Page 9 of Capitol Matters (Marionette #2)

By the end of the second week, Capitol Fitch had found his rhythm. No more sweaty construction work meant time for patrols with Holland, whose ice queen facade was slowly beginning to thaw.

Maximus followed up Monday, informing me in the vaguest way possible that he knew about Yankee Doodle. At least, he knew the councilman went missing, and both of us were content to leave it at that.

I’d even squeezed in a second kidnapping. A fast grab after work Wednesday night, for which I prepared in advance by parking my car next to the space typically used by the city treasurer. She had gone down on my list as Ms. Speak to Your Manager, due to the bobbed haircut that made her head look as round as her ass. I made quick work of stuffing her in the Porsche’s cramped front trunk and ferrying her safely to Donovan.

With only two down and six to go, I needed to pick up the pace.

The elevator door slid open, and I stepped into the parking garage. Most people cleared out early on Fridays, which made me one of the last to leave at 5:15. Looking like a real overachiever, but the reality was I had been asked—make that ordered—to meet Grimm at the motel and fill him in on the progress of mine and Donovan’s joint venture. Needless to say, I was in no hurry to get home.

I scrolled my phone as I ambled to where I’d parked the Porsche. Besides Grimm’s message and a missed call from Nash, there hadn’t been much activity during the workday. As I repocketed my cell, I heard voices ahead.

The pop and shatter of glass spurred me to dash around the wall dividing this floor of the garage. With so few cars in the lot, it was easy to find mine, and easier still to spot the trio of investigators. Though they’d done their best to avoid me the last week, I remembered Holland’s hostile team members well.

The Porsche was in shambles. It sat on all four rims with its tires shredded and every panel dented. The back window was spiderwebbed with cracks, and shards of glass littered the pavement.

I froze midstride. My jaw flexed a hard bite, too angry to even cuss, as I scanned the group of investigators hovering around my car.

Tobin, the ringleader, stood to one side, leaning against a wooden bat while Vesper aimed a rattle can of red paint at the Porsche’s windshield. Felix had distanced himself from the other two and faced away from my approach. None of them realized they’d been caught until I threw a rope of thought through the air and yanked the bat from Tobin’s grasp.

All three looked my way with varying degrees of shock on their faces. The spray can tumbled from Vesper’s hand and clattered onto the ground.

“Real funny, fuckwads!” I called out.

The bat hovered in midair, level with Tobin’s head and ready to swing away.

No one moved as I continued. “You all really know how to make a guy feel welcome.”

Wasn’t I the villain here? These were supposed to be the heroes of the story yet here they were, up to some petty criminal shit.

I walked forward, hot air swelling my chest. Did they not have the good sense to fear me? I preyed on their kind. I made my name killing their contemporaries. Here, I was a wolf among sheep, and the sheep were too dumb to understand their place on the food chain.

Rather than run or offer meaningless apologies, the head sheep—the one with the baseball bat poised to grand slam his skull—looked me straight in the eyes, raised his hand, and snapped.

They vanished. All three gone. No trace.

I spun a full circle, checking for evidence of escape but finding none. I heard no sounds of retreat and saw no shadows fading from view. Nothing.

The answer was magic, of course, but what kind? Teleportation? Invisibility?

Searching the area once more found the bat also missing. I hadn’t dropped it, and I felt confident I would have noticed someone wrestling it from my mental grasp.

The longer I looked for the investigators, the less I could keep my eyes away from the disaster before me. The Porsche sagged low to the ground, a slain beast with its taillights shattered and body as crumpled as a crushed can.

I learned to drive long after my sixteenth birthday. Car keys and a license were the last things Grimm wanted me to have. After years of keeping me captive, he thought I would take the first chance I had to run. So did I. But, by the time I learned to hotwire and steal the rundown, high mileage sports car, I was entrenched.

Closing the last bit of distance, I arrived beside the Porsche and laid a hand on the battered quarter panel. The damage wasn’t irreparable, but it was extensive.

Moving ahead to the windshield found Vesper’s spray paint handiwork: the word MURDERER dripped down the glass in bloody red.

I swore and kicked the pavement, sending grit skittering.

There would be no repercussions for them, and that pissed me off more than anything. Like with schoolyard bullying, it was always retaliation that brought trouble, which I couldn’t afford in my tenuous position.

I’d seen enough, but I needed a while longer to cool off or risk venting rage on an unsuspecting cab driver.

The space beside the Porsche was empty save for the yellow striped parking cut where I could sit. As I approached, I noticed the little black ball resting on one end. It was the Magic 8 Ball Felix had been tossing around when I first met him.

Is that you, Karma?

As I scooped up the ball, Tobin’s smug look and snap came to mind. “I think I may have some competition for the title of office asshole,” I mused. “What do you say?”

I gave the toy a shake, then turned it to wait for the die inside to roll over. Slowly, it surfaced, white in a field of blue liquid.

It is certain.

I snorted. “Perfect.”

If it was a competition, I wouldn’t shy away. Maybe I couldn’t get vengeance directly, but I wouldn’t take this kind of abuse lying down.

The patter of footsteps drawing near pricked my ears. I glanced toward the elevator and spotted the afroed investigator creeping up. When he saw me and the toy I held aloft, his expression went stricken.

In contrast, I was all smiles.

“This yours?” I gave the ball another shake.

He grimaced, looking at the wrecked Porsche long enough for guilt to shade his features. “It was Tobin’s idea,” he said in a soft voice.

