Among the Shrouded (7 page)

“That sounds wonderful!”
she exclaimed, excited by the overwhelming effect her abilities were having on the investors.  Her heart soared with the newfound possibility her sisters might benefit from the program in their own right thanks to the power of her gift.

“Fabulous,” said Henry.  “Let me find you a couple more questionnaires.”

He walked over to the far corner of the room where he and Patrick began having an intimate discussion.  Both men glanced over their shoulders at her while she tried to avoid making eye contact with either of them.  After a few moments, Henry returned, handing her several sheets of paper.

“Patrick is excited to hear about your twin sisters.  We think they sound very promising and we would love to add them to our list of prospective students.”

“That’s wonderful!” she exclaimed.  “Thank you both so much for presenting all of us with this opportunity.  I truly appreciate it.”

She
filled out a set of forms for each of her sisters and returned them to Henry and Patrick who were saying goodbye to the guests as they made their way out the door.

“Thank you again.  I look forward to hearing from you
soon,” she said as she handed the papers to Patrick.

Henry leaned in so his face was only inches from
hers and whispered in her ear.  “I can assure you we will be in contact.  In fact, you may want to begin packing.”

As she rode the metro back
home, she couldn’t stop smiling.  She settled into the uncomfortable plastic seat and allowed herself to relax for the first time in weeks.  It occurred to her that every piece of the puzzle was coming together for her family and she was amazed by the fantastic opportunity her gift had provided.  Sadly, as the train clattered along, doubt crept in and she considered the one obstacle she would still need to overcome - her father.  For a moment, she worried he would forbid her to participate in the program.  And then, as quickly as it had come, she pushed the thought aside, trusting her abilities would not bring her so close to a solution only to allow her father to stand in her way.  She spent the remainder of the ride home concentrating on one thought… convincing her father to allow her to go to the United States.

CHAPTER

12

MIA

“Hey
, Mia?” Pete said, as he peeked his head into her office.

“Yeah,” she replied
, looking up from her computer screen.

“That guy you asked about?  He’s here.”

“Oh.  Oh good.  Okay.  Thanks, Pete.  How many lineups is he doing?”

“Just two.”

“About how long until he’s done?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes tops.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.  You gonna tell m
e what all this is about?” he asked.

“Probably not,”
she grinned.

Pete disappear
ed back down the hallway and she tried to complete the report for the missing person she was filing.  However, the news of Thomas Pritchett’s arrival had officially derailed any progress she was going to make on it for the rest of the morning.  She logged off the precinct’s server and closed her laptop.  At the doorway of her office, she paused, checking in both directions for her father.  Since her revelation about the new commissioner, their conversations had become strained and she had taken to avoiding him whenever possible.  There was no sign of him so she made a beeline for the lineup room.

As
she took her spot behind the one-way glass, she peered into the adjacent room at the line of women before her.  It was unusual to see a group of women and the guilty party was immediately visible to her.  Of the six women in the lineup, only one was shrouded in a veil of darkness.  The others, although dim, were bathed in light.  Each of the eye witnesses that were brought in to choose the culprit from the lineup did so quickly and correctly.  When the witnesses were finished, the row of women in the lineup was quickly replaced by a row of men.  Her eyes were immediately drawn to the man in the center of the row.  The one without an aura.  Like every other time she had seen him, Thomas continued to defy her perceptive abilities.

Mia
watched him carefully.  She knew he could not see her behind the one-way glass and she used the opportunity to study his behaviors.  She tried to determine what type of aura he would have if there were one for her to see by studying the movement of his hands, the tightness in the muscles of his face, and the look in his eyes.  He carried himself completely differently from the man beside him, whose aura was heavy with darkness.  Although sadness haunted his eyes, they did not possess the anger of the man to his immediate left.  And yet, she remained skeptical of believing what she could not see.

She
watched as he was removed from the room.  Moments later, he returned as the member of yet another lineup.  As the witness was brought into the viewing area, she was once again unable to look away from the aura-less man.  He turned to the left and then the right.  His profile was handsomely chiseled and for the first time, she was struck by just how attractive he was.  She was immediately overcome with a desire to understand the origin of the man’s sadness as well as determine why she was unable to see his aura.  As the lineup ended and Thomas filed out of the room, she fled from the viewing area into the hallway, nearly knocking over the witness beside her in the process.  She hurried down the hall and around to the backside of the building in an attempt to reach him before he left for the day.  As she turned the final corner leading to the back entrance of the station, he was there.

“Thomas!” she called out,
surprising herself with her boldness.

He turned immediately and she watched as a look of joy spread across his face.  She slowed her pace and walked toward him.  He began walking in her direction and as they met,
she found herself at a loss for words.  Luckily, Thomas quickly found his voice.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” she replied.

“I never got your name
.”

“It’s Mia.  Mia Rosetti.”

“Officer Rosetti,” he laughed.

“No, Mia is fine.”  She paused.  “How was the lineup?”

“Oh.  Good,” he said.  “One of the guys in the last group made me a little uncomfortable though, but I guess that comes with the territory.”

“Yeah, we get a lot of unsavory types around here,” she laughed. 
She scanned the hallway, suddenly self-conscious about their lack of privacy.  She looked at her watch.

“It’s almost lunch time,” she said.  “I’ve got a little while until my next meeting.  Do you want to grab something to eat?  As
suming you don’t have somewhere else you need to go, of course.”

He
hesitated.  “That would be great.  Where do you usually eat?”

“Oh, anywhere.  There’s a little sub place just down the street that’s good. 
If you wait here, I’ll go grab my wallet.”

