Braided Lives (7 page)

"Eight unwilling years of Aikido. My father thought it would improve my self-discipline and help me control my temper. All it did was give me the ability to make my temper… well, close to lethal. After a couple of years of fumbling my way through class like the complete klutz I am, I stopped trying to think about it. I used to just tune out. God, that makes me sound like I was dropping acid or something. I don't know how I’d do it. I'd just fall into sync with whatever the instructor's body was doing. If the teacher could do it perfectly, so could I. They say muscle memory is deeper than thought. My body knows every move I was ever taught, even if I'd prefer it didn't. When I went to college I stayed away from everything I thought was dangerous. I took up art. It's difficult to hurt somebody with a paint brush. Only I'm not really very good. I can only draw what I see. I can draw the abuser, the rapist, the attacker.

I can draw the nightmares that the victims can barely live with." Her fingers were tight around the cup.

He reached out and laid a hand on her wrist. "What we do is hard. What we are is even harder. Making peace with your strengths and limitations is one of the things the training is supposed to help you with." She was still torturing herself; he could feel the angst.

"Why aren't you mad as all hell at me?" she asked.

"Why should I be? I told you I was going to grab you and I wanted to judge your response. You cleaned my clock. It's not the first bloody nose I've had. I've gotten hurt worse sparring with some of my Marine Corps buddies."

She heaved a tiny sigh. Danny felt so sorry for her.

Division P training wasn't easy. She seemed to be having a worse time than most, but then she came from one of the least structured career backgrounds.

"Is your headache gone?" he asked.

"Yeah, Peter's… amazing."

"That he is. You up for a drive?" Danny asked.

"To where?"

"The beach. It takes half an hour or so from here in Suffolk. I think you could do with a little getting away from here."

"It's almost midnight," said Jennifer.

"So? It's not like you have a curfew."

"I guess."

***

Virginia Beach's oceanfront was pretty quiet at half past midnight on a Wednesday. Jennifer had to admit, being away from the Division P complex was good.

That place had its own sort of isolationist feel despite easy access to all forms of media. Danny and Jennifer walked along the surf edge for a while in silence, just listening to the white noise of the ocean.

If Jennifer had had any reservations about walking alone on the beach of an unfamiliar city in the middle of the night, Danny's tall muscular form would have dispelled them. When he had gone from being an annoyance to feeling like a friend? She must have been broadcasting again, because he reached out and took her hand. If anyone saw them walking on the beach, they would assume he was her boyfriend. The idea amused her a little. Ten years from now, when someone asked her how she met him, she could say that first he gave her shooting lessons and then a couple weeks later she decked him. Yeah, there was going to be a ten years from now, she had a feeling.

"You're in a better mood," he said.

"Sort of." At least she didn't feel wound quite so tight. He tugged on her hand and drew her up away from the surf line to sit on the sand. She hugged her arms loosely around her knees.

"Are you cold?" he asked.

"Only a little." She wasn't sure why she was slightly surprised when he scooted back a few inches and swung his leg on the other side of her hips, pulling her back into the "v" of his legs. His arms draped around her body and his chin rested on her shoulder. She caught the image of him kissing her from his thoughts, followed by visions of them having sex in a bed.

"It's a suggestion. We don't have to do either," he said softly. "But I can tell you're at least a little curious." She twisted her body and met his mouth. It was a gentle aggression that started out with lips and deepened as her mouth opened to his. His hand cupped against the back of her head and he turned her so that she faced him more directly. Danny laid her back on the sand and braced an elbow so the weight of his body wasn't completely on top of her as his hips snuggled between her legs. The kiss went on and on and she was enraptured by the taste of his mouth and feel of his lips. Her body was responding to his and she could feel her pulse in intimate places.

He finally lifted his head, breathing hard. "Much as I'd like to do this right out here on the beach. One, we might get arrested if the beach patrol cruises by and two, sand in certain parts of the anatomy is not real fun. I speak from personal experience on that front."

