by Rysa Walker
There’s no mention of a child in any of the articles. Sam managed to locate a marriage license but no birth certificate. He also found death certificates for Thomas and Betty Johnson, who both died in 2012, but he couldn’t find additional information on Leah’s sister, Rowena. My aunt, although I have a tough time wrapping my head around that concept.
Patient confidentiality kept Sam from getting recent information about Scott Pfeifer, but Kelsey tracked down a friend of a friend who is on staff at the hospital. He’s not the actual psychiatrist who works with my dad, but he was able to confirm that Pfeifer is still a patient. The official diagnosis is schizophrenia, and he’s relatively stable the vast majority of the time, aside from the rare violent outburst.
Before Kelsey chatted with that guy yesterday, I’d continued to hold out a slight hope that Jasper was wrong about Scott Pfeifer being my father. They were, after all, divorced. Maybe my mom moved away for a while. Met someone new and relatively sane. It requires a bit of mental gymnastics to make this case, but it’s far more comforting to imagine a scenario in which my mom was killed not by my father but by her crazy ex-husband who was in no way related to me.
But Kelsey’s contact also told her that Pfeifer’s more pressing psychological problem is his frequent insistence that he’s not Scott Pfeifer at all. He’ll refuse to answer to his own name, often taking on an entirely different persona. Usually, he mimics a patient who died at the hospital. So, apparently, I inherited both his nose and his knack for picking up ghosts.
I close the file and open the AllGlobalConspiracies website, looking for one of the few Tamara Blake interviews that I haven’t listened to yet. When I click the Paranormal and Parapsychology link, however, I get a “Page not Found” error. The entire section has been scrubbed.
As I’m checking to see if any other content on the site has vanished, Kelsey appears at the patio door. She motions for me to join her and Deo on the deck.
“We’ve got a problem,” Kelsey says as soon as the door slides shut behind us.
I’m tempted to point out that we’ve got numerous problems, but her expression suggests that this isn’t the time for levity. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m guessing you haven’t noticed Peyton’s leg?”
“No.”
“She’s wearing tights, so it’s not obvious. But she took a bathroom break during our session and got them all tangled.” Kelsey pulls her phone from her pocket. “I had to help her get them straight, and . . . there’s a large bruise on her upper thigh. I managed to sneak a photograph while I was helping her with the tights.”
Kelsey hands me her cell phone. Her thumb blocks one corner of the photo, but it doesn’t obscure the chubby little legs tangled in pumpkin-colored tights or the deep-fuchsia mark on the outside of her right leg, just above the knee.
Wincing, I glance inside at Peyton, stretched out on the floor next to her brother, happily watching LEGO Batman. This is far, far from the worst case of abuse I’ve seen after fifteen years in foster care. Physical abuse is the main reason that many, maybe even most, kids are in the system. There was a baby at one house—a kid who couldn’t even walk yet—and she had casts on both legs. Sadly, the abuse doesn’t end when the kids are taken into state custody. There are plenty of foster parents who abuse the kids in their care—Deo and I met while we were in the custody of one of those sterling examples of humanity. But no matter how many times you see it, the idea that someone could physically harm a small child socks you right in the gut.
“I thought it might have been from last week, when she lost control,” Deo says, and I can tell he’s struggling to keep a grip on his temper, “but Kelsey says it’s more recent.”
Kelsey nods. “You can tell from the color. And . . . Peyton more or less confirmed that it happened last night.”
I’m reluctant to ask. “What did she say?”
“She said that her daddy had to put her into time-out. That wouldn’t explain the bruise, of course, so I suspect time-out is just a family euphemism, but I didn’t want to push too hard and upset her.”
