Chapter 64 – The Trouble with Lawyers

I had just walked into the bedroom with the intention of going to bed when I heard the front door crash open. Immediately I turned around and ran back into the living room to see what was going on.

I almost laughed when I made it into the living room. The three men who had stormed into my house, wielding baseball bats, had already been very comprehensively dealt with by the people that had been sitting watching the television.

Thug one was currently on his face on the floor, with Gracie kneeling on his back, her gun pressed to the back of his head. Thug two was nursing a pair of burned hands. For some reason, his bat had inexplicably burst into flames as he’d made it through the door.

It was Thug three who both amused and concerned me in equal measure. He had sat down on the doormat and was beating his own legs with the bat. He was howling in pain and yet still continued to beat at his own legs. It was probably fortunate that he wasn’t really able to get a good swing given he was so close, and so although painful, I didn’t think he’d do much more than cause himself a good amount of pain and some bruising.

“That’s enough,” I said to Sarah, and she looked at me. For a moment I saw a look of defiance in her eyes but then she nodded and relinquished control of Thug three.

“You can let him up,” I said to Gracie, having taken control of all three thugs.  She was less inclined to argue and simply let him up, holstered her weapon, which for some reason she hadn’t yet put away. Normally she put it in the safe as soon as she arrived home, but not tonight. It was perhaps fortunate, although I didn’t think it would have made much difference in any case.

I Compelled all three of them to sit on the sofa.

Firstly, I looked at them with my healing. Thug one had no injuries. Thug two had superficial burns to his hands, but nothing serious. Thug three suffered worst of all. Despite the lack of decent leverage, he’d actually managed to break a bone in his foot with the bat since he was only wearing light sneakers. It wasn’t displaced and I pushed a little healing into it to knit it back together. It would be sore for a couple of weeks but otherwise he’d be fine.

I didn’t even bother asking any questions. I simply looked into their minds and searched for the information that I wanted. Thugs one and two were brothers and had been tasked with breaking into our house and giving me a beating. Thug three was a friend who they’d roped in to help. Once the beating was delivered they were told to tell me to ‘remember my place.’

I searched for the identity of the person who’d sent them, thinking I’d know the answer but was surprised to find it wasn’t Trevor’s father Walter Greenwood, as I’d suspected, but a lawyer they knew who’d represented them in the past. Although they’d done time, he had given them some work once they were released. They were small time thugs and it seemed were often used for such ‘jobs.’

I got the name and office address of the lawyer from them.

“What are you going to do with them?” asked Dana. I wondered what she’d thought about my very unconstitutional interrogation. If she had any problems with it, she didn’t bring it up.

“We could call the cops,” I said, “but it might take some explaining as to what went on here, and how they got the particular set of injuries that they did.”

“You could Compel them to go turn themselves in,” said Josh.

“For what?” asked Amanda. “If we’re going to get the cops involved, we may as well just call them.”

“Why not,” said Louise with an evil glint in her eye, “get them to go into the police station with their bats, and start smashing up the place. They’d get arrested then and no involvement from us.”

“Or they could get shot,” said Dana. “And that would be Caleb’s fault.”

“Can’t you arrest them?” Sarah asked Gracie. “You are FBI after all.”

“It’s not really our thing,” she said. “If we weren’t involved, all I would do if I had come across this would be to detain them and call local LEOs and hand them off. I’d be treading on the local’s toes if I started going around arresting people like that.”

“What do you think we should do with them?” I asked Dana. I was interested in her thoughts.

“Can you take away their memory of coming here tonight?” she asked.

“I could but that would be somewhat of a violation,” I said. Dana looked conflicted.

We all looked up, startled as there was a knock on the door.

“Police.”

I’d pushed the door closed but it only took a little pressure for the officer to push it open again, since the lock was broken. She came in, weapon drawn, followed closely by her partner.

“Hey, Debs,” I said.

“Caleb,” she said. “What’s going on? We got a report from your neighbor that three men with baseball bats had kicked your door in and were inside.”

I indicated the three sitting on the sofa.

“These three gentlemen,” I said, “decided to come calling. Apparently, our doorbell didn’t work so they kicked in the door and came in waving bats around. Fortunately, our friendly neighborhood FBI agent was still carrying and she persuaded them to put the bats down and take a seat. We were just deciding on our next move when you arrived.”

“Do you know these men?” she asked.

I shook my head. Never met them before.

“Steve,” she said. “Call up a bus. We can’t take all three of them.”

Debs arrested each of the men, using plastic cuffs to restrain them since she didn’t have three pairs of normal cuffs.

A van arrived a few minutes later, the three were loaded inside, and driven away.

Debs and Steve stayed for a little while taking our statements. We were carefully vague but generally followed the story I’d told when they’d arrived.

“You need us to call up a contractor to come and secure your door?” she asked. I was about to reply, when there was a knock on the front door. Tom Pritchard was standing on the porch, technically in breach of the restraining order, but he was carrying a tool bag.

