Designed with a Destiny (17 page)

“Son—the sooner you tell her the better off
everyone will be,” Lawrence says always honoring truth over
deception.

“I want to, but I can’t—not yet. I need time
to wrap my head around it first.” Zane is clearly tormented by
whatever news he’s holding on to, and I’m a little concerned that
it has to do with feelings for me, something I thought we’d
resolved in the forest. I’m about to rein in their discussion to
find out what it is once and for all, when I get a telepathic
announcement of a more urgent nature.

“
We’ve got company—better hurry it
up,”
Brandon says, and quickly follows with
“Now!”
Lawrence must have been included in the broadcast, because moments
later, he and Zane join me in the hallway, and without a word, we
head toward the back door.

“
Come to the front,”
Ronan says, just
as I’m about to open the back door. He’s waiting in the darkened
reception area with Jason, Claire and Alisha, a crutch under one
arm, and his eyes are transfixed on the ceiling, indicating he’s
remotely following what’s happening out back.

“Looks like it’s just a roving security
guard and Natalie has him pretty well distracted so we can get out
of here,” he says, giving Alisha the okay to open the front door.
The minute she does headlights from at least five cop cars
instantly illuminate the front of the business taking us all by
surprise given Ronan’s ability to pre-scout the area.

“You didn’t think to check out front?”
Alisha hisses, slamming the door shut.

“I did—they must have just arrived,” Ronan
says defensively, ditching the crutch as we take off running toward
the back, the sound of screeching tires serve as a warning to the
others, even had we not been able to communicate the problem to
them.

“Stay with me,” I order Claire, who the
moment we open the back door, has her arm outstretched towards an
unlucky police car that she chooses to put through a spin cycle
before ramming it into the backend of another cop car. Natalie
easily disables the security guard, leaving him writhing on the
ground, holding his private parts, and while the others start
filing into the minivans, those of us with the strongest
telekinetic abilities engage the remaining police vehicles in a
game of bumper cars, that gets a little competitive between the
three of us until Alisha bellows, “That’s enough you guys—let’s
go!” Even Ronan’s laughing when we dive into the back seat after
Claire. Natalie keeps her mouth shut when Zane peels out of the
parking lot to keep up with the second van, Alisha is driving. She,
unlike Jason, has no qualms about breaking the speed limit.

“How do they keep finding us?” Natalie
whines in frustration, pounding her fist into the dashboard, making
Zane smile. She looks at him suspiciously and her green eyes
narrow. “Are you tipping someone off Harrington?” she suddenly
blurts out, surprising him with the accusation.

“Nope—I dare say I’m not. I have everything
to lose by being taken into custody, and not one thing to gain.
However, I do agree with you, they seem to be tracking us
exceptionally well. Can you contact Alisha and tell her to pull
over?”

***

“There’s nothing on either of these cars,”
Zane says, after checking over both vans for tracking devices in
places I never would have thought to look.

“Cell phones?” he says, holding out his
hand.

“You sure seem to know a lot about this,”
Bernie says handing him her cell phone. She and Jason are the only
two to pull one out and Brandon has to remind him that we have
alternate methods of communication.

“I am an expert in surveillance. I know
every trick there is for tracking someone—I tracked all of you for
years,” he admits matter-of-factly, and Ronan clenches his jaw.
“Yours is clean,” he says handing Jason’s cell back to him.

“Luckily so do I, and I can tell you that
you won’t find anything on mine—I always have it with me,” Bernie
declares.

“Well someone was able to get GPS tracking
software installed on this phone,” he says after a few minutes,
holding the phone up to show us. “You wouldn’t necessarily know
it’s there unless you know where to look for it,” he adds, trying
to make her feel better after she angrily throws the phone onto the
pavement, cracking it but not destroying it. She reluctantly picks
it back up and hands it to him to disable the software.

“Alright, we better get going,” Alisha says,
slowly walking away.

“Um—wait a minute—we have something to say,”
Brandon says, stopping us with the hesitancy in his voice. He’s
holding Sophia’s hand, and she looks directly at me, the only
person of importance to her other than him.

