Chapter 22: Condolences and Schemes

I had some strange dreams, probably induced by the anesthesia. I couldn't remember much of it but I remembered one specific segment where various women would crawl naked out of my neck, frightened and bloody. Once free, they'd run away in terror, making way for the next one to crawl out after them. Throughout the whole thing there was this ongoing narration, all in the past tense, as if I'd died. But it was odd in that it was only random phrases with no bearing on what was happening. A later segment consisted of some black kids playing together. No context or anything, just a couple of kids I didn't recognize playing.

I gradually awakened and opened my eyes to look around. My throat was killing me and my head still hurt, but the pain seemed manageable and I assumed I'd been given some kind of pain killer. I remained groggy, and I was in no hurry to sit up and start conversing about anything. I looked around the room and it was filled. Someone noticed my eyelids flickering and called everyone's attention to the fact and suddenly I was surrounded. The room consisted of my immediate family and Allison. Even with just those few people the room seemed packed. I wondered where everyone else was, and my mind immediately jumped to the thought that maybe someone else had been hurt, causing my heart to jump. But I quickly calmed myself, remembering that Cate had told me no one else had been injured besides the shooter. They each wanted a hug and their own reassurance that I was OK. However Cate pushed everyone else aside and leaned in and kissed me gently on the lips as if she was afraid I'd break. I smiled at her and her relieved smile filled me with happiness. Tired, sore and achy happiness, but it was still better than worrying about myself and everyone else. Finally Allison nudged her and Cate made way for her, although my sister never let go of my hand. Even though Allison still had no serious medical training, she was considered the resident medical authority, more trusted for her unique abilities than the available nurses.

"You feeling OK, Alex?" she asked, while doing that annoying finger tracking exercise. I tried croaking out a response, but she quickly stopped me, insisting I remain silent so I blinked once.

'You know you can simply answer me telepathically. Just don't try to talk. As long as we're alone we can answer you, but if anyone we don't know is here, we won't be able to, ' she advised me. Aloud she said, "Very good, you're remembering. Just remember that when the cops show up. Gail seems to think we shouldn't tell them too much for some reason." She finished her quick review of me and finally gave me a big hug.

"You seem fine," she informed me, apparently speaking aloud because she wanted everyone to hear what she said. "The X-ray showed no damage to your spine, and nothing was significantly injured. You are incredibly lucky. There isn't much in the neck region which isn't vital, but the bullet managed to miss everything.

She was right, that was incredibly fucking lucky! The odds the shooter would have a major stroke in just the right part of the brain just as he was pulling the trigger, had to be astronomical. What, something like one in 6.9 billion? That brought it back to me again. Was it possible I had done something to him? So far the limit of my powers had been my ability to activate abilities in others, to communicate telepathically, and to give or draw energy from someone. I certainly hadn't been close enough to drain any energy from him, and I wouldn't even know how to drain energy in such a way it would trigger a stroke. Could I have done something to his brain? So far I had only done that with potential Seers. Could I also do it with others? I had no conscious memory of doing anything to him, but I had no memory of ever doing anything to any of my girls. It had always been an automatic response, almost like breathing. I guess it was a possibility, but that's like proving a negative. There's no way to know. This was just too much to consider at the moment. I'd have to skip it until I could discuss it with Cate later.

Just who was that guy and why did he want to kill me? He hadn't asked about money. He wasn't trying to steal anything. Shooting me wouldn't have gotten him anything. The only thing which made any sense was either he had a personal grudge against me and I didn't know it, or he was trying to kill me for someone else. Who the hell hated me enough to pay someone to kill me? And it wasn't just anyone. The guy who shot me knew what he was doing and had no compunction about doing it. Where would a high school kid from our little country town know someone shady enough to attempt something like this? We didn't have any gangs or much of a criminal element locally. Like all towns we had some no good troublemakers, but going from that to someone wanting to shoot someone was a bit of a leap. I'd have to talk to Gail about it. She'd likely have already thought about it.

