Wes really stepped it up with the new suit. It still has the same lightning bolt from my right arm to my heart, but now I’ve got a fresh pair of boots that are comfortable enough to run in while still providing a solid enough base for any surface. I’ve also got a face mask, which is surprisingly breathable, and my hands don’t sweat in the new gloves, either. From head to toe, I’m covered.
The best improvement by far is the addition of the radio that fits in my right ear—or “com,” as Wes calls it. With it, someone can be off-site backing me up with further intel if I need it.
Even though it’s late, I know Myra will still be here. She’s a key piece to incriminating both Michael Bello and Frank Lloyd. She just can’t know that Ethan Pierce is involved. Which is why Fuse is the one sneaking into Myra’s office so late at night.
Her desk lamp is the only one on. She has a small office next to Lloyd’s. The outer room has several desks and cubicles, almost like my office. Except that city hall was built in the early 1900s, when architecture was still important. I work in a box.
I don’t want to scare her, but I know that’s exactly what I’ll do. The black suit keeps me hidden in the shadows as I creep closer to her office. Looking through the window of the door, I see she’s got her head deep in some paperwork. Folders and other files are spread across her desk.
Nervously, I knock, which makes her jump. She screams when she sees me and almost falls backward in her chair.
I clear my throat, trying to disguise my voice.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say softly.
“I don’t have anything!” she shouts, jumping to her feet.
“I need your help.”
With heavy breaths, she stops and stares at me. Her eyes flicker across her desk, likely looking for a weapon.
“With what?” she asks.
“Greg Griswold.”
“What about him?”
“I need his current address.”
She relaxes a little. “What is this, a joke? I don’t even know who that is.”
“You work with Frank Lloyd, right?”
“What is this about?”
“Your boss and Greg Griswold worked together at Montgomery Works before it moved out of the city.”
“So what?”
“So I need you to find his address!” I shout. Maybe a little fear will make her move quicker. There has to be a security guard downstairs. I managed to get in through a side entrance I found in a blueprint.
“How am I supposed to have his address?”
“Your boss might.”
She nods and slinks back down to her seat. “Okay. I’ll have to look it up in the directory. It’s going to be a minute.”
“Hurry.” I see her reach for her phone and add, “Don’t call the police until I leave.”
Taking a deep breath, Myra punches her keyboard a few times with her fingers and scrolls through.
Greg Griswold is someone Dean thinks would be willing to testify against the Martellis and those involved with them. He was the president of Montgomery Works until a side deal of his with the Martellis got busted. Once it became front page news, they turned on him.
When Carlo Martelli took over as the boss, he spared Griswold. But his reputation was destroyed. Worse, the Martellis were actively silencing him, targeting any reporter who covered stories about him and threatening his family. Essentially, Greg Griswold faded from the public’s memory.
“The most recent address I can find is 110 Concord Street,” Myra says, breaking into my thoughts.
“When was it last updated?”
She eyes me suspiciously, then glances at her computer. “Uh, looks like five years ago.”
“Thank you,” I say and turn to leave. Sirens blare and an alarm sounds. She must’ve dialed 911 or something without me looking.
Shit.
I break out in a sprint, heading for a window I know looks out onto the roof of a lower level. Zapping the glass before I get there, I jump through without hesitation. Only, the roof below is farther down than I thought. Two stories.
Crashing down, I do a quick check of my body to make sure nothing’s broken. Sore as hell, but I’m all intact.
I break into a nearby window, which sets off another alarm, and sprint toward the fire exit. By the time I get to the ground floor, sirens fill the air. I spot a police car with its doors open and no one inside. I shoot a string of lightning at it, and it bursts into flames.
As the police clamor to it, I take off in the opposite direction and lose myself in the shadows of the city.
Even though most of the city’s housing is row houses, Greg Griswold lives in a part of the city that was redeveloped in the late ‘60s to attract suburbanites. It worked, and people flocked to the newly developed houses. Over the last sixty years, the population has aged, and the area now contains a significant percentage of the city’s seniors.
“Odd place to find a former criminal,” I say into my com.
“After he was fired, the Martellis cut off all his accounts,” Dean tells me from back at the clinic. “Must’ve had to move back in with his mother.”
I’m standing under a tree on the opposite side of the street. The cloudy sky and the flickering streetlight give me enough cover in the darkness.
