A New Day (StrikeForce #1) Read online

  I went back to my room, pulled the shades in there, and then finally emptied my pockets onto my dark blue bedspread. The jewelry glittered against it, almost seeming to mock the cheapness of the fabric. Three necklaces, four rings, six bracelets, some cufflinks. All of it really good shit. I’d have to pay Luther a visit tomorrow, see what I could get for it.

  I pulled the roll of bills out of my other pocket, tossed it onto the bed. I opened my bottom dresser drawer, then pulled up the false bottom I’d put in, under my sweaters. I set in my frequency jammer, making sure it was powered off, then the jewelry. I pulled off my gloves and scarves, and put them in there as well.

  Then I picked up the roll of bills again, fanned it out and counted it.

  “Jackpot,” I murmured.

  Tuition was paid, looked like.

  I put the bills in the false bottom, put everything back on top of it, then went out to the kitchen and scooped some of my mom’s mac and cheese into a bowl. I ate it, standing at the kitchen counter. I picked up the remote and flicked on the little TV in the living room. The Red Wings were playing, and I left that on as I ate.

  I felt like I could breathe again. My mom’s bills would get paid. One more good score, and they’d be paid off completely. Tuition for my last semester at U of D would be paid.

  There was more I had to do, too. It was time to move out, mostly so I wouldn’t run the risk of my mother finding the stuff I hid in my dresser. Most likely, it was past time. Every day I spent living there was another day that I risked being found out or bringing the heat down on Mama, just because I lived with her and did what I did. I had kept putting it off, telling myself Mama needed me around. But I know better. It’s me. I have no problem admitting I’m a Mama’s girl.

  So I should add a security deposit for an apartment to the things I could do now, I thought with a grimace.

  I could even afford to spread the love a little, after this job.

  As I glanced around, my gaze landed on my stack of textbooks on the dining room table. I had chapters to read, notes to take.

  I washed my dishes, made sure the porch light was on for Mama, then settled onto the lumpy couch in the living room on my stomach, my notebook and textbook in front of me, and I got to work. I had to at least try to focus on reading about urban policy and planning, no matter how much my body was still buzzing from my near run-in with the cops, the unmistakable high that came from pulling of yet another job.

  Number thirty-nine. Nearly forty in four years. In that time, almost a quarter of a million dollars in stolen goods. It was probably worth even more than that, but there was Luther’s cut to figure into it. It wasn’t easy to find someone reliable to fence shit, but Luther was something special.

  As I read, my mind wandered. Four years. Would I still be doing this stuff when I was thirty? Forty? Once I’d graduated and started working in a more official capacity with community groups?

  I hoped so. There was nothing like it. Nothing like taking the shit the rich couldn’t really appreciate and turning it into something that people like my family and our neighbors needed. I knew I was supposed to feel guilty. I just didn’t give a fuck. It’s not like any of them, any of the people I stole from, gave a damn about any of us. Insurance would pay for the things they’d lost. I just couldn’t manage to feel sorry for it.

  After a while, I let my face rest against my notebook and closed my eyes. Just for a little while, I told myself.

  I woke a while later to a gentle hand on my shoulder, the antiseptic scent that clung to Mama’s hospital scrubs.

  “Did you eat, Jo?” she asked when she saw that I was awake. I peered up at her and nodded. My mom was a nice looking lady. Blond hair, like me, eyes that reminded me of the cobalt tiles I’d seen in some of the buildings downtown. She wasn’t a skinny woman, but she was soft and comforting. The Type 1 diabetes she’d lived with her whole life, the hard life she’d lived after my dad died should have made her bitter. It sure the hell had made me that way. But she was sweet, gentle. Patient, which was something I’d never be.

