Kaleidoscope

by Chariss K. Walker

  I wondered why and how I’d had the vision to switch the wine glasses. It twinged at the corner of my mind like a honeybee buzzing around fresh nectar. Perhaps being the observer had opened a doorway to other benefits. Regardless of how it worked, the vision had saved my life. Still, I convinced myself that the deviation was a fluke, a one-time thing.

  I was ready to get home. I looked forward to resuming the sessions with Nelson, even though I didn’t want to tell him everything. I had conflicted feelings and was reluctant to share this new information with my old friend, but I still wanted to learn all I could from him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When the flight arrived at JFK, Joe and two other FBI agents were waiting at the gate. The disaster in Marseille had gotten the agency’s full attention and followed me home. Joe didn’t say much in the car, but after I was secured in an interrogation room, he said plenty.

  “Ok, Mike. What in the hell went on in France and how did Cassandra D’Angelo end up dead?”

  “She died from an allergic reaction to a sedative, an accidental overdose, Joe.”

  “We know that Mike,” Joe said, his eyes widening in exasperation. “What we don’t know is what the hell you had to do with it.”

  I didn’t say anything because frankly I didn’t know what to say. It was surreal. Of all the scenarios I could’ve played out, sitting across from Joe in a cold impersonal interrogation room wasn’t one of them.

  “Look,” Joe continued, “As your friend, I’m a little disappointed. There’s something going on here that you’re not telling me. You could've trusted me with whatever it is from the beginning, but you didn’t. Now, we’re here with other people involved. I only have so much control over this now.”

  Joe was right. Still, I felt reluctant to come clean with him. I wrestled with the idea of telling him everything as I’d done with Nelson, but I didn’t know where to begin or who was listening. I looked around the room and noted the cameras and two-way mirror. I decided not to say anything, especially here. My silence was the final straw for Joe.

  “Look, Mike, I want some answers right now, so you damn well better start talking.” His face was livid and he was embarrassed that he didn’t know what was going on. It made him angry, and it made him look bad to those in the observation room. I continued to look at the security cameras on the corners of the ceiling with red lights blinking, recording this exchange. I couldn’t take the chance.

  “Joe, I honestly don’t know what to tell you,” I said, shifting in the uncomfortable chair. I stared at the shiny metal table that separated us. “I don’t even know where to begin. This has gotten completely out of hand and, to be honest, I’m the victim here.”

  “Don’t give me that crap, Mike. How in the hell are you the victim when Ms. D’Angelo is dead?” Joe marched back and forth in front of the shiny table, waiting for answers that I refused to give. He tried a different approach, softening somewhat. “We’ve known each other for a long time and I want the truth, Mike. I need the truth,” he pleaded, but I couldn’t give Joe what he wanted. I kept my mouth tightly shut and continued to stare at the table. Joe switched tactics again. “Let me tell you what we know, and then maybe you can fill us in on some details that we don’t know. We’ve been watching Cassandra D’Angelo since she was picked up in Rome for drug charges five years ago. She’s been a person of interest since that time due to the suspicious circumstances surrounding her release. We felt it necessary to keep an eye on her. In the beginning, she was a rich-slut party hound who got caught with the bag, but those charges were miraculously dropped and she disappeared for a few months.

  “When Cassandra was seen again, she was clean and became an overnight jet-setter, making frequent trips to San Francisco and traveling all over the world. We never did find out who pulled the strings to make that happen, but we know it wasn’t her daddy, Sal D’Angelo. Daddy has a very clean nose. As far as we know, he’s never found out about the drug incident in Rome,” Joe paused, but when I didn’t make any comments, he continued. “Whoever got her out of the jam was pretty damn powerful, and we believe she started working for them. They had her by the proverbial balls. While she was racking up the frequent-flier miles, we tracked where she went, but we were never able to figure out the purpose of those trips. Now that your name is linked to hers, we have the answer to that. You want to guess what that is, Mike?” Joe asked sarcastically.

