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S adie stared at Morrison. “Why would foster care split up a family like that?”

“Because they couldn’t adopt everybody together,” Morrison stated bluntly.

“It’s rare for four to go at the same time to the same foster family, much less to an adoptive family.

However, it’s also rare for twins to be split up.

I have to wonder if both boys exhibited some behavioral problems, and they both ended up in foster care for the same reason. ”

She didn’t say anything, but that made sense. “I hate to think that I’m the lucky one who got decent parents,” she whispered. “I want to think that everyone else had a chance at becoming somebody productive in this crazy world.”

“Everybody does have that chance,” Morrison declared. “Some definitely have a better chance at it than others, but you did not put those guns in your brothers’ hands, and you need to remember that.”

She didn’t say anything for the longest moment as she digested his words. Then she hopped up and began to pace. “At least we’re starting to get some information, so that helps.”

“Yeah, it sure does,” he agreed, with a smile. “I mean, think about it. You could very well have a sister.”

“I did have a sister, and, maybe, if I’m lucky,… I still will,” she replied, with a small smile. “I don’t know how people find out this information, but I’m grateful.”

“Good. I’m sure Terkel pulled strings to get it,” Morrison shared. “Though the fact that there is family involved in the shootout may have helped to open those doors.”

She winced. “I’m sure if my sister knows nothing about us, it won’t be the introduction to the family she’s looking for.”

“Doesn’t matter what she’s looking for, or if she’s even looking,” he said. “She may not even know she’s adopted.”

At that, Sadie nodded. “Like me.… I didn’t have any idea, not until my mother shared that with me before she passed,” she murmured.

“You have to at least try to understand that your mother did the best she could. Your own birth parents died in a car accident, and nobody in the extended family could keep you all. Taking on orphaned kids is a big deal, let alone four of them. Unfortunately this is what often happens.”

“It sucks,” she stated bluntly.

He smiled, following her back into the kitchenette. “It absolutely does, but now we’re starting to get some facts, so that can only help. Why don’t you get some water and try to stay hydrated. I don’t know what the next shock will be, but I hope to see you in a little better shape before it comes.”

She glared at him, and then she threw up her hands. “I guess I’m quite a trial, aren’t I?”

“Nope, you’re not, but this situation is, and we’ll be in a waiting pattern for a while. We’ll find out more data, but it’ll be piecemeal. So you must be prepared to hear something you’re not looking for.”

“Right. Tammy may not be alive.”

He shrugged. “She could also be heavily involved with her siblings.”

At that, Sadie spun around and stared at him, her mouth opening on a cry.

He held up a hand. “We don’t know about her yet. You just need to be open to all the possibilities and be prepared for whatever we do find.”

Taking several slow, deep breaths, Sadie turned her attention to the kitchenette once again.

“If nothing else, I could at least work on cooking the pasta we bought, but I can’t do that in this kitchenette.

I hate waiting for phone calls, but obviously this is taking whatever time it’ll take.

” And again she opened drawers and tiny cupboards, finding nothing of any use.

After a few minutes he asked her hesitantly, “Nothing is here, is there?”

She frowned. “No. Nothing.” Then she laughed. “If I was at home, I would put some cookies in the oven first and then see what I had to be cooked,” she muttered. “Seems cookies are on my mind.”

“Cookies are great,” he noted, “but not real food, and not among our options at the moment.”

“Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll see what’s on TV.

” As she headed toward the couch to pick up the remote, she got a weird sense of something energy-wise.

She hesitated, not knowing just what she was getting.

However, after the shoulder punches she had experienced earlier, she could almost register what this was. She tried to hide it from Morrison.

As soon as he turned to look at her, he knew. “What?”

“Maybe nothing.”

“Don’t try to understand it or to decipher it. Just tell me what you’re feeling.”

“I’m feeling something,” she began, “but I don’t know what. I don’t know who. I don’t know anything. It’s just a nudge.”

“Okay, a nudge is good,” he replied. “Keep that doorway open.”

“What doorway? Open how?” She snorted. “Honest to God, I don’t even know what that means,” she muttered. “It’s you and your doorway talk that’s more unnerving than anything.”