But of course, there was one obvious answer which I really didn't want to think about. Rodger, my girlfriend's father, had threatened to kill me several times, in front of witnesses, no less. You wouldn't think he was so oblivious as to do something which would immediately put the blame right on him, and even if he did, how would someone like him know anyone with an underworld connection? Man, Chalise and her mother were going to spit nails. Again, if it was him, you'd think he'd be bright enough to assume they'd make the basic connection. It just didn't make much sense. But then I guess not everything makes sense. Tony didn't make any sense either. Sometimes people just hate because they're hateful, not because it makes sense. Still, I had trouble wrapping my head around it.

"In case you haven't noticed," Allison continued, interrupting my ruminations, "they would only allow immediate family in to see you, although the rest are outside waiting for us. Brooke has already notified Ryan that you're finally awake, so he'll be in soon. Although no one would complain about you having more than the authorized number of visitors, we didn't want to cause any trouble or to overwhelm you when you first woke up. As soon as everyone has said hello we'll switch with everyone out in the hall. You have a lot of people concerned about you." I just looked at her for a second as she choked back a tear and gave me a tender hug. "God, why do you insist on scaring us all like that," she asked no one in particular. After that she moved to the side so everyone else could get to me.

Mom was the next one to give me a hesitant hug. I could tell she'd been crying and my heart went out to her. I still felt bad we hardly got much personal time together anymore due to the number of women around me. I wanted to say something to her, but knew I was unable to.

"He says he's sorry he hasn't been spending much time with you and Dad lately," Allison told her. "He promises he'll try to do it more in the future."

"Yeah, right," my mother scoffed. "When are you going to manage to do that? Even if you had the time, you'd only fill it with more beautiful women who needed your help. But I'll take whatever I can get. You've become someone a mother can be proud of, and that means more to me than you can know. So I'll be quiet, although I'll continue to push for you to give me plenty of magical telepathic grandbabies," she told me, resurrecting her old private joke. "Although you've managed to give me one, I could stand a few dozen more," she teased. At least I think she was teasing.

Becky was next, not saying anything, too choked up for words. She simply hugged me and nuzzled my cheek before making way for Melinda. Melinda hugged me tighter than anyone else had, as if she was afraid I'd slip away. She also held me for a while. So long, in fact, that I began to worry about what Cate would say. But ever since she and Becky had sprung the idea of the sorority on us, Cate seems to have forgotten about her disagreement with her, so I guess she was free to show me as much affection as she wanted.

Finally dad came up and just looked at me with a quiet heartache in his eyes. I simply raised my hand and he shook it, the two of us never being overly affectionate with each other. I guess he was afraid that if he showed any emotion, it would all flow out of him and he'd turn into a quivering weeping mass on the floor. However, as he stood there a single tear slowly rolled down his cheek, which spoke volumes about his feelings to me.

"You really need to work on your people skills," he told me. "Angry guys count as people, too. Maybe I should get Darrell to move in, just so you'll have somebody big to pal around with when you want your own private space. I'm sure he could relate to going skateboarding late at night on your own.

"Remember, we've got high hopes about you accomplishing important things in the future, but you're going to have trouble doing that if you keep pissing off people with chairs and guns." I just grinned weakly at him.

"He says he'll ask him, as soon as he's able to speak again, that is," Allison told him for me. "Besides, he made Gail a job offer to watch over him, so maybe she can talk some sense into him."

Everyone told me how worried they'd been and how I couldn't continue to endanger myself, as I was much too important to risk myself. My mother was particularly, well, mothering as she hovered around me. It was nice seeing Cate without my bloodstains scattered all over her face.

'Alex, Ryan's here. I'm letting him in, ' Gail alerted me, letting me know she was guarding my door to prevent everyone from overwhelming me.

'Yeah, it's OK, ' I told her.

The door opened and Ryan entered, along with Rebecca and Dr. Padilla.