  I didn’t respond.

  “In the last four years, every trip she made was to a major city nearest to the location where you were working,” Joe continued. I blanched white, while he observed my every move and nuance, analyzing body language and profiling my responses.

  “What do you make of that, Mike? What was she doing in the same cities you were in? Do you think it’s a coincidence?”

  I was shocked and couldn’t hide it. Everything Joe revealed was distressing and previously unknown news. Casey really had been stalking me, apparently for over four years. It was how she knew my favorite restaurants. It was how she knew the same cities I loved. She’d been sent there to spy on me even then.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences, Mike,” Joe continued. He paused and thrummed his finger on the desktop. “We didn’t even put this together until both your names came up through the incident in Marseille. One of my agents cross-referenced your job schedule with her mysterious travel routine, and lo and behold, they were a match. Ms. D’Angelo traveled to every job you had within a week of your assignment. What do you make of that?” Joe repeated the information in case I hadn’t caught it the first time as his fingers thrummed the shiny tabletop.

  My mind was spinning with this news. Casey and I had laughed about it being a small world, but it wasn’t very funny from this perspective. Everything she did was planned! In Marseille, I thought I exaggerated the stalking behavior, but in light of what Joe revealed, I never stood a chance. The reality was sickening.

  If not for the personal message from the kaleidoscope, I might be imprisoned or dead now.

  “Now she’s dead, and you were there when it happened,” Joe continued, his voice gaining strength and higher pitch with each sentence. “You weren’t just in a nearby city; you were in the goddamn hotel room with her. I want some answers now!” Joe roared, slamming his fist on the table for emphasis. The noise reverberated around the tightly sealed interrogation room. His vehemence was startling.

  “Look, Joe,” I blurted out. “I met Casey D’Angelo at Cavenders the first week of my leave last month. We started out hot and heavy. The next thing I knew, Casey was coming and going at my home even though I never gave her a key. After Maria found the bug on the pillow tag and I had a security system installed, Casey admitted that she took a spare key from the kitchen. But, with the bug attached to my pillow, I thought someone was spying on her, not me. I met with you on Monday after Maria found the bug and then Wednesday night two men tried to grab me outside the bodega down the street. Again, I thought some pissed-off ex-boyfriend was stalking Casey. I didn’t know I was the one stalked. I didn’t want to say anything about it because I didn’t think it was a matter for the FBI. I had no idea she was already on your radar. She’s a New York socialite, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Mike, we have both of you in the same cities for the last four years. Do you really expect me to believe that you just met her a few weeks ago?”

  “It’s the truth, Joe. I never met Casey before the day we met at Cavenders.”

  “That’s a little hard to believe with all the evidence we have over the past four years,” Joe pointed out.

  “Well, you need to check it again. You have some way to run credit card receipts…right? I’m telling you that I never met Casey or had a meal or any other contact with her, during any of her visits to wherever I was working. If she was in the same city or ate at the same restaurant, it was a day or so after I ate there. Check it out,” I adamantly repeated.

  “We will, Mike,” Joe reassured.

  “After I met Cas
ey last month, we had dinner out a few times. Once at Fleur-de-lis on Wednesday evening—that was the same day I met her at Cavenders. We ate at the Indian diner down the street from my home, at El Gatos Bistro, and we were supposed to meet at La Palucci’s, but she didn’t show. It was the night of the attempted abduction. All of this happened before I was called back to work. She told me she had to go San Francisco for family business, but she was at the airport for a send-off and told me she’d be in Marseille by the weekend. I swear, Joe, that’s all there was to it and all I know about it,” I said in a torrent and then spread my hands flat on the metal table.

  “Mike, why the hell didn’t you tell me this when we were checking the house for bugs?”