"Personal experience on this beach?" she asked.

Pulling her thoughts together took some doing.

"No, actually Iraq. Sand in between your butt cheeks is not a magnificent experience when you only get to shower once a week."

She giggled.

***

Back at the complex, Danny closed the door of his quarters. His fingers were woven between Jennifer's. He leaned back against the door sensing a certain amount of uncertainty from her. The car drive back to Division P

had cooled their arousal. He cupped his hands around her face and looked down into her eyes.

"We don't have to do this. I don't want you to feel like this is some sort of penance for what happened earlier today," he said.

"I… Technically speaking I work for you I think. Is this going to make… is this going to be way too weird?"

she whispered.

"No, you don't work for me. More like with me.

Yeah, I do some of the training and I organize and debrief and stuff like that, but I'm not really the one in charge. If you hang around here long enough, you'll also find we're a pretty inbred bunch. Psi tends to gravitate to psi given a choice." Danny wanted her badly, but not at the price of guilt. He'd settle for jerking off alone rather than dump more emotional hurt on her. Of course there was always the possibility he could go crawl in bed with Peter… Oh fuck… Jennifer must have lifted the image of making out with Peter from his head, because she made an odd face. He'd better come clean. That kind of secret would come back to bite you in the ass.

"Jen, I… Peter and I are well… friends with benefits.

I told you we're a pretty inbred bunch. I go both ways.

So does Peter. If that creeps you out I'm sorry." That was as simple he could put it. Peter was his best friend and sometimes they got physical about it.

Danny wondered if he should hold his breath and wait for a blast of anger or worse from her. But there was no sense of revulsion, or distaste, more like a sort of confusion for her.

"Won't he… get mad? Be hurt?" she asked.

"No. There's no strings. If he and I hook up, it's good.

If we sleep with someone else that's okay too. Safe sex and all that." That confusion continued. He kissed her softly on the forehead. "You're tired. It's almost two a.m.

Maybe we'd better forego this. Are you okay to walk back to your quarters? Or do you want some company?"

"I'm fine. It's only one floor down," she said. In another moment she had slipped out the door and he still hadn't quite figured out what her take on his relationship with Peter was.

***

Draw it. Get it out of your head, she told herself.

Jennifer pulled a sketch pad out of the still partially packed suitcases, and some pencils. Danny and… the healer, Peter. It wasn't like she didn't know a number of gay couples. She worked in the art community. But Danny hadn't said gay. He'd said "both ways" and she had felt some definite chemistry between Danny and herself, too.

She started drawing, watching the images in her head, not the paper. It wasn't until she flipped the fifth page that she stopped and looked. There were all just pencil roughs, but the images were fairly clear and defined. It was all male musculature. Hands on shoulders and hips and genitals. The heavier muscled limbs were Danny. The wiry, almost skinny ones were Peter. The most interesting sketch was Danny's hand cupped against Peter's neck. Somehow it was a tender gesture. It would be amazing to draw them from an exterior point of view… Oh, did she really want to think that? That smacked of some kind of voyeurism. But then, wasn't that pretty damn close to what she did: scoop intimate, often incredibly traumatic, images out of people's heads? She shut the sketchbook and turned off the light beside the bed. Sleep didn't come easily.

***

Every time Valentine viewed the accident report, something read as just plain wrong. Putting his finger on what that was… was a lot harder. Bradshaw, on his motorcycle, had been struck by a pickup truck that ran a red light. Okay, that part seemed simple enough, but then he had looked at the sketch of the layout of the intersection. The crossing street was a very low traffic road. The statistical probability of a motorcycle meeting a truck coming from that direction seemed pretty damn low.

Then there was the added information that it was a hit and run. The truck had to have been pretty badly damaged. Danny began searching police databases for any records of stolen pickups. He eventually found one listed as being found abandoned in Portsmouth. It was a fair match to the somewhat vague description provided by a witness plus the doctor who had happened to see it occur.

"You looked like you're thinking way too hard," said a voice from the doorway. It was Jennifer.

