Arc Angel (4 page)

“Miranda James. You are a fascinating woman. I’m looking forward to meeting you.”

Chapter 5

The storm outside had died down shortly after the incident, but the chaos inside Miranda’s head had rumbled and flashed all night.

She’d finally given up on sleep and gotten out of bed at a little after 7 a.m. After she’d showered, put on her uniform of jeans and a hoodie—this one maroon—and eaten her usual breakfast—a cookie-dough Pop Tart and a Diet Coke—she’d checked her e-mail and voicemail messages again. She had a number of work-related e-mails, but nothing urgent. She didn’t have a consulting gig scheduled until late next week, thank god.

The voicemails were more stressful. In addition to two more messages from stalker reporter Gavin Brooks, she also had one from a Detective Kate O’Hara from the Elder’s Grove Police Department, asking her to please come down to the station at her earliest convenience. In the spirit of getting it over with quickly, and while she had the tiniest amount of courage worked up, Miranda e-mailed the cab company she used, and the cab arrived in front of her building at promptly 8:45 a.m. The cab driver, a burly, middle-aged Hispanic man, waited silently as she climbed in.

She spent the trip alternating between trying to remember the deep breathing exercises that Dr. French had taught her in their one long-ago session and trying to rehearse plausible answers to the questions she knew the detective would ask. Thank god the cab driver knew better than to try to chat. It was worth the monthly fee to have an account with the company that addressed her specific preferences.

When the cab pulled up to the curb in front of the station, Miranda was trying to decide whether “temporary amnesia” or “shock” sounded less bizarre.

None of the ideas she’d come up with to explain last night’s incident would convince even the village idiot, much less Detective O’Hara.

You know what? Forget it. I’m not going in.

Miranda shook her hair down until it hid both sides of her face. She rubbed her sweaty palms on her jeans. She couldn’t do this. She could not. Maybe if she skipped the interview, the detective would forget all about it, and her life would go back to normal. Right. And maybe she’d become a host on
The View
.

She knew, logically, that the sooner she got the interview over with, the sooner there was a chance, a very small chance, that the whole mess would be over. Maybe if she broke it down. Step one: get out of the cab. Step two: go into the station. Step three: talk to Detective O’Hara.

Come on, Miranda. Suck it up and go for it.

Miranda took a deep breath, tucked her hair behind her ears and stepped out of the cab.

She didn’t see the ambush until it was too late.

A slick, polished man with a smile brimming with good dentistry and no actual warmth blocked her path and stuck something black in her face. It took her a few seconds to realize it was a microphone, not a weapon. It took her no time at all to realize that the man in her face was Gavin Brooks, ace reporter. The realization did nothing to lower her heart rate.

“Ms. James. Miranda. May I call you Miranda?”

She ducked her head to avoid the light of the video camera being held by a beefy cameraman standing behind Brooks.

“Miranda. First of all, love the hair.”

Automatically, Miranda reached up to smooth the new white streak she hadn’t known how to camouflage that morning.

“Why didn’t you return any of my calls? You’re a hero! I want to share your story with your fellow Elder’s Grove-ites.”

“No comment,” Miranda muttered, feeling like she’d somehow fallen into an episode of
Law and Order
. She didn’t want to be on
Law and Order
. She didn’t want to be on TV at all. She barely enjoyed watching TV. She almost wished the microphone had turned out to be a gun. Facing a mugger was much easier than facing the media.

“You are a hero, right? I mean, you stopped the mugger, not lightning, right? Can you tell us more about exactly what happened last night?”

“No comment,” Miranda repeated, wondering if she could make it past the two men and get into the station if she just started running.

“Because I believe you are a hero. Despite the recent rumors about you and Tech Corp.”

Wait, what? She finally looked Gavin in the face. What the hell was he talking about? Her skin prickled with the electricity that suddenly whirled inside her. Oh god, she had to stop that before it got any more visible than her suddenly erect arm hair.

Gavin’s already enormous smile widened and brightened. She could probably count every pointy tooth in his mouth if she wanted to.

“Yes, we’ve done some investigating and have uncovered evidence showing that you hacked into the Tech Corp network without authorization. They’re currently assessing the potential damage before filing an official complaint. Do you have a comment?”

