The Other Brother (23 page)

Chapter 41

r abriel asked Dana to sit at the dinette table. Then he told I her everything.

He explained the onset of his psychic ability, including his theory for how he'd acquired the talent after his concussion; he told her what he'd learned about Isaiah from Sean's background investigation; he related Nicole's chilling experience with Isaiah; and, lastly, he described the hyperrealistic dream he'd had last night and his ideas of the paranormal talent Isaiah possessed.

Dana listened silently without interruption. As he talked, she got up, brewed coffee, poured herself a mug, and gave one to him, too. Gabriel interpreted the gesture as a small sign that she was coming around to his side again.

"That's everything," he said. "I know it's crazy, Dana, and I wouldn't believe it myself if it weren't happening to me. But, as you can see .. ." He floated a container of coffee creamer through the air and placed it on the other side of the table. Dana gaped, amazed. "This is as real as it gets"

Dana pursed her lips. She stared at a spot on the table, a look that came over her when she was immersed in deep thought.

He waited a moment. "What do you think?"

She looked at him. "I believe you"

"You do?"

"My med-school professors would kill me if I admitted this, but I do think that some people are gifted with ESP, psychic powers, what have you" She sipped her coffee, a faraway gaze coming into her eyes. "When I was a little girl I remember people saying that my great aunt was born with a veil, which supposedly gave her second sight. I don't recall seeing her do anything to demonstrate her ability, but I remember that folks from the neighborhood would come to her house to get her advice on their marriages, relationships, children, finances, whatever. Auntie Bell was like the neighborhood treasure"

"You never told me about her"

"She passed a long time ago when I was nine. Since I've been in the medical field I've tried to adopt a more logical, scientific approach to things-and probably been a little bullheaded about it sometimes." She smiled, embarrassed. "But I've seen what you can do with my own eyes"

"How about the stuff I've told you about Isaiah? Do you believe that, too?"

"I do," she said. "You wouldn't make up anything like that. You have no reason to lie, and neither does Nicole."

Finally Dana was on his side.

She reached across the table and grasped his hand.

"Baby, I owe you an apology," she said. "I'm sorry for not trusting you. You deserved better than that from me. I never should have doubted you"

He put his other hand on top of hers and held it tight.

"I wasn't acting like the most rational man in the world," he said. "I can't blame you for everything."

"But I never gave you much of a chance. When I heard about Isaiah, how he never knew this side of his family, my heart went out to him. I know how it feels to be abandoned, Gabe. I let my sympathy for him get in the way of me supporting you"

Gabriel kept quiet, letting her get her words out.

"I should've stood by you," she said. "God, the terrible things I said to you... " She bit her lip, shaking her head. "Can you please forgive me?"

"Forgiven" He kissed her hand. "Let's put this behind us. I need you, girl."

"You've got me. I won't ever doubt you again."

Smiling at him, she brought the carafe to the table, and refreshed their coffee.

"Have you eaten breakfast yet, babe?" she asked, rubbing his shoulder.

"Nope"

"How do mushroom and cheese omelettes sound?"

"Sounds delicious to me. I'm starved"

"I need to get some food in me before I can do the heavyduty thinking we need to do," she said. "I have a lot of questions."

"While you cook," he said, "I want to use your computer. I have some other questions, too-about my bank accounts"

Dana had set up the spare bedroom as a guest room and home office. She kept a late-model Dell laptop on the desk.

Sipping coffee, Gabriel logged onto his bank's Web site. He entered his username and password to access his account.

His checking account, which had boasted a balance of several hundred dollars earlier in the week, had a zero balance. His savings account, in which he had kept around a thousand dollars, had also been drained.

Full withdrawals had been posted on both accounts. Wire transfer transactions, processed yesterday, had sent his money to an unidentified receiver.

Taking it all away, little brother.

Gabriel had no proof that Isaiah was responsible; he didn't need any evidence. He knew.

Gabriel accessed his other investment accounts, which he maintained with various financial-services companies. Diversification of his assets had paid off. He had close to thirty thousand dollars spread around, and all those funds were intact.

Then he went to the Web site of Experian, one of the three primary credit bureaus. He went to order the online credit report.

"Dana?" he called. "Can you come in here for a see?"

She came inside a minute later, wiping her hands on a towel. "What's up?"

"I need to buy an online credit report but I can't use my credit card to pay for it. Can I use yours? I'll explain in a moment."

