Among the Shrouded (12 page)

She
was looking at him expectantly, clearly waiting for a response, but unfortunately, he was unable to react.  As she was speaking, he had been transported back to his third foster home and the family into which he’d been placed when we was eleven years old.  His “mother” had made a living reading tarot cards to unsuspecting, vulnerable people.  She had been a liar and a fraud and she preyed upon her client’s hopes and fears in order to fund her very expensive pill habit.  She unknowingly taught him to be wary of believing in things he couldn’t see.  And he certainly couldn’t see the auras she was describing.  Immediately, he knew he could no longer continue his evening with her.  The idea of spending any more time with a woman who thought he would believe such utter nonsense was unimaginable.

“Thomas?”
she said, breaking him from his trance.

His
mind raced, searching for an excuse that would free him from the apartment and the aftermath of her strange revelation.

“I completely forgot,” he said suddenly, “I have to be in earl
y to Belinda’s tomorrow.  I need to go.”

He stood from the couch and crossed the apartment without waiting for
her to accompany him.  He opened the door and called over his shoulder.

“Thank
s for dinner.  It was delicious.  Goodbye, Mia.”  And with that, he shut the door behind him and walked out into the night without so much as a backwards glance.

CHAPTER

19

MIA

Thomas’ abrupt departure left Mia stunned and deeply saddened.  Chelsea and her new fiancé Brian were away on a mini vacation to the Jersey shore celebrating their engagement, so after he left, she found herself completely alone.

She rattled around
, and after cleaning up from what was left of dinner, sat down in front of the television.  The novel Thomas brought sat on the couch beside her, but she couldn’t bring herself to open its cover.  Instead, alone and dejected, she was unable to hold back the sadness that washed over her.  She wept openly for what she feared she had lost.  Not only Thomas, but every truth she had ever held about herself.  Perhaps, she thought, his aura wasn’t as bright as she suspected after all.

Over dinner,
she had finally been able to ignore the fact she couldn’t see his aura.  She was just beginning to accept the idea that her gift wasn’t infallible and that perhaps Thomas’s aura was light even though she couldn’t see it with her own eyes.  But then, with his abrupt departure after disclosing her secret to him, she felt betrayed and abandoned.  And the doubt in her abilities began to creep into her conscious mind once again. 

After a restless nigh
t of fitful sleep, she was relieved to return to work in the morning, if only to surround herself with other people and their problems as a means of forgetting about her own.  As soon as she entered the station, she headed toward her father’s office in search of solace for her aching heart and anguished mind.

“Morning, Sunshine,” her father greeted her as she came through the door.  “Except you don’t look so sunny.  What’s
the matter?”

“Do you want the long version or the short version?”
she asked, collapsing into the chair beside him.

“I’ve got time for either one,” he said.

She
yawned and rubbed her eyes.

“Well, ever since we discussed the commissioner and how he appeared to me, I
’ve been living under the pretense the problem is me.  And not just because of the commissioner.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”  She paused.  She was hesitant to disclose personal information to her father.  “Dad, I’ve sort of been seeing the lineup guy.  The one without the aura.”

“
You’re kidding.”

“
No.  I’m not.  At least I thought I was seeing him,” she said.

“You’ve lost me.  Maybe I need the long version,” Rosetti said.

“Okay,” she said, beginning again.  “After you and I talked, I decided there was no way the darkness I was seeing around the commissioner could be a true indication of the state of his soul.  That also suggested to me that the reason I was unable to see an aura around Thomas Pritchett had nothing to do with him and was probably also because of something going on with me.  We ran into each other a few times and began spending time together.  He seemed like a really terrific guy.”

“We’re still talking about the lineup guy, right?”

“Yes, Dad!  He’s a wonderful person.  At least I thought so.  Until last night.”

“Mia.  What happened?  If that man laid a hand on you so help me…”

“No, Dad, no.  It was nothing like that.”  She paused, hesitating to continue with her story.

“Then what did he do?” Rosetti asked, his voice heavy with concern and dread.

“I told him.”

“You told him what?”

“About the auras.”

“Oh
, Mia,” he replied, shaking his head.  “What did he say?”

“It’s not what he said, it’s what he did.  He just got up and left.  That was it.  He didn’t even ask for an explanation.  He just ended the evening without another word.”

Her father looked at her indifferently.  “I’m sorry.  But I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Well, I was.  And it got me thinking.  Maybe I was right about Thomas after all.  Maybe
the reason I can’t see his aura
is
related to him and maybe that reason has absolutely nothing to do with me.  Maybe I was wrong to have discounted my abilities.”

“Maybe you were,” Rosetti confirmed.

“But,” she continued, “if I was wrong about him then maybe I was right about the commissioner.”

“Aw
, Honey, not this again.”

“Yes, Dad, this again.  You don’t know what I know.  You don’t see what I see.  I think it might be worth looking into.”

“Officer Rosetti,” he said, his voice suddenly authoritative so it was clear to her he was no longer addressing her as a parent, “I have been a police officer for thirty one years.  I pride myself on the work I’ve done and the work I do every day.  Do you think for one minute I would support someone who I thought had any chance of being a less than honorable man?”

S
he remained silent.

“Do yo
u?” he asked again, his voice rising and his composure crumbling.

“No
, Chief.”

“No is right!  So I don’t know what you think you’ve seen or what story you’ve concocted in your own mind regarding the commissioner, but I’ve heard the last of it.  The commissioner comes highly regarded from the top
echelon of the law enforcement community.  If he’s good enough for them, he’s good enough for me.” 

