Hero Status Page 2

  Officially, Miami Hero-Fest was a celebration of American superheroes to honor the sacrifices we’d made for this country. Realistically, it was just a big beach party, second only to Spring Break. And this year would be the worst, because the Idols were special guests.

  Mr. Tomorrow, Starbright, and G-Force: the Idols were superheroes, supposedly. They wore costumes and had special abilities, at least, and once upon a time, had even fought crime. Now they just appeared in movies, went to parties, and showed up plastered in photographs in the tabloids. I could work up a good rant on how they were everything that was wrong with superheroes today, but Val would usually tell me to shut up after the first minute or so.

  The security for the event would be a nightmare. I didn’t envy the superheroes on duty for it. Maybe that was why Moreen was in town, and the thing with Val wasn’t serious after all.

  And maybe spandex would make a comeback.

  Eventually, I made it downtown. The closest parking garage was two blocks away from the office, leaving me to walk the rest of the way. In less than a minute, my T-shirt and jeans were damp with sweat. I probably should’ve worn a suit, since I was meeting the director of the DSA, but I hadn’t wanted to waste time by going home to change. Besides, if this meeting didn’t go well, it would be because I’d done something a lot worse than underdress.

  The twinge in my knee had turned into a light ache by the time I reached the office. Its automatic doors slid open, and I stepped into the air-conditioning gratefully. The DSA might seem glamorous, but they had budget troubles like every other government agency and didn’t spend much on interior decorating. The floors were clean but scuffed from years of use, and everything was the same dull mix between gray and brown. American flags hung listlessly by the door, faded from years of sun. The dozen or so people in the waiting room were either playing on their phones or staring dully at the outdated TVs hanging from the ceiling. I walked past it all and stopped at the back of the line at the receptionist’s desk.

  As I waited, my gaze drifted to the TVs. Some informational program was giving a guided tour of the main DSA building in Washington, and the footage looked pretty old. I wondered if I was in it.

  “David Del Toro,” I told the receptionist when I reached the front. “Director Lee should be expecting me.”

  “I’ll let her know you’re here,” the woman replied. “Have a seat, please.”

  I did so, and despite my best efforts to resist, my gaze kept getting drawn back to the television. A cartoon superhero in a garish costume was narrating the program, and he flew around the screen explaining a chart of the different divisions within the DSA. My gaze went to the Special Criminal Response Branch, where I used to work.

  The receptionist hadn’t seemed to recognize my name, but that didn’t surprise me. The DSA kept our identities locked away in secure databases, and most people only knew superheroes by their code names. True, my mask hadn’t been nearly big enough to really obscure my facial features. People occasionally recognized me, but your average person didn’t expect to run into a superhero in the frozen foods section of the grocery store, so most days I was safe.

  “Mr. Del Toro.”

  A young man in a suit was standing just outside one of the side doors. He had to have been fresh out of college.

  “This way, please.”

  I rose and followed him down a nondescript hallway where a security checkpoint waited at the end. I had to hand over my cane to be X-rayed and empty my pockets just like at the airport. The young agent offered to help me through the metal detector, and I thanked him politely but limped through under my own power. Then they returned my belongings, and I was free to proceed, the whole thing having been pointless, honestly. A man with super-strength didn’t need to smuggle in weapons to be dangerous.

  The agent took the lead again without speaking. He seemed nervous, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye every few seconds. He’d probably been briefed on just who he was escorting. I’d been one of the good guys, but I could still tear apart a car with my bare hands, and that kind of power made people a little twitchy sometimes. Then again, for all I knew, he had super-strength too or pyrokinesis or something. You could never tell with the DSA.

  We walked through the hallways quietly, passing other serious men and women in suits.

  “You’re White Knight,” the agent blurted out.

  Then again, he could also be nervous because he was a fan.

  “I used to be,” I said.

  “Sorry.” The agent’s face was red. “It’s just… I had your action figure when I was a kid—and a poster of you. And the pajamas that looked like your costume. And… I’ll shut up now.”

  I smiled. If you asked me, fame was the worst part of the job. I’d never been comfortable with all the attention, but this—the ability to inspire people—had made it worth it.

  “It’s fine,” I said.

  The agent looked away in embarrassment, and the next several steps were taken in silence.

  “Was it the action figure with the grappling gun?” I asked.

  He scratched his head. “Uh… yeah.”

  “I always liked that one.”

  He beamed.

  A minute later, we stopped at an office door identical to all the others. The agent knocked, cracked it open, and poked in his head.

  “Director Lee? I’ve brought Mr. Del Toro.”

  “Send him in,” Moreen said.

  I walked in, and the door immediately closed behind me.

  Moreen had a big window office, but it was obviously only a temporary one. Someone had put in a generic painting of a bald eagle and some tropical potted plants in an attempt to give the room a little personality, but it hadn’t worked. The space felt incomplete, like an apartment someone had just moved into. The desk Moreen sat behind wasn’t cluttered with papers, and the shiny black computer still had the protective film stuck to it. The air even had a stale sort of smell, like the room had been unused for a long time.