  “It was good. Thanks, Mama. You know you don’t have to do that,” I said, sitting up. She waved it off and went into the bathroom. A few seconds later, I could hear the shower running, and I got up, stacked my books and notebook back on the table, and went into the kitchen. I pulled a bowl out of the cupboard and put some mac and cheese in it, added a sprinkle of cheese to the top, and put it in the microwave. I fixed a small side salad, set the dressing bottle on the table, then set the table. I poured a glass of milk and then grabbed Mama’s pill case, laid out the three she was supposed to take with dinner next to her glass. By the time she was out of the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel, I had the table set and her dinner waiting.

  She gave me a quick hug before she sat down, and then we sat together at the small table. The TV was still on. Eleven o’clock news.

  “How was work?” I asked.

  “Same as always. Long,” she said with a smile. She popped the pills into her mouth and gulped down some milk. “How’s your studying going?”

  “Boring,” I said. “But it’s the beginning, intro stuff. That’s always boring.”

  She nodded. We chatted while she ate, and then, after I cleared the table and she washed her dishes, we went into the living room.

  “You want me to braid your hair?” she asked.

  “Please,” I said. I didn’t know, after all these years, whether this was something she needed or something I needed. Maybe it was both. She felt like she was taking care of me, and I felt like a little girl again under my mother’s careful attention. The feel of her fingernails gently scraping my scalp as she sectioned my hair, the light pull as she braided my long tresses. The first time she’d done this for me had been the night my dad had died, and I’d somehow understood, even then, that she was looking for something to make her feel sane, useful. Something concrete to hold onto. She was better now, but this was one of our things. I thought again of the money and jewelry in my dresser.

  “Mama, are you sure you can’t leave this one? The bills seem to be under control now,” I said softly.

  “For now, they are,” she said quietly. “You never know when something will come up. The car breaks down, I need another damn pill for something. I’m okay, Jo. I don’t mind it.”

  “But you don’t have to anymore. You know I’ll help,” I argued.

  “I know you will. And you do. But I am your Mama. It’s my job to take care of you, not the other way around.”

  “You’ve always taken care of me,” I told her. “You’re the best.”

  She secured the braid with an elastic band, and then gave it a gentle tug, just as she did every night.

  “And I will take care of you for the rest of my life,” she said. I settled myself on the sofa next to her. “You are the light of my life, Jolene. You always have been, and I want to see you take your big brains and your unstoppable attitude and go out into the world and make a good life for yourself. You can’t do that if you’re trying to babysit your Mama.”

  “It’s not babysitting,” I argued. “You deserve to relax a little.”

  She laughed. “Oh, honey,” she said, waving me off. “Why? To sit here and think about how things might have been? To wish I’d done better for you?”

  “You’ve done great for me!”

  She smiled, a bit of sadness to it. “I had bigger dreams than this.”

  “Dreams are annoying that way. Real hard to live up to them.”

  She leaned forward and took my chin in her hand, forcing me to look at her. “Dreams are all that matter. Dreams make you get your ass up in the morning and try, even when you don’t want to. Dreams are life, and you’re too young to have given up on them already, Jolene Faraday.”

  I swallowed, nodded, and she let go of my chin.

  “And it’s time for you to move out and start your life,” she said. “You said you were going, what? Three months ago?”

  “I know,” I said. �
��I think I found a place. I was planning to go look at it tomorrow.”

  “Good,” she said, and gently patted my knee. I rested my head on her shoulder, as I had most nights, and we watched the news together. We watched a story was about my heist in Grosse Pointe Park. Video of police cars in the driveway, interviews about how it wasn’t yet clear what had been taken. The usual.

  So close. It had been too close this time. Still, it was hard to regret it too much when I thought about all the shit I could pay for with what I’d grabbed that night. A few close calls with cops were worth it. A few moments of fear, panic. It didn’t matter.

  My mom yawned and rested her head against mine. “Happy birthday, Jolene,” she said quietly.

  “Thanks, Mama. The mac and cheese was a nice surprise. Thank you,” I said, and she squeezed my hand.

  “Don't stay up too late,” she said. She got up and headed to her room. “Love you, ladybug.”