"How are you feeling, Alex? Any problems? Any symptoms we missed?" I simply shook my head, which wasn't a very good idea as it caused the pain to shoot through my neck like new. I winced, which got me some additional sympathy from Cate.

"Yeah, that's not a good move," Ryan unhelpfully told me. "Just let Allison answer for you. If you need to respond directly, just use hand motions. We'll leave you a notepad so you can communicate when anyone who doesn't know you is here."

"He wants to know when he let the secret about his telepathy slip out," Allison told him.

I was interested that he seemed so confident that I could communicate freely with Allison, since we'd never actually told him that much. He'd seen us communicating before, but I guessed Allison had spoken with him while I was recovering from my surgery.

"Alex, it's clear you've been talking to your girls whenever you'd stand there looking at a patient before you did something to them," Ryan explained. "About the only thing which could explain that is telepathy. I hate to tell you this, but each of us, Edgar, Avers and I have been talking about what abilities you may or may not have. Actually, we've got a bit of a betting pool going. You'll have to come down and settle a few bets for us one day," he teased.

I smiled tiredly and held my arm up and tapped my wrist, trying to ask a silent question.

"Oh, it's early morning, about 8:45. We let you sleep after the surgery last night."

"Alex, as much as you try to control how much information you reveal, you always manage to let little pieces slip out. All it takes is enough time, and a little trust, and one can figure out quite a bit about you. Now lie still while I examine you." Ryan then ran through all the standard tests, as well as pulling back the bandages to check the sutures.

"It looks pretty good. I'm assuming you're going to do your usual trick of healing extra fast, so I'll plan on having the bed available for a paying customer soon," he joked before turning serious.

"Why do you keep jerking and looking around like that? Are you in pain? Is it some sort of reaction to the medication or something?" I of course couldn't respond, so I turned and looked at Allison. Her face grew concerned.

"He says he keeps hearing random comments, and keeps checking to see where it's coming from," she explained. Ryan considered that.

"That's not a typical response. I suppose you might have suffered a minor concussion again and you may be having a neurological response. Edward can give you more assistance on that," he said, preparing to turn the discussion over to Dr. Padilla, the neurologist. However Allison shook her head.

"That's not it," she informed them. "He doesn't have any bruising in his brain. He hit the back of his head, but that's already mostly healed. I think this is something else."

"Hmm," Edward said, looking into my eyes and measuring my responses. "Are you hearing anything now?" I figured since my neck was OK I could quit with the damned blinking and simply nodded my head.

"Are you sure it's not some telepathic message or something?" Cate asked. I stopped and considered it, shrugging.

"Is it something specific you keep hearing?" Edward asked. I shook my head. "Are they coherent sentences?" I thought about how to respond, since they sometimes were and sometimes weren't. Again I shrugged. "I'll just assume that's a maybe. Are you getting any visual hallucinations?" I paused then nodded again. "Hmm," he pondered, "that might imply some sort of dementia."

"Uh, our telepathy frequently involves both verbal and visual elements, as well as occasional emotions and physical sensations," Allison explained.

"Fascinating. I'd love to study it, but I understand why you aren't overly fond of the idea. That makes pinpointing it a bit more difficult. You say there are no apparent problems in the brain, yet he has these extraneous inputs which could be either dementia or unexpected telepathic communications. I'll tell you what, since you just woke up, why don't we just let you recover a little more. You may just be tired and reporting relatively minor but new sensations. We'll see if they ease on their own. If not, or if they get worse, have someone contact me immediately. I'm interested in what it could be, but I'm hesitant to suggest any conclusions before we have anything specific to address," he said.

"You've also got to consider permutations on his talents," Cate suggested. "Each time he has a significant event, which includes whenever he's been attacked in the past, his abilities ramp up a notch, giving him some new abilities. He may be getting telepathic messages from someone he's not aware of, or it may be a wholly new ability."

Both Ryan and Edward looked fascinated by that. I again shrugged, even though it produced a lancing pain each time I did it.

