Chapter 24

Alyssa said during lunch, "So Sam, have you thought any more about my history test?"

"What?"

"You know..."

"Alyssa!" warned Alex.

"I'm not saying anything."

"Not now," I said.

"Talking about it or helping me?"

Mallory chimed in. "Are you tutoring Alyssa?"

"Not exactly," Alyssa said with a coy smile.

I stood, grabbed my lunch, and walked away.

"Where are you going?" Alex said.

"Nowhere," I mumbled and headed off.

I found a quiet place leaning against a school building. A couple of minutes later my solitude was broken.

"Sam?" said Mallory. "What's going on? You seem so down and depressed."

"I can't say."

"You need to let it out."

"That's the problem! Too many people already know!" I shouted. "Sorry."

"Come on, Sam. We've been friends for a long time. We haven't talked deep much but we're buddies."

"I'd like to, Mallory, but if you knew, you'd know why I can't tell you. I don't want one more person thinking I'm a freak."

"You're not a freak, Sam. I love you just the way you are."

"Not if you really knew me," I replied.

"Sure I would."

Something in her face made me think she was telling the truth, but my secret had caused enough trouble.

"I..."

The school intercom interrupted. I was paged to the front office!

"Talk to you later, Sam," Mallory said as I left.

I entered the admin office and was immediately greeted by Officer Martin.

"Hi, Sam!"

She was with Officer Sandoval. My stomach dropped. What did they find out about me?

"Hi," I mumbled.

"We already talked to your parents and they said it was okay. We want to talk to you about something."

"About what?"

"We'll talk down at the station. Don't look anxious. You're not in trouble at all!"

Martin's words didn't ease my feelings.

We were in Police Chief Dennison's office for the last hour.

"Do you understand, Sam?" asked Martin.

"I think so," I said. "You want to catch this mob boss, Stan's a really bad guy, so you want me to film him but to do that I have to stand around bored just with the hope he might say something that you can use to put him in jail."

Dennison said, "I wouldn't paraphrase it that way."

"But it's what you basically said."

I looked at Martin. She had the decency to shrug and confirm I was correct.

Dennison said, "We've explained all the reasons he needs to be put away."

"Yeah," I sighed. It was the right thing to do but it didn't mean I wanted to do it. "Will I get paid?"

The three looked at each other. Didn't they think to pay me?

"How much are you thinking?" Dennison asked.

"I thought maybe I could keep the fifty thousand I stole from an armor truck."

"What!" Martin exclaimed. "You didn't tell us about that, Sam."

"I am now."

"Chief?" asked Martin.

"It would be worth it," Dennison said. "No one else needs to know about the money and it's not coming out of police funds. I'm sure insurance will cover what was lost by the armored truck company."

"So Sam?" Martin said.

"Okay, I'll do it."

"Good!" said Dennison, leaning back in his chair.

"So when do you want to start?" I asked. There went my social life but it seemed to be going away by itself.

I shouldn't have been surprised that the police wanted to start tonight.

I rode in the backseat of an unmarked police car. A couple of blocks away from the guy's huge house, I put on a backpack and went invisible.

I walked to and passed into the building. They had shown me a picture of the guy. For whatever reason, there were several young women walking around only in underwear. I pulled out the videocamera just to make sure it worked. That was kind of the reason.

The place contained some type of unofficial strip club. I guess it was for employee morale or something.

I finally found Stan in an office. I recorded him talking to some guy but it sounded like normal business to me. Maybe the police could get something from it.

Later Stan made his way to the in-house strip club and he received a blow job.

The next significant thing he did was make his way to the bedroom and fuck a different woman before falling asleep.

I returned to the waiting police car.

"Sam," said Chief Dennison, the next day. "You only have to record when Stan is in conversation with people, particularly in his office. You don't have to record ... everything else."

"Okay," I said. Everything else was the only thing interesting from last night.

"So how'd it go?" Officer Martin asked the next evening.

"Nothing," I shrugged. This Saturday night was a bust too.

"Always tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is a school night. I have to go to school Monday."

"We need you, Sam."

"Not tomorrow. Weekends only."

"Now Sam," she said gently.

I wasn't going to let Martin sweet talk me.

"No!" I said firmly.

I went to bed early Sunday night because I was tired but I couldn't fall asleep for a couple of hours. All I could think about was that no one loved me for being plain me. The police, Brianna, Lisa, Alex, and Alyssa only liked me because of my powers. Not one person in the world liked Sam for being Sam. I was fifteen years old but I actually cried myself to sleep.

"You look awful, Sam," Mom said the next morning. "Are you okay?"