Brain Storm (A Taylor Morrison Novel Book 1) Read online

  She looked me in the eyes for several seconds. I could tell she was trying to determine my state of mind and if it was safe to let me in the bathroom by myself or not. To help sway her, I tossed the knife in the sink and leaned back against the counter to munch on my cheese, trying my best to look sane. I must have passed the test, because she seemed to deflate a little, her facial muscles relaxing. I knew the signs. She was coming around.

  “Sordid?” she questioned.

  “Well no, not really. It was a figure of speech. But at the very least it’s bizarre. You love bizarre.”

  “I do. I love bizarre.” She was caving. “You promise to tell me the WHOLE story and not leave anything out?”

  “I promise,” I called out as I trotted off to the bathroom. “I’ll even tell you about Denzel.”

  “Denzel? DENZEL? What?” I smiled to myself as I closed the door to her questions feeling pleased at having escaped the inquisitor and gaining time to compose my thoughts.

  And just what is the story? I asked myself, as I looked in the mirror. I had no idea. The only thing I knew for sure, was that whatever was going on, Trinity would be right there with me. She was a good friend. As the hot spray of the shower hit my sore back and muscles, it was a very comforting thought.

  I CAME OUT of the bathroom feeling like a new woman. My hair had survived its fourth wash of the day and the hot water had helped relieve my headache. Trinity had set the table in the dining room. A quick glance at the table told me we were using the old mismatched flatware from the kitchen, although Grandma’s good silver was conspicuously absent from the floor. I heard the doorbell announcing the arrival of dinner and it was none too soon. I was starving, which I took as a positive sign that I was headed back to my normal self, whatever that might be.

  “Well, you look better,” Trinity said as she came through the door juggling a pizza box and a couple of take-out salads. Normally I avoided pizza and the morning after guilt like the plague, but tonight the smell coming from that box was enough to make me forego my salad and dig right in.

  “So spill.” She hadn’t even let me get the first bite of pizza. Almost there, close enough to see the speckles on the pepperoni. I weighed my options and went ahead and took a big bite, and ended up on the receiving end of a steely eyed glare as I slowly chewed it. I gave her the wait-a-minute finger sign and closed my eyes so I could enjoy that first bite in peace. I chased it down with a big swallow of ice cold Diet Coke. Heaven. Absolute heaven.

  I opened my eyes to see her poised with her fork over her salad watching me. Spill, she had said, so spill I did. I told her the whole story, including the magic keys, the flying coffee and Denzel. Then I wrapped up explaining my far-from-scientific brain experiment during which I had failed to move a single spoon. Apart from throwing them across the room. She had listened in silence, quietly munching away on her salad until I got to the flying coffee part, when she shoved it aside and went for the pizza. I understood completely.

  Dinner finished, we pushed our plates aside. Trinity placed her elbows on the table, propped her chin on her hands and took a deep breath. I braced for impact.

  “Okay, let me get this straight. You’ve had this going on for a couple of months now and I’m just now hearing about it?” She was staring me right in the eye.

  “I didn’t think it was anything. Just weird stuff,” I said, trying to defend my actions, which to tell the truth, I wasn’t sure needed defending. “You don’t tell me every time you have déjà vu, do you?”

  This was definitely not the discussion I thought we’d be having. I was thinking more along the lines of “Are you nuts? Someone call Bellevue!” or something along those lines. I never dreamed she would be put out that I hadn’t told her about the key thing.

  “Look, there was really nothing to tell before today and then I got so freaked out I wasn’t thinking straight. I don’t even know what happened most of the day. One minute I’m sitting there trying to move the spoons and the next minute you’re pounding on the door and hours have gone by and I have no clue where the time went.”

  “I’ll tell you where it went. Where it always goes. It’s just that you are usually aware of it. So you have no idea of what’s going on?”

  “No, I don’t. I have no idea,” I said, getting up to make some coffee. Trinity trailed after me with the empty plates. “All I know is that I lost track of the time, never heard the phone and made coffee fly through the air.”

  “Okay, I get it. You don’t know. You are dead on, though, about the bizarre part. So what do you think is going on?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you. I obviously have no idea as evidenced by the spoon debacle.” I slammed a mug down onto the counter a little too hard and cringed. Maybe I wasn’t as far back to normal as I thought. Trinity ignored the mug slam and pulled the cream out of the refrigerator.

  “Don’t dismiss the spoon thing. I think that was a good idea, although possibly poorly executed.” I rolled my eyes at this. How were you supposed to execute a spur of the moment spoon moving experiment? Give me a break. “You’re on target with eliminating the possibles, but it may not be that cut and dry.”

  “What are you getting at here?”

  “What I’m getting at here,” she repeated as she handed me the cream and picked up her purse, “is that you got freaked out and panicked today. I don’t blame you a bit. It would have freaked me out too, but you make your living investigating and researching and you’re good at it. You don’t even know what this ability is called, or how to correctly test for it.”

  I followed her through the condo toward the door, still holding the cream. She was actually leaving. I might be going insane and she was leaving. So much for knowing Trinity would be right there beside me!

