Deja Blue (3 page)

Sadly, Nia had a heart like none other, a heart as good as they come, but she also had the same or similar psychic powers and empathic abilities as her mother, a thing she’d kept secret all her life until recent events had brought all to the surface. Learning of Nia’s powers had in a very real sense explained years of their drifting apart. Rae had falsely believed it had all to do with Nia’s anger and contempt for her mother’s psi powers. And even more so her mom’s inability to foresee and fix the problems and people closest to her; to avoid that changing day in Nia’s life when Rae decided to divorce Nia’s father, Tomi Yoshikane and to reclaim her life and her maiden name.

Rae learned that Nia had promised herself early in life to become a normal kid. Something Rae had assumed all along. But not so. It’d been an impossible goal that Nia had set for herself, one at loggerheads with her mom. In fact, they’d butted heads so often that at one point, Rae had begun to fear losing Nia’s affection forever.

“Not anymore,” Rae assured herself in the empty cab of her car.

Their Grand Canyon trip had changed all that.

What happened at the Canyon had bonded the two, mother and daughter, as never before.

Things were better between them.

Things would continue to get even better, Rae convinced herself now.

After all they’d been through in Phoenix, and their subsequent trip to the Canyon, they had to bond.

Together. Things like the death of a mutual loved one, things like Rae’s own near death experience, things like Nia’s putting herself in danger for her mother…such things bonded a mom and daughter.

“Nia, you can come home anytime, of course, and if we need to find you another school—a place where you fit in bet—”

“Fit in? I’ll never fit in anywhere! I’m a freak.”

“Stop that at once! You’re not a freak, no more than—”

“No more than you?”

“We’re not going to have this conversation over the phone. Get a cab, and I’ll meet you at home.”

“Home…you call that broken down old bed and breakfast a home?” Nia hung up so she might feel the winner here, getting the last dig in.

“Now I gotta race home.” She stomped down the corridor, going for the garage. “No stopover at the tavern, no chance to unwind with Joannie,” Rae muttered to herself, drawing a look from Edward Arlington Coffin, who’d come through a door in the techy playground where he spent many of his hours nowadays refining gizmos and gadgets. Eddy was the creator of the CRAWL, and he’d managed to streamline it for work in remote locations as well, Phoenix having been the first such test. Bugs, glitches, and problems still plagued the remote CRAWL, but Eddy assured everyone they’d soon be worked out.

“Rae, how’re you doing?” asked Eddy, a genius no older than her daughter, Nia.

“Pretty well, Eddy, under the circumstances.”

“Euphemism for death of a loved one,” he replied. “I understand.”

The funeral services for Gene had only been the week before. Eddy had a heart but it was somewhat overburdened by his brain.

“I gotta rush, Eddy.”

“What’s up?” “Personal.”

“Nia again, huh?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“She’s having a hard time with it, same as you. I saw the latest images on the crawl screen. You may’ve come back too soon, and Raule’s saddling you with another case so soon could do more damage than—”

“What in the world’re you talking about? Raule saddling me with another field operation?”

“You ahhh haven’t heard? Charleston, West Virginia?”

“How is it you know about this before me?” “Ah, maybe just another foolish rumor floating about; rumors abound in a place like this.”

“Shut up, Eddy. I know all about it,” Rae lied.

“Oh…really?”

She must act as if she knew what he was talking about, despite her certainty that he was dead wrong. “Appreciate your concern, Eddy, but I’m just fine, and as for getting back in the saddle, it’s what my shrink ordered.”

“Shrink knows best, heh? You know I won’t be in the field with you. Have that contract with Lockheed to fulfill.”

“I think my shrink does know best. As for you’re not accompanying me to Charleston, yes, I know.” She was a champ at lying with a straight face.

“Who’s going with you?” he asked. “Not Ashley Phillips?”

“No way.” True or not about a second field assignment, Ashley and Rae were not in any way, shape, or form prepared to work off-sight. They could not work together in the safe confines of Quantico.

Eddy blinked. “Why not?”

“Trust me, she’s not ready.”

“You two aren’t getting on well are you?” “That’s an understatement.”

“You never did handle your own emotions well, Rae, and with your daughter’s problems, you sure this is the smartest move to—”

“Hold on, Mister Coffin! Do you really think I’m so far gone as to take cues from you, Edward, on the subject of handling emotional upheaval?”

Eddy shrugged. “Just want you to know that I still care, and by the way, it’s no longer Eddy or Edward.”

“Youuu…you got the name change you wanted so badly?” Her widening eyes gave away her excitement for him.

“Copernicus.”

She smiled at this. “How apt.”

Eddy had professed an undying hatred of his parents for their having used him in the manner of many parents with exceptional or gifted children, for having made a fortune off him, and for having named him Edwin Arlington after the obscure poet Edwin Arlington Robinson, and he had long promised to do something about it. “So now it’s simply Copernicus Coffin or should I call you CC?”

“Just Copernicus. Thought I’d go with one of those single name jobs like Prince, Cher, The Rock. Dropped the Coffin as well.”

“Really?” This came as a surprise.

“It kinda dragged me down, Coffin. Get it? Coffin, one foot…ahhh name in the grave, see?”

“Had to hurt mom and dad, Ed, I mean, Copernicus.”

“Well sure…understood, but—”

“But?”

“They’ve treated me as their invention all my life. I wanted part of me back, that’s all.”

“Sure…understood.” “You still love me?”

