Crosstalk (18 page)

“No. I said I was gone for meetings.”

“You didn't tell her you were going to the hospital?”

“No.”

“Did you tell anyone else?”

“No,” she said, afraid his next question was going to be, “What about the person who brought you home? Who did that, by the way?”

But he merely said, “Good,” and then, “Listen, this needs to stay our secret for now, so don't say anything about it at work, all right?”

“All right,” she said, relieved that it wasn't already all over Commspan and about to go up on Facebook for her family to see.

But he apparently felt he owed her more of an explanation because he said, “Management's really uptight about the iPhone rollout, and they might take our having had the EED now as a sign that I'm not totally committed to the project. You understand, don't you, sweetheart?”

“Yes, of course,” Briddey said, “but are you sure we can keep it secret? I mean, they've seen the bandage on the back of your neck, haven't they?”

“Only the people at the meeting, and I told them I got a haircut on the way to work and the barber nicked me, and that I was at a meeting downtown yesterday. The only person who knows I was at the hospital is my secretary, and I've told her not to tell anyone.”

She won't have to,
Briddey thought. Suki was a genius at putting two and two together, and when she saw the bandage on Briddey's hand…

“We can tell people later,” Trent was saying, “after we've connected. I'll see you in the morning. Seven thirty. If we've connected, we can celebrate. And if we haven't, we'll call Dr. Verrick and find out what's holding things up.”

Then I'd better see to it that we connect tonight,
Briddey thought, and as soon as Trent hung up, she turned off her phone and began sending as hard as she could, hoping that now that Trent was concentrating, too, she'd get
something
.

Nothing, and she was so tired she couldn't keep her eyes open, let alone concentrate.
Maybe
that's
the problem,
she thought. The nurse had told her she needed rest, that fatigue could delay their connecting. If she could just get a few hours' sleep…

But sleeping proved impossible, too. She had far too many things on her mind. Like, how was she going to talk Trent out of calling Dr. Verrick if they still hadn't connected by morning? And what if they
did
make contact, and Trent found out she'd been connected to C.B.? How would she ever convince him it had nothing to do with emotional bonding?

After an endless period of tossing and turning, Briddey got out of bed, made herself a cup of cocoa, and tried to contact Trent mentally again. Still nothing. She went back to bed—and to worrying. Tomorrow Trent was bound to ask her, “If you didn't tell anybody you were in the hospital, how did you get home?”

No, he won't,
she told herself firmly.
C.B. was right. Trent will just assume I drove home in my own—

Oh, no! My car!
she thought, sitting bolt upright in bed.
It's still at the Marriott!

She'd completely forgotten about it. She'd have to pick it up tomorrow morning. No, that wouldn't work. Trent was coming here for breakfast, and when he saw her car wasn't there, he'd ask where it was.

She needed to go get it right now. She looked at the clock. 3:46
A.M.
Could she even get a taxi this time of night, and if she did, would the parking garage even be open?

Yep,
C.B. said.
I looked it up. It's open all night.

“Night Fighter calling Dawn Patrol. Night Fighter calling Dawn Patrol. ”

—How to Steal a Million

I told you you might need another ride,
C.B. said.

His voice, coming suddenly out of the darkness like that, startled Briddey just like it had the first time she heard him in the hospital, and she had to stifle the impulse to turn on the light and look around the room.
What are you doing here?
she demanded.

What am I—you called me
, he said indignantly.
And don't say you were calling Trent because I heard you say you had to get your car back before he finds out
.

I wasn't calling you
or
Trent,
she said, sitting up and switching on the lamp beside her bed.
I was talking to myself.

Yeah, well, I'm not sure that's an option anymore. But you're right. We do need to get your car back before Trent starts wondering how you got home from the hospital without it. Only if I take you to get it right now and somebody from Commspan should happen to see us, they're going to wonder what we're doing at a hotel together at three thirty in the morning
.

So what do you suggest
? she asked, and remembered that every time she talked to him like this, she was reinforcing their neural pathway. She repeated the question aloud.

I suggest we wait till six. At this time of night we're up to no good. At six, we're on our way to an early meeting. So what say you go back to sleep and I'll pick you up at five thirty?

