Chasing Power (Hidden Talents) (20 page)

Right.  Clothes.  Sam blushed deeply, thinking of all the people who’d gotten a glimpse of her bare back during her daring escape.  Wanting to sink into the floor, Sam hurried and pulled on her T-shirt over the hospital gown, pulling the gown out through the sleeve.

Al opened his mouth for what was likely to be a not-quite-PC remark but Sam interrupted, “Where’s Lane?”

Al and Harry exchanged looks: “He’s being held for questioning,” Al said, “And not in any room with windows.”

“Why hasn’t he used his powers to trick them into letting him go?”

“There are probably too many of them,” Harry said, “He’s got a range and limit just like everyone else.”

“Have they charged him with anything yet?”

Al shrugged, “Apparently they haven’t even nailed down his identity.  But who knows?  Most of our information is coming secondhand from the news reports.”

“Wait—how big
is
this story?”

“Let’s see, cute orphan survives massive car accident only to be kidnapped, only to escape from a massive explosion.  Yeah, it’s huge.”

Wow.  “I’m not an orphan.  Technically.”

“Eh, big diff it makes to them.  Look, if nothing happens, it’ll die down in a day or two and then your fifteen minutes will be up.  But for now, we just have to wear disguises and try and avoid them.  Once we get to N.T.U., they’ll clear everything up and all of our problems will be over.”  Al spoke with absolute confidence and conviction.

“Network van up ahead,” Harry announced, “Turn here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Al pulled down a street, then another alley.  Then another right turn and they were on the freeway.

“Where are we going?”  Sam asked.

“Out of here.”

“Without Lane?”  Sam looked from Al to Harry.  Harry looked at Al, who shook his head resolutely.  Clearing his throat, Harry leaned forward. 

“Sam, we talked about this possibility,” Harry said, “Lane made us agree we’d take you to N.T.U. if something happened to him.  You’re the one whose life is at risk.  N.T.U.’ll take care of Lane.”  

Right.  N.T.U. would look after Lane.  That made sense.  N.T.U. was pretty powerful.  Combined, she was sure the organization of Talents had more than enough resources to bail Lane out.  Without her, Lane would be perfectly safe.  He was only at risk of having his whole life ruined.  But N.T.U. was going to make sure that didn’t happen.

And I’ve had so much success with bureaucracy in the past,
Sam thought,
so I have no problem putting my trust in them now.
  The knot in her stomach intensified.  Common sense told her that the boys were right.

But a different sense told her that leaving Lane was wrong. 
Would he leave you?
  A voice in her head asked.  She already knew the answer to that.  She couldn’t leave Lane’s fate in the hands of strangers. 
Besides
, she reasoned,
I’ll probably need him at headquarters
.  There.  Now she had a logical reason for getting him out.

There was no point in denying the inevitable.  Now dressed, Sam leaned forward and tapped Al, “You’ll want to exit here and turn around.”

“What?  Why?”

“We’re going to break Lane out.”

Al breathed a sigh of relief, “Good.  Because I was feeling guilty as hell leaving him behind.”

Harry looked at Sam and gave her a rare smile of approval.

“What’s the plan?”  Al said, “You have a plan, right?”

Sam paused.  If Lane hadn’t been charged yet, that meant the police could only hold him for questioning for so long.  Then they’d have to let him go.  They couldn’t charge him for kidnapping, because they’d have to prove he’d taken Sam against her will, which would be hard if she said otherwise.  The whole exploding building thing was another story, though.  Make that two exploded buildings.  No, three, counting the hotel, and a car.

What we really need, Sam thought, is a good lawyer and bail.  But to get a good lawyer you needed money and connections.  Sam had neither.

But she bet she knew someone who did.  A plan slowly began to crystallize.  Sam could get Lane out.  All she’d have to do was sell her soul to the devil.

Chapter
18

A few hours later Al, Harry, and Sam stood staring through the window of a coffee shop.

