Don't Kill The Messenger (20 page)

She shoots him an icy glare. “I want to hate you for this.”

“I will understand if you do.”

The tension is building between them, and I have to I interrupt it. “How widespread is it? This psychic phenomena … I mean, three of us in this room. How far does it go?”

Stelios looks surprised at the question. “It’s everywhere. Every person alive has the potential to do what we do. Most of them don’t know it, and enough of them actively disbelieve it, so for the most part, it lies dormant. The devoutly religious are skeptical of such things, so they attribute their gifts to divine inspiration, and that makes them happy. Others call it coincidence and don’t pursue it any further. But there are still plenty who do use it.”

“But if it’s out there, why isn’t the media all over this? This would be huge news.”

“Every now and then, the press gets wind of it, but it gets written off as a human interest story. Everyone says
isn’t that nice,
and they go about their business.”

“There’s a man who’ll pay a million dollars to anyone who can demonstrate verifiable paranormal activity …”

Stelios laughs. “Oh yes, big man. You should see the conditions he sets forth in order to claim the prize. It’s like putting someone on a toilet standing on their head, with their fingers in their ears and raccoons balanced on their feet, and telling them they’ll get a million dollars if they can take a shit that comes out purple and looks like Abraham Lincoln.”

Rebecca laughs at the mental image. “Pardon my language,” Stelios says to her.
Ever the gentleman.

“Psychic ability is out there, Tristan, and people are using it.”

“So why aren’t all these psychics winning the lottery with their abilities?” I ask him.

“Who the hell do you think
is
winning the lottery? Do you know what the odds are of picking those numbers by chance, without cheating? You show me a lottery winner, and I’ll show you a psychic. But there aren’t many who can do it … because most of us don’t have control over our gifts. We fuss and we fumble and we try to make sense of it when we get glimpses of the future or we know what someone else is thinking. The strongest of us have control. The rest do what we can.”

“So how do I know if the assignments I get are real or if someone is using me, manipulating me for their own purposes?”

His answer is brief and direct: “You don’t.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth now,” I ask him, “about any of this?”

“Ask Persephone. She’s been reading my thoughts since we entered this room. Words can lie, but thoughts will always tell the truth.”

I turn to Rebecca and she nods. “It’s true.”

“So I’m at their mercy, whoever they are.”

“Yes,” he says.

“And her? What happens to her now?”

Before he can reply, Rebecca interrupts. “Tristan, it’s fine. My eyes are open now, about a lot of things. I understand that meeting you was important. Maybe this all happened for a reason, maybe it didn’t. But it happened, and we have to live with it.” She walks over to Stelios, standing right in front of him, and says to his face, “Blaming Stelios won’t help anything.”

I watch as she stares directly into his eyes for five seconds, then ten, then fifteen. He stares back at her and then he nods at her—discreetly, but it is enough that I can see it. After that, she steps away from him; I can only wonder what silent communication they have shared.

She turns to me. “We have to go.”

“My friends,” Stelios says, “I truly am sorry for any harm I have caused you. I hope you stay safe and well, and I hope you make the right decision. You won’t see me or hear from me again, unless you seek me out.”

I can’t bring myself to say goodbye to him. Despite all his apologies and all his contrition, I can’t forgive him for what he did to me in Atlanta. I leave that little room, with Rebecca following close behind, neither of us giving a backward glance.

We return to the Sebring and both of us move toward the driver’s door. “Give me the keys, please,” she says.

“Why?”

“I need to drive us. I need to focus on something to get past everything that’s in my head right now.”

I hand her the keys and make my way to the passenger’s side, climbing into the seat. She opens the driver’s side, starts the engine, and lowers the top. Without signaling, she makes a U-turn and heads quickly back through town, back to the highway. Her face holds an inscrutable concentration and intensity, and without her gift, I don’t know her thoughts or her plans. After two minutes of silence, I have to ask her, “Where are we going?”

“Where are we going?” she repeats, sounding annoyed at the question. “We’re going to my father’s house. Where else would we be going?”