  Moreen probably couldn’t care less. Function was ten times more important than appearance in her book. For all the years I’d known her, she’d worn cheap, plain clothes and didn’t so much cut her hair as chop it off to keep it out of her face. But that had been before she’d taken up the high-profile position of director of the DSA.

  Now, her pantsuit was plain black but unmistakably high-end. Her graying hair was still cut short, but layered and styled in the latest fashion. It looked like someone had even gotten her to wear make-up. I didn’t envy whoever had had to enforce that PR decision. But some things never changed, and she still looked at me with the same sharp gaze that used to make people joke she had laser-vision.

  “It’s been a while,” she said.

  “It has,” I agreed. “And I’d love to catch up, but I think I only have four minutes and fifty-six seconds left.”

  She smirked. “Sit down.”

  I eased into the hard chair in front of her desk and got straight to the point.

  “Val didn’t kill anyone.”

  Moreen rolled her eyes. “Of course you’d say that.”

  “I think what you mean to say is, ‘No, Dave. Of course she didn’t.’”

  “No. I don’t know that for a fact, and neither do you.”

  I didn’t blink as I met her harsh stare. “Of course I know. She’s my wife. I know her better than anyone.”

  “And you’ve always been an idiot when it comes to her.”

  I took a deep breath and resigned myself. It was going to be one of those conversations.

  “Don’t give me that look,” Moreen said. “I can bring up the Black Valentine’s rap sheet and show you every crime she’s ever committed, maybe give you some idea of all the lives she’s ruined. Do I need to remind you that she kept your daughter’s existence secret for over a decade? It’s like you just forget all that when she’s around. I’d think she was mind-controlling you, but she doesn’t need to, does she?”

  I took a slow breath a
nd did my best to keep my tone diplomatic.

  I failed.

  “Fine. What do you think she’s guilty of? Who do you have evidence she killed?”

  The anger drained from Moreen’s face and was replaced by silent camaraderie, the kind shared by two old soldiers who’d lost a lot of friends over the years.

  “It’s Harris,” she said.

  I stared at her, unable to speak for a moment. Harris Holt, better known to the world as Supersonic, could run fast enough to keep up with cars on the freeway and had worked with me over the years more times than I could count. We’d both kept in touch after retirement, meeting every month or so to reminisce over a few beers. Harris was one of my few colleagues who hadn’t shunned me after my relationship with Val came to light. He’d even been the best man at my wedding.

  “When?” I asked, my voice scratchy.

  “Last night. It looks like a brain hemorrhage caused by psychic attack.”

  “Any number of telepaths could have done that. What makes you think it was Val?”

  “He was found with a heart drawn on his face. In black lipstick.”

  So she’d been framed, then. Val had used a calling card like that way back in her early days—on people she telepathically knocked out, not killed. Mention it to her now, and she’d blush and say something about being young and cocky.

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” I said.

  “It’s not enough to convict her,” Moreen agreed. “Not yet, anyway. But it’s definitely enough to warrant her arrest.”

  “And while you’re wasting your time on Val, the real killer is still out there. Have you run down Mental? He’d be my first suspect. He served what—ten years in prison after Supersonic brought him down? That’s an actual motive; something Val doesn’t have.”

  Moreen leaned back in her chair. “Harris went up against the Black Valentine his fair share of times. And Mental has an alibi vouched for by witnesses.”

  “Whose memories he could have altered.”

  “You think I haven’t thought of that? We know what we’re doing, Dave. If Valentina Belmonte is really innocent, then you have nothing to worry about.”

  It was the same argument I’d used on Elisa, but it didn’t make me feel better. Someone had deliberately set up Val, and the DSA was already biased against her.

  “Dave.” Moreen’s expression softened. “You know I’ll do everything in my power to—”

  The door burst open, and a balding, beefy man nearly two decades my senior charged in. “What the hell is he doing here?” he demanded.

  “Nice to see you, too, Walter,” I said.

  Walter Franke had been my boss once. Now he was Deputy Director of National Intelligence. He ignored me completely and glowered at Moreen, but it was like a white belt challenging a karate master; Moreen could glower better in her sleep.

  “Do I really have to respond to that?” she asked. “You know the answer.”

  “You’re leaking details of an ongoing case to a man who’s probably an accomplice to the murderer,” Walter said.

  Were I a less restrained man, I would’ve decked him then and there, but I’d spent a lifetime building restraint. There was no other choice with super-strength, when one wrong move could break someone’s bones or even kill them.

  “I want him out of here now,” Walter said.

  “And I want a month-long vacation in Tahiti,” Moreen replied. “Looks like we’ll both have to deal with disappointment.”

  “You’re putting the security of the entire investigation at risk.”

  “It’s my decision to make.”

  I picked up my cane and stood. “It’s fine. I’ll leave.”

  “Sit back down,” Moreen barked.

  I sat.

  Moreen turned back to Walter. “I’m in charge. If you have a problem with the way I’m running things, you can take it to your superiors.”

