Gifted Touch (15 page)

Is he saying that because he thinks that will make 162

Nunan not worry about talking in front of me? she thought. Or because he actually believes it? Because if he thinks I’m Anthony’s girlfriend, Jesse and I are going to have to have a long talk.

“Oh. I was hoping you were comin’ in to meet me,” Nunan told Rae. “Strange girls are always dropping by because they’ve heard the legend of the Nunan.” Rae managed not to snort as she took in his little potbelly pushing out his ancient Mr. Bill T-shirt. “I can understand that,” she answered, playing the flat-tery card. “But actually Jesse and I had something we wanted to ask you.”

“Shoot.” Rick grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds from a bag behind the counter and crammed them all into his mouth.

“When you left the, um, package for Anthony in the Oakvale bathroom, did you notice anything strange?” Rae asked. “Because somebody left a bomb in there. It almost killed me. I’m still freaking out, and I really need to find out who put it there just so I can feel safe again.” She figured Nunan might like helping out a damsel in distress. Lots of guys did.

Rick’s forehead furrowed. “Sorry—I didn’t go to Oakvale,” he answered. He spit out a couple of sunflower seed shells. “Not everyone can shell them in their mouths,” he explained to Rae. “It’s all in the tongue.”

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Oh. My. God, Rae thought. “Huh,” she commented.

“Anthony said you left some weed for him in the girls’

bathroom.”

“Wait.” Rick spit out a couple more shells onto the counter, then swept them onto the floor with his hand.

“Yeah. I remember now. I gave the stuff to this guy in Anthony’s support group. He was buying some, and he told me he’d make the delivery to Anthony. I knew Fascinelli would be dying for some. Which, by the way, he owes me the cash for.”

“What guy?” Jesse asked.

“Um, I can’t remember his name. I was kind of wasted,” Nunan admitted. He giggled, and a couple of wet sunflower seeds came flying out of his mouth.

It seems to be kind of your perpetual state, Rae thought, taking in Rick’s bloodshot eyes. “Do you remember what he looked like, at least?” she asked, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice.

“He was . . . I don’t know. He was some dude,” Rick answered.

“White? Black? Asian? Brown hair? Blond hair?

I’m looking for anything here,” Rae urged.

Rick spit out a few more shells. “I think he might have been wearing a green shirt.”

“A green shirt,” Rae repeated.

Nunan nodded. “Absolutely. Green. Or possibly blue. Something watery.”

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“O-kay. Well, thanks,” Rae said. Thanks for nothing. This little field trip was totally pointless.

“Then he goes, ‘Something watery,’ ” Rae said.

“Classic Nunan,” Anthony answered. He leaned back in his chair until it was balanced on two legs.

The guy supervising the common room frowned at him, and Anthony let the chair drop back to the floor.

“Jesse’s going to ask around a little at our next group meeting,” Rae continued.

“No. You can’t let him do that,” Anthony said, an electric jolt of fear running through his body.

“There’s a good chance the person who stashed the pot also set the bomb. If they were setting me up, they’d want me seen in the bathroom. Jesse asks the wrong person the wrong question, and he could get hurt.” If somebody went after Jesse because of him, Anthony would have to smash his way out of here and start busting heads.

Rae’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. You’re right. I won’t let him,” she said quickly. “But I think I already told Nunan too much.”

“Not a problem.” Some of the tension eased out of Anthony’s body. “He doesn’t have enough brain cells left to remember much. But be careful. Not everyone’s a Nunan.” He studied her face, trying to make 165

sure she was taking what he said seriously. “Maybe both of you should just leave it alone.”

“I’m not going to leave it alone,” Rae shot back.

“You wouldn’t be in this place if it wasn’t for me.”