“We’re leaving the group—at least for a
while. We need a break from the running and Sophia needs time to
grieve for her sister,” he says, glancing at Zane whom she still
blames for her sister’s death. “I want to take her to Europe
without feeling the need to constantly look over my shoulder,” he
adds, looking down at her and smiling. “You guys are welcome to use
the house in Canada for as long as you like.” There is an awkward
silence as they wait for us to react and once the shock wears off,
I’m the first to go to Sophia.

“You deserve peace and happiness,” I say
embracing her in a hug. I figured this day would happen sooner or
later, just not this soon.

“Thank you for believing in me—you’re the
only real friend I’ve ever had,” she whispers, her dark brown eyes
brimming with tears.

“We’ll keep in touch through Brandon and
maybe when things calm down, Ronan and I can visit.” I say this,
even knowing that it’ll be a long while before our lives are normal
to the point we can consider such things as vacationing in Europe.
One by one, the others say their farewells with the exception of
Zane and Natalie who for very different reasons disappear to the
van without saying a word. Brandon and Sophia decline a ride to the
bus station, instead choosing to walk to some nearby businesses
where they’ll catch a cab to the airport. Bernie reassures us that
Brandon and Sophia will be long gone by the time anyone figures out
that they’ve left the group.

“
Are you okay?”
Ronan privately asks
when we are back on the road, heading to Zane’s father’s
offices.

“
Yeah—it’s hard to see them go, but I
think it’s the right thing for them to do if they want to grow
their relationship. There’s just too many factors working against
them here. Will you take me to visit her when this is all
over?”

“
Must you even ask?”
he responds
indignantly, taking my question as an insult.

***

“Okay, Callahan, there’s my father’s
office,” Zane says pulling up in front of an impressive high-rise
with a glass front. Alisha pulls up behind us and we get out of the
cars looking around for any sign of occupancy.

“Nobody’s usually here this late on a
weekend, but you never know. With that being said, I think the
fewer the better. Shall we?” Zane says, starting across the street,
not wasting any time.

“Cat and I will go—Claire and Austin can
stay with you in case something happens and you need to move things
around a bit,” Ronan says, referring to a bumper car scenario.
“Stay connected,” he says to Alisha, tapping two fingers on his
skull.

“Wait, I’ll come too,” Natalie blurts out,
appearing to even surprise herself given Zane’s history of getting
on her nerves.

“Can’t bear to be away from me eh?” he
chides and she rolls her eyes mumbling, “Yeah—in your dreams
Brit.”

He uses a keyless entry card to open the
outside door to the lobby and we follow him inside directly to the
elevators. The businesses listed in the directory range from
accounting firms to dentistry groups and it occurs to me that I
haven’t any idea what his father’s business name is, but my heart
catches in my throat when he pushes the button to the eleventh
floor. The elevator unexpectedly stops on the eighth floor and a
flash of recognition crosses Zane’s face when an attractive blonde
in a blue suit steps in.

“Hello Lauren,” he says, coldly.

“Zane, what are you doing here?” she asks,
her eyes wide with surprise at first, then narrowing to match his.
“I just saw your dad yesterday, and he didn’t say anything about
you being in town this weekend,” she says suspiciously. Before he
has a chance to reply, her attention quickly shifts from him to
Natalie, and her color screening of solid blue immediately darkens
to almost gray. Up until now, I’d forgotten that Zane has a
newfound ability to recognize energy fields, but when I catch him
concentrating on the field around her, like the rest of us, I hold
my breath waiting for his reaction. When he catches my eye, I can
tell he has a clearer understanding of the significance of such a
gift.

“I’m actually here to surprise my father
with the announcement of my engagement,” he blurts out, using her
apparent jealousy against her, and smoothly putting an arm around
Natalie’s shoulder, pulling her in close. Amazingly enough
Natalie’s look of shock passes quickly, and she plays right along
slipping into the role like a seasoned actress. She slides her left
hand around his waist to hide her bare ring finger, and smiles up
at him with the face of an adoring fiancée.

