Framing Felipe, page 2
truck.”
“I was hoping to get some sleep tonight.”
Dana finally cracked a grin. “You and me both. Not that I ever sleep during the full
moon. One of these days that dirty cat of mine is going to get himself clawed up too bad to
fix.”
“He’s smarter than that.”
Her grin waned. “I hope so. Let’s hope this acrobat is smarter than that, too.”
FRAMING FELIPE – 7 – Holley Trent
CHAPTER TWO
Felipe Castillo hid in plain sight…more or less. With his back pressed against the
warehouse’s brick wall, and black hood drawn low over his brow, he probably seemed to
disappear into the shadows. A funny thought, because if he really wanted to disappear, he
could. Few people knew about his rare gift. His brother Fabian knew, obviously, because he
shared it. Then there were the other freaks at the circus who had their own secrets to keep.
And last, there was the person who exploited their gifts. He and Fabian called him el
negrero: the slave driver.
And really, that’s all he was. Even as kids, there had been no better word to explain
their relationship to the man. He’d never been much of a father figure.
From the time Felipe and Fabian were four, turning five, their days were counted in
blood, sweat, and tears. They thought the circus training was fun at first. The circus was
their playground, and they had full access to the gymnastics apparatuses. Under tutelage of
an acrobat too old and too broken to perform any longer, the brothers learned to leap and
flip. They learned to fly.
But ringmaster Jacques was an impatient man, and a greedy one, so their net was taken
away too fast. Their stunts became death defying much too soon. They were two little boys,
risking their lives twice a day—and three times on Sundays—drawing gasps from their
genteel audiences as they hurtled through the air like blond cannonballs. People could
hardly believe their eyes for the stunts, and rightfully so. Some seemed to be illusions. They
weren’t, but the crowd didn’t know that.
So they grew up in that, getting pushed harder to do exponentially more dangerous
things for increasingly jaded crowds who clung ever tighter to their money.
They’d seen many of their peers in the travelling freak show become paralyzed or
worse from falls. But, Felipe and Fabian had more than skill. They had their own sort of
magic.
At least, that’s what Fabian thought. Felipe wasn’t so sure of that. If they were magic,
wouldn’t they have some luck? They’d always seemed short on that.
FRAMING FELIPE – 8 – Holley Trent
A couple walking with arms linked passed in front of him on the sidewalk. He eased
back into the bricks a bit more, watching the young lovers until they disappeared around
the corner.
Lucky.
From where he stood, he could see the backside of the circus’s main tent, and the
caravan vehicles that’d brought them and all their gear there. In one of those campers was
Fabian, probably pacing. Fretting.
He wouldn’t be forced to perform without Felipe. They were a package deal. But Fabian
wouldn’t be worried about performing, anyhow. He didn’t live and breathe for the circus.
Neither of them did. His brain would be occupied with thoughts of survival because he, like
Felipe, knew Jacques didn’t make idle threats. Jacques wouldn’t allow the duo to shirk the
spotlight for long.
Somewhere nearby, a church bell pealed and the sound echoed through the valley.
Felipe counted the dongs. One, two, three, all the way to seven, then fixed his gaze on that
camper again. He thought maybe Fabian wouldn’t remember, but then there was the light.
Felipe straightened up and concentrated on the flashes, cataloging the frequency and
length.
Two flashes of light at the kitchenette window. A long pause. Three flashes of light.
After all those years, he remembered that code they devised as teenagers in case they
should ever get separated. Two-‐pause-‐three: I’m fine for now.
He swallowed and waited for the repeat.
Two-‐pause-‐three.
Not a fluke, then. Not a mistake.
Felipe shoved off the wall and pulled his backpack strap up to his right shoulder, only
to stop walking when more lights flashed.
“Fabian… ¿Qué estás haciendo? ”
One-‐pause-‐four. One-‐pause-‐four: I called for help.
Help? Who the hell could help? Who could Fabian confide in? What would he possibly
say to them?
“Mierda. ”
FRAMING FELIPE – 9 – Holley Trent
His brother had always been the more cautious of the two of them, but even when he
had stumbled into trouble, it was Felipe who took his blows.
