Jordan moved closer to her and lowered his voice as a young girl jogged by down the path. “You know about the little things in the soul’s link to the body.”
Rose said softly, “I know it well.”
“So do I, well, I mean I know something of it. I’ve felt it escaping, and I tried to stop it.”
She smiled and tilted her head. “What made you think you could stop it?”
Jordan leaned back and turned his palms up. “I don’t know, just an instinct.”
“It’s a nice idea, but here’s the problem with that notion. The soul is comprised of many thousands of arteries of frequency. Each one has a different and specific purpose, a different tuning. There is one that helps us tune into compassion, one that helps us tune into danger, and as you know one that can help us communicate with other people on a level beyond verbal. The list goes on-and-on. Some of the signals are stronger, some are weaker in individuals but they are all interwoven with purpose.”
“That makes sense.”
She leaned in closer to him. “It all makes sense, Jordan. There is also one frequency, which keeps our soul safely lassoed in our human body. You are a savior frequency, you have the ability to tune into that frequency and know when a soul is in danger or when another soul is about to cause harm to others, you know the future because so does the soul. That gives you the ability to change the very course of human history. You can save a soul, keep it in this world. But once the mortal wound comes to the body, that frequency that keeps the soul inside becomes interrupted, it short circuits and the soul follows the path of another frequency, a calling frequency, a divine frequency that sends it out into the universe in an attempt to find another host in another world.”
Jordan shook his head. “How do you know so much?”
Rose smiled and shuffled her feet. “Like I said, I’m very spiritual. I spend a lot of time praying, and living inside my own head. I’ve become very close with Anna and we’ve shared a lot.”
Jordan nodded. “Anna, she’s frustrating…great but frustrating. Sometimes I come away with more questions than answers.”
“That, my friend psychic, is because you ask the wrong questions. We’ve all been there. I can contact her anytime now, but that comes with years or practice.”
Jordan touched his chin. “So let me ask you this. If you could, in theory, tune into the broken frequency that keeps the soul in the body, could you repair it or maybe reroute it and still save the person?”
Rose lowered her brow and scrunched her nose. “Why would you want to?”
“Because, I’m compelled to save people.”
“But you should want to save them before they face the mortal wounds, before the catastrophic event has occurred.”
“I am, I do, but sometimes I get there too late.”
“Then you were not meant to save them.”
Jordan sighed. “Maybe I was, and I’m just not good enough to do it yet.”
“No, sweetie, that’s not how it works.” Rose touched his arm. “You can only save those that the universe allows. The body is only a vessel but sometimes it cannot be repaired and the soul has no choice but to escape. Sometimes the soul wants and needs to escape. The soul is designed to preserve itself for eternity. You’re job as a savior frequency is not just about saving the link between soul and vessel, but it’s also as a conduit to make sure the soul gets out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean in those times when you felt the soul escape, and you know what I mean, you did your job on that occasion. You can ease the burden and soften the blow. You can direct the soul out of the body. You’re a savior frequency, understand what that means. It doesn’t mean saving people, Jordan. It means saving souls, helping the soul, nursing it, letting the soul go in peace. It is the law of the universe, and in that, you must follow all the laws of time and space. You cannot force your will upon it.”
Jordan twisted his lips. “Hmmm…maybe not, but I don’t believe in the laws. I think there is more to this than what’s already known and I’m going to try things. It’s who I am, I don’t follow the current. If I was a salmon I’d climb out of the river and slither across the dirt to get upstream.”
Rose laughed. “You’re funny. You’re are a strange one, Jordan Callahan, but funny. But some laws are finite and cannot be broken by anyone but God.”
“That’s probably true.” He crossed his arms. “What’s next? How do we find Kayci? Assuming you’re right and she’s alive, we can find her.”
“We do some old fashioned spy work.”
* * *
Jordan wasn’t really having fun doing old fashioned spy work, as Rose called it. He thought there was going to be something exciting to that, but instead they’ve just been pouring through case logs both paper and digital.
“What’re we looking for again?” Jordan asked.
“Anything that sticks out.”
“From what?”
“The norm.”
“Okay, kinda tough since I don’t know what the norm is.” Jordan started reading through some cases that Rose had flagged as interesting. She had a theory and they were working it.
Rose said, “Don’t just read, feel, use your gift and something will come to light.”
“Hmm, okay. That makes this more exciting.”
“Well, what’ve you been doing this whole time?”
“Reading papers. You said old fashioned spy work.”
Rose chuckled, “Oh, Jordan, you’re so silly.” She looked up from the paper across the table. “Always use your gift, every moment, every single moment. Be in it, live it. It’s out there now, it’s in you, it’s loose. You don’t have to look for the frequency lines, you don’t need to do those tricks, you just have to feel it. The breakthrough you had up on that roof was for a reason. It put you in tune. You no longer have to look outside your mind for the frequencies. They are everywhere all the time, feeding you, passing around you, through you.” She reached across the table and touched his hand. “The link is not in your mind, it’s in your soul, it’s in the very fabric of the universe around us. Believe in yourself, Jordan.” She squeezed his hand tighter. “Maybe Kayci has been stunting your development more than she meant to.”
