Private Dicks

by Samantha M. Derr

  "Jace, maybe you should bring this to Eric," Bridget said suddenly.

  Jason snapped upright and looked at her like she'd grown a second head. "What the hell does he have to do with any of this?"

  "Oh my god, Jason, you've been obsessing over this guy for how long now, and you don't even remember his job?" Bridget threw her hands up in disgust. "He's a PI, and he has a special class license. There's no way you didn't know this."

  Jason would never admit it, but he had honestly forgotten. "I didn't know he was special class," he said defensively. "Anyway, how the hell do you know?"

  "He told me, because, unlike some people, I can actually talk to him in coherent sentences," Bridget said. "Look, Jason. Do you really honestly believe Liam is in trouble?"

  "Yes!" Jason returned instantly.

  "Well, then." Bridget stood up. "I'd say we have a call to make."

  *~*~*

  In the US, the regular police force had no jurisdiction over any crime that involved supernatural elements, non-humans, or human psychics, even incidentally. Ostensibly, that meant that all such crimes needed to be dealt with by the BPI. However, they didn't have enough manpower to effectively deal with minor crimes. That led to the development of a "special class" license for eligible private investigators—that is, those that underwent a training program. The license authorized them to handle cases below a certain scope, especially those that only peripherally involved the supernatural, and even make limited citizen's arrests. There were laws in place to protect client privilege for those who worked with these private investigators, which prevented the BPI from requiring investigators to turn over potentially damaging information about clients. One of the most common examples was that the BPI couldn't force private investigators to report unregistered psychics. All of that meant that people who were afraid to go to the Bureau for some reason or another often called upon special investigators instead.

  Eric arranged to meet Jason the next morning at a nearby cafe, though not the one where Jason worked. He'd called in sick, so it might have made things a little awkward. Apparently, Eric didn't have a proper office set up, so he'd suggested a neutral meeting point.

  Jason was worried about his ability to manage a serious conversation with Eric—he'd barely made it through the phone call, and he might not have without Bridget to supply him with words. He wanted to be focused on Liam and not some ridiculous crush, but the truth was the combination made things worse—the stress over Liam combined with the fact he'd never been good at talking to Eric meant he'd been struggling to string more than two words together at a time on the phone.

  He had to admit these were definitely not the circumstances under which he would have preferred to meet with Eric.

  Jason reached the cafe a few minutes late, and as soon as he saw the back of Eric's head, his heartbeat kicked into overdrive. He took a few deep breaths, desperately trying to calm his chaotic emotions. He waited until he felt he could act like a rational human being and then walked inside.

  The door chimed as he walked in. He and Eric acknowledged each other with a nod, and Jason went to buy a drink, both so he wouldn't feel rude and to give himself time to gather his wits.

  Finally feeling relatively calm again, Jason joined Eric at a small table against the wall. Despite how often Eric showed up at pool nights and other gatherings with Jason's friends, Jason had never managed to just sit down and talk with him like a normal human being. "Um, hello," he managed.

  Eric's tone was neutral and business-like as he spoke. "Hello. You said over the phone that your brother is missing, correct? Tell me more."

  Jason looked around, suddenly uncomfortably aware of how exposed they were. Eric caught on to his discomfort immediately and added, "I understand the setting may not allow for full disclosure. I'm just looking for basics. Think of this as something like a screening, just a formality."

  "Right." Jason sat up straighter. He attempted to focus on the situation and not on Eric Donahue's stupid attractiveness. He was more successful once he started speaking, if only because talking about Liam refocused him on how stressed out and worried he was. "My younger brother didn't come home yesterday. He's an extremely responsible kid—he wouldn't just stay out overnight like this without letting me know. I checked with his school and all his friends, and no one's seen him since yesterday He left his cell phone, too, and he never goes anywhere without it." Jason noticed that he'd started to tap his fingers restlessly and tried to tone it down. Eric said nothing, giving every appearance of listening intently. "I'm actually his legal guardian," Jason continued. "He's fourteen, and both our parents are gone."