"Okay." She left the room and came back with her bank debit card. She stood behind his chair as he entered the payment information and hit SUBMIT.

He drummed the desk, waiting for the report to appear. "I hope this isn't as bad as I think it is."

The report finally appeared. Gabriel scrolled down the page.

His stomach plummeted.

"Oh, my goodness," Dana said. "Is that right? It can't be, can it?"

Gabriel put his hands to his face. He didn't want to look at the screen any longer.

New credit accounts had been opened in his name in the past month. Accounts for clothing stores, a classic-cars dealer, a car-stereo company, electronics stores, and MasterCard and Visa cards. Eleven accounts, in total. His existing credit cards had been maxed out, too.

The balance of the accounts was approximately one hundred and forty thousand dollars.

"Isaiah did this, didn't he?" Dana said. "He stole your identity and ran up all these bills."

Gabriel massaged the bridge of his nose. He laughed-a bitter sound. It was the only alternative to crying like a baby.

"Isaiah," he said softly. "You sneaky motherfucker."

"I'm so sorry, Gabe," she said. "This is terrible."

Gabriel only stared at the screen. Numb. Disbelieving.

Dana took his arm. "Let's go eat. We'll talk about what we're going to do next"

She led him out of the bedroom. His legs wobbled. Isaiah had been pummeling him like a heavyweight champ. Gabriel was still standing. But barely.

"Voila," Dana said, placing plates on the table. "Breakfast is served"

The omelette looked delicious. But Gabriel only picked at the edge of it with his fork.

Dana, lifting a slice of omelette to her lips, put her fork down against the plate. "Baby, you've gotta eat"

"I'm not hungry anymore," he said.

"I know you're upset-"

"Upset? We've just found out that Isaiah has completely fucked up my credit and will force me to declare bankruptcy. `Upset' isn't the right word. There isn't a word to describe how I'm feeling right now. How about up-fucking-setpissed-off-as-hell furious?"

Dana waited for him to finish.

"This ruins our plans," he said. "You think we'll be able to buy anything as a married couple with a bankruptcy on my record? Not for a helluva long time."

"You won't have to declare bankruptcy. You can report it as an identity theft. They'll take those charges off your report"

"Maybe," he said. "That's what I'll try to do, but that process will be a nightmare and could drag on forever, and my credit will be in the toilet in the meantime."

"I'll help you. I'll make calls, help you with paperwork, whatever it takes. You can't let this get you down."

"He's pushing me to the edge" Gabriel made a tiny measurement with his thumb and index finger. "I'm this close to getting a gun, going to my parents' house, and blowing that motherfucker away."

"He'd want you to try something like that," she said. "You'd go to prison just like he did. You'd be locked away for years. He wants that, Gabe. You'd be playing right into his hands. Don't you see?"

"Fuck it." High on angry adrenaline, Gabriel got up from the table. Blood pounded in his temples and sweat oozed from his pores. He'd never tasted fury like this.

Visions of Isaiah's smirking face swirled in his mind.

Taking it all away .. .

Gabriel found himself at the door without realizing he'd walked to it. He was reaching for the knob when Dana took his hand.

"Don't go," she said. "Cool down. Stay here with me ""

"I've had enough of letting this guy get away with this shit."

He pulled his hand away from her and groped for the doorknob. Dana slipped around him and blocked the door.

"Dana, get outta the way. I mean it."

She crossed her arms over her chest. She didn't budge.

"I'm not letting you leave and do something you'll come to regret," she said. "This isn't just about you. This is about us, our future. I don't want my husband in jail-or dead"

Gabriel dropped his hands to his sides. He unclenched his fists and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.

"You're right," he said. "Isaiah's trying to play me. I can't give in."

"We can't give in," she said. She came forward, pulled him into her arms, and hugged him close.

"Thank you," he said.

"When I said I'd have your back from now on, I meant it," she said. "Let's go eat and figure this stuff out, okay?"

Chapter 42

ack at the table, Gabriel shoveled a piece of omelette into his mouth, chewed eagerly. With his mood change, his appetite had returned.

Dana had taken out a pen and notepad and placed it beside her plate.

"We have a lot of ground to cover," she said. "First things first: why, exactly, did your accident trigger these psychic powers?"

"I did some research on that. I think that when I wrecked, I had a near-death experience. I remember it quite clearly. A tunnel, a bright white light, just like in the movies, you know. But it seemed real."

"So you got a look at the Other Side, and when you were sent back, you were given psychic powers?"

"Seems like it. As crazy as it sounds."

