Chapter 5

Bethany’s house was east of campus, in a sprawling neighborhood along East Park Row Drive. Most of the housing looked well worn. Nothing was new except the occasional car or truck, and being it was the middle of December in Texas, everything had a dreary feel to it. Of course, that could have been my mood coloring what I saw.

Yaeko pulled into the driveway for Bethany’s house. It looked smaller than those around it. I climbed off the motorcycle, wrenched the helmet off my skull, and handed it to Yaeko. If I did get a car, it was going to be a car. Yaeko’s spare helmet was giving me a headache.

I looked around at the other houses. Nobody was outside. It was past dinner time. Thanks to my Nightvision ability, I could discern details as if it were full daylight. Of course, there was also the lack of auras to clue me in. Everyone was probably settled in for the night. I didn’t see any sign of neighborly activity, most especially nosy neighbors. They would have the most to tell, if only to talk about what they saw from day to day.

Not having anyone outside of the house to talk to, other than Yaeko, I turned to the structure itself.

The front yard, like most of those in the area, had a couple of trees, a number of shrubs around the house, and had settled in for the annual winter slumber. Everything looked like it was in decent shape, all the normal features of normal house ownership. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The house itself looked better than the dormant plant life. The trim was faded but a pleasant sky blue. I didn’t see any lights on inside, there wasn’t a car in the driveway, and the garage was closed. By the looks of the other houses along the street, almost no one else used their garages for their cars.

I looked at Yaeko. “Does Bethany own a car?”

Yaeko shook her head. “She usually rides the bus.”

I nodded and climbed the two steps up to her porch. My feet crunched the faux grass welcome mat as I stepped to the front door. I pulled a glass-screen door open and knocked on the heavy wood door. There was a single light fixture next to the door, but it didn’t turn on, nor did I hear any movement from inside. I was certain no one was home, but I knocked again.

Yaeko joined me on the small porch. She looked around at the neighboring houses and then reached for the doorknob.

To my surprise, it was unlocked.

Yaeko looked up at me with a frown and then walked in.

I hesitated long enough to mumble, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” and then followed her.

The wall of the garage fed into the house. A door along that wall led to it. To the left was a spacious living room with a vaulted ceiling. It was nice, well furnished, and certainly a pleasant place to have guests. I wondered how often Bethany had guests. A fireplace stood on the wall opposite from the garage wall. It was dark and cold. A small stack of firewood stood next to it. Nobody had lit anything in there in a while. Several potted plants stood around the furniture. I didn’t know if it was because it was near the beginning of winter or whether because no one had watered them in a while, but they were just starting to turn brown.

Yaeko headed through the living room to a small dining room and kitchen beyond. I followed the wall to the right and down a short hall. There were only two doors available. Both of them were closed. I didn’t want to touch anything, just in case this ended up considered a crime scene. Yaeko wore gloves, but I didn’t own any. That didn’t leave me without options, however. I had been working with my Telekinesis, learning to improve my fine control. Opening doors was easy.

The first door led to the bathroom. It was small, simple, fairly clean, and looked as if no one had been there in a day or two at least. The other door led to the only bedroom in the house.

The comforter and sheets were still pulled back as if someone had just gotten out of bed. A phone sat on a nightstand next to the bed. She could have gotten a call in the middle of the night. An emergency.

She had a small walk-in closet. Her clothes hung on both sides, easily filling the entire space. Several sets of shoes lined the floor. Boxes and suitcases took up the shelves above the hanging clothes. If she packed anything, then she didn’t take much. Seeing that Bethany had a lot of clothes, I would have guessed that she would have taken something with her to wear, especially if she was going to be gone for a few days. Yet, it didn’t look as if anything had been packed, not even in a hurry.

I stepped out of the closet and looked around the room. I spotted a lone slipper sticking out from under her bed. I went back into the closet. I didn’t find the other slipper. That lone slipper bothered me. In fact, the whole setting bothered me. It looked like she had simply gotten up in the middle of the night and left without taking any clothes or calling to let anyone know what was going on. My friends and I stayed in near constant contact. No matter what silly little thing came up, we called each other about it. Why wouldn’t Bethany contact House Leonis?

I looked at the phone. It was a landline, but the phone was laying on the nightstand, not sitting in the recharge cradle. If she received a call, would she just drop the phone like that or take a microsecond to put it back in the cradle? Considering how tidy the rest of the house was, with everything in its place, I didn’t think she would just drop the phone.

Then there was her bed. It was unmade, as if she had gotten up and not made it. Again, there was that lack of tidiness. I could see the pattern. Something woke her up. Something made her pick up the phone, probably to call someone, but she never got the chance. However, there weren’t any signs of a struggle, except that lone slipper. Almost as if it had come off and she left only wearing one.

I didn’t like what I was seeing. And I was going to like what I wanted to do even less. I had the strongest urge to touch her sheets, to pick up her phone, to clamber around to find that other slipper. I had to know what happened.

I walked over to the bed first and grazed my fingers along the comforter. I had an urge to do more, to pick it up and take a deep whiff, as if smelling Bethany in the sheets would help me. It turns out that touching it was enough.

Bethany had been dreaming about work, but something woke her up. She lay in her bed listening, half falling back to sleep. Then she heard it again, and came fully awake. Was someone in her house? Had someone broken in?

