Free House of V (Unraveled Series) by Raen Smith Page B

work. I stopped a few feet in front
of him and waited, but he didn’t look up.
    “Excuse me?” I said in a small
voice with my best Wisconsin accent. As soon as he looked up, I brushed the
tear away from my face. “I’m sorry to bother you, but my mother just died -” I
tripped on the word, pausing, before I continued.
    “And I need to contact my dad to
pick me up in Chicago tomorrow. I have no phone or other money. I need to send
him an email,” I finished, scuffing my toe on the ground. It seemed a bit
melodramatic, but I laid it on thick anyway. I had nothing to lose and the
flight would be leaving soon.
    “Email?” he replied in a thick,
Norwegian accent.
    “Mor. Dode ,” I said in forced
Norwegian, the tears welling in my eyes again. Mother. Died. I hung my head low before I reached
out my hand to point to the phone. “ Telefon ?”
    “Yes,” he replied quickly, tapping
his phone several times before handing it to me. His eyes were a cobalt blue,
his face patient and stricken with remorse. As I took the phone in my own hands
and flew through the screens to block the IP address and login to the anonymous
email account, I felt his eyes watching me with a soft sort of sadness. I
wondered if he would be happy to learn that my mother actually hadn’t died, or
would he be scornful that I had lied? My guess is the latter, so I typed the
message quickly.
    Chicago, Lincoln Park Zoo. June
19, two p.m. By the penguins. All zoos have penguins,
right? V
    I closed the internet browser and
met the gaze of the man - still patient, still sad - as I returned his phone.
My lips turned up into a meager smile as I said, “Thank you.”
    He nodded his head as he
straightened his jacket and settled back into his seat.
    Twenty-five hours later, I would be
standing in Chicago with three hundred dollars in my pocket.
    ***
    I held my breath as I stepped off
the plane in Chicago, half-waiting for the swarm of officers to overtake me. No
one came, so I strolled into the warm summer air to flag down a taxi. I hopped
in and asked the woman to take me to Lincoln Park Zoo. I figured it was the
best place to go in Chicago to stay unnoticed. After all, everyone should be looking at the animals.
    A hundred dollars later, I found
myself at Lincoln Park Zoo, meandering through the animal exhibits and watching
the animals walk aimlessly around in their cages. It was almost two, but I
didn’t know if Delaney had even received my message. With less than two hundred
dollars, my resources were scarce now, so I would have to rely on Delaney
helping me out. I usually didn’t operate this way, yet then again, I’d never
had a warrant out for my arrest.
    I waited by the eagles, just yards
away from the penguins, standing near a bush that hid me just enough without
looking suspicious. Pretending to look at a map, I surveyed the scene ahead of
me. Nothing out of the ordinary.
    You could say that I had a knack
for surveillance. In college, I had a stint for almost two years guarding an
underground MMA fight ring. Adam Carlburg , the
budding twenty-year-old entrepreneur who organized the ring, recruited my
services after watching me scale the rock climbing wall in the university gym.
It took him a few tries, but I finally agreed, even though I didn’t need the
money. I stopped doing it when the ring broke up after a freshman was knocked unconscious
and rumored to suffer brain damage. I liked that job, and in fact, I liked my
job at Parker Enterprises. It turned out, though, that Adam Carlburg was a better boss than Holston Parker.
    A woman in a green dress appeared
in front of the penguins, her brown hair blowing in the gentle breeze of the
summer afternoon. She flipped up her sunglasses to rest on top of her head
before she turned toward me, her body profile exuding a small round bump
beneath her dress. I recognized her face, slightly plumper, but just as I
remembered. My sister. Delaney. Pregnant.
    I scanned the area, looking for
anyone that would