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  “Time? Time for what?” interrupted Darwin.

  “That's kind of complicated and a little hard to believe,” she answered with a sigh. “The important thing is that it seems I got here before they did. Now we can see about getting you prepared and, hopefully, stopping them before it's too late.”

  “What are you talking about!?”

  “Look,” she said, leaning forward and resting a hand lightly on Darwin’s leg. “I know you have tons of questions. I promise to answer as many as I can. However, your condo is hardly secure, and I think it would be best that we continue this conversation somewhere I know we can't be overheard. I have an office near here. Why don't we go there, and I will tell you why I am here and what this is all about?”

  “Are you totally nuts!” exclaimed Darwin, leaping up. He began to pace back and forth.

  “You break in. You get into bed with me. When you wake up, you act like you own the place. Now, you want me to go with you to some place of yours so we can talk about some mysterious something because it is supposedly not safe here.

  “You have to be out of your mind!”

  Darwin stopped pacing and confronted the woman.

  “What I think I'll do is forget your lunatic ramblings and toss you out of here on your very cute behind. I don't know what institution you escaped from, but you can scurry on back to them and leave me out of your deluded fantasies. Now, you can either leave on your own or, as much as I am loath to, I will remove you forcibly.”

  “You think I have a cute butt?” asked the woman, quirking one elegant eyebrow.

  Darwin blinked at her in response, not certain how to respond to that.

  “Sorry, very cute,” she said, correcting herself.

  Gathering himself, Darwin moved past her to the front door and opened it.

  “If you just leave, I'm willing to forget the entire thing. Otherwise, I'm calling the police and having you arrested for criminal trespass. Am I making myself clear here?”

  “Your profile suggested you might react this way.”

  “Profile?” started Darwin, before shaking his head angrily. “Nope. I don't want to know. Not interested. Please leave. Now.”

  He indicated the open door.

  The woman untucked her leg and swiveled to face him, casually leaning against the back of the couch. She regarded him and started to twirl a lock of hair with her right hand. She gave every indication of calling his bluff. Darwin stared at her, trying to remain angry, trying not to let his curiosity push his reason aside. Trying to focus on her as an intruder and not a sexy woman.

  He was not winning.

  As much as he had meant everything he had said, carrying out his threats was another matter entirely. He didn't doubt he could overpower the woman sitting all too relaxed on his couch, however, he would really rather avoid the unpleasantness he was certain would follow that line of action. He could just imagine what the neighbors would be saying as he physically manhandled a woman from his home. Especially if he was asked why and had to tell them the absurd truth.

  Maybe he could bluff.

  Darwin closed the front door, stopping just short of slamming it. He walked to the side table by the chair, picked up his cell phone from where it was charging and unlocked it. He had no bars.

  I always have bars.

  He moved it around, but he continued to get no signal. He walked out to the kitchen. Still nothing. He headed to the bedroom. Still nothing.

  Puzzled, but unwilling to listen to the tiny voice chattering in the back of his mind about unseen observers – now fortified with malicious intent - he stalked from the bedroom and went over to his office. He woke up his desktop only to see a notice that it was offline.

  “You can’t be offline,” he said softly to himself, looking over at the blinking lights for his router. “The TV is working and it is the same service.”

  “My office is only about ten minutes from here,” said the woman from where she stood, leaning against the office doorway, arms crossed casually before her. “All I ask is that you give me thirty minutes of your time to explain what is going on. If you don't believe me after that, we part ways never to see each other again. I promise.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” asked Darwin, becoming increasingly frustrated. He continued to check his phone and desktop, but there was no signal and the usual list of local Wi-Fi spots were empty.

  “I'm trying to help you, whether you believe it or not,” she said exasperatedly. “If you just give me a chance, I can explain everything.”

  “No!” shouted Darwin, frustration building into anger. He stormed towards the woman. “You want to help me? Get the hell out of my home!”

  Darwin grabbed the woman by her arms, fully intending to drag her to the front door and outside. However, he was stopped short when she didn't move. It wasn't that she pushed against him or anything, it was just that he didn't seem to have the strength to move her. Tightening his grip, he tried once more to push the woman aside but was met with no success. She was far stronger than she appeared.

  “Look,” she said in a reasonable tone of voice, stepping toward him. Rather than be chest to chest, Darwin released his grip on her arms and took a couple of steps back. “This is getting us nowhere, fast. Why not make things easier on both of us and just come with me?”

  Darwin pondered the unspoken threat he felt lurked behind her reasonable exterior. His plans of forcing her out of his place physically, didn't seem so foolproof at the moment. She had obviously sabotaged his phone and computer sometime last night. What else had she done, and why?

  His thoughts returned to the absurdity of the situation. If she meant to hurt him, why not just do it while he was sleeping? If she wanted to talk to him, why not just come by his home when he was awake? What was the purpose of breaking in and climbing into bed with him only to wake up and suggest they go somewhere to talk?

  Besides, as reluctant as he was to admit it, he wanted to know more about someone willing to go to these lengths to -- what? Deliver a warning about an impending dire threat to his well-being? Recruit him into a cult? Sign him up for a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme? Get a date?