  "I've heard a little bit of the story," Eric said, nodding. "How long have you been his guardian?"

  "Two years. Since our mother died." Jason paused. He always felt awkward telling people about his mother's death. Not because he was still mourning, but because he wasn't, and a lot of people reacted with excessive sympathy. He wasn't very good at dealing with it, so he mostly avoided the topic. To Jason's relief, Eric said nothing.

  "Also, I don't know if this is relevant," Jason went on, staring very fixedly at the napkin holder, "but our father's been gone since just after Liam was born." He specifically neglected to expand upon that, and Eric didn't ask. "Our mother pretty much lived in the hospital for the last year and a half or so before she died, so I guess you could say I've been in charge of him for a bit longer than two years."

  "So, I suppose my next question is why you aren't taking this to the police," Eric said, and Jason found himself glad for the subject change. "I do have a place we can speak privately, but it's more of a modified living room in my apartment than a proper office." Eric gave a self-effacing smile. "I haven't really been in business long enough to afford a proper office, hence meeting you here first to ensure the location felt neutral. Would you object to continuing this conversation there?"

  It distantly registered for Jason that under any other circumstances, the chance to visit Eric in his apartment would have had him weak at the knees. Given the current circumstances, however, his response was simply, “Fine with me.”

  *~*~*

  It turned out that Eric's office-slash-apartment was only a few minutes' walk away. He hadn't been kidding about his office being a converted living room, although some effort had clearly been put into making the space more formal. There was a large desk in one corner, and several easy chairs had been set in strategic locations. Eric didn't sit behind the desk as Jason had expected, but instead took one of the chairs; he motioned for Jason to sit in the one opposite.

  Jason stood awkwardly for a moment longer before he finally sat down as indicated. A newspaper on an end table next to the chair caught his eye, and he picked it up, scanning the headline. SUBWAY DECAPITATOR CAUGHT: Exceptional sleuth Shane O'Neil instrumental in capture.

  Jason spoke without thinking. "Is this guy as good as everyone says? Have you met him?" It occurred to him right after speaking that he was making an assumption, and he added, "Sorry if that's a stupid question. I don't know if special license PIs usually know each other …”

  Jason trailed off, and after a moment of looking thoughtful, Eric responded. "It's fine. I have met him, sort of. As to whether he's as good as all that, it probably depends on who you ask." He leaned forward, somehow still the picture of professionalism despite the casual setting and relaxed pose. "So, then, if you don't mind getting to business, may I ask why aren't you taking your brother's disappearance to the police? Also, why bring it to me?"

  Jason had been trying to figure out how to explain that since the previous night. Eventually he'd decided that being direct was probably the best, even though he still felt weird just saying it. "Liam's an unregistered psychic. Psychic means no cops, and I have no intention of letting the BPI find out about the unregistered part, so that rules them out too."

  Eric nodded, looking more sympathetic than Jason expected, considering Bridget's reaction. "I understand. Truthfully, I'm not fond of the B
PI myself. What's his ability? Do you think it might be related to his disappearance?"

  "It might've," Jason admitted, pushing past his strong reluctance to share that last detail. "If someone found out about … Liam's a precog."

  Even Eric looked surprised at that admission. After a moment, he asked, "Forgive me, but given that, wouldn't your brother have known if something was going to happen to him?"

  "He doesn't magically know everything ever," Jason said defensively, instinctively annoyed at the assumption.

  "I apologize, I didn't mean to imply anything," Eric replied evenly. "I honestly don't know how precognition works."

  Jason relaxed a little. "Sorry. To be honest, it is kind of weird that he didn't know something was going to happen. I mean, I don't know if he did. Usually it's sort of a 'just before the thing happens' kind of sense, although sometimes he knows something will happen a good while before it actually does. But, even if he didn't know until just beforehand, he normally would have called."

