Crack the Spine, page 5
Once they left I-10, they infringed upon a rural suburbia. Sprawling lawns and proportionately large homes lined the road. It reminded her of the wealthier areas outside Pine Bluff where she had grown up. The farther out they drove, the bumpier the road became and the more rural the vistas turned.
A few magnolias had begun to bloom near the road, spreading their fresh scent to the cars driving by. Instantly, Kendall’s mind swept to Lacey. She inhaled deeply and laid her head against the cracked window.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Diego said.
“We survived taking down one hell of a nasty critter last night just to be murdered out in the sticks; that’s what I’m thinking.”
“Firstly, as someone who grew up in the sticks, I can tell you a paved two-lane road with power lines is not that. Secondly—and I am not slut-shaming, sex-work shaming, or anything of the sort—but you need to move on from Miss ‘A Young Julia Roberts.’”
An embarrassing heat flushed Kendall’s cheeks. Exactly how many times had she used that phrase? She rolled her eyes. “Your feedback has been received. Thank you for your participation.”
He threw an unamused frown her way. “Girl, you got it bad. What kind of bestie would I be if I didn’t try to save you?”
“Did I give you that title?”
“The title is earned. So, in a way, yes. Bitch.” His fingers splayed on the steering wheel before he exclaimed, “Oh! I’ve got a plan. I’ll teach you how to ride a motorcycle, and you can lead the Dykes on Bikes in the Pride parade this year. Think about how many literal, actual woman-loving lesbians you’ll meet!”
Kendall shook her head. “Not sure what the hierarchy is there, but I doubt the newbies get to lead. Also, not exactly my type.”
“She says, wearing a leather jacket and boots in sunny eighty-degree Louisiana humidity. Your femme-meter used to hit high-gloss lipstick every day. Now Chapstick is the norm.”
Struggling to remove her jacket under her seatbelt, Kendall laughed. “It’s habit.” She carefully laid it behind her seat. “Anyway, where were we? Oh. What’s wrong with Isis? It can’t be the incest thing, because that’s all over these pages.” She slapped the notebook to her hand.
“No, she’s a goddess of magic. Like, you know, Hecate, my mentor’s deity. The most selective goddess you could hope to work with. She’s the only one that has to come to you first. Then she’s super invested in your growth and development. You have to practice your spells every day, or she will visit you in your dreams and let you know she’s not impressed.”
“What does that have to do with Isis?” Kendall cocked her head and looked at him. “You haven’t been trying to work with other deities, have you? You’re holding out for Hecate.”
“Well, why wouldn’t she want to work with me? Marcélite is my mentor! She works with her. It’s super frustrating because I feel like I’m letting Marcélite down. Like, what if she regrets taking me on my witchcraft journey if her goddess doesn’t agree I’m worthy?”
“Diego, if she doesn’t want to work with you, move on to someone who does! Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time waiting on her to come around, which may never happen.” Kendall groaned as Diego gasped. “I heard it as soon as I said it. Shut up.” When he stopped giggling, she said, “Fine. I’ll make you a deal. You try setting up your altar to Isis and legitimately make an effort to communicate, and I’ll rethink my movie selection.”
“Aww. I love that for us.”
The GPS announced they were arriving. Diego slowly guided the van onto the shoulder at the drop point, identified by a utility pole with a large yellow NO FISHING sign. Kendall scanned the murky bayou on the right side of the road, then the verdant tree line on the left. “Do you think they’re watching us?”
“Yes. On camera maybe. Or a drone.” He searched the sky. “Anyway, can we go before the homicidal maniac reveals himself or herself or themselves?”
Kendall grabbed the handle but hesitated to open it. “Does it bother you that we don’t know what they’ll be using these teeth for?”
“It didn’t until you asked me that. But they paid. We don’t have a choice.”
“Right.” There were no renegotiations once the deal had closed. With the payment received, they had to deliver. Though Marcélite had never mentioned what the repercussions of a deal gone bad were, Kendall imagined the worst. “It’s Marcélite’s job to worry about that.”