  That last thought he quickly pushed aside.

  Focus Darwin.

  The upside of agreeing to go with her was that he would have her out of his home. The downside was that he would be agreeing to go off with her to some secluded spot for --.

  Stopping himself from following that line of reasoning, he said, “Okay. Thirty minutes. No more. Once we are done with that, I can return to my life, and you can go wherever beautiful crazy people who break into homes go that is away from me.”

  “Wonderful,” she said, heading back to his bedroom. “Of course, you may change your mind after you hear what I have to say.”

  She paused in the bedroom doorway, Darwin trailing after her.

  “Or you just might want to keep a beautiful woman with a very cute butt around,” she continued, giving him a wink. “Just let me get my coat.”

  Darwin stopped where he was, blushing.

  The woman emerged from his bedroom wearing a worn, black, leather, bomber jacket. Darwin wondered where it had been, and then thought better of asking. He grabbed his blue windbreaker from the coat tree by the front door. Putting it on, he opened the door.

  She smiled her thanks as he held open the door. She slid past him, needlessly close.

  Darwin asked, “Do you have a name or am I just going to have to call you, 'hey you'?”

  “Patience.”

  “No,” said Darwin, turning around from locking the door. “I think I deserve that much right now.”

  The woman chuckled musically. “Patience is my name, sweetie.”

  Darwin followed Patience down the stairwell, pausing on a landing to let two movers maneuver a couch into the recently sold unit one floor, down and across the stairwell. As he went down the final flight of steps, a voice called out above him. br />
  “Darwin? Darwin Mendelson?”

  Darwin turned around and stepped back. A slender woman with coppery skin, wearing a cornflower blue blouse, looked down at him.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “You don't remember me do you,” she accused him, frowning.

  Darwin blinked several times, trying to jumpstart his brain. She looked familiar, but he couldn't place where he had seen her before.

  “Yoki?” offered the woman, helpfully.

  “Yoki Benally?” said Darwin. His memory coming back to him all at once. “It's been how many years?”

  “Only two,” she said, breaking into a broad grin. She left the railing and came dancing down the short flight of stairs to him. She reached the bottom and moved over to give him a quick hug. “How are you? Do you live here too?”

  “Uh, yeah. I have the unit on the top left. I can't believe this. How are you?”

  Before she could answer, one of the movers called down to her about where they should put the couch.

  “I have to go,” she said, drifting back towards the stairs. “We'll have to get together sometime and catch up.”

  “Sure,” said Darwin.

  “How about tonight?” she asked, stopping a couple of steps up. “I'm going to need a break after unpacking all day.”

  “Okay.”

  “Stop by after six?”

  “Count on it.”

  “Great. See you then.”

  With that, Yoki disappeared up the stairs and into her condo. Darwin shook his head in wonderment and turned around. Patience stood waiting for him on the walkway in front of the building, hands in her jacket pockets, a pair of reflective sunglasses masking her eyes.

  “Friend of yours?” she asked neutrally, as he joined her.

  “From college. What, this wasn't in your, what was it, profile of me?” he asked sarcastically.

  “It is now,” she answered with a dazzling smile, turning to the parking lot.

  “Where are we going?” asked Darwin, fishing his car keys out of his pocket.

  “We'll take my car, if that's okay,” she said, moving off to the right. “I can drop you back here when we're finished.”

  Darwin hesitated, then sighed and followed her resignedly. She stopped at a black Scion FR-S. As she opened the door, he commented, “You really have a thing for black, don't you?”

  “Not really,” she replied. “It just worked out that way today. Besides, I thought you kind of have a thing for goth girls?”

  Darwin opened his mouth, only to snap it closed and get into the car.

  They backed out of the space and headed for the parking lot exit. Patience pulled onto the street and they were off, neither one noticing the individual watching their departure with great interest.

  CHAPTER 03

  I am trapped in a room with a crazy person. An armed crazy person. A crazy person who is expecting me to believe them. How did I get myself into this?

  Taking a moment, Darwin went over the last thirty minutes in his mind.

  After a brief ten-minute drive, carried out in silence, they had arrived at a small business park set behind a rundown strip mall. Patience parked in a nearly vacant lot and they got out. Their destination was located between a real estate office and a local pet emporium specializing in saltwater fish. A stenciled sign on the frosted glass door held three lines in a fancy script: Patience Niazi; Security Specialist; Confidential Investigations.

  Patience unlocked the door and they went inside.

  The front office was a cozy waiting room. There were two doors on the wall across from the entrance. The one on the right had a brass plate that read PRIVATE. The door on the left had the word RESTROOM stenciled on it in bright white letters.

  A small folding table on the right held a coffee pot and a stack of disposable cups and paper towels. A battered mini-fridge hummed quietly underneath the table. A green leather couch and a few mismatched chairs were spaced around the circumference of the room. A coffee table squatted near the center of the floor, holding a variety of recent magazines.

