THE RISK OF LOVE AND MAGIC (16 page)

“Yeah, we do, but it’s too big for your limited scope to comprehend,” she scoffed. “Open your eyes, widen your mind, let the world come in. A socket wrench won’t fix what’s wrong.”

“Another egghead,” he said with disgust. “Why do I keep hooking up with women who have to intellectualize everything?”

“Because you’re smart and you want an equal. You just won’t admit it. Good luck finding a mindless dolly who won’t bore you to death in a day.” Nadine grabbed a sandwich and some iced tea and headed for the sunny terrace.

The intercom from the guardhouse on the street announced a visitor. Nadine froze. The music in the other room cut off in mid-beat. Magnus flipped a switch and grunted a greeting.

“Mr. Dick Tracy and guest,” the inhuman buzz broadcast.

Magnus rolled his eyes at the
Dick Tracy
intro and said into the intercom, “Yeah, and if he’s got Lois Lane with him, let them both in.”

He grinned as the security guard actually asked if the second visitor was Lois Lane. Nadine smacked him on the back, but Magnus shrugged off her mosquito bites.

He was less impervious to her comment about finding companionship with mindless dollies, but her laughter had soothed his earlier irritation. She hadn’t said sex wasn’t happening.

Apparently understanding that Vera’s driver was using an alias, Nadine rushed to the wall of windows to watch for the car. She bounced on the balls of her feet, almost ready to boil up right out of her skin. Magnus gripped her shoulder both to reassure her and keep her from floating to the ceiling.

She threw him a grateful look. He wasn’t sure why, but his hand felt right on her shoulder, so he kept it there, absorbing her nervous energy and balancing it with his steadiness. He could do psycho psychic too.

Conan and Dorrie had joined them by the time a nondescript Toyota rolled into the drive. Magnus identified the Chinese-American driver by the blue-streak in his hair— Jack Ling Simon, one of Dorrie’s many cousins. This one was a bodyguard and security consultant who claimed the curious ability to pick up emotional traces of people on objects. In his late twenties, he was built like a sturdy Chinese pug.

Carrying a furry-faced terrier, the woman who climbed out when Jack opened the door was about Jack’s height, willowy, wearing the kind of flowy sundress Magnus had tried to persuade Nadine to wear. The newcomer had removed the blond wig to reveal seal-dark hair she’d had cropped at the nape much like Nadine’s, only not as neat. Her eyes widened as she scanned the size of the house. The dog yipped and wiggled to be set down.

Beneath his hand, Nadine vibrated. She reached up to squeeze his fingers. Releasing them again, she flung open the front door and dashed down the steps to grab her sister.

Magnus simply watched the tableau from the window, not wanting to interfere in the reunion.

Jack stoically took the dog as the two women hugged and wept. Jack said something that forced the women to hurry up the steps and out of sight of the neighbors. Jack remained behind, letting the dog water the lawn.

Nadine might call herself an autistic, clueless nerd, but she wept just like any woman Magnus had ever known. He backed off warily as they entered.

“Your hair, what have you done to your beautiful hair?” Vera was. “You don’t look like you anymore!”

Magnus kind of agreed with that but it wasn’t his place to say so.

Nadine rubbed at her tears and nodded in response to her sister’s excited description of her rescue. He appreciated Nadine’s lack of hysterics over a situation that had been fraught with danger.

“You need to meet our friends,” Nadine finally said, giving her eyes a final swipe and releasing Vera.

The young woman turned her attention from her sister to realize they were surrounded. “Oh, sorry, it’s just been so long, and I’ve been soooo worried.” Vera glanced with curiosity at their audience. “I’m Vera Malcolm, and if you rescued my sister, I owe you everything, thank you.”

Jack arrived with the dog and dropped the wriggling creature into Vera’s arms. She cuddled it for a second, then let the animal down again. It aimed straight for Magnus’s toe. Magnus let it sniff while Nadine provided brief introductions.

Nadine introduced him as “the stubborn problem-solver who figured out my code.” He hadn’t expected to be called
lover
or
friend,
but he was stupidly resentful anyway. He wanted to wrap a possessive arm around her shoulders, keep her from nervously vibrating and bouncing, but he apparently didn’t have that right. So he picked up the damned dog instead. He growled at it to keep it from licking his face.