"Well, that's probably another thing we shouldn't be aware of," Ryan replied. I noted that none of them had their usual notepad or patient notes. Apparently they'd figured out that they couldn't record any details of what I was or wasn't experiencing, which I was thankful for. "But other than that, you look fine. We'll be back to check on you in a little while, just to be sure your neck is healing properly, but Rebecca or one of the other nurses can do that. You've got a whole ward full of nurses who'd just love to assist you in any way they could," he said. I groaned at that prospect, which was another bad idea with a gunshot to the throat.

Cate looked at me while asking, "Does it feel telepathic, Alex? Can you place the source of the sound? Can you tell if it's auditory?" I shook my head, but they had no idea which message I was responding to.

"You're not used to communicating with a nonspeaking patient," Ryan informed her. "Remember to only ask single questions so he has time to respond, and keep it to things that he can easily answer yes or no to."

"Thank you, doctor, the patient tells you he has his own ideas of how to handle such exigent circumstances," Allison told him, giggling as she did. With that Ryan and Edward bid me goodbye as they headed off on their assigned rounds.

With that done everyone stopped by for another quick hug, then filed out leaving only Cate and Allison behind. I told Gail to hold everyone for a moment.

'Michelle is waiting for you, boss. She's leading the investigation and has already investigated the site and has interviewed the shooter. She'd like to talk to you to try to figure out the connections between you.'

'OK, I'll talk to her in a second. I'll let you know when to let her in.' I turned to Allison.

'Allison, this is what I'm hearing. See if you or maybe Shani can make heads or tails of it. I don't know what they might be. It almost seems like random utterances and haphazard pictures.'

"We'll see what we can figure out," she responded. Cate looked on inquisitively, but didn't ask either of us what we were doing. She's pretty bright, so I figured she had a good idea of what was happening. Allison walked to the door and mentioned something to Gail, then returned to my side. She handed me the notepad. A few seconds later Michelle entered.

"Hello, Alex, Cate. It's nice to see you again, although I wish it was under better circumstances. I managed to catch the investigation since I was called immediately by Gail. Pretty handy how that worked out," she said, watching me askance, as if evaluating how I responded. "Seems your parents had the presence of mind to make a phone call to your godmother while someone was pointing a gun at your head."

I started writing, which was difficult since I was trying not to move very much. I held it up to her.

"My point is that you're an enigma, Alex," she answered. "One that's fascinating to observe, but I'm still not sure what to make of you. However, we've got an investigation to conduct here. How are you feeling by the way?"

"He's feeling pretty good at the moment," Allison informed her. "He's sore, tired and still feeling the effects of the medications he's been given all night, though."

"Yeah, I heard he managed to miss anything vital," the detective said. "That was some bit of luck. Just as he's ready to shoot you he suffers a stroke. Then just as he pulls the trigger, he drops his arm. Then, when he shoots you in the neck, he misses all of your vital organs. I'd say you're running on borrowed luck there, since you seem to have used up a lot more than your allotted share. But if you have any lucky numbers you'd like to share, I've got a dollar or two I wouldn't mind investing in the lottery."

I couldn't laugh because it hurt too much, but I smiled in response and she got the message. She continued regardless.

"We have the gentleman your family managed to capture for us. Let me explain to you just how dangerous such activity is. Let me also explain how dangerous it is to stand in front of a gun to protect someone else." I pantomimed a gun several inches from my forehead and she nodded.

"I get the idea. The girls had no idea how far away he was at the time. This doesn't sound like a random shooting. Someone doesn't just walk up and point a gun at your forehead unless he's serious about hurting you," she informed me, watching me to see my reaction to her statement.

"Do you know who the shooter is?" I shook my head.

"Have you ever seen him before?" I again shook my head. "Have you ever been to Chicago before, or do have any connections to any kind of criminal activity I should know about. I'm not here to give you a hard time about it, but we need to identify any commonalities between you." Again I merely shook my head.