  “Love you more, Mama.” I watched her shuffle into her bedroom and close the door behind her. There would be tears, sobs she thought I couldn’t hear, born of the frustration that came with feeling stuck, like nothing she did was ever enough.

  Broken dreams. There was not a chance in hell I’d let myself be haunted by them the way she was. It just wasn't worth it.

  I sat there and watched the news, barely paying attention until they got to the world news. Apparently there had been a whole shitload of freak earthquakes and lightning storms in Europe and Asia over the past two days. They were already calling it the “Second Confluence.” We’ve been through it once already, when I was fourteen. Earthquakes, lightning strikes, and then all of a sudden, people had superpowers. Not everybody, just random people here and there. Threw the world into chaos for a couple of years. The areas affected were already bracing for a new wave of powered people, and no one seemed especially happy about it. I couldn’t blame them.

  I watched the news a while longer, listening to the commentary, the predictions of another wave of powered people. “Just glad it’s not happening here,” I muttered to myself as I clicked the living room lamps off. I had class early the next morning.

  Chapter Two

  I slunk through the crowded hallways in Briggs Hall, and then ducked into the large classroom at the end of the second floor. I found my usual seat toward the back. No desks here. Instead, we had tables, two chairs to a table. My tablemate usually skipped class, which was totally fine with me.

  When I’d decided to go to the University of Detroit Mercy, it had mostly been a choice I’d made to show off. U of D was a private Catholic college, highly regarded. Costs a shit ton of money to go there, too. I’d earned a few scholarships due to my grades and test scores. Grants because Mama didn’t make a whole lot of money, and I didn’t make much at my “official” library assistant job, either. The rest… well. The rest I knew I’d be able to pay for in my own way.

  It was a way for me to give a middle finger to the people I knew who thought I’d never amount to anything, the white trash girl who grew up in a trailer park. Good grades and good manners didn’t matter a whole lot when your knees are patched and you’re wearing the same sneakers you wore the previous year. It wasn’t just kids who made it clear they thought I was trash. Teachers, other adults, once they learned where I lived, how I lived, had pretty much dismissed me as an automatic waste of space. As a kid, it had hurt. As a teenager, it had fueled other things in me.

  So here I was. And, for the most part, I actually liked it, even if this particular class was an enormous joke to me.

  Ethics.

  I smothered a grin as I took my laptop out of my bag. I leaned back in my chair and looked around. My gaze slid over the men, past the women. More than anything, it went to the things they carried. How easy it would be to slip that iPhone out of his back pocket, swipe that expensive little leather purse. I could get good money for shit like that. Not that I stole many electronics. Luther didn’t trade in that kind of thing. Jewelry, antiques. Still. I could find someone to buy it if I really wanted to.

  Not that I’d do it. Stealing from anyone at school would be a phenomenally dumb idea. If I got caught, that would be it. Not like stealing from strangers. One of the guys, a jock-looking blond, saw me looking that way and clearly thought I was looking at him. Actually freaking winked at me. I rolled my eyes and looked down at my lap, straightened my scarf. I usually had one on me. You just never knew when an opportunity would present itself and I might need to do a little slinking around. It was surprising how little disguise I actually needed.

  I waited for the professor to arrive, and wiggled my foot. I was still all hyped up over the previous night’s job. I really should have hit the gym. Lifting and sparring always made me feel more centered. Too much going on. I’d have to find a way to work it off later so I could study for the French test I had coming up.

  Luther often asked why I even bothered with the whole school thing. The answer was simple: too many people had told me I couldn’t. That was why I’d started. More, though, I knew it meant something to Mama.

  And I kept going to prove to myself, more than anyone else, that I could finish this. I might be a thief forever. Hell, I’d be happy with that. There was no rush like it on Earth.

  But I’d be a well-fucking-educated thief.

  Finally, the professor walked into the room. U of D is a Jesuit college, and priests taught several courses. The head of the Philosophy department was teaching this particular Ethics course, a fifty-ish priest with graying hair and thick glasses. He was funny and I actually liked his class, even if I didn’t really believe much of the shit he said.