She hopped out in the fresh air and affixed the paper bag to the barbwire fence.
Diego pulled a U-ey in the road. As they drove away, she couldn’t help but glance back to the paper bag several times before a curve in the road removed it from sight. “Ignorance is bliss.” Again.
“Back to the Isis thing,” Diego said. “I’m not sure she’s the right choice. What if I’m meant to work with a god from South America? Or Central America? My father’s family is from Columbia and Chile. My mother’s came from Paraguay and somewhere else. No one knows where my bisabuela came from because she’s adopted, which means I don’t really know where I’m from, not fully, which means I can’t even figure out what my ancestral gods and goddesses would have been. It sucks, you know?”
“I would know something about that, yes.”
Understanding flashed across his face. “I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking!”
She waved off his concern. “Please. I’m not bothered by it.”
“But that’s why you left, isn’t it? Because you hated your adopted family?”
“I loved my father,” she said sincerely. “We were very fortunate to have each other. After he died . . .” She turned her palms up.
This time when they reached the magnolias, Kendall held her breath until they passed. It didn’t work. The welcome scent lingered to fill her lungs on her next inhale. She smirked to herself and said, “Maybe Mystic Pizza? I haven’t seen that movie in forever.” Thankfully, Diego didn’t realize that was a Julia Roberts movie too.
Kendall checked her phone. Lacey still hadn’t texted. She opened the Scalp site and began browsing the listings now that this job was complete. Her phone vibrated with a new email notification. The subject line read VANESSA MITCHELL. Kendall sat up upon reading the name given to her by her adoptive parents. She opened the message.
Kendall Blake,
The fraudulent claim of Vanessa Mitchell’s death has led to your mother amassing considerable wealth from your life insurance policies. If you do not want the police to receive your updated address, new identity, and known associates, come to the Burkhead Office Park, Building 3, Room 3024, at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow (Sunday).
There was no signature, but the email account had the alias Frankenbeans. Kendall reread the message with a bitter taste on her tongue. “Frankenbeans? Seriously?”
“What?”
“Listen to this.” She grumbled as she read the email aloud. “Someone’s got more nerve than sense. Like I give a shit what my mother is doing.” In truth, she hadn’t considered that faking her death would result in any benefit to her mother. That flaw in her plan stoked a rage in her she hadn’t felt in years. “I think the luck sachet ran out.”
Neither of them really knew what to make of the email. However, Diego vowed to go with her. It didn’t say she had to come alone.
When they pulled into the warehouse, Diego’s motorcycle stood over an oil pan but had already stopped draining. It wasn’t like Jian to leave a project undone once he had started it. The warehouse was quiet. Too quiet for a Saturday afternoon. They ventured into the living quarters and found the others sitting at the dining table in silence, their faces worried. Kendall sat next to Leif.
Marcélite passed over her tablet. Her opened email read:
Ms. Marcélite Morel,
Dr. Reginald Morel’s theft from Grace and Mercy Memorial Hospital resulted in an active arrest warrant. If you do not want the police to receive your updated address, new identity, and known associates, come to the Burkhead Office Park, Building 3, Room 3024, at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow (Sunday).
They knew about Marcélite’s theft too. Marcélite had already informed the rest of them a long time ago. It was the nineties. Hormone treatments for transitioning weren’t acceptable in most places, never mind your place of employment. Ultimately, she decided she’d rather be herself than a surgeon and left the program, which was when they discovered her off-the-book self-treatments and the real trouble began. It broke Kendall’s heart to see someone trying to use that against Marcélite. But she was a smidge relieved not to be blackmailed alone.
“As though I’d come back here before the statute of limitations was up,” Marcélite said. She smacked her lips in offense.
Kendall passed over her phone with the Frankenbeans email pulled up. “Who would know about your past and mine?”
“Mine too,” Jian said to Kendall. He held out his phone. His email had the same rendezvous and a threat to reveal his location to his father. “If Kendall got one, it’s not a trans thing, then. The joke’s on them, though. Susheng Yang would not give a shit. I’m already dead to him.”