She’d done work for Tech Corp., a penetration study to test the strength of their network, which meant she had indeed gained access to their network. But it had been authorized by their CFO, John Smith, a name so bland it had stuck in her memory. Why would they accuse her of hacking in illegally?

She could feel the energy rising up in her, heat pooling behind her eyeballs. She needed to stop it. Now, before it could be caught on camera. But how? She tried to think calm rational thoughts, but the light swirled her thoughts into chaos. So Miranda did the only thing she could think of. She ran. Straight into the police station.

Getting out of the morning sun and into the air-conditioned building helped pull her back down a notch, especially when she realized Brooks hadn’t followed her inside.

Alright, back to the deep breathing and trying to look normal. At least it was common to look nervous in a police station. So she had that going for her.

When her insides had settled back down to their usual uptight and freaked out level and the hair on her arms laid flat again, she went up to the front desk.

“I’m h-here to see D-detective O’Hara. I’m Miranda James.”

The woman made a quick phone call and then escorted Miranda back to a small room, telling her that Detective O’Hara would be with her in a few minutes. Miranda nodded and sank onto one of the room’s uncomfortable metal chairs. The door closed behind the woman with a distinct click. Miranda didn’t even bother getting up to check; she knew the door was locked. She didn’t mind that part. What she minded was the mirror that covered most of the wall in front of her. The mirror that wasn’t only a mirror, but a window, too. A window where whoever wanted to look in on her could. For all she knew, a group of people had already gathered there, watching her, laughing at her. She barely resisted the urge to pull up her hood and hide. Sweat seeped out of her armpits. Immobile, she stared at a brown smudge on the wall to her left, deliberately ignoring the mirror and all its vicious possibilities.

Finally, when Miranda’s muscles had coiled so tight with tension she thought they might snap, the door opened and a tall, slim woman with short blonde hair and a professional if boring grey pantsuit entered. Prodded by either physiological or instinctual impulses, Miranda immediately leapt to her feet.

“I’m Detective O’Hara.” The woman proffered her hand.

Miranda stared at the hand, frozen. Dozens of reasons why she didn’t want to shake this woman’s hand flashed across her brain. Handshakes had such a high potential for germs. Her own hands felt like day-old fish: clammy and limp. She hadn’t touched another person in literally years.

But she’d just thought of a new, potentially lethal, reason. What if, by a mere handshake, she electrocuted someone? Or at least gave them a severe shock? After all, last night she’d practically conjured sparks simply because the wind had scared her. And compared to how she felt right now, last night she’d been downright laconic.

She gripped her own hands, trying to determine if she could feel even the slightest current on her skin. She didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary, but she couldn’t risk it. Still looking at the detective’s unwavering hand, Miranda slowly tucked her own hands into the pockets of her hoodie.

She finally glanced up at the detective’s face, trying to read the woman’s expression in the two seconds she managed to maintain eye contact. The detective’s eyes showed what? Concern? Confusion? Accusation? Miranda had no idea. Trying to read body language was as foreign to her as trying to read Braille, and she’d gotten worse over the years due to her choice to communicate almost exclusively through electronic means.

“Why don’t you have a seat, Ms. James?”

Detective O’Hara used her still outstretched hand to gesture to the chair Miranda had popped out of a minute ago and then casually brought her fingers to rest on top of the file folder she carried. Miranda promptly sat, more than a little in awe of the smooth way the woman had handled the handshaking snafu. The detective sat down in the chair on the other side of the small table, opened the file in front of her and pulled a small audio recorder from her right jacket pocket.

“Would you be alright with me recording this interview?”

No. God, no. But Miranda had already screwed up by not shaking hands. She needed to seem more cooperative. She managed to jerk her head in the affirmative.

“Great. Thank you so much. It makes the note taking process so much easier. I am beginning the recording… now. This is Detective Kate O’Hara, of the Elder’s Grove PD. It’s 10 a.m., Friday, September 23. I’m speaking with Miranda James about the events of the evening of Thursday, September 22. Ms. James, I’d like to start by verifying your contact information. You are Miranda Juliet James, of 241 Jackson Avenue, Apartment #6. Phone number 555-2465.”

