Nate, page 14
“She didn’t tell me any smuggler’s secrets or give me anything,” Madeline wailed.
The detective interjected, “The smugglers don’t know that. Don’t forget that the word on the street is that a very tempting ransom is offered for finding the missing stash. … You don’t want to find out what lengths desperate people will go to when it comes to their greed.”
Madeline went silent, as the color drained from her face.
The detective added, “I don’t mean to scare you, unless it saves your life. So you need to be aware of the extreme danger you are in, right now, which will follow you wherever you go, until those other diamonds are found.”
She nodded and swallowed, then let out a breath. “I get it,” she muttered. “I didn’t ask to be in this position.”
“No, neither did we,” Nate replied, “but this is what we have to deal with right now.”
She went on to give the detective as much of a description as she could remember, slowly walking her way through the details. “She wasn’t terribly friendly, but she kept up a running commentary that made the plane ride go very quickly,” she admitted, “and, for that, I was grateful. I’m not a great traveler anyway.” She turned to Nate. “Sorry, it’s not as if you needed to be told that.”
“You’re doing just fine,” he muttered.
“Okay, so that’s the rough description,” the detective noted. “Chances are, some disguise was in play, but this might give us something to go on.”
“And Madeline’s seat was changed. Tell him about that,” Nate reminded Madeline.
“Yeah, I forgot. I was asked to take somebody else’s seat.”
“Tell him why,” Nate urged her patiently.
“I was asked to move and to sit beside this woman because a couple on their honeymoon wanted to sit together,” she explained, with a smile.
“You didn’t think to mention this earlier?” the detective snapped.
“Of course not. That stuff happens all the time.”
The detective sighed.
She imagined that he was rolling his eyes too. Of course it was all very important now. Given her kidnapping and learning about the smuggling ring, she should have known better.
Manshue added, “I’ll send some names and photos through, once we work through this.”
As soon as that phone call ended, Nate turned to her. “Seems you have met at least six of the smugglers.”
Her eyes went wide.
Nate continued. “The first three—the supposed honeymoon couple and the extra woman—probably appeared at the beginning of your flight, so they could slip the diamonds into your bag and could keep an eye on you and your travel bag. Then, when your plane landed in France for that two-day layover, the first trio handed you off to another three-person team, probably your two kidnappers and Anna. The smugglers can’t have just one person following you because you might notice the same guy always around you, but also because they have backup plans in play from the beginning. You understand that now, right?”
She shook her head. “I had no idea. I would never in my wildest dreams have thought this was even possible.”
“That’s why it has worked so well for them. They get you beside somebody, somebody who seems harmless, where they can keep an eye on you. Before you know it, they have used you as a mule to get their contraband through customs, and soon afterward they take your bag, and they’re off to the races.”
“And just stealing my bag would have been fine,” she conceded. “I would have cheerfully handed over my bag if I knew then what I know now and what it would mean for my life.”
“Of course you would have, but that’s not how they operate. Anonymity is the preferred avenue for them, but, when that option is taken away, they’re just trying to salvage the situation, without losing their stash.”
“Great,” she muttered. “So how safe are we here?”
“Safe enough for the moment.”
She glared at him. “You know your wording is not helping, right?”
“Yet it’s the truth. We now have a little bit more information, and we need to take it and run. So we’re here, while everybody gets on with the research and hopefully finds the answers that we need,” he added. “Meanwhile, you need to think about everybody you have seen since we’ve been together, and tell me if any of them looked even somewhat familiar.”
She blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“Those six smugglers we have identified were all in disguise. So think about the people we pass on the street, think about the people that you met on the plane or met on the bus, think about … anybody who looks even somewhat familiar to you.”
“First was an airport and then a bus station, so, of course, a bunch of people were there.”
He looked at her grimly. “Which people?”
She pondered that. “I think the honeymoon couple for sure got off the plane and joined me on the bus. It’s pretty standard for people exiting the plane to head for the various buses, but I’m not certain if more were on my particular bus.”
“That could have been the handoff point, from team A to team B.” He nodded, with a smile.
“But they already had my … No, they didn’t have my bag,” she corrected, sagging back into her chair. “They were still following me because I was clutching my bag, right?”
“Absolutely, and when team A couldn’t just grab your bag out of your hands on the plane or even after landing, that’s why they needed the extra handoff.”
She nodded. “Again, I feel incredibly foolish.”
“Don’t. You were victimized, and these people were trying to steal your bag. So I wouldn’t at all feel bad about that. You did succeed for the longest time, and these were pros, so almost nobody can evade them forever.”
“Maybe,” she muttered. “But still, it feels shitty.”
He smiled. “The good news is now we should start getting answers and, with answers,” he said, “will come a chance for you to put this behind you.”
She smiled. “I hope so.”
