by L. J. Fox
She squeezed his hand, feeling a bit emotional at the thought of that night, of losing him.
“I gave you some of my blood.”
“You WHAT?”
He had not been expecting that answer. He blinked a few times.
“I got your penknife off your keyring and I cut myself.”
She lifted her wrist to show him the pink line where the slice had been. He ran his finger along the scar gently.
“You cut yourself … and you gave me your blood? How?”
“I held my wrist against your stab wound and let my blood mix with yours.”
“What do you think that will have done? Did that heal me?” He asked, thinking about the possibility.
“I don’t really know. I had been wondering about Bray blood because of what Narelle told me that the Brays don’t donate blood or organs etc. It made me wonder if it has some sort of quality to it that they don’t want the normal person to have, or to know about. So, when I thought I was losing you, I thought it was a good time to try it.”
“I wonder if it has done something to me. It is possible then that I have Bray blood intermingling with mine.”
“It wouldn’t be much.”
“So, you are now a super woman that also can heal the wounded, bring the dead back to life, befriend the animals, see into the past, identify people’s powers. Wow! What else can you do?”
She looked at him and pulled a face. “I feel like I am stronger every day. I don’t really know what is possible, and maybe there is a lot more that I can do, but I just don’t know.”
“Can you get into the mind of normal people, or only Brays?” Andy asked.
Layne thought about it. “I don’t really know. I have never tried. I know I can’t with you or it would have happened by now. We have been so close. I never detected anything with my grandparents either, so maybe I can’t. Or maybe it is still developing and I need to practice.”
“Maybe you could try with a stranger on the tram, or something. See if you can detect anything with them.”
“Yes maybe.”
They sat and ate the Subway wraps they had bought for lunch and chatted. She had missed talking to him so badly. She felt complete when she was with him, like she could be herself. At work she was the dutiful granddaughter, the trainee Bray but when she was with him, or her grandparents, she was just Layne.
Andy turned to face her.
“Layne. I need to talk to you about something. Last time I tried you were angry with me.”
She nodded, remembering the night painfully. She would not lose her cool again. She had since discussed this with her grandparents and was more at ease with the situation.
“Your grandfather and I visited Ed Makin’s widow and she gave us his notebooks to review. There is a box of them. He was a big note taker and scribbled notes for every phone call he made.”
She nodded. Her grandfather had told her as much.
“Your father had a few phone calls with Ed. It seems they were school friends and knew each other pretty well. Your father told him the whole story of the Brays, and about your mother and you as well.”
She nodded and felt a lump at the back of her throat.
“Ed made some notes during these conversations, though they are shorthand and difficult to read. I had been studying them up until my … accident … and was starting to understand how Ed wrote his shorthand but I don’t understand all of it.”
He rummaged around in his coat pocket and brought out some notes he had written. Unfolding the paper, he smiled gently at her, seeing her solemn face.
“Are you ok? This may all mean nothing at all, but we still need to investigate it.”
“Yes. I really want to see this.”
He looked down at his notes. “There are a lot of notes I think are related and some seem pretty obvious. Like this one … Bev 3 Lane. This would relate to Beverley, your mother, and you, Layne who was three years old at the time, though your name is shorthand.”
She nodded slowly, very interested in what these notes may contain and yet, terrified at the same time.
“Ok”
He felt reassured seeing how calm and interested she was.
“Here … this bit … F Hill. Then van der Linde and brays. F Hill, is that where Warren lives?” he asked.
“Yes. It is in Toorak but the property is called Fernview Hill.”
“There are these initials, WV, BJ, YS, MT, SP, VI and TD with au here.”
He was pointing to the paper with his finger. Layne took the paper and looked at the initials.
“WV would be Warren van der Linde. BJ – Ben Jackson. He is like second in charge. This must be some of the leader group.”
She frowned as she studied the initials.
“I would have met these people at one of Warren’s dinners. He had the leader group there one night and from time-to-time, there have been one or two of them present. I just can’t remember all their names. Yes. Look here. Exec pnl stands for executive panel.”
“HH missing. Hmmm. No idea. Dustin Meyer. Yes. I know who he is. Every Bray knows him. I have been reading about him, just this week. He is like the head honcho of the whole organisation. He is in the US, married to a woman called Ann-Marie and they have a son. Everyone is a bit in awe of this Dustin Meyer. He calls the shots world-wide, and then they have a country head. Warren is the Australian country head.”
Andy pointed to this next section on the paper.
“YR conf powers dom. What do you think that means?”
Layne pursed her lips. “YR. Your or year, perhaps. Conf – conference? Yearly conference. I read there is a yearly conference, usually in the US where the country heads and the executive panel meet with Dustin Meyer and they all discuss whatever Brays discuss.” She shrugged.
“Hmm. Interesting. When is the next yearly conference? Do you know?” Andy asked her.
She nodded negatively. “No. I don’t know. Why? You going along?” She grinned at him teasingly.
