Chapter 25

Thursday, January 20th, 2022
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Carl had the command ready to go as I walked up to their door. The girls were in reach before I even knocked but I asked him to hold off until I gave the word.

Jan opened the door and jumped into my arms. Meghan joined her and the three of us stood there for a while just enjoying being together again. Jan wiped a tear from her cheek and ushered us inside and we settled on the couch and chair like we had so often before.

Meghan was smiling when she asked, “So is the rule in place now?”

I shook my head and said, “No I wanted you guys to know when I did it. Do you still want me to?”

Jan said, “Yes Paul, please change me.”

Carl sent, [It’s done.]

I nodded to Jan. She smiled and said, “Oh thank you. This feels so much better, all that anxiety is gone.”

Meghan said, “You know what, I really don’t think I needed it. I already feel I can trust you and as a general rule, I don’t want anyone messing around in my head if I can avoid it.”

I told her, “That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Let me know if you ever change your mind.”

Jan said, “We’ve missed you Paul.”

Meghan said, “We really have. So what have you been up to?”

I said, “Well, actually, we have some very interesting things to discuss. Before we do, I have a question for you Meghan. I never did ask you about the burn on your arm. How did that happen?”

She had a rather significant burn scar on the top of her left forearm, near her elbow. It was about an inch wide and maybe three inches long.

She said, “It’s a bad curling iron burn from when I was a kid. I don’t remember it happening, as I wasn’t much more than a toddler at the time. Mom had left it heating on the bathroom sink and I got my hands on it somehow. She always felt really guilty about it, but I never held it against her. You can’t watch a kid every second of the day, and I don’t remember any pain from it.”

I asked, “Have you ever wished you didn’t have it?”

She said, “Sure, but it’s no big deal.”

Carl sent, [Done.]

I said, “Thank you, Carl.”

Meghan was looking at her now scarless arm, twisting it to see it in a different light and running her fingertips over the area. A look of awe was on her face.

Jan said, “Oh my god!”

I sent, [Carl, let’s make both girls completely healthy.]

Both girls froze for a second as they felt the tingling go through them. They looked at each other, and then at me, and simultaneously said, “What was that?”

I told them, “Just making sure neither of you had any health issues.”

Meghan said, “Holy shit!” and Jan covered her face with her hands and started crying.

I wrapped my arm around her, and Meghan quickly joined us on the couch, holding Jan from the other side. I looked over at her with a raised eyebrow, and she just shrugged in response.

Meghan asked, “What is it, sweetheart? What’s wrong?”

Jan slowed her tears a bit and said, “Ever since Aunt Sarah died, I’ve been fighting off a horrible fear that cancer was growing inside me. My Grandmother died in her early 50s from it, and with Sarah’s death, it seemed there was a good chance women in my family might be particularly susceptible to it. Knowing I’m fine suddenly just hit me really hard. I’m sorry. Thank you so much, Paul. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

She wrapped her arms around me and cried a little more while I rubbed her back, and Meghan did the same. Jan suddenly sat up, “My mom. Oh Paul, can I ask you to help her too? We have our issues, but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

I said, “Of course. We’ll make it happen, but we have a lot more to talk about before we go there. I’ve got some pretty big changes on the horizon that stem from this ability. We need to talk about it.”

I filled them in on my money-making scheme’s success and on healing the girl, then I branched into finding John Walker and all of the details there with getting John Senior and Sam on board.

I said, “I’m going to be pretty involved with establishing my new life as John soon, and I don’t know how involved you girls want to be in that life. It is going to be the foundation for my future. I’m going to be keeping the other personas far away from it, but I don’t want to be too distant from you guys either. I’m kind of thinking of making Paul the exception. He will be a visiting friend and maybe even a roommate of John’s. He will help me live my life while I am recovering. Eventually I will transition into John being who I am most of the time. Is that going to be okay with you guys?”

Jan said, “Whoever you are on the outside, you will always be my friend Paul to me. If nothing else, I hope that I can get him back in my bed from time to time too. Is that still okay with you Meghan.”

She said, “I’ve missed him there too. It’s more than okay with me. We can figure out the John situation when it’s actually something we need to deal with.”

I said, “Well, while it is still a ways out, I was thinking you might want to hold off on introducing Paul to others like Jan’s mom considering that he might be less publicly available later. We don’t actually have to introduce either of us to anyone. I’ve been getting in a lot of exercise and my range is growing regularly. I think It’s between 40 and 45 feet now, but I haven’t measured it in a while.”

“All you have to do is show me a picture of her so I know I’ve got the right woman, and I can fix her up without anyone even noticing. All I have to do is get in range. That’s the safe way to use my powers. I’m going to make it a habit to recruit anyone who knows about my powers going forward, that includes anyone I heal to get payments from. Everybody else is not going to even know I was there. The ability to heal has the potential to really screw up our lives, we have to be very careful.”

Meghan said, “Wait, what do you mean by that?”