Help? No one could give him the kind of help he needed, and even if they were so
inclined to stick their necks out, they’d probably want to lock him away in a padded room
and assign some team of scientists to study him.
At the sound of the approaching train, he sped his pace. He phased to invisible as the
beast rolled near, then eased onto the locomotive’s small back ledge, grateful for the train’s
slow speed as it chugged through the small town.
He retook his physical form and crouched low into the shadows cast by the train,
watching the lights from the circus and town shrink smaller and smaller. If the conductor
opened the door, Felipe could phase back in an instant, but holding on was so much easier
when he had hands to use.
Running was foolish, and he knew it, but he hadn’t been thinking clearly. People rarely
made sound choices when they were desperate, and desperate he was. He’d have to go back
for his brother, but right then, the best thing he could do was put some distance between el
negrero and him. Jacques could threaten all we wanted, but as long as Felipe wasn’t there,
Fabian was safe.
…Felipe hoped.
Sarah pressed the phone against her ear and leaned against the tent support, rolling a
circus program into a tight tube. She tapped it against her thigh as the phone rang on the
other end.
“Yeah?” answered a baritone voice.
Sarah turned her back to the crowd filling into the bleachers nearby and whispered,
“Patrick, where’s Dana?”
“She left me her phone in case you called. She and the rest of the Shrews went out to set
up some surveillance before the gathering tonight.”
FRAMING FELIPE – 10 – Holley Trent
“Right…” That had been on the agenda. It’d been Sarah’s idea to install cameras around
the clearing the were-‐cats used for their monthly meeting. One of the Shrews would hang
back at Patrick’s cabin and watch the live video while the others acted as security.
The cats hadn’t needed security until recently when a couple of their wild young men
broke the tenuous truce the group had with the were-‐bears whose territory abutted theirs.
They hadn’t exactly hired the Shrews directly, but since Dana was dating Patrick and Dana
thought Patrick had a death wish, it’d become something of a monthly gig for them.
This time, though, they were prepped for war. Sarah had made a lot of contacts in the
mountains in recent months, and like Dana, she had a psychic gift that occasionally came in
handy for investigation work. She could compel people to talk. The best Doc could tell was
that she made something in other people’s brain chemistry shift. They became calm,
compliant. They felt like unloading their thoughts to her was a damned good idea. That’s
how she found out the bears weren’t just content with retaliating against the cats
anymore—that they were itching to strike unprovoked.
The were-‐cat leader, Billy, couldn’t prove it, but he was pretty sure the bears were
responsible for his grown granddaughter’s disappearance.
“Anything important?” Patrick nudged.
“No. It’s the boss lady’s new rule as of last night. I’m supposed to check in frequently
when I’m working alone. She has to hear my voice or she won’t believe it’s me.”
That new fear of momma-‐bird Dana had activated during the undercover assignment
Sarah had just come out of. Sarah had made a stupid mistake and lost her phone. A
bartender at the strip club she was infiltrating found it and handed it over to his boss one
night after closing. Sarah knew the boss had been suspicious of her for a while, asking her
all kinds of questions about her past, saying she was too smart to be a strip club waitress.
She’d held her tongue at the time, and made sure to temper her vocabulary in future
interactions with the guy.
Anyhow, he didn’t get much from trawling her phone. The only number programmed
into it was the Shrew’s answering service, who had been instructed to answer calls with a
very vague greeting. Her boss had tried having another female employee call and put a
message through, disguising her voice to mimic Sarah’s, but Dana hadn’t fallen for it. If
FRAMING FELIPE – 11 – Holley Trent
Sarah had called, she would have only said, “I need someone to turn the lights off at my
place.” That was their standard verbiage for “I’ll be out another day.”
Sarah’s boss at the strip club had offered her phone back a couple of days later…for a
fee. Sarah refused to pay it, and was thus out of the loop having missed four call attempts
from Dana who’d been in touch with the agency who’d contracted Sarah. They were ready
to act, and couldn’t get in touch with Sarah. So, Dana freaked, thinking perhaps the guy had
dragged Sarah into his back room and subjugated her like all the rest. And that’s what
Sarah was there to find out—if the guy was trafficking sex workers from Central America.
The answer was yes.
“Any luck with your guy?” Patrick asked, drawing Sarah out of her reverie.
