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“Don also acknowledged that he was doing drugs, and it’s possible he might have had a bad trip,” Morrison added. “He certainly didn’t suspect that anybody gave him something and would have done this on purpose.”

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen though, right?” Sadie asked.

“No, of course not,” he confirmed.

“What we need to do is find out who else is in the game and determine where they are,” she suggested. She turned to look back at Don’s hospital room.

Gage noted, “If you upset him this time, chances are, aside from the cops, no visitors will be allowed for the next little bit. The heist team could use ulterior tactics to get in to talk to him anyway,” he shared, with a wry smile, “because they can’t let Don go too long unsupervised by the crew.”

“Of course,” she agreed. “So, in other words, I might as well go home. Is that what you’re really trying to tell me?”

He nodded. “Yes, and let’s hope that what you told him has shaken him up enough to want to step forward and to do something right.”

“I don’t think doing the right things is really high on his list,” she admitted softly.

“As much as I hate to say it, he’s spent a long time in this criminal underbelly, and I’m not sure doing the right thing is on his radar at all.

I think his crime family and friends will be more of an influence than anything else, and you can almost hear them in the background, saying, Don’t open your mouth ,” she muttered.

“I can hear that. Can you too?” Gage asked, staring at her.

She frowned at him. “I just meant it as a saying.”

“I know, but I can also hear it, can’t you?”

She stopped, closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again, both men eyeing her expectantly. She nodded. “I can. How weird is that?”

“That’s the brother I would suspect, your other brother, I mean,” Gage said, looking at her. “To have this amount of talent is one thing, but to have it run in families is another. Still, to have multiple family members on the other side of the law?… That’s just sad.”

“More than sad,” she conceded, “it’s devastating.” With that, she turned back to Morrison. “Let’s head out. I need coffee, and I need food.”

“We’ll go get both.” He looked at Gage and asked, “Are you getting relieved?”

“I have more cops standing by to relieve me,” he replied. “So maybe I’ll tag along for lunch because here is my relief right now,” he said, pointing as two cops came toward him. He exchanged notes for a few minutes and then rejoined Morrison and Sadie. “We’re good to go.”

She smiled at the cops and said, “Thank you.”

They just nodded and took up positions at either side of Don’s hospital room door.

As the trio of good guys headed out of the hospital, Sadie asked Gage, “Are you so good that only one of you is needed to guard Don, yet these guys aren’t very good, so they need two guys to replace you?”

He shrugged. “Apparently nobody was available last night,” he shared, “so I pitched in at the last minute.”

“But do they need two guards?”

“Not necessarily, but Terkel is concerned about whatever abilities these bad guys might have,” he noted. “So this is more of a safeguard, just in case something bizarre happens.”

“Of course, bizarre is something you guys do very well, isn’t it?”

“We absolutely do,” he admitted, with a chuckle, “but then apparently, so do you.”

“I’m learning,” she murmured, “not very fast, it seems, but I’m getting there.”

“It takes time, but, once your mind is opened, you’ll find it goes very, very quickly,” Gage pointed out. “What you know today versus what you’ll know and understand in even a few days from now… will be a huge paradigm shift.”

“It’s already pretty fascinating,” she shared. “I had no idea that there even were transmitters, receivers, or people who could do this energy stuff.”

Gage nodded. “What we need to do is find out who is sending you messages.”

“I don’t think they’re sending them to me, per se. I think Terkel’s right, and it’s more like they are broadcasting to anyone out there. Reaching out in loneliness or something to anybody really who can talk to them. It kind of breaks my heart in a way.”

“That’s part and parcel of what we have for a challenge in our world,” Gage added. “We have so many people in this world, and only a very finite few can do this energy work. It’s hard to find each other, and it’s not as if a psychic directory is out there for us to sign up with.”

She laughed. “Can you imagine if there were?” She shook her head. “Then again, what people can do versus what they cannot do, and what people might say they could do versus reality would make all the difference on how successful that psychic directory would be.”

Morrison nodded. “And the moment you got a group like that going, you’ll always get the other element, the other side of all this.”

