Storm of Visions (35 page)

“I think I must be surging with endorphins, because I don’t feel too bad.” Jacqueline belied her protest by leaning against him.

“The bruises will make themselves known tomorrow.” He cursed himself again for leaving her alone to face Tyler.

But Jacqueline knew what he was thinking, and kissed his cheek. “The hospital is keeping your mother overnight for observation, but she’s so annoyed you know she’s going to be fine. And they were so unimpressed with my injuries, they couldn’t wait to toss me out. So stop blaming yourself. Everything came out fine. Better than fine.”

McKenna opened the door. “Ah. Good evening, Mr. D’Angelo, Miss Vargha. Come in. Will you be staying long this time?”

“I sense sarcasm, McKenna.” Jacqueline peered around the dark, empty entryway. “Where is everybody?”

For one second, Caleb tensed. He had that creepy crawly feeling of being watched.

Then—“
Surprise!”
The Chosen Ones filled the entry. They came from the library, the study, down the stairs, yelling, waving their hands, grinning.

Caleb relaxed. This was a friendly assault.

Jacqueline flung herself at her friends. “You
guys
!”

Charisma and Isabelle reached her first with their arms outstretched.

“Careful!” Caleb fended them off.

“Caleb, it’s only a couple of broken ribs.” Jacqueline scolded him and embraced the women at the same time.

Charisma took Jacqueline’s arms and looked at her wrists. “Where’s the protection bracelet I gave you?”

Jacqueline fished it out of her pocket and showed her. “The clasp broke.”

“I’ll fix it for you.” Charisma put it in her own pocket, but a frown tugged at her forehead. Obviously, she didn’t like that development.

“So you only have a couple of broken ribs,” Aaron mocked, and hugged Jacqueline gently.

“I’ve had broken ribs; they’re a bitch.” Samuel gave her a token embrace.

“You’ve got to stop running into stuff with your face.” Isabelle rubbed the bump on Jacqueline’s forehead.

The redness and swelling receded.

“Thank you.” But when Isabelle would have continued, Jacqueline stopped her. “The ribs aren’t too bad, really.” She moved her shoulders as if testing the waters. “I think I might have somehow developed some superhero healing power.”

“Or it’s a hangover from Isabelle’s healing,” Charisma suggested.

“Her work as one of the Chosen Ones has benefits, and a quicker healing is one of them.” The crowd parted to allow Irving through. He put his wrinkled, bent hands around Jacqueline’s face and looked into her eyes. “God bless you, Jacqueline Vargha. You saved us all.” He looked up and caught Caleb’s gaze. “And you, Caleb D’Angelo. Without you, we would be both dead and foolish.”

“Yeah.” Samuel offered his hand. “Thank you for alerting us in time. Charisma had just located the cell phone when McKenna came running in.”

Caleb shook his hand, and Aaron’s, and Irving’s, then offered his to McKenna. “Thank
you
for running.”

“It was more of a fast walk,” McKenna said, his dignity untouched.

Charisma hugged Caleb. “I never wanted to be at the center of an annihilation.”

Isabelle put out her hand. Caleb appreciated that she wasn’t as warm and fuzzy as Charisma, but he pulled her into his embrace, anyway. She had healed Jacqueline and right now, she was his favorite Chosen.

Aleksandr scooted his way through the crowd to Jacqueline. With a grin, he presented her with a leopard-print gift bag. “We got together and decided to get you a present.”

When she would have ripped into it, Caleb placed his hand over the package. “Wait. We can’t stand here all day. Jacqueline has barely left the hospital. She needs to sit down.”

“Shall I prepare the library for a meeting, sir?” McKenna asked.

“Meetings are such a drag in the library,” Charisma said. With a start, she realized she had been tactless, and corrected herself. “I mean, it’s a gorgeous room, but it’s too big and there are all those antiques and I’m always afraid I’m going to break one. . . .”

In his coldest voice, McKenna suggested, “The study, then? The billiards room? The dining room, perhaps?”

