Speaking of which, they were about ready to burst in, despite my request for privacy. I could feel their anxiety through the door. I sighed. Already I missed the good old days when being Sensitive only pertained to vamps, and even then their feelings never entered into it. I also thought it would've been convenient to be able to open the door with a simple wave of the hand. Unfortunately my newfound abilities didn't lean that way. Maybe I could buy a really well-trained dog…
Sighing, I lurched to my feet and opened the door. They weren't pacing in the hallway as I'd expected. They were pacing in Cassandra's apartment.
"It's all right," I said as I entered the room. They didn't exactly leap at me. In fact Cassandra stayed in her tall, wooden rocker and Bergman continued skulking back and forth behind her royal blue couch. Cole came and took my elbow, led me to the couch's matching recliner and sat me down gently.
"You're making me feel old," I told him.
He just grinned. He sat on the granite-topped coffee table that visually connected the seating area to a red brick fireplace that held dozens of white candles.
"You okay?" he asked, inspecting me closely, perhaps to see if I'd grown an extra appendage during our brief separation. "You look better than I expected you to."
"I feel better than I probably should."
"So things are squared away?"
"For the moment."
"Can I get a ride back to my truck, then? I really do need to clean that pool or they'll think something's up."
"Okay, but no snooping. Call me when you're done, too. I want to see those pictures." I checked my watch. "Jeremy ought to be up by then. I'll bring him along." I looked at Bergman, raised my eyebrows. "Follow us?"
He nodded. "Then you and I need to talk." He looked pointedly at Cole, "alone."
I wanted to snarl, "Well, of course, alone. We already established that Cole would be going somewhere else!" Sometimes Bergman's paranoia made me want to break things. Like his neck. But, being a neurotic—I mean sensitive—genius, he continued to benefit from my best behavior. For now.
"Of course," I replied, "I'm anxious to hear what you have to say." I rose and looked at Cassandra. "Thank you for saving my brother. It was… wow… thanks."
She nodded graciously. "I'll see you later."
"You will?"
"Yes." She didn't elaborate so I let it go. No sense in chasing more problems. "Until then, I must ask you to be very careful."
"Who, me? Gosh, Cassandra, I guess I should've told you, there's no need to worry about me. At work they call me Safety Sue."
She gave a very unladylike humph, which made me like her lots better.
The four of us trooped downstairs and, maybe seeing the way I'd ogled her fresh baked foods, Cassandra gave us each a free box of blueberry muffins to take with us.
"I love girls who bake," sighed Cole as we drove back to his truck, with me behind the wheel this time. He launched into a rapturous monologue that featured, I kid you not, his mom's apple pies. From there he moved to his boyhood, oatmeal-cookie-stealing stories and by the time we reached his truck I'd inhaled two of Cassandra's freebies. I'd also decided that if I ever met Cole's mom I'd just come right out with it and ask her to adopt me.
I let him off at the corner. Bergman pulled alongside me and yelled, "Follow me!" out the window, so I did. He drove a dark green work van with no windows in back and tinted windows in front. The words "Flaherty's Fine Foods" were stenciled on the side in big gold letters that circled a picture of the sun, complete with curvy yellow beams, Blues Brothers shades and a big, toothy smile.
He drove to a large deserted park. No kids played on the red and yellow jungle gym. The benches were empty and so were several of the flowerbeds. He parked beside a pond with a working fountain and I got into the van beside him.
"Thanks for coming, Bergman. I really appreciate it."
"No problem," he said, though we both knew better. "I'm sorry about all the secrecy, but you said to bring all the bells and whistles, and I didn't want anyone else to get a look at your new toys."
I felt a smile chase away my earlier irritation. I love new toys.
He reached behind his seat and brought out a silver case with black combination-lock latches. Just the kind of thing inside of which you'd expect to find a top-secret weapon or two. Grinning in response to my excitement, he unlocked the case and set it on my lap. "You open it."
I raised the lid. Inside, cushioned by a casing of black foam, sat three smaller cases, also gleaming silver. I nearly jumped up and down in my seat, but confined myself to a short round of applause.
"You don't even know what they are yet!"
"Look at this," I demanded, bringing his attention to the case with a Vanna White inspired flip of the hand. "Stuff that starts out looking like this always ends up awesome. Didn't you ever see I Spy?"
"Come on," he said, his long, pale face twitching with anticipation, "open them up."
"If you insist." The first case snapped open to reveal a necklace made with shells, beads and an arrow-shaped item that looked an awful lot like a shark's tooth. I pulled the necklace out of the case and looked closer. Finally I said, "Okay. I give. Why is this not any other souvenir store rip-off?"
"I'll show you," Bergman said, the brown eyes behind his glasses gleaming with techno-passion. He took his keys out of the ignition and traded them for the necklace. He stuck the shark's tooth into the keyhole and wiggled it a little. Then he turned it sharply and the van started. To his delight, all I could say was, "Whoa. That's cool."
He turned the engine off and handed the necklace back to me.
The shark's tooth was now in the shape of a key, but even as I held it in my palm it reformed itself to its original shape. "What's your secret?" I asked, although I knew he wouldn't tell me, not even if his feet were bleeding and his hair was on fire.
"Caffeine," he replied, and we both smiled. I put the necklace on and he said, "Oh, yeah, the line everything's threaded on is super strong. It's been tested to 600 pounds."
I fingered the beads and the stretchy cord they hung on with wonder. "Cool! Now I can steal some rich old coot's Jaguar and go fishing for marlin with the same piece of jewelry."
"Not many women can say that, you know."
"There's no doubt I'm blessed among them. What else have we got?" I opened the second case. It held a couple of hearing aids like the one I'd just used and two round items that looked like mints. "Listening devices?" I guessed.
"And sending," Bergman agreed. "The round piece is made to stick to the roof of your mouth. The receiver goes in your ear. The second set is for Vayl. When you're both equipped you can talk to each other without the bother of radios and headsets. The only downside is the sound is a little distorted."
"Yeah?"
Bergman grimaced. "It's like somebody pumped up the bass. I'm working on cleaning that up."
"What's the upside?"
He pointed to two items I hadn't noticed because they were nearly the same color as the box's lining. "Careful," he warned, as I picked them up. They looked like the fake tattoos retailers sell to little kids who haven't yet heard of hepatitis. One resembled a line of barbed wire. The other was a long, serpentine dragon. "These adhere to your skin and are indistinguishable from tattoos once they're on. They're transmitters," Bergman explained. "They should allow you to hear each other from a distance of about two miles."
"No kidding? That far?" Bergman bobbed his head, looking like a rooster who's just discovered the henhouse.
I opened the last box. It contained a simple gold watch with an expandable band. I turned it inside out and upside down, but it looked completely normal. So I put it on.