Cassidy Jones and the Luminous (Cassidy Jones Adventures Book 4) (19 page)

“Can I go, then?”

Mickey slipped on the sunglasses, grinning at my request. “If I weren’t the upstanding bounty hunter I am, I’d consider it. Cyrus’s granny wouldn’t dare strike me if I used you as a shield.”

“The shades make you look intimidating,” I remarked.

“That’s the point. I need any edge I can get with Granny. Now you two stay put and keep the doors locked. We’ll be back quicker than you can say ‘Jack Robinson.’” They got out of the car.

“Who’s Jack Robinson?” I asked Jared.

“Got me,” he said.

We watched as Mickey and Emery climbed the front steps of a nearby house. There was a shopping cart parked in the gravel front yard.

Mickey pressed the doorbell. Emery’s head turned to the side as though he’d heard something.

“Good time to call my dad,” Jared said, and opened the contacts on his cell.

“Are you sure you should do that?”

“Definitely.”

The front door opened to an irate elderly woman in a housecoat and slippers. She almost came up to the middle of Mickey’s chest. Leaning on her cane, she gave Mickey the stink eye. My nerves settled. What trouble could a frail, eighty-year-old woman cause?

“Hello, Jared,” I heard his dad answer.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Can I call you back? I’m late for a meet—”

“Two goons have been following me. They know where Mom and I are staying.”

There was a moment of silence. “Are you positive you’re being followed?” Mr. Wells asked in a lawyerly fashion, though I detected angry undertones in his voice.

Good
, I thought as I watched Cyrus’s grandmother shake a crooked finger at Mickey.
He is somewhat human.

“Positive,” Jared responded, without elaborating. “Be straight up, Dad. What is going on?”

“I don’t know who those men are, or why they are following you,” his dad lied between his teeth. “I will look into the matter and I
will
end this. Where are you now?”

“With Cassidy,” Jared misled. Mr. Wells would assume we were at school.

Cyrus’s grandmother let Mickey and Emery inside the house.

“Don’t worry, Jared. This
will
be over soon,” his father assured ominously. “Call me if you see those men again. I love you.”

“I’ll call the police first. Bye, Dad.” He disconnected the call without returning the sentiment. I wouldn’t have, either.

Suddenly, a man came barreling around the side of the house.

“Let me guess. Cyrus,” Jared said.

“He looks dangerous,” I said.

Clean-shaven head, a goatee, tattoos covering his neck, a mean face—Cyrus wasn’t one you’d want to meet in a dark alley.

He wheeled a left, headed straight for Mickey’s Jeep.

“This is too easy,” I said, opening my door and bracing it with my arm.

He plowed into the door, bouncing off it. Falling backward, his back smacked into the sidewalk.

“Oh crud,” I gasped, jumping out of the car. I didn’t think he’d hit the door that hard.

“Wait, Cass,” Jared said, opening his door, too.

“Are you okay?” I asked Cyrus, a stupid question considering he was rolling on the cement in agony. I offered him my hand.

“Cassidy, get back in the car!” Mickey shouted, sliding around the corner of the house.

“He’s hurt,” I yelled back as I helped Cyrus up.

Then he pulled a fast one.

Cyrus wrapped his arm around my neck and yanked me against him, using me as a human shield. I blushed on the spot. If I hadn’t been looking at Mickey, no way would I have missed such a predictable move.

Horrified, Mickey stopped dead in his tracks, throwing his hands up. Emery, coming to a halt behind him, appeared ready to laugh. I noted Jared also didn’t look overly alarmed.

“Cyrus, use your head,” Mickey entreated. “Let her go.”

“Back off!” Cyrus held me closer to him. My nose crinkled. His breath was revolting.

“Did your grandma make you tuna for breakfast?” I wiggled in his grip.

“Shut up!” he commanded. “I don’t want to hurt her,” he told Mickey.

“Of course you don’t.
No one
is going to hurt anyone. Let her go, Cyrus, and we’ll talk.”

“Leave, and I’ll let her go in five minutes.”

“That’s not gonna happen. Let her go
now
.”

“No!” Cyrus bellowed, almost blowing out my eardrum.

I’d had enough. I extracted his pinky off my shoulder and used it to maneuver him to his knees.

