by Kim Jewell
“This is so cool! It’s almost like flying! Can you do it faster? Higher?”
“Yes, but not without serious damage to the house. One thing at a time Lexi,” and she set her back down in her original spot. “Now, disappear.”
Lexi’s image suddenly flashed away and the room was silent.
“Lexi?”
“Yes?”
“Are you floating?”
“No.”
“Darn it! I was afraid of that…” Leesha looked disappointed.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked from across the room.
“I can’t move her if I can’t see her. I’ve got to have something to focus on.”
“What if you could see my pinkie?” and suddenly the tip of her little finger appeared. Leesha tried again, and all of a sudden the group cheered as her finger levitated back up into the air by six inches.
“Well, it’s not completely fool proof,” Leesha admitted, “but it’s a workable loophole. How are you guys doing over there?”
Clint looked up from the last laptop. “We’re just finishing up. I can’t find any trace of illegal activity on any of the computers. He can’t be tapping into your conversations this way either, as far as I can figure.”
“I guess that’s a bit of a relief,” Leesha sighed. “I don’t want anyone tapping into anything in my life – especially the research I’ve done and the conversations we’ve had.”
“But then how did he know we were meeting at the mall?” Sam asked, and the group went silent for a few minutes, trying to figure out the key to the puzzle.
Suddenly, without warning, Clint bolted up from his chair and out the front door. The other three looked at each other, dumbfounded by his behavior. Finally, after the initial shock wore off, they got up to follow him out the front, to see if he left.
He hadn’t. When they reached the front steps, they found him walking around his motorcycle, searching the various parts on his bike.
“What wrong, man?” Sam asked.
“Just a minute… Got a theory…” Clint was focused, looking under and around each piece of detail on his bike. He knelt down and peered around the inside of his kickstand. “Gotcha.”
He reached around to the inside and pulled out what looked like a small black box, the size of a postage stamp. He shook his head and held it up for the group to see.
“What’s that?” Lexi asked.
“It’s a GPS tracking device,” Clint answered her question, for the sake of the entire group who all looked confused. “And I’ll bet my jacket that each of you have one planted on your cars as well.”
Sam’s face sobered. “Looks like we’ve got a search to start. Lexi, Leesha – bring me your keys.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Sure enough, within about an hour, Clint and Sam were able to locate the three other tracking devices. They decided to keep them in place for the time being.
“I don’t know if this makes me feel better having the answer, or more scared knowing someone is following me,” Lexi said, sitting next to Leesha on the steps.
“I know,” Leesha agreed. “I kinda feel violated.”
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Sam said. “If we take the devices off our cars, he’ll know we’ve found ‘em and we’re on to him. I’m not sure I want him to know that yet. We don’t know what he’ll do if he realizes we’ve figured this out.”
“Yep,” Leesha nodded. “For now, we know he’s not able to follow our conversations. He doesn’t know what we know, but he knows where we are – which is how he knew where to send Clint and when. But he really only knows where our cars are, and we can certainly work around that.”
Lexi looked alarmed. “He knows that we’re all here – right NOW. That doesn’t concern you?”
The girls are freaking out…
“Not yet. We don’t know if he’s friendly or not,” Leesha said back, but not sounding totally convinced herself.
“If he wanted to help us,” Lexi started, “don’t you think he’d approach us himself?”
“Good point. But we don’t really know anything about him or what he wants until we can talk to him. Or someone who knows him.”
Sam agreed with Leesha and added, “Which leads us back to Charles Rowe.”
“Who is Charles Rowe?”
“He’s a pathologist in Scottsdale, Arizona,” Sam said, answering Clint’s question. “He was a resident at the hospital when we were born. We’ve found a couple of connections between him and Blevins. We think they were working together at one point, and might even still be now. He’s basically the only person we have found that we know has information on and about Blevins. He might even know where he is today.”
“BUT,” Lexi interrupted. “We don’t know if HE is friendly.”
“You’re right, we don’t,” Sam agreed. “So if and when we decide to make contact, I think we should do it in person. With our abilities, we can scope him out first – get a feel for him and his life – before we have to actually talk to him. Think about it – Lexi, you can go into his office undetected. If he’s got files on us, you can grab them and make them disappear as you bring them back with you!”
“Sam’s right,” Leesha backed up his thought process. “Plus, he can tap into Rowe’s mind, get a sense of what he is thinking, and what his intentions are.” She turned to him. “Can you access the history in someone’s brain, or do the thoughts have to pass through their mind?”
“It has to be a thought. It’s like hearing, only I’m hearing what they are thinking, rather than what they are saying.”
“Gotcha.”
“But if we have to, we can always send one of us in to ask questions and I can process what he’s NOT saying. Monitor how he reacts. See what he’s not telling us… But first, I think we spy.”
“Right,” Leesha nodded. “We’ve got some planning to do if we want to pull this off. Like, for instance, how do we get to Arizona without tipping Blevins off, now that we know he’s watching us? Why don’t we go inside and order pizza – I’m starving – and we can start working on this little road trip.”
