since high school who, I’m sure, want
to know every detail about my encounter with a superhero. I had to eat my lunch
in the copier room three times this week, just to get a few minutes of peace
and quiet. My phone won’t stop ringing and people keep ‘stopping by’ my cubicle
so often that I’m going to need a secretary.

Which brings me to now. Ruth has
finally stopped giving me the silent treatment long enough to tell me I am
pretty much the worst person on the planet.
 
Of course in her mind I have ruined her
chances to have any kind of career on television.

It doesn’t help that a small crowd
has gathered, consisting of an intern, a couple pages and our mail guy. I can’t
say I blame them. Watching Ruth slam staplers and pencil holders while yelling
at me from the other side of the room is something you don’t see every day.

“What? You never seen me
straighten my desk before?” Ruth snaps at the spectators, which breaks the
crowd up in a hurry. “You know what, Lucy? I’m going to feel bad for you when
Karma catches up.” Ruth turns her focus back to organizing and starts stabbing news
articles onto her cubicle wall with thumbtacks.

It doesn’t matter that I have told
her all day for the last eight days that I just ran into him, that I didn’t
plan to scoop her, and that I would do anything to have her there instead of
me. All she sees is that all of her hard work is down the drain because of me.
I don’t blame her. I just don’t know how to make things right.

To top it all off, none of us have
heard from Colin since he left my apartment over a week ago. I know he said he
is going to lie low, but we need
something
from him so that we know he’s okay. I’m either going to be really worried about
Colin, or totally pissed at him. I just won’t know which until I find out
what’s going on.

While Ruth is unleashing a week’s
worth of pent up rage on me, I get a text. I really want to see if it’s Colin,
but I wait anxiously until Ruth is done yelling to check the screen. As soon as
she’s done, she storms off before I get a chance to respond. Finally, I check
my phone. It’s Liz.

Wanted to warn you. Careful coming home. Seedy reporter guy snooping
around our apt. Might “accidentally” run him over with my car soon.

That’s it. That’s my snapping
point. I can’t deal with any of this right now. Until I know that Colin’s okay,
anyone who gets in my way is going to learn exactly what I mean when I tell
them, “I am not in the mood for this shit.”

On the way to Alex’s office, I run
into Ruth. She starts to say something, but I interrupt. “Ruth, I am so sorry. I
really am. I will do anything to make it up to you. I wish I could talk to you
more, but something came up. I really have to go.”

I don’t even wait to hear her
response before I head to Alex’s office.

“Hey Lucy, I’m glad you’re here. I
was just thinking that…”

“Alex. I can’t talk. An emergency
came up at home. I have to leave. I might not be back for a few days.”

“You can’t do that. Not when I
need you to...”

“Then fire me.” See? Seriously not
in the mood.

On my way home I call Rob. “I need
a couple favors..”

“Sure. Anything. What’s up?”

“There’s a reporter hanging around
outside my apartment. Can you please get rid of him?”

“Consider it done. What else?”

“I need you to tell me that Colin
is okay. I haven’t heard from him, and I can’t relax unless I know he’s safe.”

“He’s not with you?”

“What do you mean he’s not with
me? Was he supposed to be with me?” Now I’m worried.

“I don’t want you to panic, but
Colin was hurt. Nagy showed up at a sting, and Colin was there. He managed to
escape before any serious damage was done, but he got a nasty headache. I was
worried about him flashing, so I told him I would work on getting Nagy. I
figured he would have come to see you.”

“I haven’t seen or heard from him
in over a week. Something’s wrong, Rob. I know it.”

“Okay calm down. I’m going to find
out who the last person to see Colin...I mean, who knows where Colin was,
nobody sees him. We’ll go from there.”

“I’ll help you.” He better not
even suggest that I stay out of the way, or so help me…

“I think you should stay home.
Colin wouldn’t want you endangering yourself. I’ll take care of this.”

Yep, he went there.

“There is no way in hell that I am
not helping you find Colin. I don’t care if you think that Colin wants you to
tie me to a chair and hide me in a closet to keep me away. I am doing
everything I can to get Colin back in one piece. So, if you think I am going to
stay at home while you and your boys track down Colin, you obviously don’t know
my superpower- the indelible steamroller I am about to turn into, and the
superior strength that comes with it.

“Okay, okay, fine.” Rob sighs.
“You can help. Colin’s going to be pissed, but frankly I’m more scared of you
right now. But you better make sure that I don’t suffer Colin’s wrath. When all
this blows up, and it will, the Indelible Steamroller better take full
responsibility for all this.”

“I promise. His wrath is all mine.
Just tell me what I can do.”

 
After talking to some guys on the force, Rob
finds out that when Colin’s headache got bad enough that he was having trouble
driving, he went to a doctor in the area. Marc, one of the detectives, tells us
that Colin wanted something to dull the pain enough that he could drive to my
place. That was two days ago.

Marc, Colin and a couple other
detectives met at a First Watch on the way out of Logan for breakfast. They needed
to finalize some plans, so Colin came, but stayed invisible. When Marc
mentioned that “he” needed a doctor, the waitress recommended one a half-mile
down the block.

After breakfast, the guys dropped
Colin off at the doctor’s office, and Colin said he would take a cab home. They
think he turned visible behind the office, after they left.

