All the King's Men Read online

  A confident smile tugged at his lips as he escorted the mother and daughter to the front desk where they bid him adieu and disappeared into the elevator.

  “Excellent job, hot shot!” Paige Jenkins, the receptionist, chimed in with her excitement. There were stars in her brilliant blue eyes as she brushed her blond locks behind her ear.

  Charlie gushed. “Oh, you heard that?”

  “It was a little hard to miss. Mrs. Yamamoto is a hard ass, and even Bullock couldn’t keep her happy. She was about to find another firm, but we managed to convince her to give you a shot.” Paige laughed.

  “Boom.” Charlie grinned, and extended his fist to her.

  “Rockstar.” Paige laughed as she bumped her fist against his for his efforts. “Oh, I almost forgot, this came in for you earlier. Courier drop off…”

  “Really?” Charlie’s head jut back.

  Paige nodded, “I know, you don’t see that much anymore, most everything is major shipping now. I was going to hand it over earlier, but I didn’t want to interrupt. Glad I didn’t.”

  “Thanks.” He seized the envelope from her and started to turn back to his office, when he recognized a guest seated in a partner’s office. Charlie doubled back her desk. “Hey Paige?”

  She hit the full stop on her transcriptions and looked up. “Yeah?”

  “Who’s with Bullock?” Charlie pointed towards her office. There were two seated, a man and a woman, with two bodyguards standing at watch.

  “Some bigwig who works for the city councilman, I think? King? Anyway, it’s some guy in an expensive suit. Real charming, didn’t catch his name—” she trailed her finger down the appointment calendar on her desk and tapped on the date, “Dmitri. There was a gal with him as well. They didn’t say much, even when Mr. Brightman even came out to greet them like they were old chums… Why, what’s up?”

  Charlie looked closer, stretching his line of sight to see the woman sitting beside the man in the suit. She was wearing a pencil skirt and white blouse, with her black coat hanging over the back of the chair. By the looks of it she wore pricy high heels, roughly five inches if he calculated that correctly. She had long, pin-straight black hair, so black it was almost blue, and it had been tied back into a ponytail. Bone structure was exquisite. Her full lips were painted a dark red, almost like the color of blood.

  It was the woman from the bar. Without a doubt, this was the woman they were looking for, but he couldn’t just barge into Marley Bullock’s office like a one-man army. Who knew if she had other Powered ones with her?

  He heard voices, trying to stretch his aural sense beyond the thick barriers blocking his way. Luckily, parts of the walls were also made of glass, and the vibrations of voice tones resonating from them were easy to pick out, though some of the words remained muffled and therefore indiscernible.

  “Our employer is seeking the best legal representation…”

  “You’ve come to the right place.”

  “Our employer will compensate you well for your services…”

  “Mr. Matthews? Ahem—Charlie?” Paige waved her hand to get his attention, tilting her head to catch his gaze.

  “Hmm?” Charlie cleared his throat. He had caught himself staring as he eavesdropped. Straightening up, he brought his attention back to the assistant. “No reason. Thanks, Paige.”

  “Sure thing,” she said with waggled eyebrows and a smile that screamed assumption.

  As much as he wanted to correct her, Charlie left it alone. Catching him gawking at an alluring client seemed more innocent than analyzing her for potential threat. He had something else that drew his focus. The parcel. When he returned to his office, Charlie made sure to open it out of sight. He tugged at the corner of the sealed flap and dragged his forefinger along the opening to tear through it. From there, he pulled out two items, a note and another piece of folded paper. It had a glossy finish, and was made of premium cardstock, from what he could tell by simple touch.

  He flipped over the small note: King = not safe. See if you can find info on the real estate side of things. Watch yourself. – D

  Charlie snickered and got his phone out of his pocket. Once the screen was on, he scrolled over to Danika’s name. Charlie’s thumbs quickly tapped on the keyboard. He’d been smiling the whole time, amused at her old-school methods instead of utilizing the tools at her fingertips. (Package acquired. You know you could have just text a picture of these, right?)

  She quickly responded. (Not safe. Calm down, Mr. Technology.)

  (So, you’re 30 going on 75, right?) He teased, still smiling.

  (Granny has no regrets. Deal with it.) Danika sent that over with a picture of her with her hand over her face, flipping off the camera, accompanied with a message containing a smiley face.

  Charlie shook his head. (Class Act. A Grade.)

  (You love it.)

  The candor was always so snippy, sarcastic and spontaneous with Danika, and he was enjoying that aspect of their bizarre relationship.

  Charlie proceeded to look at the item she shipped over. The brochure was fancy, glossy cardstock with bright and bold printing on it. It was for a camp, advertising the realignment and conditioning of Powered children, though worded in a way that would fool the mass populous. Charlie narrowed his eyes as he looked closer. There was a familiar insignia printed on it, and excerpts from books written by Alton King, made to look like inspirational quotes. Beneath that, there was other information on how to contact the business. Right off the bat, he assumed they were only forwarded numbers that never actually reached King’s headquarters at the Grand Regal, but Charlie would give them a call.

