Page 38 of Thunder

“First, my hotcakes were lukewarm. You can’t serve lukewarm hotcakes. Hot is literally in the name. And are you sure about that whole them-having-to-treat-us thing, Thunder? Do you really want to put it to the test?”

I throw my hands up. “Maybe. No. Not like I want to get shot, not like I want to die. But sitting here just feels fucking useless while Eileen is in there, fighting for her life. We need to find out who did this.”

Owen, who has been quiet this entire time—as he has been for most of the past few days—stops staring at the wall with a thousand-yard stare to say, “We get it, Thunder. But what the fuck can we do? The cops aren’t doing shit and you’ve said we can’t go bring justice to SSR’s offices outside of town. You’ve really fucked us here.”

“If they won’t help us, maybe we need to help ourselves and do some investigating,” I say.

“Yeah, Dick Tracy?” Bullet says.

“Fucking dated reference,” I reply.

“Timely reference is more like it. That comic, and the movie, both basically predicted the future. I mean, talking into your watch—hello, Apple Watch—that was prescient,” Bullet says.

“Brother, where did you learn that word?”

Bullet looks up at the ceiling sheepishly. “A podcast that Maddy was listening to. They were doing a feature on old media anditsinspiration of modern technology. They talked about futurism, too, which was some culture and design movement that originated in the 1920s in Italy.”

“I worry about Maddy’s influence on you. Podcasts, cultural movements, fuckingItaly, where does it end, brother?”

He laughs and punches me in the shoulder. “Hopefully, with her, it never ends. I love her, man. You know that.”

Owen stands up, fixes both of us with a slightly irritated look. “Do you think you guys could take a break from talking about art, culture, and fucking Italy to think about the fact that whoever poisoned my fucking grandmother is still out there, walking around like a free man when he should be fucking dead? What are we going to do to find this motherfucker?”

“Whatever we do, we need to be careful,” I say. I give Owen a steady look, one that I hope conveys to him the point that he can’t go running off half-cocked. “Not just because we’re messing around with some serious players, but because the police, along with the rest of Costa Oscura, know that we’re the main opposition to thisMar y Tierraproject. So anything that happens that even slightly affects that project or anyone involved in it, we are going to be the first suspects they come after.”

Bullet clears his throat. “I think I might have an answer. You remember that friend Eliza said she made in the hospital’s IT department? The one who helped her set up all those X-boxes in the kid’s wing?”

“Yeah,” I answer. There’s a tone in Bullet’s voice that I don’t like.

“She’s always had a thing for you,” he continues. “Not Eliza. Her friend, Carol.”

“And…”

No, I definitely don’t like where this is headed.

“And she would probably have access to all the security footage from the night Eileen was poisoned. I think with the right… convincing… she would let us check it and we might find a lead on who poisoned Eileen.”

“Bullet, that’s a good idea, but…”

I don’t even get all the words out of my mouth before Owen interrupts.

“Thunder, I don’t care what you have to say, do, or fucking lick, if it’s going to help us find out who poisoned my grandma, you’re going to do it, or so help me god, I will fucking shoot you.”

I look from Bullet to Owen, both of them staring at me, waiting for an answer. I think of Lia, and how she’d look if she ever found out about my situation.Probably amused, and she’d probably tease the hell out of me, too. Because it’s not like we’re anything more than just two enemies on diametrically opposed teams, with one of us wanting to protect the livelihood of some of the families in this community and the other wanting to steamroll them in the name of deluded environmentalism.

“Fine. I’ll seduce Carol in IT.”

* * * * *

Carrying flowers—a bouquet I bought off the extra-discounted rack at the local grocery store—and wearing what I hope is a repellent amount of cologne, I walk down the back hallways of the basement level of Costa Oscura General Hospital with Owen and Bullet hot on my heels.

I can hear them fucking giggling like schoolgirls the entire fucking way.

I hate this.

This plan is stupid. Embarrassing. Awful.

Which means it will probably work.

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