Chapter 24: Arrangements

Rose

“KENTON, THIS IS ROSE,” she said when voicemail kicked in. “I know what you are planning. Leave them alone! So help me if you harm one of them, I’ll hunt you down and burn you. You know I can do it. Just don’t.”

She hung up the phone. Trayce had mentioned the crazy doctor which meant he knew about her ability. He’d been searching for the right combination for years and if Trayce gave him the names of Keira and Jaime, he would try to bring them all into his experiment. It had been two days and Rose had left a message each day. Kenton Schwartz seemed not to be in his office. She didn’t have a cell phone number for him and doubted that it would do her any good anyway. He probably had her blocked in every way he could think of.

She’d been young and foolish when she met him in college. That had been over twenty years earlier. She was curious about her ability to read minds and had volunteered to participate in his ‘study.’ They’d even dated for a while. That was when she read his real intent. He had no understanding of head talk. He was amazingly effective at spotting people with the gift, but even after his study, he didn’t have a clue. He still had the opinion that those who could telecommunicate ‘sent’ messages to other people. It was an ability he desperately wanted, but failed at miserably.

Rose had understood early on that the ability manifested itself in ‘hearing’ other people, not in speaking to them. It had been frustrating to her. She’d taken up the study of psychiatry to understand the subject better. What she’d discovered was a degree of mental control. She could shut her mind in both directions, sealing off any possible leaking of her own thoughts and blocking the reception of others’ thoughts. It was a valuable skill that saved her sanity.

She specialized in teen girl counseling. Girls approaching womanhood, like she had, often felt emotionally and mentally unstable. The popular notion among predominantly male psychiatrists was only a step removed from the dark ages notion that all female problems could be traced to the ‘wandering uterus.’ They figured that in today’s ‘modern’ understanding, they could prescribe drugs that would neutralize the voices in their heads.

Rose had tried the drugs herself and discovered they didn’t silence the voices, but rather made the listener not care about them. She was disgusted with the way most drugs affected the psyche. A popular anesthetic didn’t actually dull the pain, but made the patient forget about it. The results were still scarring.

That was why Rose had counseled young women in ways to block the voices and to keep themselves from being heard. Only rarely did a patient clearly have the ability to read others’ thoughts. She was certain Trayce had some element of that ability, but not as strong as in her niece Keira. Although Rose hadn’t met him, she’d gleaned enough from Keira’s mind to know that Jaime was possibly the most skilled listener she’d ever encountered. It was rare to find a male with the gift.

There was an older fellow who had participated in Kenton’s studies and seemed to realize quickly what he was up to. She’d wondered what had awakened his inner ear and discovered he’d been treated for PTSD after Vietnam with the new miracle drug, LSD. It hadn’t done anything for his PTSD, but had opened his mind in unexpected ways. She never told Kenton about that—or that she’d briefly had a ‘relationship’ with the older guy. He was pretty irresistible. It sounded a lot like Trayce had somehow encountered Angus’s thoughts as well.

Trayce’s ‘voices’ seemed to mostly be an in-and-out kind of hearing. But somehow, she’d been caught in the orbit of Keira and Jaime. Rose would be interested in how the proposed meeting would go. She was positive Trayce would initiate contact.

Rose picked up the phone to dial Kenton again and put it down. He wasn’t answering ten minutes before, he wouldn’t be answering now. His experiments in college had gone further and further afield until the university pulled his funding for his study as not being scientific. But if he interfered with the three teens, she would absolutely make him pay.

Angus

“Hey, sweet cheeks,” Angus said when Keira answered her phone early on Saturday.

“Mr. Angus, I’m not one of your strippers,” Keira shot back.

“Of course not. You’d still be good at it,” he laughed. “This is serious. You need to tell your boyfriend to switch grocery stores. We’ve been spot checking that Safeway location where he was injured and I believe it’s being surveilled. Tell him to go to Fred Meyer instead. Or Whole Foods if he can afford it. Just don’t go up to the same store today.”

“I’ll contact him right now!” Keira said.

“By text message. We still don’t know if this guy has the ability to read minds, or has someone with him who does. When I ran into him twenty years ago, he had a girlfriend who could hear people. When she and I shared a little recreational time together, we tuned in to listen to him. He is not a nice man.”

“Yessir. I’ll text Jaime right away.”