“Sure…sure, Copernicus.”

“And I you!” He smiled wide. He’d professed an undying love for her early on in their relationship, despite the fact she was old enough to be his mother, and in Phoenix he’d met and ‘fallen’ hard for a stripper. He was the emotional equivalent of a 6th grader, despite his adult genius. “What about your girlfriend in Phoenix?”

“Well…not too much to say on that score, except that…well, it’s over.”

“I think it was doomed from the start,” Rae suggested.

“Is that your professional opinion, Dr. Hiyakawa? If so, why didn’t you diagnose the problem sooner?” Eddy, as Copernicus, stormed off in a red-faced huff. He’d told no one other than Rae of his infatuation with the bleach blond stripper with the three children in Pheonix. In fact, other than confiding to Rae that the sex was great, he’d said little else. She’d tried to counsel him in this arena, but all he saw in this attempt was Rae’s green-eyed jealousy—his grandiose delusion.

Gene’s death had taken its toll on Eddy as well, despite his outward aplomb on the subject. Beneath all that reserve and scientific zeal of late, hid a deep-seated guilt that he, too, had played a part in Gene’s demise. She could well imagine what Eddy’s subconscious must be prattling on about, something to the effect, “Had I done my job right, Gene’d be alive today.” The mantra was familiar to her because it was hers as well, yet the two of them had been unable to talk openly and freely to one another about the circumstances leading up to Kiley’s murder. In point of fact, no one had seen it coming.

She found the exit to the concrete parking garage, located her car, and slumped into the seat. When she saw no one around, Rae allowed the tears to flow. All the while, as she cried for Gene, for Eddy, for Ashley, and for Nia, she never thought of crying for herself, for allowing the grief to wash over her entirely so as to get past the flood. Instead, she cried for all the others, and she wondered if she’d ever be an effective psychic sensory investigator ever again.

FOUR

Some things never change, yet change is life and life is change. How often both her Buddhist father and her Wiccan mother had trumpeted this truth of life even coming as it did from two differing worldviews. Still it could be so paradoxical. Things you want to change but don’t change. Things you don’t want to ever see change, change. Bumper sticker alert: Change can be a painful reminder of itself.

Nia changed from day to day, but then that’s what teenagers do, Rae told herself as she rushed into the old bed and breakfast, a crumbling Victorian in need of a great deal more TLC than she or the previous owners had been able to provide in either time or money of late.

She rushed inside to find Nia, eyes closed, her breathing stuttered by heaving sobs. Nia, curled in the fetal position on the living room sofa, had broken down. Tearful, she hugged her stuffed animal, Lamb Chop, so tightly that the beady-eyed white face pleaded for help. Big, huge, heaving sobs indicated that Nia’s heartbeat was strong and healthy, but it appeared her mental and emotional state needed immediate attention from mom.

Of late, Rae had decided that actions spoke louder than words, and in this spirit, she went to Nia, nestled in on the couch with her and hugged her and Lamb Chop together. Definitely, at such times, a genuine hug and a kiss meant more than all the words in the lexicon. For some time, the hug continued on as mother and daughter sat in silent understanding.

Finally, Rae asked her now fifteen year old, “You wanna talk about it, kiddo?”

“I don’t have one friend there; they all hate me.” Her sentences were punctuated with sobs. “They think I’m a freak.”

“You just stop that right now!”

“They-they all’ve heard about what happened in Phoenix, you know, about you nearly getting killed, and me nearly getting myself killed helping you in that freak house!”

Rae considered this. The case had, after all, made CNN and all the other networks.

Nia sniffed back more tears. “They’re calling me Super Ninja and crap like that.” More sobs. “How-how do you like that?”

Seems there’re a lot worse things teens could call you, Rae thought but said, “Nia, you are better than that; you’ve never spread gossip and crap about others, so—”

“How does that help, Ma?” “—so don’t listen to it; don’t buy into it. Don’t play their ga—”

“It’s all over the school.”

“Gossip, and-and peer pressure, and-and all that silliness and high school trash, Nia, you don’t buy into it. You stay above it.”

“How does that help, Ma? How?” repeated Nia, more tears flooding in.

“Come on, Nia. You’ve never bought into gossip before, so why now, Nia?”

“I dunno…maybe ‘cause I’m the new kid, and I have no one to turn to, maybe?” Her voice dripped sarcasm.

“If you know yourself, Nia, and if you take pride in yourself, no one can hurt you or kick you while you’re down unless—”

“But they do, and it hurts!”

“No one can make you feel inferior or odd unless you allow them, unless you sell them the shovel to bury you with.”

“Oh, great. Now it’s my fault?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I don’t need bumper-sticker philosophy, Ma!”

“That’s no bumper sticker! I’m paraphrasing Eleanor Roosevelt, Nia!”

“Who is?”

“Who is Eleanor Roosevelt? What’re they teaching in schools nowadays?”

“Schools are lunatic asylums is what they are.”

Nia wasn’t far from the truth on that score. Rae believed that far too many teachers these days had an inferior education and had never sat in a class with a master teacher; in fact, she felt the entire method of teaching teachers how to teach was as arcane and hideous as university buildings covered in Ivy. But this wasn’t the time or place to go into it. “Well for now you’ve got to learn to cope somewhere. Do we give the academy a chance, say another week before we start looking elsewhere?”

Nia got up and stormed from the room, tearful yet. As she rushed upstairs to her bedroom, she shouted back, “I hate them all!”