Chapter 22: Steps

Tuesday night Christine and I dressed up to hand out Halloween candy with Doreen. We had been invited to join Tony and Tina at a costume party they were attending, but I didn't think Christine was quite ready for that show yet. Now if Amber had been there...

Later, after the candy and kids were all gone and we called it a night, I went to see a young boy named Bobby. He had indeed come a long way in the last year and didn't need Walter to look after him any longer. The first thing I noticed was that the dream was not a cartoon this time. He had apparently moved on to real-life drama instead.

He still stuttered in real life; a year of talking normally in dreams — twenty years of it — wasn't going to change that; it was a biological problem, and dream therapy couldn't help that. What it had done was give him the confidence he needed to look beyond it, and beyond the people who — out of their own ignorance, fear, or, in some cases, outright cruelty — made fun of it. Apparently, the aunt that had suggested all he needed was a good scare had made the comment again. He boldly stood up in the middle of dinner, and, in broken sentences, pointed out that it was a biological condition, best described as a short circuit in the brain, and that — if she would put down the remote control and haul her fat ass to the library instead of the refrigerator — maybe she could offer a better suggestion next time. You could have heard a pin drop, but his parents didn't stop him.

Naturally, Aunt Stupid was pissed and told him he should watch his mouth.

He then took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and said very clearly, "I have been watching my mouth. It's one of the different types of therapy they've had me experimenting with, and — while I still need practice — if I concentrate on singing instead of talking, I can keep the stutter out. Maybe if you concentrate really hard, you can stop being such a bitch, and then maybe people would invite you over sometime besides big family gatherings where they feel obligated to, but secretly hope you'll get sick or have other plans and not be able to make it."

That little speech broke the ice on several long conversations that other family members had wanted to have with her for years. There were a lot of tears, but the general tone was positive, "We love you sis; we just can't stand to be around you."

Apparently she was working on it.

Then I met with Lizzy to see what kind of progress she was making on finding a place for the girls to live the next year. The realtor that Mrs. Forrester had recommended had shown her several properties not too far from the campus, but then she had suggested that Lizzy consider a different approach. There were some new condominiums just coming on the market about half a mile from the school. The advantage of this was that they wouldn't have to worry about maintenance. Plus, as they were new and still in the first phase, they would more than likely appreciate considerably by the time the girls graduated, making them a great investment as well.

"This is turning out to be quite an interesting little harem you're putting together," Lizzy joked when I told her about what I had in mind for Tanya.

"Oh please," I begged, rolling my eyes. "Do not go there."

"She offered, didn't she?" It wasn't really a question.

"Yeah," I said solemnly. "She did. She figured it was all she had to offer."

"And you told her no," she said, shaking her head. I could hear the pride in her voice. "Do you have any idea how special that makes you?"

"Do you have any idea how much I'd rather it didn't?"

"Yes," she said decisively. "I do. Live long enough and maybe you can have a positive influence on the species. I'm so lucky you're mine. You do realize that you did it again, don't you?"

"Did what again?"

"Oh Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy... ," she said, shaking her head. "A hot, beautiful, young woman, offered you sex and you told her..."

Suddenly it hit me.

"Ohhh, nooo!" I moaned. "Not again."

"Yep, and you gave her a six month time limit. Given Tanya's idea of a good time, I think you might want to consider talking to Jasmine about some more advanced classes."

"God, this is so not what I wanted," I said, shaking my head.

"I know," she said, kissing my cheek. "Don't worry about it; you can always just turn it over to Jamie and go play with the dolphins. I'm sure she would be happy to fill in for you."

"No doubt," I said. "I could never do that, though; it would be a lie. Like making a date with a girl and having your twin brother go out with her instead. Jamie can come with me and play if she wants, but I have to be there."

"God! You are such a great guy! I'm so lucky to have you." She gave me a squeeze and then said, "I've been thinking more about what Allison said."

"Allison says a lot of things; were you thinking of anything in particular?"

"About our first time, and I think she's got a point."

"You think she's got a point?"

"Actually, I'm afraid she may have a point. So I think we either have to find a very secluded mountain somewhere, or maybe a boat."

"Considering that last kiss, I can't blame you," I said, kissing the top of her head. "I've kind of been thinking about it myself. How about if we just go to the cabana?"

"Do you really think we can?" she asked. "I mean like, really go to the cabana?"

"We already know I can move physical objects, and apparently I took Allison through at least once."

"I've been thinking about that," she said. "With everything else that's been going on, I wouldn't be surprised if you had help there. Maybe you should have Allison check with her friend before we try it. That would be really cool, though, if you could; although it didn't really help that first time," she pointed out.

