The Delphi Effect (The Delphi Trilogy Book 1)

  “Yeah. I’m just glad the other three left. I . . . I don’t think I was in control. Although . . .”

  I flash back to the lab, when I was standing with a fire extinguisher cocked like a bat, hurling words I didn’t understand at Deo. The Furies would have bashed Deo’s head in without thinking twice, but I managed to shove them back. To redirect their anger at Lucas, which is really what they wanted anyway.

  And did they do anything to Cregg and Lucas that I wouldn’t have done if I’d known I had the ability? I don’t think so.

  “Maybe I wasn’t entirely out of control, but it was close. The remaining hitcher, Jaden, isn’t so bad, although his visions aren’t exactly convenient.”

  “And the dreams from Molly?”

  “I’m handling them.”

  Kelsey’s arched eyebrow suggests she’s not entirely buying it, but she drops the subject. “Aaron seems nice. Are you having sex?”

  I nearly choke on my orange juice. “For a psychoanalyst, you have an appalling lack of subtlety. Where did you even get that idea?”

  “Something Aaron’s sister said earlier. He turned fifty shades of red and told her to mind her own business. And your eyes strayed in his direction when I mentioned the dream. Plus, it’s obvious you’re attracted to him.”

  I’ve talked to Kelsey about sex before, but that was in her office. I mean, when you’re six and you pick up the memories of an adult, some general discussion of sex is going to come up. But there’s no way I’m discussing my feelings for Aaron when he’s right across the room.

  “I’m attracted to him. But . . . so was Molly. We have a lot of things to sort out.” Kelsey seems like she’s about to say something else, so I quickly switch topics. “Porter looks much better.”

  “Yes, thank heaven.” She sighs. “Two shootings in less than a week. I hope Daniel is as lucky.”

  “Me, too.” I try to keep the doubt out of my voice, but I remember the blood soaking through my sweater from Daniel’s wound. How much I rinsed off in the sink at the rest area.

  Kelsey squeezes my hand. “Daniel is about forty years younger than Porter. And this hospital is one of the best in the nation. He’ll pull through.”

  “I hope so.” I stare down at the floor, screwing up my courage. “The thing is, I knew, Kelsey.”

  She frowns. “Knew what?”

  “I saw us running in one of Jaden’s visions. At the very end, I realized it was Daniel, not Cregg. But I couldn’t warn Deo. I couldn’t keep myself from yelling for him to go faster. From saying I thought it was Cregg behind us, even though part of my brain knew it was Daniel. Jaden says that’s just how the visions work. Whatever you saw happen, that’s what happens. I forgot about Deo having the gun. It wasn’t in the vision. And once I reached that part of the vision in real life, the words just wouldn’t form in time. If they had, Deo would never have shot Daniel. That’s why I was going after Deo. He’s kicking himself for something that’s not really his fault.”

  “Well, I’m not surprised.” Kelsey’s mouth does this thing, where it kind of squinches up on one side. I’ve seen it dozens of times, and it means she’s about to hit me with some insight that’s almost certainly right but isn’t what I want to hear. “You’ve given him an excellent role model.”

  “What?”

  “You’re doing it right now. Blaming yourself for something over which you have no control. Trying to shoulder all of the responsibility. He’s not a child anymore—”

  “I know.”

  “Then let him take some responsibility for his actions.”

  “But it wasn’t—”

  “If you only see what happens, if you can’t change it, then the vision is irrelevant. The mistake you made was thinking the man chasing after you was Cregg. The mistake Deo made was firing the gun based on that information. He was terrified that Cregg might get into his head again. Make him turn the gun on himself or even on you. And he made a very understandable mistake, as you did. If you want to help Deo get through this, let him own his mistake.”

  “And if Daniel dies? That’s a big mistake for a fifteen-year-old kid to own.”

  “So you should take on both halves? With everything else you have on your . . .” She stops, probably because my attention is now elsewhere.

  Ashley’s here. She stands in the middle of the corridor, eyes darting nervously.

  “Ashley?”