  Walter’s face was red. He might not have mastered the art of the glare, but he’d been with the DSA practically since it had been founded, and his anger wasn’t a thing to be taken lightly. “I will,” he said, and walked out.

  The door slammed, and I wished Moreen had let me leave when I’d asked. Walter was high enough in the chain of command that complaining to his superiors meant the President of the United States might just hear about it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to her.

  “You knew you were asking me to bend the rules when you called.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Walter’s always been an ass.”

  But he was also one of the best men a superhero could have at their back in a bad situation. Or at least he had been. I shook my head. “He’s an idiot, if he thinks I had anything to do with it.”

  Moreen looked at me thoughtfully. As the silence lengthened without her agreeing with me, my stomach went cold.

  “Mo, you can’t possibly think—”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think you killed him. But a decade ago, I wouldn’t have thought you’d had a relationship with the Black Valentine and kept it secret from the Department—and me.”

  I couldn’t meet her eyes. I wanted to argue, to insist I’d never done anything to jeopardize national security, to say my rendezvous with Val had been harmless, that they’d stopped before I’d started dating Moreen. But even in my head, those sounded like pathetic excuses. Moreen was right, as usual.

  “I guess my five minutes are up,” I said.

  “Just remember I’m the one in charge. You know I’m fair.”

  I nodded and pushed myself to my feet. “Thank you. For everything. I appreciate it.”

  She smiled wryly. “I should hope so, with all the crap I’m going to get for this.”

  I smiled back and walked toward the door.

  “And Dave?”

  I turned back around. All traces of the smile had vanished from her face.

  “Go home, take care of your kid, and sit this one out,” she said. “I don’t want to see you doing anything stupid.”

  “I don’t want that, either,” I said, closing the door on my way out.

  Especially since, if she saw me, it would mean I’d gotten caught.

  Not a particularly admirable thought, but I was married to someone who’d once topped the DSA’s most-wanted list. She was bound to rub off on me at least a little.

  I’d go home and take care of Elisa—but not yet. Right now, my wife was being held on murder charges, and I was the only one who truly cared about proving her innocence. I needed a place to start, and Mental was still the person most likely to have murdered Harris by psychic attack, regardless of his so-called alibi.

  And that meant I had a supervillain to see.

  Chapter 2

  “White Knight? It’s you, isn’t it? I can’t believe it. Do you remember me?”

  I had just left the DSA building when the woman’s voice reached my ears. It made me wince in dread of the commotion that always broke out when someone recognized me on the street. Then I got a good look at the woman, and my blood pressure must have doubled on the spot. If only I could still run, I’d have seriously considered making a break for it.

  “Ms. Strauss,” I said through a grimace.

  There was one thing every superhero feared more than having a death ray pointed at their face, and that was Starla Strauss. The papers called her a socialite, probably because “serial damsel in distress” took longer to type. There’s no shortage of men and women who chase after superheroes for relationships, but Starla Strauss took it a step further. She had a knack for seeking out dangerous situations, throwing herself in the middle of them, and requiring the nearest superhero to save her. Over the course of my career, I’d rescued her from five hostage crises, pulled her out of three burning buildings, and once extracted her from the wreckage of her car after she’d deliberately crashed it right in front of me.

  Of course, since she pulled all this throughout my career, it meant she wasn’t a youn
g woman anymore. Judging by the smooth, tight look of her face, she’d had plastic surgery done recently. And I kept my gaze on her face, because her low-cut shirt showed off the work she’d had done in other places.

  She rushed toward me, and a pretty blonde girl around Elisa’s age trailed after her. Treasure Strauss had been famous before she’d even turned a year old, thanks to Starla claiming no less than three superheroes as potential fathers. Paternity tests had turned out negative for all of them, but the scandal had still hurt their careers.

  Supersonic had been one of them.

  “You must have heard about Harris,” Starla said.

  I looked desperately around, hoping to spot an excuse to leave. “Yes. You… heard about it, too?”

  “Of course. Harris and I were seeing each other. Didn’t you know?”

  I hadn’t. I’d known Harris had been nostalgic about the old days but would have never guessed he’d sunk to the level of taking up with Starla Strauss.

  “I was the one who found his body.” She flung her arms around my neck and buried her face in my chest. “Oh, it was awful!”

  I patted her awkwardly on the back with my free hand. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  “I just couldn’t believe it,” she sobbed. “Poor Harris. He was such a good man.”

  We were getting stares from other people on the sidewalk now. Treasure kept her gaze to the ground and looked like she was trying to develop invisibility powers on the spot. And Elisa accuses me of being embarrassing in public.

  “Ms. Strauss.” I pried her gently off. “You told the DSA everything you know?”

  “Oh, yes.” She wiped her eyes daintily, her mascara running. “I don’t think I was much help, though.”

  The dread I’d felt upon her approach was transforming into an acid ball in my gut. If Starla had been spending time with Harris, she might know something, and any little bit of information would be a huge help at this point. The mere thought made me squirm, but I knew what I had to do. I’d rather fight an entire supervillain cabal in nothing but my underwear, but for Val, I’d do anything.