Dreams of the Golden Age (Golden Age 2)

Not that she and Teddy bagged all that many bad guys, but she didn’t have to say that. “I don’t know. Except now that you mention it…” She’d noticed the cops mostly to avoid them and felt grateful every time a patrol car passed by without stopping. Which happened almost every time she’d been out doing the vigilante thing, hadn’t it? She looked at Teia. “It’s a coincidence, it has to be. Commerce City has a lot of cops.”

“I’m telling you, every damn time we nail somebody, the cops are right there with handcuffs as soon as we call, like they were ready for it. It’s been the same for you, hasn’t it?”

“I don’t know…”

“I think the cops are on to us. I think they’re watching us.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. They’d have to know…” They’d have to know when the Trinity and Espionage were out on patrol, and to know that, the cops would have to know who they all were.

“I know that look, you know something.”

“No, I don’t.” Yes, she did. Her mother knew everything and had recruited the cops to babysit them all. The only reason they hadn’t been arrested yet was because Celia West told them not to.

“Anna—”

“I have to get to class.”

“Anna! Don’t walk off on me like that—”

Anna was too angry—not at Teia, not at all—to do anything but walk away.

THIRTEEN

MARK Paulson’s drawling snark greeted Celia when she answered the phone. “And who is Espionage?”

“Hello, Mark, how are you today?”

The hardest thing was trying to sound chipper when she felt like shit. She was in bed in her and Arthur’s own room pretending to have the flu after her first chemo treatment. She thought she’d have a grace period before it knocked her out. Not a chance. She felt the burn of the chemical in her veins. She wanted to sleep until it went away. But Mark called, and she couldn’t ignore him.

“Ready to hear what I have to say?”

She wasn’t. She knew what he was going to say, but she could pretend it wasn’t true. Right up until

he said the words. “Yeah, go ahead,” she said with a sigh.

“My people spotted them in a coffee shop. Theodore Donaldson and Anna West-Mentis. They looked like they were doing homework. Then the Eye produces this secret evidence the very next day. They’re Espionage, aren’t they?”

Celia almost admired the elegance of the secret identity, of the clever use of a passive power like Teddy Donaldson’s. She still hadn’t been able to figure out exactly what Anna was doing. Maybe she just wanted to be a vigilante, powers or no. Wouldn’t have been the first time that had happened in Commerce City.

“Teddy can turn invisible and walk through walls. Of course they are.”

A pause, and then the real question. “What can Anna do?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re her mother.”

“Which means I’m going to be the last person to find out.” She stopped, counted to ten, and rubbed the ache from her head. “We’re having some family drama over Anna at the moment. I appreciate you keeping an eye on her.”

“Sorry to hear it,” but he didn’t sound sorry. “Celia, I know you want to let the kids stretch their wings, but I’m worried. Them going after a guy like Roland—that’s awfully big quarry. My instincts say they’re right, that he’s rotten as month-old fish. But they can’t prove it with petty larceny and hope. I know I can’t completely stop vigilante activity—this is Commerce City, it’s the local sport. When they stop robberies or rescue kittens from trees, that’s one thing. But this is something else entirely. Breaking and entering, no warrants—we can’t use any of this evidence in court because of the way Espionage is getting it. We need to steer these kids in another direction.”

“Put yourself in their shoes: Your superpower is turning invisible, you’re not going to be taking down any gangbangers with that, so what do you do?”

“Breaking into a judge’s house and going through his things is not the answer.”

“Even if the judge is corrupt?”

“We can’t legally prove it,” Mark grumbled.