Malcolm and Ives 02 - Trouble With Air and Magic

by Patricia Rice

  “The wound is deep but the stitches should help. She should have a doctor look at it in a few days. I’ll give her some antibiotics.” He scribbled on a prescription pad.

  He handed over the paper. “Give her vitamins with iron, too, she’s looking stressed and exhausted.” He glanced at Conan. “And tell your brother next time he needs me to just offer double my usual fee, and he won’t have to tell tall tales.”

  “Let him have his fun, doc,” Conan said, taking the prescription and tucking it into his shirt pocket. “It’s boring living up in these hills and he needs entertainment. I’ll hack his computer and put up a pornographic screen saver next time so he won’t be as inclined to lie.”

  The good doctor shook Dorrie’s hand. “Get out while you can, Miss Franklin. I’ve known the Oswins since college. Counteroffensives only escalate the war.”

  “But you have to admit,” she said with laughter, “they could be more amusing than any show currently playing at the theater. And without them, people die, so I have to excuse their childish forms of entertainment.”

  “I hope he understands that I still have to report gunshot wounds to the police. Good day.” He let himself out on that ominous note.

  “Childish entertainment, hmm?” Conan asked, grabbing Dorrie and hugging her tightly, unconcerned by the police at this point. “Do you know how many heart attacks I had today?”

  “Two, you said.” Then she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him and he was prepared to suffer two more if necessary to keep holding her like this.

  He was a doomed man.

  Chapter 24

  The family reunion brought tears to Dorrie’s eyes. Amy smoothed her children’s hair, crushed their fingers, and watched with relief as they bounced on her bed.

  Dorrie left them all chattering happily. They really, really needed Bo. He should never have abandoned them for the damned military. Should a miracle happen and they found her brother, she would kick him back to his senses. She should have done that a year ago, but she was only now coming out from under her father’s warped perspectives.

  “Now what?” she whispered to Conan, backing out of the room and leaving the little family alone. “Have any of your fancy investigators found anything?”

  He steered her toward the front room and onto the floral couch, before taking a seat at his computer. “Yeah, they discovered all your clients are working happily and had no idea they were still receiving checks from the Foundation…or not receiving them, as the case might be. And the Foundation’s money is being sent to the Cayman Islands.”

  “What?” She almost came up off of her seat, except Conan waved her back, and she realized she had nowhere else to go. Toto sat at her feet, begging to be picked up, and she obliged. “Cayman Islands?” she asked in incredulity. “The Foundation’s money is being sent to the Caribbean?”

  “Offshore, anyway. I haven’t had time to trace it. The cops can’t without a warrant, and even then, they need Homeland Security’s approval because the banks down there aren’t hospitable to our tampering. But that’s not my concern right now. My concern is that every one of your clients is doing well.”

  “That bothers you?” she asked in genuine puzzlement. “That’s the whole point of the foundation, you realize, to help our clients over hard places so they can eventually make a living and support their families.”

  He rubbed his brow, glared at the computer screen, and finally swung around to face her. “I ran the stats on your clientele for the past year. The foundation’s clients have a fifty-percent recovery rate. Half of them return to work and give up their checks within a year. The other half fails. They’re either still struggling on foundation money, they’re in jail, they’re on welfare, or they’ve been deported. Except for the ones you approve. Your clients always return to work and usually in less than half the time of others.”

  Dorrie shrugged. “I usually don’t get involved so my list is far more limited than anyone else’s.”

  He glared. “All of your clients have had their money diverted after they reported they didn’t need it anymore, whereas only those who are genuinely deceased or missing are diverted on the other client lists.”

  “Really?” She tried to puzzle that out, but it made no sense. “Someone is diverting money from deceased clients? Not recording their deaths? But we have checks and balances to prevent that kind of theft,” she cried. “I can’t believe any of our workers would do that. They’re underpaid and overworked like any other social worker, but they believe in what they do. They wouldn’t steal!”