  She paused at the door as if sensing my growing panic and pinned me against the wall with a sharply nailed index finger to my chest.

  “You’re the one I come to for answers. It’s what you do and you’re good at it. Whatever is happening here, you can handle it. Look at what you’ve gotten through this year! You’re strong Taylor. You’ve just forgotten that. Call me tomorrow and let me know what you’ve found out.” On that final note, she sailed right through the door, closing it firmly behind her.

  I was stunned. Everything that had happened that day and all I could think of was that she had left me. Alone. In the condo. Didn’t she realize I was dangerous? I had just confided in her that I couldn’t be trusted in public places and thought I was going nuts. She had seen the spoons, for Pete’s sake and she just left me here all alone! I don’t know if it was the sound of the coffee dripping or the smell that finally snapped me out of my state of disbelief. I had been standing there staring at the door for I don’t know how long, probably with my mouth hanging open. The cream was dangling dangerously from my fingertips and in an effort not to drop it, I managed to crush the top of the carton.

  Fine. Just fine. You go get a good night’s sleep Trinity, and I’ll just sit here and go quietly insane, I thought as I tripped back into the kitchen. I poured myself a huge cup of coffee, and threw the crushed carton of cream back into the refrigerator, slamming the door for effect. I grabbed up my mug and strode out of the kitchen, headed for my study and the computer that sat waiting on my desk.

  TWO

  BY THE TIME I hit my sixth web site, I was a lot less angry with Trinity and a lot more annoyed with myself. Why hadn’t I done this to begin with? Trinity was right. This is what I do. I research, I hunt down facts, I find the truth. Apparently just for other people. The moment I run into something I don’t understand about myself, I start throwing spoons around.

  I sighed and stood up, stretching my back. Glancing at my watch, I realized it was nearly midnight. Trinity had left a little after 6:00 so I’d been at it for about 6 hours. Time for a real break. That’s one thing you learn fast doing computer research. If you don’t take regular breaks to rest your eyes and stretch out your muscles, you severely limit the amount of time yo
u can sit there working. I make a point to do just that every 15 minutes or so and then take longer breaks every few hours. Six hours was a long stint and my back felt it as I made my way back to the kitchen. I emptied the coffee pot out into my mug and reached for the beans for start another one. As the coffee started dripping, I tried stretching out with some toe touchers. After about twenty, I was finally limber enough to actually touch my toes without too much effort. Hurrah for me! I abhor exercise, but consider it a necessary evil. Any completion of intent where exercise is concerned, I consider a reason for a mini-celebration.

  Picking up my mug, I wandered over to the dining room. Spotting the pizza box still on the table, I went over to flip the lid and peruse the leftovers. Surely pizza was good after six hours. I mean it was still in the box. I started with picking off a couple of couple rounds of pepperoni and then gave up and grabbed a whole piece. I decided I’d munch standing up as I’d be sitting down again at the computer later. Looking at Trinity’s half finished salad reminded me how angry I had been with her earlier, when she had abandoned me. Or rather, when I thought she had abandoned me. I should have known better. That I didn’t, told me just how shaken up I had been.

  Trinity Davis, tall, dark and gorgeous, was a force to be reckoned with. I had met her about six years ago, when I landed in Little Rock on a case. I had been working a free lance investigation for a woman whose ex had run out on child support. His last known was Little Rock and I had come here to search records and ask around to see if I could find any indication of where he had gone to. Trinity, being a criminal lawyer specializing in Family Law, was one of my first stops when I hit town. I had done my homework and knew she had gained a reputation as being one of the most passionate and fierce prosecutors in town. My kind of lawyer. She was nothing like I had expected.

  The tall, graceful black woman who stood up from behind the desk and took my hand was not the image of the woman nicknamed “Pitt Bull” that I had in my head. Beautiful and elegant, were words I would use to describe her. Scrappy and cute were words people had used to describe me. I barely topped 5’6 and Trinity all but towered over me, a good six feet tall, not counting the ridiculously high heels she sported on a regular basis. You could practically see the southern warmth and charm oozing out of her, whereas aloof and distant were adjectives I’d heard used to describe me when people thought I wasn’t paying attention.

  Her wardrobe was designer all the way, every nail buffed and polished, every hair in place. I stood there in my boots, jeans and leather jacket, my unruly, plain brown hair going every which way, my nails trimmed short and bare. I didn’t have time for manicures and hair salons. I was busy tracking wife abusers, child molesters, missing children and dead beat exes who wouldn’t pay child support. This amazon woman, sitting in her posh office, certainly didn’t fit the information I had on her and I was halfway convinced that I made a mistake until she excused herself to take a call she had been waiting on. I listened in awe as she skewered whoever was on the other end, glad it wasn’t me.

  This was more like the woman I had researched. I had the basics on her. Oldest of two children, she had been raised in the all too common family unit of an abusive father and an overworked mother trying to keep what was left of her family together. When Trinity was 12, her mother died and her Dad had taken off. She and her brother had gone to live with her Grandmother, who took on extra work in order to support the extra mouths. I saw the same story often in my line of work. Good people ending up in low-income housing, scraping by with low-paying jobs, life a never ending struggle, stuck in a never ending cycle of barely surviving.

