See No Evil (The PSI Trilogy Book 2)

by J. R. Rain

  “Ah, so, that’s what you were theorizing,” Noah commented. He looked upward and then relaxed some. “That makes sense. Good and evil and all that.” He nodded. “I think you’re on to something, Ky. And I happen to know a bit about the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “Yeah. My dad was a big-time history buff, also a conspiracy theorist—a theologian in some ways, an agnostic in others. He was quite a character. Being a hard-line Catholic, my mom didn’t exactly approve. Talk about opposites.” He shook his head, a smile easing across his faintly lined face. “He died of cancer when I was twenty. My mom got sick two years later and didn’t last but six months.” He looked at her when he next said: “They had the kind of love where they just couldn’t live without one another. They were only in their fifties.”

  I didn’t know this about Noah. I touched his hand. “I’m sorry.” I noticed that Ayden noticed, but I didn’t care if he noticed or not. Not now, and not with this.

  “It’s okay. It is what it is, but thank you.” He smiled at me. “Anyway, my dad had a fascination with the Dead Sea Scrolls and loved to discuss it with anyone who would listen—namely me.”

  I waited a heartbeat and prodded. “Well, what do you know about them?”

  “The first discovery was made in 1946. There were seven scrolls discovered in a site known as Wadi Qumran near the Dead Sea in the West Bank of the Jordan River. Excavations there continued for ten years and in that time, 981 texts were discovered. They have been compared to the Oif Nash Papyrus, the oldest biblical manuscript then known. The texts include the earliest-known surviving manuscripts of works later included in the Hebrew Bible canon. They were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabataean, on parchment for the most part. Some were written on bronze and papyrus. The dates they were written range from 408 BCE to 318 CE.” He unscrewed the top of a bottle of water and took a drink.

  I knew that Noah had a great memory, and was once again floored by his ability to recall information. I said, “If I’m right, aren’t the scrolls associated with the Essenes?”

  “Right.” He nodded. “The religious sect. But some scholars challenge that. For now, it seems the most likely theory. Where did you pull that one from?”

  “I’m full of surprises,” I said.

  “That and I happen to know you aced your Western and Eastern religion classes in college,” said Ayden, shaking his head, and obviously cutting in. “Moving on. How does this all tie in with the kid and time travel?”

  “Good question,” I said. “I think we all need to start tuning in and see what we get. Let’s see if we can dial into any conversations coming from Orlenda, Grant, or anything to do with the scrolls from anyone.”

  “That’s going to be a bit tough, considering they will likely have energetic shields up,” said Noah said, referring to one of the defenses against our unusual skills.

  “We’ve worked around them before,” snapped Ayden. “Have faith.”

  Those two. I looked at my watch. “Boys, we only have a little over an hour before we land. Have we been able to make any arrangements?” We were flying solo without the agency to back us...or to protect us.

  Ayden shook his head. “If we were headed into Palestine, China, Italy, and a few other places, I could get us someplace safe.” He looked at Noah. “What about you?”

  “Sorry, no contacts in Israel.”

  I sighed. “Well I do. It’s not exactly what we’re used to in the way of safe houses, but I think it’ll work out for us. I’ll see what I can get done in the next hour. Why don’t you two get to work on what you can find out.” And by work, I meant tuning into whatever it is that we tune into.

  They both agreed and went their separate ways, off to different sections of the Gulfstream, like good boys. They were going to have to get over their petty jealousy...and learn to trust each other; that is, if we were going to make any headway—and get out of this alive.

  Although there were official safe houses, agents often had their own networks. We didn’t talk about it much. But we had them. We kept those bases covered for any instance, just like the one we were in now. After all, one never knew when the government agency one worked for might have a change of heart. I was afraid that’s what had happened with us. Grant Simms had been lying and keeping secrets, but he was also good at manipulating all who worked for him. Who knew what story he was currently weaving back at the home office? For all I knew, there could be prices on our heads now.

  With that disturbing thought, I began making plans for us to utilize my personal network in Israel.

  Chapter Four

  Noah sat down in the back of the plane, closed his eyes, deepened his breathing and set his intentions. Five minutes later, he accessed the alpha state necessary to do what he does...and what he does is better than anyone. He knew that, and the agency knew that too, especially Simms. Which was why the director had hired him and trained him...and why he hunted him now.

  Each of the PSI operatives had their own variation of connecting to their specific skill sets. Noah preferred the alpha state technique, which slowed everything down to a crawl, which, for him, made processing the past that much easier.

  Noah considered his objective: they needed to find out what Grant and Orlenda were working on—and how it all pertained to Hope. And what this all had to do with time travel, he didn’t know.

  Jesus, could the girl really time travel?

  He didn’t know, but he was beginning to suspect so. Either way, he needed to relax his mind...and return to the alpha state.

  His answers, he suspected, had to do with his now deceased wife—deceased by his own hands, no less. He’d been duped, and badly. What had he missed, or had he known something wasn’t right all along and had chosen to ignore it? Things hadn’t been perfect, true. But what marriage was perfect?

