Mrs. Humphreys, plump with her pregnancy, was immensely satisfied with the results of the fairy relocation. Her garden was her own and the fairies were happily entrenched in their new home. She didn’t let me leave without some homemade jam and a beautifully crocheted afghan. Pleasantly, both trips were efficient and the groceries were soon back at the house and stowed away.
Jack said he had some work to do, which left me free to venture up to my apartment, where I sat on the bed and staring at the duffel bag as though it housed a snake. It was as if I could see the folder that sat inside it. I could tell the contours of it where it pressed against the bag.
I chewed on a thumbnail while I contemplated the bag. Somewhere below me in the house, Jack worked diligently on his laptop. Somewhere else in the area, Billy expended his energy and resources investigating the crimes committed, allegedly, by Randall Oakes.
And who the hell knew what Victor did? Maybe he drank brandy and read the classics or play paintball when he wasn't picking through other people's brains? Is he sitting in his office waiting for me to open this folder? Does he know what I will do when I read it? Was he really certain I would take the folder in the first place?
Am I an idiot for doing it in the first place?
Sighing with impatience for my wandering thoughts and procrastination, I reached out and snatched the bag. My hand hovered over the zipper. Callanport obviously felt there was something in the folder I needed to know.
But why give me the folder? Why not just tell me? Because, I’m too pigheaded to have believed anything he spoon-fed me? No, but I was more than willing to take the file without knowing if it wasn’t all just a set up.
Disgusted, I shoved the duffel bag away and stomped into the bathroom. My mind ran in hopeless little circles. I stared at my reflection in the mirror and ran a hand through the disheveled hair. I was going to make myself nuts if I didn’t open the folder and just see what it was Callanport wanted me to see. But it was like opening Pandora’s Box. No way to undo it or turn back after.
My frustration mounting, I turned to the shower stall and slid the door back. Reaching in, I cranked on the water and listened to the pipes hum and bang to life. Shutting the door, I stripped off my clothes. A long, hot shower was in order. I needed to clear my mind, wash away the dirt and try to put everything into perspective. I almost left the water running to fetch the file but forced myself to go through the ritual and the routine of taking the shower.
Someone told me once, no matter how bad you feel a shower always makes you feel at least two percent better. I agreed with that assessment as I stepped out into the steam-filled bathroom and wrapped a towel around my middle.
I took my time with toweling off my hair, wasted more to brush it thoroughly. I padded barefoot back into the bedroom and dug in the drawers until I found a pair of old pajama bottoms and a light, oversized t-shirt. There, now that's much better. I was clean and comfortable and I could relax.
I glanced at the duffel bag sitting in the middle of the bed, but instead of going toward it, I methodically cleaned the bedroom. I moved from there to the sitting room and finally my office. I stacked, dusted, packed away and generally tidied a space that wasn’t that cluttered or messy.
It allowed me thirty more minutes to procrastinate. My eyes alighted on the laundry basket and I swept it up under one arm. I could throw in a load and let it start running. Maybe I’d grab myself a cup of coffee while I was at it. As though fleeing an intruder, I took the coward’s way out, leaving my apartment to go down the stairs.
I passed Betty in the front room. She watched Wheel of Fortune while nimbly knitting together a creation that seemed to magically flow from tangled yarn into an open, lacy pattern that promised comfort and warmth. Romeo stretched out along the back of her chair, and he gave me the solemn-eyed look only a cat can give.
Once the washer was running, I shut the door to the laundry room to contain the racket and turned my attention to the coffeepot. Just my luck, my ever, efficient Jack already made a pot. Resigned to the inevitable, I poured myself a cup and loaded it up with sugar. I stole a glance toward the guest room as I carried the mug back to the stairs, but Jack’s door remained closed. Well so much for using Jack to stall for more time.
No more excuses. If I planned to read the file, it was now or never.
Romeo darted past my legs as I let myself back into my rooms. I shut the door quietly and padded back to the bedroom. I paused only long enough to light a pair of vanilla scented candles on a side table. Romeo launched himself up onto the bed and meowed at me expectantly as I approached.
“Get bored with Wheel of Fortune?”
I set the coffee mug down on the bedside table and turned on the light more to chase away evening's shadows. But the warm light helped keep the darkness churning in my gut at bay, too.
I slid onto the bed, curled my legs underneath me, and petted Romeo promptly, as he demanded by bumping his head against my hand. Trust a demanding cat to put life back into perspective. It’s all about him. He meowed long and low until I went to work with my nails, lightly scratching him.
“Yes, I suppose sitting here and petting you is a far more pleasant option than looking at the file.” I smiled as he purred his agreement. He rolled onto his side, batting at my hand with his paws, and his purring redoubled as I turned my attentions to the underside of his chin. “But if I wasn’t going to look at it, why did I take it? And if I do look at it, am I borrowing trouble?”
I envied Romeo as he rolled back to his feet and kneaded the softness of the comforter with his front paws while I debated the moral dilemma in front of me. Felines are not troubled by our moral or ethical dilemmas.