“I wouldn’t be in this place if someone hadn’t framed me,” he corrected her, finally accepting that that was the truth. Yeah, Rae played a part in getting him here. But she hadn’t put the evidence in his backpack. He lowered his gaze to the table. “Listen, there’s something else I want to talk to you about.” Anthony hesitated. He felt kind of like an idiot bringing this up. Maybe it was just encouraging her to be delusional. But he’d been awake most of the night, going over what she’d told him about her not-me thoughts. In the morning he’d done some research—

a first for Anthony Fascinelli—and come up with a theory. And even though a Bluebird had no business coming up with a theory of any kind, Anthony thought maybe, just maybe, he was right.

“You know how you were telling me about those not-you thoughts?” he continued. He shot a quick glance at her. Her face had kind of tightened up.

“Uh-huh,” she answered, doing her purse-as-shield thing again.

“I was reading this book.” Well, actually he’d gotten one of the volunteers in the detention center library to read it to him. He’d been slick, he thought.

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He was pretty sure the woman hadn’t realized that he was getting her to read it because it would take him a zillion years.

“A book,” Rae repeated, her voice flat.

“Yeah, a book on psi abilities,” Anthony answered, leaning close to her so no one would over-hear and getting a whiff of that grapefruit stuff she wore. “It said there are people who can touch an object and know the history of it. I was thinking that your thing might be something like that. Not that you’re getting history, exactly. But some kind of data.”

“We should try to figure out what to do next,” Rae said, ignoring him. “Maybe I could try Nunan again and manage to catch him when he’s not wasted.”

“He’s pretty much always wasted,” Anthony answered. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a pencil. “Try touching this.” He wasn’t going to let her back away from this. It was too important. For both of them.

“It’s not about touching. The thoughts come into my head, okay? It’s not psi; it’s just psychotic.” Anthony shook his head. “If you were sure it was just insanity, you wouldn’t have told me about it. And you wouldn’t be doing all this stuff to help me. You believe the thoughts mean something. Why are you so afraid of trying to figure it out?” 167

“I’m not afraid,” Rae insisted. “I just think it’s stupid.”

“You’d rather go on walking around feeling sorry for yourself, poor little insane girl?” Anthony shot back. Rae looked like she wanted to slap him, but he didn’t care. “The other day you said you got some thoughts that felt like me when you were holding that cup I got for you. And you had your hand on this table when you told me a thought that sounded exactly like one my mother would have had. When she came to visit me, she was sitting at this table, too. So it’s not like it’s totally impossible that you—”

“Have some kind of supergirl powers?” Rae asked sarcastically. But she snatched up the pencil.

Anthony watched her intently. Looking for what, he had no idea. “Are you getting anything?”

“Rot in hell,” Rae said.

“Forget it. I was just trying to—” Anthony began.

“No. That’s what I got. The not-me thought. ‘Rot in hell,’ ” Rae answered.

Anthony’s heart gave a slam against his ribs.

“Okay, one of the guys stabbed another guy with that pencil the other day. So ‘rot in hell’—that could be some kind of vibe or something from the fight.”

“What else have you got?” Rae asked. She sounded bored, but Anthony could see the tension in her body. If she was feeling even half of what he 168

was, she had a volcano going off in her right now.

Fear and excitement and triumph were gushing through his veins.

Anthony tossed a deck of cards on the table. Rae snatched it up. “I’m right,” she muttered.

“That’s what you got? ‘I’m right’?” Anthony asked. The lava inside him cooled. Maybe the rot-in-hell thing was a fluke. Maybe it was just how Rae was feeling about Anthony at that second. Because the guy he’d gotten the cards from was mega depressed. He spent all his free time sitting on his bed, playing soli-taire. The guy didn’t even go into the TV room or anything. Anthony doubted he ever thought he was right about anything.

“The weird thing is, the ‘I’m right’—it felt like you.” Rae flipped the deck of cards over in her hands.

She gave a little jerk and dropped the cards.

“Did you get another one?” Anthony asked, leaning even closer.

Rae shoved her curly hair away from her face.

