The Delphi Effect (The Delphi Trilogy Book 1)

by Rysa Walker

  I spent many hours in Kelsey’s office, stacking up those bricks in my mind, walling off the unsafe corners. Practicing over and over until I had a way to keep my hitchhikers from taking control, and to keep me from doing and saying stupid things that would land me back in a psychiatric ward. I also learned to unstack those bricks, and let out the things that frightened me so that we could examine them. But only when I was in Kelsey’s office, where it was safe. And later, sometimes with Deo.

  My wall is up even before it’s a conscious thought. It’s just a mental exercise, something to keep me feeling as though I’m in control of the situation, even when I’m not. But years of practice have made it second nature.

  The tingling sensation pauses at the center of my right eyebrow. Probing. I can almost feel Dacia jabbing at my mental bricks, trying to find a chink in the wall, a place where she can get through to whatever secrets I’m hiding.

  I snatch my hand out of her grasp and focus on building another wall in front of the first one. The tingle dissipates, almost like a thread pulling out of my skin.

  Her eyes narrow. “You said you would cooperate!”

  I keep my face blank and focus on my imaginary wall, in case she’s prepping for another go at it. “You haven’t asked me any questions.”

  Dacia stares at me, her composure clearly shaken, and nervously glances at the guy who came in with her. She focuses on smoothing her skirt over her thighs for a couple of seconds, and I lean back in my chair, waiting. I’m beginning to suspect she wasn’t actually prepared to question me. She was counting on just poking around in my head to find out what she wanted to know, but now she has to figure out what to ask.

  “How did you . . . how were you introduced to . . . Molly Porter? And when?”

  “I met her at the U Street shelter.” That’s the last bit of the full truth this woman will be getting, but I try to weave in a few half-truths to help me remember the story I’m telling. “About three years ago. I don’t remember the exact date. Molly taught me how to play a song on the piano. I think she was there with her mother.”

  Dacia nods, and again looks at the bodyguard or whatever he is, still standing near the door with her coat over his arm. Pretty sure he’s military or ex-military. He’s at attention, staring straight ahead at a spot on the wall, his face blank. It’s odd that his presence didn’t make her at all nervous when she came in. If anything, I’d have said the opposite. So I can only assume she doesn’t like him being here as a possible witness to her failure to pick my brain.

  “And why did you tell Molly’s grandfather you were in contact with her . . .” She frowns, like she’s searching for the word. “Her phantom . . . her spirit?”

  I shrug. “I explained that to him already. Molly left her diary at the shelter. I read it, but I forgot to take it with me when I left. Later, I realized he might have paid for it. I’m almost eighteen and I’d like a little bit of a financial buffer when I head out on my own. I don’t make much at the deli. Anyway, it occurred to me a few months back that her granddad might pay for the information, even if I didn’t have her diary. And he might pay more if he thought he could actually talk to her through me, you know? If he thought part of her was still around.”

  “And this journal . . . what did it say?”

  “Nothing really. Just stuff about how she missed her grandparents, but her mom needed her more. That she was trying to convince her mom to go back home. And odds and ends that she remembered from when she was a kid.”

  She sniffs. “Did you really believe the man would pay you money for that?”

  “I thought it was worth a try.”

  Dacia tips her head slightly to the side. Her elbows rest on the arms of the chair, and her hands, one gloved and one not, are folded in front of her face, except for the pointer finger that taps softly at her bottom lip. She must be trying to read my face, since she’s failed to read my mind.

  “You are not telling me everything, Anna. I think you are still in contact with Molly.”

  “You believe she’s still alive? I was told they found her body.”

  Dacia stares at me. “You know that is not my intention . . . my meaning.”

  “Well, I hope it’s what you meant, because otherwise, you’re crazy. Listen, I’m not proud of what I did to Mr. Porter. That’s why I asked him to meet me at my therapist’s office. I wanted to apologize. He said he wasn’t going to press charges, so I don’t understand why Deo and I were brought in.”