As they waited for the delivery guy, the girls continued to work on Lexi’s powers while the guys watched and cheered. Lexi was able to make Sam disappear when she touched him, confirming Leesha’s theory that she could extend her powers to other people in addition to inanimate objects. At one point, Lexi disappeared and flickered Sam on and off, on and off, several times by just touching his shoulder, then taking her finger away again. The group was lively as they laughed at the scene.
When the pizza arrived, Lexi practiced her skills more. First she made the pizza slice disappear as she ate it, making it look like she was eating nothing more than thin air. Then she reversed the situation, having her body disappear, while showing the pizza slice and taking bites out of it as it floated in the air. Her parlor tricks were just what the group needed to take the edge of fear out of their minds.
All of a sudden, Lexi appeared back in her seat, and her face fell. “It’s gone. It’s gone again…” and she put her forehead in her free hand, crestfallen.
Leesha and Sam looked at each other, knowing how disappointed she was at the loss of her power. Leesha spoke first, “Lexi, you know this is going to happen for a little while longer. But cheer up! You’re doing great. Your power is strengthening, and we were able to expand it into a bunch of new areas we didn’t even know were possible before today!”
“Yeah, Lex,” Sam said, checking his watch and noting the time. “I wouldn’t be surprised, looking at the frequency and length you’ve worked up to, if you only had one or two more flashes and then you’ll be done.”
Leesha shot him a warning look, and told him silently not to get her hopes up.
“At least you’ve got a power,” a quiet voice spoke up. Clint watched all of this happen, and didn’t realize until just now that he was a little envious of their abilities. “I mean, I’m sitting here watching you guys do all of this amazing stuff. I
want to be a part of this team, this effort… But I have nothing to offer! I can’t do anything to help in this project.”
Lexi looked up from her hand, her face suddenly filled with warmth and empathy for him. “Clint, you don’t know that. It’s very possible you are just like us, but your body just hasn’t caught up yet.”
“Once you stop growing,” Leesha added, “we’ll know for sure. But if my gut is right, and it usually is, you’re definitely one of us. And I believe there are more like us out there.”
“Besides,” Sam chimed in, “you’ve already helped us figure out so much! Your electronics knowledge alone has given us so many answers. And you found the tracking devices. You’re already protecting us and our effort… Power or not, you’re definitely a bonafied member of this unit!”
Clint seemed to cheer a little at this encouragement, but remained quiet for the rest of lunch and the planning session.
At the end of the day, each left with their own set of homework. Since they didn’t really get started on their last set of assignments, Sam, Lexi and Leesha’s homework was still the same.
Sam was to research Virginia Blevins and her time in Arizona, check the Angel Wings staff and visitor logs, in the hopes that he could track down an alias for Dr. Blevins.
Leesha was going to do some digging into Sara Milligan, the only other visitor to meet with Blevins during his time in the penitentiary.
Lexi needed to look into the medical school studies and determine which ones were experimenting on brain altering drugs, find the medical details on each one, and the affects if they were combined.
Clint was shocked when they included him in the task list. His job was to research any other way that Dr. Blevins might be monitoring them – up to and including home surveillance. And, most importantly, figure out a way for the team to make it to Arizona without being detected by the prying eyes that watched.
Chapter Thirty-three
Sunday was a work day for the foursome, each working on homework from their own separate corners of the city.
Sam dug right into his search for Virginia Blevins and her history in Arizona and her time at Angel Wings. In his previous research, he only reviewed her documentation from the Alzheimer’s unit at Angel Wings. Digging further, he tapped into the parent company of the healthcare organization and was able to find a more complete set of medical records.
Now 82, Virginia was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease eight years prior. For the first five and a half years, she was able to be treated and monitored at Angel Wings’ assisted living facility. When her senile dementia related problems escalated to the point when she needed constant supervision and medical assistance, she was transferred to the more specialized Alzheimer’s unit.
Her next of kin was listed in her original healthcare directives – a husband – Roy, now deceased, and a son, Carl. Sam noted that the last address listed for Carl was the federal pen in Birmingham.
Nothing more recent. So they don’t know where he is either.
Sam switched over to the visitor logs for the five and a half years that Virginia spent in the assisted living facility. These logs were scanned from the original pages and archived into the server.
Crap. This would be a whole lot easier if they had this in database format. I’m going to have to read through each and every one of these pages… Boring!
It took Sam about three hours to pour through all of the information, but in the end, he had a very short list of people that visited Virginia in the time she was at Angel Wings. Two female names he determined were relatives – Betty Johnston, her second-cousin from San Diego and Andrea Neal, a niece of her late husband’s. Only one other name came up in his search – the only male name – Mike Smith.
Well, isn’t that clever. If you’re gonna rename yourself to conceal your identity, pick a name that like a million people share. Fantastic…
With his head throbbing, both with frustration and fatigue from scanning the log documents, Sam decided to take a break and go and check on Lexi. He knocked on the bathroom door.
“Lex?”
“Come in!”