“But—”

You'll be back by six forty-five, tops.

And Trent wasn't coming over till seven thirty. “But what if he and I have connected by then?” she asked.

I assume that means you haven't had any luck so far?

“No.”

Not even a flicker?

“No, but we could make contact at any time.”

Well, then either he'll be so overjoyed, he won't even notice your car's missing, or the car will be the least of your worries
.

“What does that mean?”

It
means
, if he can hear your thoughts, he'll know you're connected to me, too. And if he can't, if it's just feelings like the EED was supposed to deliver, you've got an even bigger problem, because I have a feeling Trent wouldn't take kindly to having a second-class connection.

But if Trent can only sense my feelings,
she thought,
I won't have to tell him I can talk to you.

You're kidding, right? If he can pick up your emotions, he'll want to know why you're feeling worried and guilty instead of overjoyed. And face it, you're not a very good liar.

“Go away,” Briddey said.

Roger,
he said.
I'll pick you up at five thirty and take you over to the Marriott. And on the way I'll tell you what I found out. I did some more research.

“You found out what caused this?”

Possibly. I'll explain when I get there. In the meantime, get some sleep. The nurse told you to rest, remember?

Yes,
she thought, and lay back down. But sleep was impossible. She had too much to think about. What if she did only connect with Trent through emotions? How would she explain the anxiety he would definitely pick up from her—and the sense that she was keeping something from him?

But Trent will pick up my love for him, too,
she thought,
and the fact that I don't even like C.B.

If
they connected. It had been thirty-eight hours since she'd woken up after surgery, and she still wasn't getting anything from Trent. What had C.B. found out? That it
was
crosstalk? Or something worse? What if he'd found out that once a neural pathway was established, it couldn't be erased? Dr. Verrick had said it was a feedback loop. What if, once in motion, it went on looping and intensifying till it was too strong to stop?

When she couldn't stand going round and round anymore, she turned on her side and looked at the clock: 4:18
A.M.
“C.B.?” she called. “What did you find out? From the research you did?”

I thought you were going to get some rest,
he said reprovingly.

“I need to know what you found out first.”

Oh, I get it. You can't sleep, so you're not going to let me get any sleep either
.

Sleep? She'd thought he was in his lab.

Nope. I'm in bed just like you
.

She had a sudden vision of him lying there, his tousled dark hair against the pillow, and sat bolt upright, clasping her blankets to her chest.

Oh, for
— he said disgustedly.
You don't have to do that
.

She lunged for her robe at the foot of the bed, still clutching the blankets to her.

It's not X-ray vision, it's telepathy
.

“I don't care,” she said, putting her robe on.

You're acting crazy, you know that,
he said, and as she padded barefoot out to the living room:
You don't have to…where are you going? Please tell me I'm not going to have to come rescue you from a stairwell again because—

“I am going to the kitchen,” she said with dignity. “To make myself a cup of tea.” She took a mug down from the cupboard, filled it with water, stuck it in the microwave, and then stood there waiting for it to heat and wishing it would hurry up. Her bare feet were freezing on the tile floor.

And whose fault is that? If you'd stayed in bed where it was warm instead of…what exactly do you think I'm going to do to you? I'm halfway across town, for cripes' sake
.

“What did you find out?” she demanded. “From your research.”

That acting crazy's a bad idea. It can get you locked up. Or burned at the stake.

“I'm serious.”

So am I. I got to thinking about Joan of Arc's hearing voices and decided to see if there were any other saints who did. There were—Saint Augustine and Saint Brendan the Navigator and your very own Saint Brigid and Saint Patrick.

“But they—”

Thought they were talking to God or angels or the Virgin Mary. I know,
he said.
But what if they weren't? What if they were talking to an ordinary person and what they were experiencing wasn't a religious vision but telepathy? And they just interpreted it as a holy voice because that was the only way they could make sense of their experience? Or the only way they could keep from getting burned as a witch?

“But I thought Joan of Arc—”

Yeah, well, the plan didn't always work.