  “Because I didn’t know what it meant. It didn’t make any sense that it had anything to do with me. I told you that. It was either job related or Casey was being stalked by a jilted lover. For Christ’s sake, Joe, I didn’t want the FBI to investigate a woman I was sleeping with just because she had a crazy ex. None of it made any sense. Maybe I should’ve known something was up because I called Nelson to tell him I was going to Roussillon, but I only told Casey I was going to France. Somehow, she found out. I had nothing to go on, and I wanted answers. I honestly thought it was best to see where it took me.”

  “Well, where the hell did it take you?” Joe stormed. At my startled look, Joe softened somewhat and then continued, “Look Mike, I just don’t understand why you kept all of this to yourself. Why didn’t you confide in me? Why didn’t you trust me? We’ve been friends for more than twenty-five years.”

  “Yeah, I know, but try to look at it from my perspective. I was suspicious about everything happening, but I also liked her a lot. I’m not saying I loved her, but I thought that we had the makings of something real. Maybe I thought she might be the one, you know?”

  I didn’t know where to go from there, but Joe understood that about me. He knew I’d never had much luck with love or been in a satisfying relationship. At least he sympathized about that.

  “You should’ve told me something, man.”

  “I know, Joe. I don’t want to kick dust on a grave, but this is the rest of the story,” I said. Then I told him everything I’d told the police in Roussillon. Joe listened intently, and when I’d finished there was really nothing else to say. He nodded to someone behind the mirrored wall, letting them know the interview was over.

  I wanted to talk to Joe as my friend. I wanted him to take off the FBI hat as he’d promised to do, but even if that could happen, it couldn’t happen here. Too many ears listened from the other side of the wall. Here, Joe was the government agency from whom I hid my ability. FBI, CIA, NSA, NCIS, they were all the same to me. Although I trusted Joe, I didn’t trust the agency for which he worked. My only option was to stick to the story given in Roussillon. And, that’s what I did.

  When Joe returned, he released me. The Roussillon police department had already sent evidence and confirmed my story. Everything pointed to my innocence rather than guilt. It was considered a freak accident that Casey was inadvertently responsible for her own death. It was strange and unusual for sure, but they couldn’t arrest someone just because the circumstances surrounding a death were weird. End of story.

  Joe ordered a car to take me home, but as we walked to ground level, he gave a final warning, “This isn’t over, Mike. There are too many unanswered questions. It’s possible you could be back in here defending yourself again. Do you understand?” I nodded. “When you’re ready to talk, I’ll take the agency hat off.” Joe sounded very sincere and I responded to that sincerity.

  “Thanks, Joe. I appreciate it and I’ll keep that in mind.”

  I got home from FBI headquarters too late to go to bed. I aimlessly wandered around the brownstone looking for clues and, maybe, looking for Casey’s ghost. What Joe had revealed about her made sense in some obscure way.

  I tried to stop thinking about the incident in Marseille and focused on the next appointment with Nelson. I felt secretive about everything that had happened since our last meeting. Even though I didn’t want to confide in Nelson, I was still anxious to work with him. With that in mind, I called his office intending to leave a message that I was back. Nelson answered, explaining that he’d gone in to do some extra paperwork, but could use a break. We arranged to meet at Cavenders in an hour.

  On the walk to the coffeehouse, I thought about Casey again. She was one spectacular woman and I’d enjoyed the time spent with her. It seemed foolhardy now, but I really had hoped she was the one. The thoughts trailed off abruptly as sanity and sarcasm returned.

  Yeah, she could’ve been the one if she hadn’t tried to take life and liberty from you. She might’ve been perfect, if she hadn’t worked for some covert company. She might’ve made the perfect little woman in your life, if she hadn’t set up your abduction.

  How did anyone other than Nelson know about this gift? Casey had admitted that ‘they’ knew about his ability and wouldn’t stop until they knew more. Casey said they’d known about him for years. They could’ve approached him at any time. What was the catalyst?

  If someone was aware of my ability and had been watching for years, why the sudden change from watching to abduction? It didn’t make any sense. Why was Casey visible only a few days after I told Nelson?