“Please, please, please,” he begged all the way down, in utter pain.

“You took the wrong person hostage,” I told him. He collapsed to his knees before me.

Mickey cautiously approached, stunned that I had incapacitated a man who had at least eighty pounds on me. Jared coughed and covered his mouth to hide a grin. Emery didn’t even bother to conceal his amusement.

“You certainly don’t listen well,
Missy
,” Mickey reprimanded me as he took Cyrus’s hand from me and roughly forced him to the ground. “And,
you
, Cyrus—do you have a brain in your head?”

Cyrus cursed at Mickey in empty bluster, his cheek being ground into the weeds as Mickey handcuffed him.

Mickey yanked him to his feet. “Lucky you. You get to ride shotgun,” he said, shoving Cyrus toward the Jeep.

Emery, Jared, and I climbed into the back. Mickey jerked the passenger seatbelt across Cyrus.

“I’m sorry, Mickey,” I apologized in a small voice. I knew he felt guilty.

His features softened.

“No.
I’m
sorry,” he confirmed my suspicion. He did feel responsible for what had happened. He shook his head and grinned. “I should have known better. You’re female. You’re not going to listen.” Letting out a laugh, he backhanded Cyrus’s arm. “
Whoa-ho-ho
! Wait ’til the boys at the precinct hear a hundred-pound
girl
took you down!”

The look on Cyrus’s face was nothing short of horror. “You ain’t tellin’
nobody
!”

“Aren’t I?”

“Um . . . one hundred thirteen pounds,” I corrected softly.

Mickey, Emery, and Jared burst into laughter. Cyrus was not amused.

“I stand corrected,” Mickey declared, wiping mirthful moisture from his eyes. “A hundred-and-
thirteen
-pound girl brought you to your knees by twisting your
little
finger back.” He started the car. “A heartless girl, I might add, being that she paid no mind to your begging for mercy.”

“I never begged for mercy!”

“Oh no? My partner back there got it all on his cell phone,” Mickey fibbed.

“You taped it?” Cyrus sputtered. “Not cool, man!”

“Neither is taking a hostage. Where am I dropping you kids off before Cyrus and I run our little errand?”

Emery told him the street where the dive shop was located.