  He needed to recap his past with her. That would be easy enough as he’d lived it, but what he really needed was to see her when he hadn’t been with her, if possible, or see maybe what he hadn’t seen when he had been with her in the moment. Maybe he’d missed something all along that was right in front of him. This was something he had never done because they’d been married, and it was a sort of unwritten psychic code to not spy on his wife. A code he now regretted.

  This was going to take some time. Noah needed to go back a few years, back to when they’d first met.

  He took another slow and steady breath as he focused in on June 26th, 2012, Paris, France, where he had met Jacqueline at the Louvre.

  Chapter Five

  He’d smelled her perfume first.

  Jasmine. Crisp. Floral. Child. That was the name of the perfume—Child. His girlfriend Claire, from college, had worn it. Noah had loved it. In fact, he’d bought it for Claire. He’d heard she was married now with two kids. It hadn’t been a bad breakup. It had just been. She was a beautiful girl who had been amazing in bed, and super fun to hang out with. But, at the end of the day, Noah knew that she wanted a husband and children much sooner than he did. He also knew that she wouldn’t have understood his abilities.

  The memory of her now was a good one, and the perfume wafting his way made him turn and look. A tall but delicate-looking woman with pixie-short blonde hair stood in front of the Caravaggio paintings, “St. Francis in Ecstasy,” to be exact. She had big blue eyes and she smiled at him, lifting her chin slightly. He smiled back. There was something captivating about her. She had been elegant but sexy at the same time.

  “You like Michelangelo?” she asked.

  “Don’t we all? Quite interesting. Do you think the boy in those three paintings is one and the same?”

  She stood back and studied them for a moment. “I think it’s a good possibility.”

  “You’re American?” he asked.

  “I am, and you as well?”

  He shrugged. “An American in Paris.” He wasn’t exactly there for the kicks and giggles of being a tourist. He was there on PSI business. He’d actually be
en there for two weeks working on a case with John and Kylie. Ayden hadn’t joined the team, due to a family reunion and vacation that apparently his mother insisted he had to be involved in. Noah knew Ayden hadn’t been happy about it but Noah wasn’t missing him.

  The team had been tracking a Jean-Claude Babineaux, who was known to have ties to a terrorist organization in Syria. Kylie had had a hit that Jean-Claude, who was once a chemist in the medical sector for the good of mankind, had had some things go badly in his life—things that had turned him bitter and caused him to decide that money mattered more than anything else. Kylie’s audial capabilities had told them that Jean-Claude had a new designer virus to sell to this terrorist cell. It had been a difficult case.

  Today, they’d been granted a much-needed day off in order to rest their brains and bodies.

  Noah had chosen The Louvre. What John and Kylie had chosen, he didn’t know, but he had seen something growing between them, and really wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He’d sort of hoped the looks he’d seen in each of their eyes wasn’t what he thought it was. But he had no claim on Kylie and she seemed to only have eyes for John, and now, this blonde beauty stood before him.

  “You’re on vacation?” the woman with the blue eyes had asked him.

  “I am. Sort of. I’m mixing business and pleasure. And you?”

  She laughed. “All pleasure. I’ve saved up for this vacation for some time.”

  They had begun to stroll through the museum together. “What do you do?” Noah had asked.

  She had laughed and stuck out her hand. “I’m Jacqueline, by the way. Jacqueline Richards.”

  “Noah Kensington. Nice to meet you.”

  “And you, too.” She paused, then added: “I work in D.C., for the State Department.”

  “Get out of here! I do some work in D.C. myself for the government.”

  “Small world,” she said.

  They had walked, stopped for coffee and finally went into the gift shop where Jacqueline picked up a leather-bound journal that Noah had bought for her...

  * * *

  “Noah, Noah, hey...we’ve landed. You get anything?” Kylie stood above him, touching his shoulder.

  “No. I, uh, I’m sorry. I guess I drifted off to sleep.”

  “Understandable. We’re all a little bit tired. We gotta go. Keep moving.”

  “Right.” He stood up and shook off what he’d been able to connect to where Jacqueline was concerned. None of what he’d been able to go back through and find so far was of any use that he could see. It was simply how they’d met. Their first encounter had helped lead a woman he once thought he’d loved into their lives…to possibly destroy them.

  Chapter Six

  John knew his best bet in tracking the team would be in first tracking Orlenda. He didn’t have the skills Kylie, Ayden, or Noah had, but God knew he was one helluva tracker-hunter. He also knew that by tracking Orlenda he’d be able to not only keep tabs on the team, but also give them some inside help when they might least know they needed it. He just had to be so careful. None of them could know that he was alive.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to charter a private plane from his resources on such short notice, but he had been able to book a commercial flight. He’d heard Geryon tell another goon that Orlenda was on her way to Israel.

  Good place to start, he thought, and leaned his head back and closed his eyes, dreaming of another time. A time spent with Kylie.

  Grant Simms had known what he was doing when he’d put them together. Two spies with special gifts. Had Simms been hoping that they’d wind up married, have babies that Simms could then take over? Maybe. But Simms had changed his mind somewhere along the way. John knew why, too. The bastard.