He couldn’t break her gaze. “She means well.”
“We all mean well.”
Jordan slid his hand away from hers and picked up a file. He couldn’t deny there was something electric in their touch. It wasn’t frequency driven, but old human attraction. It was exciting and confusing and scared him a little that he could feel that way. He and Kayci were joined for life and he was happy about that.
Taking a cleansing breath, he flipped open the file of Peter Murt. He had been looking at it earlier, thinking that it made sense to go back to were this all started. The oddness didn’t start until that case started, so it made sense that there might be something to that. He was actually proud for thinking of it. Maybe he was better at all this spy stuff than he thought he was. Kayci taught him well.
Nothing stood out at first. But then something occurred to him. “You and Kayci talked about the case we were on right? Did you realize that the girl Murt kidnapped was Bella Hill, her father is Evan Hill right?”
Rose nodded. “What of it?”
“Hill was the FBI profiler that put Murt away, and this was supposed to be some sort of revenge plot.”
“Yeah, that’s the working theory.”
“We were thinking that someone wanted revenge on Hill. What if it wasn’t that at all? What if there was another angle we didn’t consider?”
“I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
Jordan took hold of his tablet and flipped through some pages. Like a bolt of lightning, both literally and figuratively, something came to him. He needed something to confirm his suspicions. “Look up Evan Hill’s history. Something doesn’t add up to me.”
Rose picked up her tablet and started flipping pages. “He’s a superstar as an FBI profil
er.”
“Yeah, and where was he before that?”
Rose scanned the pages intently for several seconds and then looked up. “Huh, it doesn’t say much about his background. He was a mid-level liaison and logistics coordinator for several years, then he was promoted to a field agent, didn’t really do anything impressive for his first five years and then—”
“Then boom, he single-handedly solves the biggest case the FBI is working on, gets all kinds of accolades and a huge promotion. How is that?”
“Maybe he got lucky. It’s hard to say.”
“But he wasn’t lucky just once. Look at his cases. How does a guy go from nowhere, to the best profiler the FBI has ever seen in the span of a few months?”
Rose blew out an audible breath. “It is kind of odd. He closed five cold cases in two months and was promoted to the FBI’s top criminal profiling unit. Where he’s since closed a record twenty cases in less than two years. That’s amazing.”
“Maybe too amazing?”
Rose looked up at him. “Is this a hunch or did you get something else?”
“It just came to me. When Kayci and I were working to rescue Bella Hill, we were abruptly pulled off the case—and told to go away, by Evan Hill. Then like two days later, the DRC thing showed up. But I thought it was weird, so did Kayci, that he wouldn’t want our help. But they brushed it off saying that he’s a scientists, didn’t believe in psychics and yadda-yadda-yadda.”
“What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking Evan Hill has some major connection to this.”
“Hmm…Seems unlikely.”
“Not really. Not if you think about it. If he’s the one that has this nugget thing, maybe he’s using it. Maybe he used it to close those cold cases and maybe he used it to hijack the shooters.”
“But we don’t have any evidence that Hill has psychic ability.”
She had a point. But then something popped right off the page. Jordan snickered and turned his tablet so she could see it. “We do now.”
Rose narrowed her eyes and snatched the device out of his hand. She studied it closer. “Evan Hill took PATS?”
“PATS.” Jordan nodded not really knowing what it was.
“Precognitive Analysis Testing Seminar, it’s an NSA thing. PATS is invite only, so who invited him?”
“I can’t answer that. But what exactly does that mean to us?”
Rose huffed. “It means he applied and underwent testing to get into a unit just like SORC.”
“Or maybe not like SORC—”
“But exactly SORC.” She shook her head. “But still, why would he kidnap his own daughter?”
“I agree that part doesn’t add up. But maybe he was just trying to be the ultimate hero and it backfired? That would explain why he hated us being brought in, he didn’t want us to save Bella because he wanted to.”
“Like the firefighter who sets fires.”
“Yeah, exactly like that. The thrill of solving cold cases wore off and he needed a more intense high. What’s more intense than putting someone you love in danger and then saving them?”
Rose picked up her phone from the table. “I need to make a call.” She dialed and turned away from Jordan before saying into the phone, “Hey, it’s Rose. I’m going to need a favor and you can’t say no to this one.”
Chapter 27
Jordan watched Rose stride across parking lot and sink low into the passenger side of the blacked-out Corvette. The darkly tinted windows didn’t allow him to see the driver at all. But whoever it was had good taste in cars, and a lot of coin for a custom mat-black paintjob with matching custom black wheels. The growl of the engine signified the high probability of performance modifications as well.
With a small chirp of the tires, the Corvette sped off and Jordan followed as instructed. Exactly who he was following he didn’t know and Rose was never going to tell him. It also didn’t matter. Rose said the driver was very secretive and would only speak while driving. But she was certain this person could explain a few things about Evan Hill, who Jordan was all but convinced was the man behind all this. The problem was that Hill is a huge celebrity within the FBI and there was no way they were going to legally take him down without tons of irrefutable proof, which they didn’t have.