He wanted explanations.

The women made noises about food and gravitated toward the kitchen.

Frustrated, ready to leap into his car and take out a general, Magnus had no choice but to bite his tongue and follow—and hope he’d hear the story if he listened close enough.

“You made good time getting here,” Magnus said, falling in step with Jack. Dorrie’s cousin was heavily muscled but short. Entering the kitchen with the women, Magnus dropped the wriggly creature back into his arms.

“Once we let Jessica off, we made good time. The general is playing havoc with the media, so we tried to avoid cops,” Jack said, accepting the burden, only to put the dog down again. “I wanted to make certain no one was following and took a few shortcuts.”

“At what point do we inform officialdom that neither of the women lived or worked with their stepfather?” Magnus followed Nadine with his eyes as she settled her sister in with food and drink. They weren’t talking important things—yet.

“We can’t reveal where they’re hiding until we take out the general, but the cops have been given a few anonymous reports about their circumstances to check out. Might take them a while. Beer?” Jack set the dog free again and indicated the refrigerator.

“Help yourself.” Magnus leaned against the counter behind Nadine while the furry brown dog sniffed toes under the table. Nadine obviously didn’t want him interrogating Vera the instant she arrived, but they didn’t have time to waste.

“I knew you didn’t think we should communicate,” Vera was saying, “but when I sent code to all your usual places and you didn’t answer, I was frantic. I had no idea that he’d locked you up!”

“I was just waiting until you graduated before I took off,” Nadine replied with confidence. “It wasn’t any different from working in his office.”

Magnus figured she was lying through her pretty white teeth just to reassure her sister. Interesting. Maybe
he
was learning to read minds.

“I’m sorry. I know you wanted me to have a degree, but I just couldn’t let the poor parents of those students keep on thinking the general was helping them! When I couldn’t reach you, I had to do
something
.”

“What students?” Magnus asked. He settled in to hear the rest of the story.

“Do we need to record this?” Conan asked, interrupting the damned story.

Magnus wanted to smack him, but grudgingly, he could see the point.

“Let the poor kid eat her lunch,” Jack insisted. “We flew down here without stopping, and she needs to catch her breath.”

Interesting that Jack took the girl’s side instead of insisting that she be debriefed.

Nadine looked to Magnus, apparently catching this anomaly as well.

He shrugged. He didn’t know Jack well. He looked like a mean pit bull. But Jack was feeding the dog before himself—probably on caviar, given the refrigerator’s contents.

“Let’s take our lunch and sit out in the sunroom and enjoy the day a bit,” Dorrie suggested, picking up the platter of sandwiches.

Vera helpfully carried the tea pitcher, Jack lugged the dog, and Nadine fell back beside Magnus.

“Is recording Vera’s story a good idea?” she asked. “Worrying about a recording falling into the wrong hands . . . makes it difficult to be open and honest.”

“If we need evidence for lawyers, a recording might be good,” he said, but he understood her concern. Score one for him. “But I guess lawyers wouldn’t much like where you start talking about the weird bits.”

“Exactly.” She looked relieved. “Should it ever come to testifying, we’ll do our part, but let’s not go that far yet.”

Magnus held out a chair for her near her sister, then strolled over to talk with Conan who was examining the music cabinet. “No recording,” he announced without preliminary.

Conan didn’t look concerned. “That’s what Dorrie said. That means they want to talk weird.”

“How do you deal with that?” Magnus asked, watching the women chatter excitedly. Jack had filled a plate and wandered off with the furry creature under his arm, apparently to find a TV if the sound of a game coming on in the other room meant anything.

“They do things that aren’t scientifically explainable. That doesn’t mean they aren’t doing them,” Conan replied. “I’ve never figured out how moving my desk and files around can help me, but funds have been rolling in ever since Dorrie did her feng shui shtick.”

“That’s because you’re good at what you do,” Magnus argued. “But that thing with Francesca and Nadine where they sat there sending numbers into space, that was just freaky.”

“Let me know when she starts reading your mind and I’ll stay away,” Conan suggested.

“Big help, bro,” Magnus said, punching his brother’s shoulder.

Magnus drew a chair up near Nadine and waited. He was good at waiting. And listening—until he got what he wanted.

