Chapter 7
A lex drove, while Taryn sipped her coffee, as they raced down the road in the opposite direction. After Alex had gone about ten miles, his phone vibrated. He pulled off to the side and answered the call to hear Riff’s voice on the other end.
“They’re back home again.”
“Great,” Alex murmured. “I wonder if that trip was just to get out to make a phone call. What’s the reception like there?”
“It sucks,” Riff replied. “So that’s very possible, and the internet is even more of a problem. And since his phone and net provider probably aren’t as advanced as mine, his service must be even worse.”
“That would make sense and would explain why he was so frustrated when he was outside the convenience store on the phone that time.” Then he went on to explain to Riff what had happened when they’d encountered him at the store.
“That’s too bad,” Riff replied. “Now that he has seen the two of you, we’ll have to be careful because he’s bound to remember you both.”
“Well, we can’t really blame Taryn for speaking to Cassie,” Alex replied, with a smile for her as she glared at him. “The little girl was just staring at her, and I think anybody would have spoken to her.”
“ Great ,” Riff muttered. “It could also mean that the little girl is reaching out more and more, with that inner instinct that says she’s in trouble.”
Alex suggested, “It could also just be that the uncle is getting more and more unbearable.”
“What gets me is that,” Taryn pointed out, as she leaned over and joined in this phone conversation, “I saw no sign of the two little boys.”
Riff went silent for a moment. “That’s not good,” he replied in a bewildered tone. “Would Jeff really leave them in the house alone?”
“They are twins, six years old. Maybe they were sleeping,” Taryn replied. “I don’t think Jeff’ll win any parenting awards, so leaving two young children at home alone probably isn’t that big of a deal in his world.”
“True enough,” Riff agreed. “Anyway they just turned into the driveway.”
“Okay, we’ll head back and go around to the far side again,” Alex murmured. “Did you get any updates from anyone?”
“Just the usual stuff,” Riff noted. “Everybody’s working on it, but, so far, useful information has been a bit thin. Terk’s team has some possible leads on the missing father and will follow through on all of them. There was no local police investigation into his sister-in-law’s death and no suspicion on Jeff’s part at all. I do understand that an online child pornography group is involved, and another Interpol group is interested in the purchase of these kids as well.”
“Jesus, to even hear about that is awful,” Taryn whispered.
“I know,” Riff agreed, his voice reassuring. “Yet it should help you to realize that the local and international authorities recognize it exactly for what it is. However, they don’t just want Jeff. They want to get the buyers as well.”
“Sure, and meanwhile Cassie and her brothers are being tormented day in and day out by this asshole,” she cried out.
Silence came from the other end, before Riff finally spoke. “I’m not here to give you the pros and cons on getting these pervs,” he began, then took a deep breath. “All I can tell you is that we have to work within the boundaries of the law to best protect these kids, which we’re doing.” And, with that, he disconnected.
She winced. “I guess I pissed him off, huh ?”
Alex sighed. He wasn’t about to share with Taryn how he and Riff had already spoken to both Levi and Terk, with each reminding them to play nice. It rubbed everybody wrong. Still, it wouldn’t calm down Taryn to hear this from Terkel’s and Levi’s point of view either. So Alex crafted his reply for her consumption.
“It’s not so much that you pissed off Riff but that we’re all in the same boat. We would all love to go storming in there and get those kids out of there, but we can’t do that. We’re all just as frustrated as you are, but we know there are limits to what can be done.”
“Whereas I don’t see those limits because I don’t really want to listen to them,” she admitted, with a nod, “and that just makes me more of a wild card.”
Alex laughed. “You’re not so much a wild card, but, because you don’t understand the rules we work within, you’re kicking back at us, and we don’t have any justification that would work for you.”
“Sorry,” she muttered.
Alex gave her a wily grin. “Doesn’t mean that Riff and I aren’t working on doing something rogue. After all, we’re not good with rules. Just don’t tell Levi and Terk. If we do this, it has to be on our own.”
*
Taryn beamed, finally hearing that the guys were really on her side. Heaving out a long breath of relief, she settled into her seat, as Alex pulled a U-turn in the center of the road and headed back the way they had come. “It’s just frustrating, all the waiting. I’m finally glad to hear that I am not alone in wanting to go in there and do something drastic.” He patted her hand. She looked down at his gesture and sighed. “You know it’s a bad day when somebody pats my hand to keep me calm.”