“That’s because thoughts of this being something that you could control—or not—is what’s upsetting you,” he explained. “Once you learn to control these nudges, then it becomes empowering.”

“I’m not there yet,” she stated.

“No, you’re not, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get there pretty darn quickly.

You’ve already shown that you have quite a good way of relating to the energy, if not understanding fully what’s happening,” he pointed out.

“It’s all about sensitivity, your sensitivity to these energy signals, so keep that connection going and stay alert. Let us know if anything else changes.”

*

Morrison wasn’t sure what Sadie was up to, if anything, but he kept a wary eye on her regardless. She sat on the couch, flipping through the channels, pausing occasionally to watch a few minutes of one program, then another. “How are you doing?” he asked.

“Bored silly, but I’m not getting that same pinging,” she shared.

“Pinging?” He stopped and turned to her.

“Yeah, you know, that nudge thing.”

“And yet pinging has a very different connotation.”

She turned slowly and stared at him. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, that sounds as if somebody is sending out a signal, looking for someone to respond. When your phone pings, it’s looking to see if a cell tower is around close by to use,” he explained. “So, pinging in this instance could have all kinds of interesting connotations.”

“I don’t think I like any of them,” she muttered.

“Maybe not.” He hesitated, staring at her, then asked, “And you say it stopped?”

“Yeah, it stopped, so I’m not feeling anybody.”

“So, you were feeling somebody?”

She looked confused for a moment and then shrugged. “I know it sounds stupid, but I’m not sure what I was feeling,… if I was feeling anything,” she noted, “and that, of course, is not helpful.”

“It might not be helpful,” he conceded, “yet anything that we can sort out right now is huge.”

“Yeah, I hear you. So I guess that pinging was important then, wasn’t it?”

“It was important,” he agreed, with a smile.

“It also means that potentially somebody is out there, sending out alerts. It could be one of your brothers trying to contact your other brother, and they’re just sending a blanket echo relocation thing, or it could be Don pinging to see if his other brother is online, so he can talk to him. ”

She stared at him. “This whole conversation,” she began, with a wave of her hand, “would get a lot of people put into an asylum.”

“No doubt about it,” he agreed. “It does, and has put a lot of people in asylums. It doesn’t change the fact that people are out there who can connect and can contact others in that way.

Terkel speaks telepathically to all of us all the time.

” She stared at him in shock. “We don’t advertise it because it would make the world very uneasy to know a lot of what Terk can do. ”

“And not just him either,” she noted. “Also his team, right?”

Morrison smiled. “You can ask them about that, but a lot of the team members have very interesting abilities,” he stated, with a nod, “and I don’t even know all of it.”

“Would you want to?” she asked suddenly.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s been an interesting deal working on a case where energy is involved. I mean, it certainly allows me to use my intuition, not that I have any abilities like they do.”

“Yet you do,” she argued. “I can feel it.”

At that he stopped and frowned at her. “You can what?”

She shrugged. “I can feel it. I can feel when you’re utilizing energy to see, to test instincts, that kind of a thing.

I sense you sending out those telepathic messages.

I can’t interpret them. I can’t listen in,” she added, pondering her wording.

“I can’t see what the messages are meant to be, but I know when you’re sending them. ”

Astonished, he said, “It would have been good if you had told me that earlier.”

She again shrugged. “Why? It’s not as if I can jump into the conversation.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, with a note of humor. “At this point I wouldn’t be surprised at anything you can do. I think you just haven’t had a chance to really utilize your talents to this extent, so you don’t know what you can or cannot do.”

“Maybe,” she muttered. “It’s interesting, all of this,” she shared. “I mean, to think that there is even a field, a whole field of this stuff that we don’t even know about.”

“Not only a field,” he clarified, “but teams who work it, teams who are actively involved in using these gifts—for the good of the world. That’s what always surprises me.

But, as soon as you get people on the good side, you realize they have to be there because the bad guys on the other side seem to have these gifts too. ”

“Right,” she whispered. “That’s the part I don’t want to think about.”

“And not thinking about it might work for a while, but, once you’re triggered into energy work yourself, I don’t think you can bury your head in the sand any longer.’

“I wasn’t really trying to,” she replied. “I didn’t even know there was any sand to bury my head in.”