It didn’t take long for Vera’s story to start spilling out. Nadine might call herself an introverted nerd, but she wasn’t shy, just painfully blunt.

Once she was out from behind her computer, she was a little
too
perspicacious. That gave Magnus food for thought about the painful reality of mind-reading and how it equated with the need to bury her head in the sand—or computer.

But she had a deft way of steering her sister in the right direction, and he preferred to concentrate on the now.

“I was student teaching in Irvine,” Vera said to Nadine’s inquiry. “One of our best, more intuitive students suddenly transferred to some obscure private school in the valley. We were all concerned because Raul was extremely sensitive and had just started coming out of his shell.”

“Sensitive?” Nadine asked. “When you use
sensitive
and
intuitive,
are you saying he was alternatively gifted?”

Magnus wanted to snort at that euphemism for
just plain weird,
but he had to admit there weren’t too many words for what the women did.

“I think so,” Vera said uncertainly, “but it wasn’t as if I could test him or explain to the other teachers. So I just went along with everyone else, learned what I could about his transfer, then started exploring independently.”

“Good girl,” Nadine said with approval. “What did you find out?”

“I found he’d been entered in the Joseph Academy for the Extraordinarily Gifted.”

All other chatter stopped and all eyes focused on Vera—everyone in this room could be classified as
extraordinarily gifted
in some manner. In this past year, they’d learned that meant they were targets of the general. Tension escalated. Even Magnus, as dense as he knew himself to be, squirmed for the kid. But Nadine took her sister’s hand and seemed to hypnotize her into not noticing their audience.

“Jo-jo?” Nadine asked encouragingly.

“I’m pretty sure,” Vera agreed. “I’m not as good at research as you are, but the Academy filed the appropriate documents with the state, and I dug those out. Feng Po-po was listed as an administrator. So are all four of her sons.”

“Feng Po-po is dead,” Dorrie cried. “And so is her first son Feng Won. And second son Li should be back in jail!”

Nadine lifted a cautionary finger to silence her, then returned to stroking Vera’s hand. “Only Jo-jo would know their names and their social security numbers and be able to forge the papers. I doubt the state checks death certificates or prison populations. So we know Jo-jo founded a school. The one where you sent the supplies?” she asked in sudden alarm.

“No, that was just a poor charter school I was working with. That came after I traced Raul to the Academy and moved into the Valley to investigate. I volunteered at the charter to see if I could make connections.”

“Is that when you sent me an image of a classroom packed with students?”

Vera nodded. “I was shocked by how little they had. I didn’t do it deliberately. I was running on scared by then, thinking about Raul and what could be happening to him, and I just kind of focused like you tried to teach me and  . . . blanked out.”

“You did it just right. I got the message and knew you were alive. Until then, I’d been really worried. I was afraid the general had found you.”

Vera shook her head. “As far as I know, he has no idea where I am or what I’m doing. But once I found out about the Academy, I had to look into it. I’m sorry, Nadine, I had to.” She looked grave and focused on her sister. “After what we’ve seen . . . I’m afraid of what the general might be doing to those students.”

Nadine held up her palm to slow her down. “Give us the facts first. We all understand the fear.”

Vera nodded, then visibly sorted back to where she’d left off. “I used a little of our credit to buy the charter school some basic supplies,” she said apologetically. “And then I realized I shouldn’t be using the card if I was hiding. So I gave it to a friend to charge something far away in hopes that would muddy the trail.”

“You did everything right,” Nadine said soothingly. “The purchases let us hope you were alive and well and led us to you. Jo-jo doesn’t know about the card, so he couldn’t have tracked you easily. What else did you find out?”

“After I found the papers with the Feng names on them, I got a little panicky and tried reaching you. That was before I left school. I knew the papers had to have been filed by Jo-jo, but I had no way of knowing what he was doing with that school.”

Magnus finally noticed that the girl had dark circles under her eyes and looked frail and stressed. He really was dense about people, but somehow, he was seeing Vera through Nadine’s eyes, feeling her compassion for the sister who’d risked herself for her students. No woo-woo was involved in this connection, he assured himself. There was no one in his brain except himself. But he was starting to understand Nadine, read her body language, and she was worried. Which meant, so was he.