  “Anna.” She doesn’t seem surprised that we made it out. “I’m looking for Daniel. Is he okay?”

  “His condition was just upgraded to serious. You’d know what that means better than I do. All I know is that he lost a lot of blood.”

  “What happened?” Her eyes are red and swollen, and her hands work nervously at the strap of the purse on her shoulder. She seems on the verge of even more tears. That makes me wonder if Taylor’s assessment that Daniel was seeing someone wasn’t correct after all. Ashley looks way too upset to simply be checking up on a coworker, even if they were also coconspirators. “Is he conscious? Can I see him?”

  Her volume rises with each question. Several other people in the waiting room give her an annoyed glare before going back to their books, naps, or iPads.

  “I’m so sorry.” Kelsey is using her soft voice, the one she seems to slip into naturally when someone is in emotional distress. “It’s only immediate family right now, but when they get back, they might be able to put in a special request for you to see him. Why don’t you sit down over here? Anna, could you get . . . ?” She pauses, waiting for me to fill in the name.

  “Ashley,” I say. “Ashley Swinton.”

  Ashley physically startles. I have no clue why my remembering her last name sets her off, but it obviously does.

  “Could you get Ashley something to drink, Anna?”

  “Sure. I’ll be right back.”

  Whoa, she’s freakin’ out. I did not know she and Daniel had a thing.

  Why would you?

  Jaden laughs.

  The morning after you arrived, Maria took great pleasure in telling all the guys in the place that the new blonde on the Highside wasn’t going to be impressed with their sorry asses ’cause she had a thing for someone on the outside. But . . . Ashley might just be upset about her sister. Maybe she was one of the wabbits they decided not to transport. I think I’d believe that before I’d believe Maria missed a hookup between two Fudds.

  Aaron shoots a questioning look over the officer’s shoulder. I don’t know if it’s because I’m standing here, spaced and blushing, or because he’s wondering about Ashley. Either way, I can’t really answer him.

  Ashley mumbles a thank-you when I give her the water, but her eyes keep shooting over to the police talking to Aaron and Taylor.

  “I’m glad you escaped before the fire got out of control. I never got a chance to really thank you for helping me when Lucas—”

  “You thanked me already.” Her tone makes it clear that she really, really doesn’t want to discuss it, and I’m actually okay with that.

  “Do you know what happened? Was the place on fire when you left?”

  “No,” Ashley says, still watching the police. “I mean, yes. But it was still small. I heard on the radio . . .”

  I wait for her to say something else, but she’s staring ahead. At first, I think it’s just a blank stare, but then a woman holding a baby gets up, and her eyes follow them.

  “Were they able to evacuate the kids? I heard a helicopter—it sounded like a big one—as we were leaving. But I don’t know how it could hold everyone.”

  “They have buses, too. The chopper was for the ones who need to be . . . contained.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “I drove.” And then she fixes me with a look that very clearly translates as shut the hell up.

  So I do. We sit there for the next few minutes, mostly in silence. Kelsey speaks to Ashley a few times, and gets short but generally civil answers. Ashley seems to relax a bit when the police leave, but she tenses right
back up when she realizes that means Taylor and Aaron are about to join us.

  “I need to find a bathroom,” she says, quickly capping the water bottle and tossing it onto the seat next to her.

  “Down the hall to the . . . right.” Kelsey concludes with a little huff because Ashley is already well out of earshot.

  “Who was that?” Taylor asks.

  “A friend of Daniel’s. Ashley. She worked at The Warren. At Delphi, that is.”

  Ashley’s long gone now, but Taylor tilts her head in that direction anyway. “Seems very upset to be just a friend.”

  Aaron is only half paying attention. He’s looking up something on his phone. I move to sit next to him. Since Kelsey and Taylor have deemed us a couple, I might as well take advantage of it.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Just . . . picked up on a few things when he was taking my statement. Nothing concrete, but . . . checking to see if CNN or one of the local stations—hold on. Holy . . .”

  He clicks the link. A reporter is in the foreground. Off in the distance is the building Deo and I were in. Fire blazes from every opening. Two of the other buildings in the courtyard are also in flames, and smoke pours from the windows of a third.

