The Boy Who Couldn’t Miss (Blind Spot #2) (Blind Spot Series) Page 17

  “Um, I have football practice every afternoon…”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m figuring we’d be doing this late at night, like last time.”

  “Okay. You need me, I’ll be ready.”

  “If I need you, you’ll be ready and you’ll wear dark clothing and bring your gun, right?”

  Hax nodded, “I’ve still got the one we took from the Castanos. It has its serial number filed off.”

  Roni said, “That reminds me, I’ve got to get Mom to give me a shooting lesson too.”

  Hax slowly said, “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. But remember, my talent’s the one for shooting guns and throwing things. Your talent is being invisible.”

  Roni snorted, “Yeah…” She got a thoughtful look on her face. “Let’s go in the house so I can ask her. But I do have one more experiment to run. I’d like to see if I can talk to you and you can answer me back while I keep Mom from noticing us talking.”

  Hax considered. “Yeah, I can see how that could come in handy in some situations. Kind of like telepathy as far as they’re concerned.”

  As they entered the kitchen, Tansey said, “Hax, your dad’s wanting you to run the store for a couple of hours.”

  “Okay,” he said resignedly.

  Roni thought about how she didn’t want Tansey to notice her or Hax talking, then said, “Mom? Mom?” She turned to Hax, “Did you hear that?”

  Hax nodded.

  “I need you to talk to me too. We need to make sure I can keep her from noticing you talking as well.”

  Hax grinned and said, “Mom, were you drinking heavily when you gave birth to Roni? She’s really messed up.”

  Roni rolled her eyes, releasing control of her mother’s hearing and saying sweetly, “Well, Hax, you’d better go ask Dad when he wants you to start covering the store.”

  Hax gave her a fake glare, turning toward the pantry and saying, “I need another bowl of cereal before I head out there for a morning of drudgery.” From inside the pantry, his voice continued, “Sure would be nice if I had a big sister who’d take an occasional shift in the store when she deigns to come home…

  Ignoring him, Roni turned to Tansey, “Mom? Can you teach me how to shoot?”

  Tansey turned, looking at Roni speculatively. “I get that you’re going into some dangerous situations, but carrying a gun won’t make you safe. It might even make you reckless, and that recklessness could put you in danger. Besides, it’s been a very long time since I did any shooting.”

  “Come on Mom. You taught Hax how to shoot. Are you just discriminating against me because I’m a girl?” Roni thought the question would hit close to home because Tansey was a big supporter of equality for women.

  Tansey sighed, “Teaching him was supposed to be a secret too. I suppose it’s too much to expect that Hax might keep anything confidential?”

  Roni said, “I hope so… when they’re things that might keep me alive.”

  Tansey studied her for a moment, then said, “I hope you realize that if your father finds out about it, all hell’s gonna break loose?”

  Roni nodded.

  “Okay. I suppose you need a gun too?”

  “I’ve got one I took away from one of Romano’s thugs when I bashed their heads. They’d already filed off the serial number. Let me get it out of my car and you can tell me if you think it’s any good?”

  ***

  Roni and her mother walked into a shooting range Roni hadn’t realized was so close to their home. Soon Roni was being introduced to Jorge, the owner of the range. Like Hax had described to Roni when he’d told her about his own trip to the range, Jorge treated Tansey like she was some kind of royalty. He sold them a box of ammunition and walked them back to the shooting area. The whole time he chattered about a tournament that was coming to his range and tried to convince Tansey she should enter it despite her repeated professions of disinterest.

  Tansey spent quite a bit of time teaching Roni about gun safety, how to load a magazine, how to rack the slide and other basics. Finally, she said, “I’ve never fired this type of pistol. Let me try a few rounds so I can better advise you.” She loaded up a target and sent it downrange, then stepped up to the firing position. Holding the gun up, she sighted over it and fired a shot. Cocking her head, she said, “Not bad.” She fired it three more times without looking over the sights, then put the gun on safe and flipped the switch to bring the target back to her.

  Roni saw the target only had two holes in it, though one was right in the center of the bull’s-eye. After what Hax had said about their mother’s amazing shooting, Roni felt surprised that two bullets had missed completely… then she remembered Hax’s awed tone as he told Roni how Tansey had put multiple bullets through a single hole. She looked more closely at the target and realized the hole in the center of the bull’s-eye was slightly bigger than the other one. “Wow,” she said, “am I going to be able to shoot that well?”

  Tansey popped the magazine out of the handle of the weapon and picked up one of the cartridges, tossing it to Roni. Roni almost caught it, but it bounced out of her hand and down to the floor. While Roni was bent over picking up the bullet, Tansey said, “Probably not. I don’t think you’ve inherited the family’s weird hyper-coordination like Hax did.” She shrugged, “But, hopefully you’ll be able to shoot well enough to defend yourself if you have to.”

  Her mother guided Roni up to the firing position, gave her some pointers on using the sights, then told her to squeeze off a round. The kick shocked Roni. She knew weapons were supposed to kick and had seen it bucking in her mother’s hand, but she hadn’t expected it to be so forceful. “Why can’t I see where I hit the target?” she asked.

