Chapter 17
“I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT STUDYING law enforcement,” Kaya said.
Graham’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? I’ve never heard you talk about that before. What brought that on?’
Kaya leaned against the wall and then let herself slide onto the floor into a seated position. She patted the floor beside her, and Graham sat down, too. “It was my talk with Sergeant Morris last month. I’ve met with him a few times to talk about the Ted Stratton situation, and he said he thought that I had a good mind for police work.”
Graham laughed. “Good mind indeed,” he said. “You could solve all of his cases for him! Although I’m not sure that there are that many cold cases in a college police department.”
“You’d be surprised,” Kaya said. She reached into her purse, extracted her cell phone, and sent a quick message. Then she pulled out a pack of gum and took a piece. She held it out to Graham, and he took one too. “Did you know that the college police department has jurisdiction over any case that happens on campus? So if two people are walking through campus, even if they don’t go to school there, and one kills the other one, the campus police get the case. They don’t turn things over to the city police.”
“Huh,” Graham said as he pushed his gum into his mouth. “I had no idea. I didn’t even know they were real cops.”
Kaya nodded. “Some cops take jobs there kind of as a retirement job, since it really isn’t as harsh as working in a city department, but sometimes, they do get pretty bad cases. Sergeant Morris says that the Ted Stratton case is one of them. I told you about the complaints they had gotten about him even before my incident with him, but there was never enough evidence to investigate or arrest him. I told him I would do whatever I could to help. He was thankful, but I don’t think he one hundred percent believes in my ability to hear thoughts. I offered to prove it to him, but he kinda pulled his hands away. Maybe he’ll let me try someday. At least he doesn’t think I’m crazy anymore. Just eccentric.”
She looked at her watch.
“Do you think he forgot about us? He’s ten minutes late. I mean, the guy is like ninety-eight years old.”
Graham laughed. “Kaya, Dr. Blake is about sixty-five years old. Not even. He’s not really that ancient. One of his students probably stopped him after class to ask a question. I used to do that all the time.”
Kaya shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m just excited to hear what he has to tell me. I’ve waited a long time. I wish Mom could be here to hear it, too.”
“We’ll call her from my place tonight,” Graham promised. “I still can’t believe she’s still dating Dr. Flagg. He’s the first guy she went out with. I never really liked that guy as a dentist. I just associate him with painful needles and a numb tongue.”
Kaya laughed. “Numb tongue. I could make so many jokes right now about him and Mom and a numb tongue, but you’d probably not appreciate them.”
“There’s Dr. Blake,” Graham said, getting to his feet and offering Kaya his hand. He sent her a quick message.
“Don’t worry,” Kaya said. “I’ll be respectful. I only make the age jokes to you.”
“Hello, Graham siblings,” Dr. Blake said as he rushed to the door and unlocked it. “Come in. Sorry to be late. I couldn’t find my blazer. It turns out it was on the back of a chair, under my winter jacket. I should have thought to look there first.”
He turned on the lamp on his desk and motioned for his guests to sit down.
“I know you’re anxious to see your results, Kaya, so let’s get right to it.”
He removed a file from his attaché case and pulled out some papers. He pushed aside several piles of student essays and laid the documents down.
“I have the written report, but I thought I’d let you read that on your own. What I wanted to show you was the images from the fMRI session we had last week.”
He grabbed a paper from the stack and turned it around so Kaya and Graham could easily read it.
“So Kaya, I told you that we would be focusing on the areas of your brain that deal with receptive language. We took several images with you listening to regular speech, then some with no auditory stimuli at all, and then, with you holding on to either my hands or Graham’s hands as we attempted to send you messages. We did some when we just held hands passively. And lastly, we did all of those images again using subjects you had never met before to see if there was a different result.”
“Was there?” Kaya asked, sitting on the edge of her seat.
“As far as the strangers versus people you know, there was no difference at all. But I’d like you to look at the difference between the images of you listening to spoken language as opposed to the voices you heard through thoughts.”