“But you heard what Stelios said …”

“I heard
exactly
what he said. He said there are people out there who want to kill my father, and he might not even know it. I have to warn him that he’s in danger.”

“Then call him and tell him! Rebecca, if you go there, you’ll be in danger too. You have a phone, you have his number. Call him.”

To my great surprise, she turns on me, shouting at me with an anger I’ve never seen in her. “How fucking dare you tell me to call him! You of all people? This is what you do, Tristan. You put your own safety aside and travel all over the country to warn people you’ve never even met that they’re in danger. This is my father! I have to look him in the eye and tell him what could happen. And right now, I don’t care what he’s done or what he’s planning to do. They don’t get to kill him for it. Not for oil or zinc or … or a bunch of God damn fish!”

Her words are carried off by the wind, and I see such pain in her eyes as she struggles not to dissolve into tears. In the aftermath of her fury, my argument seems weak, completely without merit. We
are
on an assignment, only this time, she is the messenger, and I am along for the ride.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “You’re absolutely right, and I have no business questioning your judgment. I let my own fear for your safety cloud my thinking. You need to go there and face him and tell him what you know. And if I can help, I will. And if I can’t help, I’ll stand back and let you do what you have to do.”

To my surprise, she slows the car and pulls over onto the shoulder, putting it in park. With a flood of exhaustion-induced tears, she leans over and throws her arms around me, sobbing out her words. “I’m sorry I yelled. I’m sorry for all of it. I’m just so scared, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if this is the right thing to do.”

“It’s the right thing,” I answer. “If it’s what your heart needs, then it’s the right thing.”

“These last four days have ripped away everything I considered normal in my life. I miss my friends, and I miss my classes, and I even miss my father.”

“Then take us to him, Rebecca. We’re almost there. This assignment is yours to complete.”

She composes herself and puts us back on the road, on the final leg of our journey. “Tristan, I’m so sorry that they tricked you into coming all that way to get me.”

“I’m not. Don’t you know that meeting you was the best thing that’s happened to me since this whole thing started two years ago?”

“No … I didn’t know.”

I laugh, feeling a bit choked up. “And you call yourself a mind reader,” I tease.

She laughs too and slaps my arm. “Shut up. I’m new at this.”

The miles pass quickly as the two of us regain our inner peace and try to focus on the task ahead. She takes us down familiar roads as we enter the metropolitan area of Dayton, Ohio. We drive through suburb after suburb, each getting a bit fancier than the last. Rebecca signals a turn onto a road leading into the village of Palisade Heights. “This is it, isn’t it?” I ask.

She nods. “Less than two miles now.”

“Are you all right?”

“No,” she says, “but I’m here. And I have to do this.”

“Solidarity,” I reply, taking her hand in mine. “I’m here for you.”

She drives on, and in three minutes, we are turning onto Leighton Terrace, a street lined with expensive homes. In the distance, on the right, I see three police cars parked in front of a house, with six officers out of their cars, seemingly standing guard with the homeowner. “Is that your father’s house?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. “I wonder why all the police are there.”

“Maybe he learned about the threat and they’re keeping him safe. Go ahead and pull up and we’ll ask him.”

She parks at the curb, as close to the house as she can get, and we both get out of the car. Rebecca hurries past the police perimeter undisturbed and goes right to her father. He’s a good-looking, well-dressed man in his late forties, with an air of self-assurance that hangs about him like overpriced cologne. He looks like trouble, plain and simple. It doesn’t take me long to realize how right I am. I lag behind a bit, but when I reach the officers furthest down the driveway, two of them each put a hand on my shoulders. Before I can even ask what’s going on, they bring me over to one of their cars and search me for weapons, finding none.

“He’s secure,” one of them tells Rebecca’s father.

“Keep him there,” Calvin Traeger replies.

Rebecca hugs her father briefly, and then asks him, “Daddy, what’s going on? Why are these men here?”

“I had to make sure you were safe, honey. These men are here to help us.” He is right on the verge of earning my respect for saying that, but then he turns to the cop who’s got me and says, “All right, you can take him away.”

