The Keeper by T F Allen

Author:T F Allen [Allen, T F]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781732945500
Published: 2019-01-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

I’d been with Michael for almost three decades. That meant thirty years of watching him think, dream, and live. Thirty years of traveling the world with complete freedom, floating through the minds of scientists, entertainers, beggars, and priests. What I found there always surprised me. People are experts at disguising their thoughts. They hide their darkest secrets from those they love, never sharing their irrational fears, their prejudices, the strains of illness that seep into their minds while they sleep. I’d seen the most horrible images and sensed the most degenerate thoughts, but I’d never heard a voice like the one inside Donnie’s head.

Maybe he was mentally ill. I’d heard about dissociative identity disorder, where a mind could hold at least two distinct or split personalities that could take control at different times. But that wasn’t the only possibility. Maybe someone with psychic abilities was hiding in that room. Or maybe Cole was someone like me, moving from mind to mind but focusing on Donnie, clouding his filter, guiding him deeper into this madness.

There was no way to know for sure. I wanted to stay longer to find out more, but San Francisco was calling.

Focus. Lock. Pull.

When I opened my eyes, I stood outside the Richmond District police station. Night had fallen. Halogen lamps mounted on the station facade buzzed above my head. I moved to go inside, but Sister Mary Elizabeth and Hannah burst through the doors and rushed past me.

“Total waste of time,” Hannah said.

“Slow down, dear.” Sister Mary Elizabeth pulled up the folds of her dress and ran to keep up. “Yelling at them doesn’t help.”

Hannah stomped to her side of the rental SUV, which she’d parked on the street in front of the station. She yanked a parking ticket from under the windshield wiper and threw it into the street. “They don’t care about anything we say. He’s just another case to them. They’re humoring us.”

I dove into Sister Mary Elizabeth’s mind as she reached her side of the SUV. I figured I could catch up faster in the calmer mind of the two. She didn’t show it, but the nun was every bit as frustrated as the reporter.

“You probably get that treatment a lot,” Hannah said.

“Comes with the outfit.”

They’d spent the evening trying to convince the police Donnie Harkrider was a person of interest. But Sister Mary Elizabeth knew once Captain Tuttle asked them to sit in separate rooms that the police were only interested in conducting background interviews. She tried to explain in quiet, gentle tones the connection they’d made between Michael, Jolene Anderson, and Mr. Harkrider, but the investigators figured several other students must have shared those same classes, too. And they weren’t buying the idea Michael was abducted because the painting he destroyed was a fake. She couldn’t say how she knew he was, and by the time she mentioned Mr. Harkrider’s copy of Michael’s angel painting, the investigators had stopped listening altogether.

By the sound of it, things hadn’t gone any better in the next room.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.