“We’re going to hang out at the Safeway to see if we can get a positive ID. You take care.”

“Thank you. ‘Bye.”

As soon as she hung up, Keira texted Jaime with the information. He and his dad always went grocery shopping at about 1:00 in the afternoon. But Jaime would need time to convince his father to change stores. She warned him not to contact her mentally. They’d have plenty of time that evening at the concert they were attending.

Jaime and David

“Dad, I know it’s silly, but I’m just not comfortable going back to that store again right now,” Jaime signed to his father.

“I don’t blame you, son. Don’t worry about it. I’ll get the groceries,” David said. He’d actually been concerned that his son was showing no emotional stress since the shooting incident in the store. The same police detective who had investigated the attempted kidnapping had stopped by to interview Jaime. He said it was likely the case would never come to trial because the girlfriend denied that her boyfriend was actually trying to kill her. He’d just wanted to teach her a lesson and she learned it. She loved him even more now than she had before. He’d be charged with discharging a firearm in the city limits and causing injury. He would lose his license to carry and probably serve a suspended misdemeanor sentence.

“No, Dad. I really enjoy going grocery shopping with you. I’m just wondering if we could maybe try a different store. Maybe Fred Meyer or even Whole Foods.”

David chuckled.

“Back in the day, your mother and I loved to go to Whole Foods, but we called it Whole Paycheck. Why don’t we try it. We might have to try some unfamiliar brands, but it should be fun,” David said.

They went to the store and did a pretty good job of finding either what they thought they wanted or a reasonable substitute for it. For good measure they stopped at Freddie’s to pick up a few things they wanted that weren’t at the other store. It was another bonding experience for father and son.

Jaime was ready for his date to the concert with Keira early.

Angus

“Count this as a warning,” Angus said as he pressed the butt of his cane against the neck of Kenton Schwartz. Kate and Thursday were on the other side of the van distracting the couple who were supposed to be standing guard.

“Did Rose send you?” Kenton demanded.

“That’s no concern of yours. These kids are under my protection and I won’t let you have them. The next time I put my sword to your neck, I won’t have it sheathed. Am I clear?”

“He’s eighteen. He can speak for himself.”

“Which shows how much you don’t know,” Angus said. “Go and don’t come back!”

He caught Kate’s eye on the other side of the van. She and Thursday thanked the couple for their donation to the children’s hospital they were collecting for. The girls were in bun-revealing short-shorts and crop tops that showed the lower hemisphere of their breasts. Raising their hands would have revealed more than was strictly allowed in public.

They quickly piled into Angus’s Lexus and he pulled away. They stopped a block away and watched to make sure the van left the parking lot.

Trayce and Jaime and Keira

“If they don’t show up, they were imaginary and I need to just forget about them,” Trayce said as she checked her list of options. She wanted to be sure she had all the possibilities covered before she tried to make contact. Tried! She was actually going to conjure them up in her mind. She was pretty sure they’d be having sex this evening. That was how it always worked. She undressed and got in bed, even though it was only eight-thirty.

“If they do show up and know me,” Trayce said as she reviewed the list. “Oh, fuck! Dreams come true? That sounds so trite. Maybe when we actually meet each other, we won’t be interested in going on. She’s so pretty and he loves her so much. They might reject me!”

Trayce was panting a little, even though her hands were busy holding her tablet and writing. The thought of Jaime and Keira rejecting her was terrifying—more terrifying than that they didn’t show up and therefore didn’t exist. She still wrote it down.

“If they show up and don’t know me, it’s been my imagination playing on two people I happened to randomly see and latched onto. We might become friends and they might not be interested.”

She simply had to talk to them and lay out the plan. Somehow, she never considered that they might not agree to meet at all. After all, she was the author and controlled the storyline, wasn’t she? She set her tablet and pen aside and deliberately started to masturbate while thinking of her two lovers. It always worked best when they were being intimate and nearing orgasm. She focused on rubbing her clit and pinching her nipples.

«Jaime and Keira! Let’s play!»

«Whoa! Hold on!» Jaime said. «We can’t play now! We’re at a concert!»

«But you’re always... »

«We do have lives, Trayce, » Keira said. «I thought you didn’t want to talk to us again.»

«I can’t help it! If you’re not having sex, how did I connect to you?»