  “You have history of this.” Her voice is more strident now. “This saying you contact phantoms. Since you are a small child.”

  The Emily MacAlister part of me really wants to correct her—you mean since you were a small child, don’t you dear? But I resist. She seems increasingly agitated. In fact, I can’t see where any of this could be leading, except to a jail cell or psych ward.

  “I’m not saying anything more to you or to anyone else until I have legal representation.”

  “Like I tell you before, the people I work with can make your problems go away. But also they can complicate your life. My employer, he is very busy right now, and he is not patient.”

  “That’s a shame. I’ve heard patience is a virtue.” I get up from the chair. “I’m going to tell the officers that I won’t be saying anything else without an attorney.”

  As I move toward the door, she pulls me back, twisting my arm so that I have to look at her. That little poke-poke-poke begins at the edge of my mind again, as her eyes bore into mine. She’s focusing so hard that I can see a vein twitching at her temple.

  Several emotions flit across her face once she finally accepts that my wall isn’t going to come tumbling down. Frustration, anger, and maybe a touch of fear. She masks them quickly and pastes on a smile, but it’s not nearly as broad and confident as it was when she first entered the room. I get the feeling that smile is more to impress the guard who accompanied her than anything else.

  “No problem, Anna,” she says, releasing my arm. She crosses over to the guard, who’s holding out her coat, and slips her arms into the sleeves. “You’ve given me all I need. We’ll be in touch.”

  It pleases me to see her wobble slightly on her too-high heels as she turns to leave. But my satisfaction vanishes quickly when I realize that her guard or assistant or whatever is looking directly at me for the first time since they came in. He doesn’t say anything, just gives me a long, slightly puzzled look before following Dacia into the hallway.

  I slump down into a chair at the table and rest my head on my folded arms. But I don’t let my walls down. I can’t, at least not for a while. If I was able to feel Dacia poking at my mind back at the townhouse, when she was—or at least I assume she was—miles away, then I’m not sure when or where it will be safe to let down my guard.

  Sorry, Molly.

  I have no clue if she can even hear me.

  A few minutes later, the door opens.

  “Stay here,” Daniel says. “I’ll be back.”

  As if I actually have a choice.

  The next time the door opens, Deo is with Daniel. Deo is dressed in various shades of blue today, with blue streaks in his dark hair, and he’s wearing the silver-and-turquoise ear cuff I bought him last Christmas. His face doesn’t reveal that he’s upset, but his hair is mussed, with a few strands sticking out at odd angles from his usually impeccable quiff. If Deo hasn’t bothered to find a mirror, or a window, or even a shiny doorknob to make sure his hair looks right, then he’s not in a good state of mind.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper as I hug him. “I didn’t know this would happen.”

  “Not your fault. Let’s just get out of here.”

  “I don’t think we can. This Baker guy—”

  “No,” Daniel interrupts. “He won’t be questioning you now. We’ve been ordered to return you to Bartholomew House.”

  “Ordered . . . by whom?” I ask.

  “Someone way the hell above Baker’s pay grade,” Daniel mutters, shoving two wh
ite capsules and a paper cup into my hands.

  I’m a little surprised that Daniel followed through on the promise of Tylenol. I wash the pills down with the water, then follow him into the corridor.

  As we approach the front desk, I see the uniformed cop who was in the room with us, holding a Big Gulp in one hand and a sandwich in the other. She’s just taken a chomp out of the sandwich when she spots us.

  Beyond them, I see Aaron in the lobby. He jumps up from his seat to join us, grabbing his phone and a sheet of paper lying on the bench next to him.

  “Are you okay?” he asks in a tight voice. When I nod, he turns to Daniel. “The woman who just left. Who was—”

  Daniel makes a kill motion and nods toward the exit. “We’ll talk outside, okay? Need to take care of something first.”

  Aaron looks like he wants to argue. Actually, he looks like he wants to hit someone or something.

  The uniformed cop gives Aaron a flat stare. It apparently convinces him to follow Daniel’s advice.