  “Firefighters from five neighboring counties struggle to contain a baffling fire in the sleepy river town of Port Deposit, Maryland. For the second time in five years, fire has swept through Memorial Hall, the one-hundred-and-seventeen-year-old building directly behind me. Once part of a prestigious private campus, the Tome School buildings were purchased by the federal government during the mobilization for World War II, as part of the Bainbridge Naval Training Center. The historic buildings you see here are pretty much all that remain. Local authorities attributed the 2014 fire to teenage arsonists, but some are questioning that conclusion today with the discovery that these fires actually began underground. Gunshots were also reported earlier this evening, and at least one person captured video of a military-style helicopter touching down nearby sometime after midnight.

  “The Department of Homeland Security is on the scene, and an unofficial source has confirmed that a terrorist organization was operating out of this abandoned, underground government facility. Authorities have been following reports that Franco Lucas, a suspect in the murders of several local women over the past few years, was operating a human trafficking ring in neighboring Harford County. The speculation now is that he may have been using that ring and other illegal activities to fund the group. The source had no comment on whether they have Lucas in custody. There was also no comment on whether the fire was set by the terrorist group itself, or by the government in an effort to . . . well, smoke them out.”

  The image goes back to the news desk, with an inset screen of the reporter at the scene on his right.

  “Thank you, Vince. Do we have any word yet on the nature of the terrorist group? Is this a foreign threat or domestic?”

  “No word yet, John, but rest assured that there will be updates on this breaking story throughout the day.”

  The fire disappears and is replaced by a woman in a red suit who looks appallingly chipper for 5:15 in the morning.

  “News of a potentially massive terror cell less than seventy miles from the nation’s capital . . . less than a year from the presidential election? Let’s check in with our political correspondent, Cindy Barr.”

  “Well, as you can imagine, John, Twitter is heating up fast. It’s still well over an hour before sunrise, but candidates from both parties have already jumped into the fray. The most interesting so far, however, may be a message that appears to come from independent candidate Ron Cregg himself, known to be an early riser.

  “As you can see in the screenshot the tweet from @RonCregg reads: @Whitehouse incapable of managing threats in our backyard. Info on this cell provided to DHS by source close to Cregg campaign back in JULY.”

  Aaron turns the phone off and shakes his head. “He’s good. Take the whole fiasco and find a way to make political capital out of it.”

  When I look up from the screen, I see that Deo has been watching over my shoulder. I didn’t even realize he’d come back into the waiting room.

  “They didn’t mention anything about the shooting, did they?”

  “Just that there were reports of gunfire,” Taylor says. “But then they moved on to the helicopter. Don’t worry. No one saw you running from the scene.”

  Deo pulls in a sharp breath. Taylor looks the tiniest bit guilty, probably because Aaron is shooting daggers at her with his eyes.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” she mumbles. “Sorry.”

  But I kind of think she did mean it that way.

  “It’s okay,” Deo says. “Did you know that nurse is here? The one from The Warren? I passed her in the hallway.”

  I nod. “She’s here to visit Daniel. Said she needed the bathroom.”

  “If she got out,” Aaron says. “I’m guessing she’s not the only one. When you say Cregg was on fire when you left the lab, do you mean a five-alarm blaze or . . . ?”

  “His clothes. And the cell phone case was kind of . . . melted to him.”

  “Then we have to assume he made it out alive. Possibly Lucas and Dacia as well. And that means we need to get the two of you out of here before your house parent or whatever shows up. You can’t go back there. It’s the first place they’ll look.”

  “I tried to explain that to the police,” Kelsey says. “But they seem convinced that you wound up with Lucas because you left the safety of Bartholomew House. He said they’d have additional security, and that we shouldn’t worry. I think they just want you where they can keep an eye on you in case they have additional questions.”

  “So . . . options?” Aaron glances around at the four of us.

  “Kelsey’s beach house is no good anymore. That’s where they found me last time, so it’s probably the second place they’d look.”

