He took the envelope carefully, turning it over in his hands. The silver script caught the light.
He opened it. Empty.
"Spooky-looking thing," he muttered, then looked at me. "What now?"
What indeed...
We had many options, most illegal, a few stupid, and at least one that would probably get Tendo fired and me arrested before midnight.
"Well, we know the address—her last known location—so I say we take a drive and scope out the place," I said, taking the envelope and tapping the black card against my knee. "Best case, we find a lead on her location. Worst case, we have some time to catch up."
"Yeah, that's probably the best option we have... either way, she's probably wasted at a friend's place and had a wild night." Tendo looked at me, finishing with that forced-optimistic lift at the end. Something must have shone on my face, as he sighed, "Or not..."
Yeah... something tells me not.
I didn't say anything as he twisted his key in the ignition, starting his Tacoma. He reversed expertly out of the parking lot, easing onto Shore Boulevard. The East River slid past on our left, dark and restless under the late-day sky. The RFK Bridge loomed ahead. He thumbed the radio on low to fill the quiet of the truck. It wasn't awkward, though, just the comfortable silence you have with people you've known since you were kids.
The city blurred past: Astoria's low rooftops giving way to the bridge's long curves, as we headed toward the Bronx. It took almost two hours as the traffic thickened near Yonkers, then again past White Plains. The skyline shrank in the rearview, replaced by suburbs, then trees, then the rolling hills of Westchester.
Tendo finally spoke when we exited onto a smaller state road.
"According to the address, it should be right up here..." We slowed as the road narrowed, canopied on both sides by large trees—oaks and pines.
"There," Tendo said, nodding ahead.
A tall wrought-iron gate loomed on the left, set into a high stone wall. There was no sign or house number, but he was right; this was the place according to the address. A discreet brass plaque was bolted to one of the pillars supporting the gate, along with a small intercom box. Beyond the gate, through the bars, a paved driveway disappeared into the dense forest.
Tendo slowed the truck to a walking pace. "There are cameras and sensors everywhere."
He was right. I could see them clearly and count them all instantly. We could not stop here, I thought.
"We could ring the bell. Regardless of rumors, we could try asking them... knock on the door, proverbially." He said, looking at me. "I am a cop." He wasn't wrong; it was the normal thing to do. But he didn't know the things I did, who this property belonged to. The thought evoked another: Could Emma read my mind? I felt a chill run down my spine. I brushed it aside, not wanting to think about useless thoughts. I would deal with it when the time came. There would definitely be a way... But now I needed a way to convince Tendo not to knock the proverbial beehive without sounding like an insane person.
"No... Let's pull up ahead into the forest, maybe on an old fire road. We could find a vantage point to get a better view..." I said as normally as I could. He gave me a sharp look.
"Okay... you know something, so spill." He drove ahead even as he interrogated me. I stayed silent for a minute, mulling over what I could tell him. There was no way I was sharing the knowledge of my other life; that secret was going with me to my grave. I was going to have to give him some half-truths. I pushed away the guilt that tried to bloom.
"There are things I've heard during my deployments... Crazy stuff. Things you'd think weren't possible," I said slowly as we continued along the property line, as the road started to pick up an incline as we headed towards a hill.
"You remember the rumors about powered individuals people used to talk about back in high school?" I asked him, giving him a sideeye, hoping he wouldn't dig too deeply.
He didn't interrupt, just kept driving, with his eyes on the road.
"You mean other than the good captain...? They're just rumors, dude." I tried brushing it off, but I could see he didn't actually believe it. There was always some obscure information floating around about things most people would ignore, calling it all a conspiracy theory.
"They're called mutants—at least, that's what they call themselves," I plainly said.
"Bullshit... You mean—" He jerked his head toward the rearview mirror, toward the shrinking silhouette of the Frost property line.
"Yeah..."
"How sure are you?" He questioned, becoming more serious. How sure was I?
"Sure enough I don't want to knock on their front door," I said.
"Fuck..." he scoffed lowly, guiding the Tacoma onto a narrow dirt track—an old fire road barely wide enough for the truck. Branches scraped the roof as we climbed the incline, heading into the forest. It was getting dark. I checked the time:
6:37 pm
I was surprised at how well he was taking this, almost as if...
"This isn't the first I've heard of stuff like this, you know... there's talk at the precincts..." That made sense—much more sense. I gave him a slow nod but said nothing more. We drove for a couple more minutes until a clearing near a ledge on the hill. Tendo killed the engine. He looked at me as he cut the engine. We got out of the truck quietly.
The woods outside were quiet. My boots crunched on pine needles and dry leaves as I walked to the ledge and dropped to my stomach. Tendo came up beside me and lay down next to me, handing me binoculars. I thanked him silently, already berating myself for not bringing my own gear.
Through the lenses, the compound came into focus: a sprawling mansion nestled in the trees at the bottom of the slope. White stone walls, tall windows glowing soft amber, manicured lawns sloping down toward a private lake that caught the last of the twilight. Black SUVs and limos lined the circular drive.
"Damn, it's getting dark... It's hard to see anything," Tendo quietly said. It was not a problem for my enhanced mind and vision as I clocked everything in the property in my field of vision. The place was teeming with armed personnel who were patrolling the property. We made the right call moving further into the woods.
"Shit... those guns are definitely not legal," Tendo whispered, his voice tight.
"How do you know?" I questioned him.
He gave me a dry side-eye. "I'm a cop."
Fair enough.
We stayed there for some time as my mind cataloged everything, then Tendo said,
"This isn't working..." I couldn't say it was. We had to get inside somehow, but how...?
I stayed at my spot for another hour as the temperature dropped along with the visibility. I was incredibly surprised at how well I could still see in the dark. I kept a lookout, hoping I could find some kind of lead. Tendo had begged off to the truck a while back, saying he needed to stretch his legs. I finally had to give up and made my way back to the truck. I opened the door and got inside.
Tendo sat there with a smile on his face, eating a cereal bar with one hand and a phone in the other. Seeing my expression, he passed me another bar from the center console. I took it gratefully and tore into it.
"I got a way in," he said with a smile.
"How?" I paused eating to question him.
"I know a girl who's well-connected in the city's party scene, and guess what? There's another Frost party tomorrow night," he said, a little smugly. "She knows someone who can get her in, and she agreed to bring me as her plus one."
I grinned at him. "So you got yourself a date..." He grinned back at me, then we both got serious. "I can scout out inside and do a little bit of investigation," he assured me.
"Good, and I can find my own way in." He looked at me with scrutiny and said, "There's a lot of heat in there, Eli. It could get dangerous."
I accepted his words with a nod and said, "I'll be fine, been through worse," even as I questioned it myself. He didn't say anything and nodded.
With a plan made, Tendo drove the truck slowly down the winding path from the woods, only switching on the headlights once we hit the main road. Then a single black limo passed us, going the opposite direction with tinted windows, heading straight toward the Frost estate.
My instincts flared. Something about the car felt wrong.
Tendo noticed my tension. "What?"
"I had a bad feeling about that limo," I said quietly.
He glanced in the rearview as the limo disappeared behind us.
"Yeah, okay...," he muttered, almost to himself. "This is not how I pictured my day going."
Neither did I, Ten...