Chapter 67: Responsibility

Author’s note.

It took me a couple of attempts to come up with this chapter. I was about halfway through when I realised that I was sliding down yet another rabbit hole and went back and started again. This is what I ended up with. Perhaps one day I might publish the outtake, just to let you know where I was headed. It certainly will not be creating another spin-off like the life after series.

Thanks as always to Dr Mark for his wonderful editing and TheSwiss for his hard work.

KR PM

I sat staring for a few moments, trying to assimilate what Dianna had just told me. Walter Greenwood was dead? How? What had happened? Had what I’d done been responsible?

Had I killed someone?

What’s more, it seemed that I wasn’t the only one that suspected me of that crime. Maggie wanted me to come in. Did she really think that I’d do that?

“You think I killed Greenwood?” I asked Dianna, stunned at the implication.

“Of course not,” she snapped. “But I know you did something. Whatever it was you did may have caused someone else to do so. We need to know what you did.”

“We got him to...” I began, initially about to tell her that we’d gotten him to confess to the IRS. But then I remembered that we’d turned it around. We had gone with Jules’ idea to get them to report each other.

“Oh shit,” I said.

“What?” asked Dianna.

“I found out that the person who torched our house worked for Knight.”

I went on to tell her about everything I’d found out about Greenwood and Knight, and how we’d decided to get each to confess their sins to the IRS, but at the last minute had decided to swap so that each reported the other to the IRS. Greenwood would report Knight, as well as taking all his funds and donating them to charity, and Knight would report Greenwood. Also he’d report himself to the State Bar, telling them that he’d broken attorney-client privilege.

“I figured that once it came out that they’d reported each other, each would have no memory of doing so. They would think that it was someone else, but have no idea who it might be. They each have many enemies in one field or another.”

“Oh,” remembered, “we also told Knight’s partner that he’d been stealing from him. I think it was Greenwood that did that too.”

“So,” postulated Dianna, “either Knight’s partner challenged Knight, or he found out that Greenwood had turned him into the IRS. That would indicate that Knight has a contact within the IRS. Either way, Knight is my prime suspect.”

I sat stunned by this revelation. Had we caused the death of Walter Greenwood? We’d tried to be careful to ensure that nothing like this happened, but it seemed that we’d not been careful enough. What we’d done may have been directly responsible for a man’s death.

“Caleb,” Dianna said, as if she could read my thoughts even through the phone, “You didn’t do this. Whoever killed Greenwood, you are not responsible. Remember also that he and Knight arranged to have your house burned down, and you or any one of your girls might have been inside.

“Yes you got Greenwood to report Knight to the IRS, and his partner, but if indeed it was Knight, HE was the one responsible for Greenwood’s death, not you.”

“Maggie wants you to come in and detail exactly what you did,” she went on. “There’s no doubt that you went off piste with this, but we need to limit any damage.”

“I’m on my way,” I said resignedly.

“What happened?” asked Mary, having heard only half the conversation. I gave them all the memory of the call. Jules paled.

“That was my idea,” she said. “I killed him...”

“No,” said Mary. “Whoever pulled the trigger did that. Don’t you be taking responsibility for someone else’s actions. Also, we all agreed.” She turned to me. “Let’s go.”

“Go?” I asked.

“We’re coming with you,” she said. “Whatever happened, we all decided on the course of action to take, so we each bear some of the responsibility. BUT NONE of us is responsible for Greenwood’s death. Let’s get that straight right now.”

Jules nodded but still looked shaken by events.

Josh and Louise dropped Melanie and Sarah off at the FBI Office and then went back to the hotel. We’d organize transport home when we were done. I parked my truck in the parking lot and Mary, Jules, Amanda, Ness, and I walked up to meet up with the other two girls outside. The front was all locked up.

I called Maggie.

“Hi Maggie,” I said.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“We’re outside the office. It’s all locked up,” I said.

“We?” she asked, but then checked herself, “Never mind. There’s a staff entrance around the right-hand side of the building. I’ll meet you there.”

We walked down the alley to the right of the building, where there was a plain door. It looked like a fire exit, but had a swipe card access with keypad by which it could be opened from the outside. I’d never seen it before, having always used the front entrance.

