Chapter 53: This should be Interesting

Allison had brought up some interesting questions. Looking at it now there was a lot we still didn't know just because we hadn't really been making any effort to study and discover what I could do. Somewhere along the line we had stopped trying new things. What she was asking seemed like very simple and basic things. I made a mental note to talk to her and Bob about setting aside some time to discover things like this. Shannon may have some insight as well. I didn't want to involve Rebecca in this. I trusted her but I didn't think that it was important that she know everything I was capable of. The less she knew the less chance of a conflict later if someone higher up ever discovered what was going on.

Start simple; could I be an observer on purpose? I thought of the glade but pictured it without me in it. The scene took shape around me. Allison was already there, sitting patiently on the blanket making notes on her tablet PC. I thought about reading over her shoulder and suddenly I was.

I looked at the tablet to see what she was writing.

Jimmy, if you are here then we now know that you can observe on purpose. I'd like to see how far this goes, so to start with, see if you can touch me without my knowing it. If that works then see if you can interact with anything else. Try writing something on the tablet. If it doesn't work, then come into the scene and we'll move to the next step.

Leaning in close I kissed her neck, I was trying hard not to think about her not feeling it. I didn't want to make her not feel it. When there was no response to the kiss I ran my hands up either side of her, then together and up over her shoulders. I could feel her although it did not feel the same as actual contact, the pressure on my fingertips was somehow different. Again she didn't respond, so far so good. I materialized a stylus for myself, but made it one she couldn't see, then leaned in and drew a heart with a smiley face on the screen. She perked up immediately.

Did you touch me? I put a check mark next to the question.

Do it again, only this time try to make me feel it. I reached under her arm, cupped her breast and gave the nipple a little squeeze.

Mmm, I like that. This has possibilities, but we can try that later. Exact same motion, only this time, only let me feel the pinch. I repeated the action. She gave a little twitch when I tweaked her nipple. I then ran my tongue up the side of her neck to her ear.

Stop that! We can play later. ;) Now switch us to your glade. I made the change and felt my ring suddenly appear on my finger. Hers disappeared at the same time.

Good. Now see if you can make me invisible. I concentrated for a moment then wrote again on the tablet, "I think it's working but I can still see you."

That's okay, we can test it with the next step. Bring Shannon in. I concentrated on Shannon and her sleeping form appeared on the blanket.

Can I wake her up? I kissed a yes onto her neck.

She leaned in to kiss Shannon's cheek. Her lover's eyes fluttered and she gave a stretch saying, "Oh I just love waking up here with you two. I could just..." She stopped and looked around. "Allison? Jimmy? Hello, anyone here?"

Allison answered, "Yes, I'm right here."

Shannon caught on immediately, "You're invisible? Cool! Wanna play ghost? You can be Patrick Swayze and I'll be Demi Moore." She sat up and waited.

"As much fun as that would be, sweetie, this is a working trip, sorry," Allison said. "Jimmy, could you make me visible please."

I faded her back in but left her clothes invisible. Shannon gave her a look and said, "Work, huh?"

Allison looked down, she could still feel the cloth on her skin but she couldn't see it. "Not funny," she said.

"What?" Shannon asked. Allison took her hand and guided it to her left breast. The hand stopped a tiny ways from her flesh and Shannon's eyes got big as she realized what she was feeling. "Oh, I get it," she said with a giggle. She tweaked the nipple and then pulled the material outward between her fingers. "The Empress really does have clothes. You're a naughty boy, Jimmy. I like that." She let go of the fabric then tweaked the nipple again.

Allison slapped her hand and said, "Behave yourself. Jimmy, front and center please, I'll feel better explaining the next phase without feeling like I'm talking to God."

I kissed them each in the cheek then faded myself into the scene. I put Allison's clothes back to normal at the same time and faded out just the cloth covering Shannon's chest. Allison giggled and put her hand to her mouth, this caused Shannon to follow Allison's gaze and she realized what I had done. She looked at me with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, "See anything you like."

