Then Milo returned to the living room and began gathering his surgical supplies off the floor, his interest in Rae Ann waning, his mind on other things.
CHAPTER 23
“What the heck was that all about?” Kevin shook his head in bewilderment inside the dirty yellow taxi as they braced for another thrill ride back to their hotel. “Is it just me or does it feel like we just spent the last two hours inside some bizarre LSD trip?”
Cait was silent for a long time, her head turned away from Kevin as she watched the traffic roll by. Finally she said, “Do you think she really meant what she said about never coming back? Could it really be possible that I’ve finally found my mother after thirty years, only to lose her again forever?”
“Try to look at it from her point of view for a minute,” Kevin said. “For the last three decades she has dealt with what was obviously a very traumatic event—giving her children up in an illegal adoption just hours after their birth—by pushing the painful memories away and locking them up in some rarely visited corner of her brain. When we showed up on her doorstep today, those feelings of guilt and loss came rushing back.”
“But still,” Cait persisted. “How can I simply forget my mother when it took so long just to find her?”
“You can’t force yourself upon her, and if what she truly wants is to be left alone, you’re going to have to respect those wishes. But that might not necessarily be the case. Maybe what she needs right now is some time to absorb this new reality, where she suddenly has the potential for a relationship with her daughter. Maybe after a few weeks or months she’ll be able to open herself up to that reality.”
The cab driver made a quick lane-change, accelerating past a slow-moving produce truck and then cutting the wheel sharply back to the right. The car crowded into the nearly nonexistent space inches in front of the truck’s bumper. The momentum pushed Cait against her seat belt. She unsnapped the buckle and slid over, leaning into Kevin’s bulky body. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
“And that’s another thing,” she continued as the cab rocked on its springs. “I have a brother! Not just a brother, but a twin brother! How am I going to go about finding him?”
“Well,” Kevin answered. “We can go back to Arlen Hirschberg in Tampa. He’s a little pricey, but he was able to locate your birth mother quickly and without too much trouble. He can probably do the same thing for your brother. The problem is…”
“I know,” Cait said. “Bad things will happen if the two of us get together. Are you really buying that mumbo-jumbo? Does it make any sense to you?”
“It’s more than just a question of ‘bad things happening,’” Kevin said firmly. “You heard your mother. Bad things will happen to you. Really bad things, like you getting killed.”
Cait waved her hand as if shooing away a pesky mosquito and Kevin said, “No, no, you’re not allowed to disregard what she said just because you don’t like it or it’s inconvenient for you. You know me, I’m naturally skeptical. Suspicious, even. All cops are. But this woman knew, before you ever brought it up, about your Flickers. She described them perfectly, even admitting to possessing exactly the same ability.
“That being the case,” he continued, “I think we have to give credence to what she said about how much danger you would be in if you found your brother. We may not understand what’s going on yet, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore your mother’s concerns.”
“But none of it makes any sense. Why would twins, each of whom have inherited the same unusual genetic ability, be somehow incompatible based solely upon their geographic proximity to each other?”
“How the hell do I know?” Kevin answered, exasperated. “I just found out about all of this, too! But there is so much we don’t understand—so much that no one seems to understand—about these Flickers, that I think you should assume, until proven otherwise, that what your mother said is true. Maybe it’s like blood transfusions, somehow.”
“What? You’ve lost me.”
“Yeah, you know, blood transfusions,” Kevin said excitedly, becoming more animated as he warmed to the subject. “You know how, if you receive a blood transfusion from someone who is not the same blood type, your body will reject the blood? Maybe it’s something like that.”
“But we’re twins,” Cait replied. “Twins share the same blood type, don’t they? That scenario would be impossible with my brother and me.”
Kevin shook his head. “I’m not trying to suggest this Flicker thing is exactly the same as rejected blood transfusions. I’m just saying that there are plenty of scenarios where two seemingly compatible people are found to be medically incompatible, for reasons that may not be readily apparent. Organ transplants would be another example. Sometimes the human body rejects a donated organ for reasons the experts don’t even understand.
“Let’s face it,” he continued. “As far as we know, nobody outside your own bloodline even knows these Flickers exist, so it’s not like they’ve been the subject of any scientific research. We have no idea what sorts of personality traits might be associated with them. Until we learn otherwise, I think we have to treat everything Virginia Ayers just told you as being true, if for no other reason than the risk of assuming otherwise is so extreme. I don’t want to see you put in danger.”
“There’s still no proof,” Cait mumbled stubbornly. “Where’s the proof? How can I just take her word for it?”
“Where’s the proof?” Kevin asked incredulously. “Did you really just say that? Her story is the proof. The proof is in the fact that this woman turned her life upside down and destroyed her marriage—Christ, her husband was so devastated he ended up killing himself—to protect her newborn children. The proof is in the hundreds of years of family history she related. That’s all the proof I need, and it damn well should be all the proof you need, as well.”
“But still…”
“There is no ‘but still.’ You can’t pick and choose what you want to believe, especially when it’s so important. If you accept that Flickers are real—and you know they are—and if you accept that your birth mother has the same ability—and you know now that she does—then you have to accept what she said about your twin brother also, at least until you see proof otherwise.
“But,” he continued, holding his hand up to stop her from interrupting. “When we get back to Tampa, we can sit down and do an Internet search on your family history. If what Virginia told you is true, there should be plenty of archival evidence, in the form of newspaper reports and the like, of the murders to back up her story. Don’t you agree?”
“Probably,” Cait admitted grudgingly.
“Not probably, definitely. So let’s make a deal.” The taxi turned a corner and pulled to a stop in front of their hotel. “If we find out through these online searches that there is a history of twin deaths in your family, then you forget you ever learned of the existence of your twin brother. If it turns out the whole thing is some bizarre tale concocted by your long-lost mother because she’s just loony, I will help you do everything possible to locate your brother. That seems reasonable, don’t you think?”
Cait sighed deeply and opened her door. “I suppose.”