The door buzzed and then opened. Maggie pushed the door open and, on seeing all of us there, stood back to let us in.

“You didn’t all need to come,” she said.

“Yes,” said Mary, “we did. If what we did was instrumental in what happened to Walter Greenwood, then we were all involved.”

Maggie nodded and then guided us all to the elevator lobby. We took the elevator to her floor and went into her office. Dianna and Frank Howe were seated in the office waiting for us. There were some agents working at desks in their cubicles.

We had to grab some extra seats so we all had somewhere to sit, but eventually we were all seated in Maggie’s office.

“Dianna told us what you told her on the call,” said Maggie. “I’d like to hear it from you?”

“Would it be quicker to give you the memories?” I asked. Maggie looked at Frank and he nodded.

It took me a moment to collate the memories, starting from the night that Trevor came to dinner and ending with the night I took action, using illusions on the six men who’d actually been responsible for torching our house, and then compelling both Walter Greenwood and Knight to report each other to the IRS. I left nothing out.

“Well,” said Frank. “Remind me not to piss you off. That nightmare was brutal.”

Maggie gave him a flat look.

“First.” She said looking at me, and then at Jules. “You are not responsible for Greenwood’s death. Whoever decided to kill him may have been motivated by what you did, but saying that makes you responsible would be the same as saying that if you’d killed Ray Purcell, he was responsible because he torched your house. The person responsible for Greenwood’s death is the person that pulled the trigger.

“Having said that, the fact that he is dead, if it turns out that Knight did kill him, and the motive was, in fact, the IRS report, then what you did will come out. The fact that you used your powers in such a way will be brought out. You can expect some fallout from that. All of you.

“Caleb might have been the one that used his powers, but you are all conspirators.”

“I don’t understand,” said Mary. “Let’s assume, for now, that Knight did kill Greenwood, and that the reason was the IRS report. How does that involve us in any way?”

“The investigators will come to you,” said Maggie. “It’s common knowledge that you suspected Greenwood of burning your house down. Therefore, you had motive to kill Greenwood.

“So?” she asked. “I’m sure there are other people with motive to kill him. I’m sure that if Caleb searched the memories he took from Greenwood he could give you a list of people who had grievances against him. He stole from an awful lot of people. Who’s to say that one of them didn’t find out and decide to take revenge?

“Having motive to kill him is not the same as killing him, and you know for certain that we did not do so.”

Maggie looked at Frank.

“She’s right,” he said. “We certainly don’t have enough to establish probable cause for Caleb or the girls. In my opinion, what they did was incredibly measured. They couldn’t know that Knight was going to kill Greenwood if and when he found out.”

“Do we actually know that to be the case?” I asked. “Did Knight kill Greenwood?”

Dianna shrugged. “We have no idea,” she said. “Until you told me your story, we didn’t even know about Knight. Up until this moment we had absolutely no reason to suspect him.

“You could check the IRS report on Knight,” Amanda said. “That should lead back to Greenwood. It would give you a reason to speak to him at least.”

“But why would we be investigating that in the first place?” asked Maggie. “We need a trail to follow. Leaps of intuition like that have to be explained. You need to remember that people know me and Dianna and about our powers. They also know about you. If we start making those kinds of connections without some solid evidence of how we’d arrived at things, questions are going to be asked about how we came about certain information.”

There was a knock on the door.

Agent David Spencer poked his head in.

“They’ve found Greenwood’s car,” he said.

Maggie looked up.

“Where?” she asked.

“California. Local PD spotted it entering a chop shop they were watching,” he said.

“How long ago?” she asked.

“About thirty minutes,” he said. “It took that long for it to filter through to us. The field office wanted to raid the shop, but the locals are reluctant. They’ve been sitting on this shop as part of an operation targeting organized car thefts for some time. They say it will compromise their investigation if we raid the shop now.”

“Tell the field office to go” Maggie said. “That car is the only legitimate lead we have at the moment on Greenwood’s killer.”

She turned to us.

“You guys go back to the hotel,” she said. “As soon as we know more, I’ll let you know.”

