Walker, page 6
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know what I want to do because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. What do you do with that information?”
Calum slowly started the vehicle and headed back to the motel. “If you think that’s happening tonight—”
“I can’t tell you that,” Walker barked. “All I can tell you is that, when we get back to the motel, I’ll contact her and give her a word of warning. She’ll ignore me anyway, so the only thing I can do for now is potentially warn McClintock.”
“You think he’ll listen?”
“No, I don’t think he’ll listen necessarily, but an extra set of eyes won’t hurt at this point.”
“I agree with you there,” Calum muttered. “Damn.”
They pulled into the small motel parking lot, and Walker got out slowly, stretching his legs and trying to kick the kinks out. He felt exhausted. Every time he took a trip into a precognition, the aftereffects could be pretty rough. This one had come hard and fast and had more or less just slammed into him without any warning. That was fine and dandy, except for coming back out again.
If anybody out here wanted to attack him, now would be a hell of a time to do it because Walker was still caught up in that energy. Following Calum toward the back of the motel, as they walked, he grabbed Calum’s arm and pulled.
Calum looked at him, on alert.
“Our room,” Walker whispered, wincing as yet more energy slammed into his brain. “Christ, I’m not sure why it’s so damn strong over here.”
“It doesn’t matter. Stay here. Recover. I’ll go up.”
“No,” he muttered. “I’m coming.”
“What good will that do?”
“I don’t know, but I feel that I need to come.”
And, with that, Calum wouldn’t argue, so they both raced to their room. When they got there, they positioned themselves on either side of the door. On the count of three, they burst into the room, only to hear scurrying feet going out the window. Calum jumped toward the window and headed out after the intruder, while Walker looked around to see what the intruder had been after.
A little bit of their stuff had been moved around, but that was it, and all of it had been searched. Their bags were opened and dumped on the beds, their clothing tossed. Calum and Walker had had their laptops with them, so this was just their personal gear.
When Calum came back inside, his face was grim. “He had a driver waiting.”
“That’s probably how the intruder knew we were here. He got a heads-up from the driver.”
“It’s quite possible,” Calum agreed, as he looked around. “Any idea what they were after?”
“They opened our bags, but nothing here for them to grab.” Walker frowned at Calum. “The stakes just went up.”
“In a big way.”
Walker quickly snatched his phone and started dialing.
“Who are you calling?”
“Ashley,” he muttered. “You might want to bring Terkel up to speed.” When Ashley answered the phone, her tone was slow, as if coming out of the deep meditation of a healing state. “Heads up, our place was searched, and I had a precog vision about you being attacked. Shot actually, so this is about the only warning I can give you. Watch your ass.”
She gasped. “What?”
“Yeah, you heard me. We just got back from meeting McClintock and found an intruder in our room. The place had been searched, our belongings dumped,” he described, looking around at the mess. “We went out after him, but he had a vehicle to jump into. No idea if it was the same men following us or not.”
“Wow, I don’t know what the heck’s going on or why anybody is doing this. We’ve had no problems for a very long time.”
“But that doesn’t mean that no problems will ever come,” Walker argued. “So you need to tell me what the hell the last problem was.”
“Why?” she asked, her tone hard. “It doesn’t apply to anything happening now.”
“Are you sure about that? Because I mentioned to McClintock one possibility I’m sure you won’t like. He didn’t like it much either. What are the chances that this kidnapping has nothing to do with Frank and everything to do with you?”
Chapter 4
Ashley sagged into the big easy chair in front of the window and stared aimlessly at the gorgeous view in front of her—a view that had always brought out the joy, quiet, comfort, that sense of being home. She was counting on it right now because the last thing she wanted was to feel that fear, stress, and trauma of the panic that had overtaken her for so long.
She’d worked for the government under duress, far longer than she should have, ending up with PTSD symptoms for years. This place was her solace. Until somebody had found her here some years back. It was a problem she thought she had dealt with, and yet now it was coming back for her.
No, her brain screamed, that’s not true. You don’t know that. You’re afraid that’s what’s happening, but you don’t know that to be true. You’re functioning on fear, and you need to shift that. That warning was correct; she did need to shift her earlier thoughts, but that was not exactly an easy thing to do. Shifting them meant acknowledging them and sharing them, which she was not interested in doing at all. However, she also knew that Walker and Calum wouldn’t let this go, and, if Frank’s disappearance had something to do with what had initially gone so wrong in her world five years ago, then maybe facing this was something she had to do.
When her phone rang again, she stared down at it, her expression a grimace. She knew no way Walker would let it go, not when he was after something. She answered it, her tone heavy.
“I’m not trying to hassle you,” he began, his tone calm, quiet, almost soothing, “but considering the precog vision I had of you being shot, I’m not happy leaving this as is.”
She gave a startled laugh. “What do you expect me to say to that? You don’t even know who I am or anything about me.”
