Lightning Strikes

by Theresa Parker

  “What the hell just happened?” he demanded.

  I put a shaky hand over my eyes and tried to calm my choppy breathing. I didn’t understand what was going on with my visions. I connected with the kids so easily this time, but I still couldn’t tell if they were nearby. I didn’t know how or why, but the humming in my head seemed to be screwing up my abilities. Cavanaugh pulled my hand away from my eyes.

  “Rommy, what happened?” he asked me softly.

  I wished he wouldn’t do that. I wasn’t used to the concerned looks, soft words, and touches. All the times I had worked with Johnson, I knew he was often concerned for me, especially when I saw my first dead body. But he never showed his concern by treating me with kid gloves the way Cavanaugh did. Johnson wanted to teach me to be tough, to shake it off and move on. For anything else, I would welcome Cavanaugh’s soft words and touches. Hell, what woman wouldn’t love to have this gorgeous man’s attention? But when I was so unsure about what I was doing, it just made me feel needy. I didn’t want to feel needy. An unruly tear escaped the corner of my eye. I pushed Cavanaugh back out of the truck and slid out to stand in front of him, wiping off the tear with the heel of my hand. I stepped away from him and walked to the side of the truck.

  “We better get going,” I told him. “I’ll tell you along the way to the first mine.”

  He stared at me for a moment but didn’t argue. Instead, we walked side by side up the trail. I knew he gave in to me because he knew that these mines we were about to inspect couldn’t house anyone—they were too close to the main road and the visitor center. I told him as we walked that I had tuned in to the children. I described everything that I saw: the large cavern, the children sitting in rows on the dirt floor, and the flickering images the children were watching on the projection screen. Lastly, I described the devil-man. How at first I just saw him standing at the side of the screen, as if overseeing the children watching the film, and then how, all of a sudden, he was up in my face with horns, fire, and piercing eyes. Cavanaugh stopped me on the trail and turned me to face him.

  “They’re here in the park?” he asked me gruffly.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s like something is interfering with my abilities. I can see the kids clearly, but I can’t tell if they’re anywhere near us. I can’t feel them at all.”

  “Explain,” he said, looking confused.

  “Usually when I lock on to a person, it’s like I’m standing invisible next to them with a video camera,” I told him, continuing to walk up the trail. “I can feel their bodies next to me, just as I feel you next to me now. I also can feel their environment, if they’re hot or cold. I can even feel their emotions.”

  “So your last vision in the truck, you didn’t feel like you were there in the cavern with the kids?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” I said. “I couldn’t feel them at all, and I have this humming in my head. It started when we pulled up to the visitor center.”

  “What do you mean, humming?” He stopped me again. I could tell by the look on his face that he wanted to turn around and go back to the truck. He had that look in his eyes that told me he thought I couldn’t handle this. I didn’t blame him. I’d done nothing so far to prove that I could handle myself and this case. In fact, the man had to do nothing but take care of me since the first day we met. I needed to get a grip on this. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was some stupid piece of fluff that needed to be pampered and told what to do.

  “The humming is like I’m standing next to high-voltage wires,” I tried to explain.

  “Do you need to leave?” he asked, unsure as to whether he should let me go on or take me out of the park.

  I had to get us back on track. I didn’t want him to feel as though he needed to take care of me. Some women get off on that, having the big, strong he-man take care of them, but I was not one of those women. Johnson made sure of that.

  “No, it’s fine,” I told him. “Let’s keep going.”

  We continued up the trail. The sun was shining brightly here. Its rays didn’t have to punch through a layer of smog like they did down in the valley, and even though the sun wasn’t warm, I liked the feel of it on my face. We arrived at the first mine. The area around the entrance was neat and clean. I could tell work crews visited this area regularly because there wasn’t a scraggly bush in sight. In fact, if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought the mine was still in operation. Obviously they used it for their tour groups. Cavanaugh must have thought the same, because after a quick look around, he moved us on to the next mine.