  Conan glared at her. “You’re deliberately not listening to me.”

  Dorrie hugged Toto and glared back. “Because you don’t believe me when I tell you that I can sense chi. So what do you want me to say?”

  “You’re telling me you pick clients by the color of their chee?” he asked in incredulity.

  “See, I told you that you wouldn’t believe me. And color has nothing to do with energy. Most of the clients I approve are ones my employees are on the fence about. They want to help them but figure they’re beyond the foundation’s ability to serve. I make the decision in those cases. I interview those clients and base my decision on their chi. Losers, ones who won’t work to help themselves, have negative energy.”

  She didn’t bother holding her breath in anticipation of Conan’s acceptance. He needed facts and she couldn’t give them. His frown wasn’t unexpected. His response was.

  “Amy told me that after Brandon kicked the would-be kidnapper, your nephew collapsed, which sounds like what you do when you expend too much energy,” he said.

  Tensing, wondering if he was starting to believe her or just leading her on, Dorrie hugged Toto and carefully considered her answer. She’d learned today that Brandon was a little more like Bo than his siblings in more ways than looks. He was developing a strong other energy. She hoped it was more Bo’s abilities than hers.

  If she could really convince Conan of what she could do… the knowledge was dangerous.

  Which was why he had to know the whole truth now, as incredible as it would seem to him.

  “What are you asking?” She thought she knew, but she wanted him to say it first.

  He looked frustrated. “I don’t know what I’m asking. I’m just saying your clients seem to be different. You say you choose them because of their… energy. Are your clients’ chi different from other people? Do your brother’s kids have that energy?”

  He almost made it sound like an accusation. Dorrie pondered where he was going with this, but she answered to the best of her ability. “Sort of. Everyone has chi energy. What I look for, I call other energy. It’s not as if my ability is a science or that anyone has taught me to use it. My mother might have if she’d lived, but I have to work things out on my own. I have no way of explaining other energy. You have it to a small degree. Your sister-in-law has a frighteningly strong version. Your brother might, but his chi is so complex that it’s hard to interpret.”

  “Pippa has it?” he asked in suspicion.

  She nodded. “Very strong and straightforward. Yours is more zigzag, very odd. I think it’s more the pattern of chi that I’m sensing in other energy, the way the various energies intertwine. But I have no means of interpreting it. I’ve just learned to trust in the strength of character of people who have that pattern. The clients I choose have it to some degree.”

  He rubbed his hand over his face as if he could erase what she’d just said. “I wish I knew if you had Malcolms on your family tree.”

  She couldn’t let this opening pass, even if she had no idea why he kept asking about Malcolms. She’d hoped to put this off, but she’d done nothing but think about it all day. It was time. “I don’t know Malcolms, but it may be time to bring in my family. You can ask them.”

  His head shot up. “Your uncomfortably overbearing family?” he asked warily. “Why?”

  It was her turn to massage her brow. “Maybe we could just send Amy and the kids to
San Francisco. It would be a lot simpler. Then I could hide here and wait to see what happens. But I have this notion that Bo and your brother may be at the bottom of this, and I simply cannot bear to let them down if there is any slim hope that they’re really alive and out there somewhere.”

  The commotion in the other room and Conan’s wary expression warned there wasn’t enough time for explanations before they’d be interrupted. “Do you think my family is safe here?” Dorrie asked before he could start interrogating her. “Could you and I go somewhere else?”

  He punched a number on his cell and spoke into it curtly. “We have a full house,” he told the person on the other end. “You have any more spare space we can borrow?”

  Dorrie stood up to gather her things and to let Amy know she was moving on. She wished she could say something reassuring, but she didn’t like to lie.

  The children had apparently run out of tales to tell, and Amy was looking exhausted. “I’ve decided to call Grandmother Ling,” Dorrie said the moment she entered the bedroom.

  Amy looked puzzled. “I’ve only met her a few times. What can she do?”