“Yeah, but still keep thinking about the people you’ve met up until now and everything that you’ve been telling us. We have to get everything else you’ve got stored in your brain, even if you haven’t remembered it yet.”
“I will certainly try. I’m just not sure how to go about it.”
“To start with, did you see the woman on the plane again?” he asked. “She’s the one you got the best look at.”
“No, I didn’t see her afterward, not even on the bus. … I saw Anna when I woke up in the hotel room, but I don’t remember seeing her earlier at all.”
“So, you don’t remember seeing her anywhere else?”
“No, I don’t.” She shrugged. “I mean, honestly, I didn’t expect to see anybody I knew.”
“No, of course not,” he said. “You were on your way to Africa.”
“Which is even more belatedly irritating,” she admitted. “I mean, all kinds of people were on those flights, so why me, why my bag?”
“Did you happen to …”
When he hesitated, she glared at him. “Did I happen to what?”
He half smiled. “I know this is not what you want to be asked, but did you happen to use your healing energy at any point in time while you were traveling?”
She frowned at him, dumbfounded. “You mean, on random people?”
“Or on yourself,” he added, “because, the minute you open that healing energy, it’s quite possible it would have attracted people to you.”
She blinked. “As you know, I don’t have any formal training in this energy work. So, if I would have used that energy, I would have just opened it up and used it.” She raised both hands. “It’s not as if I do any mantra or anything beforehand.”
At that, Brody looked up at them both. He had been seated off to the side, working on his laptop. “You need to start protecting yourself,” he stated. “Every time you open up your energy, you can bring in all kinds of other energy—energy that you don’t want and certainly don’t need. It doesn’t even have to necessarily be people on this earthly plane.”
At that, she blanched. “Good God, that is not something I want to think about.”
“But you need to, and it’s possible that other people can utilize that energy themselves.” Brody was not pulling any punches.
“He’s right,” Nate confirmed. “And, if that’s what’s happened here, when you used your good energy to knock out your own headache, that may have attracted others to you because of that goodness.”
She stared. “You know that’s beyond … wild, right?”
Brody nodded, but his face was serious. “It might be,” he agreed, “but it’s also how this life works, particularly when you deal with energy. You can learn to protect yourself by doing certain things. If you don’t follow that protocol,” he murmured, “shit happens.”
Chapter 10
Madeline sat back, sagging into the hot and uncomfortable cheap hotel furniture, but that didn’t even matter because she was way too stunned at his words as she struggled to even understand. She took a deep breath and then realized she had no idea how to respond. She was at a loss for words. “You’re saying that I brought this on myself?” She looked over at Nate for confirmation.
He winced. “No, Brody’s not really saying that. He’s just trying to—”
“Yes, I am,” Brody corrected, his tone hard. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. People don’t realize how dangerous this energy can be in the wrong hands. It’s powerful, and other people can take advantage. I’m not saying you did it on purpose, and I get that some of this is new to you.”
As he paused for a breath, she let out the one she’d been holding, slowing releasing it as she stared at him.
Brody continued. “You need to understand the potential ramifications.” Then turning to face Nate, Brody added, “And you don’t need to coddle her.”
“I didn’t know,” Madeline muttered. “I didn’t know any of that.”
“I get that,” Brody replied. “We come up against a lot of newbies with abilities who don’t have the slightest idea about how to use them. I keep telling Terkel that he should set up a school or something to protect these people. He just looks at me in horror. Still, we need to figure this out because so few people out there have any training or any understanding of just how much danger they’re opening themselves up for.”
She just stared at him. “I had a headache. I was dehydrated,” she began, “but I didn’t have any water. I was in line to show my ticket to the stewardess. I didn’t want to leave the line. They were boarding, and I just ran. While I was running, I used energy to keep up because I was tired and stressed. Honesty, I didn’t think anything of it.”
At that, Brody nodded. “No, you didn’t, and I’m not surprised because you were so stressed from traveling. Yet it doesn’t change the fact that, once you open that energy, other people can feel it. Whether they can utilize it or not doesn’t matter as much as you opened that door and didn’t protect yourself first,” he stated, shaking his head. “It’s a completely different thing once that door is opened.”
“And, once that healing energy is freed, other people around you can heal too. Have you ever had that happen?” Nate asked, eyeing her closely now.
She nodded, understanding that a bit better. “When I would be in surgery,” she began, shifting her gaze to the distance, through all the operations she’d been a part of, “I would do my regular nursing work, then would send healing energy for the patient. I would do everything I could to help them heal, but other people around me would start to feel better too. I noticed that, but I just figured it was a lucky side benefit for them.”
Nate smiled. “And that’s a good thing. Obviously we don’t want you to stop using your healing energy. However, you must learn how to protect yourself from people who may have been attracted to that same energy, but for very different reasons. If they were looking for somebody to pick for this smuggling job, they would have been attracted to you. And you’ve been wondering, Why you, right?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “And that is exactly why I don’t want to travel anymore.”