They read some more notes, shaking their heads at not understand what the shorthand meant.
“Burbank Farm” Andy read out. “Look here. There is this symbol, like a capital T. Have you heard of Burbank Farm?”
Layne looked at the name and symbol, frowning.
“No. I haven’t heard of it. This symbol … is it a cross?”
Andy turned his head to the side to get a better look at the notes.
“Like a cemetery cross? Could be.”
He pulled out his phone and did a Google search of Burbank Farm. Nothing jumped out in the results.
“There are a few results of different things. Most of these results are of a Gold Ridge experimental farm in California.”
They looked at each other. It didn’t mean anything. They studied the next lines.
“Hide Lane super. We already know he writes Lane for your name. Hide Layne. Do you think that means when they took you to your grandparents that last time?”
Andy asked carefully, worried he was about to upset her.
“Maybe. Super? I am not sure what that means. Look at this bit … Pub PR Afraid and it has three exclamation marks after it to emphasise the Afraid bit. I think it means Public. I think it means they wanted that journalist to publish the story on the Brays. They wanted public awareness in case something happened to them. What do you think?” She looked at Andy.
He nodded. “It looks like they were afraid of the safety of all of you. They wanted to hide you and talk to Ed Makin in person so he could publish a story. Ed and your father were childhood friends so they trusted each other. On the way to Shepparton, something happened. Someone intercepted them and took them away.”
Layne nodded slowly deep in thought.
“Ed was killed in a car accident not long after your parents went missing. This is the last note he wrote.” Andy unfolded the other piece of paper in his hand.
Layne read the words. “Royal Mail NOW. That was the last thing he wrote?” she asked.
&n
bsp; “Yes. We think so. He circled it and then left on a Sunday night and his car hit a tree. He was on his way somewhere in a bit of a hurry it seems. There is a hotel at Mooroopna called the Royal Mail so we wonder if he was on his way to meet someone.”
“Maybe he was going to meet my parents.” Layne said.
Chapter 54
One cold morning the next week, Layne jumped on the tram and stood holding a roof handle as she often had to due to the commuter rush during business hours. She remembered what Andy had said about trying to ping a normal person. The tram was too crowded to turn around and choose a target so she concentrated on the young man seated in front of her. All she could see of him was the back of his head, dark brown hair neatly groomed and with headphones on. She had not seen the front of him so had no knowledge of what he looked like or what age he was.
Luckily, he would not be aware of her looking at him with his back to her. She stared at that dark head and concentrated. She imagined that she was a mosquito piercing his skull. She pushed. Nothing. She pushed again and again. Nothing. She shrugged. It didn’t work. She couldn’t ping normal people.
The tram stopped at a stop near Spring Street. She saw the man stand up and turn toward her. He could have gone out the door at the front of the tram but there was less people to pass if he exited via the middle door, He was getting off the tram and had to walk past her. She squeezed herself upright to make a tiny bit of room as all the standing patrons did when someone was trying to walk past, more to be polite than to actually make anymore room.
The man looked to be in his thirties in office attire with a warm coat on his arm. He still had his fancy headphones on and didn’t look at her but as he pushed through the standing people, his body brushed against hers. Immediately, the flashes started. Black and white again. Split second flashes. She drew her breath in at the sudden shock of it. The flashes only lasted for the few seconds it took him to move past her but in that time she had seen the traumatic events in his life. She had seen his dog killed by a car when he was a young boy. He had witnessed a stabbing in a city street as a teenager and he had watched his father die of cancer in a hospital bed just recently.
The man stepped off the tram and onto the street with no knowledge of what had just happened, totally oblivious that she had just witnessed his bleakest moments. She watched the back of him walking down the street as the tram moved off, wondering why it had happened that way. Was it touch that triggered the power? Why had it never happened before? Was it possible that it only happened because she had been trying to ping him? Had she somehow made a connection or opened a door to the touch?
More observation and practice was required.
Chapter 55
The week had been interesting following the strange incident on the tram. Although Layne wanted to experiment with every normal person she got close to, she had to be careful that they did not catch her staring at them, or trying to touch them in some way. She did manage to ping the girl who made her coffee two doors down from HQ. This was a young girl and there was nothing too traumatic in her life, which Layne reasoned was a good thing.
She tried the same tactic on a few people on the tram after work who had their backs to her, and she knew they would most likely get off the tram before her and therefore touch her on the way. She saw a few traumatic events in other people’s lives such as car accidents, death of a family member, a house burn down and a young woman who had fought off attackers. Some of the events left her feeling a bit tense and anxious, but she reasoned these events were in the past. They had already happened. They were just an echo, a left-over memory that hung around the person. She also felt like a thief. She was stealing into people’s minds and taking their memories. Well … she wasn’t taking them. The memories were still there for the person but she had stolen a glimpse of them. Certainly it was an invasion of privacy. The thought made her feel sick. She would stop pinging people. It wasn’t right.