Jordan pushed the Ford SUV to it’s absolute limits but the black Corvette pulled away easily as they hit the highway. It had stretched out a lead and all but disappeared. But with newly honed ability to understand his talents, he was having no trouble following Rose. She was broadcasting and he was receiving loud and clear. He would just stay on the path.
The highway hummed beneath the tires of the SUV, the frequency pulling him forward. The sun dropped into the horizon of the cloudless sky ahead of him. Somewhere at the end of this wide six-lane road Jordan imagined the cars driving into the flaming disc. He wheeled off the highway down the off-ramp. Rose stood at a bus stop at the end of the lane. He pulled to a halt and she climbed in.
“Goin’ my way?” He said.
Rose clicked her seatbelt. “If I have to.”
“So, what’d he, or she, say?”
“They said that if it’s Hill we’re in trouble.”
“Why?”
“Well, he might not be the best psychic, but the guy is a genius with a massive I.Q. and a terrible ego. He’s also got friends all over the intelligence community. He’s a real elbow rubbing master.”
“What’s that mean for us?”
“It means that we won’t find him psychically unless he makes a mistake.”
“He’s already made one fatal mistake.”
“Oh yeah—what’s that?”
“He decided to mess with me. And I guarantee you he makes a mistake again. If it’s one thing I’ve learned, these big ego people always make mistakes.”
Rose laughed. “I applaud your confidence but our abilities may not help us.”
“Why’re you so sure?”
“If Evan is that smart, he’s going to expect it, and he might even be counting on it.”
Jordan switched lanes and slowed down. “You mean, like he did with Kayci?”
“Exactly. He wanted us to expose her, he played us.”
“Yeah, he did. But what’s his motivation?” He was thinking out-loud.
“No matter the reason, he’s going to expect we’re coming.”
“So what’s the move?”
Rose sighed. “We follow him physically not psychically. Old-fashioned spy work, a police style surveillance and stake out. And we hope he leads us to Kayci.”
“That sounds fun, but won’t he expect that?”
She sighed. “Maybe, but he’s less likely to expect that than he is a mind attack. He knows our playbook.”
Jordan nodded. He wasn’t kidding. If it’s one thing he’s learned in all this, it’s that the ego is it’s own worse enemy. And these spy type people seemed to have inflated sense of ego in almost every case. And in every case, it ends up being their downfall. The trick was to make sure his own ego didn’t end up his downfall.
* * *
The windshield was dirty with dead bugs and pollen, but Jordan didn’t need to see anything with great detail. He just had to see when Evan started his car and drove away.
The parking lot of the formidable offices was dark where they sat, but out in the middle near the buildings it was well lit. Evan’s silver Toyota SUV sat directly under one of the tall halogen lights, there were no other vehicles around it this late in the evening. Most people had long gone home from their government office jobs.
Jordan looked over to the passenger seat. “Is this what you meant when you said old-fashioned police work?”
“I hate police work. I’m not a cop, never wanted to be.”
“But you’re a spy.”
Rose shook her head. “I’m not, truly not. I’m a person with a gift that happens to be willing to help my country.”
“But isn’t that by definition a spy?”
“Ar
e you a spy?”
Jordan shrugged. “I’m beginning to feel like one more all the time.”
“I’m no different, Jordan. I was, and still am, a reluctant participant. But I have a gift that so few others do, and if I can help keep the people of America safe, I’m going to do that. I love this country and all that it stands for. I may not agree with the process by which we govern our people at all times, but the core of America is a wonderfully powerful tower. I have family and friends that love their freedom, and I love them, and if I have anything to say about it I want them to be safe.”
Jordan was impressed. It seemed a bit out of character for her to be so patriotic for some reason, but he realized that he really didn’t know her. “That’s very admirable.”
“Maybe so.”
“Honorable.”
Rose shrugged. “Not as much as you might think. If not for the DRC I would have been out of the game years ago. I was given a second chance.” She sank deeper into the seat. “When I lost my daughter, I was lost too. I left the NSA with the intention of retiring from the spy game forever. But that’s when the DRC tapped me and I just couldn’t pass it up. I could still help, but on my terms. I didn’t have to bend to the big government will or the political corruption. I could make my own rules and call my own shots.”
“I guess that’s why Kayci agreed.”
“Kayci is a real spy, she’s a fighter, a survivor.” Rose touched Jordan’s arm. “She’s going to be okay.”
Jordan took a deep breath. “I hope so.”
They waited for Evan Hill to appear but it was getting very late. Every car except for his silver Toyota SUV had long left the parking lot.
“What’s the deal with this guy?” Jordan asked. “Why’s he still working?”
Rose shrugged. “He’s dedicated.”
“Maybe he’s not even here.”
“He’s here.”
Soul Frequency (Frequency Series Book 2) Page 14
