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He nodded. “I know it’s hard because you want answers, and we want answers too. But more than that we also need to know where he is and get this thing stopped, before anybody else gets hurt.”

*

Morrison watched Sadie head back to bed again, knowing how hard this must be, yet not very many people would even consider her feelings in this issue.

Her twin brother, if he was the gunman involved, had murdered several people, or at least appeared to be involved in heists that ended up with several people dead.

Morrison had to keep reminding himself that, although the guy looked to be right in the middle of it, Morrison still had no confirmation of that yet.

That was a turning point from which there would be no going back.

Sadie could always try for a relationship while Don was in prison, but, if Don was an angry young man, there was a good chance that he would rebuff any attempt she made.

Morrison was sorry for that, but that couldn’t stop or even change his investigation in any way.

Morrison eventually fell asleep on the couch, not hearing anything from Sadie’s bedroom. He was a light sleeper and would know when she got up next. However, he didn’t sleep too long at a time and expected to be the first one up regardless.

*

The next morning Morrison brewed a pot of coffee, anticipating Sadie would be up soon.

Yet she seemed to be sleeping today—or maybe had a hard time falling asleep.

When Sadie finally got up, she immediately headed to the kitchen.

She thanked him for making the coffee and had a cup or two.

It wasn’t long before she started to fidget.

After she wiped off the counter for the third time, Morrison asked, “Do you want to go for a drive now? Maybe back to the pool hall? It’s early, but who knows what we might see.”

She immediately nodded. “I don’t know why, but sure.”

“I want to see if you can pick up any more of Don’s energy.”

“Of course you do,” she grumbled in a wry tone. “I want to catch sight of my brother, and you’re here trying to capture him.”

“My agenda could hopefully result in giving you some time with him.”

She stared at him and nodded. “I can’t ever forget the fact that he’s involved in something so ugly, can I?”

“It would be better if you don’t forget it,” he stated. “An awful lot of people out there want to stop Don and his crew right now, before anyone else gets hurt.”

“Oh, I hear you,” she murmured. She looked down at her watch. “It is early. Do you think it’s too early for the pool hall?”

“Maybe,” he replied, as he studied his watch, contemplating it. Just then his cell went off. He answered it to find Terkel on the other end. “Terkel, what’s up?”

“They hit another jewelry store early this morning. The staff was just getting ready to open.” Terk shared the location data—not the big jewelry store Morrison expected the crew to hit, but bad anyway.

“Ah, crap.” Morrison sat back, sending a look to Sadie. “Did they shoot anybody?”

“They did, but he’s still alive.”

“Thank heavens for that,” he muttered.

“We don’t know that he’ll make it,” Terk clarified, his tone hard. “Now, I don’t know that you’ll be allowed in, but I want you to take her down there and see if she picks up on her twin brother’s energy.”

“Yeah, I’ll take her to the crime scene, and then I guess we’ll go with the flow. We won’t be allowed in the hospital, will we?”

“No, absolutely not,” Terkel noted cheerfully. “You probably don’t need to be there anyway. It’ll be a hot case. Given the nature of the crime, the cops will be all over the victim.”

“But if he’s not dead, the gunmen may go back and try to finish the job. Particularly if the guard saw something, knew something, or was involved in something. Otherwise there would be no need for the crew to finish the job.”

After a moment of silence on the other end, Terkel added, “Agreed, and I think that’s highly probable in this case. I’ll talk to the police about added security.”

“I don’t have a good feeling about this at all.”

“No, neither do I.” With that, Terkel rang off.

Morrison sat here, staring at her.

She flushed. “Somebody else is dead, right?”

“Not dead,” he corrected. “Another store was hit this morning, just as they were getting ready to open,” he explained. “Somebody was shot, but he’s still alive.”

“That’s why you were asking about the hospital?” He just shrugged. “I don’t have any reason to go in and see him either,” she muttered in a contemplative tone. “I don’t know any of these people, but I would like to go to the scene if I could.”

“Terkel’s arranging it right now,” Morrison stated. “It’ll be a madhouse because forensics is still on the scene, so we might not be able to get you in.”

She nodded. “I should be able to get close enough though.”

“Let’s go.”

And, with that, they walked down to his car. As she got in, he saw the disquiet on her face. “I’m sorry. Just when we think that maybe we can find an answer that’s workable, something else goes wrong.”

“In this case there are no workable answers,” she muttered. “I mean, just because this man’s not dead doesn’t mean that the last one didn’t die, and that’ll be held against my brother and the other members of his crew.”

“It absolutely will,” Morrison confirmed. “No way these murders will be forgotten when it comes to jail time. Sentencing will be extra hard. These people at the store were just doing their jobs, and they were targeted because of it.”

She sucked in her breath and nodded. “It’s not a good time to work in a jewelry store.”

He winced at that. “I wonder if that has anything to do with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just… why jewelry stores? Like I mentioned earlier, banks would be easier.”

