by Fiona Quinn
“Continue.”
“A hand reached toward me, ‘May I have the keys? I’ll put the chair in the trunk.’”
“Do you recognize the voice?”
Did I recognize the voice…?
“Go back in time and listen to the voice asking for the keys again.”
I nodded.
“Do you recognize the voice?”
“I do.”
“Who is it?”
I shook my head.
“Move to a time where you can see the person who has that voice. Tell me when you’re there.”
“There.”
“Where are you?”
“CIA headquarters with Striker. We’re leaving a meeting about DNA art.”
“When is this?”
“Thursday as Striker and I were leaving Langley.”
“Who was it?”
“Seth Toone.”
“The name of the man who carried your mother’s wheelchair was Seth Toone. He worked closely with your father at the CIA. And since your father’s job was clandestine, he was the only representative for the CIA at the funeral.”
“Ah.”
“Which doesn’t resolve the question.”
“No.”
“Go back to a time and place that will give you the most information. Tell me when you’re there.”
“There.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at my father’s crash.”
“What do you see?”
“Hanasal is getting out of the passenger’s side of his car. He’s stumbling toward the tree line. Places his hand on the trunk. Is vomiting.”
“What do you need to see, but your brain is afraid to show you?”
“Hanasal gets out of the passenger side… I’m in a fog, thick enough to slice. I couldn’t see anything.”
“Bring in a device. What could dispel the fog?”
“A sun gun.”
“Use it.”
“I’m picturing myself with a water squirter beaming out rays of sun, burning through the mist. A man got out of the car’s driver’s side. He shook himself off. Looked at me where I was crawling from the window onto the road. He turns and walks away.”
“Zoom in on the man’s face. Do you recognize him?”
“Yes, it’s the guy Seth from the CIA.”
There was a long pause.
“I was with Seth Toone the night of your father’s death. We were on a mission. He was not there.”
“Then my brain must be conflating the two images.”
“Not necessarily. No. Not necessarily at all. This is taking an unexpected turn, Lexicon. Let us close this session so we might speak. You are deep in a meditative state. As you rise back to the surface of consciousness, you will bring all of your memories with you. Stress is removed from these pictures. They are in the past, and they now serve as vehicles of information. That is all they are, pieces of information. There is no reason for old wounds to open, old pain to be revisited. You step up from ten to nine, eight, seven, anxiety and pain are left behind as you climb back to the here and now. Six, five, four. You are starting to feel your body in present time and space—your feet on the arm of your sofa, your sits bones on the cushion, your back flat against the fabric. Three. You have weight and take up space. You are back in the room. Two. Your eyes are fluttering. You take in a deep breath, still comfortable, still just receiving facts that do not attach to emotion. One. You are fully present, solid in your body.”
I blinked at Spyder, giving myself a moment.
Spyder sat patiently to my side, no pressure, no rush.
In Spyder’s philosophy, we are given bodies. Our bodies are alive to learn lessons. We are destined to repeat our lessons until we learn our lesson, which does not bring us anything but new lessons. Circular.
There is no better ‘here’ than here, no greener pasture, no reason to fight our destiny, and by destiny, he means the lessons we’re sent to learn.
In fighting them, we just add struggle to our lessons list.
So for Spyder, there was no rush or pressure that was connected to his actions or inactions. And certainly not in the process of meditation, which is how Spyder frames hypnosis.
Spyder believes in non-effort. But for him, it is the non-effort of an elite athlete.
Studies have shown that when an athlete gets attached to an outcome, their performance declines.
Working with elite athletes both from the sports world and the special operators' world, the scientists have found that one must train to hit one’s peak, that’s body and mind. In mind training, visualization, meditation, or hypnosis, the goal is always to perform one’s best.
Striker, for example, was trained that after the team had planned an attack on the tabletop, they tried it out in the shooter house. They would practice and tweak, practice and tweak until their very cells remembered, without thought, the exact moves that they need to make.
The exact angle of the gun.
There was a truism in the SEAL world that no plan survives first contact.
But that doesn’t lessen the imperative of having a plan, practicing, coming up with contingency plans.
Once this was developed, the team would meditate on the action. They meticulously moved through each step in the exact way they wished it to be performed.
That was the action and performance, not outcome.
There was no, “and then I got the gold medal of freedom” at the end.
There was no, “and then I killed the bad guy, and the world became a place of peace.”
No.
If a shot was to be taken to down a bad guy, there was no “get.” There was no “win.” There was simply the physical action of positioning the gun, finding the mark, pulling the trigger, hitting the mark.
That was what hypnotism was supposed to be for me.
Information. Preparation. Separation from a need to have a certain outcome.
Of course, my desired outcome was to know why my parents were hanging over my shoulder (information), warning me (for my preparation). It was the separation that I found so hard.
It was a push me pull you.
Spyder wanted me to rid myself of the distractions. Yet, my psychic mentor, Miriam Laugherty, taught me how to allow those very experiences—again, for information and then remove the distraction.
