The Reluctant Psychic Ch. 10

Again, I had shifted the conversation in a direction she hadn't dreamed possible. She came expecting a lead on the DA's source at best, but really only expected to find a billionaire tax evader. So she went ahead with her original line of questioning, "Who is the beneficiary for the Rowan Manor Trust?"

"Don't you want to turn on your tape recorder first? Or at least notify me that it's already running?"

"Would you mind if I recorded this conversation?" she said, pulling out her tape recorder.

"Go right ahead Samantha." She hit the record button and began the memo about the day and time and whom she was talking to. Before she could re-ask me her question, I answered, "The beneficiary is anonymous until such time as he, she or they wish to, and are legally able to reveal his, her or their identities."

"I'm not anonymous!" Anna yelled. "Just because you put me in a coma and finagled legal guardianship of my body, doesn't make me anonymous. Go ahead, tell her who I am!"

I winced again, and I felt Claire's soft hand caressing my cheek by way of sympathy. The wince and the sympathy did not pass unnoticed by young Samantha. I watched as she made notes in her memo-pad to supplement the recording.

"You really couldn't care less about the trust fund. You are digging for information about the 'law-wave' that's been sweeping the city. You found a supposed link between the two and are hoping the trust will give you some leverage with the story you are really after."

"I have enough information to do a month long expose on the residents of Highland. I have deeds, permits, voter registration records, immigration documents... I happen to know that Elizabeth Haufman's father is..."

I slammed my fist on the table before she could finish. Betsy's past was Betsy's to tell. I didn't know if Betsy had told Claire or not, but I wouldn't allow this reporter to blab it, or print it. I slowly disentangled myself from Claire and rose to my feet. Generally I'm not an angry man, but she threatened my daughter. "What gives you the right to come into my home and blackmail me and my family? I've spent the last two years of my life getting organized crime out of this city..."

She cut me off. She stood to yell at me face to face, "The people have a right to know! It is all public record, the public has the right. I have the right."

I was about to yell back, that I had the right to tell the people about how she cheated on her college boyfriend with a high school flame, or how she'd gotten a D in Journalism Ethics (even though I knew it was because she wouldn't sleep with the professor). Instead I listened to Claire's pleading hands, which were trying to pull me back to the chair. I also listened to the fearful trembling of my girls who were now eavesdropping from the hall.

"Let her stay," Claire whispered to me. "Let her stay, let her talk to the girls. Once she knows us, she won't say anything."

"Are you sure?" I asked, bewildered.

"If not, you can always buy her paper," Claire said, just loud enough for Samantha to hear. The other girls were no longer eavesdropping, but slowly filtering into the room. I was still so angry, that I knew I shouldn't be around them. But I had faith in Claire and the rest of my girls, so I left them alone with Samantha.

* * *

I had a little hideout made at the same time as the main house was being built. I had it built on a remote corner of the property, far enough away from the main house and grounds that I couldn't sense my girls. More importantly, it was far enough away that I couldn't affect my girls accidentally when I was in a dark mood.

The hideout was perched twenty feet down a cliff on the far side of the mountain from the main house. It's set back in a natural fissure so it would be invisible to anyone in the river valley below. Not that there was anyone in the valley, except for the occasional lost hiker.

Even though it was mainly a place for me to retreat emotionally, it was also literally a hideout in case my enemies came calling when I was temporarily without my powers. So the entrance was carefully hidden in a rock formation over fifty yards back from the cliff. I personally supervised the construction, putting blocks in the worker's minds so they couldn't talk about it when they went home at night, and carefully erasing their minds when the work was finally complete. I was a little surprised that Anna didn't object to the erasures but I knew as much as she seemed to hate me she didn't want to see me killed.

The only person I told about the hideout was Betsy, because she was also a mark for my enemies and because someone needed to know how to reach me in case of an emergency. But it didn't take long for Gwendolyn to find my hideout. She showed up in the middle of one of my bad moods with a plateful of open faced peanut butter sandwiches with smiles drawn in them and a glass of milk. She put down the plate and glass, gave me a kiss and said, "Hurry up and get happy, we miss you," before walking out again.