Deo gives a frustrated huff. He looks like he wants to hit something, although I’m pretty sure it’s actually someone, and that the specific someone is Jasper. One of the few times I’ve seen Deo completely lose his temper was when a woman in Walmart smacked her toddler on the arm for grabbing things off the store shelves. The kid began screaming—it wasn’t a gentle slap by any means—and Deo’s personal history makes him especially sensitive to any hint of child abuse. He was only eight at the time, but he ran toward the front of the store, screaming for security. Our foster mother shushed him and told him to mind his own business. She even apologized to the horrid woman for Deo’s conduct.
“Miranda’s cheek was also bruised,” I tell them. “And the fact that Jasper didn’t bring Peyton as scheduled—the fact that he’s going back on his statement that she wouldn’t be left alone with us? Probably not a very good sign.”
Kelsey sighs. “I told him when we met that first day that I’d be happy to work with him, but he and Miranda both said he had his temper under control. That he wasn’t abusive. They were defensive about me even bringing it up. I’ve handled post-traumatic stress disorder patients in the past, though, and he clearly needs help.”
“But are Jasper’s symptoms really PTSD?” I ask. “Most of the early Delphi subjects had violent episodes. Sometimes delusions.”
She shrugs. “It’s not typical PTSD—and either way, it doesn’t excuse anything that Jasper has done. But the violent episodes are almost certainly a by-product of the drug they were given, which seems to affect the amygdala, the section of the brain that triggers the fight-or-flight response. I think you’re familiar with that one?”
There’s a slight twinkle in her eye as she says it. As Kelsey is well aware, my fight-or-flight response has almost always manifested as flight. I rarely stayed put at the various foster homes where I was assigned. It’s a bit of an ongoing joke between the two of us, and she laughs softly before continuing.
“While I doubt that they intended the drug to affect the amygdala, that part of the brain is very close to the fusiform gyrus. Those sections work together sometimes, for instance, on facial recognition. As you may remember from our previous chats, the fusiform gyrus is believed to control things like synesthesia. And”—she gives us a tight little smile—“also psychic abilities, for the few experts willing to admit they’re possible.”
I went through a phase, around age ten, where I was intensely interested in why my brain was different from others. Kelsey was really the only person I could ask. She did her best, even though I don’t think the scientist side of her personality was very comfortable with the answers since they relied heavily on conjecture. I remember sitting on the floor in her office one day with a classroom model of the human brain between the two of us. The model was pretty basic, and didn’t have labels for parts like the fusiform gyrus, but Kelsey was able to point out the general location to me as we snapped the larger pieces together.
“But getting back to my original point,” Kelsey says, “there are a number of drugs that are effective in treating PTSD. They might be helpful for Jasper’s condition as well. Miranda said he’s not the ‘therapy type,’ whatever that means, but I was hoping he might be willing to take an SSRI. Unfortunately, now that I’ve witnessed that bruise on Peyton, there’s an added level of complexity. On the one hand, I’m legally obligated to report this, but on the other hand . . .”
She doesn’t complete the sentence, because we all know what she’s thinking.
“Yeah,” Deo says. “Child Services would be in for a major surprise if they tried to take Peyton against her will.”
“And if there’s any publicity,” I say, “it would be like pointing a big red arrow at Peyton’s head.”
“Precisely. But even though I’m hesitant to report this, I can’t in good conscience allow either of those children to go back to that environment. When do you expect Mir
anda to return for them?”
“She said no later than three.”
“We should make sure Aaron is here by then,” Kelsey says. “Hopefully Miranda will be reasonable, but . . . we may need backup.”
Ein, who is corralled in a Pack ’n Play we found in one of the bedroom closets, whimpers. I retrieve him, and when I look up, Kelsey and Deo are staring at something to the south of us.
“Maybe that’s them?” Deo asks.
It’s definitely a moving object, maybe a mile down the beach, but as it gets closer, I see that it’s not a single truck. Four—no, make that five—vehicles are headed our way.
Our truck is at the front of the convoy. The four vehicles bringing up the rear are identical dark-gray vans. As soon as they pull into the yard, Aaron hops out of the passenger side. “Did you get my message?” he calls out.