  “Same goes for my house,” Kelsey says. “The State of Maryland is already questioning my ability to be objective where the two of you are concerned.” She gives me a stern look. “And that’s not a problem for me. I wasn’t planning to take on any new patients after this year anyway. A gradual retirement suits me just fine.”

  “Before all this happened, Deo and I were planning to catch a bus out of town. We had a location all picked out. As much as I hate to admit it, that may still be our best option. Driving is kind of out for me as long as I’m having these visions, and—”

  Aaron shakes his head. “Bad idea anyway.”

  Taylor barks out a laugh. “Now how did I know you were going to say that?”

  “I’m serious, Tay. The two of them off on their own, with no backup if Cregg’s people do happen to track them down? That’s a bad idea.”

  I’m not surprised in the slightest that Kelsey agrees, but I am a little surprised to hear Deo taking that side. “Aaron’s right, Anna. Think about how close we came to not making it out of there. Safety in numbers.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I admit. “And . . . to be honest, I’m not certain we’re the only ones at risk. Something that Jaden said earlier has me worried. I think at least a few of the kids in The Warren got enough of a glimpse into my head that they know about Aaron.” I feel my face growing hot, so I add, “Taylor, too. Whether they also picked up that you’re gifted, I can’t say. I’m sorry. I could block Dacia, but . . . it’s not possible to keep the walls up 24/7, and some of those kids . . . you would not believe.”

  Taylor shrugs. “Had to happen eventually. Maybe it’s for the best.” Her voice rises intentionally as she looks behind me. “Maybe Mom and Sam and Daniel will stop treating us like teeny-tiny babies in the cradle now.”

  “Hi, Mom. Hi, Sam.” Aaron doesn’t even look around to confirm it, but I do. Michele Quinn and Sam are a few yards behind us. Porter, too.

  “Hello, Aaron.” She gives her daughter an exasperated half smile. “Taylor, your claims of maturity would be a lot more credible if y
ou acted like an adult when making them.”

  Taylor sticks her tongue out. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  Her mother responds in kind, and even though their coloring is different, I think pretty much anyone would tag them as mother and daughter right now.

  Mrs. Quinn turns to me and Deo. “Kelsey, I’ve already met, but . . .”

  “I’m Anna Morgan. And this is Deo Ramos.” Deo nods, but he doesn’t seem able to meet her eyes. “We are so, so sorry about Daniel, Mrs. Quinn.”

  “It’s Michele. And the fault lies with Graham Cregg. Daniel said it was an accident, that there was no way you could have—”

  “He’s awake?” Aaron says.

  Taylor is already on her feet. “Can we see him?”

  “Yes,” Sam says. “He’s awake, but very weak. You’ll need to go in one at a time, but he wants to see you both. It’s on the second floor—Room 219.”

  Aaron gives my arm a quick squeeze before he goes. I don’t know if anyone else catches it, but Taylor must get her sharp eyes from her mother. Michele’s face isn’t nearly as expressive however, and I can’t tell if she approves or disapproves.

  My inner-Emily says it’s neither, that she’s withholding judgment for the time being.

  Porter sits down in one of the chairs across from me. “Hey, Anna.” He gives Deo a little nod. “I’m glad the two of you made it home safe.”

  “That’s actually what we were discussing,” Kelsey says. “I’m not sure that their current home is safe, but that seems to be where they’re expected to return.”

  Michele and Porter exchange a look, and then she says, “We may have a solution, but before we get into that, how much do you think Delphi knows about Aaron and Taylor?”

  “I don’t know.” I repeat what I just finished telling the others. “I did my best, but . . .”

  “From what you’ve told us,” Michele says, “they could just as easily have gotten information from Daniel. Taking the Delphi position was a risk. I wasn’t entirely behind his decision, but Magda wanted more data, more names, before we began. Daniel has put together a pretty solid file over the past two months. I was worried the data might have been lost in the fire, but he slipped this to me when we were in the room.” She opens her hand to reveal a flash drive about the size of a Starburst. “So she definitely wants to move forward.”