“Think I should tell Jack? You know, before I look at it?”
Romeo turned his back and lay down, purring contentedly.
“No, I suppose not. He’d probably read me the riot act for snatching it in the first place. But I did promise him no more secrets. Of course, I’m not exactly lying to him. I just haven’t told him I took it.” I sighed and reached for the duffel. Romeo watched me through half-slitted eyes as I unzipped the bag and reluctantly pulled out the thick folder.
“Okay, Romeo. Here we go. Just you and me and the big bad folder.” I watched as Romeo launched himself off the bed after an imaginary mouse and vanished into the sitting room.
“Traitor,” I muttered and stared at the front of the manila folder while taking a sip of coffee. Moment of truth, no more delays. It was just a folder of information and answers to questions. Answers I needed.
The first thing to catch my eye was a small envelope with my name on the front. Taking it up, I turned it over and realized it was sealed. It took a single nail to slit the envelope open and out came a single sheet of paper.
Chance,
I knew sooner or later you would come to find the answers contained within this file. I maintained it in the hopes you would provide a few answers of your own to the information you will find contained herein. Everything I know about your case is included in this file. Make of it what you will. Please believe me when I say I am not your enemy, but I can’t speak for everyone here. Use your caution and your good judgment. I have my reasons for believing in you.
Victor
The letter was dated nearly five years before.
I frowned and re-read the letter. He’d been waiting five years for me to come for this file? That didn’t make any sense. Why did he think I was going to be interested in the file five years ago?
This was Agent Callanport, field operative, precog and telepath. That was how Masters introduced him—a precognitive. But if he knew five years ago I would need to read this file, then…
I closed my eyes and took a very long deep breath before releasing it with equal slowness. He knew five years ago Randall Oakes wasn’t finished. He knew five years ago this was going to come back to haunt me.
As my stomach churned and I worked very hard to maintain a steady sense of breathing, I began to sort th
rough the contents of the folder. There was a lot of information, but what took the longest to sort were the pictures and the crime scene data. The folder carried it all. All of Oakes victims were here, listed and photographed in color, both alive and dead.
My hand shook when I came to my own photograph. Victim number nine. Red marker noted I was the only surviving victim. More notes detailed my refusal to interview, uncooperative to the effort. And other notations, some legible and some not so much, speculated that I knew Oakes.
The sorting took me more than an hour, but there was a pattern emerging so crystal clear it took a blind man not to see it. The trembling spread from my hands to my arms and settled in my stomach. I checked and rechecked each of the victim profiles—if Project Aegis shared this information—no one would question the profile.
But they never revealed it, to the other agents investigating the case, the public or the victims. Oakes' victomology remained buried under a layer of secrets and bridged only with the stiffest of penalties.
All eleven of Randall Oakes’ victims shared one frighteningly similar quality beyond their status as female and students. Laying the photograph down slowly, I tried to ignore the trembling in my hand. It was all so damn X-Files. I leaned back against the headboard and let out a long breath. This really couldn’t be happening. Killing college age women was one thing—killing college age women suspected—or proven—to have psychic abilities?
I don’t even know what the hell I expected when this all began. No way it was the return of Randall Oakes. I spent years trying to put the whole thing out of my mind. Now, not only was he alive, but everything I clung to, everything I believed about the randomness of it all—it was a lie.
Too much.
I was right. I opened Pandora’s Box and let out all my personal demons, and left no way to turn back.
Oakes hunted more than witches—he hunted powerful women—and I was far stronger now than I had been eight years ago.
No way he would leave me alone.
He's coming…it's just a matter of when.
Sixteen
“Okay, think,” I ordered myself and paced the bedroom. The folder’s contents were lined up in neat stacks along the bed. Thankfully, Romeo was still in hot pursuit of his imaginary friend in the sitting room. Resisting the lure of distraction, I blocked out his occasional encounters with the window and then the mad dash of bouncing over the chairs. “Think, Chance. Think.”
Victims one, two and three were all slain within two weeks of their initial interviews with the specialized Squad. All, however, qualified as prime candidates. They all fit in the age range of eighteen to twenty-three, attended either college or graduate school and pursued careers in professional areas from medical to legal to business.
Victims four and five were both slain two or three months after refusing the psychic Squad, but the pattern reverted with victims six and seven. Mere weeks passed and the same could be said for victims eight, ten and eleven. The only victim who failed to match the category was me. Okay, so working it from that angle…
I pivoted and kept pacing back and forth. I ran my fingers through my hair with a frenetic energy and found myself craving a cigarette with desperation. Stop thinking about that! Think about the information in the folder. Eleven victims, all female, all under the age of twenty-three and all possessed some kind of psychic trait or skill.
This was an exceptionally clear pattern that couldn’t be missed if all the details were contained in one place. All slain within weeks to months of their refusals, save for one. My survival was an accident. I should have died like all the rest, but a security guard found me too quickly and competent surgeons repaired the damage, I survived.
No, there was more to it than that. My blood loss was extensive, but I used the Earth to sustain myself. I reached for her instinctively, letting her replenish my energy so, even as the blood loss weakened me, my autonomic functions continued.