She
was glad to see him still waiting for her when she returned.  There was a part of her that had expected he would be gone.  They walked silently together on the three block walk to the sub shop, but she found she wasn’t disquieted by their lack of conversation.  She was pleasantly surprised when he held the door for her as they entered the building.

He
encouraged her to order first and before she could pay, added his order to hers.  She was shocked, however, when he insisted on paying for both of their lunches.  She noticed he chose the least expensive sub on the menu and felt bad for having added a fruit cup and iced tea to her order.

They sat t
ogether at a secluded table in the corner of the shop.  She sipped her tea while he watched her from across the table.

“I saw you again the other night,” he said carefully.

“You did?  Where?  At the station?”

“No.  At the atrium in the shopping center downtown.”

“Oh,” she said, “why didn’t you say something?”

“I was busy and then…” he paused.

“And then what?”

“Well, I saw you with your boyfriend and decided I didn’t want to risk
making you uncomfortable.”

“My boyfriend?”
she said, wondering who he had seen with her.

“Yeah, you were with him at the jewelry store,”
he explained, sensing her confusion.

She
laughed loudly.  “Oh, Thomas!  That wasn’t
my
boyfriend!  That was my roommate’s boyfriend!  He’s asking her to marry him and I went along to help him pick out the ring.”

“Oh!”
he exclaimed, noticeably relieved.  “I guess I should’ve said something after all.”

“You couldn’t have known.  You probably did the right thing,”
she said.  “So, what were you doing at the mall?  A little retail therapy?”

“Uh, no.  I was working.”

“Oh,” she said.  “Which store do you work at?”

“No store. 
I play the piano,” he replied.

“That was you?”

“Yeah.  That was me.”

“Thomas, you play beautifully!  Your music is why I stepped out of the jewelry store.  I heard you playing over the junk they were piping through the audio system in the jewelry store and had to come out of the store so I could
hear it better.  Your playing… it was amazing.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.  You have a gift, Thomas.  I remember thinking that whoever was playing was wasting their time at the mall.  You should be playing concert halls.  Truly.”

“Thanks,”
he responded humbly.

“Where did you study?”

He laughed and shook his head.

“What?  Did I say something wrong?”
she asked, suddenly afraid she had offended him.

“No, it’s just that I’ve never had a formal lesson.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, awestruck.

“No.  I took up the piano after school with my first grade
music teacher, Mrs. Lawson.  She would sit with me after everyone else had gone home for the day and she taught me the scales and simple tunes.  The more I played, the more she taught me, the more I learned.  I haven’t seen her since I was nine, though.”

For some unknown reason,
she suddenly felt compelled to know everything she could about Thomas Pritchett.  “What happened when you were nine?  Who taught you after that?” she asked.

The woman
from the lunch counter brought their subs and set them on the table.  He thanked her and continued his story.  “When I was nine, I had to move,” he said carefully.

“Did your father get transferred?”
she pried.

“Well, the man I was living with wasn’t my father, and I guess he did sort of get transferred, in a way.  Is being
moved to prison considered a transfer?”

She
froze, her sandwich hanging from her mouth in mid bite.  After composing herself, she finished chewing, swallowed, and laid the rest of her sub back on the plate.  He, on the other hand, continued eating without missing a beat.

“Thomas?
” she said.

“Yes,” he replied, his mouth full of turkey club.

“You don’t know me, so you don’t have to tell me things if you don’t want to,” she assured him.

“I’m all grown up
, Mia.  It’s part of my past, it’s part of who am I, but it doesn’t define me.  So,” he sighed, “what do you want to know?”

“Who got
incarcerated?”

“My foster father.”

She hesitated to ask the follow up question knowing in her heart she already knew the answer.  “Why did he go to prison?”

“He beat me,”
Thomas replied.  He had stopped eating and was looking at her as if to gauge her expression.

Before she could stop herself,
she reached across the table and put her hand on top of his.  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

Instead of
reacting, he simply finished off the last bite of his sandwich.  She was suddenly afraid she had crossed a line and he was going to stop talking to her altogether.  That was the last thing she wanted.  She pulled her hand away and quickly changed the subject.

“So, after Mrs. Lawson, who
else taught you to play?” she asked.

She
was relieved when, after wiping his mouth with his napkin, he finally responded.  “At the second foster home, the mother played.  She didn’t really teach me, but I had access to all of her sheet music and I just kind of taught myself.  She would play with me most evenings.  Playing the piano was an escape.  For both of us.”

“The other day, at the
station, you told me your mom was concerned about the lineups.  Is that the mom you were talking about?”

“No.”

“Oh, Thomas.  I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. 
None of what happened to me is your fault.  And anyway, by the fourth foster home, I finally landed in a good place.  When I was thirteen, Mildred and Howard Pritchett adopted me.  I’ve been with Mildred ever since.”

“And she’s the mother…”

“She’s the mother.  She’s sixty-four.  We lost dad years ago.  Right after I graduated from high school.  It’s been me and her ever since.”

She
suddenly understood so much about the man before her.  Without seeing his aura, she was beginning to see on her own that he was a man of the light.  And yet, there was still a veil of skepticism related to the fact she could not know for sure.

She
looked at her watch.  “Thomas, I have to get back to work.”

“Okay,”
he replied.  After finishing his glass of water, he took their trash to the garbage can and she met him at the door.

They
walked down the street together in relative silence once again.  As they approached the station, he cleared his throat.

“Mia, I really enjoyed lunch.”

“Me too.”

“I would love to see you again sometime.  Outside of a lineup, of course.”

“Yeah.  I mean, absolutely.  I’d love that.”