Bethany reached out mentally, searching for an intruder. She found somebody. She couldn’t tell who it was, but they were in her house uninvited.

She picked up the phone but something stopped her. Something held her. Then she heard a voice. Not with her ears, but with her mind.

“That would be a mistake Bethany. You wouldn’t want anyone else to die, would you?”

She tried to turn, to look for whoever was there. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“I want you Bethany. I want your power.”

Bethany would have screamed, but whatever held her wouldn’t allow her to. She could breathe. She could feel how her diaphragm contracted and expanded, just right, allowing her to breathe in a steady rhythm. Even as she felt herself panic, she couldn’t draw in any more air. The intruder held her. Bethany didn’t know anyone who had that kind of control, and that scared her even more.

The house was so quiet that she could hear the intruder softly padding along in the living room. It was so quiet that when she suddenly dropped the phone on the nightstand, the clatter scared her. She didn’t jump, she couldn’t move. If it had been a wild animal, it could have bitten her and she couldn’t have fought it off.

Then she felt herself being forced to stand up from the bed. The intruder wasn’t controlling her directly, not in the way she imagined. They were using telekinesis.

I stumbled back from the bed. I hadn’t been expecting that. Mr. Shepherd said I had a number of additional powers that had yet to develop. He told me about a number of different abilities he had learned about second hand. I was pretty sure this one was referred to as Psychometry, or Object Read. He told me that it would only give me glimpses of the history and ownership of an object, but I seemed to get a lot more out of it.

Movement caught my attention and I spun to find Yaeko standing in the doorway.

“Easy,” she said, holding out her hands defensively. “I didn’t want to interrupt. You were zoned out for a few seconds.”

I blinked and then nodded. “Yeah.” Then I looked around at everything in front of me.

“You’re not worried that the cops will be mad if you keep touching things?” she asked with a bit of tease in her voice.

I shook my head. “You don’t understand. The police wouldn’t find what I’m finding.”

“Really?” she asked. “And what was that?”

I looked at her. “Bethany was kidnapped by someone with Telekinesis.”

Yaeko straightened up at that. “You’re sure?”

I looked at the sheets again. “I wish I knew a way to confirm what I’ve seen, but I don’t think there is.”

“All you did was graze the sheets and then zoned out,” she said. “How can you know she was kidnapped?”

I shook my head. “There’s an ability Mr. Shepherd told me about. I can apparently read objects, see things about the owner.”

She stepped into the room, closer to me. “If that’s the case, then shouldn’t you touch something else? Something that might tell you who took Bethany?”

I looked at her. “I will, but I don’t want to just touch everything.” Then I looked at the phone. “She picked up her phone and was forced to drop it.”

“Then maybe you should touch that too,” she said. “Unless you think the kidnapper touched the phone?”

I shook my head. “Like I said, he had Telekinesis. He didn’t have to touch anything to move it.”

“Then touch the phone,” she said. “See if you get more information from it.”

I rubbed my fingers together, again believing that this was the wrong thing to do. Then I reached out and lightly grazed the earpiece of the phone.

This time, I only got impressions. Bethany was going to call someone. Maybe the police, maybe even Lady Dianne, but since the intruder stopped her from using the phone, I had no way of knowing.

I shook my head and told Yaeko what I felt.

“Why did you get so much more from her sheets?” she asked.

It was a good question. The best answer I could come up with was, “I think because she was in bed, in full contact with her sheets when this started. It lasted until she was forced to stand up.”

Yaeko backed up a step and looked around. “What about the slipper? Why is there only one?”

“I was wondering about that myself,” I said.

“Do you think you can get anything out of it?” she asked.

I glanced at her. There was only one way to find out. This time, instead of taking the chance of falling down, I sat on the floor next to the slipper. With the same trepidation I had about touching Bethany’s phone, I reached out and grazed the lone slipper.

Bethany stood up, her every movement was brought into line to make her do as the intruder wished. They even had to make her take a small step to maintain her balance. Her foot slipped into the other slipper though she only stood on this one. Whoever the intruder was, they had phenomenal control.

In the dark, someone stepped into her bedroom. Bethany couldn’t see his face, but she knew without a doubt that it was a man. She didn’t have the physical abilities to fight off his power but she could fight back in other ways. Closing her mind off, she refused to allow this intruder to know what she might try.

“I’m not interested in your thoughts Bethany,” he said softly. “I told you what I want, and I can take it no matter how much you fight. You don’t have the ability to stop me.” Then he turned away from her and left the bedroom.

Bethany felt a slight wave of relief because she wasn’t following him. Maybe he wasn’t as good as he liked to think. Maybe his power wasn’t any good with her mind closed off. Then she heard him call back for her, “Come along Bethany.”

Bethany’s momentary relief was swept away as her foot shot out, losing connection with the lone slipper.

I looked up into Yaeko’s watching eyes.

“What?” she asked.

“More of the same,” I said. “The Intruder was a man. Bethany couldn’t see his face. He made her follow him and it severed the connection with this slipper.”

“If you can only get information from things she was touching when this happened, then we need to somehow trace her steps through the house. We need to see if she was able to fight him off or figure out where they were going.”

Logically speaking, it was as good a plan as any. I got to my feet and slowly walked the short path from her bedroom to the front door. My trepidation about touching things was replaced with fear of what happened to Bethany.