“She’s right. This is a gorgeous mansion, but it’s like living in a museum. I’m always tiptoeing around.” Obviously, Aleksandr didn’t give a damn about tact.

McKenna was so annoyed, he snapped, “Then where would you suggest you go to allow the rest of you to speak to each other easily?”

Caleb knew where he’d rather be. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”

“Good idea!” Aaron clapped him on the shoulder.

“Yes, I’m always comfortable in a kitchen.” Samuel glanced sarcastically at Isabelle. “It’s my servant mentality.”

“Really?” Isabelle proved she did sarcastic as well as he did. “I thought it was because you like to watch a woman prepare food for you.”

Jacqueline stepped between them. “Great. Then it’s settled. We’ll hold our meetings in the kitchen.”

“But . . . I . . . My home . . .” Irving waved his arms around the impressive foyer.

Charisma tucked her hand in his arm and started toward the stairs that led down to the kitchen. “It’s not that we don’t like your house, Irving. It’s that we respect it too much.”

Aaron smothered a grin and gave Caleb a thumbs-up.

“That’s true.” Caleb wrapped his arm around Jacqueline and followed them. “You have to remember that at heart I’m an Italian peasant.”

McKenna skittered after the group, his round face pulled long in disapproval.

As they entered the kitchen, Martha was rattling the pans, preparing dinner. She straightened and stared. “What is it now? You’ve decided to raid the refrigerator?”

Caleb knew then neither Martha nor McKenna approved of the eccentric group of Chosen.

Too bad. They were stuck with one another.

The kitchen was a relic of a bygone age when the New York aristocracy catered parties for all of society, when three dozen servants worked for a week to prepare and decorate enough food to feed two hundred hungry mouths, when no one had ever heard the term “efficiency” in regard to the labor of cooking. The room itself was as big as a lobby, with open pantry shelves, cupboards that reached to the twelve-foot-tall ceiling, a gas stovetop with six burners and a grill, three ovens, a huge refrigerator, and a freezer built to hold an entire steer. The long granite tabletop was so heavy, it required a jack to lift it, and only a massive oak frame could support its weight. The floor was below ground level, the ceiling above. The windows were set high on the walls and looked out on the sidewalk, and as the Chosen Ones grabbed chairs and benches and settled themselves around the table, they saw the legs of pedestrians as they walked by.

Irving settled at the head of the table. Of course.

Aleksandr yelped and advised everyone not to knock their knee into the table leg, because it hurt like a son of a bitch.

Isabelle decided the table was too cold and asked for a tablecloth, and when McKenna and Martha glared, she searched in the pantry until McKenna gave up in disgust and found one for her.

The kitchen was warm, it smelled good, and everyone felt at home.

“This is exactly as it should be.” Charisma nodded as she poured coffee for Jacqueline, Irving, and herself. “Friendly. Being sunk in the earth like it is, it has good vibes.”

“Jacqueline, check out your present.” Aleksandr set his Coke on the table, flipped his chair backward to the table, and straddled it.

Jacqueline opened the gift bag, tossed out the leopard-print tissue paper—obviously the wrapping was the work of the women—and discovered a box. She opened it to find a shiny red cell phone crusted with large rhinestones.

On the bench beside her, Caleb blinked. “That’s bright enough.”

Jacqueline pulled it out. “Wow. This is really . . . something.” Obviously, she didn’t know what.

“It was Aleksandr’s idea.” Irving looked befuddled by his Chosen, but proud, too. “I’m glad I suggested him.”

The boy preened. “I may not have a woo-woo gift like the rest of you, but I can help in this way.”

“We’ve all got one.” Aaron showed Caleb his phone. It was black. “They’ve got a linking GPS. Unless you’ve got one of these phones, you can’t access the location.”

“Aleksandr did the programming for that, too.” Samuel handed Caleb a package. In an undertone, he said, “It’s yours, and it’s black.”

“Thank you.” Caleb used the same quiet voice. He did not want rhinestones. More loudly, and to Aleksandr, he said, “Thank you. You solved one of the problems that has haunted me—how to keep track of and communicate with the Chosen Ones. Especially Jacqueline.”