That was often easier said than done.
Especially with the newest knowing, “London Bridge is falling down,” setting off my alarm systems.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“My dear, I wish you to bring me your box with your mother’s journals.”
My mom’s journals, filled with sketches and doodles, miniature paintings and poetry, her thoughts. I couldn’t imagine what Spyder wanted with these.
Setting the box in front of him, Spyder reverently lifted one journal after another. Opening the front page, he glanced, then gently placed it on the floor.
Finally, he found what he was looking for and handed it to me.
“You will excuse me for a moment.” Spyder stood and walked through my dining room, my kitchen, and outdoors to the garden. I supposed this was all bringing up difficult emotions and memories for Spyder as well. My parents and Spyder loved each other with a deep kinship.
I looked down at the book in my hand.
It was a journal that I hadn’t seen before. I thought I’d read them all over and over throughout the last few years since mom had died.
I opened it, and a flurry of yellow papers fell out.
The first was an obituary. A young woman who looked a bit like me. She was killed in a car accident. She’d been seventeen when she died. “Molly Toone. Beloved daughter of Gloria and Vincent Toone. Mourned by her family, including her uncle Seth Toone…”
The next article was about the police and ambulance being called to Molly Toone’s funeral. It said that the father, Vincent Toone, had severely beaten Douglas Rueben—Dad! My eye scanned the article.
It said that my
mother was driving the car that killed Molly.
My nerves buzzed.
There was something there. Back, back, back in my memory. My dad had been covered in bruises, his arm in a sling…
There was a copy of my father’s obituary.
And now the last slip of paper. The one that felt like acid on my fingers. The one I didn’t want to read.
“I was aiming for your daughter. You should feel what I do.”
It’s funny how the brain stutters. How it creates magic tricks.
“The years of evil” was how I internally referred to the time between when I got my first stalker note from Travis Wilson up until the time when I found out my dead husband wasn’t really dead but had just chosen a life doing black ops for our government. And during those years, I had the support of friends and later Iniquus colleagues, and especially Striker and my team.
But the support and help I needed were from Spyder.
I had lamented the fact that he was off-grid, and I had no way to contact him, no way to send up a distress sign.
Or so I thought.
But he had given me a bat signal.
We had been at a Chinese restaurant where Spyder liked the idea of the fortune cookies. He used them as teaching tools.
I had a different mentor, Mrs. Drinkwater—terrible name. She was an English woman who actually drank tea—lots of it. And there was nothing she liked better than to have me round for high tea and chatter. A pagan, Mrs. Drinkwater, was trying to learn to read tea leaves. She was rarely accurate. She was better with tarot cards. But the thing that I liked best was her bag of tumbled semiprecious gemstones.
They were an act of trust.
After tea, she would pull out the bag, and centering myself, I meditatively reached in and let three stones land in my palm. I pulled them out, and Mrs. Drinkwater would pronounce their meaning—compassion, strength, gratitude. Those were the words that I should carry with me for the day.
The interesting thing about those stones—and the similar way that Mrs. Drinkwater pulled her tarot cards, not for a foretelling but more as a compass—let me hold different words in my consciousness, seeking to incorporate those aspects into my day.
When I carried a stone that represented gratitude, when I could finger it in my pocket and be reminded, then my day filled with gratitude.
Spyder’s use of sayings and quotes was similar, I guessed.
At the Chinese restaurant, we’d ask for our fortune cookies while we waited for our meal to be prepared. We worked on the assumption that this would be a message that the Universe conspired to provide us with.
We’d snap open the cookie and drag out the information—rather than prognostication. And we’d see what meaning we could find, what instruction I could use in how I comported myself that day.
I remember it vividly. Spyder had slipped my paper from my fingers and read the Confucius quote: Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.
He looked me in the eye for a long moment. “My job pulls me to a different location. I am not abandoning you. You are my priority.”
My heart had gripped. I didn’t want him to go to a “different location.” I wanted him there with me. At least until I got my feet underneath me after Mom died.
He passed me the fortune. “There are no insulated events in this world, Lexicon. Everything transpires as it should. This fortune, for example, is well-timed. Very suitable, wouldn’t you say?”
I frowned at him.
His eyes smiled back in his fatherly way. “Lexicon, this will serve as our code. When there are no other options, and you send me a message with these words, I will dismiss all other obligations and return to your side.” He paused. “I trust you will use the code wisely.”
I put it in my pocket and immediately forgot all about it.
Through the fire, the stalker, the kidnapping, the healing, the craziness…
Then at precisely the right time on exactly the right day, I was having lunch with a work acquaintance Leanne. I opened the fortune cookie, smoothing it out on the table. Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors. And like the good witch waking Dorothy from her spell-sleep, I woke up. I remembered.
Leanne knew how to contact Spyder—of course, she did. Why hadn’t I considered that avenue before?