Graham and Kaya leaned closer to get a better look. “That one area is all lit up in red,” Kaya said, pointing. “It’s lit up in this one too, but this one also has a bit that’s lit up on the left that’s not on the first image.”
Dr. Blake nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “I’m not going to use too much fancy scientist language with you, although I had a mighty fine time doing that with my colleague when I first saw the pictures. Don’t worry, I did not reveal whose brain this was, or what I was looking for, so your secret’s still safe. But here’s what we’re looking at in the first picture. It’s the left superior temporal gyrus, transverse temporal gyri, or Heschl’s gyri and the left temporal lobe. This part lights up with auditory stimulus. So Kaya, when you hear speaking, it lights up like normal. In the second image, as you can see, it also lights up when your brain is taking input from reading thoughts.”
“Oh my God,” Graham said softly. “So her brain actually shows that she’s hearing something.”
“Yes,” Dr. Blake said. “It’s the same result we expect to see from subjects who experience auditory hallucinations. Basically stimuli that’s coming from the brain, not through the nerves in the ears. But the most fascinating finding is that little bit that you saw to the left, Kaya.”
“What is it?” she asked.
Dr. Blake shrugged. “I have no idea. I’m not afraid to tell you that I’m stumped, and so was my colleague. What I think it is, is that anomaly that your doctor saw four years ago in your MRI. The one he thought might be a genetic throwback. And you know, I suspect that he might be correct.”
“So what does it do?” Graham asked, his eyes still scanning all of the images, taking them in.
“I’m not sure,” Dr. Blake said. “The voices were predictable, as we can see from the images, but the part that we don’t understand is how they travel from the person’s head, through touch, into Kaya’s nervous system to be interpreted. My suspicion is that the little knob there, the one that lit up, is what causes that to happen.”
“But why would our ancestors have something like this?” Kaya asked, looking up from the images at Dr. Blake. “It seems like it might be a kind of advanced thing, like something that would come from evolution rather than a throwback.”
Dr. Blake shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “This is what I think: I think that hundreds of thousands of years ago, the first humans didn’t have language like we know it now. They didn’t have an oral way to communicate. Yet, they seemed to be able to collaborate to survive. What if they did communicate? What if they were able to ‘hear’ each other’s thoughts? Now, I don’t mean in the exact way you do, Kaya. More like images. Say they were hunting the saber-toothed tiger. One of the hunters sees the tiger, but the other has his back to it. See, I’m not sure that they had to use touch like you do, Kaya. So the one who sees the tiger sends a silent warning to the other hunter, who spins around and hits the tiger on the head with a rock. Okay, well, that’s kind of a simplistic explanation, but it’s a start. Or maybe they did rely on touch, too. Maybe that was how couples worked out their sex lives. They obviously had sex, as the species continued. I’d imagine that your talent would be a pretty spectacular skill to have in the bedroom—”
“Okay,” Graham said. “So our caveman fathers might have had this same part of the brain.” He tried to wipe the thoughts of Kaya and Grayson in the bedroom out of his mind. “And I guess over the years, when they learned to communicate verbally, they didn’t need to use that part anymore, and it got weaker, and over the centuries, it just faded away. But now here it is in Kaya’s brain. I wonder why, out of all people, Kaya has that little knob. And maybe my father. So do you think that means that going back generations, a lot of our direct ancestors had the same thing?”
Dr. Blake nodded. “I do. I don’t know if it expressed itself the way Kaya’s does, or for that matter, your father’s. It’s possible that something activated it. Maybe all the technology we have today. All of the electronics. The headphones. The loud rock and roll. Cellular phones. Cellular phones would be my guess, since the sound waves move through air. Many people suspect that they cause a negative impact, but that’s unsubstantiated.”