  Have your child look to the light.

  His eyebrows pulled together as he read the text. It was fancy; paragraphs of pseudo-religious jargon that was a clever way to allure parents or guardians of Powered children. Were these almost cultish writings supposed to get them to “recondition” their own children? Charlie kept seeing that word on the paper, and it agitated him. The longer he stared at this brochure, the more he wanted to tear it in half and light it on fire. But he didn’t, for evidence’s sake.

  He gave one more glance toward the door, where he could see across the way into Bullock’s office. Mysterious Dmitri in a blue suit, and the woman he’d been staring at before…

  *

  The drive down the lazy highway back into the city felt longer than their trip out. Technically, it was longer since they’d made the pitstop to send Charlie the pamphlet, after making a copy to take back to HQ. Danika was hoping that the firm where Charlie worked dealt with all King’s accounts, including those he used to purchase and fund the camp, and that Charlie would be able to get that information.

  “How’s the road trip?” Frost’s voice was only slightly distorted as Erik put him on the Bluetooth speakers in his car. “You want the good news or the bad news first?”

  “No time for red pill-blue pill, Frost, step on it. We’re on our way back.” Danika folded her arms as she sat back in the cushy leather seats in Erik’s car. It was nice and shiny, too. If it wasn’t recently restored, she would have kicked her legs up on the seat or dashboard for their journey.

  They could hear as Frost tapped lightly on the keyboard as he scrolled through the necessities to fetch the details for his briefing. “Alright well the bad news is, I found another missing person’s report filed across town. Might be something worth looking into. It’s another Powered kid, also about 11. Name is Grant Billings.”

  “If you’re sending me back out to Hillbilly Highway, I’m trading you places next time, Frost.” Danika grumbled. Mr. Mosley was an ignorant and racist rural hermit, who did nothing but damn the man and everyone else who lived in the upper metro. If it weren’t for Red and her compassion for Mrs. Mosley, she might have lost control and just left their humble home as a vacant lot.

  Frost laughed. “Deal. I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs, but that does mean you’d have to call the shots from here.”

  Ugh. S
he thought, as she grimaced. “Hard pass.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Frost sounded like he wore a sly smile. His job was just that. His. Frost had managed to master the art of multitasking. Hacking, repositioning, realigning, coordinating and keeping business straight was complicated in-house; he majestically made it all come together as dispatcher. No one envied the task, but they sure as hell admired the skill. “So, the good news is: I found info on the infamous cat lady.”

  Danika snickered. “Go on.”

  “Her name is Tabreth Ben… Bena, err… unpronounceable last name, trust me. But now, she runs under the alias Tabitha Bashara. Link says she’s from Cyprus, so you were right, catching on to her accent.”

  Danika just shrugged with a smug grin, but for the most part, kept her victory to herself. Nailed it.

  “Based on what I’ve found and what Callie has been able to decipher—and it was not easy—she’s been working for Alton King for a while, as the assistant to his advisor Dmitri. Now, I couldn’t find any intel on Dmitri right away, but we’re still digging.”

  “Intel.” Danika thought of her uncle when they used official terms like that, and she snickered. “I bet Morgan just loves this.”

  Frost scoffed, “D, this is the first big lead that we’ve had in months and you’re complaining?”

  Danika shook her head, knowing quite well that they were lacking on the work front. It was rather odd, however, that they meet Charlie and suddenly the drama poured out like none other. “Alright, alright. No complaints.”

  When they arrived at the Billings’ residence, there was no one home. Danika even rang the doorbell about ten times just to be sure, but no one was answering. This was a nice little suburban area, and the neighbors even had one of those white picket fences she’d heard so much about. The house was a soft blue with a white trim, plants hanging along the edge of the porch, and furniture that looked like it hadn’t been touched in months. The weather in Augusta was a little soggy as of late, so she didn’t blame them, but the style of the furniture and its placement transported her somewhere else in time. The Carlisle’s had lived in outer Augusta, somewhere between the suburban mazes and the rural outskirts, in a house much like this. It was even furnished and decorated like it, too.

  The point in time she’d been brought to was swirling with so much sentiment that it nearly stole her breath away, especially when she thought of his voice.

  Three and a Half Years Ago…

  “You’re asking her?” A young girl asked, as she sat forward on the edge of her seat on the deck chair. She was overflowing with so much excitement that she was bouncing in her seat.

  Someone else was out there too, seated on the old wicker loveseat and musty old cushions that Danika was supposed to have cleaned off when she arrived home. It was a young man, and she could practically hear him smiling as he talked.

  “Yeah, tomorrow. The scariest thing was probably having to ask your parents but…tradition and everything.”

  Little did they know, Danika was standing just inside, wandering through the kitchen. The window had been left open, but the shade of the screen prevented them from seeing them inside.

  “Then, I get to call you brother for real, I am so excited! And I get to help her pick out a dress!” The girl exclaimed.

  If only she hadn’t dropped that copper mug into the sink she might have been able to hear more of the exchange, but that was where the conversation ended.

  The distinct sound of Erik’s phone unlocking snapped her out of that memory. “I’ll call it in, let Frost know it’s cold here. Dead end.”