"Yeah, that was the one drawback to the plan. So then that got me thinking. Do you know that you can rent whole islands for your honeymoon?"

"Jimmy! You can't be serious. That would be sooo expensive!"

"No, actually it's not. Island getaways like Tahiti, Fiji, Bora Bora, Polynesia — they're mostly archipelagos; those are chains of islands, in case you've forgotten your basic... ," I caught the look she was giving me, " ... and as I'm sure you know, islands come in many sizes. But did you know that if you want, you can rent a small island, fully equipped, of course, with your own private cabana, private beach ... the works? Some of them actually strand you there, so you're stuck with each other. They bring food over on a boat to restock and take away the dirty dishes, but otherwise you're on your own."

"Mmmm," she purred, thinking about it. "That sounds nice, but what about Amber?"

"I could sneak her in after they left," I suggested.

"And how would you feed her?"

"Or we could just be up front and tell them food for three."

"Oh, yeah, I could see myself explaining that to my parents."

"Well, it is a resort, and they always overfeed you anyway, I'm sure we'll be fine. Heck, I could always just pop back and pick something up if I had to. Anyway, it's just one idea."

"It's a good one; I like it. Should we set a date?"

"Don't I have to ask your dad first?"

"Oh, that should be fun," she said with a smile.

The smile didn't bother me as much as the look in her eyes. Why was that idea so funny to her?

"And just when were you planning to do that?" She asked.

"I don't know. It's really hard to schedule things too far in advance these days. Were you planning to go home for Thanksgiving?"

She stared at me for a couple seconds. I don't think she'd realized I was serious until that moment.

"I hadn't really given it much thought," she said. "Now that you bring it up, though, I guess it's something we should talk about. I have no idea what Amber wants to do. I don't know if she can make it at her parents for the whole weekend, and I'm sure they'll want to see her. Maybe if you went with her..."

"No, that wouldn't work. For one thing, they'd want to know why I wasn't with my family. Plus it's too close to home; the protective custody story wouldn't hold up. Personally I think she'll be okay. She's come a long way; I think that first trip was the turning point for her, but if she starts having a problem, I can always have Jamie go stay with her during the day, and once she goes to bed, I can sneak in and stay with her if necessary."

"Oh yeah, great idea!" she said, rolling her eyes. "You, sneaking into her bedroom — at her parents' house — in the middle of the night, and what happens if you get caught? What if her mom is just overwhelmed at having her there and barges in for a hug or just to look at her? Or, God forbid, Tim decides to try and sneak in to talk to her."

"She could always lock the door," I suggested.

"Jimmy, most kids don't have locks on their bedroom doors. Out of all the girls I knew, only a few had them. Coincidentally, they were the ones that never knocked before they barged in on you either. Once — when I was having a sleepover — Sally Peters opened the door when four of us were buck-naked in my room, changing. My dad was right behind her in the hall heading for the bathroom. He was so embarrassed he went to a hotel for the rest of the weekend. Turned out Sally was a bit of an exhibitionist, and she did it on purpose, but that's a different story. My point is that it may not be that easy. I think we need to talk to Amber about this. She'll go if we tell her to, but then you have to accept the possibility that we may actually have to punish her if she can't make it through the weekend. I personally don't want to be in that position."

"Me neither," I admitted. "I prefer to only have to punish her for recreational purposes. Why don't you broach the subject and see how she feels? Then we can get together and talk about it."

Frank and Irene Watkins died Halloween night when Frank apparently tried to beat a train on the way home from a party. Samantha had stayed home to take Rachel trick-or-treating.

The next few weeks would make or break the plan, testing the legal arrangements as well as the response of the enemy to the shake up. Of course, it would be harder as time went by. You'd have to be blind to not see a pattern to so many members of the same church suddenly having fatal accidents — especially so soon after making arrangements for just such an eventuality. The police would naturally be suspicious, so would Bastion, and it should be interesting to see him struggle to maintain control when his people started getting scared.

This was going to bring on exactly the kind of scrutiny Bastion's group was most interested in trying to avoid. The police would undoubtedly question why so many people suddenly felt pressured to make legal arrangements for the care of their children if anything should happen. The couples whose care the newly orphaned children suddenly fell to would undoubtedly be questioned, and when they were, Bastion would find his own teachings quoted as the reason. Following his sermons stressing the importance of service and sacrifice for the benefit of others, many of his followers had felt an almost divine urge to find another couple who shared their beliefs and would care for their children should the worst occur. Apparently, Frank and Irene had a great deal of respect for Doctor and Mrs. Hendricks, while at the same time feeling sorry for them because they didn't have children of their own. It had taken a little work to get Kathy Hendricks to accept the arrangements. In the end, it was the idea of having that kind of control over Samantha that tipped the scales.