Kaya stared at the floor. “So I guess this means that we have a general idea of how this all happens, scientifically.” She shook her head. “So it’s not magic. I guess I’m relieved, and disappointed at the same time. But it makes me wonder what other parts of the brain have been used and discarded through the years, and if anyone else has my skill, or other skills that we no longer need to survive. I think a lot of people would still see it all as magic, even if there is a scientific explanation. A lot of people don’t believe science. I don’t understand that. The proof is right there in front of their eyes. But it could be dangerous if someone is suspected of practicing magic, like back in the days of witch trials. So if anyone else has any skills like mine, they would most likely keep them quiet, don’t you guys think?”
Graham nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I bet they do. I would be so curious to know what else is out there, what else people can do. But Kaya, I’d be worried about people finding out about you, too, for other reasons. I could see some people wanting to use your skill for really bad reasons, like for spying, or committing crimes.”
“I agree with both of you,” Dr. Blake said. “That’s why I’ve decided that I’m not taking this research any further.”
Kaya blinked. “I’m not sure how I feel about that,” she said. “Dr. Blake, this is huge. No one has ever researched any of this—”“That we know of,” Dr. Blake clarified.
Kaya sat back. “Oh, that’s true. I didn’t think of that. But if you did pursue it, it could really make the end of your professional career really spectacular. I know that you told Graham that you’ve always wanted to discover something new in mental health, and there hasn’t really been anything new since the invention of the atypical antipsychotics. I’d hate to see you lose this opportunity.”
Dr. Blake smiled at her. “Kaya, I’m not missing out on anything,” he said gently. “I’m experiencing exactly what I’d hoped to experience. You see, it’s not only about publishing and sharing this knowledge with the world. It’s about knowing it’s there, and that there’s more out there to be discovered, and we haven’t even come close to discovering all of what’s out there. Can’t you see what an amazing thing that is? Kaya, that’s enough for me. Maybe someday Reed will be the one to write this paper. He’ll have more information, and be able to present enough to the world so that they’ll know that it is science and not magic, and we can head in new directions. I’m happy to leave that legacy to Reed.”
Graham beamed. “Thank you, Dr. Blake,” he said. “But Reed is my last name. First name Graham.”
Dr. Blake nodded. “You really should get something done about that, Reed.”
“Well, that was pretty awesome,” Kaya said as they left Dr. Blake’s office half an hour later. He had reviewed more images with them and answered several questions. After those questions, Dr. Blake came up with a dozen more to explore. “I’m really glad Dr. Blake agreed to continue to do some research with me, even if he doesn’t publish the results. I’m especially excited about him doing the fMRI on you, Graham, to see if you have that knob. You know, we should name the knob. Knob sounds so . . . I don’t know . . . phallic?”Graham laughed. “It really does,” he said. “And I really don’t want to hear Dr. Blake talk about the sexual advantages of your knob anymore!” He shook his head. “I might need to wash out my brain with soap now.”
Kaya smiled. “Let’s go get some something hot to drink while we’re out,” she suggested. “You don’t have any more classes today either, right?”
Graham shook his head. “Should we go to Edward’s coffee cart so you can have some eye candy with your cocoa?”
Kaya blushed. “It’s not candy if you don’t eat it.”
They entered the large building and stood in line for their drinks.
“I’m glad I know what causes my, you know, talent,” Kaya said, whispering the last word so others in line couldn’t hear. “I can relax now, and move on. It’s so great that science can explain everything, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Graham said, taking a step forward as the line moved quickly. “That’s why research is so interesting. I like the idea that Gina came up with, about taking a year to work as a research assistant, to figure out if I want to go further in the field later. I brought it up to Dr. Blake last month, and he said that he could put the word out in the department to see if anyone’s interested. I’ll have to come up with some other ideas, too, in case that doesn’t work out, but that would be ideal. I have to come up with some way to make money before Gina and I get married.”
He ordered his drink, and then stood aside so Kaya could order hers.
“It’s on me,” he told his sister as he handed his debit card to Edward.
Kaya smiled. “Thanks.”
They brought their drinks to an empty table and sat down.
Graham took off his coat and hung it on the back of his chair. He watched Kaya unwrap her scarf and remove her hat. “I can’t believe it’s only about five months until I graduate,” he said. “I remember the first time I came in here freshman year. It all looked so huge.”