  He nodded briefly to us and set his briefcase down with a thump.

  “So the reading you just did was about theft and ethics. Your assignment was to work through the argument that theft is sometimes ethical. Anyone want to share?”

  I sat there, listening to my classmates parroting pretty much one version of what I’d been living for the last four years. Theft is less wrong if the person won’t miss it. Theft is maybe okay if you’re using the things you steal to help those who need it. Theft is less wrong because things are just things, not important.

  Of course, I knew it was all bullshit. Stealing is wrong. I just don’t particularly care.

  Father Heinlein turned his gaze to me. “Jolene, any thoughts on this one?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Theft is always wrong.”

  “You were supposed to argue the opposite.”

  “I know. But doesn’t the very word of God state that theft is a sin? Wrong? How can anyone argue against that, truly?”

  He studied me. He seemed to know that I thought this class was a big joke. He called on me too often, and almost seemed to want to prove to me that it mattered. I suppose it was the priest thing. He saw a lost lamb and wanted to shepherd it. Or whatever the deal was.

  “You can’t think of a single instance in which theft is right?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What if it’s like, plans for a poison that would kill a bunch of people?” the blond jock guy who’d been winking at me earlier asked, turning in his seat to look at me. “That would be right and moral, right?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, the Bible is pretty clear, right? ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ Doesn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation,” I said with a shrug.

  “Did you do the assignment, Miss Faraday?” Father Heinlein asked.

  “Of course. But I didn’t believe a word I wrote.”

  I thought, maybe, the Father was suppressing a smile. He cleared his throat. “Duly noted, Jolene. Anybody else?”

  Someone else started talking, and the girl in front of me turned around. Busybody chick. Cheerleader. Looked like she bought every item of clothing at Neiman Marcus or Macy’s, definitely not Wal-Mart. “You are going to Hell. You shouldn’t be smart to a priest,” she hissed.

  I nodded. “I am totally going to hell,” I said in the most sincere tone I could manage. “I’ll see yo
u there.” She gave me a dirty look, as if she’d just smelled something bad, and when she turned around in disgust, I leaned back, smiling.

  Class finally ended, and I filed out with the rest of my classmates, setting my assignment on Father Heinlein’s desk. Most of the profs had moved to online systems for assignments, but not Father Heinlein. It was probably weird, but I liked him a little more for that.

  I glanced at my phone. I had an hour to grab a bus and get to Luther’s. I wore a thin bag under my sweater, across my body, with the shit I’d lifted the night before inside. It clanked comfortingly against my side, and I gripped the pepper spray in my sweater pocket as I walked out of the building.

  There was a bus stop across from campus, and I jogged across the busy street, waited there. I stood, looking at everyone who passed, making sure they knew I saw them. I wasn’t a dumb chick, just waiting to get mugged. Bunch of opportunists around college campuses. I could hardly blame them, as long as it wasn’t me they were messing with.

  After a few minutes, the big green and yellow bus pulled up to the curb, brakes wheezing, squeaking to a halt. The door opened, and I swiped my card and found a seat near the front. Luther was over in Hamtramck, so I didn't have too long of a ride ahead of me. I crossed my arms over my chest and didn’t let my guard down. The bus wasn’t crowded, which was nice. Fewer people to keep an eye on.

  When the bus pulled up to my stop, it was a relief. Sitting still, even for a short time with that much bank strapped to me had me on pins and needles. You just never knew when someone might try to do something stupid, and I definitely wasn’t in the mood for stupid. All I wanted was to get this stuff to Luther and get paid.

  I walked down the narrow sidewalk, tall old houses on either side of the street. Back in the day, Hamtramck had been an almost-exclusively Polish neighborhood. Like everything, it evolved over time, becoming one of the more diverse areas of the city. Mosques rose alongside the old Catholic churches, church bells and calls for prayer singing out over the slanted roofs. I ended up here once every few weeks or so. Not because it was convenient, because it wasn’t.