“I saw what happened,” he said. “I was a carpenter by trade. If you like, I can secure your door at least for the night until you can get a proper tradesman to come fix it tomorrow. You’ll pay a fortune calling someone out at this time of night.”

I looked at Mary and she at me. I took a little peek into his mind, trying to see what his angle was, and was surprised at what I found out.

Pritchard was a lonely man. He’d had to retire from work early to stay home and look after his wife who’d had a stroke. He nursed her for three years until she passed about six years ago. Too old to return to work, and not really needing the money, he’d found himself alone. Although they’d had friends, his wife’s illness had caused them to become isolated. They’d had no children.

To fill the gap in his life, and try and alleviate his loneliness, he’d started the HOA. It had given him purpose, given him some people to talk to, and some connection to the community, although his initial overtures of friendliness to the residents of the street had been rebuffed. Ours was not a particularly social road. We’d been here over a year and we only really spoke to our Alan and Anne, who kept themselves to themselves, terrified of being outed. Even our taciturn neighbour on the other side barely nodded at us in the street.

Over the intervening period, his enforcement of the HOA rules had become more and more draconian. He became increasingly bitter at being excluded from the community, even though there wasn’t really much of a community to be involved in. He assumed that everyone else on the street were friendly to each other, and just ignored him, and it made him angry.

He’d approached us in that frame of mind. He wasn’t surprised when we rebuffed him and so he retreated into his go-to behavior. If he couldn’t socialize with us, then at least we’d know he was there, and be forced to acknowledge him. It gave him some control. He hadn’t been prepared for what came next though and things had unraveled both rapidly and catastrophically for him. When I’d got his HOA disbanded, he’d lost the last thing that had given him purpose. He needed to do something to show us, or more importantly show himself, that he still mattered.

He'd been convinced that it was me who’d been vandalizing his car, but having seen our cars being vandalized twice in quick succession had come to the conclusion, erroneously as it turned out, that he’d been wrong. For the first time since his wife died, he felt something other than anger. He felt guilt.

When he’d seen my altercation with Walter Greenwood in the street, his instincts had been to record it. He’d stepped up to give a witness statement and show proof of what had actually happened.

Tonight, he’d been watching the street having decided, in the absence of the HOA, to try setting up a neighborhood watch. He’d seen the three men bursting into our house and he called the police.

Now he was standing on our doorstep, tool bag in hand, in blatant breach of a restraining order that could easily see him arrested, and offered to help.

“Mr. Pritchard,” I said, “thank you, that would be very helpful. Also, thanks for your help earlier and for watching out for us as you have. It is much appreciated.”

He stood for a moment looking a little stunned. He fully expected me to turn him down, perhaps even to ask the police to enforce the restraining order. It took him a second to realize that I’d said ‘yes’. Starting a little out of his trance, he nodded. “I’d best get to it,” he said, and then turned around and began working on the door.

Debs frowned at me.

“Isn’t there a…” she began but I interrupted.

“I think we might be working toward a better relationship with our neighbors,” I said. “Baby steps.”

She nodded.

Debs and Steve took their leave, and we sat for a few minutes watching Pritchard work, all of us sitting in silence. Then Ness stood.

“Mr. Pritchard.” She said approaching him. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

He looked at her, surprise and a little gratitude in his eyes.

“That would be welcome,” he said. “Cream and no sugar please.”

She nodded to him and went into the kitchen and made us all coffee.

By the time she came out, he’d finished working on the door and accepted the drink.

“I’ve secured it as best I can,” he said. “It will be okay for tonight, but really you need a new lock, and the frame needs to be repaired.”

“Thank you,” I said, “I’ll call a contractor tomorrow and…”

“I’d be happy to fix it properly tomorrow,” he said, “for the cost of materials. Like I said, I was a carpenter so I know what I’m doing.”

“Are you sure?” I asked and he nodded. Still looking a little concerned that I’d turn him down.

“Then thank you again,” I said. “I’m around tomorrow morning, if you have time.”

“Shall we say about ten?” he asked.

“That would be perfect,” I answered him and, smiling, he packed up his tools and, after a quick clean around where he’d made a little mess, took himself off home.

“Well,” said Josh. “That was not exactly expected.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I said, looking thoughtfully at the door which Pritchard had secured for the night.

The next morning, as soon as I considered it to be a reasonable hour, I called Melissa Wragge once again.

“Morning, Caleb,” she said. “Let me guess. You want another favor?”

“More like some advice,” I said.

“Fire away,” she said.

“I want to know what to do to get the restraining order against my neighbor lifted.” I told her.

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a minute.

“Lifted?” she asked, as if she hadn’t heard me correctly.

I explained the events of the previous day, and also summarized what I’d learned from him the previous night.