Kendall took back her phone and pursed her lips. What had they done to have their pasts dredged up and used against them? “Can we just kill whoever is sending these?”
Jian raised his hand. “Put it to a vote.”
Marcélite played along and raised hers as well.
As Diego got his phone out, he asked, “What about you, Leif? Did you get one?”
Working his thumbs over his phone, Leif shook his head. “Mmm. Ja. Junk folder. Undocumented immigrant. But I am documented?”
Kendall crossed her arms and realized she had left her jacket in the van. “That means this ‘Frankenbeans’ saw through everything the Chronicler fixed for us. How is that possible?”
“He didn’t fix anything for me,” Diego said, “and I’m still getting threatened.”
“With what?” Kendall asked.
Diego wore a dark look without ever looking up. “Family,” he finally answered. Vaguely answered. He dropped his phone to the table and rubbed his eyes as he fell into a chair next to Marcélite. “What do we do?”
Kendall said, “We show up and—”
“Uhn-uhn-uh!” Marcélite interrupted. “Phones.” She gathered their smartphones and shut them away in the refrigerator’s empty crisper drawer before directing them to the surgery. Reassembled in a circle, they all waited on Marcélite to tell them what to do. Yet she seemed just as lost in her thoughts.
Finally, Diego asked, “Do we all go?” A few seconds passed before he answered his own question. “Yes. I think we should stick together.”
Leif nodded. “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it. Maya Angelou.”
“Dude,” Jian said, rubbing his arms. “I’ve got goosebumps from how corny that was.”
Marcélite pulled the tall Norwegian against her side. “But well said. The question I have is: What do they want from us? They didn’t ask for money.”
“Something tells me they know we don’t exactly have a lot of that to spare,” replied Kendall. “We need to think about bringing protection.”
“Leave that to me and Diego,” Marcélite said. “That is, if you’re willing to give it another try?”
Diego nodded with enthusiasm, then slumped. “There goes girls’ night.”
“Why?” asked Kendall. “We can still do it. If everybody’ll be home, we’ll just buy more food.”
To Jian’s skepticism, Diego said, “We’re ordering Mexican,” to which Jian approved. “I mean, yeah, we can change it from girls’ night to an old movie night. It doesn’t have to be gendered. But we’ve already decided we’re watching Bring It On and Mystic Pizza.”
Jian curiously eyed Kendall. “What is it with you and this Julia Roberts kick you’ve been on?”
Diego’s jaw fell at the betrayal.
But Marcélite cut in first. “Old movie night? Old? I saw both of those in the theater.” She scoffed, collected a large wooden bowl from the counter, and walked through them toward the nursery. “Goddess, protect these children. I don’t think I’ve got it in me anymore.”
Chapter 5: The Racketeer
The morning did not come swiftly. Their double feature had turned into a triple when none of them thought they would be able to sleep. That gave Diego the opportunity to do both manis and pedis. Even poor Leif got dragged in, though he hadn’t resisted the dark-blue polish they added to his pinkies, forefingers, and thumbs.
Kendall erased the apology she had been about to text Lacey for missing their midnight meal. If Frankenbeans was watching their phones, there was no point in putting a target on her back as well. Facing the immediate problem, she went to Diego’s door and knocked.
Still in the process of getting dressed himself, he answered wearing gray briefs and a green t-shirt matching his nails. On his shirt, a blond cowboy rode a rather phallic rocket. “Hi?”
“Hi. I came to see what one wears to meet their blackmailer, although now I’m even more confused.”
“Kendall, do you think you might kill this person?”
She seriously considered it. “I guess. Maybe. Depends on whether they bring up my mother again.”
“Then let that be your guide.” He whined up to the rafters, “Who’s getting coffee? I need my fix!”