  “Or…” Danika brushed past her colleague and started around for the gate at the side of the house, but he was beside her in a flash, and he’d grabbed her arm. Her shoulder went limp as she surrendered to his grasp, pouting as she did. “Aw come on—what now?”

  There was a flare of caution in his eyes. “Just because no one’s here doesn’t mean you should break any windows or you know—mirrors off vehicles…”

  “Quit bringing up the past.” Danika rolled her eyes as she pulled away and started again for the gate. She stood on her tiptoes just to reach over, and when she struggled, she heard a sigh before the gate popped open and Erik was on the other side, with a look of disappointment, mostly toward himself for rolling with her idea. “Thanks.”

  He grumbled in response. “Yeah, yeah. Come on. Just don’t break anything.”

  “You must be spending time with Morgan, you sound too much like him, honestly,” she muttered, making it clear she meant it as more of an insult than a compliment.

  Erik huffed. “What? Because I don’t need you getting arrested for destruction of property?”

  “Yeah that right there! He’d say the same shit.”

  He tilted his head and pursed his lips, before shaking his head. “Everyone would, Dani.”

  Danika broke off from Erik, and the pair trailed their eyes over the yard like hawks ready to swoop down on some clues. It was a relatively clean yard, well kept, well-groomed in a sense that they had probably paid a lot of money for their lawncare treatment to keep it looking as if no one lived here. Danika was out on the other side of the house near the trashcans, when she thought to peek in.

  “Red.”

  “Hm?” Erik turned his head from where he was on the back patio, up the deck steps, peeking in the window.

  “Check it out…” Danika held up a pamphlet. It was the same glossy cardstock they’d picked up before, at the Mosley’s place, with those same infuriating words as their header. “This bullshit again.”

  Once Erik sped over to her side, he took the brochure from Danika and clicked his tongue. “Damn. Nice catch, Sherlock.”

  “Hah.” Danika pulled her phone up to her ear. “Frost, you there?”

  “What’s up, D?”

  “I have a feeling this is gonna be a long night.”

  “What’d you find?” he asked.

  “I got a hunch that Grant Billings may be wherever the hell they took the Mosley girl. I’ll bring it back for analysis or whatever.”

  “Damn.” Frost sighed heavily. “Alright, head back to base unless you scope anything else out there.”

  “Got it.” Once she clicked to hang up the call, Danika’s eyes widened. “Red—”

  Erik was studying the pamphlet closely. “Wha—?”

  “Get down!” Danika pulled the batons secured behind her back out from under her jacket. With a twirl, pivoting on her back leg, she flung one out to her intended target, but they quickly dodged it. The wood burst into splinters at the impact, leaving the baton buried inches deep into the wall. “Shit.”

  The newcomer charged at her. Their face was covered by a bandana, and the hint of red and black eyes peeking out at her. She wondered why they didn’t opt to run away, though she had Erik with her, so it would have been a losing battle if it had gone that route anyway.

  Wisps of smoke surrounded her attacker, and he was fast, as if he’d teleported forward to get to her. Before she could move out of the way, Danika was struck down to the ground. The wind was knocked out of her. To her surprise, as quickly as the weight had fallen onto her, it was removed, the red streaks of Erik’s movement mixed with the mist of billowing shadow from the interloper almost made her dizzy. She gasped at the loud thud of a body hitting the nearby tree and she was back up on her feet in an instant.

  Suddenly, Danika recognized the man by his scent, and that was saying something, since she wasn’t classified as a Powered with an uber-heightened sense of smell. The stench of cologne was pungent, and enough to send her diving back into her memory bank to find out just who that particular scent belonged to, which didn’t take long. “Red, wait!” she exclaimed.

  “Who are you?” Erik’ forearm was digging into the man’s throat, to which he’d responded with a lazy pat on Erik’s forearm.

  “Yo, smartie pants, he’s not gonna be able to answer with you up in his shit like that.” Danika put her hand on his should
er, enticing him to pull away with a reassuring pat.

  Erik stepped back but didn’t fully relax as he caught his breath. “You know him?”

  “Yeah…” Danika nodded. “What the hell are you doing here, Sloane?”

  The curve of his thin smile ran along the parallel of his strong jawline when he pulled the bandana from his face. He fixed the collar of his leather jacket as he stood upright and dusted himself off, before turning his baby blue eyes toward them. Sloane swept a bit of black hair out of his face. “Nice to see you too, Dani.”

  *

  “Look who I found.” Danika strolled into the conference room with her partner for the day and their pickup in tow. The team was already there waiting for them to return and present their findings.

  Neither she nor Morgan ever thought they’d see the return of Ian Sloane. He was an old ally, one who had disappeared after Monroe—after Carter—without a trace. She should have figured, with the parlor tricks of glowing red eyes and the black smoke, that it was him, amused that the memory trigger was his cologne.

  “Mr. Sloane.” Morgan stood upright at the head of the conference table. He smiled, though only slightly, his shoulders squared as if he were uncomfortable with this newcomer.