“I think,” I said, “that we got off seriously on the wrong foot and it escalated massively. He’s an old, lonely guy who went about things the wrong way. I think he sees that now, and since he’s coming over to fix my door this morning…”

I heard her tapping on her computer for a few minutes. Then she laughed.

“The restraining order lapsed in any case,” she said. “It was only a temporary order lasting 30 days. If you’d needed it to continue, you needed to apply for a permanent order, which you didn’t do.”

“So the order is gone now?” I asked, smiling a little at my own stupidity.

“It certainly is.” She said and then added cheekily. “I hope you and he are very happy together.”

I snorted.

“Why don’t you come over for dinner,” I said. “Maybe Saturday. I don’t think you met my sisters yet?”

“I heard about Melanie,” she said, “from Jeevan. He and Dad seem to be spending quite a bit of time together these days. You have another sister?”

“And a brother too, although he doesn’t live with us.”

“Your sisters do?” she asked. “Are they…?”

“Melanie has joined our family,” I said. “Sarah hasn’t, and I don’t think she will. She’s also a Telepath so I was hoping you might be able to give her some pointers.”

“And there it is,” she said laughing. “The ulterior motive. You only invite me over when you want something.”

“Well,” I said. “I might want something. But maybe not the something you think?”

“Really?” she said, purring down the phone. “Don’t tease me, Caleb.”

“Let’s not make any definitive plans,” I said. “But come over for dinner at least?”

“I will,” she said. “Saturday?”

“Perfect,” I said. “Six thirty?”

“See you then,” she said, and I ended the call.

I let the girls know that we’d be having company for dinner on Saturday. I felt Amanda’s reaction through the connection and grinned. She definitely wanted to see more of Melissa. I remembered it had been a while since Mary and Amanda had shared. This might be a good opportunity.

I was sitting on the deck, working on the first draft of my plan for my senior thesis, when Prichard knocked on the door.

“Morning,” I said to him, opening the door. He was holding onto his tool bag again.

“Morning,” he said. “We said ten?”

“We did,” I said. “Come on in.”

He entered the house and put his tools down behind the door.

“In the daylight,” he said, “the door looks worse than it did last night. I can shore it up some, but a new door would be a good idea. If you get one pre-mounted in a frame it will be a lot more secure as it will have a multipoint locking system which, once I secure it to the frame of the house, will be much more robust.

I nodded, having already come to that conclusion.

“How about,” I said, “we take my truck to the hardware store and pick up everything we need? If your offer still stands that is.”

“Of course,” he said. “That would be good. I couldn’t fit a door in my car. Let me take some measurements first.”

“Would you like coffee before we go?” I asked but he shook his head. “Perhaps later?”

We made small talk all the way to the hardware store, where we bought a pre-mounted door, complete with frame.

“If you’d had this installed,” he said. “Those idiots would never have gotten in. With this door, and its security system, it will take a lot more than just some heavy-footed lout to break through.” While we were in the hardware store, I got several copies of the keys for the new lock made.

It was just about lunchtime by the time we got back to the house. I made some lunch, which we ate, before he started work on the door.

I could see by the way he handled his tools, that he really did know what he was doing. It took him a surprisingly short time to remove the old door, strip out the old frame, and install the new one. The longest part seemed to be anchoring the new frame to the fame of the house. It was nearly four o’clock by the time he’d finished. He’d done a really good job and, once he’d cleaned up, it looked amazing.

He was packing his tools away when the girls started to arrive home. They admired his work.

“I know you said you’d do it for materials,” I said, “but let me give you something for your time.”

He shook his head vehemently. “No,” he said. “I enjoyed doing it. It’s good to be working with my hands again. I’ve already done everything I can to my house, other than routine maintenance.”

Then how about you come over for dinner,” I suggested. “It’s the least we can do.”

He allowed himself to be persuaded.

“I could do with getting a shower first,” he said. “What time?”

“Is five thirty too early for you?” I asked. “We go to the range on a Thursday night, so we tend to eat early.”

“That would be fine,” he said. “I’ll see you then.”

He picked up his tools and set off back to his own house.

“He’s almost skipping,” said Jules, watching the man go. “Poor guy. I feel really bad about what we did to him.”

“What I did you mean,” I said.

“We were all complicit,” she said. “Any of us could have stopped you. Mary did stop you.”

“He thinks it was the same guys who vandalized our cars as did his,” I said. “So probably best not to disabuse him of that notion.”

Jules laughed. “You are a bad man,” she said. “Just when I thought you were being nice.”

“I am being nice,” I said. “But there’s no real need to stir up a hornet’s nest all over again, is there?”

“I guess not,” she said, still laughing.

Ness and I were in the kitchen, making dinner, when Pritchard knocked on the door. It was twenty after five.

Jules was the one to let him in. She got him settled in the living room and offered him a beer, which he accepted.

I left him in her capable hands, getting him introduced to all of the household, and then poked my head in to let them all know that dinner was ready.