She winced. “That being another dig at my brother.”

“It’s not a dig at all,” he countered. “It’s just a reminder that life doesn’t always turn out the way we want it to, just because in our minds we have a happy ending planned. Now let’s go get some food, and we’ll sort out a plan.” So, with that, she followed him and Gage to the parking lot.

*

Morrison didn’t even bother asking where Sadie wanted to go.

He just headed to the one restaurant he knew that was close by.

As soon as he pulled into the parking lot, he opened the car door and hopped out, only to find her already striding toward the front door in a rush. He called out to her, “What’s up?”

She turned to him, shrugged. “I don’t know.

I’m all keyed up, upset, have a headache.

I’m stressed, not to mention so damn hungry.

” She raised both hands. “And I get that Don will be loyal to his family, to the one who he knows, his brother, Darren. Yet it feels so wrong to think of that as his family when he’s also got me. ”

“But you’re the new one on the block. You’re the unknown element to him.

Particularly once you shocked him about the energy work,” he reminded her.

“That means he needs to stop and reassess, and nobody likes to do that, particularly when he’s in the precarious position he is in and stands to lose something big, which in this case is his freedom. ”

“Did he really think that they would get away with the heists and the murders?”

“As long as nobody could reveal how they were doing this, chances are they felt that nothing could be proven in court.”

“Right,” Sadie muttered, frowning. “So, as long as it wasn’t provable, with no hard evidence against them, they felt they were in the clear.”

“Unless the cops can find something substantial, such as the gun that was used.”

“Which is something I don’t know anything about,” she noted, with a wave of her hand.

Morrison nodded. “I didn’t see one in his apartment, and you can bet that was searched by the two guys who likely drugged Don.”

“Of course,” she grumbled.

Morrison added, “If Darren is the more dominant of the brothers, then it’s possible and even likely that he has the gun.” He watched as her shoulders slumped, but she didn’t try to hide it. She’d come a long way in a very short time on this very difficult topic, and he was proud of her.

She’d done something that a lot of people would still be caterwauling about, but not her.

She got right down to business. Even at the hospital, she tried hard to get Don to come around and to do something right and to talk to the police, and Morrison appreciated the fact that she was showing good faith, trying at least to help get this over with quickly.

Because one thing was true—currently the authorities had no way to prove that Don had even been in the jewelry store.

The cops needed evidence. They needed actual forensic evidence to put away this gang, and, for that, they would either need a confession or at least some hints in a direction that would help them track down that gun used to murder people.

If they could do that, it was a whole different story.

But getting there? Well,… that would be a challenge all on its own.

At the restaurant, he quickly ordered coffee for them as they were led to a table and given menus. Thankfully the waitress came back right away with their coffee with a smile, then quickly left.

Gage looked over at her and asked, “Are you okay?”

“I am, but I’m really, really hungry though,” she replied. When the waitress came and took their orders, she placed a very large order and continued to sip her coffee. She was edgy and a little preoccupied.

Morrison leaned forward. “You’re burning through a ton of energy. Why?”

She stopped, then blinked, looking at him with a surprised expression. “I am?”

Gage turned to her and nodded. “Yes, you are. A lot more than you should be.” He stopped, leaned forward, studied her closely. “I know this will sound very strange, but are you alone?”

Morrison heard him and stiffened. He hadn’t even considered such a thing. He looked at her carefully from all angles, trying to see the energy around her, only to realize that she had picked up some company. He looked at her in surprise. “Now what? Damn, that’s a problem,” he said, looking a Gage.

“What’s a problem?” she muttered, as Gage stared around the small restaurant.

“We have to fix this,” Gage replied.

“How will you do that?” Morrison asked, looking over at her, as she studied them in confusion. “She doesn’t even know what she’s got.”

“Of course not, but somebody in her world knows, and considering that we just came from the hospital, what are the chances it was Don?”

“Oh, wow,” Morrison muttered, sitting back and frowning at Gage. “It’s possible. Obviously they’re all doing energy work, but it would not be a good idea.”

“If he is here,” Gage added, “she can’t be privy to any conversations.”