"Actually yes," I answered. "I see something I like a lot."

"Good, but unless you're going to be fair and give us a peek..."

"No," Allison interrupted, "we have work to do." I put everyone's clothes back to normal as Allison explained what was going on.

"So we're experimenting a little, to see what we can do. I wanted you for the next step so I had someone in the scene who would know what was going on. The next part involves Jimmy trying to take me with him into someone else's dream, in observer mode, so no one can see or hear us, but where we can see and hear everything. You'll be there too so you can let us know if it is working. Take my tablet with you and we can communicate through it."

Shannon jumped on that. "But they'll wonder how I got there without Jimmy."

"Good point. I guess we'll see if Jimmy can take both of us and still leave me as 'observer.'"

"Okay, that sounds good," Shannon said, "but I want to try that ghost thing sometime just for fun, okay?"

Allison just laughed and said, "Oh, yeah!"

I dreamed in an elevator and we took it up to Bob's office. As we passed the third floor I pushed Allison into observer mode. Shannon noticed her fade out and asked, "Did you make her invisible again? Or, is she really gone?"

Actually as far as I was concerned, neither was true. I could still see her, but she appeared as a ghost to me. I could even read the advertisement on the wall behind her. I stopped the elevator between the fourth and fifth floors. "You can't see her at all?"

"No."

I looked at Allison and said, "She's actually standing right here. See if you can touch her."

Shannon reached towards the spot and I saw her fingers pass through Allison's arm. Allison was watching the whole process with interest. Shannon pulled her hand back, "Nope, nothing."

I glanced back at Allison, "Say something."

"I love you," Allison responded.

Shannon stood waiting for a second and then shook her head no.

"Very interesting," Allison said. "You can hear me, but no one else can. She walked forward and stepped right through Shannon.

Shannon watched my eyes as I tracked Allison's movement, "Did she just do what I think she did?"

"Probably, did you feel it?"

"Nope, just a guess, it's what I would have tried next. Jimmy, you're going to need to be careful not to give her away, don't watch her and try not to respond to anything she actually says. Can you feel her?"

"Hadn't tried yet." I reached out and touched Allison's arm. It didn't feel the same but I could feel it. I took a breath and pulled her toward me. I staggered as she tried to pass through me but bounced off. Good thing she wasn't really solid or it would have hurt when our heads banged together. "Okay, that's a yes, I can definitely feel her."

"Weird, bet you didn't notice this part. When she ran into you, your clothes didn't flatten out or move at all."

Allison got a huge grin on her face, reached down and began caressing her favorite parts. This had the usual reaction, which Shannon noticed immediately as I got a startled look on my face. "Allison! We're working, remember? If I can't play, you can't either." She couldn't see it but Allison stuck her tongue out and then dropped to her knees in front of me.

"If you do that I am going to let the elevator go up and make you visible to everyone in the room," I said.

She stood back up and said, "Spoil sport. Okay, let's get this show on the road."

I released the elevator and shortly we stepped out onto the 10^th floor, just opposite Bob's office door. He had added a nameplate and a hand written sign that said, "The Doctor is" with two boxes for in or out. The box marked "IN" was checked. I knocked twice and opened the door. Bob was at his desk with his feet up watching a football game on television. He rose as we entered, pulled out a remote control and turned off the game.

"Jimmy," he said, shaking my hand, "Shannon, nice to see you again." He kissed her hand and looked past us. "Where's Allison, I thought sure she would be here for this."

Allison was actually standing behind me looking out the window, but I just said, "She's working on something right now, she'll be along shortly." I pulled out my cell phone and called Rebecca, "Ready?" I asked when she answered. I closed the phone and concentrated for a second and Rebecca walked in wearing black jeans and a dark blue polo shirt. She didn't have her shoulder holster on but I knew the gun had to be there somewhere.

She too noticed that Allison was missing. "Where's your sister?"

"She was finishing up an experiment; she should be on her way to the elevator about now." Allison took the hint and disappeared through the wall. I dropped her back into reality; she knocked once and walked in.