As I looked out over the river, I wondered once again how Gwen had found me that day. Betsy hadn't told her, I hadn't told her, and the entrance was hard enough to find when you knew it was there. But Gwen did see things differently, so maybe the entrance was obvious to her eyes. Then there was the question of how she had managed to sneak up on me, and how she had managed to keep it a secret.

My mind wandered between that question, and the question of what to do about Samantha. I trusted my girls, but Samantha was a reporter. All reporters do is ruin people's privacy and happiness. Buying the newspaper was a nice idea, but I knew she could just take the story elsewhere, maybe even to a national rag. I certainly didn't want the story going international which was all too likely if the sharks smelled blood in the water.

There had to be a way to do it without tampering with her mind. I realized I would just have to trust my girls. As that thought sank in, I felt a weight lift from my heart and was suddenly at peace. I did trust them. Even if they couldn't manage to stop Samantha from writing a story, they would make everything alright.

With a peaceful heart, I watched the shadow of the mountain finish crossing the valley. One day, I would have to visit my hideout for a sunrise, I thought. That was when I heard the humming. Somehow Gwen had managed to sneak up on me again, I realized. In a way, sensing her approach was like watching the sunrise, only more musical.

I stayed where I was as Gwen approached, letting her sneak under my arm as I leaned against the railing. She hugged me and pressed her cheek against my chest. I moved my hand to her shoulder and we sat watching the last of the light leave the valley. "How do you always manage to find me here?" I asked her.

"But you're not lost," she said, almost making it a question. Then she added, "mostly just sad."

"I meant, how did you find my secret hideout?"

"It's a secret?" I had just enough time to realize she had kept the secret because she hadn't known it was a secret before she added, "Who are you hiding from?"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was hiding from her and the rest of the girls. I was hiding really from my own bad moods, which meant avoiding the girls. Finally I said, "I guess I was hiding from myself."

"That's as silly as hiding from me." I couldn't figure out if she meant it would be silly for me to want to hide from her, or it was silly to think I could hide from her. Of course, in Gwen's mind the two could be the same thing.

We just held each other as the stars staring taking over from the sun. Then Gwen said, "So Betsy shouldn't be bringing Samantha here?"

"Why would Betsy be bringing Samantha here?" I asked.

"Maybe Betsy didn't know it was a secret hideout either."

I started to sense Betsy and Samantha approaching. They were at the very limit of my abilities to sense, but definitely intent on coming here.

"Gwen, why don't you go let Betsy and Samantha in; it can be hard to find the entrance in the dark." I watched her go unerringly through the darkened room and into the pitch black passage, humming as she went. As she disappeared from my sight, I realized the chances of my hideout staying a secret were disappearing with her.

I walked across the room to the light switch, managing to stub my toe twice in the process. When I flipped the switch I winced at the sudden brightness. I began going around the room turning off the lights. Halfway through, I decided to turn the lights off and go with a fire instead. I had never used the fireplace, except once to prove that it worked. Even though the smoke was cleverly channeled through natural fissures, I didn't want to risk someone seeing it and learning that I had a secret hideout.

Of course, it probably didn't make a lot of sense to have a fireplace in a secret hideout anyway. Although, aside from the hidden entrance there really isn't much that makes it seem like a bolt hole. It looked more like a luxury ski cabin, with heavy oak and leather furniture and pinewood floors. The rough-hewn walls were covered in tapestries, and I even had them install an antler chandelier from the irregular ceiling.

The wood piled in the fireplace was so dry that it lit immediately. I flipped the switch on the wall that would start the fan and unseal chimney. The sudden flare from the fire and freshening of the air was the only indication that system was working properly. I turned off the lights and settled in one of the chairs near the fire. I was trying to figure out the least pretentious way to greet my approaching guest when I realized a romantic fire was probably not the best way.