He burst out laughing. “Is that not something people do?”
“It’s something people tend to do to a child or a very old woman,” she stated, with a smirk. “I don’t know about anything other than that.”
“You are definitely neither of those,” he said, “and I certainly don’t see you that way.”
“Well, that’s good,” she muttered. She looked over at him and smiled. “We’re spending so much time together that it almost feels as if we have a thing going on.”
“We do have a thing going on,” he declared, as he eyed her.
Enough amusement filled his gaze that she knew he was laughing at her. She shook her head. “Well, laughing at me won’t exactly get me on your side,” she muttered.
“You are on my side,” he countered comfortably. “We’re both on the side of those children that Jeff has, and nothing else matters.”
Alex was right, and Taryn was just venting. Yet it was hard not to when so much unchecked shit was going on in the world out there. As they pulled into their spot around the back, she pointed up through the trees at a window on the second floor. “Somebody is staring out the window.”
“We need a different spot,” Alex murmured. “We should be shielded enough by the trees to stay here a short while, as I go scout out the land.”
She froze, but he was already outside and gone. She tried to peer through the trees, but it was hard to see. She had just caught that one glimpse of someone in the window, and now all she could do was sit and wonder who the hell it was. So many questions ran through her mind.
Where were the two little boys?
Where the hell was Jeff?
Was he on to them?
That last part worried her more than anything, but she didn’t care about her safety. Those little kids, they were everything to her and Bruce, and their safety mattered the most.
She waited, hesitant, when her instincts started to prod her in a really ugly way. Listening to the orders in her mind, she got out of the car, stepped back into the trees, and waited. She saw somebody skulking around in the backyard. Would he come far enough this way to see the car? That would not be good. She wondered if she should hop in and move it, but she figured that might be the worst thing she could do, as the noise alone might only draw more attention to her. Just as whoever it was moved toward her, a loud bang came from inside the house.
She watched as the man, now easily recognizable as Uncle Jeff, turned and looked back up at the house and started yelling. Taryn smiled because it was almost as if somebody in the house had done it on purpose. Then she froze for a moment and tried sending out a message. Was that you, Cassie?
First came a click , a hesitation, and then a soft reply. Yes .
Taryn was impressed that Cassie was so strong. What are you doing? Taryn asked.
She whispered again, this time very clearly, We’re trying to keep you safe .… I miss my mommy .
I know you do, honey. I know, but your mommy is in heaven now . And the little girl started to sob again.
Cassie’s grief overwhelmed Taryn too. She winced. “Not exactly tactful of you, Taryn,” she muttered to herself. “The child is still trying to deal with everything, and here you are, mucking it all back up again.” She’d never had much exposure to children and didn’t know very much about how to talk to them. She’d been the youngest of the foster kids, and a wary young foster kid at that, not having had a whole lot of good experiences up until she had moved in with Bruce’s family.
Still, she knew that Cassie needed one main thing, and it was comfort. Cassie needed reassurance that it would be okay. And that was the part Taryn hated the most,… the comforting and, more so, her lack of tact. The guys were all telling her it would be okay in the end, but still, she was helpless to do anything. What she awkwardly planned to say was something about it being okay soon and that Cassie would be fine, that she and her brothers would be rescued. Taryn decided against it, since she wasn’t even sure Cassie knew what being rescued was. So instead Taryn said, It will soon be okay. You and your brothers will be okay soon .
My uncle is not the same anymore .
No, I’m sure he isn’t , Taryn replied. I’m sure he’s hurting too . The little girl didn’t say anything, and all Taryn heard were sniffles. We’re watching to confirm that you’re okay. So you just stay safe, all right? If your uncle tells you to do something, mind him. Don’t risk getting hurt .
He didn’t use to hit us at all. Now he hits us all the time .
Taryn winced. Where are your brothers?
Another long silence came before Cassie asked, How do you know about my brothers?
I saw them with you one day .
My uncle hit them, and it took a long time for them to wake up. They haven’t been feeling very good ever since .
