Detective Palomino, of Major Crimes and Missing Children, looked bereft. A predator and killer of children was loose in the city and all the detective could do, that he hadn’t already, was look to Anna for help. Their investigation had met a series of dead-ends and no leads.
Poor man. Poor child.
There would be others, unless she could help him stop the monster. She would do her best. In the final analysis, this was her burden. Her destiny.
Her secret.
Chapter Three
The onslaught of images and emotions struck Athena’s mind. In an instant, she knew she was going mad. Stark, raving mad. In response, her brain’s gelatinous mass exploded into a thousand pieces. Like a ball of jello blown apart, slimy pieces of brain splattered all over. Somehow, her head still intact, she shut down emotionally and curled up tightly within herself.
Athena woke up fully. Blimey! The old, recurring nightmare still plagued her. Her memory of that terrible time, when she’d had a psychotic break—or as close to one as she’d ever experienced in her life—always returned when her delta brain waves rapidly morphed into theta waves. It was like those movies of a submarine crashing up and out of the water. Sudden and explosive. Always jarring.
Or, to put it another way, as her subconscious receded, seemingly yanked downward, and her conscious mind shot upward. This was one of many facts about her mental powers she’d learned over the past ten years from her mother. At least, this was how Anna had explained this phenomenon to Athena. Athena considered the explanation more theory than fact. It was one of many theories about their powers of clairvoyance.
No one really understood what caused their powers or how they worked. There was no proof, just a boatload of theories.
Ten years ago the reverse had happened with Athena, a rapid descent from alpha to theta waves, more rapidly than her nine-year-old mind could handle. Mental overload and fear had sent her into a sharp spiraling descent into her subconscious mind. Somehow, in a theta state of dreamlike images, her conscious and subconscious mind overlapped and merged. And in that state, somehow, she was able to access other minds. This was how her mother explained it, anyway. All it had taken was a physical touch to trigger this jarring descent.
Now, the descent into merging brain waves wasn’t jarring. The phenomenon was rapid, taking place in the blink of an eye, a fluid transition which didn’t affect her physically, except that her mind flooded with another person’s images and emotions. She could turn it off just like the faucet at the kitchen sink. It took concentration and willpower to block the flow, but she’d worked at it over the years and, with her mother’s encouragement and training, had mastered the ability. Otherwise, her mother had explained, the flood would be constant and exhausting. And she’d grow to hate another person’s touch.
In Athena’s view, she’d mastered the curse.
Workshops at the Claremont Institute of Psychic Research in Virginia she and her mother had attended during these past eight years of their American posting had revealed modern theories about this rapid transformation in brain waves. She continued to develop coping mechanisms for her extraordinary clairvoyant powers, and her mother sought to explain these powers. The mental discipline required to turn her clairvoyance off when people touched her had been difficult for Athena at first, for she had to overcome her natural curiosity to know what others were thinking. The Claremont Institute had helped her gain control of that strange state where theta and alpha merged.
There were numerous other theories, Athena had learned, seeking to explain the psychic powers of women like her mother, her grandmother, Lorena Skoros, and all the other women in the Trementino bloodline.
It was all very strange and perplexing, Athena knew. But then, wasn’t life itself rather strange and perplexing? Her mental powers were just one aspect of her entire life. Right now, improving her artistic abilities and somehow finding a boyfriend were more important to her. Those two goals ranked higher on her priority list than probing the mysteries of her clairvoyance.
Smiling, Athena hopped out of bed. She had the guest bathroom all to herself since her brother Chris, preferring to board, remained at school in Virginia until the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Her father had already left for work, and she could hear her mother downstairs in the kitchen. Already, she smelled the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, her and her mother’s preference over her father’s morning tea. She showered, then blow-dried her long blonde hair and swept it back into a simple ponytail with a fluff of bangs. After she dressed in her ubiquitous faded jeans, sweater, and scuffed brown ankle-boots, she added a soft coral lipstick, her only makeup. Today, her sweater of choice was a cream-colored, cable-knit her talented mother had made for her one Christmas, over which Athena added a wide brown belt. The look was plain compared to stylish Mikayla, but it was Athena’s look.