“You’re engaged?” Lauren glares at the two
of them with such hatred that if she had a weapon, I think she’d
use it on them.

“Yeah, Zane proposed to me just last week—I
still can’t believe it’s true,” Natalie gushes. “Sweetheart, aren’t
you going to introduce me to your friend? Maybe the three of us can
go out for cocktails while we’re here in town,” she says with
sincerity and a convincing level of excitement. It’s clear that
whatever happened between this woman and Zane it didn’t end well,
but assigning Natalie a leading role and throwing her in the middle
of it looks like it’s going to backfire on him in a big way. He
barely flinches at the suggestion of a cozy get together, instead
escalating the performance by placing his hand over Natalie’s
stomach and brushing his lips across the top of her head murmuring,
“Honey, you know you shouldn’t drink while you’re pregnant.” Ronan,
who finds nothing about Zane amusing, silently shakes with laughter
at their performance, and Natalie bites her lower lip as Lauren
looks at her with disgust.

“Congratulations—at least you’re not
repeating history by abandoning your bastard child,” she sneers,
and Zane’s face darkens with anger. Without another word, she turns
on her two-inch heels, and all that can be heard in the silence
that follows is the clack, clack that they make as she marches down
the hall, before the elevator doors close behind her.

“So Harrington, apparently I’m not the only
girl you’ve gotten knocked up? Exactly how many baby Harringtons do
you have running around out there?” Natalie accuses, passing
judgment on the playboy millionaire. He sucks in a deep breath and
stuns the hell out of us when he quietly says, “She was referring
to my biological father, not me.”

The minute we step off the elevator on the
eleventh floor, I feel a subtle shift in energy that has nothing to
do with the people that are with me. Aside from a slight downshift
during his encounter with Lauren, Zane’s color screening has
remained a consistent shade of yellow since Cat flipped the switch,
activating higher frequencies within the body’s energy control
center.

“You mean the man behind all of this isn’t
even your biological father?” Cat asks, stopping Zane in front of a
semicircular reception desk with the Harrington Financial Services
logo displayed in large block letters on the wall behind it.

“My biological father was a married man whom
I’ve never met. Charles adopted me when I was two years old—I’ve
never known him as anything other than my father,” he responds
curtly, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation. “His office is
in the back.” Behind the partition of the reception desk, are
center rows of open cubicles with executive style offices flanking
either side, each with a large dual-paned glass window that gives
its occupant a view of the main work area. Some have their blinds
drawn while others are open, revealing richly decorated spaces for
the upper level executives that work there.

“
What is it?”
I ask Cat privately,
picking up on the troubled look in her eyes.

“
I’ll tell you later,”
she replies
then wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Ewe—what is that smell?” Aside
from Zane, the rotten odor hits the rest of us all at once, and
Natalie makes gagging noises in protest.

“I can’t smell anything,” Zane says,
inhaling deeply. He starts to take a left at the end of the
hallway, and gets annoyed when the three of us veer off to the
right, something intrinsic pulling us involuntarily towards the
stench. “There’s nothing that way except restrooms and an employee
lounge, both of which have the potential for ghastly smells,” he
says, blaming it on nothing more than human refuse. “Either of
which means that the janitors haven’t been here yet and they’ll be
showing up soon. I suggest we search my father’s office first.”

“We’ll be there in a minute,” Natalie
mutters, and the three of us proceed down the opposite corridor,
barely acknowledging his warning.

“What—do you guys have hound dog genes
overriding your common sense?” he grumbles, marching past us
impatiently. He's almost to the door of the employee lounge, when
his face puckers, indicating that his less sensitive nose has
detected it as well. He swings open the door to the lounge and we
stick our heads in, quickly determining that the odor isn’t the
result of rotting food.

“Must be the sewer—are you sure you want to
go in there?” Natalie says hesitantly as we stand outside the
restroom. As horrible as it is, the odor has a sweetness component
to it that isn’t like any outhouse I’ve been around, and my morbid
curiosity is committed to finding out what it is.