Taryn gasped.
He’s back. I have to go. Then suddenly Cassie went silent.
Taryn waited, trying to send encouraging thoughts to the little girl. When the car door opened beside her, she watched Alex get into the driver’s seat. Starting the engine, he slowly backed it up and headed down the lane. “That was the uncle,” she muttered.
He nodded. “Yeah, I’m not exactly sure what happened, but he headed out here, suspicious, so we’ll need to find another parking spot. Then he stopped and went back home, when some banging came from the house.”
Taryn nodded. “It was Cassie.” Alex frowned at Taryn, as she nodded a second time, then grinned, feeling quite proud of herself. “I’ve been talking to her. She’s really scared and worried. She told me that her uncle has changed, and he’s not like he used to be. He didn’t use to hit them, and now he does,” she shared, keeping it simple, when it wasn’t simple at all. “He hit her little brothers hard enough that they didn’t wake up for a while, and now they are not the same. It sounds as if the little boys are in a lot of pain.”
“Damn, that’s not good. I would have thought Jeff would be more careful, especially since he plans on selling them. This is bad.”
“Maybe he’s not selling them or at least not getting the price or the buyers as quickly or as easily as he expected. It definitely sounds as if Jeff’s getting angrier and more frustrated,” Taryn replied. “That situation will just get worse and worse.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Alex confirmed, then frowned. “Yet a thought in your head isn’t something we can take to the police.”
She groaned, then sat back,… pissed, yet knowing he was right. Of all the possible leads they could act on, that would be the last they could use as evidence, as least in the eyes of the cops. “It’s so not fair that Cassie and her brothers are in that situation,” Taryn wailed. “Stuck in there, wishing desperately for somebody to come and help them. Yet I’m glad that she’s not saying, My uncle’s hurting me , or I’m scared . She’s lonely, and she’s afraid because her uncle’s changed and her little brothers are hurt,” Taryn explained. “Cassie has no idea her uncle has changed in ways she can’t begin to imagine. It all makes me very sad. What’s worse is how helpless I feel.”
“Go ahead and be sad, but don’t waste time on feeling helpless. Keep sending healing energy to Cassie and her brothers,” Alex suggested. “Also, keep that connection as open as you can. Cassie might be the only source of warning we have.”
“She’s the one who made the racket that sent Jeff back to the house.”
He looked at her. “Are you sure about that? Really?”
“Oh, I’m sure because then she asked me why we were here and what we were doing. I told her we were worried about her, that we knew about her mommy and were worried that Cassie and her brothers weren’t okay.”
He nodded. “I’m sure that brought about a set of tears.”
She looked over at him. “See? I haven’t had much experience with children,” she pointed out apologetically. “So, I wasn’t really thinking that it would bring on the tears, but it did.”
“Absolutely it would. Young people don’t have the emotional control that we’re supposed to have as adults,” he noted, with a wry look. “Not that a lot of adults have it either, but generally we have a little more control than somebody at that age.”
She pondered that. “She thinks that she’s very much in control.”
He looked over at her. “So, I’ve got a question for you. Can you reach the hurting little boys, and what if it isn’t the little girl you’re actually reaching?”
She stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“A thought occurred to me,” Alex began, “mostly because I can’t tell who you’re talking to, who this person is, what this person is up to. So, is there any chance you are talking telepathically to the uncle?” Taryn had a sinking feeling in her gut, and Alex kept on hitting it home. “What if it’s really Jeff, and he’s just leading you down the merry path, trying to figure out who and what you’re up to?”
She stared at him, her stomach twisting. She went over the conversation as much as she could remember. “I sincerely hope not,” she finally said, “but I have no way to know, do I?”
“No, you probably don’t,” Alex confirmed. “Just keep in mind that not everything that goes boo in the night is a ghost.”
She gave a broken laugh. “So far, everything that’s gone boo in the night has been my worst nightmare,” she muttered. “So, I don’t know if that would change anything.”