  Walking the trail to the second mine, Cavanaugh kept giving me these looks, as though I was going to faint at his feet. It was starting to annoy me.

  “Quit it!” I snapped at him.

  He didn’t, but he did try to hide his concern a little better. We reached the second mine, and it was as well maintained as the first. We both had the feeling that the third mine would be the same, and we were right. The area around the third mine’s entrance was larger than that of the first two. It looked like a small rest area, with large trees that shaded two cement picnic tables. I wandered over to the closest one and stepped up on the bench, seating myself upon the table’s top. It was much cooler in the shade of the trees, and I rubbed my hands together before stuffing them into my jacket pockets. This is a really pretty spot, I thought to myself. Everything around me was green and full of life and the sounds of nature. Despite the low hum in my head, I found it relaxing. Closing my eyes, I reached out to the kids again, hoping this time I could stay connected without the interference of the devil-man. My eyes had only been shut for a moment, and I was about to take a deep cleansing breath, when Cavanaugh interrupted me.

  “What are you doing?” he said sharply.

  “Shush, I’m trying to concentrate,” I replied.

  “Stop it, Rommy,” he barked. “You’re not doing this here.”

  I opened one eye and glared at him. “Yes, I am,” I said. “This is why you brought me along. Now shut up and let me do my job.”

  He didn’t say another word as he stomped over to the table and sat next to me. I took a deep breath through my nose, letting the cool, clean air fill my lungs, and pushed it slowly out through my mouth. Once again I connected with my three missing kids. The children were no longer watching the flickering movie screen. They were standing in rows, spread out from each other. At first I thought they were exercising, but as I looked closer at the children as a whole group, I found they were performing some martial arts routine. I think they call it a kata. From the youngest to the oldest, they went through each move in unison, punctuating the completion of the move with a yell that sounded like HA! I witnessed two adults, one male and one female, moving through the rows of children, correcting them if they were doing it wrong. I described to Cavanaugh everything I saw.

  “Give me a description of the adults,” he said.

  I told him about the male first. He was tall and kind of wiry-looking. His dark hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail at the base of his skull. I would guess that, had it been loose, his hair would have been just past his shoulders. I knew that with it pulled back tightly, the color could be darker or lighter than what I was seeing now. He was wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt, called a wifebeater, and loose camouflage pants tucked into military-style boots. He had tattoos up and down his arms, ending at his wrists like the sleeves of some funky shirt. Because the neck of his wifebeater was so low, I was able to see that the tattoos extended up to his collar. I could hear Cavanaugh scribbling on a notepad, furiously writing down the details I was describing.

  The woman was tall also, about five feet eight inches. She had a build like that of the fabled Amazons and wore the same clothing as the man. Her hair, cropped short and spiky, was the color of dirty dishwater. She had a plain face, but her grimace as she corrected the stance of an older girl made her look like a bulldog. I still couldn’t feel my surroundings or any emotions connected to the childre
n, but I could tell the woman didn’t like what she was doing. Maybe she just didn’t like kids. It was hard to tell. I noticed that she had tattoos, too: one on her upper arm and one on the back of her neck.

  The HAs the children were shouting sounded muffled, as if I had cotton in my ears. The man and woman met at the front of the group and bent their heads toward one another in conversation. I wanted to hear what they were saying, so I made my way down a row of children to the front where the man and woman stood. Maybe they’d give away their location, or at least call each other by their first names. I was almost there, just a row away. I could hear their voices, but because of my muffled hearing, I couldn’t make out the words. Before I could reach them, however, I felt Cavanaugh grab my arms and shake me.

  “That’s enough, Rommy,” he called loudly.

  No it wasn’t, I thought, just a little closer.

  “Rommy.” Cavanaugh shook me harder. “I said that was enough!”