“Except banks have their safes,” she noted, “the vaults. Not to mention maybe armed guards, extra security and all.”

He nodded. “I do keep wondering why not hit banks, but vaults do change the odds. Yet I still think this crew might be working on their targets from an energy aspect, messing with cameras and other security elements, possibly with the thought that they might switch it up at some point.”

She didn’t say anything more. As they neared the latest crime scene, she got more and more tense.

He studied her when he pulled up outside the chaos.

“Okay, so I understand that this is unnerving for you, but you’re getting…

I don’t even know how to say it, but you’ve been tensing up constantly the closer we got. ”

She nodded. “Because I can feel my twin brother’s energy,” she stated, “and the red wave of anger enveloping him.”

“Did you feel the same anger last time?”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

He pondered that. “Any idea why this time?”

She stared at him. “I don’t understand anything about last time, so I don’t know why this time would be any different, except the energy is fresher today. None of this makes any sense.”

Morrison frowned. The fact that these guys were moving as quickly as they were meant that either they had a game plan, or were trying to execute something as fast as possible so they could get out of town.

Which made a lot of sense to Morrison. On the other hand, Sadie was oblivious to how this all worked.

Morrison couldn’t take the chance of Sadie being seen constantly at the crime scenes.

At some point in time, everybody’s luck ran out, whether they were using energy or not.

The fact that this criminal crew could be using energy was something that still floored Morrison, and yet why not?

He used energy, Terkel did, as well as the rest of his team.

The fact that Morrison hadn’t come across criminals who were energy workers before this caper didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen again.

That it hadn’t happened before this actually came as a surprise.

Unnerved, Sadie got out of the vehicle. As she approached the jewelry store, two police officers stopped her, Morrison immediately stepped up and explained who he was and who had sent him. One of the cops made a phone call, and somebody from the far side came over to talk to him.

As soon as he confirmed and identified Morrison, “Fine, but you can’t go into the building itself.”

At that, she nodded. “That’s fine. I don’t need to.” She looked over at Morrison and nodded. “It’s definitely him,” she whispered.

“Can you get anything else?” he asked in a low voice as they got a little closer to the building but stayed well out of the way.

She sighed. “I’m not really getting anything else.”

“Okay, and do you have anything that’s helpful?”

“All I can tell you is that he’s really angry. Something went wrong this time, and I don’t know what happened, but, to him, it matters a lot.”

“What’s different this time is the fact that the guard is not dead.”

She winced. “How does that make any sense about why he would be so angry?” she muttered.

“Because potentially, in his world, this needs to be all encompassing, with no witnesses,” he suggested. “So, you have to keep that in mind.”

“Is he that far gone?” she asked in a soft voice. “Definitely not the personality I was hoping for.”

“Of course not, and understandably you’ve romanticized the idea of having a twin brother, so you have a soft spot for Don.

It wouldn’t have occurred to you that he might be a hardened criminal who wants absolutely nothing to do with anything, and whether it’s his fault that he ended up this way or not is beside the point because this is where he’s at. ”

Morrison wished he could make it sound better than that, but it was a difficult situation for both of them.

He was interested in stopping Don and his crew, determined, in fact, since they were seemingly on this rampage to hurt as many people as they could.

This couldn’t continue, and Sadie needed to know that.

She did in a way, but she needed to understand it all.

She did in a sense, but was still trying to find the harmless little twin inside this grown man who was busy killing people for money.

When Morrison’s phone rang again, he noted another call from Terk. “We’re at the crime scene. Don’s energy is here.”

Terk added, “I have more good news . Put me on Speaker, so Sadie hears this.”

Morrison grimaced but did as Terk instructed.

Terk began, “Sadie, you won’t want to hear this, but you need to regardless.

We’ve seen Penny show up on the street cams near each robbery.

She seems to be the gunmen’s hired driver.

What a small world we live in that Penny is driving the getaway car for Don.

That explains why his energy was found around her.

She has just been named one of the four-member team for these heists and will be under constant surveillance from now on. ” Then Terk disconnected.

Sadie took several deep breaths, then whispered, “I guess I just have to say goodbye.”

“To what?” he asked.

“To that fantasy of having a nephew, to getting to know my twin brother.”

“I’m sorry you lost a potential nephew, but unfortunately Don’s still there, and it appears that he’s buried under a whole lot of anger.”

“And that’s the thing,” she noted. “I hadn’t really noticed the fury in his energy before, but this time it’s very dominant. It’s almost raging.”

“And it would be good if we understood why,” he stated, “but the only obvious thing that’s different this time is that the guard isn’t dead, not yet. Maybe your adoptive brother being the guard who got away changed the mind-set of the crew, where they got more bloodthirsty.”

She nodded, looked up at him, and whispered, “Please, can we leave now?”

Immediately he moved them back to the vehicle, then helped her inside and quickly drove away.