  Who else knew? Adom.

  My intuition was on high alert. This awareness was a benefit of training my brain. Since Nelson had introduced being the passive observer, other things had changed, too. I was more observant and overall perceptive, but I was still vulnerable. I didn’t know many things I should know.

  Nelson was already waiting at the coffeehouse when I arrived. I ordered a latte breve, waited for it to be prepared, and then went to the corner table where he waited. After exchanging casual greetings, Nelson waited for me to begin. I considered telling him everything that had happened since our last appointment, but it didn’t feel right. A gut feeling came with a strong certainty that I trusted. Instead, I understood that rather than confide in Nelson, I wanted to pick his brain.

  “Nelson, ever since I’ve been doing the mental exercises you taught, I’ve noticed that I seem to be more alert, maybe even more intuitive. What do you think is happening?”

  “Well,” Nelson responded thoughtfully, “it stands to reason that if you’re no longer fighting the images and trying to keep that part of your brain sequestered, then more of your natural abilities, such as intuition and alertness, are surfacing. It takes a lot of energy to deny something or to fight it. The effort to battle it took attention away from other areas of your development. Can you understand that concept?”

  I nodded. In an ethereal way, it made perfect sense. We drank two cups of coffee and discussed the psychology of my acceptance, which, in turn, allowed my ability the freedom to expand and grow in other areas. It was enlightening and it applied to what I’d learned in the Aikido dojo—it’s better to let the opponent do all the work.

  If Nelson was suspicions that I wasn’t sharing everything, he didn’t let on. We agreed to resume the work after he looked over his calendar. He’d call later with a time. That was fine with me. After I’d made the decision to keep quiet, I had some serious thinking to do.

  When I got home, I sat on the deck with a new journal. The first book was complete, and I began writing in the second one. On the walk to Cavenders, I’d had a strange recollection about Adom. Now, I followed that trail.

  Adom said he had the ability to see the gift in others. Did he use his own ability to find others like me for someone? That might be reaching—but then again, if it was true, it was a stunning realization. My newly-developing instincts confirmed that I was onto something. Adom told someone about me but it was more than that. He found others with special abilities and reported them, too. It was the only answer that made sense. Why did he do this? What did he gain from it?

  Suddenly, I knew what I had to do, and it wasn’t work with Nelson, not now anyway. I had to find Adom. I neede
d to know who he told and why. How many others had he betrayed over the years? I had nine weeks before the next job assignment and I was determined to track down the little Egyptian.

  I immediately sent an email to Becky, a long-time acquaintance at GMS. Anything that had to do with employees’ expenses or pay went through Becky. The email asked her to call at the earliest convenience but didn’t give any indication for the reason. Perhaps Adom still worked for GMS in the Cairo office. Now that I had a place to begin, I was ready to get started.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  By the time Becky called, I was twisting with excitement. The prospect of finding the underlying cause would tell me everything about Casey’s involvement and the people behind it. If Adom told someone, then I’d do whatever it took to get that information from him.

  “What’s up, Mike?” Becky asked when I answered the phone. I could hear the uncertainty in her voice because although we talked on occasion and had a few mutual interests, it was rare for us to talk outside the workplace.

  “Hello, Becky. Thanks for getting back to me. How are Randy and the kids?” I asked hoping to disarm her.

  “Everything’s fine here, Mike. What’s up with you?” she asked again with obvious curiosity.

  “I have a confidential request and you’re the only person that came to mind who might be able to tackle this,” I said and then, rushed on. “I worked in Cairo on my first degreed position and met a guy there named Adom. He was one of the local crewmembers. I wondered if you had any contact information for him.” I paused briefly and then said, “If you have the time, that is, to look it up for me. I know it goes back about fifteen years, but I hope you have a way to find out. Do you?’

  “I’d need the exact dates. Do you have that? Well, I’d need at least a month and year.”