Tastes Like Candy

Thirty-Seven

 

Thirty-Seven

Candy

Albie arranged a sequence of surveillance photos across Phillip's desk, and they all leaned in to examine them. Messy-looking college age kids with backpacks, expensive phones, and straggly beards meeting in coffee shops, walking down the street, greeting one another at the mouths of alleys. Even though some of them were smiling, talking with one another, there was an air of stiffness in each photo. Anxiety caught in the creases of elbows, nerves lingering in the corners of smiles.

"This is where they meet," Albie said, tapping a photo of three young men going through a peeling yellow door set in a brick wall. "It's an old textile factory, one that never got converted into flats. Currently being leased by Bryan Cartwright." He moved to another photo, this one of a man who looked homeless – the wild hair, patchy beard, old surplus coat bundled in around his throat. "Founder of Bryan's Path to Higher Understanding. His followers just call it Bryan."

"Creative," someone said.

"Yeah, it gets better," Albie continued. "That drive Tommy and Chelle stole? This was on it." A printed list of names. "Cartwright has at least twelve aliases, that we know of, anyway. He's got ties to a half dozen terrorist organizations and is wanted in five countries." More photos, Cartwright with varying hairstyles, sometimes clean-shaven, sometimes with glasses.

"What does he want?" Candy asked.

"His business is chaos," Phillip said. "He comes into a city and warps the impressionable young people. Fills their heads with evil shit and sics them on the citizenry."

"A human bomb," Fox said. "Hates capitalism, hates the world, hates himself." He shrugged. "There will never be a shortage of these kinds of idiots."

"So he's a delusional terrorist asshole," Candy said with a sigh. "Why hasn't he been arrested somewhere yet?"

"He has someone on the inside," Albie said. "And that keeps him off the radar. Which means, unless he gets caught actually red-handed–"

"It's up to vigilante justice," Candy said.

Phillip grinned. "And that's where we come in."

~*~

Michelle

Michelle was achingly aware that she opened and closed her mouth three times without saying anything. She'd caught her gobsmacked expression in a window once or twice, and she knew she looked terribly stupid at the moment. But she was just too...too...something. When she'd thought about coming home, she'd never dreamed that she would run into Paul again. And if she was honest with herself, she had no idea how she felt about it.

Paul, though, seemed to have no problem finding his voice. "Little Chelley! Jesus, it's really you, isn't it? I saw you across the room, and holy shit – I thought I was imagining things. You're supposed to be in American, aren't you?"

"Um..." Michelle wet her lips and finally got her tongue to work properly. "I was. I just got in. Just now."

Across the table, Raven stared at her like she'd sprouted a second head. What the fuck? she mouthed.

"Christ," Paul said, laughing. He pushed a hand through his still-black, still-thick, still-gorgeous hair and beamed down at her. She'd never been on the receiving end of a smile like this when they were in front of other people. His smiles had always been fast snatches of teeth in the dark, in their stolen time. Because whatever he'd felt for her, the guilt and regret had been stronger.