  Jason frowned as it suddenly occurred to him that Eric might have the same thought Bridget did. "He didn't just—he's not just going through some kind of teenage rebellion thing. This isn't just me being a concerned older brother. It might sound dumb, but I have a really good instinct for this kind of thing."

  Eric suddenly gave him a sharp, speculative look, and Jason swallowed as he wondered if he'd accidentally revealed more than he'd meant to.

  "I believe you," Eric said after a moment, and Jason saw nothing in his face to indicate he wasn't sincere. Jason released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and decided not to worry about it.

  "I'll take your case," Eric continued. He stood, walked over to the desk, and quickly scribbled something on a pad of paper, then tore it off and returned to hand it to Jason. "Here's my cell phone number. Call me if anything comes up, no matter how irrelevant it might seem. I'll be in touch in a day or two, whatever I find."

  "Do I, uh, have to pay you now or something?" Jason awkwardly asked. He'd been avoiding the topic, but he was actually rather worried.

  Eric smiled. "Don't worry about it. We can work out payment terms later based on whether I can actually help you. I promise it won't be anything ridiculous. Reputation is more useful to me right now than money."

  "Okay." Jason was more relieved than he cared to admit.

  As he walked home, Jason reflected that this wasn't really the way he'd have preferred to get Eric's number.

  *~*~*

  Eric found himself spending most of the day on Jason's case. He tried to tell himself that was because he had very little else to work on—which was partially true—and not anything to do with the person who'd brought it to him.

  When Eric had first entered this particular social scene, it had been hard not to notice Jason, and not just because Jason had developed a rather obvious crush on him from almost day one. Eric admired how dedicated he was to taking care of his little brother, though most of what he'd heard was secondhand. He'd also admired, and perhaps been envious of, how open Jason was with his thoughts and emotions. Eric hadn't known how to be true to his own feelings in a long time, if he ever was. In other circumstances, he might've tried—he cut his own thought off before it could go any further. These weren't other circumstances, and he wasn't about to risk getting close to someone.

  All he'd managed to find out so far was that neighbors confirmed Liam's presence after a fire alarm went off in the building about twenty minutes before Jason returned home that day and no more than thirty minutes after Liam should have been home. Other sources of information had yielded confusing results. There was some unrest in the criminal underworld, but no more than before Liam's disappearance. He wasn't likely to hear back from his bureau contact any time soon, so Eric decided to follow up on something different.

  He took the subway, stopping halfway to his next location, and, wearing a hat and sunglasses, found a suitable public restroom. When he walked out, he was no longer Eric Donahue. For all intents and purposes, he was Patrick Turner, a graduate student from Rhode Island College studying paranormal phenomena with a focus on human psychic abilities. Since he commuted from Boston, he was known at a few of the closer universities for often using their resource materials.

  Patrick traveled down the hallway in one of his favorite Boston area universities, shoulders hunched and head down—he was something of an outsider here, and so he wanted to look appropriately awkward and out of place.

  He soon reached an open door, which revealed an office. It was decked in warm colors and included a wide orange patterned rug and matching curtains in shades of brown, all of which had been chosen to make the office feel more like the second home it was. All of the surfaces were littered with either books or strange objects and figurines. A diminutive older man with gray hair sat at an antique oak desk, looking back and forth between an open book and a computer monitor as he typed furiously. He looked every inch the stereotypical academic, complete with a forest green sweater vest over a patterned dress shirt. Patrick knocked softly to get the professor's attention. The professor spun around, and a warm smile spread across his face as he saw who was standing in his doorway.

  "Patrick! So good to see you again, my boy!"

  "Sorry to bother you during your office hours, Professor Thompson," Patrick said; he ducked his head and looked sheepish. "I know I'm not actually a student here."

  "Nonsense!" Professor Thompson waved a hand dismissing Patrick's concerns. "I always have time to indulge a fellow intellectual, and I certainly don't see a line of students standing behind you! Come in; sit. What new topic of fascination have you brought for me today?"