  I snapped back into myself. I was pissed at him for interrupting the vision. I jerked out of his grasp and paced in front of the picnic table.

  “Damn it, Cavanaugh,” I said, stopping in front of him. “I was trying to hear the man and woman’s conversation. Why in the hell did you bring me out of it?”

  Cavanaugh took a step up to me so we were standing toe-to-toe. He towered over me.

  “Because you’ve been at it for almost an hour and a half,” he said sharply. “Look at the sun; it’s almost lunchtime.” He took another step closer, forcing me back so our fronts wouldn’t be touching. “I’m not going to let you push yourself too far, too fast. We have six other mines we need to look at today. You need to pace yourself.”

  He was right. I knew he was right, but I was still mad—more at myself and my screwed-up abilities than I was with him. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I hear them clearly in the cavern? Why couldn’t I feel them, and what was causing this infuriating humming in my head? I turned away from him and headed for the trail that would take us back to the truck. He caught up to me at the head of the path.

  “Why are you mad at me?” he asked.

  “Because you stopped me,” I groused. “I could have gotten us more information that maybe could narrow down our search a little. You can’t interfere like that.”

  “I did it for your health and safety,” he said, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “Your friend Kelli is right; you’ll just keep going and damn the consequences.”

  “I’m fine,” I snapped. “No nosebleeds, no headaches, nothing. The only problem I am having is the humming and the loss of senses when I connect. Do you know what this means?”

  He shook his head.

  “It means,” I continued my rant, “that we are closer to them.”

  “How close?” he asked, grabbing my arm and swinging me around to face him.

  “I don’t know,” I said, puffing my bangs out of my eyes. “Just closer.”

  “Look, Rommy,” he said, pulling me closer to him. “You can’t ask me to not worry about you, and you can’t expect me to not try to protect you. That’s just the way I am, and you’re going to have to deal with it because I’m not going to change.”

  His eyes softened as he searched my face. He put his thumb under my chin and tilted my face up to his. For a minute, I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead, he cleared his throat and stepped back.

  “Besides,” he said, starting back up the path, “you haven’t eaten yet today, and if you have to take your pills, I don’t want to have to fend off your amorous advances on the drive back to town.”

  I darted forward, intent on smacking him upside his head. He sidestepped me and slung his arm around my neck, dragging me into a gentle headlock and laughing.

  “Come on, Tink,” he said with a smile. “I’ve got food in the truck.”

  We made it back down the trail and to the truck without me committing battery against him. He opened the door for me to climb in and walked around to the back of the truck. After rummaging around, he got into the cab next to me, setting a large bag between us. Pulling out two subs, two sodas, and two bags of chips, he handed me my share and unwrapped his own. As we ate, I thought about what I saw today with the children.

  “What do you think they’re doing with those kids?” I asked him around a bite of sandwich. “What’s with the martial arts and the weird movie?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, eating a chip from his bag. “I don’t have a clue. This isn’t something I’ve ever run across before. Usually when a child is taken, it’s by a parent or someone close to the family. Even if the kidnapper is a predator, we often find they know the child they’ve taken. You’re telling me that there are three adults involved: the man and the woman you just saw, and the guy you call devil-man. With this many people involved, I would say it’s some kind of trafficking operation like an adoption ring, but that doesn’t sound right either, because the kids are too old. I know a guy I can call; he’s a psychiatrist with the FBI. Hopefully, he can give me some alternative reasons these kids are being held.”

  We finished our lunch in silence, both of us thinking about what he’d just said. When we were through, we stowed our trash in the back of Cavanaugh’s truck and headed to the next cluster of mines. We thought that we might be able to get two or three of them searched before dark.