The microwave dinged. Briddey took the mug out, put a teabag in it, and carried it into the living room. “Even if it was telepathy,” she said, sitting down in the corner of the couch, “how does knowing that help us?”

Well, for one thing, it tells us telepathy's a real thing, and we're not suffering from some kind of shared delusion. And for another, it tells us it's been going on a long time. Saint Patrick lived in the fifth century. His voice told him to go back to Ireland and plant a tree, by the way, which he interpreted as an order to establish a church, but he could have just been talking to a gardener. And Joan of Arc could have been talking to somebody who really wanted to defeat the English.

“Couldn't you find any telepaths more recent than the Middle Ages?” Briddey asked.

Yeah, Patience Lovelace and Tobias Marshall. And that girl in McCook, Nebraska, and her sailor.

“I meant current ones.”

Nope. If there are any real telepaths out there right now, they're keeping their heads down. And no wonder. If people found out telepathy was real, they'd go nuts. The government, Wall Street, the media…Just think, no more having to hack phones or follow celebrities around with a telephoto lens. People could read their minds and
know
where they're going. And they could read their political opponent's mind, too, and the DA's. And the jury's. Not to mention what the NSA and the military could do with it. Everybody'd want a piece of them. So they're not telling anybody.

“But what about psychics?” Briddey asked, thinking of that email Kathleen had sent her about Lyzandra of Sedona. “They claim to be telepaths, don't they?”

“Claim” being the operative word. They're either scam artists or they're unconsciously cold reading.

She wished he hadn't mentioned the word “cold.” It reminded her how icy her feet were. “Cold reading?” she asked, tucking her feet up under her. “What's that?”

It's skillful guessing combined with reading facial expressions and body language. And asking leading questions. “I'm getting a message from a relative…a female?…whose name begins with
B
…or
M
…or
C
,” all the time watching your reactions till either they get a hit or you shout, “It's my sister Kathleen!” And marvel that they could read your mind like that.

He regaled her with other tricks professional mind readers and mentalists used while she sipped her tea and then ate a bowl of cereal: secret codes and marked cards and audience shills who gathered information from subjects and communicated it to the mind reader onstage via hidden mikes and earpieces.
Like you accused me of doing last night.

“But they can't all be scam artists,” Briddey said. “What about the ones who work with the police?”

They're fakes, too. But even if they aren't, they're not telepaths. They claim they can find murder victims, who obviously aren't saying anything. Fortune-telling doesn't qualify either. Or claiming to be able to predict what's going to happen in the future.

Like Aunt Oona with her premonitions and her claiming to know who's on the phone before it rings,
Briddey thought.

Those fall under the definition of clairvoyance, which is as bogus as all the other paranormal stuff out there, except for telepathy—telekinesis, astral projection, past-life regression. Speaking of which, I found another reason you shouldn't tell Verrick,
he said.
Your name.

“My name? You mean Flannigan?”

No, your first name. Did you ever hear of Bridey Murphy?

“No. Who's that?”

I'll tell you while you get dressed
.

“Dressed? Why?”

Because I'm coming to get you, remember? And we're going to the Marriott.

“But I thought we weren't going till five thirty.”

We aren't. But it's five fifteen, and I'm about ten blocks from your apartment
.

“Oh,” she said, hastily setting down her cereal bowl and scrambling off the couch. She'd completely lost track of the time. She hurried into the bedroom, untying her robe as she went, and then stopped short.

Oh, for—
C.B. said.
I won't look, all right? Even though I can't see anything. I told you, it's not X-ray vision. You can't see me, can you?

“No.” But he'd known she was lying in bed, and he'd known she was in the stairwell at the hospital. And just now, he'd known she'd started to undress and stopped. Why was that?

Because I can hear what you're thinking.

And why was that? All she could hear was what he said to her, but he seemed able to hear her every thought.

If you don't want me to know you're undressing or taking a shower, just don't think about it,
he was saying.

“Fine. I won't,” she said, taking off her robe and pulling her nightgown off over her head, thinking determinedly of how glad she was going to be when they were no longer connected. She reached for her bra.

Though I should probably tell you,
C.B. said conversationally,
I don't need telepathy to imagine you taking off your clothes.