“No.” I pat the pockets of my jeans and then remember that I left my phone in the kitchen when I was getting the kids their snack.
The vans are now pulling into the drive, each plastered with the word Vigilance on the side. Aaron talks briefly to the driver of the first van and points around to the back of the house. Once the vans begin to file off in that direction, he sprints up the wooden stairs to the deck, and Deo goes downstairs to help Taylor unload the groceries from the truck.
“Those can’t be the contractors,” I say. “Magda doesn’t even own the house yet.”
“No. They’re from a private security firm.”
“Well,” Kelsey says, “I guess that solves our backup problem.”
“Backup?” Aaron asks.
I nod toward the window, and he notices Peyton and TJ for the first time. His brow wrinkles. “I thought Peyton’s appointment was at ten.”
“It was. But Miranda needed to work, and she didn’t have anyone to watch them.”
Kelsey shows Aaron the picture. He curses softly.
“Miranda’s face was also bruised,” I add. “Hopefully TJ wasn’t hurt too, although I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“We can’t let the kids go back into that situation,” Kelsey says. “And I’m not sure how their parents, especially Jasper, are going to receive that bit of news. So the security guards may come in handy.”
“True,” I say as I look down at the last van rounding the corner of the house. “But six security guards seems like overkill. And why do they need four vans to transport six people?”
“Two are for . . . equipment.”
I don’t know if Kelsey catches on, but it’s clear to me that equipment actually means weapons.
“And the others,” he says, “are for the kids. Seven of them.”
“What?” Kelsey and I say in unison.
“Yeah. It seems we’re no longer the only team Magda has working on this project. All of the kids are from the Bragg area, from our list. Also three nurses and one parent who wouldn’t let his kid come alone.”
“Couldn’t Magda have provided us with a little advance notice?” I ask.
“I think that’s what our meeting later today was supposed to be about—well, that and the Senator’s upcoming press conference. But the lead guy with Vigilance said things came together a little more quickly than anticipated. Given the killings at Bragg, they didn’t meet much resistance, and they wanted to get everyone in one easily defendable place.”
Kelsey sighs. “It’s going to be tough to do intake on seven new patients at the same time. Do you know if they’re all stable?”
“I guess?” Aaron shrugs. “They’ve all been in school, although most were at that school on Fort Bragg. The youngest is seven—that’s the boy whose dad came along. The others are mostly teens or tweens.” He nods toward the kids. “How long before Miranda comes back to get them?”
“Maybe half an hour.”
Kelsey and I exchange a look. We’ve both been around Peyton enough this week to be a little worried about overstimulating her. And—I run a quick tally in my head—seventeen brand-new people are coming into the house. I’m enough of an introvert that the fact stresses me out a little. We should definitely let Peyton adjust gradually.
Aaron and I both go down to the lower level—me to help unload the last of the groceries and Aaron to assist the Vigilance people with getting the new arrivals settled into their rooms. My first thought when I get back upstairs and see the provisions piled up on the kitchen floor and counters is that they’ve bought enough food to get us through the winter. But given how many people are now in the house, it probably won’t last more than a week.
Taylor and Deo come in with another load. She’s laughing at something Deo said, so apparently she’s worked through whatever her snit was about the other night.
“That’s the last of it,” Deo says, and we begin the slow process of putting away the groceries. Though we occasionally hear muted voices below us, I’m a little surprised at how quiet the place is, given the number of people here.
I mention this to Aaron when he joins us a few minutes later.
He nods, a frown creasing his forehead. “All of the kids are still sedated. The nurse said they’ll probably sleep for another three or four hours. They’re all piled into a couple of those bunk bed rooms in the back wing.”
“Why sedate them?” I ask. “I thought you said they were stable.”
“I asked. The lead guard said the company wouldn’t agree to transport the kids otherwise. Worried about safety.”
“Well, it may be a valid point,” Taylor says. “We don’t know exactly what these kids can do. What if one of them is like Peyton and could send something flying through the windshield? Or what if one of them hijacked the driver’s head while he was driving? Sounds like a necessary precaution to me.”
