Beyond belief (33 page)

He stared at the digital readout over the elevator. It stopped only once, at the fourth floor, before heading down again.

He turned toward the building directory. This, too, was familiar; he remembered seeing that funky italicized lettering. The fourth floor had only one tenant: Paltak Innovations.

Of course.

He ran from the building.

Six thirty-one
P.M.

Joe had called a meeting of the task force and feds, and they were crowded into the headquarters’ small conference room. It had been a long day for everyone, and Joe sensed an undercurrent of tension in the room.

“This had better be good, Bailey,” Fisher said.

“I think it'll be worth your time.” He addressed the group. “Thanks for coming. Most of you have seen the videos of Jesse Randall's test sessions. Those were recorded months after he first began to demonstrate his supposedly telekinetic powers, but this morning I was given a tape that was made just a day or two after they began.”

Joe inserted the tape into the conference room VCR and pushed play. Jesse appeared on the television monitor.

“You called us here to look at another Jesse Randall video?” Howe asked.

“You'll want to see this one. Notice the position of his head.”

Jesse tilted his head downward and stared at the objects. Joe froze the picture. “Shortly after this session, he changed his angle.”

“Why?” Fisher asked.

“See for yourself.”

Joe resumed the tape, and objects were now moving across the floor of Jesse's uncle's living room. The lens zoomed in for its close-up of Jesse.

Joe pointed at the screen. “Did you see that?”

No one had seen it.

Joe scanned the tape back and replayed it in slow motion. This time there was a response. Lieutenant Gerald stepped forward. “Did I just see that?”

“Look again.” Joe scanned the tape back again and replayed Jesse's close-up in slow motion.

Jesse's face and eyelids were perfectly still, but his left eyelash was flapping.

Joe froze the image. “In several of the Landwyn University tests, Jesse's nose and mouth were covered to make sure he wasn't merely blowing on the objects. But no one ever covered his eyes.”

“His eyes?” Fisher asked.

“Yes. Specifically, his left eye. That was his secret: Jesse was blowing on the objects through his eye socket.”

The group stared at him in astonishment. “That's impossible,” Howe said.

“Rare, but not impossible. It's called periorbital respiration. There's a perforation in the membrane
behind his eyeball that allows him to expel air from the socket. I spoke to his doctor, and he had no idea Jesse had this condition. But he did say that Jesse has had respiratory problems his entire life. It might be related.”

Fisher shook his head. “How can this happen?”

“There's no way to tell. He could have been born with it, or it could have been caused by an infection.”

Howe stared at Jesse's face on the video monitor. “This is bizarre. It was almost easier to believe he had telekinetic powers.”

“Which is why no one thought of it,” Joe said. “This afternoon I checked with my old mentor in the magic business, and he told me that there was a nineteenth-century sideshow performer who could blow up balloons through his eye. That would've taken the same kind of air pressure Jesse Randall needed for his tricks.”

He smiled grimly as he saw everyone's stunned expressions. “Watch it again.”

He scanned back the tape, and as the camera went in for its close-up, everyone saw the flapping eyelash. There were gasps and a few chuckles.

“Creepy,” Lieutenant Gerald murmured. “Why didn't you or anyone else notice this on any of the other tapes?”

“Because it was nowhere to be seen in the other sessions. By then Jesse had learned to open his eyes wide and position his head so that he was always blowing downward, away from his upper eyelash.”

“Someone had to have coached him,” Howe said.

“Someone did.” Joe told them about his conversation with Janey Clary.

Fisher nodded. “So she not only helped him refine his technique, she also taught him some new tricks to round out his repertoire.”

“You got it. But all of his telekinetic tricks were accomplished by forcing air through his eye socket. Periorbital respiration.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” one of the FBI agents said, “but Jesse Randall wears eyeglasses.”

“Except when he's about to cause objects to move. Then he takes them off. Check the tapes. It happens every single time. And you'll also notice that he likes to hear loud music in almost every session. That's to cover up the sound of him blowing.”

Lieutenant Gerald walked to the front of the room. “The question now, gentlemen, is whether we go public with this.”

Fisher ejected the videocassette. “If Jesse is still alive, this could help him. If he's being held by an extremist group who fear his powers, they may be more willing to let him go.”

“But if his abductors want to use his powers, this announcement could be a death sentence.”

“He may already be dead.”

Joe shook his head. “If that's what they wanted, they could have hired a sniper to pick him off. They wanted him alive, and he'll stay that way as long as they think he has these powers.”

“We'll see.”

“I want that tape.” Gerald reached for the video-cassette.

Fisher tossed the tape into his briefcase and closed the lid. “We need to analyze it.”

“That's police evidence.”

“The mayor promised the bureau total cooperation.”

Gerald held out his hand. “Now, Fisher.”

Everyone in the room suddenly tensed, and Joe noticed that the cops were on one side of the room, the feds on the other. It looked like a beer brawl waiting to erupt.

“You guys have enough to worry about,” Fisher said. “You still can't even tell us how Nelson was murdered.”

Joe stepped forward to face him. “I can.” If he didn't have everyone's attention before, he had it now.

“How?” Fisher asked.

“We'll go to Nelson's house right now and I'll show you.”

“Okay. Let's go.”

“After you give me the tape.”

“Jesus, Bailey …”

“Give it to me. It's my evidence, and it stays in police custody.”

Fisher glared at him. Finally he reached into his briefcase, pulled out the videocassette, and handed it to Joe. “Expensive show you're putting on.”

“Satisfaction guaranteed. Let's go to Nelson's.”

C
harles paced in the narrow aisles of the Stone Mountain General Pharmacy, a mom-and-pop store in a small neighborhood strip center. It was taking forever to get that damned prescription filled.