  “He all right?” she asks Daniel softly, nodding toward Aaron’s back as he heads out the door. “Looks like he’s on somethin’ to me.”

  Daniel laughs. “Nah. Aaron’s just had a rough day. He saw Porter—” He stops, apparently rethinking what he was about to say. “He saw Porter this morning. An hour or so before he was shot. Kind of has him worked up.”

  She nods, takes another bite of her sandwich, then starts to wrap it up. Daniel puts a hand on her shoulder.

  “Go ahead and finish your dinner, Lupito. I’ll take them. Just need to get their things.”

  “Uh . . . no,” she says around a mouthful of food. She pauses to swallow. “You heard that woman. She said for me to take them.”

  “The girl here is on an antipsychotic, which she left at my brother’s place. We’ll run by and pick up her meds, then I’ll drop the two of them off.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about. So I keep quiet, even though the antipsychotic comment, when I’m standing right here, makes me want to kick him again.

  Lupito shakes her head and talks extra slowly, as if Daniel is mentally impaired. “You don’t even work here anymore.”

  “You know they’re not being charged with anything. They could walk out the door and hail a cab if they wanted. We’ll pick up her meds and I’ll have them back before their curfew. I’ll catch up with Baker later. Just tell him you were in the can when we left.”

  “Hmph. Your funeral,” she says as she slips into a small office on the other side of the desk. When she returns, she has my smaller backpack and the larger bag that Deo packed when he left Bart House. “Here you go. And you owe me one.”

  “Thanks, Lupito.” He grins, but his smile evaporates before the door even closes behind us.

  Aaron is at the edge of the parking lot, still on the verge of exploding. “Who was that woman?” he asks when we reach him. “And what did you do to make her want to rip your head off?”

  That question is for me, but Daniel doesn’t give me a chance to answer it. “Call Sam. Tell him to meet us at the office. Python.”

  Daniel emphasizes the word, and judging from the look on Aaron’s face, it means something to the two of them aside from snakes, computer programming, or British comedy. Aaron nods and then gives me an apologetic glance before darting off in the other direction—toward his car, I guess. I’d much rather ride with him, but Deo and I apparently don’t get to choose our mode of transportation.

  “I’m not on antipsychotics,” I say as we follow Daniel. “The only thing I take is sleeping meds, and I don’t even have them with me.”

  Daniel pulls a bottle out of his jacket pocket and tosses it to me.

  I stop under the streetlight at the edge of the parking lot and hold it up so I can read the label. Sure enough, it’s my prescription. “How did you get this?”

  “He confiscated it from my bag,” Deo growls. “Along with the pepper spray and the other . . . thing . . . we carry sometimes.”

  By which he means one of my old kneesocks filled with pennies.

  “What the . . .” I stop and stare at him. “You were supposed to toss those out, D!”

  I’ll be the first to admit that the spray and the sock both came in handy during the weeks Deo and I were sleeping in culverts or under bridges. There was one night in particular where I don’t even want to think what might have happened if I hadn’t pulled that spray out of my pocket when two men sneaked up on us in the middle of the night. But Deo knows as well as I do that we’re not supposed to have stuff like that at Bartholomew House. Or, technically, at all, given that we’re both minors.

  Daniel sighs. “Could we just get to my car before Baker stops us?”

  We pick up the pace, and once we’re walking again, Daniel tells Deo, “The medicine is a controlled substance, not prescribed for you. I was simply making sure it was returned to its owner. And Baker could have written you up for the pepper spray if you’d had it on you. Just so you know.”

  “Pretty sure there’s no law against keeping pennies in a sock.”

  “Shh.” I squeeze Deo’s arm, as we slide into the backseat of the sedan.

  Daniel walks around to the driver’s seat, and Deo whispers, “Grabbed the meds from your room, along with a change of clothes. I stuffed those other things inside the lining of my bag when I first got to Bart House . . . in case we ever needed to get out of there quickly. I forgot they were even in the bag when I grabbed it.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “What happened in there, anyway? Who was that woman?”