  It sounded like Tansey was exercising great restraint to keep from laughing when she said, “Because you didn’t hit it.”

  “Oh,” Roni said, feeling very embarrassed. “What’d I do wrong?”

  Tansey had her take out the magazine and empty the chamber. Then she had her practice squeezing the trigger over and over until she could do it without moving her aim point. Finally, she had her load the gun back up and try another shot.

  It missed as well. “Now you’re flinching in expectation of the gun’s kick.”

  Roni shot all the bullets in the box her mother bought before she started hitting the target consistently, much less actually hitting near the center. Feeling humiliated, Roni said, “Do I need to buy another box of ammunition?”

  Her mother bit her lip for a second, then shook her head. “I’m assuming you’re going to use this gun for self-defense, right? You’re not planning to stand off and start shooting people from a distance?”

  Roni shook her head.

  “You know how the gun works and you’re shooting well enough that you won’t miss someone attacking from just a few feet away.” She shook her head, “Though I hope it never comes to that.”

  “Me too…”

  As they were walking out of the shooting range, Roni noticed a holster display. “Mom? I think I should have a holster to carry this gun around in. I’m feeling like I should have it with me all the time in case the Romanos somehow track me down.”

  Tansey sighed, “Why wouldn’t you just make yourself invisible and walk away?”

  “That’s what I hope to do, but…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Tansey said resignedly. She looked towards Roni’s hands and said, “You must have left your gun back there at the shooting station.”

  “Um, no. It’s here in my hand. I’m just making it invisible.”

  “You can do that?!”

  Roni nodded, letting the gun become visible again.

  Her mother eyed it. “It’s kind of big to go in a hideaway holster.”

  “I don’t need a hideaway. I can just make it invisible.”

  “I thought you had to think about making things invisible. It isn’t going to be a problem to go around campus, constantly thinking about how you don’t want people to notice your gun? Besides, what kind
of holster are you thinking about? Were you going to have it strapped to your hip? It’s going to bump into things!”

  “Um, I was thinking it would go in my armpit like you see the cops on TV shows.”

  Tansey shook her head, “You’re pretty slender. I predict having a big gun like that one under your arm’s going to drive you crazy.”

  Roni sighed, “What would you suggest?”

  Tansey’s eyes turned toward the display case, “Let’s see what kind of small guns they have here.” She glanced at Roni, “With a shorter barrel and a smaller cartridge, they won’t kick as hard, but they’ll still be pretty good for short-range self-defense.”

  After they’d picked out a smaller gun for her and Jorge let Roni take the gun back to the range and try it out, she agreed with her mother that it would be easier to handle as well as easier to carry. Jorge had a nice lightweight underarm holster for it. Roni’d been interested in a small-of-the-back holster, but her mother pointed out it would be uncomfortable leaning back against it in class. Roni spent some of the hundred dollar bills she’d taken from the Castanos and filled out the forms for her background check.

  ***

  Roni parked several blocks from Romano’s trash and recycling center. She didn’t want any security cameras he might have to record her car. Before getting out, she slipped on a lightweight jacket to cover her holster. During the day she wore the holster under her blouse, wearing shirts with snaps she could rip open to get the gun, but right now she didn’t want even that small extra step. She’d removed her GPS tracker from the drug distributor’s SUV. Now she checked it again to make sure its new battery was still fully charged and that her phone could locate it. She put on her balaclava and black gloves and got out of her car.

  Roni walked to Romano’s place and looked around its dirt parking lot. Most of the cars were cheap or old, but there was a new looking Mercedes. She pondered waiting around to actually see if Romano was the one to get in it at the end of the day. That’d be quite a waste of time because then she’d have to come back to the recycling center on another day to find the car again and put the tracer on it. Eventually she decided the Mercedes had to be his. He seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn’t like it if one of his underlings had a nicer car than he did. Of course, I suppose Romano might not even be here. He might cruise around in a limo with a driver and the Mercedes might belong to one of his lieutenants.

  After some more thought, Roni stuck the GPS in the wheel well of the Mercedes and headed back to her dorm.

  Later that night, a check of the GPS showed the Mercedes had moved to a residential area. After briefly wondering if she should be doing this without Hax, Roni headed out again. All I’m going to do is see if this’s Romano’s place or not, she thought as she pulled off her license plate again.

  Roni parked several blocks away from the car’s location. She checked her gun, chambered a round, put on her balaclava and gloves, and got out of her car. With her phone’s screen set on its lowest possible brightness, she had its mapping system lead her to the closer end of the block where the GPS signal was located. Worried about the light the phone still emitted, she stopped a block away, carefully committed the rest of the route to memory and put the phone away.

  It was a dark, overcast night and the widely spaced streetlights didn’t seem to help very much. She thought to herself, I’m going to need to get some night vision goggles if I’m going to keep doing this kind of stuff.