“It’s kind of an event here,” I said. “There’s so many of us and, for some reason, we’ve gotten into the habit of eating together.”

“Your grocery bill must be astronomical,” he said looking around the table.

“We go to the discount warehouse for most of our shopping,” I said. “It works out cheaper that way.”

The rest of the meal passed in comfortable conversation, Pritchard just eating his meal, and listening in on the incidental conversations we had with each other as we each talked about our day. Everyone made the effort to include him, asking him ‘safe’ questions, since I’d told them all about his circumstances.

“So,” said Gracie during a lull in the conversation. “You mentioned something about a neighborhood watch plan?”

He nodded. “I thought that given what has been going on recently, with both our cars being vandalized, it might be a good idea for us to keep an eye out for one another. I was reading that household-related crime can be as much as fifty percent less prevalent in a neighborhood watch area.”

“So how would it work?” I asked.

“Simple really,” he said. “We throw in a few dollars each, buy some signs, and register the area as a neighborhood watch area. Then we just look out for one another.”

“Really that simple?” I asked. “Do you think people will go for it?”

“Depends,” he said. “If I asked them, then no. But if it came from someone else, then perhaps.”

“It’s certainly something worth thinking about,” said Mary. “Perhaps we can stop all the vandalism that has been going on.” She didn’t even flick her eyes in my direction but I felt the barb all the same.

“I thought you caught the vandals,” said Pritchard.

“We caught one of them,” said Mary, “But we’re not sure if they were the only ones. Hopefully now that they, whoever they are, know we’re more vigilant, it will stop.”

“I’m sure it will,” I said.

After the meal, Pritchard thanked us and, knowing that we were planning to go out, excused himself to go back to his own house.

“Are you going to keep beating me up about that?” I asked Mary, after we closed the door behind him.

“Maybe for a while,” she said grinning at me.

“I don’t have any regrets,” I said. “He deserved it all. He was a prick. Now he seems to have turned over a new leaf. Yes, he had his reasons, but none of them were our fault. Let’s wipe the slate, and move on.”

“I guess,” Mary said. “I still think you went too far though.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But what’s done is done. My target now is that lawyer. I want to find out why he sent three goons with baseball bats to our house.”

“Won’t the police be on to that?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” I said. “I very much doubt that they will have told the police about him. He probably was down in the precinct almost as soon as they arrived, bailing them out. I doubt they’ll get much more than a slapped wrist. What did they actually do – criminal damage? aggravated trespass?”

“Actually,” Gracie said, “it would be home invasion burglary. If you really want to go down the ‘legal’ road, they could face life in prison. However, the details of how they were detained might come out.”

As I was thinking about that, Mary interjected.

“So, are you going to go and see the lawyer?” she asked. “If he bailed his thugs out, then they may be back.”

“I doubt they’ll come back here,” I said. “But it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that I’ll see them again. I just need to connect the dots. I’m certain that it’s Trevor’s dad that set it up, but I can’t see Richie Rich consorting with such a Saul Goodman.

“I’m going to go take a look at the lawyer in the morning,” I said. “Hopefully they will still be licking their wounds until after then. Once I find out where the connection is, then I’ll decide what to do about it.”

I was on alert for the rest of the night, and overnight as well. I scanned the area around us, making a mental note of all the minds I could feel within our locality, and then watched for new minds entering the space, in the same way that I had when Gracie had been shot. I wasn’t scared for myself. I doubted that the thugs would go so far as to take a shot at me from distance. They wanted to rough me up, maybe break a bone or two. I doubt that they had literal murder in mind. I knew that, even without powers or a weapon, I could take them pretty easily. I just didn’t want any of the girls getting caught up in it.

The evening passed without event, as did the night, and since Melanie and I decided to do our morning exercise on the deck, we made it through to breakfast without any problems.

The household went off to start their day and I went to visit the lawyer who had instructed the thugs to come and ‘speak’ to me.

The receptionist in the lawyer’s office was surprisingly professional. I’d gotten an image in my head, of a tall, skinny, bottle blonde, gum chewing ‘broad’. . .a Zinnia Wormwood character. What I found was a medium height, smartly dressed woman probably around thirty years old.

She smiled at me as I entered the office.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“I’m looking for Levi Green,” I said. I read from her that he was in his office just now, working on a case file he was due to be arguing in court that afternoon.”

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

“I do,” I said, pushing the thought into her head that I did, in fact, have an appointment.

She looked at her desk calendar seeing the fictitious appointment, even though there was nothing to be seen on the screen.

“I’ll just go straight in,” I said. “I know the way.”

She smiled at me again.

“That would be fine,” she said, before going back to whatever it was she’d been doing before I entered the office.

Levi Green was a short man with dark hair. He looked middle aged but seemed to look after himself. He looked up as I entered his office and frowned.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think I have you on my calendar. Did Jessie let you in?”

I walked over to his desk.