“I do know a lot about you,” he declared, his tone never wavering. “I know that you’re somebody who functions from a specific point of energy. I know that you’re somebody who cares and somebody who’s tried hard to isolate herself away from the hurt that seems to be never-ending, threatening to destroy that precious peace of mind in your soul.”
She sucked in her breath at that.
Walker continued. “I know this is becoming a little too close for comfort, but hiding away won’t help us find this young man.”
She winced at that. “I’m not stopping you from finding him, but I don’t see how any of this is relevant.”
“What I have found in life is, when we come to the crux of the matter, it doesn’t matter what is relevant to us. It’s all about what is relevant to whoever is behind this. That is what’s important. I get that you don’t want to open up that can of worms in your past. I do. I am not saying you have to face whatever it is that happened back then, but, for the sake of this young man who is missing and who needs your help, I’m hoping you will. I understand that, for you, you’ve always held on to the if he needed me, he would be here philosophy, but that’s assuming that nothing in your world was stopping him from getting to you. Right now, I suspect something very much like that is happening, and that somebody is doing their best to either keep Frank from reaching you or to keep you from doing what it is that you do.”
He was almost right to say that, and she understood it completely.
“The sooner you take a closer look at that, the sooner we can all work together to move this forward. I know you don’t like the intrusion on your best shot at a peaceful existence, and I’m sorry for that, but something will happen whether you like it or not, and you’ve got to understand that too.”
She hated the caring inflection in his tone, though it was completely wrapped up in a certain level of hardness, as if to will her to do what he wanted her to do. But that caring would be her undoing, and she didn’t even think he realized it was there. “I’ll think about it,” she replied abruptly.
“You’ll have to think fast.” Then he disconnected.
She knew he was right because, damn it, this young man had come to her, and everything was blowing up in his face. The idea that he might not make it because of some other problem—her problem—was sure to devastate her.
Ashley sighed. She worked on the basis of healing, not on the basis of hurting. Yet so much of the world around her didn’t care about that. They only wanted to hurt and to resolve whatever bothered them. They wanted what they wanted, and it didn’t matter who got hurt in the process. Unfortunately, it started to feel very much like that was what was going on.
Ashley sat here, frozen, for a long time, then slowly picked up the phone and called McClintock. “Do you have any idea who the men were who followed them?” she asked.
“I have an idea, but I haven’t confirmed it. Why?”
“Because the new guys are afraid that it may have something to do with me, and I’m sure that you know how that’ll make me feel.”
“But it’s still not your fault. We’re right back to that same old garbage from our work. Just because assholes are out in the world and will do anything to hurt people, and they choose to hurt people we’re involved with, all that doesn’t mean that we are at fault or are responsible.”
“No, maybe not,” she conceded, “but I didn’t understand the logic then, and I can’t really work with it now either.”
He groaned. “Fine, no point talking to you about it back then, and I know that won’t change. What is it you want to do right now?”
“I’m not sure,” she whispered. “I just want this to go away. I want that young man back here, where I can work to help him, and I don’t want the past to raise its ugly head again.”
Then came a long silence. “I don’t think the past will raise its head,” McClintock shared, his tone almost too detached.
Then she whispered, “Are you sure?”
“I’m very sure,” he said briskly. “You know that I took care of him a long time ago.”
His wording made her wince. “The way you said that is enough to make me break out in hives,” she joked.
“You didn’t want to know anything about it, so I didn’t tell you.”
“Right, until we get to that part where I’m still guilty by omission.”
“You’re not guilty of anything,” he said in exasperation. “Now, go to bed and get some sleep. The past won’t raise its ugly head.” And, with that, he ended the call.
She stared down at the phone, terrified of what might be coming, knowing it would completely destroy any progress she had made in the last five years. She had tried so hard, had worked so diligently to put all that into perspective. She had buried it deep, so she could work on the healing that was really her forte. Yet how did one heal anyone when all that shit was going on around you? Particularly if healing came up against what she was sadly afraid had been murder.
*
Walker stared down at the phone and looked over at Calum. “She’s hiding something.”
Calum nodded. “Everybody does.”
“I know everybody does, but in this case it’ll affect our ability to find Frank.”
“That could be,” Calum admitted, looking over at him. “You got any idea how to make her give it up?”
He laughed. “I think her years in the government, in whatever capacity she worked, has more or less ruined her for any kind of cooperation.”
“I don’t think you can force her either,” Calum added, studying him carefully. “I’m not saying she’s immune to it, but I think she’s been tortured in many ways for a long time. She’s healing now, and she’s come a long way to get out of whatever nightmare she was in, but she’s not there yet.”
Walker sighed. “I get it, and she’s definitely not there yet.”
“She’s very protective of her own space, but what do we do about Kim’s brother? Then, there is your … vision, precog or whatever.”
“These precogs just won’t leave me alone.”
Calum’s gaze sharpened. “Did you get another one?”
“No, not a complete one. It was just … I don’t even know what it is,” he muttered. “It’s this weird sense.”