"OK, that would imply it wasn't personal. Did he seem angry with you at all?" Again I responded negatively. "Did he say anything to you at all?"

I started to write something but she shook her head.

"OK, scratch that. We'll get to that. Let's go through this an item at a time. According to your family, they 'heard' something outside after you went out to 'think' for a while. They say when they looked out the window they saw a man dressed all in black holding a pistol to your forehead. They saw you talk briefly to him. Your sisters immediately opened the front door to help, a decidedly stupid move if you ask me, but when they did they say it appeared the suspect had already suffered a stroke.

"They then say he turned, pointing the gun towards them, at which point you moved between them. Is that right?" I merely nodded my head.

"So I take it 'stupid' runs in the family?" she asked, lifting an inquisitive eyebrow. I just shrugged.

"All right, now, what did he say to you?"

At this point Gail warned me not to say anything specific. When pressed, she couldn't give me any reason for doing so, and I thought it silly to try hiding information from a cop. They're so used to people lying to them they could catch you in a simple lie, which could lead you to bigger lies you wished to keep hidden, so I let Gail know I'd tell Michelle whatever I had to.

I motioned that there was too much to write it all, clearly a falsehood, but I was taking Gail's warning to heed, and proceeded to write his comments to me, as well as my own response, and showed it to her.

"It's not always wise to antagonize someone when they have a gun at your head," she informed me, as if I needed a police lecture to know that. I shrugged and rolled my eyes so she didn't press the issue any further.

"That's an odd comment: 'You should know your place'," she said, tilting her head. "It seems to imply you'd done something you should be aware of to piss someone off. It doesn't sound like he knew you, but it does sound like he was acting for someone else. When I asked your family and friends, they all appeared to be holding something back. But when I pressed them, they said they wanted to wait to see what you said first. Is it OK if they tell me what's going on?"

'Gail, think you could fill in for me on this?' I asked her.

'Sorry, but this is all on you. I'm only her to observe as a fellow cop with an interest in the case. I have no official capacity here and if I say anything, I'll only raise her suspicions.'

"We suspect Chalise's father, Rodger Jones," Cate informed her, taking her cues from me. "He's threatened Alex's life several times, in front of several witnesses. He was angry at Alex, blaming him for destroying his son's football career after he was injured attacking Alex in our home. That's our best guess and probably what they were all thinking, but they didn't want to say anything unless Alex felt secure he was a likely candidate."

"Don't you think that would be the kind of thing for the police to determine?" she asked, more inquiringly than accusingly. She also addressed me directly, not paying much attention to Cate, guessing I decided how everyone acted. I merely shrugged.

"Well, that was our thinking as well," Michelle offered. "We've already brought him in and we've spoken to him. Needless to say, everyone is denying everything. Is there anything specific you can tell me about the trouble between you?" she asked. I again pointed at my throat and stretched my hands out to signify it was much too complicated to tell her quickly and she nodded.

"It's always difficult getting information under these types of circumstances," she conceded. "Chalise mentioned she thought things had been improving between the two of you." I wrote: "Wanted us to think so. Didn't believe it." She nodded her understanding.

"And why would you think that?" I wrote "Because he thought of an easy out." She again nodded, not wanting to reveal too much.

"What made you think he wasn't sincere?" she pressed, hoping for some details. "Eyes, attitude, demeanor" was my response.

"I'm sure you're also aware that Chalise's oldest brother, James, plays pro ball for the Chicago Cubs, and his younger brother, Brandon, attends college at Northern Illinois in Chicago as well," Allison informed her, after some prompting by me.

"Yeah, we're aware of that, and we're watching both of them. I'm really not allowed to say, but your attacker is a racketeer out of Chicago by the name of Rakeem Peters. He's mostly associated with illegal sports gambling. Again, we aren't sure of the connection between them, but we suspect it's through Rodger's sons' sports involvements, but that's purely conjecture. There's no specific connection or link between them that anyone can find. If either you or your girlfriends know of any connection between them, we really need to know about it." Again I merely shrugged.