The first thing Rob and I do is
head to First Watch and hunt down the waitress who recommended Dr. Miller. It
takes all of a minute for Rob to sweet talk her into admitting that a guy gave
her $100 to make sure to serve the detectives that were sitting in the corner
and mention Dr. Miller if they ask.

We immediately head to the
doctor’s office. It’s rundown, with wallpaper straight out of the seventies
lining the walls. The waiting room smells like a combination of the sterility
associated with doctors’ offices mixed with kind of a musty smell.

The receptionist, who probably
started around the same time the wallpaper was put up, looked happy to see us.

“Good afternoon. How can I help
you today?” She smiled sweetly, while focusing back and forth between the two
of us.

“Yes...uh…” Rob looks down at the
receptionist’s nametag. “Delores. We’re from out of town, and a guy at the gas
station told us this was a good doctor to see for my wife’s stomach ache.”

Oh. I didn’t know I have a stomachache. Would have been nice if he
would have clued me in. I would’ve acted like I was in pain. Now it will just
seem forced.

“It’s so nice to see visitors.
Where y’all from?” Her faint twang suggests she isn’t from this area either.

I look at Rob, because obviously
he’s the one with the story.

“We live in Virginia. Just passing
through. Is the doctor available? My wife has been in a lot of pain.” Rob gives
me a pointed look, so I hold my stomach and moan a little.

See? Forced.

“I’m so sorry, but Dr. Miller
isn’t taking any more patients today. He’s already so busy as it is.”

Rob and I both look around the
vacant room, and then back to Delores.

“He’s at lunch right now.”
 
Rob looks at me, then the clock, and we
both furrow our eyebrows. “Isn’t four thirty a little late for lunch at an
office that’s open until five?” Rob asks.

“He actually left early. Had
something he had to do. When I said he was busy, I meant with other things.”

“Is there another doctor we can
see?” I ask, trying to play the sympathy card.

“No. It’s just him.”

“Then why are you here?” Rob is
starting to lose patience.

“To answer phone calls.”

“Then why is the doctor’s office
still open?”

“Because I like visitors.”

Rob expels a deep breath, clearly
frustrated. “So, since my wife is sick, and you have obviously wasted our time,
can you at least let her use the bathroom before we go. She has
 
felt like throwing up for a while.” Rob
nudges me, so I double over in pain.

“If you could just let me use the
bathroom for a moment, I really don’t want to throw up on your beautiful carp…”
I feign starting to gag, in what could be rated as the worst performance in a
doctor’s office in all categories.

“Oh my. Let me get you back to the
bathroom, dear. I’m also the cleaning lady, so I would appreciate it if you
could at least make it to hard floor.” She guides me down a hallway, where I
pass two dark examination rooms, before showing me to the bathroom.

 
I hang out in the bathroom for a minute,
just in case she’s waiting for me. I splash water on my face, and then quietly
sneak out so that I can take a look around.

Rob is talking to Delores about
how to get blood out of just about everything, so I take his distraction as a
cue to go searching. For what, I don’t know.

I half hope that Colin would be hiding
out here while invisible to get information or something. For all I know, this
place could be a front for a heroin ring. I mean, what isn’t these days?

That little bit of hope dies when
Colin
doesn’t
show up out of the blue
and start yelling at me for being here.

I find what I assume is Dr.
Miller’s office and look around the room. The desk doesn’t immediately throw
out any red flags. The usual plaques and degrees line the walls and a few sit
on top of his desk. There’s a picture of a guy standing in a boat holding up a
fish. Except for the patient files strewn across the desk, there doesn’t seem
to be anything out of the ordinary.

I open the drawers, which are
filled with notes, files, a few tongue depressors. When I get to the bottom drawer,
I notice that it’s locked. Considering there are patient files laying all over
the desk and in the unlocked drawers, I don’t think it’s his attempt to
preserve confidentiality.

Unfortunately, lock picking isn’t
something I’ve picked up along the way. I attempt picking it the old tried and
true way of pulling really hard, but when that doesn’t work, I try various
small things that have worked in movies. After breaking my third paper clip and
almost cracking my credit card in half, I decide to try my last resort. After
about thirty seconds of looking, I find the key to the lock in the cabinet
across the room. Guess I should have tried that first.

I can hear Rob talking. He is
closer than he was before. “Just checked on her. I don’t think she has much in
her anymore, but she still doesn’t think she’s done.” His voice starts to get
farther away, so I continue to look.

 
There are notebooks full of names and
numbers, some of them names I recognize from Colin’s drug raids. Underneath,
there is a book full of formulas, with most of the equations crossed out.

As I flip through the pages, I see
another formula. Above it are the words, “Biological Manipulation.”

Why does that sound familiar? Know I’ve heard that term before. Where
was it?

It takes me a little while to
figure it out, but then it occurs to me. That’s what the Exterminator can do.
He manipulates the biological and chemical makeup of other people. That’s how
he causes pain.

So if this is the formula for
Nagy’s powers, what are the other formulas?

I grab as much as I can and throw
it in my bag. If this guy has formulas for superhero traits, and Colin was here
a couple days ago, who knows what he’s done with Colin now?

 
I start to stick the rest of the stuff
back in the drawers when something catches my eye. There’s an article about
Christmas in the Village and how is going to be bigger than last year. The date
on the article shows that it’s originally from this past Christmas. Weird that
among all the drug dealers and formulas, there’s a newspaper clipping about the
holidays.