Dana scribbled on the notepad and then looked at him. "But why? Everyone who survives a near-fatal accident isn't able to bend spoons. Why you?"

"I don't know. But remember that a similar thing apparently happened to Isaiah, according to my dream. When he woke up in the morgue, he made that guy freeze in place like he was some kind of puppet. Then he went out and killed some other guys, I think."

"That's so scary." Dana made quick notes. She tapped the pen against her bottom lip. "And it's weird that you would have a dream from his perspective, with his thoughts, too. I'm wondering .. ."

"Wondering what?"

"I'm wondering if Isaiah's had a dream from your viewpoint, too"

"I never thought about that" Gabriel put down his fork. "Where'd you get that idea from?"

"Have you ever heard of connectedness?"

"Never. What is it?"

She twirled the pen between her fingers. "I know about it only because I was working with twin girl patients, once. They both had lupus. They had the exact same symptoms, would experience pain in the same limbs, often even at the same time. I was fascinated and did some research and discovered this theory of connectedness. Some people-usually twins, but they can be siblings close in age, or a parent and a child-seem to have an emotional or physiological connection."

"Isaiah and I were born within a few minutes of each other," Gabriel said. "Although he was born in Chicago and I was born here. That in itself is pretty weird to me"

"It is," she said. "It's possible that, due to you guys having the same father and the same birth dates, there is some sort of connectedness phenomena going on. How likely is it that he would also have a near-death experience and then come back with psychic talent? Pretty damn unlikely unless you and Isaiah share a link."

"Do you think he's seeing visions in mirrors, too, then?"

"It's possible."

"And having hallucinations of water moccasins?"

"Maybe he is. Unless he tells us, we won't know."

"I don't want to tell him a damn thing about what's happening to me" Gabriel said. "The less he knows about me, the better."

"I agree. We shouldn't show our hand" Dana jotted down a few other comments. She rested her chin on her palm, rapping the pen against her lip.

Gabriel cupped his hands around the coffee mug. "What're you thinking, Dana?"

"Thinking about what Isaiah can do. We're saying he's got some kind of mind-control ability, right?"

"Right. I saw him doing it in my dream and then he did stuff to Nicole."

Dana nodded. "What if Isaiah is causing your hallucinations?"

"You think he's behind the figure in the mirror and the snakes?"

"I'm not sure about the shape in the mirror ... but the snake ... well, snakes scare you to death. Does Isaiah know you're afraid of snakes?"

"I never told him," Gabriel said. He was about to sip his coffee, and then reconsidered. "Wait a minute. The first time I met him we were in my office and he made a comment about my aquarium. He told me I should keep a snake in there instead of fish, and I said something like, `I hate snakes."'

Dana snapped her fingers. "And that was all you had to say to him. He knew then that he could use snakes to scare you, make you doubt your sanity. He's been doing it to you from the start, Gabe. I'm willing to bet on it."

Gabriel remembered when Isaiah had distributed gifts to the family the first night he'd met them. He'd given Gabriel a wooden statue of a man entwined with a large snake.

What a sick joke.

"Jesus." Gabriel shook his head. "Those snakes ... they look so real. How the hell could he get into my head like that?"

"Same way he got into Nicole's head. It's part of his gift."

A chill tap-danced down Gabriel's back. The possible insight into Isaiah had brought a greater, more profound fear of him.

Rushing out to confront Isaiah would have been the most dangerous thing he could possibly have done.

Dana was writing notes.

"There has to be a way to block him from screwing with my head," Gabriel said. He put his hands around his skull, protectively "Whatever it is, I have to find it."

"I have one idea," Dana said. "Overcome your fear of snakes"

Gabriel chuckled. "That ain't happening. Hell, naw. I was bitten, remember?"

"I was in a car accident once, Gabe. That doesn't keep me from driving."

"That's different."

"Oh?" She cocked her head. "How so?"

"Snakes are deadly."

"Cars have the potential to be deadly. Look at all the fatal accidents that take place every day. You were almost killed in a wreck, babe, and yet you still drive."

"How would you act if I put a poisonous snake on the table here?" he asked.

"I'd run and scream my head off," she said. "But we aren't talking about me. This time it's solely about you and what you fear. Your fear is all up here" She touched her forehead with the pen. "As long as you're terrified of snakes, Isaiah will be able to use that against you."

She was right. He didn't want to admit that she was right, but he understood the wisdom in her advice. Fear was emotional, and, sometimes, entirely irrational.

