Unforeseen Dives – 27b – Gone

<< 27a – Gone

The funeral seemed to take forever. And then some more minutes. It was highly unusual for Rebecca to be a ball of nerves but I couldn’t blame her. We were almost sure her husband had been kidnapped by the same people who held my mother. My mother who was driven mad, blew herself up and was symbolically buried today; the coffin was empty. There wasn’t even enough of her left to make a decent cremation.
Half the reader community squeezed itself in the church’s rows. Most of my coworkers were here. Daniel and Aaron sat behind me. Becky and Casey flanked me. The rest of my immediate surroundings were filled with distant cousins and aunts I hardly knew. Dealing with the ceremony itself didn’t trouble me all that much.
My biggest source of annoyance resurfaced when we headed for the cemetery. The reader community managed to keep the journalists out during the ceremony, more or less shoving them outside before the door closed. The buzzards didn’t give up and waited when the doors opened again. They fired their flashes as soon as the coffin passed the threshold on the shoulders of six men.
We couldn’t stop them from following us to the cemetery and as I stood under the rain of snapshots, rage undermined the sadness my mother deserved. Though I didn’t want to sink as low as the criminals I chased, I couldn’t stop myself from wishing I could gun down the journalists. They had no right to be here and feed on my pain. There weren’t that many – I wasn’t not a movie star – but there were enough to make everyone uneasy.
They quashed my right to grieve with their presence.
Fortunately, since there were telepaths in the crowd, the journalists who attempted to approach me to ask about the investigation into my mother’s death were kept away from me. I thanked my helpers with a silent nod and escaped once my mom was safe in the ground. Leaving so soon nearly killed me. I’d have to come back here once the cameras moved on to another bit of news.
The last thing I wanted was for the journalists to follow me home in hope of catching a scoop. Besides, I couldn’t stand to sit back for the rest of the day while Sean was missing. If I could keep anyone else from losing someone they loved, I had to act.
I headed for the office, recognizing Becky and Casey’s cars in the line of unknown vehicle following me. At least, I knew I could avoid questions by parking in the underground garage which was restricted. As expected, some of the cars trailed behind me until I rolled underground. Unbelievable. Was nothing sacred to them?
Becky and Casey joined me as I stepped out of my car. To my surprise, Daniel followed soon after. Each of them gave me a hug. No words held enough strength to cover what they wanted to say. After a few seconds of awkward silent, we turned to the elevator, which only made the lack of conversation more awkward.
“What is your strategy for today?” Daniel asked, blissfully avoiding a painful conversation to cut to the reason of our presence here.
“If memory serves, there is a whirlpool drowning our neighborhood. I’m a bit peeved no one found a way to narrow down what or who would be affected and stop it. I’ll dive to pick up that slack.”
“Sensible initiative. Rebecca, I expect you won’t take me up on my offer to support Cassidy?”
“Cassidy ain’t resting and I’m closer to finding Sean by being here.” Rebecca sounded even drier than usual. A shiver ran down my spine. A little over two years and I never saw her like that.
“And I’ll be on errand duty.” Casey chimed in. The situation weighed on him to, though for complete different reason. I was surprised he wanted to help despite the fact that I rejected him. He could read me and knew very well he had no control over his place in my heart.
We walked in the eerie corridors, deserted for on this Sunday evening, and stepped in our office. Daniel whistled when he saw my map of the Ocean.
“Nice work!” He bent closer to the wall to read all the little notes scattered around the map. I didn’t really need all the scribbling anymore as most of them were burnt inside my memory. “I’ll assume this is the one that interests you.” Daniel added, pointing at the push-pin in the middle of our neighborhood.
“Yes. We only know the date and the general location. We need more than that.” I explained while Rebecca to set up my chair. “I want to confirm if Sean was indeed taken and, if I’m lucky, learn something new about the kidnapper.”
“Don’t we have a team investigating these?” Casey enquired from the corner of our desk where he sat.
“They’re amateurs.”
Rebecca was grossly unfair but I could hardly blame her. If we had more details about the whirlpool we might have been able to keep Sean safe. I felt guilty of the whole thing; I was the one who took almost a week off in the middle of an investigation. That I had good reasons didn’t soothe me.
“I’ll remain here in case you need additional support.” Daniel sat in one of our couches. Almost simultaneously, Casey rose. “And I will start a quest for food. You’ll be starved when you get back.”
“Yes we will.” I forced a smile as I lied back in my chair after turning of the vision filtering system.
Rebecca sat by my side without making contact with me. We looked at each other for a moment. She emptied her mind of her worry for her husband while I pushed back my grief over the lost of my mom. This way, there would be no feeding of each other’s pain.
Once we were ready, she put a hand over my knee and I closed my eyes for the dive. Despite our best effort, everything in us resonated with our suffering. That was what would push me further than any other psychic dared swim.
I wasn’t losing anybody else.

28a – Oracles >>