Now that things were clearly moving forward, Allison decided to tell me about that other experiment she had in mind. There were two, actually. The first was to let another proto-pattern attach itself to her and see if I could remove it. Then she wanted to see if I could force an attachment between a ball and a particular person even it if was already keyed to me. I had an idea where she was going with the idea, and it turned out I was right.

We needed Lizzy's help since even adding the colored shell, we still lost them once they passed the surface of Allison's skin — whether they merged or not. Removing the smaller pattern from her was all but effortless, although she suspected that might be because it was so new — the connection that is. The only problem was that removing it also meant destroying it. I wasn't destroying it to remove it — I was actually trying to be very careful — but no matter how careful I was, as soon as the pattern was completely free, it dissolved. As for the other way, once keyed to me I could send it into her and take it out with no problem — shocking I know — and since it was already keyed to me it didn't take on the attributes of her field. I asked what the point of the experiment was but, apparently, Allison wasn't quite ready to reveal why she had wanted to know these two particular things.

"So what now?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that can't be it. There has to be a reason you wanted to know this."

"There is, but I'm not ready to go there yet. Well, I am, but I think it's too soon." She held up her had. "Don't ask, okay? I should be ready in about a week, and then we'll take the next step."

Tony called me late Wednesday morning, sounding more than a little hung over, to let me know he had received the power of attorney from Tanya and was arranging for the movers to pack up her apartment. He also told me that Janelle said thank you for the beautiful flowers and that she was going over before the movers to handle packing up Tanya's clothes and other "personal items."

"Are you sure that's a good idea Tony? This is Tanya we're talking about; I wouldn't want Janelle to be embarrassed by what she might find."

"Come now, David, why do you think I asked her to do it?"

"Janelle?" Jamie exclaimed. "Get out of town!"

"Oh," I said. "Then Janelle knew Tanya?"

"David," Tony said in his best 'mentoring' voice. "You know better than to ask me a question like that. You would have to ask Janelle. Perhaps you would like to thank her personally for helping out in all of this?"

"Walked into that one," Jamie said.

Yeah.

"I humbly withdraw the question, Obi Wan. Thank you for reminding me. Nice set up, too. Remind me never to play chess with you ... Actually I would like to thank her, but I'm not going to ask. I'll leave it up to her if she wants to share the information."

"We all learn best from our mistakes," he said with a chuckle. "At least you learn quickly. You still owe me an explanation for all this."

"I know. Maybe we should go shooting again, just the two of us."

"Really? I didn't know it was that serious. How about tonight? It's the first of the month, and a Wednesday. There may be a few people practicing for the Thursday night leagues, but otherwise it shouldn't be too busy."

"Sounds good; Christine will have homework to do, so she'll be busy anyway. Are you sure... ?" I stopped myself just as I was about to ask if Tina would mind. "What time?"

"How about eight o'clock?" he asked.

"Eight works for me."

"Fine, then, let me give you to Janelle. Just tell her I asked for her to make arrangements with the club."

Janelle's happy voice came on the line a few moments later, "Hello Mr. Malcolm, thank you so much for the lovely flowers. They're beautiful!"

"You're welcome Janelle. I wanted to apologize for being so abrupt with you on the phone the other day. Now I'll have to come up with some way to thank you for helping out with getting Tanya's stuff packed."

"Oh, you don't need to thank me for that, Mr. Malcolm; it's my pleasure. As you know, Tanya is a very special girl, and I would hate to have a bunch of total strangers — especially men — pawing through her things."

"I wasn't aware that you knew Tanya."

"Not as well as I would have liked to," she said wistfully. "I can't afford her on my own. Mr. Cicarelli gave her to me for a Christmas bonus last year and then again for my birthday. She is incredible! Can I ask how you know her?"

"I don't, actually, and I'm going to have to ask you not to mention that I had anything to do with this to anyone. We have a mutual acquaintance, and recent events potentially put Tanya in danger; I just didn't want her to get hurt."

"You did all that for a girl you don't even know!" she said, surprise in her voice. "Gosh, can I be your friend too?"

"As much as I would like that Janelle — and I would — I think you're much better off being my attorney's receptionist. Speaking of which, I'm supposed to ask you to make arrangements for Tony and me to go shooting tonight; eight o'clock."

"Can't fault a girl for trying," she said. "Thank you again for the flowers; they're really beautiful, and I'll call the club before I leave for Tanya's."

