Broken Ties (Prequel to The Mentalist Series)

by Kenechi Udogu

really frightened me.”

  “I’m sorry…” He looked like he meant it, with his drooping lips and those sad, sad eyes. Fighting a sudden desire to wrap my arms around him and stop him worrying about me, I dropped his hands and folded mine across my chest.

  “It’s kind of sweet that you came all the way over here to tell David off,” I attempted lightening the mood with a coy smile but he didn’t return it. Maybe it was too soon to revert to flirting but I wanted the conversation to be over so badly, I was willing to do anything it took.

  Paul held my gaze as he took another step forward and whispered. “Nora, all you have to do is say the word and I will do everything in my power to stop this from happening again.”

  Okay, he was totally freaking me out with his intense stare. What part of leave-it-alone didn’t he get? And how did he plan on stopping Agnes from getting out of hand again when we’d tried so hard to help her ourselves? It wasn’t like he was going to…No way! He wouldn’t dare! I stepped away from him as an image of a psych ward flashed in my head. He wouldn’t!

  “Promise me you won’t try to do anything about this,” I almost yelled the words at him. “You might not get it now but this is the way things have to be until David and I figure out a different way to handle things. Promise me, Paul!”

  If I’d thought he looked sad before, I had been mistaken. Now he looked like it physically hurt him to accept what I was saying. Why couldn’t he understand this wasn’t his problem to sort out? The psych ward I’d pictured had become properly ingrained in my head. I did not want to hate him for taking an action he felt was in my best interest; especially when I knew that if he rang someone about Agnes, he’d probably be right to do so.

  I didn’t realise I had been holding my breath until a sigh escaped my lips at his nod.

  “I promise,” he added for clarity. “But you also have to promise me you’ll let me know if you ever change your mind about this. I know you don’t believe me, but I really can help.”

  Something about how he said the last sentence made me wonder what he thought he could do, but I didn’t want to prolong the conversation so I nodded and promised I would. It wasn’t likely I’d ever consent to my mother getting sectioned, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “I have to go.” I’d been out there for too long already. Unless I wanted to risk adding another week or two to my incarceration, I had to head back up.

  Paul nodded, looking past me and into the lobby at Jacob. “See you at school?”

  “As always.”

  I wondered if he would notice I was lingering with the hope he’d do more than just say goodbye. When he carried on waiting for me to leave, I sighed and turned away.

  Dammit! Why did I want to hold him so badly?

  I’d barely taken two steps before Paul grabbed my wrist and spun me around.

  “I’m sorry if this gets you in trouble.”

  I could feel Jacob’s stare through the glass door, but I didn’t pull away from Paul’s kiss. Some things were worth risking more punishment.

  His kiss was at the top of my list.

  NINE

  Paul

  Nora Brice did strange things to me. Strange, strange things which felt so good, even though they should have driven me insane.

  She made me long to alter her mother’s mind so she would never touch her again. Dad always told me long term mind alterations were dangerous and not particularly reliable, so I’d never attempted anything of such grand proportions. Not that I’d ever had cause to consider it. Still, I was willing to try anything to change the situation Nora was in. If only she hadn’t made me promise not to interfere.

  She made me want to whack her father in the face for not protecting her like he should have done. Even if he didn’t hit her, he was still a coward in my eyes. I didn’t know the whole story, but I couldn’t see any valid reason for him not to do more for her. Again, I’d promised not to get involved. Why the hell had I done that?

  I gave up my relationship with Marlboro Lights because I knew they reminded her of her father. Quitting cold turkey was one of the most difficult feats I’d ever attempted, but I didn’t want her to think about that part of her life when she was with me. Ever!

  She made me accept it was okay to lie to my father, as long as he never found out about us.

  I know, I said us.

  A few days after the encounter outside her building, I found a note in my locker asking me to meet her at the back of the courthouse after school. She didn’t sign the note but there was no one else it could have been from.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be grounded?” I asked when I joined her on the top step where I usually sat. I tried not to stare but she was dressed in a fitted green dress, which stopped just above her knees, and a plastic orchid clip held her hair away from her face. I’d gawked at her from a distance all day at school. Sitting quietly beside her was pure torture.