“I’m Caleb Stott,” I said to him simply. His frown cleared and he reached for something on his desk. I froze him in place.

“Mister Green,” I said. “You and I have never met and yet you sent three thugs around to my house on Wednesday night to ‘teach me a lesson.’ I want to know why.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Really,” I said, picking up from his surface thoughts that he’d been asked to do so by another lawyer. This was a much more upscale lawyer who often used Green when he didn’t want to get his own hands dirty. It was an almost symbiotic relationship, with Green getting far more business than someone of his caliber would be able to get on his own, and the other lawyer keeping his hands clean.

Everything was done via burner phone so there would be no official records of the deals struck between them.

I Compelled him to answer my questions and tell the truth.

“Where are your three goons now?” I asked him.

“They’re still in lockup,” he said. “I’m going this afternoon to get them out.”

“Who asked you to set them on me?” I queried.

“I got a call from Godfrey Knight,” he replied. “He asked me to get them to come and teach you some manners. They weren’t really going to hurt you, just rough you up a little.”

“Three guys burst into my house with baseball bats,” I retorted, “and you expect me to believe that they weren’t intending to hurt me much?”

“They were just told to teach you some manners,” he repeated.

“They failed,” I said, “and now I’m standing in your office, wondering what to do with you. Should I teach you some manners, Mr. Green? Should I tell Mrs. Green about Gregory and Giselle? Do you think she’d understand your need to spend your Tuesday and Friday afternoons with them? Or better yet, should I tell Gareth Mayberry’s daughter how much you’ve embezzled from his estate, and why the estate is still tied up in probate over a year after he died. Perhaps the state bar would be interested in that one too.”

Green’s face got paler and paler as I laid out secret after secret proving to him beyond any doubt that I could dismantle both him and his life without any difficulty should I choose to do so.

“What do you want?” he asked eventually, sweat pouring from his now alabaster face.

“Nothing at all,” I said. “I want never to have to come back, Mr. Green. No matter who you send, or what they do, if you have involvement in it, then I will know and I will come back. That will be the end of your life.

“I won’t lift a finger to physically harm you,” I explained. “But I will completely and utterly destroy you. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Green?”

He nodded.

“Now then. Where will I find Mr. Knight?”

“He’s a partner at Knight and Temple,” he answered. “They have offices on…”

“I know where they are,” I interrupted them.

“Now then,” I said, “you and I have a gentleman’s agreement. You will stay completely out of my life and I will stay completely out of yours. That includes calling Mr. Knight or any of his associates and warning them that I’m coming. If you do your part, Mr. Green, then I will do mine and you and I will never need to meet again, nor will I feel the need to involve myself in any of your business. As you can see, I am exceptionally well informed and will know if you break the agreement.”

“Can I consider our business concluded?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Then I’ll see myself out,” I said. “I can see you’re busy.”

I walked to the door and turned to take one last look at him. He was staring at me wide eyed.

I stepped out of his office without saying anything more. I considered what to do next. Some of the secrets I’d discovered when rummaging through his mind made me want to do something about them. Once again, however, I took a breath and told myself that it wasn’t my place to right all the wrongs in the world. I could get involved, get his law license revoked, maybe even get him arrested, but if I involved myself in every little thing I came across, I’d be swamped.

I nodded pleasantly to the receptionist as I left the office and she smiled at me once more.

Getting back into my truck, I wondered what my next step would be. Bullying my way into a small lawyer’s office was simple. I doubted that it would be as easy to get in to see Mr. Knight.

I had no doubt I could do it, but there would be a lot more layers of people to get through, and probably electronic surveillance on the offices as well. This would require more planning.

I drove across town to where the offices were located and parked my truck in a public parking lot down the block. The offices in which the Knight and Temple were located had their own subterranean parking lot, accessible by a guard-controlled access ramp. I wandered down the street and saw the guard sitting in his booth by the barrier.

From the guard, I found out that Mr. Knight drove a white Porsche with a personalized plate. He was currently in the office, having arrived at his usual time of seven a.m. If he didn’t go out to visit clients, he would normally leave at six p.m., although it was not unusual for him to stay later.

I wondered about my next move. I could simply wait out here for him to come out or I could go in and try to get to speak to him. All I really wanted to know was who told him to set Levi Green’s thugs on me. Again, I was certain I knew but I wanted to be sure before I acted.

After a short time, I decided to just go in and ask to speak to the man himself. At worst all they could say was ‘no.’ Having me show up on his doorstep might shake him enough for him to actually speak to me.

I walked into the building. A uniformed guard opening the door for me and directed me to a reception desk.

“Good morning,” I said to the receptionist. She was an older lady, dressed impeccably.

“Good morning, sir,” she replied. “May I help you?”

“I was wondering if Mr. Knight was available, please.” I said, “My name is Caleb Stott. Mr. Levi Green gave me his name and said I should speak to him.”

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

“I don’t,” I said. “But Mr. Green said he might see me if I were to drop in.”