I called to check on Tanya and then stopped by Intersure to pick up my check. We had a little bit of a problem when I pointed out they were short nine thousand dollars. Mountjoy pointed out that Doreen had quoted the price on the follow-up call, and I pointed out the contingency attached to the reduced rate and directed his attention to the newspaper article with my name in it.

"You can hardly blame us for that, Mr. Malcolm, and you cannot seriously mean to hold us responsible for the press."

"I can when it was your photographer who provided the picture. If I hadn't been in the photo, the press wouldn't have needed to identify me. There were plenty of other shots you could have given the press. Using the shot from the storage unit was like throwing blood in the shark pool. All you had to do was use one of the photos you took of the painting after you got it back here. That's assuming it wasn't one of your people that identified me to the press in the first place." I pulled out my phone and added, "Shall we call the reporter and ask?"

They paid.

So far, it was turning out to be a good day. I was happy; the bank was happy; Janelle was happy; Mountjoy was happy, too; he just didn't want to admit it. When I gave Doreen a check for twenty thousand dollars, she was in tears she was so happy. Yep, it was shaping up to be a really nice...

And of course, that's when my phone rang.

"You never learn," Jamie said.

"Don't be so negative," I said. "You shouldn't just assume it's bad news."

It was Spencer's receptionist politely requesting I make time to stop in.

"Oh, yeah, that's good news," Jamie said when I hung up.

It turned out it wasn't bad news either, not exactly anyway.

"You owe me an explanation," Spencer said when I was seated across from her.

"I don't see why," I said. "I didn't ask you to do anything. The request for your involvement came from the Department of Justice. If I remember correctly, you called me to offer your assistance."

"Okay, you didn't ask me directly to use Bureau resources, you asked Sandra Atkins — who then made the request of the local agency on your behalf — but the end result is the same."

"Uh, oh! Watch yourself here, Jimmy," Jamie said.

"Sandra Atkins?" I said. "I don't think I've ever met anyone by that name."

"Oh, very nicely put," she said, clapping her hands together softly. "No, I'm sure you haven't, but you do know who I'm referring to. She's the woman your mysterious friend called and told to get those agents off your tail when he left you as bait for The Black Queen — the one you called yesterday to help you get Tanya Rayburn and Melissa Essex out of here before Elliott Bastion tried to arrange an accident for them. Now why would anyone think the prominent and upstanding head of a local church might want to do something like that?"

"Shit!" Jamie swore. "She works for Atkins."

"Maybe, maybe not," I said. "We'll find out for sure later; right now let's see what she's got to say."

"That's a very enlightening statement," I said. "Let me guess; at some point in the past you started checking up on a man named Christian Wallace — also known as Elliott Bastion — and suddenly found yourself in a conference room in Washington with several high ranking people that don't exist, being not so politely asked why you were interested in him, and then being told even less politely to stay the fuck away from him."

The surprised look on her face said I was right, "Something like that, yes. How did you know?"

"Because the same thing happened to another acquaintance of mine when I asked her to check into some things for me."

"And she told you what happened?"

"Yes, she did, because she knew she could trust me with the information, and she needed to warn me to be really, really, careful about what I was doing."

"And what were you, or rather what are you doing, since I find it incredibly unlikely that you would be working on two separate issues that would garner the attention of people at that level?"

"I'm doing what I do best: finding things, in this case information"

She shook her head, "David, don't play games; I don't think you realize just how serious this is. Now what are you up to?"

"Actually, I do," I said. "Probably better than you do. As to what I'm doing, very little, and even that very little I'm doing very slowly, and very carefully. You know about the missing girl?"

"I know of several, which one?"

"The one the two Vegas cops were looking for when they died."

If she was surprised before, she was downright shocked this time.

"You know about that?"

"Mrs. Spencer, I know a lot of things," I said. "For instance, I know Andrews killed Charles. By the way, did they ever figure out why? Or what killed Andrews? Last I heard they hadn't figured it out."

"They still haven't. Stress was all they could come up with for killing Charles; they still don't know what killed Andrews. The closest thing the ME could come up with was that it resembled drowning, but there was no apparent cause. And then there were the ... What about the girl?"

Hmm, did she not want to bring up the bite marks — or had she been told not to?

"She's the reason my friend was looking into Bastion — his church, actually; until then we didn't know anything about him personally. I ran across the girl totally by accident. At first I thought she was just a runaway in trouble, so I sent her to a woman I knew to get her off the street. The woman called later and said the girl wanted to talk to me. As soon as she started telling me her story, I knew she was in danger, so I made some calls and got her into hiding. But her story provided the one piece I'd been missing, the common thread that tied my loose ends together: Elliott Bastion's church."