Lightning Strikes

by Theresa Parker

  “My mom,” I said. I’d tell him eventually, but not right away. With his overprotectiveness toward me, I didn’t know how he’d react. It never crossed my mind not to tell him, though. For some reason, I felt that I could tell him anything. Well, almost anything. I still wasn’t confessing to seeing him naked in the shower. Maybe one day I would.

  “Since when do you not want to talk to your mom?” he asked, concerned. “Did you get into an argument with her?”

  “No,” I sighed.

  I broke down and told him what happened last night. I told him everything, including making the arrogant Anthony Fontaine believe I was currently in a relationship. Cavanaugh grunted when I told him this. I didn’t know if the grunt meant you’re damn right you’re in a relationship, or if it was just his way of following the story. I finished up by telling him that I didn’t want to cause dissention in Mom’s coven. Cavanaugh was quiet for a minute.

  “Don’t tell your mom what happened,” he said. “Just tell her that you don’t like the guy. If he becomes a problem, let me know.”

  That was not what I’d expected to hear him say. Was his possessiveness toward me an act? Were Kelli and I seeing his interest as nothing more than fanciful imagination? Was the sexual attraction only one-sided? I sat in silence, pondering these questions and getting depressed. Yes, I felt an incredibly strong attraction to Cavanaugh, one that had me leaning toward contemplating a relationship with him when this case was over. I thought I was in control of the situation, that I would be the one to say yes or no. I couldn’t believe he would toy with my emotions. Maybe he just thought of me as a buddy—a friend with no romantic or sexual interest for him. Now I was becoming even more depressed. Damn, what was I supposed to do now? The more time I spent with him, the more he touched and took care of me, the more I was falling for him. I couldn’t let this go on. If it was a buddy he wanted, then that’s what I’d give him, but no more touching or getting close. I wasn’t going to let him break my heart like that. God, I really needed to talk to Kelli. I knew she could put things in perspective for me.

  We pulled into the park. “Where do you want to set up?” he asked me.

  “Just drive and I’ll tell you when to stop,” I said, a bit snarkily.

  Damn, I can’t do this. I’ve got to try not to take my anger and disappointment out on him, I thought. It wasn’t his fault he thought of me as just a friend.

  He gave me a sharp look but continued to drive through the park. I had both crystal shards unwrapped in my pockets, my finger on the left shard. It was not because I needed to get rid of the hum, but I was hoping that the clarity would help me pick a spot for my visions. We drove for forty minutes before I had Cavanaugh pull over. He parked off the road in a small clearing lined with trees. We had decided to bring food, an ice chest, and a big blanket, so if anyone came across us we would look like a couple spending the afternoon out-of-doors on a picnic. Cavanaugh carried the ice chest, and I carried the tote of food and the blanket. I didn’t know exactly where I was headed, but I was being drawn through the trees. Cavanaugh didn’t question our direction; he just followed, keeping an eye on our surroundings.

  After a few minutes of walking, we came out of the trees into a beautiful, grassy clearing at the edge of the lake. The view of the mountains in the distance was breathtaking, and I took a deep breath. This was the place. I spread the thick blanket and placed the tote with the food on its edge. The sun shone brightly in the clearing, warming the vegetation. Everything smelled green and earthy. I took off my jacket and sat on the blanket with my legs crossed. Pulling my jacket close, I retrieved the shards and set them in front of me. Cavanaugh settled next to me with a notepad.

  “How do you want to do this?” he asked.

  “The same way we’ve always done it,” I told him. “Write down as much of what I tell you as you can. I’m going to focus on the children to get me in, and then I’m doing nothing but looking for a way out into the open to find some landmarks.”

  “When should I pull you out?” he asked. “I still don’t want you to overdo it.”

  “Watch my face,” I said. “If I start to furrow my forehead or squeeze my eyes more tightly shut, wake me up. If you don’t see these signs, leave me alone.”

  He looked at me for a moment, his mouth a grim line. Then he nodded his agreement. I looked out over the water to the majestic, snow-covered mountains in the distance. Taking a deep breath through my nose, I slowly released it through my mouth, closing my eyes. I repeated my deep breathing two more times, and then I pulled up the image of the three kids in my mind. I reached for the two shards, grasping them, one in each hand, and brought them up to rest on the tops of my thighs. Even with my eyes closed, the clarity I gained from the shards was unbelievable. I slid into the vision effortlessly.