“Take who away?” I answer. “Take
me
away?”

Rebecca protests. “No, Daddy—why?”

“Kidnapping,” he says, and the word clearly sounds as absurd to Rebecca as it does to me.

“You can’t be serious!” I say to him.

“You took my daughter from her workplace and drove her across the country. I’m prepared to press charges.”

“I brought her home to you. That’s why we’re here. I know you had one of your people send me to tell her to come back home.” Two cops hold me back and keep me from presenting my argument directly to Traeger. So I tell the officers, “There’s no kidnapping here. She asked me to drive her here and I did. For God’s sake, look who was driving the car when we pulled up! Kidnappers typically don’t take shifts with their victims.”

They look to Traeger, who maintains a stony silence, so they don’t release me. Rebecca takes up the charge. “Please let him go. He didn’t kidnap me or hurt me or anything like that. This man is my friend. I asked him to drive me here and he did.”

To our mutual amazement, nothing happens. In any normal situation, a statement like that from the supposed victim would at least give the arresting officers reason to ease up on the suspect, and yet these men don’t. The realization dawns on Rebecca. “Since these officers aren’t moving after hearing that, I guess there’s no point in talking to them, is there? I guess I need to talk to the person who’s paying them.” She turns back to her father. “Is this the way you want things? You make me come back here, then show me that I can’t trust you. How will that help anything?”

“You’ll trust me because I’m your father, and I’m looking out for your best interests.”

“I don’t believe you. You’ve never looked out for anyone’s best interests but your own. Why do you think I was so eager to leave home in the first place? I’ve been to Wyandotte this week. I talked to people who lived through the smog. I know what you did there …”

“Rebecca, Wyandotte was an unfortunate natural disaster caused by the weather. The plant wasn’t producing anything it hadn’t produced every day of every year of its existence. Did your new friends tell you what the plant was helping to manufacture? Protective gear for the United States military. How many lives would have been lost if we had shut down that plant at the first sign of bad weather?”

“I know about Consolidated Offshore too, Dad,” she adds, trying to stay strong.

He maintains a look of composure, but he is clearly surprised by this. He tells her, “Consolidated is our chance to start a new life … with your help.”

“
My
help?”

“You have skills I need to be successful, Rebecca. You’ll live at home with me, help me run the company by day, and take business classes at the college at night.”

“That’s not why I’m here,” she says. “I came home to go back to school full time during the day and take law classes.”

“It’s not up to you,” he says calmly. “You know how we operate: my house, my rules.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be your house, your rules,” she says defiantly. “I’m not a child anymore. I can live on campus; I can pay my own tuition if I have to.”

“Yes, that’s true. And I can call the dean’s office and tell them where you got that tuition money. How do you think that would sit with them? With a board of directors that’s made up mostly of church elders? Do you think they’d welcome you back and accept money you’ve made by parading your naked body in front of deviants and lowlifes? Don’t look so surprised, Rebecca. You’re not the only one who knows things. In order to find you and bring you here, I had to learn where you were and what you were doing. And you can bet we’re going to have a very long talk about it.”

“Daddy, this is crazy. Listen to yourself talk. You have to stop what you’re doing with Consolidated. You’re in danger if you don’t. There are people who will protect their interests any way they can. They killed Jeffrey Casner in Atlanta.”

“I know that. I also know Casner was careless and overconfident. That’s how they were able to get to him. But look around you. Six off-duty Palisade Heights police officers, working as my personal security force. They’ll protect me and they’ll protect you. Now that you’re home again, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“What about Tristan?” she asks.

“Who?”

I wave. “Hello.”

“Ah, yes, the kidnapper,” he says dismissively.
I wish he’d stop calling me that.

“Daddy, stop it. You know it’s not true.”

“Mr. Traeger, please,” I say to him, “this isn’t what it seems. I want to clear up this misunderstanding. I swear to you, I never meant Rebecca any harm. The fact of the matter is … I love her.”