“She’s going to have a heart attack if she sees me.”
“Are there any lights on?” he asks.
“No.”
“Wonder if he’s got a basement bedroom, then.”
“Sad life,” I say before sprinting across the street.
Only one car is in the driveway, but there is a side door that’s unlocked. It squeaks when I open it, and I freeze when I see a light on in the house. The intermittent sound of a TV carries up from the basement. I leave the door open in case I need to make a quick escape and slowly go downstairs, hoping the stairs won’t creak.
I don’t really have a solid plan. Back at city hall I just needed Myra to do one thing for me. Scaring her worked for that. But I need to have a conversation with Griswold. I need to get his testimony on record.
The bedroom to the right of the stairs where the light is coming from is empty. The TV in the corner is playing the late night news. A couple of the frames on the wall hold degrees from Olympia University.
Actually, there isn’t much in the room at all. A bed, a dresser, a bookshelf, and a couple pictures—
“Who the hell are you?”
Spinning around, I realize I’ve let my guard down. I’m lucky I don’t have a bullet in my back. Nope, the way the man’s eyes flicker to the bookshelf at my right, that’s where his gun is.
“I’m here to talk about what happened with you, Michael Bello, and Frank Lloyd.” I try to make my voice as deep as I can get it. It sounds forced, but it’s the best I can do.
“What is this, Halloween? What the hell are you wearing? Get out of my house!”
“I’m working on a case that will bring down Bello and Lloyd for the criminals that they are.”
He shrugs. “Okay, I’ll humor you. You think you can take down those men? Take it from a guy who tried. You can’t.”
“I have connections.”
“They’ll destroy you.”
“They don’t know me,” I counter.
“You think hiding behind some mask is going to save you from them? Wrong, kid. They’ll figure out who you are, where you live, where you work, and piece by piece they’ll take away everything you have until you break.”
Images of Emma flash in my head. They’ve already started. Who are they going to target next?
“If you’ve already lost everything, what more do you have to lose?”
He chews on the inside of his lip and lets out a huff of air. “What do you need?”
“Your testimony. There will be others, but the more detailed you are the better.”
“That’s not going to do shit. It’s been too long. It’ll be my word against theirs.”
Electricity sparks between my fingers. “If you want to spend the rest of your life wallowing in your pity, then so be it. But I’m going to try to put a stop to that family taking advantage of this city.”
I take a step toward him to exit, but he puts up his hand.
“What makes you think you have a chance of bringing these guys down?” he asks.
“I told you, I have connections.”
“Who are they?”
“They’re at city hall.” There’s no way I’d ever give up Myra’s name.
“And they have a case against these men already?”
The mask hides the apprehension on my face. I know Myra’s gathering evidence against Lloyd, but what about Bello? Other than Dean’s word about his shady dealings, I have nothing. Dean wouldn’t ever let me use his testimony, so I’m relying on Griswold’s and others.
“Yes,” I lie.
“Take off the mask.”
“No.”
“How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you’re not some reporter?”
“I’m not.” Another surge of lightning crackles between my fingers as I glare at him. Finally, I step toward the exit and say, “I’ll find someone else.”
“Wait.” He closes his eyes and pauses. “I’ll help.”
Stepping back a comfortable distance, I cross my arms and wait for him to continue.
“You gonna get something out to record?”
“Just talk.” Dean is recording this conversation back at the clinic. I add as an afterthought, “State your name first, though.”
He sighs. “Gregory Griswold.”
“Thank you. Go on.”
“Okay, the whole thing was kind of sketchy,” he starts. “Looking back, right from the beginning it was weird. Frank Lloyd had been a good friend of mine. We lived down the street from each other when I bought my place on Broadway.”
He moves and takes a seat on the bed.
“At the time, I had been working for the city at the water and sewer plant on the waterfront. Just a laborer, but it paid well. By then, the city had started to go down and they needed to let some people go. I was one of them. When Frank heard, he mentioned that he might have a position for me.”
“What did Frank do?”
“He worked at Montgomery. Said he was good friends with the owner, that he was looking to step back a bit and needed someone to fill in. I thought that someone was Frank and I’d be taking his job.”
“That’s when you became president?”
He nods. “Barely even had an interview. Frank and I chatted at a bar one weekend, and the following Monday I got the offer letter in the mail.”