"Mmm, yeah maybe," Danny replied.

"You left a message that I should stop by?"

"You had a crappy day yesterday. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right."

"I'm fine."

"That sounds like a knee jerk response. Okay, this is me in my official role. The goal of the training is
not
to wash you out. This is not a boot camp or a law enforcement academy or any of that. The goal is to help you refine your psi skills and make them more accurate and more effective. On the practical side, Division P

underwent some major changes a few years ago, mostly because too many of our people were getting hurt on the job."

"Like mental functioning/psychic injury thing."

"No. Some of what we send people out to is physically dangerous. Hurt equaling broken bones, lacerations, and gunshot wounds. All symptoms, so to speak, of inadequate hand to hand combat defense and lack of training in firearms, et cetera."

Jennifer grimaced. "I will say a couple of the police stations I've been to have been in really rough neighborhoods."

"My point exactly. If you're trained, you can get a concealed weapons permit. On a more personal note, feeling any less stressed than yesterday?"

"Yeah, I guess. This morning went okay. What are you working on? Or am I not allowed to ask?"

"One of our finders got badly hurt in a motorcycle versus pickup truck collision. At first I thought it was just one of those of bad luck things. Now I'm having a few doubts. It looks probable that the truck that hit him was stolen."

"And?" she pressed.

"It was a hit and run."

"Meaning they didn't catch the guy who did it."

"No. There were a couple of witnesses but no one got a license plate number. The truck was long gone by the time police and EMS got there."

"So how do you know the truck was stolen?" Jennifer asked.

"I don't. Not for sure anyway. I found a damaged and abandoned truck listed with the Portsmouth police. At least superficially it seems to fit the description."

"Can you take a look at it?"

"Maybe," said Danny.

"Then do it. You can draft one of the people who do the touch thing. Oh what the hell is it called?"

"Psychometry."

"Yeah. I mean, after all, you're one of the admin people, right?"

"Yes, you're right." He had given only a moment's thought to the idea when he found the listing for the truck.

"What do you have to lose? If it's the wrong truck or the psychometry person doesn't get anything off it, you're out what, some time and some gas? I'm guessing you don't have to provide convenient excuses for the police. Do they even have to know what you're looking for?"

"No. We have federal jurisdiction. I just really feel a bit like I'm being paranoid. Bradshaw wasn't even actively working the case he was assigned to. They asked him in for a briefing then put him on hold."

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there's nobody out to get you," she teased. "Or more specifically out to get
him
."

***

The ice pick through her skull made another visit.

Jennifer would like to blame the damn focus session exercise. Trying to narrow her psi talent down to pick out tiny details of some random image selected by Christine was annoying and frustrating to begin with.

The headache soon blossomed into full-fledged misery.

This time the nausea fairy paid a visit too, and Jennifer ended up hugging the toilet, wondering if it was possible for her eyeballs to fall out.

As infuriatingly irritating as Jennifer found the woman, Christine was at least a realist. There was no way for Jennifer to continue the exercise.

After vomiting up everything but her shoes, Jennifer shuffled her way in the direction of her quarters. She didn't make it very far before some sort of comprehension dawned that maybe Peter could do something for the pain. He had been exceptionally kind to her before. At the very least, he probably had some sort of meds he could give her, because the Excedrin in her room was unlikely to even touch this.

Jennifer turned around and headed in the opposite direction. Barely able to open her eyes, she finally made it to the infirmary. Peter was standing beside an exam table talking to a man with crutches in his hand. The patient had some sort of maze of hardware bolted around his lower leg. She couldn't really focus her vision enough to tell what it was.

"You can put a
little
weight on it, Cam. This does not translate to walking around without the crutches," Peter said to the man.

"I think you have another customer. I'll check back tomorrow."

Peter turned. "Jennifer? You don't look so good." He crossed the room and carefully guided her to the smaller room she had been in before. He eased her down to lie on the bed, then sat on a stool beside her.