Brody nodded. “And yet, if you go to Terkel’s place, you may have to.”
She stared at him, aghast. “Why?”
“Because we work as a team,” Brody shared. “I get that you wouldn’t want to travel again anytime too soon, given what’s happened recently, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be times when a second team might have to travel to help the first team.”
“If it meant saving somebody, of course,” she replied instantly. “Particularly if I wasn’t traveling alone. The alone part was fairly distressing.”
“Yet you were happy to go originally?”
“Sure, I was up for the adventure, but the adventure paled very quickly,” she muttered, and then she glared at them both. “I get it. You guys travel all the time, but for me? … It wasn’t quite the same.”
“Traveling alone as a single female isn’t easy for a lot of women. And, with the energy that you were utilizing, I’m sure you had an awful lot of people talking to you, draining you in ways that you probably weren’t even aware of,” Brody added.
Madeline frowned. “Definitely a lot of people were talking to me,” she agreed, “and I didn’t know why. Maybe that’s what traveling was all about for anybody, but it wore me down. I’m social in certain circumstances, but then I need some time alone again to recharge my energy.”
“Yeah, the psychologists have terms for that.” Nate gave her half a smile. “I’m not exactly an extrovert myself, but it’s easy to talk to you. And, if it’s easy for me to talk to you, then it’ll really be easy for other people.”
She stared at him. “But you are both very open and easy to get along with.”
Brody considered her for a moment, then turned to Nate. “Did she just say that we’re both very open and easy to get along with?”
Nate grinned. “Yeah, she did. That’s exactly what she said.”
Then they both exploded into unfettered laughter.
She looked from one to the other. “I don’t get it. Why are you both laughing?”
“Because we’re both the opposite of that,” Brody declared, with a huff.
“I’m not exactly an open and easygoing person. That much I can say for sure,” Nate muttered. “I don’t really care for people much, and I would just as soon most of them walk off a cliff,” he muttered out loud. “The fact that you would even think of me as friendly is a bit of a shock. I’ve worked hard to make myself come across as the opposite.”
She stared at him, then looked from one to the other and smiled. “Now I know that you’re just egging me on,” she declared, “because absolutely no way would I believe that. You guys are both open, friendly, and super easy to talk to.”
Brody stared at her in an assessing way. “You may have a certain energy that makes people open up and talkative, and that,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “is a very interesting aspect to your energy.”
“It could be just part of my counseling certification I’m working on too. Why does this interest you?” she asked suspiciously. “You’re already thinking how that can help your team, aren’t you?”
Brody chuckled. “Of course. That energy skill is not a bad idea and a good one to add to our team,” he shared. “No doubt that we could use help at times to make a certain environment more open and relaxing, easing people into conversations. That could help a lot. Also I find it personally fascinating. Terk will too. Honestly, I’m not talkative normally, not until I get to know people. And, just for the record, I’m not friendly,” he snapped, glaring at her. She burst out laughing, while he just stared. “I don’t get it,” he said, looking over at Nate. “Does your energy work make people talkative for you?”
“Nope, and I already tried it a couple times,” he admitted, grinning. “It’s her. It’s definitely her.”
She shrugged. “I think you guys are crazy.”
“No, we’re not,” Brody argued, “but it would be interesting to bring you back to Terkel’s.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know that I’m even welcome,” she reminded him.
“After all this, and the things that we can tell Terkel, sure you are.” Brody considered her. “And I don’t know anything about your healing ability, and we do have healers on the team already. Yet, as far as they’re concerned, we never have enough of them.”
“Sure,” she muttered, as she looked over at Nate. “What is your ability?” She looked from one to the other. “Or do you both just use your energy to hide and to do things?”
Nate answered that question. “Energy work can be all kinds of things,” he began. “As energy workers, we can learn to do more, but I find that each of us has our own special skill set. I do use my energy to hide, yes, which is why nobody has seen us outside yet,” he shared, as he looked directly at her. “That is also why we have to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. And Brody, he acts as an early warning system, not to mention a navigation specialist, among other abilities.”
She blinked. “Do these abilities always work for you?”
“No.” Brody shook his head. “That is something I’m working on. In fact, Terk’s whole team is working on this. Sometimes energy works better than other times. We do know that, if we are underground or surrounded by two-feet-thick concrete, those physical conditions will impair our abilities. Of course, as you found out firsthand, being drugged interrupts our energy work for sure.”
“Wow. That’s absolutely fascinating. Yet you don’t tell people about your abilities, do you?” she asked, now looking at Nate.
“No, we sure don’t,” they both answered simultaneously.
She glanced from one to the other.
“Just like you didn’t share with us that you are an energy worker,” Brody pointed out. “We only trust other energy workers on the side of good. Plus, we don’t want to talk to people regardless.”