He smiled at that. “I get that, and I’m sorry. Adjustments are always required when you come into these matters, and the fact that you have connected to Cassie—or whoever that is—means we have to adapt here.” He took a breath to emphasize the point. “It just makes it a little more challenging for the rest of us. If we could jump in there and help, we would. No matter what, it’s important that you know we can’t do anything to break that connection. And, while she’s there and telling us what’s going on, there’s a good chance she would tell us when she’s leaving, when she’s in trouble. So, what I am trying to say is, let’s keep the connection open, but just remember you can’t always trust everything that goes through your head.”
“So, you’re saying …”
“I get that this is new and exciting, and no way you could possibly understand all the nuances that can happen when you get involved with energy work,” he explained. “Short of getting years of experience doing this, hopefully years of experience with Terk as your teacher, the bottom line is, you just need to remember that not everything is always the way it seems.”
And, with that, Alex headed down the highway.
*
Alex wasn’t sure if he’d left Taryn shocked, upset, or both. He was thrilled that she’d connected with Cassie, the little girl. Yet he was worried because he had heard stories that were pretty rough, where people thought they were talking telepathically to somebody in particular and found out later they weren’t. Alex didn’t want to turn it into something scary for Taryn, but he also didn’t want it to end up being a murderous event.
He knew it could go both ways, thinking of a case he knew of, where someone lured a woman into thinking that she was talking to her dead brother, but instead it had been the man who had murdered her brother. Alex didn’t want any of that happening to Taryn. But to even try to explain something so bizarre was probably well past what Taryn could work with right now, especially as a newbie energy worker.
As they drove past the convenience store again, she looked at him and sighed. “I’m really getting sick of this place.”
“We’ll head downtown then,” Alex offered. “I’ll look for some audio equipment, and Levi shipped us some too, so we’ll go pick that up as well.”
“What for?” she asked, turning to face him.
“Remember your idea of planting something on Jeff’s vehicle?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll give that a try. It’s a good idea.”
A big grin crossed her face, and then she laughed. “Oh, I’m glad to see I’m not totally useless.”
He smiled at her. “Never that. As a newbie, you’re a bit out of your depth, but you’ve been solid all the way through,” he noted. “Don’t forget that.”
“I think your buddy in the other vehicle would prefer I wasn’t around at all.”
“Riff just prefers to keep our team tight and small, which I understand. When a team gets too big, with too many people, we end up with added trouble. None of us wants that for you.”
“Right,” she muttered. “Okay, I can do what I can do. Then I can’t do any more.” Taryn shrugged. “I’m just trying to stay in control, with all the chaos going on.”
“Your role now is very clear. Just keep that channel open for Cassie.”
Taryn nodded. “Got it. Yet it’ll be awfully nice if we can get her and her brothers out of there. I would love to see them in person.”
“Well, you did,” he pointed out, with a note of humor. “At the store, the first time.” Then he frowned and asked, “Didn’t you?”
“Ah, I see what you’re saying.” Taryn nodded. “Yes.”
Alex asked, “Did it feel like the same energy?”
“I think so.” Taryn nodded, yet frowned. “I would have thought so anyway.”
“Okay, so the next time—if you have a chance and get that opportunity to see her… in person—check out her energy. Check out the feel of her, and see if it is consistent with what you’ve already connected to on the ethers.”
“Back to that possibility that it might not be her I’m talking to?” she asked, with a shiver.
“More like, let’s just confirm . Maybe she can’t send a message unless she’s alone. Maybe she’s under Jeff’s control so much that, when they’re out in public together, she can’t take a chance to telepathically speak to anyone because she doesn’t know how far it travels and whether he’ll find out. In my opinion, it seems that Cassie may only be connecting to you when her uncle is not right there.” When Taryn nodded, Alex added, “So we have to consider the possibility that her uncle might have a way to track when she’s utilizing energy.”
“Oh God. Jeff could be gifted too?” Taryn stared at Alex. “If that’s the case, we’ll never get her and her brothers out of there.”
“Oh, we’ll get them out,” he stated, “but it would be so much better if we could do it in a peaceful, orderly manner. Otherwise it could be quite ugly.”
“But we can’t further traumatize her and her brothers either,” Taryn stated. “Those kids have already been through too much.”
He nodded. “I get that. Believe me that I do. Nobody wants to expose them to more trauma. All I can tell you at the moment is that plans are in the works for the FBI to set up a sting operation.”