  These mines, the silver and iron, were less accessible than the first three. The trail meandered up the side of a mountain and split off in four directions. We started at the base and made our way up. It took us fifteen minutes to reach the split in the trail. The humming in my head was getting louder. Cavanaugh checked the map for the closest mine. The closest was a silver, north of where we were. The trail to this mine was nothing more than a small footpath, rugged and uneven. It took us another thirty minutes to reach the clearing at the mine’s entrance. The humming was much louder now and sounded as though a hive of angry bees was in my head. My hands began to tingle slightly. What the hell was going on with me? What was causing me to feel this way?

  Cavanaugh walked around the clearing and both sides of the mine’s entrance. He told me to wait in the clearing while he went in to check the mine. I nodded my head in agreement, because the way I felt, there was no way I was going into that mine. I sat at the edge of the clearing, as far away from the entrance as I could get without going back down the trail. If Cavanaugh didn’t see me right away when he came out, I knew he’d have a fit. The buzzing in my head was making my skin crawl, and I kept rubbing my hands up and down my arms.

  It seemed as though Cavanaugh was gone forever, but in reality, he was only in the mine for about ten minutes. He didn’t find any signs of human inhabitants, so we checked the map for the next-closest mine. The map indicated our next target was an iron ore mine, located above this one. We picked up the path as it climbed to the right of the silver mine’s entrance. This section of the trail was more rugged than the last. We walked for twenty minutes, and the buzzing in my head was stronger and louder than ever before. I began to fall behind, and after another ten minutes, the buzzing in my head became so unbearable it brought me to my knees with a sharp cry.

  My skin felt as if a million fire ants were crawling on me and biting me. I fell onto my hands as a searing pain started at the base of my skull and traveled up and over the top of my head. Cavanaugh was on his knees at my side in an instant. The buzzing pain in my head made me deaf and blind to everything around me. I couldn’t even feel Cavanaugh’s hands on me as he lifted me in his arms. It seemed like an eternity before the pain and buzzing receded to a tolerable level. I was jostled in Cavanaugh’s arms as he carried me down the trail.

  We made it back to the truck in record time. Cavanaugh released the tailgate and set me into the back of the truck. I lay there, gasping for breath and shaking all over. He reached into the back for the small ice chest that had held our lunch. Opening it, he pulled out an icy cola and popped the tab. Hurrying back to me, he lifted me into a sitting position and
forced me to take a sip of the soda. I couldn’t stop shivering. Cavanaugh dragged another worn, brown blanket out of the storage chest in his truck and wrapped it around me. He picked me up and set me into the cab. After closing the tailgate, he slid behind the wheel, started the truck, and blasted the heater. He reached over and snagged the edges of the blanket, pulling them tighter around me.

  “Rommy, what happened?” he asked.

  I couldn’t get past the lethargy to answer him properly. “I don’t…” I tried to say.

  He reached down onto the floor of the truck, snatched up my purse, and dug out my cell.

  “I’m calling your parents and taking you to the hospital,” he said as he scrolled through my phone’s contact list.

  “No,” I said groggily. “Home…Kelli.”

  “Damn it, Rommy,” he swore.

  “Please,” I whispered.

  “Shit!”

  I heard him talking to Kelli on my cell as we raced to the park entrance. By the time we passed the visitor center and exited the park, the noise and pain in my head were completely gone—as if they never happened. Cavanaugh hung up and slipped my phone back into my purse.

  “Kelli will meet us at your house,” he said.

  I nodded and closed my eyes, the warmth from the blanket and the truck’s heater sinking into my bones. I was asleep before we hit the highway.

  Chapter 10

  I woke up when Cavanaugh scooped me out of the truck and carried me through my backyard and onto my back patio. Kelli stood at the kitchen door, holding it open for us to enter. He carried me through to the living room, where Grant and Pamela waited, and laid me on the couch. He stood back, ran his shaking hands through his hair, and watched as Kelli and Pamela fussed over me. Grant moved around the coffee table and sat in front of me. He took a penlight from his pocket and shined it into my eyes to test my pupil response. Satisfied, he grabbed my wrist and put two fingers on my pulse, timing the beats with his watch.