  “She can do magic, if she’s so inclined. I think she will be. And then I’m calling my father to tell him his grandkids need help. It will give him something to do. I won’t tell him where you are, but I can give him your cell phone number if you want any say-so in what happens after that.”

  “I don’t want charity,” Amy said fretfully. “I just want to go back to work.”

  “Dad can arrange things with your employer or he can find you a better job. I’ll threaten to quit if he doesn’t.” She turned to the kids. “Go fix some soup and sandwiches for your supper. Your mother needs to rest.”

  Alexis bobbed up to do as told. The boys wiggled and glared but Dorrie pointed her finger, and they reluctantly followed.

  “You’ll be good with kids someday,” Amy said with a faint smile. “I just hope you’re as good with your father. He’s scary.”

  “Not as much anymore. He needs to start thinking of someone besides himself and his damned foundation. We’re not a family good with relationships, but there’s still time. You have absolutely brilliant kids, and I want to know them better.”

  Should they all survive whatever was ahead. Just the idea of threatening her father gave her hives, but for the kids, she’d do it.

  It was the unknown and unexpected that truly scared her. It always had from the day her mother had died in front of her.

  ***

  Conan had the minivan packed by the time Dorrie finished helping the children pour the soup and set the sandwiches on trays. He needed to be at his computers, digging deeper into Adams Engineering, if that was the incident that had set off this chain of events.

  But he needed to know more, and Dorrie had the answers. He couldn’t imagine how Magnus could be alive, but Conan wanted that scenario so badly, he’d even learn to develop an imagination, if that’s what it took to believe Dorrie’s story.

  She kissed the kids, shouted farewells, and took his hand as he led her through the garden. Looking wistful, she caressed a rosemary hedge and lifted her hand to sniff the pungent scent.

  He didn’t need imagination to know she wanted to stay.

  “Oz says his Mcmansion is complete enough to live in,” he told her, placing a hand at her back and urging her on. “They’re out of the RV and we can have it. It’s not much, but it’s quiet. I don’t want to take you back to L.A. until I know the shooter is caught.” He helped her into the van.

  He hadn’t closed the door before she replied. “The police probably won’t catch the man who shot me,” she said quietly, “because he’ll die before they know who he is.”

  His drama queen didn’t make pronouncements quietly, not like this. Conan froze with his hand on the door. “Why do you say that?”

  “Long story,” she said, mimicking him. “It will wait.”

  Not for any damned much longer. He climbed in behind the wheel and steered down the narrow lane, back to the main drag and the other side of town, to Oz’s place. Beside him, his petite companion looked exhausted, fragile, and gorgeous all in one.

  He wanted the woman who kicked elevators back. He had to do something to prove that she’d be safe.

  Oz’s giant sardine can was parked behind the walled mansion, at the trailhead that marked the path to Pippa’s studio cottage. Conan figured his brother had security guards posted all over the place by now, so even sardine cans were safe. For now.

  Dorrie exclaimed in delight at the RV’s compact furnishings, the chairs that became tables and beds and the tiny kitchen and shower.

  Conan threw in their suitcases and shook his head in disgust. “You have hysterics over my expensive beach pad and coo over this piece of junk?”

  “But look at how beautifully designed it is! This is absolutely cunning.” She turned back the cushions and lifted the table, locating the lock that held it in place. “Chi can be happy anywhere. The door to the water closet automatically closes so the energy circulates freely. It’s adorable!”

  “You’re certifiable,” he muttered, grabbing a beer and trying to fit his legs beneath the crappy table. “And this has been a damned long day. Your story better be good.”

  She inspected the refrigerator. They’d left most of their groceries behind for the kids. “Will you eat frozen lasagna?”

  “I could eat a bear right now. Zap whatever. Start talking.”

  “Your brother at least tries to sound pleasant when he bullies,” she admonished. “I’ve been told what to do all my life, and I’ve decided not to cooperate in my own imprisonment any longer.”

