Under My Skin (Wildlings) (38 page)

I tell Mom where we are, then Solana takes me to Target. By the time she arrives, I'm waiting with the two agents dressed in baggy new skater shorts, a Wild Surf T-shirt, sneakers and a baseball cap to cover my lack of hair. I shouldn't have bothered trying to hide the fact that my dreads are gone. It's the first thing she notices.

She jumps out of the car and grabs me. "Honey, your hair! What happened? I've been so worried. What did they do to you? Where did they take you?"

The barrage of questions comes so fast that I have no time to answer. I don't know that I could. She's holding me so tight that it's hard to breathe. I realize she's crying.

"Calm down, Mom. I'm okay."

She gives me another hard hug, then she steps back. She pulls a tissue from her pocket and composes herself as best she can. But a tissue can't hide the dark hollows under her eyes, or how red they are from crying. She looks way older than I remember.

When I think of how it would have been for her if I'd stayed in that other world with Elzie, I feel a little sick.

Finally she turns to the agents. "Are you the men who rescued him?" she asks them.

"Your son rescued himself," Matteson says. "That's quite the boy you've raised, ma'am."

Wow, I think. Who knew he could brown-nose so well?

"Please," she says. "Call me Naomi."

He smiles. "Naomi it is, then." He takes her hand in both of his and holds it for a long moment before dropping it.

I give him a closer look and realize that he's not brown-nosing. He's flirting with my mom. How gross is that? Who flirts with a woman who's just gone through what she has? But then I realize I'm wrong about that, too. He's just being kind. Compassion is such an alien thing when it comes to how I see him that it didn't register.

"Maybe you should sit down for a moment," he says to Mom.

He lifts the hatch of the SUV for her and ushers her over. She pats the space beside her and I sit down. Her arm goes around my shoulders and she holds me tight. I can feel her still trembling.

Marina

I'm making good time in spite of feeling exhausted. Physically, I'm not so bad, but emotionally, I've pretty much been steamrolled. Thinking back on yesterday almost makes my head spin. So much went down that it's hard to believe it could all take place in the space of a day. I'm going to be in huge trouble at home, but I'm actually looking forward to getting there. Sleep is what I want more than anything. And after that, the freedom of getting on top of some waves. That is, assuming I'll be allowed to get out on the waves. I've never pushed the envelope this far.

I jump when my phone rings. I'm surprised there's enough juice left. I pull it out to check the display and see that it's Desmond. Thank God, he's safe. As least, I assume so. Julie would have mentioned any trouble regarding Desmond. She's had the hots for him since grade ten and watches him like a hawk. He never even notices, big lovable lug that he is. I've thought of setting them up, but it would be too weird when they broke up, and for sure they'd break up.

I'm about to answer when I hear the roar of a motorcycle coming up the street behind me. I send out another silent prayer.
Please, please, don't let that be a cop.

The motorcycle comes right alongside me and slows down. My heart is in my throat. I have to look.

"Nice locomotion you've got there, sweetcheeks."

I come to a dead halt. I am so relieved that I could hug him. "Jeez, you scared me half to death. I was sure you were a cop."

"Well, if I
were
a cop," Chaingang says, lowering his shades, "I'd want to arrest you and lock you up tight where I could keep an eye on you."

 I can't help but laugh. It feels unbelievably good to laugh, to be back in Santa Feliz, to be standing here on the street with Chaingang, even to be going home to face the music. And it feels good to have someone so obviously into me. It's not that I've never had guys hit on me, but this feels different. Deeper somehow. Perhaps it's only that shared camaraderie that we're both Wildlings and we've just gone through something huge. Maybe it's more than that.

"Hop on," he says, patting the seat behind him. "I'll drive you partway home—give you something solid to hang on to again."

I swing my leg over the seat and hold on tight.

Josh

We've just finished telling Mom about my having been kidnapped by ValentiCorp when another black SUV pulls up. I glance across the parking lot and see a half-dozen others enter in a line, one after the other. The lead vehicle pulls away and drives toward Pep Boys. The rest continue along their way until they're out of my range of vision.