“I figured.”

Felix’s Adam’s apple bobbed an anxious swallow. His golden eyes darted from the Magic 8 Ball to my face then back, on repeat.

His focus was so intense that I couldn’t help but look at the toy myself. What was it about this thing? Family heirloom? Emotional support item?

“Please don’t…” Felix trailed off.

“Don’t what?” I asked. “Smash it?”

When I spun the ball on one finger, he whimpered.

I chuckled darkly. “Why would I do something like that?”

I should have. We both knew it. But his meek expression, and my awareness that both times I’d encountered him he’d been an observer rather than an active antagonist, sucked the wind out of my sails.

“Take it.” I lobbed the 8 Ball to him.

He scrambled to catch it, using both hands as though it were a fragile thing, or maybe he was just uncoordinated. After giving the toy a quick wellness check, he remained in place, looking awkwardly around the empty garage.

“You gonna hang around and gloat?” I asked him.

His eyes widened, golden irises ringed by black lashes. “What?” he sputtered. “No.”

I walked toward the front end of the Porsche and gave it a thump. “Wanna finish her off?” I asked. “I think the engine still runs. Or you could cut the brake lines.”

“Yeah…” Felix’s face twisted. “They already did that.”

My nostrils flared through a short breath. “Just a whole buncha dicks, aren’t you?” I glanced at the rear motor compartment, wondering what else they’d gotten into. Plenty of tubes and wires connected vital automotive organs. The hefty bodywork bill I’d been imagining doubled with mechanical failure involved. Too bad criminals—and recently reformed ones—didn’t carry car insurance.

Felix approached with the Magic 8 Ball tucked securely under his arm. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For what it’s worth, you don’t seem so bad to me.”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if I broke your toy,” I replied.

“But you didn’t.”

I nodded. “Good to know I’ve got at least one of you fooled.”

Looking at the ruined Porsche stirred my insides up again, so I leaned against it and scrubbed my fingers along the sides of my scalp. I needed to call a cab. Needed to get to my meeting with Grimm. Needed to have my newfound beater towed to the nearest repair shop. Didn’t want to do any of it.

Felix stayed close while I squinted at him. He looked down, polishing a spot on the 8 Ball’s slick surface. I was about to question again why he hadn’t left me in peace when he spoke.

“We studied you at the training academy,” he said. “The Farrow family case.”

“I’m course material?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“What an honor.” The sarcasm tasted bitter in my mouth.

“What happened to your parents and your brother…” His forehead scrunched at what must have been an unsettling thought. “It was a tragedy.”

I grunted a discordant sound. “Try living it.”

I almost felt bad for the investigators who stumbled onto that scene. My father fought to defend his family, but he was outnumbered by the Bloody Hex members slinging spells like outlaws in a shootout. I’d been too young to help—despite mentally tearing one of the men to pieces in a display of power I didn’t know I had. It had been enough to save my life and Donovan’s by proxy. The older I got, though, the more I wondered if I hadn’t secured us a far worse fate.

“Do you need a ride home?” Felix asked. “I feel like I owe you.”

I flapped my hand. “You don’t owe me anything, man.”

“Yeah, well…” He offered a half-smile. “Do you want the ride anyway?”

Leading an investigator to the Lazy Daze Motel had all the dramatic appeal of bringing a surprise significant other to a family dinner. The look on Grimm’s face would be worth any amount of tongue lashing and fist shaking I would have to endure afterward. I was perturbed enough to do it, too. Someone should be in as shitty a mood as I was, and it might as well be Grimm.

But that could splash back on Felix or the other members of Holland’s team. If Grimm sicced the Hex on them, my work/life balance would fall into shambles. I liked to think he knew better than to start trouble with Maximus’s daughter, just like he must have thought I knew better than to let a Capitol employee drive me home.

I returned Felix’s smile with slightly more vigor. “Thanks, but I’m good. Gonna call a cab.”

Felix seemed to take that as his dismissal. He was halfway through a turn to go when I thought of one more question.

“Hey, tell me something.”

He glanced back.

“You’re clearly a soft touch,” I said, “but I don’t expect apologies from the other two. If I’m gonna be working with you, we might as well get along. Not to mention I don’t want to foot the repair bill for a totaled car more than once.” I gave the Porsche another pat. “So, what’s it gonna take?”

His head tipped, quizzical. “Take for what?”

“For me to convince you all that I’m not a scumbag murderer.” I jerked my thumb toward the word graffitied on the windshield. “And that I’m not here to start shit. I get enough of that… everywhere else,” I finished after a pause.

Felix passed the 8 Ball from one hand to the other, pondering. “I guess that depends,” he said. “Did you really not kill all those people?”

My inner voice told me to lie, embrace my innocence, be more like Capitol Fitch.

Instead, I squirmed like a perp under a spotlight.

“You just told me I wasn’t so bad.” My sheepish laugh proved less than convincing.

Felix tucked the 8 Ball under his arm once more. “You’re not so bad for a murderer ,” he said.

My discomfort subsided as rapidly as it had spiked. Was I still shaken about the car or was magic at play? I eyed the 8 Ball, as suspicious now as I should have been when a grown man returned to a fresh crime scene to rescue his forgotten toy.

I twitched a finger toward it. Not to pull it from his grip, simply pointing. Would he answer if I asked about its significance? Not likely.

Before I could speak again, Felix beamed a wide grin and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”