Kaya took a sip of her drink. “Remember when you brought me here that time, to see the empty lecture hall? Yeah, I was a bit overwhelmed that day. I remember thinking that there would be no way I could concentrate in there, with all the chaos, and all the people. But now I know what causes it, and I can control it better. It’s gotten so much easier. In a way, that trip to the psychiatric hospital helped all of us figure it all out.”
“Yeah,” Graham agreed. He laughed. “It might not have been that long ago, but I’ll never forget that day when I saw the news and they were leading Dr. Franklin out of Benson Hospital in handcuffs. Tax evasion and Medicare fraud. Hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from the federal government. And I still wonder who called the tip in to the authorities.”
“I always assumed it was Dr. Blake,” Kaya said, dabbing at her lips with her napkin.
Graham shook his head. “He swears it wasn’t him,” he said. “I would imagine a guy like that makes a lot of enemies in his lifetime. I just want to know who it was so I could thank him. What he did to you was unforgivable. I wonder how many lives he ruined, just to be able to pad his own bank account.”
“I wonder how many other people like me have passed through the mental health system,” Kaya said. “It’s sad enough to have to deal with mental illness, but having to be subjected to mental health medications and treatment when you’re not really mentally ill is so tragic.”
“It really is,” Graham said. He drank the last few sips of his tea. “Do you want to head back to my place?”
“I’m not quite done,” Kaya said, looking down at her drink. Then she looked up. “Oh, there’s a girl from my English class over there. Her name’s Priya. She’s really nice.”
The girl started to walk toward them. Another girl trailed behind her.
“She’s coming over here. Quick. Wipe your mouth. You have something on your lip.”
Priya approached the table with a smile. “Hi, Kaya. It’s nice to see you again. This is my sister, Jade.”
Kaya smiled warmly. “Nice to meet you, Jade. This is my brother, Graham. Do you want to join us? We’re heading out soon, but we’re not in a huge hurry.”
Priya turned to Jade, and a look passed between them. Jade nodded, and the two women sat down. “I’m glad we ran into you, Kaya. I haven’t seen you since last term. I never got to talk to you after you had your, um, accident?”
“I was there,” Jade said quickly. “I was walking back to my apartment that night, and I was one of the people who stopped to try to help.”
Kaya’s lips parted for a moment in thought. “Oh,” she said. “Well, I guess thank you.’
Jade reached out and put her hand over Kaya’s. “Don’t be embarrassed,” she said. “I can tell you’re worried about what I saw, but I understand. I wanted to share something with you. That’s why I had Priya bring me over here.”
Kaya looked down at Jade’s hand and then at her eyes. Then she looked at Graham. Her shoulders relaxed.
“Okay. Thank you. Yes. You have something to tell me.”
Jade nodded. “The reason I wanted to come over to talk to you was because you were right about that guy, Ted Stratton.”
Graham’s ears perked up. “You know him?”
“Indirectly,” Jade said. “My friend, Becca, she knew him freshman year. He was part of her group of friends from our dorm.”
“But something happened,” Kaya said, encouraging Jade.Jade nodded. “Something happened. Becca, well, she liked Ted. She had a crush on him, and he knew it. He flirted with her, and led her on. It almost seemed cruel the way he played with her like she was a kitten. She didn’t want to listen to me when I told her it seemed weird. She thought it was a cultural thing for me, and said that she didn’t mind the cat and mouse game. Then one day, he asked her out. She was ecstatic! She got all dressed up, and borrowed makeup and shoes from our floormates, and she was incredibly nervous. It was kind of cute, actually. I was happy for her, because it seemed like finally the game was over, and Ted was giving her what she wanted.”
“Then what happened?” Graham said, fearing he already knew part of the answer.
“She didn’t come home that night,” Jade said softly.
“Oh, no,” Kaya said, almost in a whisper.