The trouble was, that now she had started this pinging, it didn’t want to just stop as easily as that. She was getting flashes from people she had not concentrated on, merely touched. It showed her how her powers were growing and developing on a daily basis. Now, she had to learn how to switch it off, like she switched off smells and hearing.
At work, she had finished the majority of reading material and was now being moved around the senior executives to get a chance to talk to them and learn from them. This was an interesting experience with most people very friendly and helpful, if a little condescending. There were two men she found to be arrogant and narcissistic. She had met one of them at a dinner at Warren’s house, but the other was a new acquaintance. She asked them questions about what they did in the organisation, what they were in charge of, where they felt the growth lay, and so forth.
She sat back and listened, smiling and nodding as they spoke. She no longer had to take copious amounts of notes to look normal. Although she was still deceiving people, but this time she was pretending to be less powerful than she actually was. In some ways she was unsure why she was keeping up this pretence, but she knew the time was not right to show her hand, plus she was still learning.
The man she sat in front of now was Michael Tonkin and he looked to be around sixty years of age. MT. He was the MT, a member of the executive panel. The pieces of the jigsaw would come together, she was sure. The interview was nearing the end when Michael stood up and extended his hand to her.
“It was lovely to speak with you today Layne. I hope the discussion has given you insight into how the education system works for us here in Australia.”
He gave his big broad white teeth smile and came around the side of the desk to escort her to the door.
“I hope Warren and Miriam can bring you up for a weekend at my country house sometime soon.”
“Oh that sounds lovely” said Layne, thinking there would be nothing worse. “Where is your country house?” she asked politely.
“Burbank Farm is just outside of Bendigo.”
Chapter 56
Andy sat in the waiting room at the hospital consulting suite tapping his foot. He had been waiting for an hour so far for the specialist who wanted to examine him. He understood that the good doctor was busy and there were lots of patients but damn it, he was busy too and had other things to do and places to be.
There were at least ten other people in the waiting room and he looked away, hating that he could smell so many personal details about them. He knew the old lady next to him had incontinence and was wearing panty liners, and the guy across the other side of the room had an infected leg. He could smell the infection and it made him feel sick.
He could hear the specialist in the room behind him, talking to a couple who were upset about the man needing surgery. The specialist was reassuring them that the procedure was routine and nothing to worry about.
He glanced at his watch again. Another five minutes had passed. Damn! There were at least five people in this room who had been here before he got here so they must be scheduled to see the specialist before him. He jumped up, startling the old lady next to him who peed herself in fright. He was out of here. He walked up to the receptionist and apologised but said he had been called away.
Marching down the corridor looking for the elevator, he passed other nurses, patients and cleaners. Having spent some time in hospital recently, he found it suffocating and just wanted to get out of the place. He pressed the button for the lift and waited. A middle-aged woman walked up and stood next to him waiting for the elevator. He glanced at her and their eyes met. She smiled coyly at him and he knew her heart had just raced a tiny bit.
JESUS WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HIM?
The elevator arrived and he stepped in, followed by the woman. He looked up at the numerals lit up above the door and thought how he couldn’t get out of the building quick enough Was he suffering from anxiety? Was he having a panic attack? He had never felt like this before. Had he lost his mind?
As he was looking up at the n
umerals a number of people entered the elevator. Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck prickled. He shivered and shook his shoulders. A tingling feeling encompassed his body and he remembered Layne had told him how this happened when she first encountered Gregory.
Slowly he lowered his eyes and looked at the other four people in the elevator with him, almost expecting to see Gregory. One tall man was looking at him. Their eyes met. The man was well-built, well dressed and good looking. He was not dressed as a doctor or nurse but in a suit, grey suit.
Then Andy knew. It felt like his heart had stopped with the realisation. That man was a Bray, and not only that, he had recognised it, and the man had recognised him.
FUCK! HE WAS A BRAY!
Chapter 57
Layne stepped out of the building. The wind whipped her hair up and she quickly wrapped her scarf around her neck to hold her hair down. Looking around, she saw Detective Sargent Barring standing under the awning of the shop next door to her left. She put her head down to run the gauntlet of rain and wind and sprinted across to the awning.
“Good morning Ms Harrison.” He said politely.
“Hi there.” She answered surprised to get a call from him this morning asking to meet.
They stepped into the small café one door further on and sat at two stools in front of the glass window. It was still a bit early for the mid-morning coffee rush so there were only a few people around. Layne sensed a few Brays at a booth toward the back of the room, but she didn’t need to hide a visit with the policeman.
He ordered two coffees and asked how she was. They made polite conversation for a few minutes while waiting for the coffee.
“So, you want to talk to me about the rapist, or the case?” she asked.
“Well, no actually” He looked down, as if embarrassed to be asking anything of her.
“I wanted to ask a favour of you. I need your help.”
He looked across at her to gauge her reaction.
“I think you might be able to help. I don’t understand what you can do or how you can do it, but I have an open mind and I am desperate.”