  My three kids were in what I liked to think of as the cafeteria. I was relieved to find them here again. I felt that I could pick up where I left off the last time I’d found them here. I took a quick head count to make sure all of the children were still present. I noticed again that one of the children seemed more alert than the others. It was the same boy that I saw before, the one that I thought would lead me to the others—the one I knew would make an escape attempt. I studied him closely. I wanted to make sure I remembered him. I could feel his emotions this time. I could feel his fright and determination to escape and get help for the other children. I described this child again to Cavanaugh.

  “This kid would make one hell of a witness for you,” I told him.

  I moved through the tunnel that I’d traveled down in my first vision. I was able to move quickly by the areas that I’d described to Cavanaugh and Johnson at the station. I touched briefly on these areas, ticking them off as I passed them until I reached the place where I’d stopped. I tried to be quick but thorough in describing what I saw. I wanted to make sure that when the police came into these caves, they had a fairly accurate layout. It’s going to take a lot of people to raid this place, I thought to myself. I passed more storage areas to my left and right. I followed the bare lightbulbs lining the ceiling as I had before. I had to travel through a few offshooting tunnels from this main one, following the light bulbs. I hated wasting the time to check these, because they always halted at a dead end, but I didn’t want to miss a potential exit. I finally came to a large cavern. This was where the children were brought to watch the movie. I saw the white projection screen and recognized it from my previous vision. The projector was in the back, and there was a podium off to the side of the screen. Thankfully there was only one other exit. I moved through it and traveled down another tunnel. This tunnel also had a string of bare lightbulbs illuminating it. I moved down this tunnel, looking into the offshooting areas as I went.

  I saw the same storage areas as before branching off the main tunnel, and then I found some larger areas. These looked like individual bedrooms with personal items. I saw cots in these rooms, but instead of the utilitarian blankets that the children were given, these rooms had thick, colorful comforters. I also saw small folding tables that doubled as vanities, holding personal grooming items. One or two also had small mirrors set against the rock wall. Footlockers sat either at the end of the cots or against a wall. I counted five of these living quarters altogether. I told Cavanaugh about these rooms. There must be at least five adults with the children.

  I continued down the main tunnel, eventually coming to another large room. This room was full of weapons. Knives, guns (both small and large), smoke canisters, grenades, and a lot of military-looking weapons that I didn’t have names for. There were also stacks of boxes containing ammunition and explosives. These people were well stocked for Armageddon. What did they need all this stuff for? In the vision I’d had in the tomato juice bath, I saw the kids shooting at targets. Were they teaching them to use this stuff? I was about to describe everything I saw to Cavanaugh, when I felt him touch my shoulder.

  “Someone’s coming,” he hissed at me. “Come back now.�
��

  I pulled myself back just in time to see two men in uniform step out of the trees not far from where we’d come through. Cavanaugh had slid himself behind me so I was sitting in between his legs, within the circle of his arms. He pulled me back against his chest.

  “Don’t look around,” he whispered in my ear. “Pretend as though you don’t know they’re here.”

  I tucked the shards under my legs, out of sight from our visitors. I didn’t know what Cavanaugh had done with his notepad, but because of his warning, I didn’t look around for it. He pushed aside my hair and nuzzled my neck. I was trapped. I didn’t want him touching me like this, not when he wanted to just be friends. I wished I knew for sure how he felt about me. Not knowing made me want to stiffen up and move away from him.

  “Relax,” he breathed in my ear; his husky voice sent chills through my body. It hurt thinking that this was just an act for the benefit of our visitors.

  “How ya folks doing?” a voice called from behind us. “You must be that detective Dan was telling us about.”