  Simms had discovered John via his parents, who had sought help for their “special” child—a child who could see into the future. One who had already predicted earthquakes and floods and fires—and, perhaps most remarkable, who could heal wounds, too.

  Fortunately for John, his parents were good and loving people who would’ve never exploited their son. But one night in high school, he and his best friend were driving home from a football game and they were hit by another car. John had been knocked out and his buddy had been hurt badly. Once emergency crews arrived, John woke up and reached out, placing his hands on his friend, healing him. Word would’ve gotten out...if Grant Simms hadn’t have been there. Talk about a world of coincidence.

  No coincidences, John thought now. At least, not in this business.

  John had later learned that Simms was the first person to drive up on the accident, and Simms had greased some pockets. Shortly after that, John became one of Simms’ people—a part of his special team. And he was barely out of high school.

  That’s when he’d met Kylie.

  From the moment he met her, he was taken in. She was smart, funny, pretty and he was almost positive that she could kick his ass, too. He liked that in a woman.

  “Who are you again?” she’d asked while at the gym allocated for team members and trainees. She blew out a long breath. A lock of her brunette hair that had fallen in her face reminded him oddly of a whisper—as if she had some deep secrets.

  “I’m John. John Herrel. Your dad hired me.”

  “He doesn’t hire. He recruits. And he’s not my dad.”

  “I apologize. I just assumed...the way he acts around you. He’s pretty protective.”

  “No surprise there. He raised me the past ten years.”

  “Oh.” John watched two men in the boxing arena spar. He didn’t want to look directly at her because she might think he was weird, which he knew he was.

  “My dad died,” she added.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded. John wanted to ask about her mom, but didn’t think he should.

  “So, what do you do? What’s your specialty?” she asked brightly, and John admired her ability to change the subject, something he had mastered himself with his “gifts.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you a past reader? Future reader? I’m an audial.”

  “Oh, right. I can see the future sometimes.”

  “You don’t seem too sure.”

  “I have another gift.”

  “Oh? Do tell.”

  “I can heal people when they’re hurt.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really? That’s a new one. What do they even call that?”

  John shrugged. “I’m a healer, I guess.”

  “Hold on,” she said. He watched her walk over to a gym bag, remove something from inside and walk back. It was a pocketknife, and before he could protest, she snapped it open and ran it across her palm. She didn’t even wince. “Okay, big guy. Heal me.” Amazingly, she winked.

  Stunned, he took her hand and covered it with both of his, aware that others were watching them. Finally, he let go, and he saw exactly what he expected to see: her hand was completely healed. Hell, not even a scar. Despite himself, he grinned.

  “Unbelievable,” she said. “Now I think I’ve seen everything.”

  He liked the way she looked at him. Not like a freak. Not like his mother had looked at him, despite her best attempt to remain supportive. No, Kylie had looked at him like an equal...and maybe even a little bit like a superhero, too. Yeah, he liked that a lot.

  The team had gone on to work many missions, and he was their healer. Rejuvenating, saving, healing. With him by their side, they had truly been invincible.

  He thought about all of this and more as the plane made its final descent into Tel Aviv.

  Chapter Seven

  “A nun?” Ayden whispered in my ear, as we sat in the back of a minivan being driven by Sister Marie-Luce of the Sisters of Sion.

  “I’m full of surprises,” I said.

  I had met Sister Marie-Luce while on my own sojourn five years earlier. I had come to Jerusalem for the history, culture, and sights, and also to try and finally make peace at some level with the loss of my father during m
y childhood.

  Peace was, to say the least, elusive.

  We pulled up in front of the Notre Dame de Sion and all of us got out of the vehicle. The grounds were lush with flora and fauna set against the Judean Mountains. The village of Ein Karem was only moments away. It was a small local tourist area with culture and arts. The sisters of Sion were nuns who had a mission to maintain God’s love for the Jewish people and to teach them of the Christian faith. God bless them all.

  Anyway, I had come back a year and a half ago to make peace for the loss of the only man that I’d ever truly loved—a man I thought had loved me, but who had ultimately betrayed the team and me. John Herrel. Because of John’s betrayal, I’d held the question in my mind and heart as to whether I’d ever be able to open my heart again to the idea of romantic love. That question had remained prevalent in my mind until a few weeks ago, really. The idea of Noah was one thing, and the idea of Ayden—another. How could I go from thinking that I’d never fall in love again after John to the possibility of falling for either one of the guys on my team? Men I had known for some time.

  I’d had several long talks with Sister Marie-Luce. She had helped me settle demons that I’d been struggling with, but without shoving religion down my throat, which I appreciated. I trusted her, and I’d divulged to her what I did in the “real world.” Truth was, she already knew. Turned out that Sister Marie-Luce had the gift too. In her case, of seeing the future—and not simply the immediate future like Ayden, but pretty damn far into it. This was not something she eagerly spoke of with her colleagues, and we found solace with one another through our conversations. And our freakiness.

  Sister Marie-Luce produced a ring of keys, which clattered against her as we followed her to a side gate of the brick monastery, which she unlocked. Once through, the gardens were filled with flowers and birdbaths. The sounds of chirping and gurgling water fountains added to the serenity enveloping the grounds.