All the way there, Mickey harassed Cyrus about how he’d broadcast the non-existent video on YouTube, predicting it would become a global sensation within days. From there, he mused about submitting it to
America’s Funniest Home Videos
, too, and inquired if we knew what the cash prizes were, as he pretended not to hear Cyrus’s whiny pleas and threats.

~~~

Mickey dropped us off at the Acura, which had been abandoned. Apparently, the O’Sheas got lucky with three bounties today. I assumed that if the passenger had had a clean record, he would have left in the Acura.

After we lugged six tanks and my dive gear to the yacht, Emery took off for the homeless shelter to see what he could learn about Doc while Jared gave me scuba diving lessons. We couldn’t go with Emery, since there was a possibility Joe would be spying on Doc, too. Joe had met Jared before and would probably figure out my identity if he saw me with him.

Jared gave me a tutorial so detailed that I wanted to bash my head into the yacht’s table repeatedly. But before his thoroughness could drive me to such extremes, Emery returned with food.

While we chomped chips and sipped sodas, Emery gave his report. Doc had been helping prep for the shelter’s dinner shift, while a man who he assumed was Joe browsed a used clothing store adjacent to the dining hall. He described Joe to a
T
, right down to his grungy Seahawks jacket.

Emery had fed the shelter’s manager a story that he was conducting research for a paper for school, and got permission to interview the staff and volunteers. The manager was happy to comply. Emery didn’t learn much from Doc. However, he did observe his happy countenance, which we had learned to be associated with the parasite. Although this observation wouldn’t hold up in court, it was still a connection. A man who had disappeared, and then resurfaced six weeks later, was now joyfully passing out Luminous Water bottles at the shelter.

We cracked open our second round of sodas and launched into a debate about whether to let my parents in on our plan. Emery had already decided not to tell his parents—until we had useful information.

“Why bother them with conjecture?” he reasoned.

After hashing out the pros and cons of enlightening my parents, we also collectively agreed not to involve them. Best case scenario: my mom would freak and my dad would insist on coming. Worst case: they’d forbid us from going, which would cause a major problem, since Emery would follow through with his plan regardless.

Eventually, we geared up and took the yacht into Elliott Bay. The actual scuba diving went well. It felt like how I imagined flying would feel—floating weightless, free—and breathing through the regulator came naturally. It was like inhaling clean country air, which, frankly, surprised me. I’d been positive that sucking in the breathing gas would make me hyperventilate. Not the case. The biggest challenge was remembering
to
breathe. I actually had to think about it, and would forget from time to time.

Whenever Jared noticed that air bubbles weren’t escaping my regulator, he would have a hand-signaling fit, rolling his hand slowly for me to breathe, and to do it “sleepily” in order to conserve oxygen.

Emery left the scuba diving instruction and monitoring to Jared. I figured he wasn’t overly concerned about my messing up—if I ascended too quickly and ruptured an eardrum or lung or whatever, I’d just heal. But tell that to Jared.

We did something we hadn’t done before. Emery drove us to the marina.

“I can’t imagine how much trouble we’d be in if you got pulled over,” I fretted. We were cruising down Queen Anne Hill in his dad’s SUV, a little after eleven p.m. “Or if our parents knew what we are about to do!”

“Relax, Cassidy. They won’t.” There wasn’t a smidgen of doubt in Emery’s voice. How could he always be so confident?

“Besides,” Jared chimed in from the backseat. He rapped his knuckles on the window and grinned. “Tinted glass. No one can see who’s in the car.”

“And I
won’t
get pulled over.” Emery flipped on the blinker and made a right turn. “But if they try, I’m fairly certain I can outrun the authorities in a high-speed chase.”

“Ha-ha,” I said while Jared actually did laugh.

My ill ease didn’t diminish when we were safely parked at the marina. A sense of calamity grew with each step toward the yacht, as though I could smell doom swirling around us in the cool, salty air. The eerie mist rising off the dark water of the bay contributed to the bad feeling. We had been so focused on getting to this point that we’d neglected to discuss exactly what we hoped to find.

People?

Isn’t that what we were looking for? People in Lake Washington?

A shiver scurried up my spine.

~~~

I sat with Jared as he drove the yacht. Emery organized and checked our gear in the cabin below.

“I haven’t gone through the locks before,” I said. We were waiting, sandwiched between two barges in the narrow chamber of the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, for passage from the salt water of the Puget Sound to the fresh water of Lake Union and Lake Washington. The water was rising, as fresh water poured into the chamber, bringing us level with the lakes.

“When did you learn to drive a boat?” I rambled on, not giving Jared a chance to comment on my previous remark. I rubbed the cool skin of my cheeks, nipped at by the night air, and surveyed the dark clouds threatening to release a torrent of rain.

“When my dad bought this yacht, about two years ago.”

“Two years? Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”

He shrugged, eyeing me. “Are you nervous?”

“A little. I don’t know why.” I fidgeted in the seat. “I’m the last person who should be. Are you?”

“Not really. What are we going to find down there, anyway?”

“Probably nothing,” I agreed, hoping we were both right.

~~~

“Do you think those are fish?” Emery asked Jared. They were studying some squiggly lines toward the bottom of the depth-finder screen.

For the last half hour, we’d been searching the area where we assumed Joe had seen Doc and the woman go into the lake.

My eyes dropped to dark water below, squinting, trying to penetrate the black. I couldn’t see very deep. Overcast skies hid the moon and stars, leaving only the artificial glare that emanated from the 520 Bridge that linked Seattle and Medina as the greatest source of light. I estimated we were around a mile away. The misdirected beams from the bridge didn’t touch the darkness surrounding us, nor did the residential lights that dotted the shores on either side of the lake.

“Could be, but they’re not moving much,” Jared pointed out. “Since we’re looking at a sunken forest, they could be tree branches.” He frowned with frustration. “Don’t know why my dad didn’t update the equipment before remodeling the inside. If this was a new depth finder, we’d know exactly what we’re seeing at seventy-one feet.”

“Well, let’s find out.” Emery gave Jared a pat on the back.

I smiled. I liked seeing them friendly.

The golden moment was fleeting, though. Within seconds, my mouth had flipped back into a frown. That feeling of foreboding had returned full-force, chiseling away at my brain.