Jacqueline waited until the laughter had died, then in all sincerity said, “You guys are the best!”

“I picked out the phone, and set and aligned the stones to protect you from harm.” Charisma smiled with satisfaction.

“You can align man-made stones?” Jacqueline asked.

“They’re not man-made. Irving provided them.” Charisma leaned across and touched one reverently. “They’re diamonds.”

Horrified, Jacqueline tossed the phone in the air.

Caleb caught it.

“I can’t have diamonds. I
lose
cell phones!” she said.

“You won’t lose this one.” Aaron looked grimly vengeful. “See that big diamond? The one surrounded by the little yellow diamonds? That’s the button you push to call if you’re in trouble. So if you lose the phone or, God forbid, someone steals it, and that guy presses that button, we’ll all arrive at his side—”

“And he’ll be sorry he was ever born,” Aleksandr finished.

“Besides, no one’s going to steal a cell phone that looks like that,” Samuel said.

“I think it’s pretty!” Charisma said.

Caleb wasn’t sure, but she might have had her feelings hurt.

Apparently he was right, because Isabelle put her arm around Charisma, cast a dark look at Samuel, and said, “You’re right. It
is
pretty.”

Caleb had to give Samuel credit. He moved to correct his mistake at once. “I meant no
guy
would steal it. It’s too froufrou.”

“Thank you all.” Jacqueline gingerly accepted it again. “No one’s going to take it from me, and I will make sure I never, ever lose something as precious as the gift my friends have given me.”

“You mean your fellow freaks.” Aaron bumped her lightly with his shoulder.

“That, too. But first . . .” She held the phone in both hands and looked down at it, then up at them. Her face was serious. Her fingers trembled. “Caleb and I have to tell you what we’ve learned.”

“T
yler was our traitor. We all know that.” Jacqueline slid her hand over the cell phone, over the expanse of glittering diamonds. “But while he was dying, he said something. . . .”

“About a dead man,” Caleb prompted. “He said he’d been talking to a dead man.”

“Yeah, right,” Samuel said.

Jacqueline scooted closer to Caleb on the bench. “No, it’s true.”

The silence that fell in the kitchen was profound. The Chosen Ones glanced at one another.

Then Isabelle asked, “How do you know?”

Jacqueline slipped the phone into the pocket of her jeans. “I had a vision in Mrs. D’Angelo’s attic.”

Caleb whipped around to face her. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“When would I have told you?” She made a face.

“All right.” He acknowledged that truth. “But why did you go up to the attic?”

“Because Mother was dead and you were in danger, and I had to do
something
.” Remembering the tears and the crisis that had led to her decision put a husky edge to her voice. “I wanted to see if I could direct a vision, to help myself discover who had sold us out. And I did . . . sort of.”

“Tyler sold us out,” Aaron said.

Irving shook his head. “No. Or rather, he’s not the only one. Without the codes, there is no way Tyler smuggled an explosive device into both the Gypsy Travel Agency and my own home. Not even all of the directors knew those codes. So who gave them to him?”

“A dead man?” McKenna sounded incredulous.

When everyone turned to face him, his Celtic face flushed a ruddy red. “I’m sorry, sirs, madams. I spoke out of turn.”

“But you’re right,” Jacqueline said. “It was a dead man. I heard him. He’s angry and he’s hostile. He hates everyone, especially the people who were once his friends, and he feels betrayed.”

“But how could a dead man communicate with Tyler Settles?”

“Tyler Settles was a mind controller and a mind speaker,” Samuel said slowly. “He rummaged around in my head, trying to exert an influence, and I think he could do that with other people. I’m merely surmising, now, but if he could get into the wrong mind, that mind could communicate with him. Perhaps that mind could even take him over.”

That made sense to Jacqueline. “I don’t think Tyler Settles needed much of a push to become evil. From what he was saying, he had quite a lucrative business going, swindling sick people out of their bank accounts.”