  Daniel looks over his shoulder and catches my eye as he backs the car out of the parking space. “I’d kind of like to hear the answer to that first question myself. She had Baker turn off the cameras before she spoke to either of you.”

  “I’ll answer his first question after you answer the second one. Who—” I stop abruptly and look over at Deo. “Wait. She talked to you, too?”

  “Well, not really. She shook my hand. Asked me my name. And asked me how I knew Molly. I didn’t tell her anything, though. Said I didn’t even know anyone named Molly. I don’t know if she believed me or not. She just watched me for a minute, then smiled and closed the door. She was weird. Nice shoes, though.”

  “Before or after me?”

  “What? I don’t—”

  “Did she talk to Deo before or after me?” I yell at Daniel.

  “After you. Why?”

  “Damn it.” I slump down in the seat and rub my face. “Did you notice anything, D? A weird feeling, kind of like a buzz across your forehead?”

  Daniel’s head jerks upward. I can see his eyes in the mirror. His very brown eyes, despite what he told the Badea woman. They seem alarmed, and I’ve got the strangest feeling that he knows exactly what I’m talking about. Did she try her little trick on him, too?

  “Yeah,” Deo says, after a few seconds’ reflection. “Now that you mention it, I did. I thought it was a sugar rush. I hadn’t eaten since lunch, so I grabbed a Butterfinger and a Coke from the vending machine, and I kind of wolfed them down right before she came in. So . . . what do you think it was?”

  If it was Aaron driving, I’d have given Deo a direct answer. But from everything Aaron has told me, his brother is Mr. Skeptic.

  “I don’t know. Her name was Dacia Badea. She didn’t flash her badge at me like she did at Daniel, so he’ll have to fill in the bit about what agency she’s with. All she said was that the people she worked for could make all of our problems go away, if I’d cooperate.”

  “It wasn’t a badge,” Daniel says. “Just a card. What exactly did you tell her?”

  “Well, I left out all of the psycho mumbo jumbo as you called it, if that’s what you’re worried about. Lied to her. Told her I met Molly at the shelter before she died and that Deo and I were trying to con Porter to get some cash. But she wasn’t buying it. And while I doubt you’ll believe this, she was . . . doing something to my head. Trying to get information. I block
ed her before she could confirm that I’m in contact with Molly . . . but I’m guessing she got that information from Deo anyway.”

  “How?” Deo asks. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

  “I don’t think you had to, D. If I hadn’t spent so much time building up my walls with Kelsey, I wouldn’t have been able to block her, either. And she must have been nearby when I was at the townhouse with Aaron. Either that, or she can do it long distance, because I had a similar sensation before she ever showed up.”

  They’re both silent, so I ask Daniel again. “Who is she with? She recognized you. And if she’s high up enough that she can make the police turn off the cameras in that room, why are we in the car with you, headed to your grandfather’s office, rather than with Officer Lupito, headed back to Bart House? I thought you were all about following the rules.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  And judging from the set of Daniel’s mouth in the rearview mirror, that’s all we’re going to get for now.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  About twenty minutes later, we pull into a small office complex near White Oak, wedged between an Exxon station and a self-storage facility. The second I step outside, my stomach growls.

  Deo gives me a humorless laugh as we follow Daniel into the building. “Yeah, smells good to me, too. It’s coming from the Popeyes on the other side of that gas station. When did you last eat?”

  “I had a bagel after my shift, which was breakfast and lunch since I was running late when I left this morning. Hopefully this won’t take long and then we can . . .”

  He gives me a questioning look, waiting for me to finish, but the truth is, I don’t have a clue how to end that sentence. Going back to Bart House doesn’t seem nearly as appealing now. I keep hearing Dacia saying we’ll be in touch, her accent almost but not quite turning the we’ll into ve’ll.

  Daniel is already a few steps ahead, punching a code into the building’s keypad.