Despite the illegality, Jules and I sat in the bed of my truck while Mary drove us all back to the hotel. There wasn’t room inside for us all and none of us could be bothered with cabs or Ubers. Both Jules and Ness, having grown up on a farm, were used to such travel so it was no big deal for her.

The valet gave us a strange look when we climbed down from the back but said nothing. He took my keys and went to park the truck.

Back in our room, we sat saying nothing, each deep in our own thoughts. After a few minutes I decided I was tired. I went through to the other room and hit the shower.

When I returned to the room, I found Sarah sitting on the edge of the bed. She’d showered in the other room and gotten into her nightwear, which consisted of a long T-shirt. I guessed she was wearing panties underneath, but I couldn’t see since the T came down to mid thigh on her.

“Caleb,” she said as I emerged from the bathroom, wearing boxers.

“You okay?” I asked her. I wondered about her reaction to her ex-boyfriend’s father’s death. She’d said that she hadn’t liked him but, even so, hearing that someone you know was murdered isn’t exactly something that happens every day.

“Can I talk to you?” she asked.

“Sure,” taking a seat on one of the chairs. “What’s up?”

“I,” she began hesitantly. Her shield meant that I wasn’t able to hear her surface thoughts. Since Tatarabuela Gonzales had taken over her’s and Melanie’s defences it would be all but impossible for me to sneak through their shields. I could break them by force, but it wouldn’t go unnoticed.

She chewed her lip for a while. I waited patiently for her to collect her thoughts.

“Ness told me,” she said, taking a different tack, “that she started sleeping with you and the girls before she was eighteen. I don’t mean having sex, I mean just sharing your bed. She said it made her feel safe.”

“She did,” I said.

“The night of the fire,” she went on, “I was scared. When we got here and all the girls got into bed with you, I just wanted to be with you all. I didn’t want to go into the other suite all on my own. The next morning when we woke up, and you weren’t there, Ness tracked you down and we all came to join you. It just felt right. It feels right.

“I don’t want to have sex with you, but sleeping in with you all makes me feel ... safe, protected.”

“Is that why you weren’t that enthusiastic about the room in the new house?” I asked.

“I’m worried that once we move in,” she admitted, “you won’t let me sleep with you any more.”

I sighed.

“We’re apparently getting a bigger bed,” I said. “You’re welcome to share it for as long as you want. Fair warning though, a lot of sex happens in our bed. If you don’t want to see that then you might have to vacate until it’s over.”

“That’s what Jules thought you’d say,” she said. “You’ve not had sex since the fire, have you?”

“No,” I said. “Events have been kind of fraught, and I don’t think any of us have been in the mood. Things will settle down though.

“So are you going to bed?” she asked, pulling the cover back on the bed.

I nodded, standing to walk over to the bed before climbing in.

Sarah climbed in and snuggled up against me. “Thank you,” she said, wrapping her hands around my arm, like she was holding onto a security blanket.

+++++ When I woke up Friday morning, I could hear the rain hammering down outside. The wind was gusting against the windows. I slid out of bed, completed my morning routine and then went into the other suite. I looked out of the window at the rain lashing down.

“Nope,” I said to myself. “I’m not going out in that.”

“Good call,” said Melanie from behind me. She smiled at me as I turned to her, and then came over and pulled me into a hug.

“Are you okay?” she asked. I nodded.

“Surprisingly, yes,” I said. “Whether Knight killed Greenwood or not, we didn’t. I’m not taking responsibility for anyone else’s actions just because information that I caused to be revealed may have been responsible. If I’d done it with that express intention, knowing Knight would do that, then that would be different. We specifically didn’t do a lot more that we could have because we thought that others might not be as measured in their responses. The only other course of action open to us was to simply do nothing. Both Knight and Greenwood would have gotten away with it and, who knows, maybe even come back again.”

She nodded. “Almost exactly what Mary told Jules last night,” she said.

“And how did Jules react?” I asked.

“I think she saw the sense in the argument,” she said. “I’m hoping, though, that there was some other reason for Greenwood’s death. I think Jules will still blame herself if it turns out it was simply because of what we did. Especially since it was her idea to switch them to reporting each other instead of each reporting themselves.”