Jade shook her head. “It was late morning, and her roommate, Cass, hadn’t heard from her at all. She called the campus police, saying she was worried about her. They told her that there was nothing they could do. They said she probably went home with someone, and would be back soon. Cass didn’t believe that. She thought that Becca would have been in touch by then. So she grabbed me and my roommate Tammy, and we went to Ted’s room. We found him there alone, all showered and dressed. He greeted us with a smile, and told us he was surprised to see us. We told him that we couldn’t find Becca, and he seemed really worried. He said he had left her off at the elevator on our floor, said good night, and then went back to his room to go to bed. He couldn’t imagine what had happened to her. That’s when we got really scared, and Cass called the police back to tell them. Then they took her seriously. They started a search. It was two hours later that they found her.”
Kaya gasped. “Dead?”
“Almost,” Jade said. “They found her unconscious in an alley behind a bar, behind a dumpster. She had been assaulted. The police didn’t tell us how she’d been assaulted, but we knew. They took her to the hospital, where she was unresponsive for days. Finally, she started to wake up, and her parents were there. The police tried to question her, but she couldn’t answer them. She cried. She was in pain, and I think she knew that something terrible happened, but just didn’t remember the details. We were allowed to see her once she became more stable. She was a shell of a person. Her shine, her enthusiasm, all gone. So was the necklace she was wearing that night, one she had gotten from her parents for her high school graduation. She loved that necklace. After the doctors said she was stable enough to be moved, Becca’s parents brought her back home to receive treatment there. She never came back to school. Nothing ever happened. No one knew who had attacked her, or why she had been there. She didn’t remember what had happened. The campus police had to let it go.”
“But you think it was Ted,” Graham said.
Jade nodded. “I suspected, and so did her other friends,” she said. “His story didn’t make any sense. If he dropped her off at the elevator, how did she end up at the bar? She was out with the guy she really liked. She wouldn’t have gotten home and then gone back out. She wasn’t a drinker. Yeah, a beer or two, but not heavy. She wasn’t with any friends, and we couldn’t imagine anyone else luring her out. But the kicker came some months later.”
“What was it?” Kaya said. She looked down at her cocoa. The rest of her drink had gone cold as she listened to the story. She pushed it away.
“I was at a party,” Jade said, “and I was talking to a girl I knew from back home. Then her friend came over and started talking to us, too. After a few minutes, I noticed her necklace. It was very distinctive. It was a gold shell with a real pearl in the middle. It was just like Becca’s necklace, the one that went missing the night she was assaulted. I told her that I liked it, and asked her where she got it. She told me that she found it in a box in her boyfriend’s room, and she asked him about it, thinking he had bought a gift for another girl. He told her that it was a gift he had gotten for her, but he was waiting for her birthday to give it to her. But he gave it to her right then because she had found it.”
Kaya grimaced and looked at Graham. He grabbed her hand and sent her a message. Ask the question, he said. Kaya nodded slightly.
“Her boyfriend was Ted Stratton,” she said. “Right?”
Jade’s eyes darkened. Then she nodded. “He had kept it. I would assume that if he hadn’t been the one to assault her, then he would have given the necklace to her parents after it happened. Instead, it seemed like he had taken it as a trophy. A fucking trophy!” Jade turned to Priya. “Don’t tell Mommy about my language please. But yes, from that day on, I was positive that Ted had been the one to attack Becca. I did go to the police to let them know, but again, I didn’t have any proof of any of this, just conjecture. He could have bought a similar necklace at the store. But I know he didn’t.”
Graham nodded. “I know that that guy is bad news,” he said. “The police know too. Kaya was not wrong to feel threatened by him that night. She’s been back to talk to Sergeant Morris, to follow up. The police have their eye on him.”
“They do,” Kaya said. “Sergeant Morris said he’ll make it his personal quest to make sure no girl ever gets hurt by that guy. He told me there were other reports given about him, and I’m guessing one of them came from you, Jade. There may be others.”
“Sergeant Morris was the one I talked to,” Jade said. “I could tell that if he could, he’d bring Ted in himself, and take care of him personally. He told me that his daughter was planning on coming to State the next year, and he wanted the campus to be safe not only for her, but for all women. I believed him.”
