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.She was getting these headaches more and more often.She was taking in pills what was the equivalent of an IV drip of pure ibuprofen to dim the aching throb that tormented her.Even Dacey had joked about her use of the over-the-counter medicine and then not so jokingly asked her to see a physician.Leonie had refused, knowing she would eventually call Dr.Michel Quenelle from home one day, but she had put it off, not wanting to hear the sad compassion in his voice.He had been a pre-med student when she had been thirteen, now he was Unknown’s general practitioner and a respected physician.“Just someone on the phone.”“Ah,” Dacey said understandingly.The phone calls had been coming regularly at the Gingerbread House and at Leonie’s place.“Another creep.Don’t even talk to them.They just want to keep you on the line.We’ll get an air horn to put by the phone.One calls up.You blow the horn in his ear; it’ll fix him, but good.”“An air horn?”“You know, those loud things they take to sports events.The kind you pray isn’t in the hands of the kids sitting behind you.It’ll give you a pucker factor of ten.”“That sounds lovely, Dacey,” Leonie said dryly.“How about caller ID instead?”“Star 69 the twerp,” Dacey said instantly.“Oh, hell.I just called you.It won’t work.”“Assuming he didn’t use a public phone or some office phone or something,” Leonie replied promptly.“I’ll call Scott and tell him that-”Leonie interrupted her with, “Scott isn’t one of my fan club members, Dacey.”“Yes, I know, but if someone is calling you up and saying threatening things, then he should know about it.”“He didn’t threaten me.” Leonie was thinking about it.“He sounded…concerned.”Dacey sighed in Leonie’s ear.“Oh, darling, sometimes I think you’d defend the devil.What are you doing at the store at this hour? I bet the kids left already and you’re all alone.”“The kids?” Leonie belatedly remembered she hadn’t told Dacey about how Michael was probably going to bail on them as well.“Oh, yes, they’re gone already.I’ve got to finish the register and take the receipts to the bank to deposit.”“That’s it.I’m sending Antonio down with the shotgun.” Dacey was firm.“He got a new shotgun just for the man who kidnapped Olga.Thank God we live in Texas.”“Hallelujah,” said Leonie, rapidly regaining her good humor.The headache was thankfully starting to recede.“Don’t bother.I’m almost done.”“Okay,” Dacey said dubiously.“Call me when you get home.The minute you get home.The second even.Olga was asking about you today, you know.She wants her guardian angel to be as safe as she is now.”“I’ll look both ways before crossing the street and I’ll get an air horn for the phone,” promised Leonie.“But considering the situation, you have to expect that strange people are going to come out of the woodwork.”“Let them come out of someone else’s woodwork,” Dacey declared roundly.When Leonie hung the phone up she repressed a little shiver that threatened to run down her back like a herd of wild mustangs stampeding across untamed plains.Talking with Dacey always helped her.Dacey believed in her whole-heartedly despite what Scott Haskell said or implied.So did Dacey’s family.To them, Leonie had done something incredible and she had done it for Olga without asking for a dime in return or implying that she wanted anything at all.Her gift, as unpredictable as it was, was part of who she was.Unconditional acceptance was something that Leonie wasn’t used to having and she found that it was addictive.That age old question came to her again.It was one that came to many of the family.Would you want to be like the rest of the world? Not able to share your thoughts with your closest relatives and loved ones? Not able to connect on a basic cellular level that no one but a family member could understand?Leonie snorted.She wasn’t like the rest of the world.She also wasn’t like the family.She knew she’d heard her father’s thoughts that one isolated occasion.Her mother had let it slip later that both of them had heard Leonie when she’d gone into the police station.They’d seen the place inside their minds.When she woke up in the hospital with a dozen family members around her, and even a member of the elders, she couldn’t “hear” a single stray word.Michel Quenelle had suggested to Babette that it could be a psychological problem.Leonie had been traumatized.They had felt her fear so completely that it was spoken of in whispers for years.Of course mental illness was a pariah to be banished with the lepers.And Leonie had the scar to remind the family of her transgressions every day of the year.Eventually, Leonie tired of waiting for her gifts to return and left, hoping to spare her family.Living in the outside world wasn’t the ordeal that some made it out to be.The voices of outsiders’ thoughts didn’t overwhelm Leonie.It was only the sporadic missing possession or person that trespassed on her journey to achieve some kind of inner peace.Like Jay Harkenrider.His mother, Alexa, had tracked Leonie down to beg for assistance.She had brought a photograph of Jay, and Leonie had known instantaneously that the child was dead.His remains would be located on a bluff overlooking a river.The river was muddy gray and twisted away to the southeast and in the distance was the smog-obscured skyline of skyscrapers [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]