“Hopefully,” I said, “we’ll learn more today.”

We decided to eat breakfast in the campus cafeteria. It had been a long time since we’d done that. Although I wasn’t attending any classes that day, I had more hypnotherapy appointments. In the morning I had three on campus and, in the afternoon, two at the range, including my ‘famous’ coke addict client. As I thought about my day, I wondered idly how he was getting on with his dealer-roadie. It was none of my business and I was determined that I wasn’t going to get involved.

Since I was going to the range in any case, after I’d finished with my third hypnotherapy client, I went back to the hotel and picked up my weapons. I knew, from the knowledge I’d taken from Dean that, even though they looked okay and there was little evidence in the safe that it had gotten very hot in there, there may be some damage that wasn’t visible. I was certain that Hoss would know someone who could check them over for me.

“Hi, Hoss,” I said, entering the range and walking up to the counter.

“Afternoon,” he said. “You have two sessions this afternoon?”

“Yes,” I said, “but I wanted to ask you something.”

I took out both weapons and placed them on the counter.

“I wondered if you knew anyone that could check these over for me,” I informed him. “They seem okay, but they were in the fire and I don’t want to risk firing them without getting someone who knows more than me to look at them first.”

“Good call,” he said. “I know a guy that could do it for you. Will you leave them with me? I’ll text you with a price when I’ve spoken to him.”

“I’m not worried about that,” I said. “If you think the price is reasonable, then just go ahead let him do what’s needed. Do you want me to give you some money up front?”

“Nah,” he said. “It won’t be huge, and I know you’re good for it.”

“Thanks Hoss,” I said.

I turned to enter my ‘office’ just as my first client came through the door. I smiled at them, and showed them in to begin their session.

Halfway through the session my phone beeped. Maggie.

_Are you free anytime this afternoon?

_I’ll be free after three.

¬_Can you come to the office then?

¬_Will do.

I was hopeful that that meant that there was good news. The best outcome for us was that Knight had nothing to do with Greenwood’s death. The fact that she’d asked me to come in when I was free, rather than demanding my presence, was a good sign.

I finished off with my hypnotherapy clients. My famous client was doing well. I neither asked about, nor did he mention, his roadie turned dealer. I figured that he’d dealt with him. Since I’d not heard anything in the news about him being a drug user, I assumed that he’d probably paid him off or something like that. I wondered how much that would have cost him, but I wasn’t really that interested nor was I interested in finding out that something more sinister had happened, so I stayed well out of his mind.

I arrived at the FBI office at just after three fifteen and made my way straight to Maggie’s office. Maggie’s PA, Cuthbert, smiled at me as I approached his desk.

“You can go straight in,” he said. I noticed his eyes wandering up and down as I walked past him. Maybe one day soon I’d give him another illusory peek.

Maggie looked up as I entered her office. She was typing something on her laptop, but nodded to the chair opposite hers, while she finished up. After a minute she closed the laptop lid and looked across her desk at me.

“We found the killer,” she said.

I didn’t speak, just waiting for her to say more.

“It had nothing to do with Knight,” she went on. “There was a car theft ring out of California. They targeted prestige cars, finding them on social media or car enthusiast forums. Then they’d steal them to order. Their normal MO was to either rob houses to steal keys or carjack the owner. We think they were trying the former and Greenwood got in the way.

“We found the murder weapon in the car and the killer was still in the chop shop when we raided it. They were in the process of removing all the identification plates when we hit them. From what we understand, the car would then have been exported abroad.”

“Greenwood didn’t strike me as the type to join and enthusiast group,” I said.

“He wasn’t,” she said. “It seems that his son had been posting pictures of both his Shelby and his father’s car on his facebook page. We found several pictures of the cars matching ones that Trevor had posted.”

I nodded sadly. “So what now?” I asked.