But he could not envision himself seeing a snake even if he knew the snake was an illusion-and not being deathly afraid. Although the fear was only in his mind, it was as palpable to him as a locked door, and just as capable of confining him.

"I'm going to have to work on this," he said.

"You do," she said. "But I have confidence in you. You'll overcome it. Honestly, you don't have any choice."

Dana was right on that score, too. He would never beat Isaiah until he conquered his fear.

"I'd like to talk to Nicole," Dana said. "At this point we need as many allies in the family as we can get. I think we should loop her in on everything we've discussed."

"I left her a message last night. She hasn't called me back"

"Why don't you call her again?"

Gabriel checked his watch. It was a quarter to ten. On weekends Nicole slept in and hated to be called before ten o'clock, but these were unusual circumstances.

He flipped out his cell phone and hit the speed dial for her home number. She didn't answer. He called her cell phone. No answer.

"She must be asleep," he said. A yawn came over him suddenly. "Speaking of sleep, I could use some. I got barely two hours last night."

"You can take a nap in the bedroom. I'm going to take a shower and do some cleaning. Saturday is housework day for me, you know."

"Wake me up in a couple hours. I don't want to sleep all day-I might miss something."

In Dana's bedroom, Gabriel removed his shirt and jeans and lay on his back on the queen-size bed. He closed his eyes for a minute, listening to Dana shower, and then he opened his eyes and contemplated the shadowed ceiling.

Fatigue lay like sand bags on his body but his mind was wide awake, turning restlessly through his conversation with Dana. He thought about Dana's theory that he and Isaiah shared a psychic link. Connectedness.

On the surface he and Isaiah could not have been more different people. It disturbed him to consider that he was intimately connected to a violent criminal.

Because it begged the question: if he had grown up in Isaiah's rough neighborhood, would he have turned out just like him?

It was the controversial nature-versus-nurture debate. Was a human being a product of his genetic heritage or his environment? Or a measure of both?

You have this life only because Pops gave it to you, little brother.

Although Isaiah had never spoken those words to Gabriel, it was something he would say. And Gabriel couldn't help wondering if, maybe, Isaiah was right.

It was too troubling to reflect on further.

He directed his thoughts instead to the idea of Isaiah being responsible for his snake hallucinations. It seemed obvious now, but he hadn't wanted to think about it. Admitting that he was so vulnerable to an outside influence was humbling. He liked to believe he was stronger than that.

He could have told me to jump out the window and I would have done it.

What chance did they have against someone with Isaiah's ability? Could Isaiah really force someone to do anything he commanded? Or were there limitations to his talent?

As he lay there, dwelling on these questions, Dana strolled into the bedroom with a bath towel wrapped around her waist.

"You're still awake," she said. "Hmm. I was hoping you would be ""

"Why?"

She climbed on the bed, lips curved in a lascivious smile.

"We haven't finished making up," she said.

"Oh." In spite of his exhaustion, desire made his body warm and eager. "That's the best part about making up, isn't it?"

Positioning herself on top of him, she lowered her head so they were face-to-face, their noses less than an inch away, her eyes so close he thought he could see his face reflected in them.

"I'll always be here for you, Gabe," she said in a whisper. "I'm sorry I left you out in the cold."

"I've already forgiven you."

"I know, but I want to tell you again. Because, well ... I love you"

Gabriel's breath snagged in his throat. He knew she loved him, knew that as certainly as he knew his own name, but this was the first time she'd ever said it.

Watching him closely, she smiled. "That wasn't so hard. I could get used to saying that to you"

"I love you, too," he said.

She kissed him.

Gabriel traced his hand down her smooth, firm back, gripped the edge of the bath towel, tugged it free.

Dana kissed his chin and began to weave a line of soft, lingering kisses down his chest and stomach, the sensation of her moist lips sending ripples of pleasure dancing across his flesh.

Gabriel's cell phone rang.

"Not now," Gabriel said. He groaned.

"It might be Nicole calling you back," Dana said. She moved from on top of him. "Better answer it, babe"

He grabbed the phone.

It was Mom.

"Something's happened to your sister," Mom said in a reed-thin voice. "She's in the hospital."

"Nicole's in the hospital? What happened? Is she okay

"She's at Grady." Mom's fragile voice almost broke. "Can you come now?"

The romantic mood had passed instantly. Brow heavy with worry, Dana was already sliding off the bed and getting her clothes.

"We're on our way," Gabriel said.