  She thought she might have walked far enough when she stumbled into a mailbox. Somehow, she hadn’t expected street-side mailboxes in a Mafia boss’s neighborhood, but thinking about the mob’s reality, she decided maybe they’d prefer any bombs be delivered out to a street box. She crouched down and tried to read any name or address off the mailbox. She couldn’t make anything out in the very dim light, so she got out her phone and, covering almost its entire face with her hand, turned it on. The little bit of light leaking around her fingers revealed only the number 376—no street name, much less a household name.

  Frustrated, she walked back around the corner. Crouching down against a hedge and hooding her phone with both hands, she googled the address. Google told her the address belonged to Anthony Romano.

  Relieved, she walked back around to the mailbox and started trying to see the house behind it. However, the house not only had a dense hedge, but there appeared to be a solid brick fence behind it. The light near one of the streetlights showed her that the bricks were topped with sharp spikes. She’d just about decided she wasn’t going to learn anything more when she came to a metal gate in front of a driveway. Just beside the driveway was a small lighted parking area. She could see the Mercedes, but there was also what she thought was a Cadillac Escalade and some kind of low-slung sports car. Most dismaying was a heavy looking limousine. She sighed, I’ll bet he takes one of the big ones when he’s going out to do dirty work.

  Beyond the parking lot she could faintly see a massive house and extensive grounds. She looked up at the top of the gate, contemplating an attempt to climb it. That’d be crazy, she decided. They’ve probably got dogs, or sensors, or something in there. Something that won’t be fooled by my invisibility. And, I don’t have any backup tonight.

  Reluctantly she headed back to the car, wondering whether she could somehow manage to put GPS sensors on all of Romano’s vehicles.

  ***

  Mark, Fred Rector’s assistant, said, “I’ve got Mayor Jennings’ office on the line about that meeting you wanted to have.”

  Fred nodded.

  “9 AM Wednesday, his office?”

  Fred started to nod, then thought, If the mob’s gotten to him, his office’ll be bugged. Well, it might still be bugged, even if they haven’t gotten to him.” He shook his head, “No, I’d rather take him out to dinner…”

  Mark said, “His secretary said you might want that and suggested…”

  Fred shook his head, wondering if he was just too suspicious. “Set the time at 8:30. Get his cell phone number. Tell him I’ll call him when I’m on the way and tell him where we’re going to meet.”

  Mark looked just the slightest bit fidgety as he said, “Okay. Where should I make the reservation?”

  Fred tried not to stare at his assistant. He should be able to figure out I don’t want anybody to know where we’re going to meet ahead of time. Sick paranoia rose in Fred’s mind. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  Without any hesitation, Mark said, “The Big Bend Steakhouse is supposed to be pretty nice.”

  “Does it have booths?”

  Mark nodded, “Shall I tell them you want one of them?”

  “Sure,” Fred said. Long after the young man had gone Fred still stared at the space where Mark had been. Either he’s suddenly a lot better at his job, or someone’s gotten to him too. With a sigh, Fred opened a private browser on his desktop and looked up the Big Bend Steakhouse. Just the kind of place the mob might use to launder money. Am I being paranoid, or does the monster have even more tentacles than I thought?

  ***

  In the afternoon, when her classes were over for the day, Roni checked the location of Romano’s Mercedes on her phone. It was still at his house. At first, she didn’t think much of it. After all, you’d hardly expect a man in his line of business to work regular hours.

  A couple of hours later she realized he might have gone somewhere in one of his other vehicles—which was, after all, exactly what she was hoping he’d do. With a sigh, she went out and got in her car.

  Driving past Romano’s trash and recycling center, she saw the Escalade parked in the little dirt parking lot.

  Two hours later, when she drove by again after visiting a local electronics store to pay cash for four more GPS trackers, the Escalade was still in the lot. Once again, she parked several blocks away, put on her balaclava and gloves, and invisibly walked to the lot to put a GPS tracker on the big SUV.

  That evening, when Roni checked her trackers with her phone, the one attach
ed to the Escalade was in Lareta! At first she didn’t worry about it. Then suddenly she panicked and pulled it up again to see if it might be at her parents’ store. It wasn’t, but then she started worrying that he was in her hometown to do something awful to someone else she knew. Grabbing her jacket, she went out the door.

  As she was getting back in her car, she thought, This is good evidence that the Romano who’s taking over Lareta is the same Romano who’s been running Blayton for a while! Or that they’re at least closely related.

  On the way to Lareta, she called Hax, “Hey little brother, I was hoping to pick you up tomorrow night and take you out to dinner?”

  “Um, sure. What time?”

  Roni looked at her watch, “Eight o’clock.”

  Sounding surprised, Hax said, “Eight o’clock? I thought… That’s only…” Roni assumed he’d been about to say something about it not being after midnight, then to say something about it only being 20 minutes away. After a little longer pause, he said, “Um, sure. I’ll be waiting for you… Outside.”

  Right, I don’t want to be knocking on the door to get him when Mom and Dad are awake. She almost said “thanks,” remembering at the last moment that it wouldn’t fit with the conversation she’d scripted. Instead, she said, “Great! Wear your black jacket.”

  When she pulled up outside, Hax quickly slipped in the door of her car, saying, “You know your license plate’s missing?”