  We both turned our heads. Cavanaugh unwrapped himself from around me and stood. I wanted to follow his lead, but I couldn’t stand up without revealing the shards tucked under my legs. So I stayed seated, feeling a bit vulnerable in this position. The two men in brown park uniforms approached us. The younger man held out his hand to Cavanaugh. His bright-red hair shone like a new penny in the sun, and his face had so many freckles he looked tan. He either lifted weights or he did a lot of manual labor in this job because, although he was short, his chest and arms were well-muscled. The other man was dark-haired and scruffy—the type of person that looked disreputable no matter how much he cleaned up or how nicely he was dressed. He was tall, just about an inch shorter than Cavanaugh’s six-foot-something, and he didn’t seem as friendly as the other ranger. In fact he was making me a little uncomfortable by staring at me. It was a menacing look, one that didn’t fit the image of a friendly and helpful park ranger. He was a bit wiry, but looked as though he could give even Cavanaugh a run for his money. I plastered a fake smile on my face as Cavanaugh introduced us.

  “That’s right,” he said. “I’m Nick Cavanaugh and this is my wife, Andromeda.”

  I suppose he had to stick to the same story he gave Ranger Dan. The stocky, redheaded ranger smiled at me and nodded. The dark-haired ranger just squinted at me.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Red said. “I’m John, and this is Terrance.”

  The dark-haired ranger, Terrance, nodded.

  “We’ve been expecting you up at our station. We were passing by on our way back from a staff meeting and saw your truck, so we stopped to make sure everything was okay.”

  Cavanaugh donned his good-ole-boy attitude like he did with Ranger Dan.

  “Well, it’s nice of you to stop and check on us,” he said, smiling. “We’re just taking a little break; thought we’d have ourselves a picnic.”

  John smiled. “You picked a nice day to do that,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “There aren’t too many of these pretty days this time of year. Usually it’s raining.”

  Terrance still hadn’t said a word, but looked around the clearing—for what I didn’t know. He seemed rather antsy to me. I was trying to watch him without being obvious. John didn’t seem to be bothered by Terrance’s lack of friendliness toward us.

  “Will you be heading up in our direction today, do you think?” John asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cavanaugh replied, scratching his chin. “Maybe today or tomorrow sometime.”

  Terrance brought his attention back to us.

  “What are you looking for anyway,” he asked gruffly. “Dan said you told him you were following up some lead?”

  “That’s right,” Cavanaugh said, still smiling. “We got a tip that a parole violator is camping out here around the mines. You see anyone unusual around here?”

  It was hard to hear, but I detected a slight edge in Cavanaugh’s tone. If we’d just met, I wouldn’t have noticed it, but because I’ve been around him for a while, I heard it.

  “Naw,” John said jovially. “We don’t get very many people as high up as our station is this time of year.”

  Terrance was glaring at Cavanaugh and me.

  “I’ve never heard of a cop bringing his wife on the job before,” he said, nodding at me.

  “Well, as to that,” Cavanaugh said with his good-ole-boy persona turned up a notch, “we just got married and we’re supposed to be on our honeymoon, but a few guys are out with a flu that’s been going around the station. The lead on this guy we’re looking for is a long shot, and I didn’t see any harm in bringing the wife with me.”

  I didn’t know if Terrance bought that lame excuse, but John seemed to take it in stride.

  “Well,” he said, laughing, “we’ll let you get back to your picnic. Y’all have a nice day, and hey, congratulations on the marriage.”

  I smiled and said thank you. Cavanaugh shook their hands, and we watched them disappear back into the trees. I put the shards under my jacket and out of sight in case they came back. I didn’t think that they would have any reason to do that, but by the way Terrance had glared at me, I wasn’t sure. Cavanaugh seemed to have the same idea, because he dropped down onto the blanket and pulled the tote with the food to him.

  “Since we’re taking a break,” he said, “let’s eat.”

  I helped him lay the food out. He got our usual sub sandwiches and chips, but this time he added potato salad, pickles, paper plates, forks, and napkins.

  “Wow,” I told him, picking up a plastic fork and dishing the potato salad onto our plates. “You’re very domestic today.”

  “Not really,” he told me. “This was Johnson’s idea. He still doesn’t like anyone to know about you. Sally Hart gathered the plates and stuff.”

  “Detective Hart?” I asked, unwrapping my sandwich.

  “You know her?” He raised a brow at me.

  I liked Detective Sally Hart. She’d only been with the Detective Division for two years. An attractive brunette, she didn’t take crap from anyone.