He'd managed to have a doctor friend write it up for him. Ness had assured them that Jesse's condition was not life-threatening, and that he'd soon get an inhaler from one of his own discreet sources. Screw that. It was taking too damned long. The guy was a billionaire, for Christ's sake. Couldn't he just buy a pharmacy?

Charles and Myrna had discussed it and decided to get an inhaler of their own and keep it nearby. If Ness came through with one, fine, but at least they'd be prepared if Jesse had a sudden attack.

He admired Ness, but he'd seen his weaknesses as a leader in the past few weeks. Charles had never met Garrett Lyles, but he'd begun to wonder if the man was such a psycho after all; maybe he was merely rebelling against Ness's timidity.

In any case, it felt good to get away from Ness's estate for a while. Today was the first day he'd been away in almost a week. He'd been spending most of his time in the pit, his name for the elaborate holding facility Ness had built below his main house. It had been worth it for a chance to be near the Child of Light. And things would improve when the permanent facility was completed on Ness's island in the Caribbean.

He glanced toward the back of the store. The ancient pharmacist was in his long, narrow booth, apparently working on the prescription. Didn't those damned inhalers come ready made?

The electronic door chime sounded. Two police officers entered the store.

Charles's heart jumped. He slipped his hand into his pocket, feeling the handle of his revolver. Don't freak out, he told himself. The cops probably just came in for a soda from the vending machine.

Charles tried to appear interested in the laxatives in front of him. The cops were walking his way. Fuck.

They stopped next to him. “Can we have a word with you, sir?”

As Joe and the task force of cops and FBI agents walked into Nelson's foyer, they heard an eerie clanging echoing from down the hallway.

“What the hell is that?” Howe asked.

Joe pointed toward the kitchen, and the group walked in to find the hanging pots and pans swinging wildly and clattering into one another.

Howe walked around the island, gazing up at the rack. “They're moving just like Nelson's girlfriend said they were. How is that happening?”

Before Joe could answer, there was a crash from the hallway. And another.

They rushed into the corridor just in time to see a plate fly through a doorway and shatter on the floor. The remnants of two other plates lay nearby.

One of the feds stepped toward the doorway. He ducked as another plate flew out and shattered against the wall behind him.

“A little too close for comfort,” Joe said.

The agent leapt into the room and switched on the light. The others gathered to see what he'd found.

Nothing. Just the dining room set, china cabinet, and wet bar. The agent went to the windows, drew the heavy blinds, and checked the windows. “Locked from the inside.”

Fisher grinned. “There aren't too many windows that lock from the outside, kid.” He turned to Joe. “Okay, how'd you do it?”

The pots and pans were clanging in the kitchen again.

“I didn't do it,” Joe said.

Howe tried to ignore the sounds from the kitchen. “You expect us to believe it's Jesse Randall?”

“No, but somebody wanted Dr. Nelson and his girlfriend to believe that in order to lay the foundation for his supposedly psychic murder.”

“Who would want to do that?”

“I'm not positive yet. But I can tell you how.”

Another plate flew out of the dining room and shattered. Everyone turned to look. This time they
saw that a ceiling panel had been moved aside and a hand was waving at them from above, just inches from the china cabinet and a stack of plates.

Joe moved a dining room chair under the opening and helped his assistant down. Suzanne, dressed in a black body suit and covered with dust, hopped to the floor.

She smiled. “Sorry about that third plate. I threw it a little closer than I realized.”

“This is Suzanne Morrison,” Joe said. “Believe me, she's an expert in the art of illusion.”

She made a face at him.

He smiled. “I'll let her explain how she did this.”

Suzanne described the suspended ceiling and her technique just as she had discussed with Joe the night before.

After she finished, Howe nodded. “I'm impressed, Bailey. Not only that you guys were able to figure this out, but also with the fact that you were able to find a beautiful woman who's just as interested in this weird stuff as you are.”

“Yeah, but was she able to tell you how Nelson was murdered?” Fisher said.

Joe put the chair back at the table. “No, but in a way, Jesse Randall did.”

Fisher gave him a strange look.

“And after we get the results back from a search warrant I had issued this afternoon, we may even know who did it.”

Gerald's portable phone beeped, and he answered it. “Gerald here.” He listened, then said, “Okay, we're on our way.” He cut the connection.

“What is it?” Joe asked.

“There's a hostage situation at a pharmacy in Stone Mountain. The perp just tried to get the same corti-costeroid inhaler that Jesse Randall uses.”

Charles crouched behind the pharmacy counter and tried to decide how many cops he'd spotted in the parking lot. Twelve? Fifteen?

Too damned many.

He'd screwed up big-time. He'd killed a cop and let the other one leave to call in the entire squad. He should have killed them both.

No. He shouldn't have drawn his gun in the first place. They'd only wanted to ask a few questions about the prescription. He could have bluffed his way through it.

There was no way out of this.

Now, taunting him behind the counter, was the bulletin urging area pharmacists to call the local police whenever a first-time Pulmicort Turbuhaler prescription was presented. If he'd only known.

Ness probably knew. That's why he was being so damned careful.

At the far end of the counter, bound by threaded packing tape, the elderly pharmacist was trembling. “There's a back way out of here,” he said.

“I'm sure they have that covered too.”

Charles stared at his gun. The same gun he'd used to kill the helicopter pilot that morning. It was all Ness's fault. If he hadn't decided to kidnap Jesse, none of this would be happening.

He peered over the counter again, and a chill ran through him. The cop he'd shot was gone. He was sure he'd killed him. Where the hell was he?