A big guy with a shaved head steps out of the SUV that stopped near us. By the way Matteson and Solana straighten up, I figure this is their boss. Mom and I stand up as he approaches us. He puts out his hand.

"Mrs. Saunders?" he says to Mom. "My name's Jason Lindel. I can't tell you how sorry we are for the worry you've had to go through."

"Thank you," Mom says as she shakes his hand.

 He looks at me with what appears to be genuine concern. "How are you holding up, son?"

"I'm okay."

His body language and voice are easygoing, but his eyes have steel in them and they don't seem to miss a thing. He studies me for a moment, then turns back to Mom.

"Have the agents explained why we need your son's help?" he asks.

"Yes, but ... I've just got him back ..."

Lindel nods. "His safety is our number one concern, Mrs. Saunders. We won't bring him inside until we're sure the building's cleared of danger. But if he can just lead us to where he was held captive and—" He shoots an unspoken question to the agents and Solana nods. "—to where he found the bodies, it will make our job that much easier."

She looks reluctant and even horrified, but if there's one thing I know about my mom, it's that she'll do the right thing.

"As long as you're certain it's safe … and Josh doesn't mind ..."

"Absolutely," Lindel says. "I guarantee your boy will be fine. He'll be of immense help to our investigation. We have to think of those other kids and their parents."

That cinches it.

"All right, then," she says.

"You've raised a brave young man," Lindel tells her. "Okay, let's get the vests on and do this thing."

Matteson hands me a tactical Kevlar vest with "FBI" emblazoned on it in big white letters.

"I thought you said there wasn't any danger," Mom says as I'm putting on the vest. It weighs more than I expected, but that's not a problem for me.

"It's just a precaution, Mrs. Saunders," Solana says. "We intend to take every measure available to us to keep your boy safe."

When the other agents and Lindel have their vests on, Lindel gives us all a once-over.

"Let's saddle up," he says. "You folks ride with Special Agents Matteson and Solana."

He gets back into the SUV he arrived in. Besides his driver, there are two other agents in the back seat. When we pull up in front of ValentiCorp, three of the other FBI vehicles are already parked there.

"Hang on," Matteson says as I go to open the car door. "The Chief needs to sort out jurisdictions."

I'm not sure what he means, so I open my window and let my Wildling hearing do its thing as three cops approach Lindel. He pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

"Where's Neufield?" Lindel asks the nearest one.

"Chief!" the cop yells toward the building. A tall man with greying hair and broad shoulders turns around from where he's standing several yards from the building.

"Hello, Jason," he says, walking over to Lindel with his hand extended. "I hope you're here to take this headache away from me."

I recognize him from TV and the paper. He's Ted Neufield, the Santa Feliz Police Chief.

"Come take a look," he says as they shake hands. As they walk back toward ValentiCorp, Neufield introduces various officials along the way. There are officers from the County Sheriff's office, the Highway Patrol and a man in dark blue suit from Homeland Security. The FBI agents from the other three cars have followed behind and are waiting Lindel's orders.

"What do we have so far?" Lindel asks.

"As you can see, a lot of damage to the front entrance and foyer of the building. Witnesses say it was a red SUV, but there's no sign of the driver, or even the vehicle that did it. Staff from some of the other stores say a bunch of motorcycles pulled into the complex shortly before this all went down, so it could be part of a gang war. Apparently there was a lot of gunfire. That's about all we know. We haven't actually gotten access to the inside yet. The security here is Black Key, so you know what that means."

"They've been stonewalling you."

"They claim there's structural damage inside and don't want to let us in until it's been checked over by their team. ValentiCorp is afraid of lawsuits if the place comes down. Einhorn—" He nods at the man from Homeland Security. "—says the company has a number of sensitive government contracts, meaning it could be an act of terrorism. That's why he's here."

"Where's the head of Black Key?" Lindel asks.

The Police Chief points to where three men are standing nearer to the damaged entrance. I recognize the man on the right as one of the men who grabbed me at the school. I wish I could release the mountain lion on him.