She blew some air through her lips, and turned to scan the the temporary arena where
a spotlight shone down onto an open podium. Calliope music piped through the speakers,
and the crowd clapped and whistled their encouragement. The show would start soon.
“I couldn’t get in until this evening. Matinee was sold out. I did, though, talk to a couple
of the set-‐up guys outside. Couldn’t get much information out of them. They didn’t know
much about the Castillos, or if they did, they didn’t want to share it with me. I got a program
and I see now that the Castillos are identical. Fabian is around here somewhere, according
to a clown I bumped into. She was so bummed they’re not performing tonight. When I
asked why they weren’t, she gave me this exaggerated shrug. As soon as the show starts,
I’m going to slip out and see if I can find him.”
“Look, in Dana’s absence, I’ll tell you what she would tell you. Watch your back, and
don’t be stupid.”
Yep. That’s exactly what Dana would say. “Will do.” Sarah disconnected right as the
ringmaster—a silver-‐haired man wearing a pearl gray suit with tails and a top hat—leapt
onto the podium in the center ring. A microphone descended from the overhead grid on a
long black cord. He grabbed it handily from the air with a practiced ease.
He started to clap. Slowly at first, to draw the crowd into his rhythm, and then
gradually more quickly. The noise in the tent was deafening with the frantic claps, the
stomping feet, and the hoots and whistles from the crowd. All eyes were on Jacques. All
except for Sarah’s, that is.
FRAMING FELIPE – 12 – Holley Trent
When the lights in the stands went dark, and Jacques turned to face the other side of
the area, Sarah took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the pitch blackness of the aisle and
crept out.
In the deserted back lot, she scanned for witnesses, and seeing none, strode with
purpose toward the mobile restrooms she’d sought out earlier. Inside, in front of a mirror,
she opened her oversized purse and extracted dark sunglasses, a hospital mask, and a knit
hat which she stuffed her loose hair into. Donning the glasses and the mask, she looked like
an immune-‐compromised patron looking for a cheap local thrill.
Before closing her bag, she extracted her Glock and tucked it into her waistband. Better
safe than sorry. Next from the bag came a granny cardigan, which would not only cover her
weapon, but age her a few years.
She assessed herself in the dirty mirror, and shrugged, reasonably satisfied no one
would recognize her, or at least find none of her features particularly memorable. This was
one of several of her portable costumes, and the use of easy disguises was an encouraged
tool in the Shrew arsenal. In fact, it’d become pretty much part of the routine when the
ladies were due to meet new clients.
Dana, a former police detective, didn’t like them being remembered while they were
out and about, figuring someone would eventually make a connection. Already, the agency
had a reputation for taking unusual jobs. They didn’t want speculation about why it was
always them who got called to do these weird and tough jobs to bloom beyond mere
supposition. Few people knew what the Shrews were. Few people knew that such things as
were-‐mountain lions, psychics, and witches existed. Seemed wise to keep it that way.
Pulling the door open, she found the lot as empty as before, and strode out, putting a
slump in her shoulders that belied her health.
Before entering the tent, she’d done some simple reconnaissance and learned all the
performer trailers were in the southwest corner of the lot where the premises abutted a
six-‐foot chain link fence. That was all she knew. The performers’ names weren’t
emblazoned on the doors, so she didn’t know who lived where.
She walked for a minute before spying a man bent over a large, wooden blue box, his
head stuffed deep inside as he rummaged.
FRAMING FELIPE – 13 – Holley Trent
Sarah slumped a bit more and wrung the strap of her purse between her hands. She
cleared her throat.
The man startled, bumping his head on the box lid, and swearing an oath under his
breath. When his rheumy eyes tracked up to her figure standing there, he quickly forced
the lid down.
Her gaze flitted to the box, then away before he noticed her concern. There had to be
something that was either illegal or a trade secret in there. Sarah hoped it was the latter.
Before some accusation could escape his thin lips, she sent out a torrent of calming
thoughts.
“Maybe you could help me. Running late tonight.” She performed a dramatic inhalation
of breath, followed by a raspy exhale behind her mask. “Sorry. Get winded so easily. Was
supposed to meet friends for the show. They had arranged to get our programs signed—”