“What about Michael Bello?”
“Didn’t know him at the time. He was just one of the investors in the company. Didn’t meet him until a Christmas party a few years after I started working there. That’s when he told me he was looking to make some money on the side.”
“What kind of money?”
“An underground casino. That was, uh, full-service.” He rubs the stubble on his chin. “Drinks, drugs, cards, girls.”
I nod and try not to react. Looks like Bello’s trafficking days started a long time ago.
“Thought he could use part of Montgomery’s warehouse space for it. Private entrance in an industrial area next to the airport, so noise wasn’t ever an issue. Paid me a quarter of the profits each week for it.” He grins. “Money, man. Lots of it. Bought a penthouse in Midtown—this was back before your time, when Lakeside Village was still trash.”
“What about the police?”
He shrugs. “Bello and Lloyd said they knew a few of the cops and they were cool. I didn’t ask questions. My guess is they were paying them off.”
“So what happened?”
“Things were good for a couple years. The few times I visited, it seemed like the city’s most elite citizens were always there. Mayor Banks, even. Then things got bad.”
“How?”
“I was working late one night. I could hear the muffles of the music playing, but then it got quiet. Real quiet. Next thing I know, I’m hearing gunshots and screams. I run over there, but most of the crowd had cleared out by then.” He shakes his head again. “The police came and assumed it was me who organized it all. I was the president. I was working late. Hell, I even heard the music before the gunshots. The cop who took me in was probably the guy they were paying off.
“I was arrested and spent a night in jail. Mikey came to visit. Only he wanted to make sure I wouldn’t say anything. Said they would get me out if I got put away for it. So I kept my mouth shut.”
He shakes his head. “Should’ve just told the truth. The police didn’t have enough evidence to convict me, so I was a freed man. But now Mikey needed to find a new place for the casino.”
“So where did you run into trouble?” I ask.
“About two months after my trial. Frank Lloyd had been on different boards for the city and was working his way up to an elected office. He came to Montgomery representing some permit board for the city and claimed it failed to pass the environmental review since we were handling toxic chemicals.”
“I thought Montgomery moved to Terry Lake because business had died off?”
“Oh, it did. People began doing business elsewhere after the scandal with the casino and my trial. But that’s not the way the story was being told. Suddenly, my arrest and the casino slipped off the news’ radar and the new story was that I was doing such a horrible job as president.
“I was let go, that facility was shut down and moved out of the city, and no reporter would even give me the time of day. I went to Frank, I went to Mikey, and both of them said I had nothing to worry about. Then the death threats came.
“My accounts were frozen. Sold my penthouse to hide, but they found me. They smashed my car, robbed my place of everything worth anything. I honestly thought it was only a matter of time before I was at the bottom of the lake.”
“So . . . ?” I press.
“I think I scared them. They didn’t think I’d stay quiet, so they wanted to make sure I did. Not only that, but the rest of the family started acting differently. Frank and Mikey both got real jobs, distancing themselves from the Martellis. It wasn’t until Sal died that the harassment stopped.”
“Who replaced him?”
“Carlo Martelli. Once he took over, the attention shifted. The family laid low for a little while, tried to get their names out of the papers. I’m sure they weren’t completely innocent during that time.”
“What about the threats?”
“Carlo said I was a freed man. He wanted a clean slate to make up for the bridge Sal burned during his time. But my windows still get smashed, tires slashed, and not very many people in the city are willing to hire me anymore.”
“If Carlo gave you a pass, who’s targeting you?”
He shrugs. “I can’t be sure, but my guess would be Bello and Lloyd. They both have high profiles now. Especially Lloyd. If word got out that he was actually the one in charge of that underground casino, I’d be dead so fast I wouldn’t know it was coming.”
“So you gave up?”
“What would you do if you were me?” he shouts. “Of course I gave up! You can’t fight them.”
“So why tell me?” I ask for my own curiosity. “If the Martellis have you so scared, why tell your story to a stranger in a mask?”
“You’ve got enough,” Dean mutters through the com.
“I saw the reports of you on the news. The one who could shoot lightning from his hands. Thought it was impossible and started looking into you. You were there when that girl got raped, and then her abusers ended up at the bottom of Emerson Bluffs. Seemed to me like you took care of that pretty quickly. I only hope you do the same this time around.”
“Thank you, Mr. Griswold.”