“Okay, and I liked the idea of that when it was mentioned before. So let’s get it going.”
“Yeah, it’s coming along, but you won’t like to hear that we’re being kept out of it.”
She groaned. “Of course. I should have known.” She shook her head. “Even after all we’ve done?”
“Yes, because, in their minds, we’re not qualified professionals,” he explained, with a wry note of humor.
“And we can’t argue that, since child trafficking isn’t a field we’ve spent a lot of time in, thank God.”
“ Thank God is exactly right,” Alex agreed. “Nobody wants to spend too much time in an underbelly world where they buy and sell children.” He gave a long sigh. “I imagine the burnout rate on the staff involved in this on a daily basis must be high. It’s bound to get to even the toughest of them after a while.”
“Of course. Dealing with this daily for any length of time must be an absolute nightmare,” she noted.
“Yeah, I would think so,” he muttered. “On the other hand, this little girl and her brothers are getting a rescue, whether they know it or not.”
“What about the two little boys, who are badly hurt?” she asked bitterly.
“Yeah, you mentioned that before. Wish we knew more on that.”
“I just want to go in there and pull the children out of there.”
“But how would you explain their being with you? What do you tell the townsfolk, the cashier at the convenience store, much less any feds?”
“If anybody asks, we just found them walking along the road.”
Knowing just how much she wanted this to happen, Alex recognized that this needed to be dealt with delicately. “In a way that might work. The problem would be when the police figure out who the children are and take them back to their uncle Jeff. Then the beatings will get worse than before.”
“Won’t they recognize the abuse when they check the boys and see the injuries they have?”
“They might,” he replied, with a nod. “But the uncle can quite easily say the kids must have fallen. Maybe when the boys got up in the middle of the night, they might not have known where they were and took off walking, until somebody found them and took them to the hospital. Jeff could tell that story or dozens of others,” Alex shared. “Believe me, when it comes to excuses, these perverts use a million of them to get out of trouble. And unfortunately, without an extensive record of abuse, quite often the abusers just get to take the kids right back home.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded.
He nodded. “Now, if the little boys could say that their uncle had hit them, then that’s a different story,” he added. “But we’re not in a position to do that yet, and, depending on what evidence of injury there is, it would do little more than become a notation on the boys’ medical records. Not only will it not stop Jeff from doing it again, it would likely accelerate his time frame and speed up his efforts to get rid of the kids.”
“God forbid,” she whispered. “Plus, after going through all that, Jeff will be even angrier, just putting all three kids in even more jeopardy.”
“Exactly,” Alex confirmed. “So, as hard as it is, all we can do is keep up the surveillance and let our people know when something changes.”
“Yet something has already changed,” she pointed out. “I mean, Jeff’s driving around, making phone calls. He hurt both little boys, and he’s getting angrier too, at least according to Cassie.”
“Did you know her name to be that before all this happened?”
Taryn nodded. “That’s her name. Remember that Bruce’s family fostered me. Mary, the children’s mother, was Bruce’s sister. I knew her when she was younger, but I was closer to Bruce, then and now. He and I are friends. We’ve remained in touch since then, practically family in a way.”
“Right, and have you ever met Cassie before?”
She pondered that. “Maybe. I can’t remember though. I know we met Mary and her friend at the zoo one time. Some kids were with them, but I don’t remember if they were Mary’s kids or Mary’s friend’s kids. The children were very small, and it seems as if there were more than two.”
“If there were other kids, some or all may have belonged to the girlfriend then. However, if it was the three we want, that could explain why Cassie reached out to you,” Alex guessed. “She would recognize you on an energy level and would already have a connection to you.”
Taryn smiled. “That would make sense. I’ll have to think about that whole visit. I know Bruce wasn’t terribly impressed with the idea of visiting to begin with because, every time he saw his sister, it just made him angry.”
“Why is that?”
“Because she wouldn’t leave her lazy-ass husband, and, in Bruce’s mind, if the husband wasn’t for her, he must be against her.”
“Yet how many families argue over the relationships that their siblings and friends get into?” Alex asked, with a smile. “We all know that it happens all the time.”