"Why were you outside at that particular time?" she asked, changing the direction of the questions.

"To be alone, to think," I wrote. She considered that.

"Should I ask what it was you were thinking about?" I simply shook my head and wrote "personal stuff." She nodded.

"I can image the kinds of things that come up with two girlfriends and a whole flock of followers," but she didn't press. "Do you think he would have expected you to be there at that time? Was this a common activity of yours; to go out walking at that time of day?"

The question triggered my memory and I remembered a car I had seen on the street the other night. It was unusual because most of the people on the street either parked in their garages or in their driveways. We'd been worried the homeowners association would file a complaint about all the cars around our property, but so far no one parked on the street. I wrote 'strange car Friday' for her.

"He's been under a lot of stress lately," Cate offered. "He sometimes goes out on his own, but we've been trying to break him of the habit, since he has so many people depending on him. However, he never did it often enough for anyone to expect him to show up."

"Hmm, then it was likely his attacker was just observing the house, waiting for an opportunity. That would mean whoever he was doing this for wouldn't know your habits very well."

"Rodger doesn't know where we live," Cate told her. "Alex only met him for the first time when he took him out for dinner the other night."

"Well, apparently someone knew, because his son attacked Alex in his own home. It wouldn't take much for his son to have mentioned it to him," Michelle countered.

"There is that," Cate conceded.

"So how did the dinner go?" Michelle asked.

"Not well. He ended up threatening Alex again, although he did it obliquely instead of directly. He phrased it as a general warning along the lines of 'You're going to see where this kind of behavior gets you' and 'it's only a matter of time before you have to face reality'. The meaning was pretty clear to everyone present." Cate gave her the name of the restaurant and the date and time I was there, which Michelle jotted down. Cate also explained how unusual it was to have cars parked on the street in our neighborhood.

"And were you at the restaurant at the time this unfolded?" Michelle asked Cate.

"Uh, no," Cate replied, blushing slightly. "The dinner consisted of Alex, Kitty, Chalise, Rodger, his wife Caroline and his son Darrell. Each one, except for Rodger, will testify to what they heard. Alex told us about it when he got home, though."

"I'll check with the neighbors and see if they observed the car waiting there previously," Michelle replied, bypassing the latest information. "It'd help if it was the same car we found on the scene." I agreed, even though I'd been a little busy to observe anything nearby during the incident.

"OK, let's go through the specific events. You walked out of your house. We've seen where the blood spatters were. What were your motions? Where did you encounter him and where did you both move after that." I once again got busy writing and drawing. I sketched a quick map of our front yard, drawing in each of us and writing notes about what happened. I thought it was pretty concise. She looked at it and nodded.

"That's informative. At what point did you become aware that he suffered a stroke?" I jotted another note and held it up for her.

"Yeah, it was a stroke. They did an immediate CAT, or CT scan, on him. The doctor said something about the MRI not functioning properly."

Now that got my curiosity up. I knew very well the MRI was working. I had too many people working in the hospital with an interest in it. If it was misbehaving someone would have known about it. Just to be sure I quickly queried Allison and Shani, as well as asking Shani to ask Rebecca about it. They all confirmed my theories on the subject. All this happened nearly instantly, so hopefully I didn't give anything away with my expressions. I'd have to ask Ryan about it.

I jotted another note, but as I handed it to her I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my lip, acting out what happened. Slowly I opened one eye and looked out curiously. She got the general idea.

"OK, what happened to the gun?"

I turned and positioned Cate about the proper distance from me, then pointed my finger at her imitating Rakeem's handling of his gun. I pointed it at her forehead, waiting several second, looked at Michelle to denote that's when I noticed him. I then imitated his facial expression, then slowly let my hands drift in the same motion his hand took. Then I jerked my head, as if seeing something in the distance, and slowly brought the finger gun up and pointed it at the door. When it reached the correct height, I drew it back like it was recoiling.