Kaya touched Jade’s hand again. After a moment, she spoke. “I can tell you feel some relief from telling me this, Jade,” she said. “I’m glad. You really validated me by telling me about Becca. I’m just so sorry that all of that happened to your friend. You know, I knew, right away, that that boy was not right in the head. I’ve talked to Sergeant Morris about starting a walking escort service on campus for students so they don’t need to walk home alone after sundown if they don’t feel comfortable. If you’d like to get involved in getting that started, I can give you my number, and you can be part of it.”
Jade smiled. “I’d like that very much, Kaya. It’s something that I can do to honor Becca, to make her ordeal have some meaning. Because otherwise, it’s just pure tragedy. Someday I hope to be able to tell her that I did something to make it better.”
After Jade and Priya left, Graham and Kaya threw away their trash and headed back to Graham and Gina’s apartment.
“I think I’ll have Grayson come over to walk me home later,” Kaya said. “You know, just because.”
Graham nodded. “If he can’t, Gina and I will walk you home. Or drive you.”
Kaya sighed as she walked. “I feel better and worse knowing Becca’s story,” she said. “Like I told Jade, I feel validated, but there was this hope in me that Ted hadn’t acted on his horrible thoughts yet. I guess that was pretty naive of me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with optimism,” Graham said.
Kaya reached out and took his hand as they walked. Graham knew it made her feel safer to know she could read his thoughts. “Why are you thinking about him?”
“About Ted?” Graham wondered.
Kaya shook her head. “No. Dad. You’re thinking about Dad. You’re wondering about him. He suddenly popped into your head. Nothing really succinct.”
Graham shrugged and then thought about it. “Something about optimism.” He squeezed Kaya’s hand.
She nodded. “Optimism,” she said. “It was from a long time ago. We were talking about Dad, and I told you that I thought he would be there to walk me down the aisle when I got married. I was pretty sure. You complimented my optimism. Maybe that’s it.”
Graham stopped and looked at her. “Did I think all that?”
Kaya shook her head. “Sort of,” she said. “It was sort of just there, inside of you, jumbled. I kind of pulled it together. Do you remember that conversation? I can kind of remember it.”
Graham grinned. “That was much easier than using hypnotism to retrieve memories. I do kind of remember that. I guess that words can trigger thoughts and feelings. Do you still feel that way about Dad?”
“I don’t know,” Kaya said. “I guess I thought that he’d be back by now. It will be five years this spring. Every year that goes by, the more I believe that he’s gone. I mean, I’m not sure if he’s dead, or just gone. But gone. But there is that small piece of me that thinks he’s still out there somewhere, and he’ll make his way back to us. I haven’t decided what that would be like for me. I want to feel angry at him for choosing to leave us at the time he left, and then every day since then that he’s decided to not come back. But then, I also want to talk to him, to find out what made him leave. Did he understand what was going on with him? Did he ever talk to anyone about it? Did he think he was crazy, and by extension that I was going crazy, too? So in that way, I feel sorry for him. If he had come clean, maybe we would have been able to help each other. But I do want to tell you a secret, Graham.”
“What is it?” Graham asked, his curiosity growing.
She leaned closer. “I know that someday Grayson and I are going to get married. I can feel it, and I can hear it in his thoughts. He wants that, and I want it too. So someday, Grayson and I will have a wedding. And when we do, I will most likely spend much of the day looking around, to the sides and behind me, to see if there is a strange man in the wings, watching, maybe with a tear in his eye. And once I see him, I will smile. I won’t get mad. I will be happy. It’ll be the happiest day of my life. And if he dares to come forward to greet me, I’ll embrace him. And if after that he wants to be in my life, I’ll let him. And if he doesn’t want to be, I’ll let him go. But I’ll know then. I’ll know he never forgot me. I’ll hold him close, and I’ll know everything there is to know about him, and he’ll know everything there is to know about me. And you know what? That will be enough.”