  Patrick smiled shyly, taking the offered seat. "Actually, I'm studying precognition. I'm trying to understand how it works and how common it is. I was wondering if you might have any insight."

  "Ah, one of the rarer disciplines!" The professor looked excited, as always, to share any knowledge he might have on the subject.

  "I've heard that usually it only works for the immediate future, but the published research is pretty limited," Patrick volunteered.

  "Well, that does seem to be the consensus among intellectuals," Professor Thompson agreed, but Patrick heard the unspoken 'however'. "There are potential counterexamples provided by two very different theories. First—and you actually may be old enough to recall this—our very own city had a precognitive who gained some local fame for predicting disasters. Gerald Knowles, I believe, was his name. There were some cases when he predicted things as early as weeks in advance. Although …" Professor Thompson leaned forward. "It's interesting to note that this only occurred with natural disasters. My theory—and this is just a theory, mind you—is that a precognitive is able to predict events only after their course has become inevitable, assuming outside influence is not applied."

  Patrick nodded, and the professor took that as an invitation to continue. "So, for example, take a plane crash that is due to mechanical failure. By this theory, a precognitive could predict the crash before the plane launches if it's caused by an ongoing flaw that worsens. But he may not be able to predict it until moments beforehand if, say, someone suddenly decided to smash an important component with a wrench while they were in the air." Professor Thompson chuckled, sounding rather cheerful for such a morbid conversation. "Of course, to add another layer of confusion, if the precognitive were on board the plane, he may be able to sense that someone is about to go crazy with a wrench just before they do—perhaps once the individual has acquired the wrench. In that case, being physically present, he may be able to stop the crash from occurring after all."

  "Okay," Patrick said, nodding again. "I think I understand. You said there was a second theory?"

  "Oh, well, this is even more theoretical, and largely conjecture on my part, mine and a few fellow academics'," Professor Thompson clarified. "But we have a suspicion that there is a minor form of precognition, similar to how some telekinetics can lift a boulder, and some can barely lift a peb
ble. Specifically, the theory is that people who get particularly uncanny so-called 'hunches' and gut instincts are in fact experiencing mild precognition. If this is the case, precognition may not be as rare as we think. In fact, if this theory is correct, it may mean precognition isn't always even exclusively tied to the future. Hunches are often expressed as very accurate theories regarding things that have already occurred or are presently occurring." Professor Thompson grinned, visibly excited. "This is the kind of thing that could revolutionize modern understanding of paranormal phenomena in humans!"

  Patrick nodded eagerly, plastering an expression of enthusiasm on his face, but inwardly he grew very thoughtful.

  "I think I may have an old article of that famous precognitive, if you'd like," Professor Thompson offered, already rummaging in his desk drawers. After only a few moments, making Patrick think the desk was far more organized than it looked, he pulled out an unevenly stapled sheaf of papers and handed it over. "This is a photocopy, so feel free to keep it."

  Patrick quickly scanned the magazine article. He was about to file it away to read later when a picture of the man the piece was about suddenly caught his eye. "Professor …" he slowly asked. "Is there any evidence that precognition may be one of the hereditary abilities?"

  "Hard to say, since it's so uncommon," the professor shrugged. "As I recall, Gerald Knowles had at least one child, but I've never heard that the child was found to have the same abilities. Of course, efforts were made to keep his family out of the media's attention."

  "Thank you so much for all your help, Professor," Patrick said as he stood. He carefully folded the article and put it away in his bag. "It's always a pleasure speaking with you."

  "Same to you, dear boy! Do feel free to come back any time!"

  Patrick left the office, turning over facts and theories in his mind. One thing that he was sure of, at least, was that Jason Kelley was a dead ringer for Gerald Knowles, and there was no way it was a coincidence. It seemed precognition did run in the family after all.