"Sorry I'm late. Did I miss anything?"

"Nope, we're just getting started," Bob answered, waving everyone to seats. Shannon and I sat on the couch, Allison took the chair; Bob sat down on the love seat next to Rebecca. "Where do you want to start?"

Rebecca took the lead, "I think the first thing we need to do is make sure everyone knows the situation. Then we need to come up with a plan of action. Jimmy and I recently witnessed, if you will, events in the life of Amanda Watkins, which confirm our suspicions regarding the pattern of our killer. The pattern seems to be that he likes girls that are young but over eighteen; all of the girls turned 18 within the four months prior to their abduction and murder; athletic as well as intelligent; all three girls were going to school on full scholarships which were all or in part sports sponsored; physically aggressive, and sexually active. In addition he seems to like girls who are into unconventional sex. Diane McKenzie was into group sex, Maria Pena was trading sex for presents, and apparently Amanda was screwing her father and his friends. Jimmy and I have concluded that, in Amanda's case, this was not voluntary. I think the killer made a mistake in selecting her and killed her as soon as he figured it out.

"Unfortunately her father denies that she was sexually active, so while we know the truth, we cannot introduce it to the publicly known behavior. I don't know how much it would actually help since it's not something we can go around asking potential victims. But since the case is stalled anyway, I wanted to pursue what was happening to Amanda. I, we, are concerned that her sisters may be in danger of, or already being abused in a similar fashion. We need a way to talk to the older of the sisters, Samantha. There is no way her father is going to allow this. He wouldn't even let his wife answer questions when we talked to him. She is so far gone she wouldn't even take my card when I offered it to her. It occurred to me that Jimmy might be able to contact Samantha in a dream and somehow convince her that it was okay to talk to me. I thought maybe he could get us together at that little beach of his when she's ready to talk."

Shannon held up her hand. "You mean her dad was raping her? Why wouldn't she have gone to a counselor or the police? How do you know it wasn't voluntary? I mean, it does happen."

Rebecca looked at me. "Can we show them?

I nodded.

"This is pretty graphic stuff you're about to see," Rebecca said. "Are you sure you want to do this? Allison, are you okay watching this?"

"Jimmy's already told me about it, and I know he's talked to Bob. Shannon is the only one who doesn't know the details and that may be a good thing. You may have noticed she has this way of asking new questions. No one is being tortured or killed, so we'll both be okay, go ahead."

I picked up a remote control, that hadn't been there before, off the table and aimed it at the book case. Two sections pulled out and slid aside, revealing a large screen. A projection unit dropped from the ceiling and the lights dimmed.

Bob leaned across the coffee table and whispered, "I get to keep this, right?"

Rebecca elbowed him and the scene started. We ran through the whole set even though we were primarily focused on Amanda at the moment. When it was over Rebecca stood up and asked, "How are these different from the earlier images?"

"This is more detailed, plus I never saw the sex stuff before. Only the rapes after he kidnapped them. This is all new stuff."

Bob spoke up, "I know some of this is going to seem like review but we need to make sure everyone is on the same page, are there other differences?"

"Yes, there's no emotion this time, nothing. Almost like he's..."

"Reliving his conquests?" Rebecca finished for me.

"More like he's reliving the hunt," Shannon said. Everyone stopped and looked at her.

"What do you mean?" Bob asked.

"This is all from him stalking them. He's studying them, learning their habits, their patterns. I don't know how the sex stuff ties in, but the rest of it is him planning the best time to take them."

"You're right," Rebecca said. "The sex is part of his pattern. Paul and I suspected it before. We got information from two of the girl's families that they were sexually active, very active. As you can see, the McKenzie girl was into the group scene and liked it wild. Her big brother had to step in a couple times when people got out of line. Maria Pena had her own private little herd of studs following her around for their chance. The Watkins girl broke the pattern. Her father insisted she was pure and saving herself. It's pretty obvious that wasn't the case. Her father lied, and this explains why. That all took place inside her house and one of those men was her father."