“Mr. Knight doesn’t usually see people without an appointment,” she said, “but I’ll speak to his PA and ask. If you’d care to take a seat?” she indicated some plush seating across the foyer. I smiled my thanks to her and went to sit down.

Twenty minutes later two security guards approached me.

“Mr. Stott?” one said. I nodded.

“Mr. Knight has informed us that you are not allowed on the premises,” he said. “Would you please leave?”

“Of course,” I said. “If Mr. Knight doesn’t want to see me then I’ll leave.”

They looked a little surprised at that, perhaps expecting me to kick up a fuss.

I stood and started toward the door. I felt some irritation from one of the guards. He’d been told to manhandle me out of the building and my immediate acquiescence had given him no excuse to do so. He reached as if to grab my arm but I simply sidestepped while continuing to walk toward the door.

The guard on the door opened it as I approached.

“Many thanks,” I said to him as I exited the building.

Walking back to my truck, I considered my next move.

I looked at my watch and decided to wait around and see whether someone interesting would be coming out for lunch.

Several people came out at lunchtime but nobody I recognized. I was about to leave when a white Porsche pulled out of the underground parking lot. I grinned to myself and started my truck, aiming to follow him.

There were plenty of cars around and I pulled up behind him at a set of traffic lights. He was third in the line of cars waiting at the red light. As we both slowed to join the line of traffic, I could see he was on his phone. I grinned to myself as I saw the car in front of him was a police patrol car.

It was just too perfect. A small tweak of TK and Knight’s nice and shiny Porsche shunted into the back of the patrol car making quite a mess of the German sports car, but not seeming to faze the patrol car in any way. The patrol car’s lights began to flash and I saw the officers get out and walk back to Knight’s car. He was sitting dumbstruck, his phone still in his hand.

Since I wasn’t immediately able to move, I took the opportunity to take a reading of Knight’s mind. I  confirmed my suspicion that it was Walter Greenwood who had organized the visit to my house last night. It was not the first time he’d set up such visits for Greenwood and, again, I had to hold myself back from investigating further. I wasn’t interested in this man or his shady dealings. I was technically breaking the law by reading his mind without a warrant so there was little I could legally do about his transgressions. I could intervene personally, but that would be taking me down a path I really did not want to go. My beef was with Greenwood and since I now had confirmation that it was him that had set the thugs on me, it was time to decide what to do about it.

For now, I decided to go home and talk it over with the girls. Maybe one of them would have a good idea as to how to proceed. Tonight, it was Arnie’s birthday party and I hadn’t even gotten him a gift yet.

+++++

I hated buying gifts. Not that I begrudged spending money, rather I just couldn’t think of what to buy for people. Even family was difficult for me, so an almost complete stranger was even more so. There was also the complication that he seemed to be ‘interested’ in me. Although he was a good enough looking boy, and just eighteen, I wasn’t really interested in developing any kind of relationship with him. If he’d been in a relationship, and he and whomever he'd been partnered with had wanted to play, then that might have been different. So not only did I need to get him a gift, I needed to get him something that didn’t make it look like I was either interested in him or leading him on.

I hated buying gifts.

In the end, I decided to go a little safe. Since he was interested in flying, and just about everyone and his dog were posting aviation videos on the internet, I bought him a Go-Pro that he could mount in the cockpit. It wasn’t overly expensive, nor especially cheap, so I figured for an 18^th birthday gift it would be about right. I got the lady in the store to wrap it for me and then headed home.

The girls were all twittering about getting ready for the party. It always amazed me how much time and effort they put into such things. I simply showered and pulled on a T-shirt and some jeans. The girls looked amazing in whatever they chose to wear, so their taking such a long time to get ready seemed totally superfluous.

While I was waiting for the girls, I sat in the living room talking to Gracie, Dana, Josh, and Louise.

“I don’t really know what to do about Trevor’s dad,” I told them.

“Are you certain that it was him?” asked Gracie. I nodded.

“They were sent by a lawyer called Levi Green. I spoke to him today and he told me that he’d been tasked to send them by another lawyer, a Godfrey Knight, from some big shot practice in the city.

“I found out from Knight that Trevor’s dad had gotten him to arrange it.”

“Dare I ask how you found that out?” she asked.

I looked at her sideways. “I’m not planning on taking this to the police,” I said, “but I really have no idea what to do about it. I can’t have Greenwood thinking he can get away with sending thugs around to break down my door, and I don’t know if he’ll be satisfied with the way things played out. Is he going to try again? I could probably deal with anything he would throw at me, but I’m worried about who gets caught in the crossfire.”

“Do you think he’ll try again?” asked Louise.

“I do,” I said. “He took a shot at me, in person, and missed. Then he tried to have me arrested, and guess what? Missed again. Finally, he sends three thugs to ‘teach me some manners.’ And even that doesn’t work. He’s hasn’t gotten his satisfaction – he hasn’t proven he’s the bigshot and that, I think, means that he’s going to keep trying until he does.”