Her mother was bending over the tiled counter, reading the newspaper. Athena tiptoed up behind her and wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist. The older woman squealed in mock shock.
“You bad girl, sneaking up on me like that!” Anna turned and hugged her, her dark eyes downcast. The images Athena had caught from her surprised mother were unmistakable. Mum was at it again, helping the cops catch bad guys.
Athena withdrew and poured herself a cup of black coffee. There were scrambled eggs on the stove, along with blood sausage—which her father loved—and pork and beans. Although she and her mother normally stuck to toasted bagels or thick, grainy bread, toasted and heaped with jam, she filled a small plate with eggs and beans but the dark, gruesome images that flowed from her mother’s mind overrode Athena’s hunger. Suddenly, the plate of food made her bile rise up.
“Mum, what disgusting crime are you trying to solve now? Man, if Father finds out, he’s going to be pissed off.” Athena made a face and left her plate on the counter by the stove. She’d be lucky not to barf up her coffee and cream.
“Such an ugly phrase, ’Thena, this ‘pissed off’.” Her mother frowned but returned to the newspaper, lying flat and open on the counter. A polyglot, her mother was fluent in three languages, English being her third, Italian and French her first two. In addition, her German was passable. She had done translation work for publishers since she was in her twenties.
“Mum, it means angry.”
“I know what it means, ’Thena. You startled me just then, while I’m trying to take my mind off this horrible case Detective Palomino is stuck with. I’m not succeeding. I keep thinking, thinking, wishing I could see more. I feel so helpless.”
“Mum, you know Father’s afraid you’ll get hurt trying to help the cops.”
“Police, you mean. Don’t be afraid of what your father will think if he knew. I think he already knows since he has his ways of finding out. On the Embassy staff, there are Her Majesty’s spies, you know. Your father told me at lunch yesterday MI-6 has detected a possible threat planned for the UN’s General Assembly. The entire Embassy staff’s on alert.” She brought her mug of steaming coffee over to the table and sat next to Athena. “My work with the Metropolitan Police is child’s play compared to MI-6 spies and what they do to save lives. My life’s work is small, but I must do it.”
Athena understood what her mother meant, but because she, like her father, disapproved out of concern for her mother’s safety, she remained silent.
Anna smiled. “If any of your friends ask what I do, say I’m a translator of books. No one needs to know I’m also a forensics consultant. That’s the way I’m introduced at the police station. Detective Palomino tells them I have a forensics background in anthropology.” Her mother glanced up at Athena and smiled ironically. “I’m not even sure what anthropology is.” She gave an exaggerated Italian shrug, so like Nonna’s expressive gestures.
“Oh Mum, of course you know what it means. I only hope you know what you’re doing.” Athena knew her mother ignored the dangers, and Athena was at a loss to figure out what else she could say. Her mother had a need to help eradi
cate evil wherever she felt it ruled. What better place to help the police than the murder capital of the United States, Washington, D.C.?
Turning contemplative, Athena dug into her plate of scrambled eggs and beans. Her hunger pangs had returned, so she savored the taste of the hot eggs and beans mixed together. When she looked up, her mother’s dark-eyed gaze was fixed on her.
Uh, oh. More cop talk.
“You know I feel compelled to do this. So far, only the Medical Examiner and Gino—Detective Palomino—know the truth. The other day, he took me to the Police Morgue to view the girl’s body. She was just a young girl of twelve, so sad. Her poor body, small for her age”—her mother glanced up as Athena was in mid-bite—“well, this sick man likes them young, and thus far, African-American. This monster sees himself as a hunter preying upon the most defenseless.”
Athena suppressed a flare of nausea and put her fork down. Even her heavily creamed coffee felt slick inside her throat, making her feel sick.