Spyder had actually come into town the night before to bring me along as he fought the Hydra.
Yeah, the serendipity of it all seemed magical.
So I had experienced this weird brain magic before—if I was inclined to paint this as esoteric.
I had been through these boxes hundreds of times.
Read every word on every page.
And yet, here was a journal I had never seen before, and when I opened it, this is what fell into my lap.
The confusing part was, why now?
Surely, it had to do with my sensing my parents’ concern.
“Row faster, Lexi!”
If only I knew where I could find a safe shore.
Chapter Thirty-Six
I sat there trying to remember. I was glad that Spyder was outside, giving me this space to adjust to the newly discovered information.
I was very young at the time, maybe four years old?
I was in the car with Dad. We were coming back from a picnic at one of my parent’s friends' houses. Mom drove there with me. But I had pitched a fit. I wanted to drive home with Dad. I remembered thinking I might be able to convince him to buy me an ice cream cone.
I remember the sound of brakes squealing—the sensation of being thrown forward. Of Dad yelling at me to sit very still, he’d be back.
Spyder walked in and sat down. “Are you ready?”
I nodded.
“Your mother was driving home from a party at Seth Toone’s home. It was his birthday. He celebrated it with his identical twin brother—”
“Vincent.”
“Precisely. Seth’s niece had run to the store for more sodas for the party. Her name was Molly, and she was seventeen.”
My lips went numb.
“As your mother drove, she passed out at the wheel. Her car veered into the oncoming lane, hitting Molly’s car in a head-on collision. Molly died on the scene. Your mother was rushed to the hospital. She was diagnosed with brain cancer.”
I nodded.
“Your father went to the funeral. He was…filled with grief. When Vincent saw your father, he lost control and beat him severely. Your father did nothing to protect or defend himself, and he was hospitalized. You might remember this time. You went to live with Snow Bird and Master Wang. You worked with them in their dry cleaners across the street. It was at this time that Master Wang began to teach you martial arts.”
My frown was so deep it felt weighted like it could pull me over.
“As your mother was in the hospital and they were trying to offer her a diagnosis and a path forward, the Wangs told your father that he would best take care of his wife and the back and forth to the hospital, and they would keep you until your mother was home from the hospital. You were having a great time at their home. So that’s what your dad did. It was an enormous help. This gave your father time to focus solely on your mom, and it gave him time to physically heal from the beating.”
“You were there?”
“I was.”
“And you allowed it?”
“If your father had wanted to stop the fight, it would have been very easy for him to do. As good a fighter as you are, Lexicon, your father was one of the best I have ever seen. He allowed Vincent Toone to beat him.”
“Why?”
“The man was filled with rage over the death of his child. Your father thought that he needed to hurt your dad to dissipate some of his own hurt. The grief he experienced with the loss of Molly was immense.”
“You said you were with Seth Toone the night of Dad’s accident.”
“I was.”
“Vincent Toone figures out where we’d be.
He gets a diplomat who won’t be held accountable for vehicular homicide. He had Hanasal drink heavily, so he couldn’t remember, then he drove into our car. He was protected by the airbag. He must have unbelted Hanasal, done something to make it look like he had been driving and flung? But Hanasal got out of the car to puke. That I remember clearly. And Vincent, he just walked away.” I reached for the note I’d found in Mom’s journal. “Vincent Toone wanted Mom to suffer, so he was trying to kill me but killed Dad.” The words barely squeaked up my throat. My voice was helium.
When Spyder canted his head at my last sentence, I held up the note to my mother, and Spyder read it over.
“Did you know about this?” I asked.
“This your mother kept from me,” Spyder said, rubbing his fingers over the blue ink.
“He needs to be held accountable.” Obviously. But how could I prove this? It wasn’t like I could go into a court of law and say, “I was hypnotized to remember. Oh! And my folks are ghosts hanging out behind my shoulder, and they were trying to catch my attention so I could remember for some reason.”
“Perhaps with time,” Spyder responded to me, saying Vincent needed accountability. “Not right now. It is a seed that I do not wish to plant in your mind.”
Vengeance was that seed.
So many times in my adult life, I have seen revenge and hate be the impetuous for terrible outcomes.
I had to be on guard myself against those thoughts. I’d tried those lessons with Hanasal.
He died.
I was not healed.
Had I not learned anything?
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Christen and Gator walked into the ballroom at the Davidson’s private social club. An enormous turn of the 20th-century mansion just outside of DC proper in Maryland. Twenty-foot ceilings, walnut-lined corridors, period-stained-glass windows made for an elegant setting.
Kira, London Davidson’s college roommate, had made the arrangements, and she had done a lovely job.
She had devised a World War II vibe with vintage war posters, WWII model airplanes, and the catering staff dressed as GIs at a USO dance. A swing band, now getting up from their instruments to take a break, had been set up on the dais. A nationally competitive jitterbug duo had shown off their routine.