  “We are going to make this work,” she ignored my comment and plunged right into her mission.

  “What does that mean?” The seriousness in her eyes told me all I needed to know, but I still had to ask.

  “It means whatever we want it to mean. But most importantly, it means we are going to get over this madness about not being able to date anyone until we are a hundred.”

  Twenty-one for me, but it wasn’t even going to be dating in the normal sense. Offering that piece of information to Nora wasn’t going to help.

  “And you presume I’d want to date you?”

  I received a finger flick on my ear lobe. The pain was worth it for the smile that flickered on her lips.

  Nora then pulled out a thick stack of paper from her bag and began to unfold it. It was a map. Not just any old map, a map of the city with same sized circles drawn around four locations.

  “That’s my flat, that’s David’s office and this one is for Agnes. This is school.” She pointed at each corresponding circle as she spoke, the sombreness returning to her voice.

  “Nora, what is this?”

  “We just need to add a two mile radius around yours and we have a map of where we can go without worrying too much about people we know seeing us. Most kids from school live within the school’s catchment area so they should be covered in the overlaps. I know this doesn’t account for the odd chance of people seeing us, but it’s a start.”

  For a few seconds, all I could do was look at her. Loopy beautiful Nora.

  “It might sound bat crap crazy but we have to try something. I don’t know about you but it’s driving me insane seeing you every day at school and knowing our lives have to continue running in parallel. We can carry on being Paul and Nora, two people living separate lives in a big city with a wealth of possibilities, or we can use the city to our advantage. You want to give this a shot too, right?” Her voice faltered a little as she stared back at me.

  What really pissed me off was I should have been the one with the map, the one with the crazy plan, the one who was trying to make us work, in spite of everything. Yet all I’d done was dream about her every day and only allow a stolen moment or two between us. Seeing her at school was becoming unbearable but, for her to resort to drawing circles on a map, she clearly wanted us to happen even more than I did.

  And I’d thought I’d wanted her really badly.

  I knew whatever we started couldn’t possibly last, not with my unmentionable abilities and forced fatherhood looming in five years’ time, but I was willing to take what we got for however long we got it. Even if we couldn’t have a future together, I would have the memories of our time together to hold on to when the time came for me to move on. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew I needed to have those memories.

  There was no denying it; we were in a hell of a lot of trouble.

  “You know it’ll take more than two mile radiuses plotted on a map for this to work.” I held her gaze so she would understand the gravity of what we would attempt. “There’ll be a lot of lying. And not just to your par
ents, but to everyone you know. Your friends…”

  “I know.” Her hand touched mine as her face softened into a smile. She didn’t need to offer any more speeches to convince me.

  “Alright then, this is where I live.” I took the pen and drew a similar sized circle around my flat. “Dad works all around the city but most of his jobs are here and here.”

  I was probably making the biggest mistake of my life but, like I said, Nora Brice did strange things to me.

  TEN

  Nora

  I couldn’t believe I’d been sneaking around with Paul for eleven weeks and nobody had said anything. I guess we must have been really good at pretending. Or everyone knew what we were doing and hadn’t ratted us out because they simply didn’t care. As the excuses I made up to avoid spending time with Theresa and Stacey became increasingly ridiculous, I was more convinced the latter was true.

  How many times could a girl suffer from gut-wrenching cramps in a month? Or attend hours of training when there were no meets lined up until autumn? Worst of all, I was pretty sure all my clothes had a lingering scent of teenage boy on them. Yep, there is such a thing. Nope, it doesn’t actually smell as gross as it sounds.

  David and Agnes didn’t seem to notice the changes either. As surprising as it sounds, thanks to eight years of good behaviour, they’d (sort of) grown to trust me to be honest about my whereabouts. They would have assumed I was preoccupied with end of year exams as the term drew to a close. And