Page 104 of Hellbent

“Now.”

Melinda looked over at her cobbler’s bench covered with etched metal plates, embossing tools, letterpress drawers holding passport stamps. She sighed.

Then she snapped her fingers at Joey, who stepped forward as if jabbed with a cattle prod. Melinda took her chin in hand and turned her face this way and that, assessing the face behind which she was going to build a new identity.

“Beneath all that scowling and the weird haircut, you are a very pretty girl,” she finally conceded.

“Thank you.”

“It’s not a compliment. It’s an observation.”

The sounds of the workers in the warehouse carried up the hall—suction tables roaring, equipment racks wheeling from station to station, exclamations rising above the din.

Melinda released Joey’s face, picked up a phone on the desk next to an AmScope binocular microscope, and punched a button. Then she said in her native tongue, “Be quiet. I can’t hear myself think in here, and when I can’t think, I act on emotion.”

The entire building silenced immediately. She hung up the phone. When she turned back, Joey’s mouth was slightly ajar.

Joey said, “You are one badass lady.”

“Yes, honey,” Melinda said. “I am sure.”

47

The Language of Comfort

Before bed Evan showered, dressed, and then finished tidying up the Vault as best he could. He found himself trying to align the monitors on the floor and finally gave up.

Chaos was a small price to pay when a thirteen-year-old boy’s life was at stake.

He stared at the various progress bars, all that software dredging the Web for signs of David Smith. “Work faster,” he said.

As he turned to leave, a rapid-fire series of beeps chimed from the alarm system, indicating an intruder at the windows or balconies. His eyes darted around the Vault, searching the rejiggered monitors to find the one holding the appropriate security feed. He was two steps to the gun locker when he found it and relaxed.

On the screen he watched a dark shape hover outside his bedroom window, bumping the glass.

He sighed and stepped through the shower and the bathroom. As he emerged into his bedroom, Joey entered from the hall. She was wearing pajama bottoms and a loose-fitting T-shirt.

She said, “What’s that noise?”

Evan pointed to the window. An old-fashioned diamond kite flapped in the breeze, smacking against the pane.

Peter’s bedroom was directly below Evan’s, nine floors down.

“A kid’s kite?” Joey said.

Evan opened the window and pulled in the yellow kite. Scotch-taped to the underside was a small freezer bag containing a folded piece of loose-leaf paper and a pencil. He removed the note.

Written in blue crayon: “Yor neece person is cool. Does she like me to? Check Yes or No. Your friend, Peter.”

There were two boxes.

He handed the note to Joey.

She took it, her eyebrows lifted with surprise. As she read, a microexpression flickered across her face, gone as soon as it appeared. But he’d noticed. She was charmed.

When she looked up at Evan, she’d fixed her usual look of annoyance on her face. “Nice spelling,” she said.

He handed her the pencil.