I felt Samantha walking down the passage before I heard the squeak of her borrowed sneakers. She felt uncomfortable in the sneakers, but appreciated having them for the walk through the woods. She was also nervous about how she would look in a conservative blue pantsuit and bright pink sneakers. I relaxed a little knowing that I wasn't the only one who was nervous.

"You can stop prying into her mind now," snapped Anna. I wondered for a moment why she hadn't objected sooner. But I didn't have long to wonder before I heard a tentative knock at the door. I hurried over and opened the door to find Samantha standing there. She wasn't showing the bold confidence that she had when I opened the door for her this morning. This time, her confidence wasn't a bluff, but was born from a growing sense of belonging. I was about to look deeper at this sense of belonging when Anna started yelling at me again.

I waved Samantha in and told Anna she didn't have to shout. Anna suggested that yelling was the only way to get through my thick skull before suggesting that I offer my guest a drink.

"Would you like something to drink, Miss Grabowski?" I asked as I showed her to a chair.

"Please, call me Samantha," she said. I heard a slight plea in her voice, she wanted to belong but couldn't if I kept the meeting formal. Anna let me delve long enough to extract that one thought before mentally clearing her throat at me.

"Would you like something to drink, Samantha?" I said as I crossed to the small bar.

"I'll have whatever you're having. Fifty year old scotch? Or is it moonshine?" She gave a short laugh, to indicate she was trying to make a joke, but suddenly realized it didn't sound so funny. "I just meant," she paused as I put ice into a couple of glasses. "You have such a strange life. You're home is like the Playboy mansion, only without the silicon or pretension. Then I come here and it's like being in Al Capone's bunker, with nicer furniture."

I handed her a glass and sat in the chair opposite her. "I do have enemies. Enemies that even this hideout might not stop."

"Surely it would stop them long enough for the police to get here."

"It takes twenty minutes to get from here to the police station driving like a maniac," or like Bambi I added to myself, "so given response time and sanity, it will take them nearly half an hour. After that it would take another hour for the SWAT team to arrive. Their truck might be able to smash through the wreckage of the police cruisers, but most likely they would try a helicopter. When the FBI learns about the surface to air missiles and the gravity of the situation, they will want to send in a hostage rescue team. The nearest team would take three hours to get here."

Samantha was giving me an incredulous look. "Surely the mob doesn't have surface to air missiles, and they wouldn't be ballsy enough to declare war on the police."

"You are correct in thinking the mob wouldn't declare war on the police, but they do have missiles or can get them within a day. But I have other enemies than just the mob." I paused to let the idea sink in, but clearly she didn't believe me. "Did you talk to Magda? Did she perhaps mention her father?"

"She said you were there when her father was killed, and that afterwards you took care of her and her family."

What Magda didn't say, because she didn't know, was that I could have prevented her father's death, I had practically caused it. But that wasn't pertinent now, so I said, "He was also killed in the presence of Alexander Ilyovitch, Nassan Abdul Caliph and Toan Ho Pack."

"I don't know who the first two are, but Toan Ho Pack is dead. He has been for like twenty years."

"The Butcher is not dead, not yet. The People's uprising mistakenly killed a body double, Pack has gone underground and now trains execution squads for the Triads. Alexander Ilyovitch was a General in the Russian army before the collapse. He still maintains control of a military base that he is slowly depleting of tanks, guns and missiles. The Russian government doesn't stop him because he also controls five nuclear missiles. It is the new Russian cold war, they don't bother him if he doesn't move the nukes, he doesn't bother them in return."

"And that Caliph guy?"

"He's a slave trader primarily. Mostly he buys children from poor European families and sells them to brothels and other buyers in Africa, the Middle East and even India. He often breaks the slaves himself; he is so skilled at physical and psychological torture that crime families will call him to deal with traitors and overzealous law enforcement agents."

"And these men are you enemies? Why were you there, why was Magda's father there?"

"Magda's mother was dying, and her father couldn't pay for her treatment. He was also the best poker player I have ever met. He scrounged up some money to bribe entry into the game, and staked Magda and her sister as collateral in the game."

"Are you telling me you played cards with those people? That you were betting people?"

"Mostly I bet money and tanks," I said, a bit defensively.