  “I worked on a case with her last year,” I told him.

  “Yeah, she’s great,” he said, taking a bite of his sandwich.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that comment. Was he saying she is a great detective or was he saying she’s great, as in I want to jump her bones? I was a little jealous. Sally had a lot more in common with Cavanaugh than I did, and she was single too. I didn’t respond to his great comment, but I again tried to distance myself.

  “You seem awfully quiet today,” he said to me.

  I just shrugged. I didn’t mean to act standoffish, but I didn’t know how to act around him now. I just didn’t know what to say. Well, that’s not true, I thought. I did have questions about how he felt about me, but I was too chicken to ask. Instead, I told him about the weapons that I saw in that last cavern. We discussed this through the rest of our meal.

  After lunch, I helped him clean up our mess and then walked down to the water to wash my hands. This really is a beautiful spot, I thought. The lake water in this little inlet was dark, and you could see the mountain’s reflection in the water. Shaking off the water from my hands, I turned and walked straight into Cavanaugh’s arms.

  “What’s wrong, Rommy?” he asked softly. “Are the mines bothering you?”

  I gently pushed myself out of his embrace. “No, it’s okay,” I told him. I needed to change the subject. “What did you think about that ranger, Terrance?”

  He followed me back to the blanket with a sigh. “He seemed a little irritated. I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”

  “Yeah, that kind of creeped me out, too,” I said, seating myself back on the blanket. “I got a weird vibe from him.”

  Cavanaugh sat down next to me. “What kind of weird vibe?”

  I shook my head. I always had trouble trying to explain to other people what I mean when I pick up on things like emoti
ons. I’m not as empathic in person as I am in my visions. Some people blast their emotions. No matter what it is—hate, anger, depression, or joy—they shoot it out into the air around them. These people I can easily read. Other people are more closed off and try to contain their emotions. With these people, I can only pick up very strong emotions like anger and hate. But there are a few, however, who keep such a tight rein on their feelings that I can’t read them at all. Cavanaugh was one of them. I only ever got a small glimpse of what he was feeling. It was very fleeting. Ranger Terrance was another.

  “He seemed shifty to me,” I said.

  Cavanaugh laughed. “Is that a psychic term?” he asked, reaching up and pulling a hank of my hair.

  “No, smart-ass,” I said testily. “It’s a feeling I got. I can’t read his emotions; it’s what he made me feel.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “He did seem a little shifty. I got a list of all the rangers, maintenance crews, and anyone else associated with the park. They’re running the names to see if anything pops up.”

  I nodded and pulled my jacket off the crystals—time to get back to work. I turned to face the water and the stunning view of the mountains. I was feeling pretty mellow now that I had eaten, and the sun was warming the top of my head and back. I held a crystal in each hand and took a cleansing breath.

  “Okay, here I go,” I said.

  After another deep breath, I zeroed in on my kids. They were with the other children in what I called the exercise room. The same man and woman that I saw before were moving between the rows of kids, again correcting stances and moves. As before, I took a quick head count, noted my three, and checked the boy from the cafeteria. He worked harder than the other children. I could feel his determination to get out of this place. I had not come across this room so far in my investigation of the tunnels. I was frustrated because now I would have to backtrack to a familiar area, then go forward again. I explained to Cavanaugh my problem. Thankfully, there was only one way in and out of this cavern. I moved out into the connecting tunnel, trying to get my bearings. I didn’t know whether to go left or right. I was completely lost. I had no clue as to which way to go. I did a quick eenie, meenie, miney, moe, and ended up going left. Following this path, I peeked into each offshooting room that I passed, as long as it was lit. The tunnel wound around to the left, then to the right, and seemed to go on forever. It also seemed to have more empty areas. I was hoping that this would lead to the outside. After another couple of twists and turns, I came to an abrupt halt. The tunnel stopped at a dead end. I huffed out a frustrated breath. I knew just taking a quick peek into the other offshooting caves might cause me to miss something, so I turned around and headed back, determined to be more thorough in looking into each area that came off this tunnel. In each lighted area, I took the time to inspect. I tried to do the same to the darkened caves, but some of them were just too dark to make out anything but vague shapes.