He paused momentarily.  As
she stood from her seat and turned to leave the room, Rosetti spoke once more in the same authoritative voice.

“And Mia, as for the lineup
guy… stay away from him.”

She
left the room without responding.  Instead of returning to her office, she headed to the women’s restroom where she braced herself against the aging pedestal sink and gazed into the hazy, patinaed mirror at herself.  Although she felt as though she was crumbling from the inside out, she was surprised to see her outward appearance portrayed none of the internal destruction she knew was taking place.  Until the recent developments with the commissioner and Thomas, she had always been confident in herself and her abilities.  But now, for the first time in her life, she felt the entire foundation of her self-assurance collapsing beneath her.  She was hopelessly and desperately alone.

She
splashed her face with cool water and dried herself with a paper towel.  She wished she could call Chelsea, as what she really needed was a sympathetic ear, but she didn’t want to interrupt her vacation.  She considered other people in her life she could turn to and strangely, she found herself thinking of Thomas.  In the short span of time she’d known him, she had already begun to feel he would be someone safe to confide in. Unfortunately, after the events of the night before, she now knew that wasn’t actually the case.

Back in her office,
she found Jack in the middle of logging evidence into the police database from yet another meth house.  He didn’t move his eyes from the computer screen as she entered the room.

“What’s shakin’ bacon?” he asked.

“Not much,” she replied.  “Do you want some help?”

“Yeah.  Sure.  If you read them out to me, I’ll be able to log this stuff faster,” Jack replied.  As he handed her the file, he finally looked at
her face.

“You’ve been crying,” he said.

“No,” she replied.

“Mia, I grew up
in a household of sisters.  I’m married to the most emotional woman on the planet.  I know when someone’s been crying.  You don’t have to talk to me about it, but don’t lie to me and tell me you haven’t been crying.”

“Fine,”
she acknowledged.  “I’ve been crying.  Are you happy now?”

“No.  I’m not happy you’ve been crying.  But I am happy you aren’t lying to me anymore.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

She began reading out file numbers and their corresponding articles to be categorized in the database.  Test tubes, burners, chemical solutions, weapons, meth… the list seemed endless.  After twenty minutes of logging, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut any longer.

“
I told Thomas about my aura thing and he bailed.  I thought he was a good guy, but maybe I was wrong.  Maybe the fact he doesn’t have an aura is real.  If that’s real, then maybe the commissioner’s dark aura is real too.”

Jack took a deep breath and pushed his chair away from
the desk, stretching his back and legs in the process.

“Okay,” he said. 
“Well, all that sucks.  But which part of it has you the most upset?”

She
thought for several moments.  She knew she should be more upset about the commissioner than she was about Thomas because clearly, the ramifications of having an evil man at the helm of the entire Baltimore City Police Department were huge.  However, if she was being honest with herself, losing Thomas was a far more devastating blow.

When
she didn’t speak, Jack interjected.  “That’s what I thought,” he said.

“What did you think?”

“It’s the guy.”

“So what if it is the guy?”

“Nothing.  So what if it is?”

“I just thought he was different.  I thought, maybe, just maybe, I’d found someone who might be worth it all.  We just click
ed together, like puzzle pieces.  Or we did, until I told him.”

“He freaked out?” Jack asked.

“Yeah.  Big time.”

“Mia, do you remember when you told me about the auras?”

“Yeah.”

“
I freaked out.”

“No.  Y
ou didn’t.  You were fine.”

“Mia,” Jack said, “I’m telling you.  I freaked out.  I didn’t say anything because, well, for better or worse, I was stuck with you for a partner…”

“Hey!” she said, poking him in the arm with a pencil.

“All I mean is that it took me some time to wrap my head around it.  Once I saw what you could do and how it worked
, it became an easier pill to swallow.  And you have to admit, it’s weird, Mia.”

“
Yeah.  It’s weird I guess.”  She drummed the pencil in her hand on the desk.  “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, give the guy some time.  Let him
get a hold of it.  From his perspective, you went from this nice, normal, girl next door to a carnival attraction in two seconds.”

“
Hey!  Watch it, Buster!”  She paused.  “I guess you’re right though,” she relented.

“I know I’m right.  I’ve been in his shoes.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but give your lineup guy a break on this one. 
He does anything else to you, I’ll break his neck, but for this one, I’m on his side.”

“Fine.”

“Now, you wanna talk about the commissioner?”

“No.  Not really.”

“Okay then.”

They
logged half a dozen articles into the system.

“Do you want to talk about the commissioner?”
she asked.

“Honestly?”
Jack asked, looking up from the computer screen once again.

“Honestly.”

“No,” he replied.

“Oh.  Why not?”

“Because nothing good can come of it.  Let’s say you are right, and the guy is rotten to the core.  What exactly can we do about it?  We can’t cry foul on your hunch.  He’d actually have to do something illegal.  On the other hand, let’s say you’re wrong and the commissioner is the salt of the earth but you go stirring up rumors he’s a criminal.  Then what?  Best case, you lose your job.  Worst case, you end up in prison for libel.”

“So what should I do?  Nothing?”

“Maybe we can just keep our eyes open.  See if we notice anything strange going on.  Other than that, I think we do nothing,” Jack explained.

“Okay.  Then we watch and wait.”

“Watch and wait,” Jack agreed.

“Thanks,”
she said.

“For what?”

“For everything.”