When he entered her room, she was sitting in the middle of her bed, her laptop in front of her, and her entire bed covered with papers and notebooks. Her hair was up in a makeshift ponytail kind of knot, with three pencils sticking out from inside the hair band in all different directions.
Does she know she looks like a dork with those pencils in her hair?
She looked up at him, the dark circles of fatigue just starting to show under her green eyes, which were contradicted by a sparkle of the enthusiasm of success.
“What happened to your room? Did you get hit by a tornado?”
“Har, har. I’m making serious progress with my research, and while you may not know it, all of this is very organized,” Lexi said, gesturing to the chaos of paper.
“What have you found so far?”
“Well, there are three universities and one – ahem – military school that have medical departments specifically geared toward the research of psychoactive substances. They’re all creating and testing new forms of chemical neurotransmitters to test pharmacodynamics and neural circuitry…”
“English, please, Lexi.”
“They’re all working on developing new meds to see how they affect and change brain activity.”
“Which is pretty much what you said before, right?”
“Right. Only the most interesting thing came as I was searching lab results from the university departments and news stories online. There’s a seven month period of time in one lab that I can’t find any information. No lab results through the layers of web material, no articles in any of the media – regionally or nationally, nothing. Guess which lab?”
“The military one.”
“Bingo.”
“Guess what dates?”
“I’m not sure I can guess the exact dates, but I’m betting it was during Blevins’ time there.”
“You’re a smart one, you…”
“I guess if there was some kind of scandal or illegal activity, the military would know how to bury it. Especially if they weren’t directly involved – if the activity wasn’t ordered by them, they would want to make it disappear, so they wouldn’t be liable.”
“I’m guessing someone has erased it. But I’m stumped. I can’t figure out how you can manage to eliminate seven months of activity… There’s got to be some information somewhere!”
“Probably in some file marked CLASSIFIED, hidden deep within the pits of a very large security safe that is guarded by sharpshooters with sniper rifles.”
“Yikes. When you say it like that…”
“Makes you want to know, doesn’t it?” Sam grinned at her.
Lexi smiled back. “Sure does.”
Just then, Sam’s cell rang. He looked at the screen, then back at Lexi. “It’s Clint.”
To Lexi’s ears, Sam’s end of the conversation sounded something like: “Yeah. Sure. No, we’re here. Come on over. No, you’re right, it’s a good idea. I’m glad you thought of it. Bring Leesha. You two can meet the fam. See you soon. Bye.”
He hung up and Lexi asked, “What was that all about?”
“Clint’s doing a sweep of all of our houses to see if there are any surveillance cameras or recording devices. He got the idea this morning – has already run a check on his and Leesha’s houses.”
“Did he find anything?”
“No, not there. But he just wants to be sure. You know, cover all the bases.”
“Good idea. I don’t want someone watching us here. You don’t think Mom and Dad are in any danger, do you?” Lexi suddenly looked worried.
Good grief, she’s paranoid.
“At this point, Lex, I’m not going to jump to that conclusion. But it’s certainly in the back of my mind. I don’t know what Blevins is capable of, but I won’t let him near Mom and Dad.”
“Okay… Me either. We’ll make sure of it.”
“Lex?”
“Yeah.”
“Clint and Leesha are on their way over here. How do you suggest we introduce them to Mom and Dad?”
By the time Leesha drove up, Sam and Lexi had all the details down. Sam projected the plan to the other two before they got out of the car, so they were all on the same page. They basically agreed to give the least amount of information possible.
“Mom, Dad,” Sam opened the door for their guests, “this is Leesha…”
“Pleased to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Dixon,” she smiled and offered her hand.
“And this is Clint.”
“Nice to meet you,” Clint mumbled as he shook Mr. Dixon’s hand.
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet both of you,” Mrs. Dixon sang, as she shot a puzzled look at her husband. “It’s always nice to meet new friends of Sam and Lexi’s.”
Uh-oh. Her radar is on alert.
“Mom,” Sam continued. “I told you about Leesha – she is the new friend we met at that study group. She goes to Central. And we met Clint through her. They just stopped by to say hello.”
“Well, welcome,” Mr. Dixon said. “We’re always glad to have friends of the kids over.”
How quaint… Barf. Let’s move ‘em out of here.
Lexi must have had the same thought, because she grabbed a couple of sodas from the refrigerator and said, “Hey Leesha. Come on up – I really want to show you that new pair of shoes I was telling you about.”
Sam smiled, then projected to Lexi, “Thanks, Lex. Fill her in. And grab my paperwork on the bed for her – it’s next to my laptop. Clint and I will start a perimeter around the outside and will be up shortly.”
Sam then made some excuse about a CD in his car he promised to give to Clint and the two boys stepped out the side door. Once outside, they could talk a little better, but still used quiet voices.
“I’m glad you didn’t show up on your bike, man. My mom would have freaked!”
Clint laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. Most moms don’t like the Harley.”
“Where do we start?”
“Just walk me around the house. I want to see if there are any cameras hidden either in your landscaping or on your house. It shouldn’t take too long – there aren’t that many places you can put something like this and still get viable use out of it. You want a good hiding place, but an angle at which you could actually see something.”