“Well, since there is no connection to Knight,” she said, “then there is no reason for anything you did to come out. It’s case closed with a cut and dried motive and a solid evidence trail to the killer.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Make no mistake,” she said sternly. “You dodged a bullet big time on this one. Knight will probably go down, unless his partner decides to take drastic action against him. But since there’s no connection at all between you and Knight, there’s no reason for anyone who doesn’t know what I know to even glance in your direction.”

“I know,” I said. “We did try to make sure that there would be no permanent repercussions, but...”

“You can never guarantee what people will do,” she said more gently. “No matter what safeguards you put in place there will always be people that will do something unexpected, or someone else in the mix that you didn’t anticipate.

“Perhaps this will be an object lesson for you, and for the girls. If you’d come to me with what you’d discovered we might have been able to get to Knight in a safer, more legal, way. It may have taken a little longer, but we’d have gotten it done.”

Once more I nodded.

She stared at me for a long moment.

“Go home,” she said, then corrected herself, “or at least back to the hotel. Try to stay out of trouble?”

“I will,” I said. “And thanks.”

She shook her head.

I was just about to leave her office when she spoke again. “Caleb?”

I turned to face her.

“Are you still thinking about joining the bureau?” she asked.

I nodded, “Yes,” I said.

“Have you put in an application yet?” she followed up.

“No,” I said. “I thought...”

“Do it soon,” she said. “The process is long and, despite you powers, you still have to go through it all. It can take up to a year, which will be just about the right timing for when you finish school. Unless you were going to be one of these lazy bums that insists on taking a ‘gap year’ before starting work?”

I laughed at her.

“No ma’am,” I said. “I want to get started as soon as I can.”

“Then get started on applying,” she said.

“I will,” I said. “Thanks again.”

The girls were all back at the hotel by the time I arrived. Once again, I gave them all the memory of the talk I’d had with Maggie. Jules sagged visibly in relief.

“She was right,” she said after a few minutes.

“How so?” I asked, although I already thought I knew.

“You can’t predict how people are going to react,” she answered. “We all need to be so much more careful about what we do. It’s one thing to use your powers during actively defending yourself, but revenge? That’s something we really shouldn’t be getting involved in.”

Mary nodded. “I agree,” she said. “We were all guilty of that though. We were all angry at what they’d done to our house and we wanted to get our revenge. None of us spoke out against it. Like Maggie said, we all dodged a bullet and we should learn from it.

“That being said, we weren’t responsible for Trevor’s dad’s murder and so we should put this behind us, and move on.”

“Yeah,” said Amanda. “We’re supposed to be going out with Gracie and Dana tonight. It’s party time!!”

+++++ I’ll admit that I wasn’t really in the mood to go out and party. Despite it coming out that we’d had nothing to do with Greenwood’s death, the close call had shaken me badly. The thought of celebrating when someone I knew had just been murdered seemed wrong.

The girls, though, seemed to feel that the celebration was definitely in order. We’d been exonerated of blame in his death and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that there hadn’t been a few fleeting thoughts of ‘he got what he deserved,’ some of them mine.

We met Gracie and Dana in the reception on the eight floor and went out from there. The night started in a bar and then we moved onto a club. The mixture of alcohol, camaraderie, and jollity was enough to massively improve my mood, although I did notice that I didn’t seem to be as affected by the drink as much as I had before. I wondered about that and then realized that I was healing away the effects of the alcohol, or rather my built-in guardian angel was. I know I drank more than enough to get steaming drunk, and yet I had nothing more than a pleasant buzz going on.

I smiled to myself at that.

“What you looking so pleased about?” asked Melanie.

“It appears I can’t get drunk,” I said. “Looks like Tatarabuela Gonzales is neutralizing the alcohol before it really affects me.

“Oh!” she said. “That’s what it is! I was wondering about that. I’ve never really been drunk, but I was surprised with the way that the other girls are, that I feel so good.”

“Wait until the morning,” I said to her. “That’s when you’ll really notice the difference.”

We poured Gracie and Dana back into their room a little after two thirty in the morning. I’d suspected that they’d wanted me to spend the last night with them, but neither of them was in any condition do to more than pass out on the bed. The rest of my girls, Melanie aside, were in similar condition.