  The difference here was that Trinity had clawed her way out. A brilliant and determined student, she had ended up with a full scholarship, graduating top of her class and landing a position with one of the most prestigious law firms in the state. Her high profile cases and the high fees she brought into the firm, gave her the standing and the freedom she needed to follow her real passion. Never forgetting her childhood, she went after those who abused; white or black, man or woman, rich or poor, it didn’t matter. And if you hurt a child? Well, Heaven help you, because once she got her teeth into you, you were caught and caught good. Her record proved it.

  As with most research, though, you never know the whole story, until you talk to the people. Records are just that – records. Facts can be misleading. A good investigator talks to people, gets a sense of what’s happening. What motivates people. What makes them tick. You have to keep an open mind and learn to listen. Sometimes, the pieces all fall into place. Other times, it just comes down to following your gut instinct.

  As it happens, I have exceptional instincts. They were telling me that Trinity Davis was just what I needed to get my job done and they’d been been dead on the money. Becoming good friends was an added bonus. Becoming a part of her extended family even more so.

  I finished my pizza and closed up the lid. Carrying it and the wilted salads to the garbage can in the kitchen, I thanked God that I had Trinity in my life. She had persuaded me to come and do investigative work for her in Little Rock. I had accepted on the condition I could still freelance cases on occasion. She agreed and the rest, as they say, was history.

  We had supported each other over the years in good times and bad. Trinity had been there when I met a great guy named Keith, stood by me when I married him and held me together when he was killed a year later in a traffic accident. I celebrated when Trinity was named Lawyer of the Year, spent the holidays with her family, and cried with her when Kevin, her brother, was killed in a drive-by shooting.

  I filled my cup with fresh coffee, added my cream and headed back to the study. I owed Trinity an apology. I had been furious with her for leaving, but she knew me and knew I needed to find my own way through this mess. The one thing we both had learned over the past six years and all the pain and loss we had both endured, was that you had to be strong for yourself. Friends could support you, but in the end, it all comes down to you.

  I sat down at the computer with a new determination. Whatever was happening, whatever was going on, I would survive it and move on. I had forgotten that. Trinity had reminded me.

  THREE

  “TELEKINESIS,” I BLURTED out when Trinity picked up her phone.

  “I give,” she laughed, sounding relieved, “Telekinesis who?”

  “Telekinesis me. Or not. Maybe. I’ll explain it later. You free for lunch?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding? No way am I missing this. By the way,” she paused and I knew what was coming, “I’m glad you survived the night. Taylor, I was really worried.”

  I figured she had been, which was why I called her at home, first thing in the morning. In our relationship, Trinity is the fiery passionate avenger, while I am the cool, logical one. Last night, I turned the tables and our roles were reversed. I had scared her. Shoot, I’d scared myself and thrown her into alien territory. She may have known walking away was the right thing to do last night, but I knew she hadn’t liked it anymore than I did and had probably stayed up all night worrying if she’d done the right thing.

  I assured her I was fine, or if not fine, at least I was doing better. We made plans to meet at 11:30 at our favorite barbecue joint on Cantrell. It was a little early, but we would have a good chance of getting our food before the line was out the door.

  I had managed to catch a couple hours of sleep in the wee hours. After a fast inspection in the mirror while brushing my teeth I came to the conclusion that another shower wasn’t called for after the endless scrubbings yesterday. A little work on some hair lumps with my trusty flatiron, which is the best thing ever invented, and I was ready for the day.

  I needed to stop by and try get some information from some possible witnesses on a case Trinity was working on so I hopped up into my Expedition and headed out. I wanted to stop and get my daily dose of coffee, but as I started to pull into the parking lot, the whole ordeal from the day before flashed through my brain and decided against i
t. I had no desire to re-visit the scene of the crime and really didn’t want to run into anyone who been there to witness the whole debacle. Especially Denzel. Better not to risk it. Its not like there weren’t a dozen other coffee shops within a few blocks to choose from. I merged back into traffic and headed over to a place over on Chenal Parkway to get my caffeine in a cup before heading south into the I-30 area and my objective for the morning.

  It felt good to be back at work. After what I had learned the night before in my research, I felt fairly confident that there wouldn’t be any surprises today, but I was keeping my guard up anyhow and ordered at the drive through. Better to keep a few panes of glass between me and the other customers. At least until after I had my first cup of joe.

  I turned onto Shackleford and then merged onto 430 right in front of a black BMW 325i. Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you one BMW model from another. I wasn’t a car person at all, but in my line of work, I needed to know one make from another. I had the basics down pretty good, but it wasn't until I met Keith and his absolute adoration of the German sports car line, that I learned the difference between a 300 series and a 500 series. I now recognized the car without any problem, because that was what Keith drove. He said that was BMW’s smallest sedan. Four doors, an engine that roared and handling like a race car. It was his way of having a sensible business car while fulfilling his sports car needs. He loved that car and I loved to see the joy in his face when he drove it. It was the car he was driving when he went off the I-30 Bridge into the Arkansas River. Every time I saw one, it brought it all back.