The minutes between my discovery, the arrival of the ambulance and paramedic support were too long a time period.
Muscles trembling from blood loss, body cold from shock and my heart thundering in my ears, pumping my life’s blood from my body. My heart could have stopped. It should have stopped. I lost a lot of blood.
So cold.
Too cold.
I didn’t die though.
My pacing ceased and I stared at the paperwork. I didn’t die because I’m not a psychic. I’m a hedge witch. Oakes didn’t understand my abilities and what I could do. That’s why my attack came so much later and why I didn’t fit that part of the profile. He couldn’t kill me because he couldn’t find me.
Randall Oakes was…is…a psychic.
“So you have psychic camouflage?”
I sat down slowly on the bed and picked up the first victim’s profile. Her name was Melissa Hauser. Age nineteen. She studied criminology with a minor in art. Her ability to draw scenes of violence without ever being present was uncanny. She whipped out absolutely accurate depictions in minutes after speaking to a victim.
Designation: Telepathic potential.
The second victim was Ashley Wilson, age twenty-one. A pre-med student with a four-point-oh average, she was exceptionally gifted with troubled and disturbed children. Her career path indicated a predisposition to helping the mentally challenged and disabled.
Designation: Empathic potential.
The third victim, Melanie Anderson, age eighteen, graduated valedictorian of her high school class and majored in English and Business. Exceptionally talented in the stock market, her parents listed a fifty thousand dollar investment returning nearly three hundred thousand based on her speculations.
Designation: Precognitive.
The files went on and on, the details, the specialties, the designations and the photos. These weren’t just victims of Randall Oakes. They were living, breathing women with a fabulous array of abilities to offer to the world—lives abruptly and violently ripped away. They left behind gaping holes in families and those that might have benefited from their aid in the future. I know what gaping holes in families feel like.
So you have psychic camouflage? Jack’s question repeated through my mind and as I traced the features of young Ashley Wilson, whose gift for troubled children seemed to work magic where no medicine could, and I realized that was why I was alive and she wasn’t.
It wasn’t some fluke or moment of serendipity. I was alive because of what I was. I had been targeted for that very same reason, and there was no doubt in my mind that was why Randall Oakes chose his victims. Yet there was still one very large question that begged to be answered.
Carefully packing away the information and sliding it back into the folder, I put the folder into the duffel bag and walked back toward my desk. I dialed the number I found written on the inside of the file folder and waited while the phone rang three times before being answered.
“You’ve read the file?” Victor Callanport spoke quietly into the phone as he answered it, in lieu of hello. I wasn’t the least bit surprised he knew it was me.
“I did.”
“Can you meet me?”
“Where?”
“Do you know where the outlet mall is?”
“The new one near the Home Depot?”
“That’s the one.”
“Yes.”
“Meet me. There will be lots of people and it’ll be safer.”
I hung up the phone and dressed. Randall Oakes didn’t leave a gaping hole in my family. He left a gaping hole in me.
I locked the door to my rooms and slid out the window. Climbing down was just a matter of finding the right hand holds on the trellis. I didn’t bother to ask Callanport if I should come alone. I knew I should.
I fished my keys out of my pocket and climbed into the Volkswagen. I’d apologize to Jack later if he discovered the ruse. I needed more answers. I needed the answers Victor Callanport possessed.
The drive to the outlet mall took less than fifteen minutes.
The parking lot wasn’t overloaded, but there were still quite a few people. A little before nine in the evening, the outlet mall would start to shut down over the course of the next hour.
I walked across the parking lot toward the Saks outlet store and ignored the cheery signs in the window. The air was damp and sticky, and I didn’t need to glance up at the gathering storm clouds rolling together to curtain the stars to know what the night’s weather would be. Electricity surged in the air.
My running shoes didn’t make any sound against the pavement as I walked toward the stone shop directory. Victor Callanport waited for me, illuminated by the ground lights. He wore a pair of sweats and running shoes. I filed that image away for future reference, labeling it one of the many faces of Agent Devoid-of-any-emotion Callanport. He searched the crowd patiently, but my appearance next to him startled. My psychic camouflage worked against him, too.
Nice.
“That’s just damn eerie,” he commented.
“That you can’t sense me before I walk right up to you?” I tucked my thumbs into the loops of my jeans. It was an old defensive habit from grade school when my grandmother tried to teach me not to end a conversation with a fist. I reminded myself that Callanport was on my side or at least not against me. It didn’t matter how nervous or out of sorts I was, I could tuck my thumbs into my belt loops and give the matter a real hearing before I swung a fist. Nine times out of ten it worked.
“Yes. Thank you for your willingness to talk to me.”
“You didn’t really leave me much choice after what I read in the file. Am I right in assuming you have your own suspicions?” I watched him closely, the way the muscle to the right of his eye ticked faintly and how his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips before he began to talk. There were grooves worn into the corners of his mouth, whether because of concern, anger, and fear or just age, I couldn’t be certain.
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