“Maybe you could elaborate a little bit,” Calum murmured. “Remember? This is what we do.”
“I know. Are you getting anything?”
“No, I’m sure not,” Calum admitted, “but I’m very aware that this is your ball game.”
“What does that mean?” Walker asked.
“It means that I’m here as a ground for you,” Calum stated bluntly. “Sure, there might be some things that I can do if we get into trouble, but this is very much your deal. I’m here to support Kim and to help find her brother in any way possible, even if that means letting her know the worst happened. That would be very unfortunate, but Frank is very sick, so there may not be anything we can do, since we are not healers. But not doing something because there’s nothing we can do is a very different story from other people having done something because they could.”
“Is that what you think has happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Calum admitted in frustration. “The fact that I can’t tell you anything makes me even angrier.”
“Anger is definitely not helpful.” Walker turned and glared at Calum, who just shrugged.
“You and I both know that.”
“Yeah, I know that. Remember that part about it’s not helping?”
Calum flashed him a grin. “Yeah, remember that part about I’m just here to help?”
“Yeah, I hear you, but so far the help isn’t helping.”
Calum burst out laughing at that. “So, go back to the beginning. Figure out what the next step is, and we’ll go from there.”
“How am I supposed to know what the next step is?”
“Seems we need to do a history on Ashley, and maybe on this McClintock, who appears to be so close to her. Maybe that would tell us where the problem is.”
“I can already tell you some stuff. She worked for the government, and everybody has done a hell of a job burying that fact, and she’s trying to move on.”
“Yet she can’t because …?”
“Because of her history, because of something in the past. She’s done whatever she needed to do in order to open up for healing, but it’s possible that other people around her haven’t done something. As long as she can clear herself, then potentially she can continue to heal.”
“According to what Terkel told me, she’s an incredibly strong healer.”
“And the world needs those, but Terkel also mentioned that a lot of people in this world can’t heal, even though they should be able to, simply because of the negative energy in their own space. If she is healing, chances are, she’s done an awful lot to clear out any negativity.”
“What are you saying then?” Calum asked Walker.
“I don’t want to send her backward, to push her back there by bringing it all up again,” he said. “I’m just not sure what our options are.”
“Exactly. We’ll push some buttons because people are hiding crap again. As we know, it’s fairly common, but it’s not helpful.”
“It’s never helpful,” Walker snapped. “Damn it, I don’t know why I’m so affected by this.” He turned and glared at Calum.
Calum just stared back at him. “What are you glaring at me for?”
“Because you’re laughing at me,” he accused.
“No, I’m not laughing at you, but it’s definitely interesting to see you like this.”
“Why?”
“Because you know what’s wrong, but you won’t listen to it.”
He stiffened. “So now you’re the psychic?”
“Of course I’m psychic,” Calum declared, with a wave of his hand, “but that doesn’t mean that I can produce answers on demand any more than you can. I just know that whatever is going on between you two is personal, and that’s the doorway you don’t want to open.”
He stiffened. “Nothing is between us.”
“Energy is arcing between you, and that means something is there. Whether it’s of this lifetime or another,” Calum explained, his tone calm and flat. “It’s up to you guys to decide if you’ll do anything to pursue it. I can see from her perspective that you’re not somebody she wants to be with because you deal with this stuff, and I think her whole world has been overly impacted by that.”
He stared at Calum, then sank onto the side of his bed. “Maybe,” he admitted, his tone distant. “But having a relationship with somebody involved in a case isn’t exactly a pathway I want to pursue. And just because I can see energy between us doesn’t mean that energy should be picked up, warmed up, and a connection built.”
“No, absolutely not, but I would say it definitely is something you could do in order to get answers.”
Walker stiffened.
“No, I’m not talking about seducing her to get answers or anything like that, but she’s a fool and not the healer that I believe her to be if she isn’t picking up on that same energy. While you’re here, and you have a chance to find out who this Ashley person is, and what’s important to her, I think you would be making a mistake not to pursue that avenue and see just what there is between you.”
“Coming from a man who is now very happily married?” Walker asked, staring at Calum. “You know yourself that if somebody would have told you that years ago, you would have told them to eff off.”
“I probably would have,” he agreed, with a smile. “Absolutely I would have because I believed with all my heart that it was too dangerous to have a partner. It was too dangerous to bring someone I loved into this field because our enemies would go after them.”
At that, Walker began to understand that a story was behind that. “Did it happen?”
“Absolutely,” Calum confirmed. “And that was a reminder that bad shit happens anyway. So it’s important to enjoy the days that you have together and to do everything you can to keep your family and your loved ones safe. And often having them safe means keeping them close. You’re a long way from being close to Ashley, but there is that thread of potential. Do you want to pursue that thread, or do you want to walk away and never know what it’s like to have what I have?” As Calum spoke, he stared at Walker face-to-face. “I’ve got to tell you, that would be a hell of a shame.”