  “Good for you. You may starve and drive me crazy in the process, but you’ll have a spine. And you haven’t heard bullying until you’ve heard Magnus.” Conan shut up and swigged his beer. She would never hear Magnus. It was hard to believe a force of nature like his brother could be gone from this earth.

  Which was probably why Conan was sitting here making an ass of himself.

  Dorrie hit the microwave button, shoved the table aside, and slid into his lap, putting her arms around his neck and peppering his bristly cheek with kisses. That eased his mood considerably.

  “My brother is a walking GPS,” she told him in between kisses. “When I talk to Grandmother Ling, I’ll ask her if she knows any good psychics who can pick up his thoughts. If he’s alive, maybe he can send us his coordinates and we’ll find your brother there, too.”

  Conan sighed. If that was how she meant to solve their problems, he was better off leaving her home.

  Chapter 25

  “A human GPS?” Conan asked dubiously.

  Dorrie nibbled his ear, felt his arousal through her thin leggings, and slid off his lap when the microwave bell rang. “That’s how Bo could find the kids so quickly. He not only knows his precise coordinates, but he has some kind of instinct for finding his targets, sort of like our cousin Cho.”

  “Bo and Cho,” Conan muttered, obviously struggling with the concept as she handed him the first small lasagna.

  She stuck in one for herself before returning to the table with beers for both of them. “Explaining simply isn’t possible, which is why my family never talks about what we do. You’ll simply have to take my word that Bo can do it. It looks to me that if criminals are gunning for Bo’s family, then the problem has to be about him, right?” she asked, setting the stage for the next level of impossibility.

  “I don’t see how your brother and the foundation thief or shooter have anything to do with each other,” he said with surliness, shoving a fork into the hot pasta.

  “No sex until you listen,” she countered. She’d never said anything like that in her life, and she wondered where it had come from. She almost sounded like her mother.

  He shot her an evil eye but obediently held his tongue.

  Keeping Conan from burying himself behind his fortress of computers might be a very wise idea, she decided. Just watching him across the table
gave her goose bumps. His whiskey-colored hair was disheveled and falling in his eyes. He had blood on the shoulder of his t-shirt where he’d probably scooped up Amy and run with her to his car. Muscles strained the seams of the old shirt. He fought impatiently with the gooey pasta, but he wasn’t yelling at her, even if he wanted to. Dorrie took that as a good sign.

  “I don’t understand any more than you do,” she said. “I thought no one cared if I existed, but you’re essentially telling me that someone is setting me up to take the blame for theft and has been doing so for years.”

  He glared. “That’s how it looks. Even the LAPD suspect you. They’re not going to buy psychic.”

  “Which has been my problem all along,” she warned. “Since my mother died, there has been no one who will buy anything I say or do, even if I know I’m right. So I’ve learned to shut up and fit in where I can and hope for the best.”

  “How’s that working for you?” he asked, irritatingly.

  “Pretty well, actually.” She got up and claimed her lasagna and a fork and returned to the table. “I didn’t have people shooting at me, at least—not until I acted on my instincts and we started looking into Bo’s disappearance.”

  “You weren’t looking, I was,” he corrected. “And all I’ve done is play around in a few computers and hire a detective. And climb a fence. That’s not enough to implicate you.”

  “I was there when you climbed the fence. The vibrations were seriously negative, and that was before security talked to me and saw my car. And if anything that minor sounded an alarm, then we’re on the right track by looking into Adams Engineering. Only someone with something to hide, someone who knows me, would care that I was hunting a cat instead of some Jane Doe.”

  “Someone who knows you?” he asked in suspicion. “Are you back to your mother’s killers again?”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but it can’t be coincidence that Feng Li got out of prison last week.”

  “His probation is strict. He shouldn’t be going anywhere. I checked. Despite all evidence otherwise, I’m good at what I do.”