Aaron and Deo both look as skeptical as I feel. It probably was necessary, but the idea of drugging these kids to transport them feels like a tactic that Cregg and his Delphi crew would have used. A tactic they did use, actually, to transport me.
“Maybe,” Aaron says. “But I didn’t exactly care for the tone that they used when talking about the kids. More like they were cargo or something. Anyway, they won’t wake up until dinnertime at the earliest. The guards are taking the ground floor, and the nurses will be in the back wing with the kids, at least for now.”
“That reminds me,” I say. “Kelsey wants to keep Miranda and her two kids off to themselves so that Peyton can adjust gradually to being around others. So if any of you are in the north wing, you might want to pack up and join the rest of us on the south side.”
Taylor and Deo head off to move their things, and the rest of us go into the great room. When Miranda pulls up a few minutes later, I take Kelsey’s place with TJ and Peyton. Hopefully her talk with Miranda will be brief, since Senator Cregg’s press conference starts in about fifteen minutes. Not that we’d have to watch it live—the man is such a publicity whore that I’m pretty sure he’ll have it plastered all over his website and Twitter feed five minutes after it ends. But we’re scheduled to meet with Magda soon after, so we’ll need to be up to speed.
I have a vague sense of uneasiness about all of this—the press conference, the security guards, the new arrivals—and Hunter’s emotions aren’t helping the situation. He understood when I told him that we can’t really start looking for his sister until we get the go-ahead from Magda, even though I sense he’s not happy about a delay. And Magda made it clear that she wouldn’t even start thinking about next moves until after we heard the Senator’s announcement today.
The biggest source of my discomfort, though, is wondering exactly what Magda’s people said to convince all but the parents of the youngest adept to allow their children to come here unaccompanied. I have memories of being a parent, and I can’t imagine any of my hitchers letting a child of theirs go off with strangers to a place they’ve never seen. That has me wondering whether these kids are really here voluntarily, or whether there are some brand-new AMBER Alerts in the Fayetteville area.
The credits roll on LEGO Batman
before Kelsey returns. They’re tired of watching movies and being cooped up in this small room, so as a diversion, I challenge Peyton to see how many of the tattered paperbacks she can “float” off the bookshelf across the room. She makes it to four, and then they all shudder and crash to the ground.
TJ puts them back on the shelf, and she’s having another go at it when Kelsey appears at the door. She motions for me to step into the hallway, and I’m happy to see that she’s looking far less nervous than before.
“Miranda resisted at first,” Kelsey says in a low voice. “But I think she was actually kind of relieved. When Jasper gets like this, she says he tends to go off on his own for a bit to calm down. I asked one of the security guards to drive her over to pick up a few things for her and the kids.”
Kelsey frowns at the sight of Peyton, who has three books floating now. “Should we be encouraging her to do that?”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I just—”
“I’m not scolding you, Anna. That was an actual question. I want your opinion.”
I stop for a moment and watch Peyton as she concentrates, slowly lifting the fourth book.
“When I talked to Peyton the other day, it was clear that she knows she has to control her ability—or her monkey, as she calls it. She doesn’t want to lose it, though. It’s part of her, and she’s proud of what she can do. I’d really hate for her to become ashamed of it, and I think she already is, to some extent. Except for when she’s with TJ. She likes making him laugh.”
“You’re probably right. I’m just a little concerned about her exercising that muscle too much before she learns to control it.”
As I look back over, I see that a fifth book has joined the others. Peyton’s face is squinched tight, and then four books fall to the floor. She floats the fifth book over to TJ and lands it gently on his lap. “Read to me, TJ.”
I catch a glimpse of the cover, which features a woman’s hands splayed across a ripped and tanned male abdomen. I should have checked the contents of the bookshelf before starting this little game.
“Or,” I say, plucking the book from his grasp and putting it back on the shelf, “we can go upstairs and play video games?”