Dana looked at Gracie. “What do you think?” she asked her lover.

“I agree with Caleb,” she said. “This was all about Greenwood demanding that Caleb drop his complaint against Trevor. When Caleb dared to say ‘no’ to the bigshot, he had to prove how big of a shot he is. Now he’s failed three times, who knows what he’s going to try next.”

Mary and Amanda entered the living room. They were wearing identical outfits, just in different colors. They looked amazing. Jules came in just behind them wearing painted-on black jeans and a T-shirt. Ness had gone for blue jeans and was also wearing a T-shirt. Melanie was wearing tight pants and a crop top, while Sarah had gone for skintight leather pants and a white crossover.

“I changed my mind,” I said looking at my girls. “I think I’m going to stay home.”

“You’ll be on your own then,” said Mary. “We want to go to a party.”

“I’m jealous,” said Louise. “It’s been ages since we went to a party.”

“Why don’t we go out?” said Josh. “We can go to a club.”

Louise grinned at him. “I’ll go get ready,” she said. “You guys coming?” she asked Gracie and Dana. They looked at each other, before breaking out into identical grins, and darted into their room.

We took my truck and Ness’ car and made our way out toward the airport. Danny and Arnie lived in a suburb about ten minutes from the airport. When I got into the street I’d intended to slow down and try and look at the numbers of the houses, but there was no need. Even with the windows closed, we could hear the music even before we got onto the street. When we turned the corner we could see a crowd of people in the front yard of a house which was all lit up and decorated with balloons and banners, all wishing Arnie a happy eighteenth.

I was forcibly reminded of my twentieth, which had been in Bob’s house, but I pushed the memory down. Tonight I was going to enjoy the evening, even if it meant my hearing would be trashed for the rest of the weekend.

There were so many cars on the street that we had to park way down the block. We walked up and into the yard. A lot of the people in the yard were boys around Arnie’s age and they all turned to watch as we walked through the yard and toward the doors. I grinned to myself. They certainly weren’t looking at me. I could see several jaws that had become unhinged as they watched the cornucopia of beautiful girls that had suddenly arrived.

The front door was open but I knocked all the same, not that anyone could hear. I stuck my head in and finally saw Danny standing by a table that was loaded with food and drink. The drinks were mostly soda, but there were a few beers for those over twenty-one. Danny was making sure that nobody underage was drinking although I did notice, when I spotted Arnie, that he did have a beer in hand.

Arnie, like the rest of his peers, goggled at us as we walked in. He’d met some of the girls before, but not all, and not all dressed to kill.  I saw his aura flare through multiple colors, before settling once more on a rich deep purple. He looked in our direction, but surprisingly, his attention wasn’t fixed on me this time. His eyes were fixed on Sarah.

I looked at Sarah, and she was staring back at him, her aura showed definite interest, if not quite so much lust as he showed.

“Looks like you’ve been ditched,” said Amanda with a grin. I laughed.

“Good for him,” I said. “And good for her too. He’s a good kid. Far better than that asshole she just split with.”

“Sarah,” I shouted, getting her attention above the music. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the birthday boy.”

We walked over to where Arnie was standing with some of his friends. As we approached he tore his eyes away from Sarah and looked at me.

“Hey Caleb,” he said smiling at me. “Thanks for coming.”

“Happy birthday,” I said. “You know Mary and Amanda, Jules and Ness. This is Melanie, my sister, and that, is Sarah, my other sister.”

“Your sister?” he said.

I nodded. “She has your gift,” I said, having handed it to her as we were walking over to him.

Sarah walked up to him, grinning broadly. I knew she could hear the thoughts running through his head. They were not as pornographic as many of the other boys who’d been eyeing up my girls. In fact, they were very sweet.

“Let’s go get a drink,” I said to my team, and we wandered off, leaving Sarah with Arnie who was opening the gift that she’d just given him. He was apparently very pleased with it.  When we got to where the drinks were Danny was watching Arnie and Sarah talking. He had a strange look on his face.

“Something the matter?” I asked him.

“No,” he said “I just thought… I mean he was talking about…”

“He’s not figured it out yet,” I said. “Does it matter?”

“No,” he said. “Not at all. As long as he’s happy.”

“For some people,” I said, “its more about the person than anything else.”

He looked at me and nodded. “She’s certainly pretty.”

“Of course she is,” I said. “She’s my sister.”

I introduced him to the rest of the girls and we all grabbed drinks, after which the girls decided that they wanted to dance.

Sarah spent the entire night with Arnie. They spent time together at the party, but after a while they disappeared. I knew that they’d gone into the garage and were sitting in Danny’s truck talking. Nobody seemed to notice that he’d disappeared since my girls became the center of attention from the mostly male crowd who were clamoring to dance with them. I did see some disgruntled girlfriends standing around and so, turnabout being fair play, I danced with them.