“Yeah. I got another one, not an Anthony-flavored one this time. It was, ‘I wish I was dead.’ ” Rae swallowed hard. “God, I could feel this loathing, this self-hating crap.”

“That’s exactly what I’d expect you to get,” Anthony told her, his voice rising. He forced himself to keep it low. “But I don’t get the ‘I’m right’ thing.

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The cards aren’t mine.” He frowned, thinking. Then he sat up straighter. “But I was holding them,” he said, his excitement returning. “And I was thinking about how I was right! Because you picked up something from the pencil!”

He felt like a Cardinal. A total friggin’ Cardinal.

Rae was getting all the thoughts of the different people who’d touched an object. But how? He looked down at her hands, watching as she drummed her fingertips nervously on the desk. Her fingertips. Suddenly a vague idea began to come into focus in his mind.

“We’ve got to try something else. Come on.” Anthony scrambled up from the table. “Got to show my friend where the bathroom is,” he told the common-room supervisor. He got a like-I-care nod.

He rushed across the room, glancing quickly over his shoulder to make sure Rae was following him. She was, but she didn’t look happy.

He led the way to the kitchen and peered through the little glass window in the door. Perfect. It was empty.

Anthony headed straight over to the dishwasher and yanked it open. “Pick up one of those spoons and tell me what you get,” he ordered. The spoons had been touched by tons of people, but they were freshly cleaned. If he was right, she wouldn’t be able to get anything from them.

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“Nothing,” Rae muttered, tossing the spoon down on the counter. “See, I told you I’m not super—”

“We’re not done,” he cut her off. He tried to clear his mind, then he picked up one of the clean spoons, still warm from the final cycle. I’m freakin’ brilliant, he thought.

“Now, you take it from me and touch it right where I’m touching,” Anthony told her. “But don’t tell me what you get. I’m going to tell you.”

“What, are you psychic, too?” Rae muttered. But she took the spoon from Anthony.

“You got it?” he asked, tripping over his words in his eagerness.

“Yep,” Rae answered.

“Okay, here’s what your not-you thought was—

‘I’m freakin’ brilliant,’ ” Anthony said. “Am I right?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, her eyes narrowing. “And it felt like you again.” She rubbed her forehead, spoon still clutched in her fingers. “How did you do that?”

“I just want to try a few more things first. Humor me, okay?” Because he thought he had it nailed now.

The whole thing. Not just that she was picking up people’s thoughts. But how she was doing it.

“Touch the spoon someplace else,” he told her.

Man, I sound like an excited little kid, he thought. I’ve got to get a grip.

He watched as Rae moved her fingers to a new 171

spot on the spoon. She hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “Nada.”

Who’s the freakin’ Bluebird now? Anthony thought.

“Now for one more test,” he said. The dancing doughnuts won three flamingos, he thought as he picked up another warm spoon.

Rae took it from him, putting her fingers at the bottom. “I’m not getting any—” she started to say, but he reached out and gently moved her hand to the part of the spoon he’d touched, ignoring the low-level sparks of electricity he felt as his fingers brushed against hers.

She looked at him in amazement, then slowly began to speak. “The dancing doughnuts—”

“Won three flamingos,” Anthony said along with her. The spoon slipped from Rae’s fingers and clattered to the floor. She stared at it for an instant, then bent to pick it up. About halfway down she seemed to change her mind and knelt next to the spoon.

Anthony crouched down beside her. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer. She kept staring at the spoon.

“The doughnuts-and-flamingos thing—that’s exactly what I was thinking when I touched the spoon,” he explained. “But you had to touch the spoon exactly where I did to know the thoughts. So you get it, right?

When you touch people’s fingerprints, you pick up their 172

thoughts, Rae. That’s it. Your brain’s not screwed up.” Rae squeezed her eyes shut. Anthony watched her helplessly. Finally he reached out and stroked her hair. It felt soft under his fingers. “You okay?” he asked again.