Miranda nodded.

“You are age 25, unmarried and live alone, is that correct?”

Miranda nodded again.

“If you could respond verbally…” Detective O’Hara gestured to where the recorder sat on the table.

“Y-yes.”

“And you’re a freelance consultant. What exactly do you consult on?”

Oh man, this one needed a full sentence. “C-computerized security systems.”

“Electronic security or physical security?”

“Both.”

“It looks like your client list is fairly extensive. I see you’ve worked with Friedman’s. That’s pretty impressive. They’re the biggest bank in town.”

“Yes. I created a custom security system for them. They were concerned about hackers accessing their client records. The consultants they had working on it before me were a joke. They’d left the network wide open. I installed a robust multi-layered security system with state-of-the-art intrusion detection systems and firewalls. If anybody tried to hack in, their network would react instantly and shut it down. The only person who could possibly get into that system without authorization is the person who set it up.”

The more Miranda talked about the specifics of her job, the more relaxed she became. She loved her work, and she was damn good at it. Her muscles released enough that her shoulder blades finally brushed the back of her chair.

Only to tense back up an instant later when Detective O’Hara said, “So tell me about last night.”

Okay, Miranda, pull it together and seem innocent.

“I gave a statement last night.”

“Yes, I have that right here,” O’Hara pulled a neatly typed page out of the folder and glanced back down as she continued, “along with a much lengthier statement by a Mrs. Jeannie Dobrusky.” With her other hand, she pulled out several sheets stapled together. She set the papers on the table in front of her and smiled at Miranda.

Miranda tried to smile back, but only managed to make the muscle in the left corner of her mouth twitch a bit. Then she went back to staring at the now-familiar brown splotch on the wall.

Detective O’Hara waited a moment, as if she thought Miranda would talk if the silence went on long enough. That probably worked with most suspects. But most suspects didn’t have an anxiety disorder. Miranda knew she could outwait her. And sure enough, after an uncomfortable minute or two, the detective went on.

“All right, let’s start with Mrs. Dobrusky’s statement. She said you’re a hero, you know. Said you saved her life, and her dog’s too. What’s his name again?”

“Tiny,” Miranda muttered.

“Right, Tiny. Anyway, she said you came charging up and knocked the assailant out.”

“I didn’t touch him.”

“Yes, I see that in the notes here. Neither of you say that you actually touched the man. But I do see here that Mrs. Dobrusky said that you ‘zapped’ him.”

“Mrs. Dobrusky says a lot of things.”

That elicited an honest-to-goodness chuckle out of O’Hara. “She does indeed. Let’s see. She also says that her first husband worked for the CIA, that she’s psychic when the moon is full, and that her dog is part Husky.”

That got an honest-to-goodness smile out of Miranda.

“She also says that you’re a very quiet neighbor, with no pets. She says you only have one visitor… a Hector from Tom’s Gas-N-More, and that he only stays long enough to drop off a couple of bags of groceries every two weeks. And she says you don’t ever seem to leave the building, except for last night.”

The smile melted off Miranda’s face, replaced by a flush of heat and damp. Great. Now the police thought she was some kind of freak. And that didn’t even take into account the fact that she’d electrocuted somebody without a visible power source.

Apparently she’d lost control over her sense of irony as well, since she momentarily found the situation amusing. But her present situation came back in a quick rush, and she blushed even more as she tried to think of how to explain her… condition.

“I… I…”

I have nothing worthwhile to say. Dammit.

She tried again. “I don’t g-go out much. I’d rather stay inside.”
Where it’s safe.
“I w-work on a computer, so…” She shrugged. She’d given it her best shot, as pathetic as it was.

She waited for O’Hara to make some type of biting comment, maybe a joke. That was the usual response to her condition. That and people telling her to get over it. Instead, the detective nodded, as if she’d made an eloquent speech. O’Hara looked down at the pile of papers again, and shuffled them slowly. Miranda waited for the other shoe to drop. But instead, the detective reached over and clicked off the recorder. The sharp snap of the button seemed to echo through the tight room. Miranda froze like a deer who’d just heard the first shot of the season.