“Sure, it does,” she murmured, “and for the sister to be financially responsible for the five of them—hell, actually six, counting Jeff—that’s a big burden, one the husband and his brother should have stepped up to contribute to as well. Still,” she muttered, “once we get the children out of there, at least we could get the twins some medical attention.”
“We would sort that out regardless, whether the twins need it or not. Remember though that we’re listening to a little girl.”
Taryn groaned. “I know that, and I hear you,” she snapped, “but is there anybody in Terkel’s group who could check out the twins?”
Alex pondered that for a moment. “There probably is. Terk may already be on it.” Alex grabbed his phone. “Let me call him.” And he pulled off the road onto the shoulder and called Terkel. As soon as he answered, Alex explained the current issue.
Terkel replied calmly, “We can certainly take a gander and see if we can tell whether the little boys are hurt. The question would be what we could do about it afterward. Remember that we only have two healers here, and they are busy with Bruce and helping out every pregnant woman here too.”
“I know. I understand. Taryn remains fired up about us charging in to rescue all the children, now that we know Jeff is beating them.”
“I’m sure she is,” Terkel noted, “as is every one of the women here. We must be a little bit more circumspect though and confirm that none of the children get returned to Jeff. And the problem with that too is that we don’t want the children sent off into foster care either, not while Bruce is still recovering.”
“Good point. How is Bruce doing?”
“He was conscious today for about half an hour,” Terk shared, a smile evident in his tone. “So, he’s getting there.”
“Good, we need him to get there a little faster because he’s about to become a parent.”
Terkel sighed. “It could take a little more time than that to bring him back to that level of care.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’ll have to heal and heal faster, or alternatively we need to set up provisions to ensure these kids are looked after while Bruce heals.”
“Yeah, I already have a plan for that,” Terk replied. “Seems our castle might just fill up one of these days.”
Alex laughed. “I can’t imagine that it won’t, especially if you keep taking in strays.”
“They’re not strays if they’re part of my group,” Terk declared. “And, by my group , I mean anybody with abilities.”
“Yes, but, as you’re finding out, an awful lot of us are out in the world.”
“There are, indeed, more than I ever expected. In fact, a lot more. Anyway, I’ll get our admins to see if they can do a scan of the two little boys first, before I interrupt Cara and Clary. I’ll get back to you.”
Hanging up, Alex turned to look at Taryn to see her beaming.
“Thank you,” she said enthusiastically.
He nodded. “We are all about trying to help, you know? However, we also want to confirm that this Jeff asshole doesn’t take off and that this website that’s selling these children is also taken down. I know the pervs will just pop up on another website, but we must do what we can do right now.”
“Got it,” she muttered. She sagged back into her seat. “I see Riff’s car is there, but it looks abandoned.”
“Yeah, I suspect he’s gone hunting.” At his wording, she turned and frowned at him. Alex winced. “ Hunting in the sense of trying to figure out what’s going on in the house and with the damn uncle,” he clarified.
“So, you’ve picked up the things that Levi sent to us. Now what?”
“That’s the thing. I thought Riff would be here, so I could hand them off,” he replied in a clipped tone. “Let me drive a little farther down the road, and I’ll call him.” With that he headed out onto the road and back down another mile or so, then pulled onto the shoulder and phoned Riff.
“I saw you go by,” he answered, right off the bat. “Did you get the stuff?”
“Yeah, we did.”
“Good, I’ll be down at your corner in a minute. Just stay there.” And then Riff was gone.
As Alex turned to her and raised one eyebrow, she nodded. “He’s a man of few words.”
“He is, indeed, but he comes from the heart.”
“I’ll forgive anything,” she said, “as long as he helps those kids.”
He smiled at her. “You’re becoming quite the mother hen.”
“I wonder if it’s unique to all women,” she muttered. “I’ve never really had any of these motherly feelings before,” she admitted. “Yet right now I am a she-tiger, wanting to go roaring in there, tearing apart Jeff for hurting those little boys and being so mean to Cassie.”
Alex grimaced, as he grabbed her hand. “That’s why it’s a good thing that we are here, calm and steady, to hold you back.”
“How is that a good thing?” she snapped, glaring at him.
He smiled. “We need to be united on this. I’m sure not getting into an argument about it.”