Armored once more in her blue leathers, Kendall climbed into Marcélite’s black Camry with the others for the short drive to Burkhead Business Park. She and her friends kept their words sparse even after they breached the unnatural cold of building 3 and theorized into their coffee cups about why they had been summoned. The suggestions were bitterer than the roast. Taking the elevator to the third floor, they invaded a world of chrome and glass. The combined smell of coffee and glass cleaner furthered her nausea. It was all too courtroom TV drama for her liking.
Marcélite assumed the lead down the hallway offering nothing but vacant conference rooms, most with their metal blinds open. Her confident prowl on the thin gray carpet and her delicate hold on her navy clutch made Kendall wonder exactly what the witch had prepared in case of an emergency.
At Room 3024, they spied through the glass doors. Empty. In they went. The boardroom-style conference room offered little to look at with the windows covered by closed shades. Once Marcélite had circled the room in her inspection, they sat around the long table and watched the door, waiting for the source of their torment.
It arrived promptly.
A racially ambiguous woman with beige skin and a diminutive frame walked in, wearing a pink face mask depicting a cartoon pig’s snout. She wore her black hair up in a long ponytail. Slightly younger than Kendall, she dressed modestly. Under her gray cardigan, every button of the stranger’s white blouse had been fastened up to her neck. Upon reaching the podium, she removed her mask to reveal a more apt pout on her full lips and unburdened herself of the pastel folders and laptop she carried. Without a word, she began setting up for a presentation.
“You’re Frankenbeans?” Kendall asked over the hum of the descending projection screen.
“Francesca Singh,” she answered, still focused on her computer. “Half-Italian, half-Indian. An uncommon combination, I know. But you can call me Frankie. Everyone does.”
Jian searched the hallway through the glass walls before asking, “And you blackmailed us, then decided to face us all on your lonesome?”
“Oh, that,” she replied dismissively as she fiddled with something on her screen. “That wasn’t me. I mean, I sent the messages—just to get your attention. To get you here. I’m sorry; I’m tired of not being taken seriously. Tired in general. But these . . .” She picked up the folders next to her laptop and circled the table while handing them out. “These should explain it. I downloaded this information from the Lyceum’s database. It’s all the data they had on you.”
Why would the Lyceum have any data on them? The ancient organization had been founded with the purpose of protecting mankind. What threat could the five of them pose?
Jian sat up and opened his file. He immediately closed it. “You hacked the Lyceum?”
“I took a peek behind the curtain.” Frankie rolled her eyes. “Well, I did until they found my bot and squashed it. But I think I know how they found it. I can’t test my theory until later, of course. Their security needs to settle first.”
“Miss Singh, was it?” Marcélite asked without touching the lilac folder before her. “There’s one thing, one rule we hold higher than all others in our household.”
“Warehousehold,” Frankie said with a grin, incorrectly reading the room.
Marcélite rose. “Respect. Respect for yourself. Respect for others who share your space. Respect for those who may be suffering from factors you cannot see. In short, treat everyone with respect. Whereas you have chosen to make your first impressions by listing names three of us chose to leave behind for very personal reasons. You threatened to expose me. To have me imprisoned. Then you threatened my family.” She gestured to the rest of them. “I suggest you show us a little respect and tell us what it is you want with us.”
If Frankie had picked up on the tables turning, her stubborn attentiveness to her computer didn’t reflect it. “I want to hire Wayward Investigations. To hire your expertise. I suppose it’s not really expertise yet—your experience.”
“OK,” Marcélite said to the rest of them. She took up her clutch. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”
Frankie’s brown eyes widened with panic. “Wait! Please!” She all but begged Marcélite, gesturing to her chair. “I’m truly sorry I used your birth name. I want to be an ally. I’m stumbling through all this and have hardly slept this week. I mean, how can you sleep when you discover monsters are a reality and . . .” She swallowed. “I learned that four days ago and chose you as allies I could trust yesterday. This is coming out scattered. I’m sorry; I’m usually very organized.”
“Maybe tell us why you wanted us here,” Kendall said. “What exactly do you want to hire us for?”