“Before we go through this,” Al said, “You should know something.  We have a running joke about this woman.  The word on the street is she’s a jinx.”

“Jinx, is that Talent slang or do you mean she’s an actual jinx?”

“Both.  See, whenever she does a missing person story, the person in question tends to turn up dead.  In which case, she segues from ‘find this girl!’ to ‘the manhunt ensues!’ and ends up with ‘justice prevails’ in a courthouse drama.”

“Statistically, a lot of missing people are dead.  It would only follow that most of her missing person cases turn into murder cases.  So to speak.” 

Al didn’t look so sure of that himself.  

“Do you see her?”  Harry asked, peering through the window.

“No.”  It was getting dark now and Sam started to feel anxious, thinking of Lane spending the night in jail, “But I don’t get cable, so I wouldn’t recognize her if I did.”

“Oh, you’ll recognize her,” Al said with finality.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Mr. ...?”

Caught red-handed.  Or was that red-mouthed, since they’d been gossiping?  Sam turned on her heels slowly.  Hair dyed dark brown to give her an air of seriousness.  Gucci sunglasses covering colored contacts designed to brighten blue eyes for dramatic contrast.  Perfect nose job.  Al was right; it could only be one woman.

“He doesn’t want to give out his name,” Sam said, interrupting Al before he could tell her.

“Of course not.  I’m Barbara Snow.  Samantha Gibson, I presume?”  Snow extended her hand—her French tip manicure looked totally natural, Sam noticed, so it had to be expensive—and took Sam’s with a polite but firm grip.  “You look much better than that yearbook photo.  But it’s been quite a struggle to find anything else.  You’re one elusive kid, you know.”

“Yes, I do try and keep it that way.”

Snow nodded, like she’d expected this.  She arched an eyebrow, “You ready to do this?”

“As long as the contract’s as we specified, yes.”

“Excellent.  Here it is.  You’ll see my producers and I have signed already.”

Sam looked over the contract.  Everything was in order.  Snowfall Productions agreed to provide access to a high-end law firm they had on retainer and pay all of Lane’s legal fees, and in exchange got exclusive rights to Sam’s interview and first option rights on any other kind of property rights, including TV movies.  Sam had driven a hard bargain, but had been comfortable giving the last one away since she knew her life was much too boring to make into a movie.  She’d let Snow find that out for herself.  After having Al and Harry read it for good measure, Sam took a deep breath and signed and dated both copies.

“Fabulous,” Snow said, brilliant white teeth flashing, bright in the twilight on the street, “Now I have my camera man waiting.  Where should we do the interview?  Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

Sam shook her head.

“That’s fine.  I’ve reserved a nice suite at a nearby hotel.  It’s not the fanciest, but it’s discreet, which I’m sure you’ll prefer.  The lawyers are on a jet en route.  Once you’ve given us the interview, we’ll have your boyfriend out by morning.” 

#

Hi, how are you, it took about three minutes to get the pleasantries out of the way.  After that, Snow got down to business, the way a tiger got down to the sacrificial goat.  Fast and merciless.

“Samantha, so little is clear about your childhood.  Your parents married young.  You were born.  And only a year later your mother left your father, taking her with you.  Why is that?”

“It’s hard to say, I was only two at the time.  I hardly remember.”

“Three,” Snow corrected, smiling.  She’d done her homework. Sam had already been anxious about this interview, but the accuracy of knowledge Snow had, already, was a dark omen.

“Like you said, they were young.  I don’t think my dad realized what he was getting into.  He didn’t handle it well.”

“Fatherhood?”

“And marriage.  You know how these things are.”  Sam smiled.  The lady had paid for an interview.  Nothing in the contract said it had to be a good one.

“But I think it was more than that, don’t you?  Tell me, Samantha,” Snow leaned in, raising her eyebrow in the very picture of concerned curiosity, “How was your relationship with your father?”

The wall went up.  Sam sat back, lifted her chin, “How,” she said in a low tone, “is that any of your business?”