“Mum, please…”
She watched her mother gaze at the kitchen window with a faraway, haunted look in her eyes as she continued to explain the process to Athena. “Anyway, my job is to gather clues to help the police investigate. When I touched the girl, I saw the killer’s hands on her throat. They were white—he’s a young, white man—and the knuckles were red and bruised. I told Detective Palomino all this. I sensed this predator’s thoughts. He roams the poor, black neighborhoods and looks for little girls who are alone. What Americans call latchkey kids. Somehow he gets them to trust him, and when they get close enough, he grabs them, overpowers them, and shoves them into his black van.”
“Black van? Like a delivery van?” Despite warning herself not to get involved—didn’t she already have enough problems in her life—Athena was intrigued. “Was he wearing a uniform? Did you see his face? If you did, describe him and I’ll sketch him for you.”
Anna scowled, not at Athena, but at the situation and the mercurial quality of her own clairvoyant abilities. “No, I wish I had. Dio mio, his face eludes me. I saw his hands and the black van.” Anna’s dark eyes were in a deep glaze and Athena waited. Then her mother sighed deeply, and refocused her gaze again on Athena. “Thank you for offering, but no, I could get nothing more. If I do, I shall ask for your help. Your rendering skills are so acute, so keen, and a sketch of this madman would be very helpful. Nevertheless, Detective Palomino is following what few leads I could give him. It’s so frustrating.”
Athena said nothing as she pushed away her plate of barely eaten eggs and beans. “What kinds of leads, Mum? You mean, that the killer’s young, white, and drives a black van? That must cover thousands of men in the D.C. area.”
Her mother shrugged again. “I was not completely useless. I sensed the man’s knuckles were inflamed and causing him pain. He didn’t wear gloves, even in this cold weather, so the monster wants to get caught by leaving fingerprints. But the police have found no prints at the dump sites. Or…”
“Or what, Mum?”
“Or he has a need to feel their skin, their fear when he grabs them. The M.E. didn’t find any fingerprints on the victim or at the dump site. Gino thinks he’s not going to stop, so he has ordered his team of detectives to pursue all the possibilities.”
“Like what?” Athena sipped her coffee until it cooled, then put the cup in the microwave to nuke it up to the heat level she liked. Then she wrapped up a bagel in a square of foil. She’d eat it later during her break at work. Once her stomach had settled.
“One possibility is that the man is a street fighter—I have no idea what that is. Gino claims it’s what some desperate men do to make money. It would explain the bruised knuckles. Or he works with his hands and scrapes his fingers. The other lead I gave him was a black van with signs on the sides. Magnetic signs the killer takes off later, but these signs cause the girls to trust him. The detectives on Gino’s team were very pleased they had these leads, anyway. They’re going to canvass the neighborhood where the most recent child was taken and ask if anyone saw a black van with a tradesman’s signs. That’s what Gino told me before I left.”
A red flag of warning raised itself to Athena. “Mum, how many detectives know about you, and what you’re doing to help Detective Palomino?”
“I don’t know,” her mother mumbled into her raised cup. “Maybe four. However many are on Palomino’s team of investigators. Why?”
Athena studied her mother’s still pretty face. For the past ten or more years, since her father’s posting in Lyon, France, Athena had kept her mother’s unpaid occupation a secret, because she knew how fulfilled and gratified her mother felt after each case was solved. The price her mother paid, however, for doing such selfless work could be seen on her countenance. Every additional line around her mother’s full mouth, the deeper crow’s feet around her expressive brown eyes, the additional gray hair, were all results, Athena felt, of her mother’s chosen work. This kind of community service and its potential risks were beyond the call of duty. The dedication took its toll.
Not to mention if her work became public, especially to the criminal world, the entire family would be in danger.
Athena returned to the table where her mother sat, lost in her world of predators and murdered children.