  Patience unlocked the door marked, PRIVATE and led him inside. A large wooden desk sat opposite the door with two comfortable looking chairs facing it. On the right-hand wall, were floor-to-ceiling overflowing bookcases. Along the left-hand wall, rested a couple of filing cabinets and some lockers. A door was set into the wall behind the desk on the left, leading, who knew where.

  Patience moved behind the desk and cracked the blinds over the windows to let in some light without really giving a view of what lay beyond. Darwin dropped his lanky frame into the left-hand chair facing the desk. Patience moved from behind the desk and quietly shut the door that led into the waiting room. She threw a switch on the wall next to the door.

  Darwin looked around. The bookcases held a wide range of titles without any apparent organization. There were reference books on a number of natural sciences, what looked like some textbooks, a cluster of puzzle books, and quite a few books dealing with investigation and surveillance. Interspersed among these, were other random items – some magazines dealing with special effects, a dozen or so paperback novels, mainly mysteries, and a stack of take-out menus from local restaurants.

  Also, about half the books looked like they were dedicated to UFOs, ancient aliens or psychic phenomena.

  He assumed the filing cabinets contained case paperwork. The lockers probably held surveillance equipment and electronics. There was an unassuming framed license on the wall above the filing cabinets.

  She’s a private investigator, thought Darwin.

  “Take off your coat and make yourself comfortable,” said Patience, heading back behind the desk. She took her own advice and removed her jacket, draping it across the back of her chair.

  Darwin turned from tossing his jacket into the vacant chair next to him in time to see Patience unclipping a holster from her belt.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “You’ve never seen a gun before?” she asked with a smile, removing the weapon from the holster. She deposited the gun and holster into her top right drawer.

  “I’ve seen a gun before,” replied Darwin, peeved at her comment. “I just didn’t know you had one with you.”

  “No reason you should have,” said Patience, distractedly, unlocking the center drawer of the desk and removing a laptop. She inserted a cable resting on the desk into a port on the computer. Tapping in a series of quick commands, she nodded her head, satisfied with the results.

  “We should be secure now,” she announced.

  “Wonderful,” said Darwin, pulling out his phone and pointedly looking at the time. “The clock is running so tell me what this is all about and I can get back to my life.”

  Patience sat back and looked at Darwin. The fingers of her right hand drummed nervously on the desktop as she collected her thoughts. Finally, she sat forward and folded her hand before her on the desk. She caught Darwin's green eyes with her black ones and held them.

  “Most of what I am about to tell you is going to sound impossible,” she began. “And even more of it will sound absurd. However, it is all true. All I ask at this point is that you let me tell you everything without interruption. When I'm done you can ask me any questions you want or get up and walk out. Deal?”

  Darwin nodded a reluctant approval.

  Taking a deep breath, Patience started her pitch.

  “Contrary to popular belief, psychic powers do exist.”

  Darwin snorted his derision and rolled his eyes. He slumped down in his chair, resting his head against his hand.

  Patience paused in her recitation, eyes narrowing. She waited a couple of heartbeats to see if there would be any more theatrics before continuing.

  “The general populace’s ignorance of the reality is understandable. The subject has never been treated with any type of academic rigor. Most of what people believe they know comes from an abundance of charlatans and
con-men, not to mention Hollywood. Given the mountain of misinformation out there, it is not surprising that the few true instances of actual phenomena get swept aside and automatically discredited.

  “Complicating things is the fact that everyone is psychic.”

  Darwin frowned at this seeming contradiction in Patience’s tale.

  “Think of it this way,” said Patience. “Everyone can sing. Some people can’t carry a tune to save their lives. Most people manage to do okay, but it is not something you would pay to hear. A few are pretty good. And only a handful are good enough to make you sit up and notice.

  “Now, imagine taking all of these people and putting them in one room and having them all sing at the same time. Have them sing different songs. How easy would it be to pick out that true singer from the crowd? Unless you are close by or they are truly belting out a tune, they’d get lost in the noise.”

  Darwin found himself nodding in agreement with her.

  “Now think of a master craftsman,” she continued. “They don’t start off being able to paint The Great Wave or assemble a Maloof rocker. They start off doing simpler things and producing cruder products. Over time they develop their talents, refining their skills until they can generate these superior items.

  “Finally, consider a professional athlete. They have an innate talent, but talent alone is not enough. They have to work to become proficient at what they do. They also have to continually practice to ensure they do not lose that level of expertise they worked hard to gain.”

  Patience paused, relaxing a little as she saw Darwin following her arguments.

  “Psychic abilities share a lot of features from these examples. They also have their own unique issues that prevent people from being aware that they exist.

  “First off, everyone broadcasts to some degree within the psychic spectrum, it’s just part of being a person. This creates an ocean of background noise flooding the psychic landscape, making it difficult to hear your own psychic voice as you spend a lot of energy blocking out the static.

  “Like learning to tie your shoes or fly fish, using your psychic abilities is a learned skill. However, there really aren’t any teachers out there so each individual has to fumble along in isolation trying to develop a mental muscle they aren’t aware of having, let alone knowing how to use it.