Danny wound the party down just before midnight and I prodded Sarah to bring Arnie back into the house so people could wish him a final happy birthday as they filed out. I think they’d progressed from talking to a little necking, but I doubted that they’d gone any further than that. I didn’t pry, it was Sarah and Arnie’s business. It did remind me though that I should speak to Sarah about making sure she couldn’t conceive until she was ready.

It took a while before everyone filtered out and I managed to pry Sarah from Arnie. They’d obviously swapped numbers.

“Come on,” I said. “It’s time we went home. I’m sure you’ll see him again.”

She looked at me, eyes bright.

“He can fly a plane,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “That’s how I know him. He’s going to be my flight instructor now he’s eighteen.”

“That’s so cool,” she said.

I laughed. “He’s certainly a step up from Trevor,” I said.

“Who?” she asked, and I could see she wasn’t being facetious. In that moment she really didn’t know who I was talking about. It seemed my baby sister was smitten.

“We need to talk,” I said to her as I walked back to my truck.

She looked at me. And raised an eyebrow. “My mom already gave me that talk,” she said. “And It’s my…”

I held my hand up to stop her. She seemed to be revving up.

“I wasn’t planning on giving you that talk,” I said. “And as you were about to say, it’s your business. But, before things go to far with Arnie, or anyone for that matter, would you like me to make sure that you can’t get pregnant? At least until you are ready to.”

“You can do that?” she asked.

“Healer remember?” I said. “I’m sure it was mentioned somewhere down the line, but I guess you were so busy being embarrassed that we were discussing your sex life with your parents. You might not have caught it.”

“I wasn’t planning on jumping straight into bed with him,” she said. “I think he’s a virgin too. I also think he’s like you. He told me that he’d been crushing on you up until he saw me.”

“Does that bother you?” I asked.

She thought about that for a few moments, as we arrived at the truck. Mary and Amanda got in the back, and Jules and Ness went on to Ness’s car with Melanie. They purposely left Sarah the passenger seat.

We’d all gotten into our various vehicles before she continued the conversation as if it hadn’t been interrupted.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I heard it in his mind.  I also heard the fear that, if he told me, I’d not want to know him anymore. But he told me anyway. He wanted to be honest with me.”

“That’s a good place to start,” I said starting the truck.

“He told me about his mother,” she said. “She died when he was young. Cancer, I think, although he doesn’t really know. It’s been just him and his dad since he was about five. Danny never even brought a woman home, or at least Arnie never saw one.”

“Does he remember her?” I asked.

“Sort of,” she said. “He said he has pictures, and some memories, but he’s not sure if the memories are real or just his imagination based on the pictures.”

“When are you seeing him again?” asked Amanda from the back seat.

“I don’t know,” she said. “We swapped numbers. He says he’s got to work tomorrow and Sunday. Weekends are busy for the flight school, and now that he’s eighteen he can start taking people up. He’s excited about that.”

“He’s going to be instructing me,” I said, “in a couple of weeks

“Can I come?” she asked.

“I’m not sure it’s allowed, during a flight lesson,” I said. “I’m sure there’ll be plenty of time for you guys to catch up though.”

She sighed. “He’s just such a nice guy,” she said. “Real, you know? Most guys his age are so fake, full of bravado and bullshit. He’s funny, and cute and…”

“And a good kisser?” asked Amanda with a grin on her face.

Sarah blushed, but grinned.

“Not bad,” she said. “I think we both need more practice though.”

“I’m sure,” said Mary, “that if you ask him nicely, he’ll let you practice on him.”

Sarah laughed, “I’ll have to ask him.”

“I’ll ask him Monday for you,” I said. “We could set up a training session.”

“Don’t you dare!” she said. “You’ll embarrass him.”

I grinned at her. And then changed the subject. “Did you want to go see your parents over the weekend?” I asked her.

“Mom and Dad are taking Edgar out tomorrow,” she said. “They said he’s been asking about me and they wanted to distract him. I wouldn’t mind going on Sunday though. I know it’s only been just over a week, but I miss them.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “Give them a call tomorrow and see what they say.”

Glancing in my rearview, I saw red lights flashing. A fire truck was gaining on us fast. I pulled over to the side of the road, Ness pulling in behind me, to allow the truck to pass. While we were stopped, I looked over at my sister. A huge grin split her face and I could see from the look in her eyes that she was as smitten with Arnie as he had been with her.

She noticed me looking at her. “What?” she said. I grinned at her.

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

We set off again.

As we got closer to home, I could see the glow in the sky from the fire that the truck that had passed us must have been rushing to attend.

“Some poor soul is having a bad night,” Mary commented from the back seat. I, however, started to feel the first twinges of apprehension. I sped up.

As we pulled into our street, my fears were confirmed. The fire trucks, there were two of them, were parked on the street as firefighters attempted to staunch the blaze that was currently tearing through our house.