Pinewood Corner Kitchen Chapter 13
This was Gabriella’s case as much as it was Graham’s. Still, when she saw the confusion and the touch of skepticism on his face after she laid out her theory later that day, she felt like maybe she’d messed up.
“You think they’re doing it to themselves?” he asked after she’d finished speaking. “Why, though? What purpose does that serve?”
“I don’t mean, like, they’re intentionally doing it,” she said. “I don’t think they’re trying to frame Casey Romano. But, okay, remember how I saw those cases where the psychic attacks bounced back on people, harming them as much as they were trying to harm the other person?”
“But have they attacked anyone?” Graham asked. “That’s my main reservation here. I know they said they were using it to get an advantage online, but that’s not going to physically harm someone. So how would that come back so intensely?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “If they’ve done something worse than they’re letting on, then they haven’t told me. And I doubt they would. I doubt they’d even tell you. But we’ve knocked Polly Grace and Casey Romano off the list.”
She paused. “You don’t believe Casey Romano is doing this, right?”
“No, of course not,” Graham said, to her relief. “No, I think what you’re saying is possible. It just changes everything.”
Kind of, she guessed. “I’m meeting with them tomorrow morning,” Gabriella said. “I know you’re not in until noon, so I’ve got it under control.”
“Do you want to wait? I can go with you.”
“I’d rather not wait,” she said. “The sooner I can talk to them about it, the sooner we can be done with this case. If they aren’t aware that this is a possibility, then maybe us warning them about it will be enough to make them stop whatever they’re doing that causes the energy to bounce back.”
“It does seem to know their schedule perfectly,” Graham said. “Which makes sense if they don’t realize they’re the ones doing it. I could see if James minds me coming in early.”
“No, you don’t have to do that,” Gabriella said. “I can be polite.”
“That’s not what I’m concerned about,” Graham said. “But if you’re sure you’re good…”
“I am, I swear.”
***
Steve and Jan Chapman met Gabriella at their business kitchen, just like before. As Gabriella came inside, the first thing she noticed was the damage on the ceiling. The chandelier was gone and the plaster around the patch was crumbling. It didn’t look great, but maybe the damage was just cosmetic. A few minutes after she arrived, she was seated at one of the high tables with a mug of tea in front of her and a plate of chocolate cookies between her and the Chapmans.
After she’d updated them on the energy findings in their home and business, it was time to ask the delicate question. “I need to ask something and I hope you can be honest with me,” she said. “Because it could be an essential part of figuring out what’s happening here.”
“Alright,” Steve said as Jan watched her carefully.
“What kinds of things have you done with your abilities?”
“Well, like I said, maybe we’ve tweaked some things online that we otherwise wouldn’t have access to,” Steve said. “SEO strategy, trends, things like that.”
Graham was right, that wouldn’t be enough to send this kind of psychic energy back at them. “Is there anything else?” Gabriella asked.
They immediately looked shifty and that was when she knew she had been right to follow her instinct here. “Please be honest with me,” she said, motioning toward the ceiling. “I saw the damage here. This is powerful energy and I need all the information I can get in order to figure it out and stop it.”
Jan sighed. “Yes, we have,” she said.
She looked to Steve, who closed his eyes behind his thick glasses, then nodded. She turned back to Gabriella. “Sometimes, if a competitor is getting a little too close to us, we might…adjust things a bit.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, dread starting to form as she remembered she was here alone. Or, at least mostly alone, since Bradley was on comms. But there was nothing he could immediately do if things got bad.
“We just want to scare them off,” Jan said. “Or distract them. If they’re focused on a problem with their website, then they aren’t focused on beating us for an award.”
“Has this only been online?”
“Mostly,” Steve said. “But lately, there’s been a few close calls. You have to understand, Gabriella, this is our livelihood. And our retirement. If we aren’t relevant, then that’s our life’s work gone. So we have to protect it.”
“Has this protection ever physically hurt anyone?”
They were silent and her heart started to speed up. If they had the ability to do this, they were way more powerful than they’d initially appeared to be. And she was alone in a building with them.
“Not badly,” Jan said. “I can do a little. Scaring them mostly, but a minor injury here and there.”
“And have you done this many times?”
They hesitated again and she thought she might see a little guilt on Jan’s face, at least. “A few,” Jan said.
They knew she couldn’t go to the police with this, so hopefully that was enough to keep her safe. And they needed her if they wanted their own problems to stop.
“Right,” Gabriella said. “Alright, so you’re sending psychic energy out and these attacks are being caused by psychic energy. I need you to stop doing that, okay?”
She felt like she was telling a naughty kid to stop sneaking candy. “Right,” Jan said, the slightest bit of defiance on her face.
“If there’s energy coming into this building, then I need to be able to differentiate between the different types of psychic energy,” Gabriella lied. “This could be important, because maybe I can then distinguish between them and figure out who’s doing this.”
That wasn’t possible and she had to hope that they weren’t trained enough to know that she was bullshitting.
“Of course,” Steve said quickly. “We understand.”
“What I’m going to do is keep these sensors up,” she said, motioning toward a sensor sticking to the wall next to the door. “And then in a couple days I’m going to measure it again. So I’ll be back.”
They were doing it to themselves. She was so certain of it. But there was no proof. And she needed to maintain her professional demeanor long enough to get out of here and figure out how to stop this from continuing without putting a target on her own back for what were apparently two very powerful psychics.
Gabriella left a few minutes later, almost overwhelmed with relief as she reached the parking lot. Birds sang nearby and the breeze was soothing on her face. But the comms crackled to life right before she reached her car.
“Wait a second,” Bradley said.
“What?”
“What?”
Then her driver’s side window shattered. Gabriella shrieked, ducking down beside the car. There was no other sound, the birds had been scared off and the woods were silent. “Was that a fucking gunshot?” Bradley demanded.
“I don’t know,” she said, risking a peek back at the house. There was no sign of anyone in there with a gun, targeting her car. “I don’t think so.”
That was when she noticed the glass had shattered outward from the driver’s seat, spilling onto the pavement. “It’s not,” she said. “And there’s nothing physical. I think they shattered my window.”
More glass shattered nearby, somewhere in the building. Gabriella got in her car and drove out of the woods, not waiting to see what was going on.
“I’m out,” she said as she drove a little too quickly toward the highway.
“Be careful,” Bradley said. “I didn’t see or hear anything weird on comms, but the energy sensor spiked in their house. Kitchen Two. Same as before, with the chandelier.”
The Chapmans had still been in the kitchen when she left. “Do you think they were actively trying to get me?” she asked. “Or was it pissed-off energy going wherever it wanted?”
“I have no idea,” he said.
“A window broke right near that sensor,” she said. “Maybe what they did to me bounced back at them.”
“I have no idea,” he repeated tightly. “Just get the fuck back here safely.”