“A small illusion had I.D.’d all the underage girls in our party and so we had no trouble getting drinks. I wouldn’t normally do such a thing, but I knew that, given what had gone on, they needed to blow off steam. I also knew that they’d regret it in the morning, and it would be a good learning experience for all of them.”

I opened my eyes at four a.m. It was only just over an hour after I’d gotten to bed. I felt fine, but the room stank like a distillery. It was so bad it made my eyes water. I had thought that I would forgo my morning training given the lateness of the night, but I couldn’t stand the stink any more. I slid out of bed. Melanie, as always, opened her eyes as soon as I moved.

“Oh my god,” she said softly. “What is that stink?”

I grinned at her.

“That is the smell of the morning after,” I said quietly. “Come on – lets go get some air.”

We moved into the other room and climbed into the bed there. We both dozed off until just after nine, when I awoke once again. Melanie and I showered together and then dressed.

The stink was no better when we went back into the other suite and the girls were still out cold. I went over and opened the curtains, letting the morning light in, and then the window to get some air into the room. There were groans from the bed.

“What time is it?” came weakly from the bed. I wasn’t sure who’d asked.

“It’s after nine thirty,” I said. “Time to get up.”

There was a chorus of groans, then a scene from the living dead enacted itself before my eyes, as five, very hung-over, girls arose from the bed.

“Who wants breakfast?” I said loudly, earning myself some evil glares.

“Anyone got some acetaminophen?” asked Sarah. “My head feels like it’s about to explode.”

All eyes turned on me.

“Caleb,” Mary said.

“Hmmm?” I said pretending not to know what she wanted.

“Come on,” she said. “Don’t be mean.”

“You shouldn’t have drunk so much,” I fired back at her. “In fact, you shouldn’t be drinking at all. You’re not twenty-one until next month.”

She actually growled at me.

“You drank as much as any of us,” she said.

“And yet here I am,” I said. “Fresh as a daisy.”

Ness tried to go full bore Puss in Boots on me, but the effect was spoiled because she was still squinting in the light of the morning. I laughed and then spent the next ten minutes or so relieving their headaches and settling their stomachs. They would need to drink quite a bit of fluid today, but at least they wouldn’t feel so bad.

Ness threw her arms around me. “Thank you,” she breathed at me, I winced.

“Go shower,” I said. “You stink.”

She pouted at me but went and got showered.

By the time they had all freshened up, the room had aired, and I’d ordered breakfast from room service. We all dug in hungrily.

After breakfast we went to check in on Gracie and Dana only to find that they’d already checked out. They’d given us their new address, but we decided that we’d leave them be while they got themselves sorted out. It was an exciting time for them setting up home together and the last thing they would need would be us showing up and interfering.

That left us at a bit of a loose end. Our normal Saturday routine was to do chores around the house and do the weekly shop. Sunday would be spent catching up on schoolwork and getting ready for the week ahead.

“Why don’t we do some sightseeing?” I asked.

“Sightseeing?” asked Mary.

“Theres a bunch of leaflets in the lobby of local attractions,” I said. “Let’s go grab some and see what this city has to offer. So far all I’ve seen is PSU and our house. Surely there’s more to Portland than that?”

“I wouldn’t mind going to the science museum,” said Jules. “It’s supposed to be really cool.”

“The art museum,” said Mary.

“The zoo,” Sarah suggested.

“We could do a coach tour,” said Melanie. “There’s some really pretty water falls to see.”

“River cruise?” suggested Ness.

I looked at Amanda, the only one who’d not made a suggestion.

“Amanda?” I said, “Any thoughts.”

“It all sounds really good,” she said. “But we’re not going to have time to do it all.”

“True,” I said. “But why don’t we plan to do something off the list every weekend for a while at least. We’ve been in the city over two years, and I’ve seen so little of it it’s embarrassing.”

“So what are we going to do today.”

“The tours,” I began, “are going to need booking. We’re probably too late to do that for today, same with the river cruising. That leaves museums and the zoo.

We looked out of the window. It was raining.

“How about we do the museums today?” I said. “Looking at the map they are not too far apart – then we can find somewhere to get dinner. Maybe another weekend we can do the zoo or one of the tours?”