"He's the one in the middle," Neufield says. "Name's Clint Gaillard. Ex-marine, apparently."

"Thanks," Lindel says. "We'll take it from here."

"If this was a terrorist attack …" the man from Homeland Security begins.

"We don't know what it was," Lindel tells him. "But we do know that it was the site of a juvenile kidnapping and that puts it in our jurisdiction."

With that, he sets off toward the head of Black Key Securities, his agents following in a fan shape behind him.

"What's happening?" Mom asks.

"We're just gaining access to the site," Matteson says. "It shouldn't take long."

I'm not too sure about that. Even from where I am, my Wildling sight shows Gaillard bristling at the approach of the Chief and his agents. He's as tall as Lindel, but in much better shape.

Lindel looks into the trashed foyer of ValentiCorp, then waves the search warrant in the man's face.

"I'm going to need you and your men to stand down," he says. "We need access to the building."

"I'm sorry, sir," Gaillard says, "but I can't allow that without the okay from my bosses. We have concerns about structural damage."

"Bullshit about the structural damage. Any fool can see that no bearing walls have been affected. And speaking of fools, don't you see what
this
is?" Lindel adds, holding the warrant mere inches from the other man's face.

"I still can't let you—"

"Brackens and Johnson," Lindel says and two of his men step forward. "Cuff  Mr. Gaillard. Read him his rights and then charge him with obstruction of justice."

"You can't—" Gaillard begins.

But the two agents are already on either side of him. They each grip an arm and propel him to the side of the closest vehicle. They push him down over the hood, pull his hands behind his back and snap on the handcuffs. One of them starts reciting his rights.

Lindel's attention is now on the two other Black Key guards who were standing with Gaillard. He holds the warrant up.

"Either of you care to join him?" he says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward Gaillard.

One man shoots a glance to where his boss stands in cuffs.

"I can't just—"

"Arrest him as well," Lindel tells his men as he turns to the remaining guard. "And how about you?"

The guard sighs. "You might as well arrest me, too. I don't have the authority to make that kind of decision."

Lindel motions to his men and they take the pair away to where Gaillard is standing under guard. Lindel looks toward the front entrance, where yet more of the Black Key guards are standing.

"I can do this all day," he calls over to them. "Right now, you're only facing obstruction charges, but if we find what I expect to find inside, you'll also be up on charges of accessory after the fact."

"What are you talking about?" one of the guards calls back. "
We
were the ones who were attacked."

"Arrest them all," Lindel says.

His men move forward.

"Man," Matteson says softly to his partner. "I wish I could hear everything that's going on. Do you see how many of those guys he's got in cuffs? I'm gaining a whole new respect for the Chief."

Solana nods. "He's pretty hardcore, all right." He turns from the front seat to look at me. "Do you recognize any of those guards?"

"Well, they're pretty far away," I lie, "but one of those three looks like one of the men who grabbed me from school." I point to the first three men who were arrested. "The one standing on the right."

"Let me tell the Chief," Solana says.

He gets out of the car and trots over to where Lindel is watching the remaining Black Key guards arguing with the agents arresting them.

"Saunders says he thinks he can finger at least one of them for the abduction," he tells Lindel.

Lindel nods. "Ask the Police Chief to bring us a prisoner van. We'll run the bunch of them against that video footage."

Solana heads off to where the local law enforcement officers are standing, watching the show. Lindel waits until the last of the guards is handcuffed, then he motions for us to join him.

"You should wait in the car," I tell Mom as she reaches for her door handle.

Matteson turns from the front seat. "He's right, Mrs. Saunders. It will be much more comfortable for you waiting here."

"But—"

"I'll be okay, Mom. Special Agent Matteson will be with me."

He gives me a surprised look and I wonder, how did we ever end up on the same side
?
Then I give Mom a quick kiss and step outside.

We cross the pavement to where Lindel is waiting for us.

"You're sure you're all right with this, son?" Lindel asks me.

I give him a quick nod.