"But you also bet people? You bet slaves?" Samantha stood from the chair and looked at her glass in horror. "Is this drugged? Did you trap me here to sell me?" She started backing to the door, throwing the glass into the fireplace where the water hissed.

"I never bet a person. I did accept other people's bets when they bet slaves, but I always freed them when I won." I didn't try to calm her, if she believed half of what I had told her she had every right to be afraid of me. I was starting to wonder if I should stop her from writing the article.

"But you still traded for people, that's still slavery! What about when you lost the slaves?"

"I never lost."

"What do you mean you never lost. Everyone loses occasionally. Even the greatest players lose." As she shouted at me something finally clicked in her mind, "Magda's father lost, that's why they killed him, because he wouldn't turn over Magda and her sister."

"If I hadn't been there, he would have won enough money to pay for Magda's mother's health care and send Magda and Katia to college. They might even have let him live long enough to spend the money. But at the end of the game it was just me and him, and I never lost."

"So you killed him, and now Magda's your slave?" She was close to hysterical now. Her hand was trying to open the door, but she couldn't seem to find the knob.

"He killed himself when he realized what he had lost. He even tried to kill me before killing himself, because he thought I would collect on his debt. But Magda is not my slave, she has never been my slave." I stood and walked towards the balcony, away from Samantha. "I felt guilty. They had always been scraps of paper or photographs, but this time it was a man's family. By winning I had destroyed him, and them. So, I paid for the treatment and for Magda and Katia to go to college and I stayed far away from them."

Samantha's hand finally settled on the doorknob. She turned it and opened the door slightly, reassuring herself that she was not trapped. That seemed enough because I heard the door click shut with her still on my side of it.

I turned back to look at her, she was pale and still frightened, but no longer hysterical. "She came to me. She wanted to thank me, and then she just stayed. I found Bambi in a strip club run by the IRA and sent her to college because I thought she was too nice for a place like that, and she just stayed. Betsy's father was the closest thing I had to a friend, so when he went into a coma, I took care of her. I tried to stay away from her because of all the evil I would bring into her life, but she just stayed with me. Don't you see, I found them all at the worst point in their life and showed them a little kindness and then they just stay! I tell them how evil I am, and the horrible people I associate with, they get frightened but end up staying. I have a secret hideout! I have a bunker in the basement of my home. I own more tanks and guns than North Korea and have enemies scary enough that that doesn't matter, but still they stay." I walked out onto the balcony and stared out over the valley. When I heard her at the balcony doorway I added, "Write you article, but leave the girls out of it. Give me time to see them someplace safe."

"Is it all true?" she asked. I let my silence speak for me. She took a step toward me and said, "That isn't what they said." I felt her hand coming towards me and then withdrawn, "Well, it's the same story but they tell it with you as the hero."

"I'm no hero."

"Then why are you cleaning up the crime in the city?"

"Always the reporter," I rejoined, to avoid her question as much as anything. I felt how badly my retort stung her. She was trying to be nice and I hurt her in return.

"They all told me their stories. They said that you found them at the lowest point in their lives and saved them. You saved them from the mob, from slavery, from abuse, from being orphaned, from... from everything. All they want to do is return the favor." She was talking too fast, to fast for me to accept what she was saying. She stopped, took a breath and said in precise sharp words, "They want to save you."

"Save me from what?" I shouted as I turned to face her. "Save me from the mob? Save me from arms dealers and white slavers? What good could they do against enemies like that? I have more money than I could spend in my life, so obviously it's not poverty. My parent's were a bit strange, but they weren't abusive. Sure they're dead but it's a bit late to save me from being an orphan, so what's left? Who or what could they possibly save me from?" I was shouting, and tears were running down my cheeks, but I didn't care any longer. I collapsed to the floor, leaning against the railing.

"They want to save you from yourself."

She sat down next to me, silent. Eventually the emotions boiling through my veins simmered out, leaving me cold and shaking. She turned to me then, placed a hand on my cheek and pulled my face towards hers. "I think you're worth saving too."