Snow snapped her fingers and the red light in the camera turned off.  The woman leaned forward, and the angle of her face was razor-sharp — “This is an interview honey.” She hissed, “I’m supposed to ask the hard questions, remember?  Now do you wanna get your friend out or not?”

“Oh.  Right.”  Sam hadn’t exactly forgotten about that part, but it was tough to tell behaviors learned over a lifetime to take a hike.

“Shall we try again?”

Samantha nodded, resolving to play along.  So this woman was clearly a pro.  That didn’t mean she couldn’t learn the game.  Snow snapped her fingers again and the light blinked back on, along with her on-screen persona.

“Let’s fast forward.  Your mother’s death was tragic, yet it reunited you with your father.  Was it a joyful reunion?”

To her credit, Sam managed to swallow the choked laughter that bubbled up.  “It was interesting,” she said, “I didn’t really know him.”

“Well, according to a school teacher, your father was quite sweet, had a good sense of humor; charming, even.”

“And how did she reach this conclusion?  Two fifteen minute conversations at the beginning and end of the semester?  Compelling.”

“OK, go ahead and repeat yourself, but let’s try and keep the sarcasm down a little bit next time.  Kay?”

Swing and a miss.  Sam’s attempt to become a media darling was fast slipping away, she thought.  All right.  Second time’s the charm.  Or rather, third time.  She repeated her answer, this time trying to keep her tone clear of any nastiness.  The interview progressed, Snow asking a few questions about Sam’s home life.  Nosy, but hardly hard-hitting.  Samantha admitted that her father was funny and could exhibit sweet tendencies.  It was easy, sometimes, to see why her mother had fallen for him. 

Samantha was beginning to feel comfortable when Snow sat up, placing her hands on her crossed legs:

“So, if he was such a stand up guy, why did your father try to shoot you?”

The question, as intended, caught Samantha completely off-guard.  Snow’s expression was soft, sympathetic, and perfectly inquisitive.  But her eyes were hard, biting.  Answer the question, they said.

Sam straightened.  Fine.  If she was going to do this, she would do it right.  That meant no sarcasm.  No obvious evasiveness.  She must appear reasonable and, above all, sane and sympathetic.

“My father is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.  That’s a disease.  His case was particularly severe.  However, with medication and treatment, it’s still possible for someone with the illness to live a normal life.”  Very nice, Samantha.  Hard to find fault with a statement like that.

“Interesting.”  If she wasn’t being taped, Snow might have licked her lips.  This was the kind of thing that made for excellent sound bytes, “But your father isn’t living a normal life.  He’s in a government-run facility for the criminally insane.  Does that bother you?”

What kind of stupid question was that?  Samantha cocked her head.  “Do you mean, does it bother me that he isn’t living a normal life, that he’s criminally insane, or that the government felt the need to imprison him indefinitely?”

“Take your pick.”

“Yes.”

“I mean, do you think your father might ever recover?”

Heaven help her.  Samantha suppressed a shudder at the thought of her father being released into an unsuspecting world.  “I doubt it.  Like I said, his case is particularly severe.  It is by no means typical.”

“Do you ever visit your father?”

Barbara already knew the answer.  Sam got the feeling this woman had the complete hospital records showing Sam had never made an appearance.  A dark part of her wondered if Snow had already scripted this interview out, and now was setting her up, carrot-and-sticking Sam into saying what Snow wanted the audience to hear. 

“No,” Sam said, “I thought it prudent to keep my distance.”

“All right, changing subjects.  Samantha, how did you get embroiled in this mess?”

The interview progressed along those lines, with Barbara asking direct questions and Samantha giving indirect answers.  Snow tried the soft touch, the hard sell, switching topics—anything she could to get an honest reaction.  But Samantha, as the boys had learned, was as much a pro at evading answers as Barbara was at wheedling them out of people.  Leaving out the part about the Talents, Sam did manage to convey how she had fled because she felt personally at risk.