“The more people who know about you, about you and me, the more danger we’re in. You keep telling me that, Mum. You’ve always told me to keep our powers a secret. There’s danger if our secret gets out, and the danger includes Father and Chris, too. Doesn’t Father have enough to worry about with his job at the Embassy? You told me ten years ago, we must keep our clairvoyance a secret. Have you changed your mind?”
Cradling the cup of coffee in her hands, Anna locked eyes with her daughter. One hand reached out and clasped her daughter’s, and immediately, sharp images and strong emotions flowed from mind to mind.
Athena reeled in surprise. “Nonna’s mother risked her life? Great-grandmother? During the war? Do you mean, World War II? She risked her life? How?”
Her mother smiled slyly. “Yes, of course, World War II. Dio, we’re not that old. My mother, Nonna Trementino, and her mother—my grandmother—were very brave. They gave readings to the Nazi officers who occupied that area of Italy, and because they wove the truth with the lies and did this so skillfully—yes, the officers believed both of them, especially your great-grandmother, for she was a grown woman. So, when the opportunity arose to help the Italian Resistance, she told the Gestapo chief lies which saved an entire village from certain death.”
For the first time, Athena began to understand her mother’s motivations for helping the police. “Every generation of our bloodline has done something like this, Mum?”
“Yes, Nonna, your great grandmother and so on, back to the origin of our bloodline. Which my grandmother always claimed had come from Greece. Of course, there are no written records, just oral history passed down from generation to generation. My Nonna’s grandmother immigrated to Italy in the early nineteenth century. Her family was Greek.”
“Greek? Like in the Delphi Oracle?”
“Yes, most likely. They had the gift of the Oracle. But with our gift from God comes an obligation to do good. To do something that makes a difference. But”— Anna paused and looked pointedly at the cup on the table her father had used during his breakfast—“we must be cautious and careful at the same time. Do you recall the ceremony at the lake? With Nonna and Lorena Skoros? When we gave you the Athena medallion?”
“Yes. Each one of you told me in turn, ‘For the greater good and to honor God.’” Athena looked down and fingered the gold medallion hanging on a gold chain around her neck. She always wore it. Then she frowned. “But Mum, you’re walking a kind of tightrope. And, sorry,”—she stood up, uneasy with the turn of their conversation—“but I don’t feel the same obligation to work for the greater good. It’s all I can do to keep up with my studies and my part-time job.” She glanced at her watch. Her shift started at nine and it was
already eight-forty. “Shit-on-a-brick, I’m due at work in twenty minutes.”
Anna looked up, disappointment creasing her face. “What an expression. Where did you learn—no, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” Instantly, she brightened. “Before you rush off, show me the painting you did of Lorena’s son.”
Athena glanced at her watch again. Shit! She was always late—late to work, late to class, late for dinner. Her entire life was like a treadmill, and she was always running just to catch up.
Still, a few minutes more of mother-daughter bonding wouldn’t hurt. Her morning shift at the coffeehouse, from nine to one, was ideal for her. Close to the Art Institute, the store was a hub for students and local artists, a place to work and socialize. On the downside, there was a lot of stress on the job, even though her manager was an easygoing boss whose true life’s work was metal sculpting. A fellow artist, he seemed to understand her tardiness. Still, everyone had a breaking point.
“Okay, I finished it two nights ago.” She went to her portfolio in the large living room, where she had a corner all to herself. Her easel stood there, a silent reminder another work in progress would draw her back to the corner later that night.
Carefully withdrawing the 22-by-24 inch canvas on wooden stretcher, she held it up for her mother to see. It wasn’t her best portrait, but it was fine, considering she knew almost nothing about the subject, aside from her nighttime fantasies about the guy. Which, of course, had nothing to do with reality.
“I might need to do more work on it. You see the rising mists in the pale gold background? I saw him there, like somewhere in the early morning sunshine with the pale ochre hills in the background. He likes to walk there, I think. I wish I could’ve seen more of him.”
“Oh, ’Thena,” her mother purred, “it’s very good. It looks just like Kyriakos. I like what you did.” Her voice trailed off as she studied Athena’s treatment.
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