I said, “You haven’t thought it through yet. Consider what some super rich person might be willing to do if they could get cured of their particular disease, like old age even. What about the government? What about foreign governments? What about some doctor or scientist that wants to use me to figure out how it works? What would you be willing to do if someone you love was going to die and you knew someone who had a cure? I can’t afford to let the world know that my healing is even happening, much less that I or anyone I care about might be involved. That goes for all of my abilities, but healing strikes me as the most likely to be found out.”

They both sat soberly and considered it.

Jan said, “I see what you mean. You’re right we need to be very careful, and I think you were spot on in how we should handle my mom. She’s home more often than not, so having one of your personas knock on the door to ask for directions is probably the best way to handle it. Unless you want to try and coordinate when she makes a trip to the grocery store or something.”

I said, “It doesn’t have to be so covert either. As far as we know, she doesn’t have any issues and won’t notice anything. Even if she did, she would have no particular reason to suspect any of us. What do you think of inviting her to meet you for lunch or coffee somewhere in Pueblo one day? Meghan and I could join you as friends or be customers at a different table if you prefer to go one-on-one with her. I could fix her oh her way out the door or any other opportune moment.”

She said, “I love the lunch idea. I haven’t even spoken to her in months. Tomorrow is Friday, and lunch would work perfectly for me. How about you two?”

Meghan said, “Sure, that sounds good.”

I said, “I’m expecting to have to make some calls and coordinate plans, but being in Pueblo for lunch should be easy to fit in. I’m game. Give your mom a call.”

Jan went to get her phone and make plans with her mom. Megan settled against me on the couch, and we cuddled a little as we listened to Jan’s side of the call. She had started by pacing in the kitchen but made her way over to the chair by the end of it. It seemed to go well from what I could hear.

She said, “I hope you guys are okay with Cracker Barrel.”

Meghan and I agreed it was fine with each of us. We discussed how classes were going for a while, and they told me that they had an appointment with Brad’s accountant on Monday to go over everything. Both of them were very much looking forward to it.

Brad’s phone rang from the backpack where I had left it. Jan’s eyebrow rose as I answered it, and I gestured that I would explain later as I answered it.

“Hello?”

“Paul, It’s Brad. We just got out of there. After doing the ID, Rhonda and I both got interviewed separately. For quite some time. It wasn’t too bad, and I stuck to the story you had laid out. I claimed to have only met her a couple of times and was looking into it for Rhonda. A few questions about how long we had been dating and how long ago I had seen Tori, and I was pretty much free to go. Rhonda spent a good deal longer talking about her.”

I said, “I take it the body was confirmed to be Tori’s then?”

He said, “Yeah, sorry man. I did ask the detective the question you mentioned earlier. He told me that she was found with a gag of some kind in her mouth and a lot of duct tape covering the lower portion of her face. They had to be careful removing the tape to preserve possible evidence, so it would have been hard for you to ID her at the time.”

I replied, “That makes sense to me. Did you learn anything new from them?”

Brad said, “I don’t know, maybe. I got the vibe that they were pissed about having her dropped off on their doorstep, and I think I heard one cop say something about Feds getting involved soon and taking it out of their hands.”

I said, “Feds? That’s weird. But if it gets Federal attention then there will be a lot more news coverage on it soon. That should be a good thing, I would think.”

He said, “That sounds about right.”

I told him, “Thanks for the update, and all of your help on this Brad, I really appreciate it.”

He told me, “Anytime man. Besides, I got to meet Rhonda and she seems pretty cool so far. I appreciate the introduction, even with as weird as it was.”

I said, “She seems like ‘good people’ to me. I encourage you to see how it works out. I haven’t seen any glaring red flags yet, but you should keep your eyes open my friend.”

He said, “Heard.” Then ended the call. I looked at the phone for a second and shook my head.

I looked up and both girls were watching me.

I said, “What? Millionaires are weird. Who doesn’t say goodbye when you’re talking on the phone. I mean, outside of TV where they almost never do.”

Jan said, “That sounded like they confirmed it was your friend who was found. I’m sorry Paul.”

Meghan came over to me and sat on my lap to hug me.

She said, “Me too. I’m sure the Police will find the guy. I am a bit concerned about the Feds being involved though. If TV is to be believed you may be looking at a ‘Criminal Minds’ situation. They’re a group of Feds chasing serial killers.”

I said, “I’ve seen the show. Somehow I doubt it’s quite like portrayed on TV, but the basic premise might be right. I think I’m going to dig a little deeper into the Police and see if I can help in some way. I can’t believe that my abilities wouldn’t be a huge potential asset.”

Jan said, “That sounds too risky to me. None of your personas can stand up to a hard review yet, and it sounds like John won’t be ready for quite a while. We were just talking about keeping your abilities under wraps for fear of the authorities becoming aware of you. You’re scaring me a little with that kind of thinking, Paul. I would rather you go a couple more levels deeper into paranoia here. You’re too close to this right now. Let them do their jobs first. They should have the experience to handle this.”