After talking to the two girls and the boy in the manager’s office, I went back to Jessica. Jake nodded to me, briefly, and returned to the bathroom where the Crime Scene Unit was gathering evidence from Megan, Regan, and Autumn.

I touched Jessica’s arm with my gloved hand. In her mind, I saw that she was dating one of the victims and she had been holding his hand when he died. She flung the disembodied hand from her as if it were a snake. Her mind retreated away from the memory that was so gruesome she couldn’t face it. It would take years of therapy to make it right, or I could help her immediately. I looked up at Bill, to get his permission, knowing he saw what I saw in her. He nodded, almost imperceptibly and I turned back to the girl.

I went inside her head to the place she retreated to. It was a bedroom that was filled with stuffed animals of all sizes and colors. The rest of the room was all pink and lacy. A little girl’s bedroom with a canopy bed, white furniture, and a large arched window. A place where she felt safe, loved, and cared for. It was not her real bedroom, but a mental bedroom she created when she was about six after her dad yelled at her and hit her and she didn’t understand why. Jessica had a bad childhood. Her youthful memories were filled with a loud, overbearing father and a mother who drank too much because she was too weak to stand up to her husband. Jessica was verbally abused and continually neglected. When she said, “I want my mom,” she wanted the mother she remembered in her far distant past. Now, she felt that Jared, her boyfriend, was the only person who truly loved her. In an instant that was taken away from her. Jessica was lost. But, I could guide her back.

In her fantasy bedroom, I looked over her little animals. A white rabbit that her grandmother gave her appeared in my hands and I took it to her. Jessica grabbed it from me and held it tightly to her chest. “It’s all right, Jessica. I know you feel alone, but you aren’t. Your grandmother will be here soon. Your grandmother will take care of you. She loves you very much. I love you very much.” It wasn’t idle prattle. I knew I could talk to the grandmother and convince her to take charge for a time, for the woman lived in Hampton and she had asked if Jessica wanted to come to stay with her, time and again. Jessica’s Dad wouldn’t allow it because the woman was his wife’s mother and it appeared as though Grandmother didn’t approve of the way the dad bullied her daughter and her granddaughter. Jessica’s Dad knew of this disapproval and deluded himself into thinking if they stayed away from the grandmother that no one would realize what kind of person he is.

Jessica’s mind went in a different direction. “But, Jared is dead,” Jessica told me.

“Yes, he is and it is all right to be sad about that.”

“I want Jared,” she said.

“I know you do. And you can have him anytime you want him. Just remember him and remember you were the one holding his hand when he died. That is a very special moment, you know. It is a very great gift you gave him.”

“I don’t want to remember his death.”

Suddenly we were at the beach with sea oats on the dunes blowing in the breeze and the waves kissing the shore in a gentle rhythm. Jessica and Jared walked together, gathering shells and laughing. It was a good happy memory. A true memory. I reinforced that memory of Jared so she could see him that way, happy and carefree, with a pretty girl beside him.

Then a storm cloud moved over the beach and Jared was no longer in the picture. The sand dunes were covered with people that Jessica didn’t know.

“There are all those people out there. They are staring at me,” she told me.

“They are worried about you. They care about what happened to you, too.”

“My clothes are all messed up. Mom will be mad at me.”

“No, she won’t. It’s not your fault.”

“I don’t want to cry. Mom gets mad at me when I cry.”

“I think this time, it will be alright. No one will be angry with you for crying. You have good reason to.”

“Do you really love me?”

“Yes, I do.” I put my arms around the girl and held her close. She started crying and then suddenly, we were back in the theater. I held onto Jessica while she sobbed loudly. She didn’t cry just for Jared, but for all the injustices she felt her whole life. She cried for all those times she didn’t dare cry in front of her Mom and Dad. She cried because her brand new jeans that she got for her birthday were ruined. I vowed to replace them.

Eli’s hand on my shoulder diverted my attention. “Her Dad is here.” My husband had mist in his eyes, too. I knew from my own memory that without his contact lenses, his eyes would sparkle like dew on a yellow rose when he cried. He gave me a little smile and I knew his tears were for Jessica.

I turned back to her and saw the haunted look in Jessica’s eyes as she pleaded with me, “Athena, stay with me, please.” Jessica was afraid of her father. He wasn’t large, but he had a presence about him. The man had dark hair and gold wire-rim glasses. His navy blue suit was well-fitting and his pale blue shirt starched stiff. He moved his arm and I caught a glimpse of a monogrammed cuff. He spoke of money, position, and power. A company CEO who treated his daughter like she was an employee.

“Is she hurt?” he asked.

“It’s not her blood,” I told him. “But, we need you here before the crime scene people can remove evidence from her body. She has had a terrible trauma, today.”

“What happened?” The father asked.

“That’s what we are trying to find out,” I told him.

The man from the Crime Scene Unit returned and said, “We will need her clothes.”

“Not until she has something else to wear. Darlene!” I shouted and the policewoman appeared from the ever-growing crowd in the hallway. “Go to that boutique right outside the theater and grab her a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. What size are you Jessica? A ten?”

Jessica smiled crookedly and said, “Eleven.”

“Shoes?” I asked.

“Nine.”

Darlene said, “I’m on it.” And she pushed her way through the people.

The CEO asked me, “Are you sending the cop shopping? Do I have to wait until she gets done shopping? Can’t you just put a blanket around her?” He gestured toward his daughter. “I have to get back to the office.”

Eli appeared before the man and the CEO seemed to shrink. He had a presence, but Eli’s presence was larger. Eli had been doing it much longer. I felt the energy Eli was projecting forward. He wanted the man to fear him. Eli said, “Your daughter has had a very serious shock today. She is not something you can dismiss because you have to get back to the office. She is a human being and she needs your love and your support.”

“I need to be at the office so I can make enough money to give her the life she deserves,” the man argued. He straightened up making himself a fraction of an inch taller and tried to look more formidable than he really was.

“That’s horse crap,” Eli said.

The man took a deep breath to give Eli a piece of his mind. The CEO’s eyes widened for an instant. Aaron walked up to the man and stood beside Eli. Solidarity. This was the Aaron I remembered from long ago. This was the Aaron who led armies. “You are at your office so you can make money for yourself. Don’t lie to yourself that you are doing all this for your daughter. Your daughter barely crosses your mind, even when she is right in front of you. Now, when she needs you the most, all you can think about is getting back to work.”

Eli added, “You are about one step away from losing her forever. She is terrified of you and she thinks you don’t care about her at all. And when you finally have a chance to show her how you feel, you act like you don’t care. Worse, you want to strip her dignity away by simply wrapping her up in a blanket. You may have money, but you are a sad, sad excuse for a man. If you were truly a man, you would show your daughter and your wife that you really do love them more than you love money and power.”

I saw tears on the man’s face and I knew they had reached him. I also knew they did it because of me, because they saw in my head what I saw when I visited Jessica’s bedroom. Mr. Carpenter was an uncaring bully. But maybe, even if it was for a single day, he would start to care a little for his daughter.

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I felt Bill’s approval and knew we had accomplished something good in the middle of this horrible, horrible tragedy.

The question that bothered me the most was why. Why did Phobos allow this? Why? I addressed the question to the cosmos and received no answer. I couldn’t figure it out. I sat on the floor beside Jessica and leaned against the wall. Her Dad stood across the corridor, looking down at her. He seriously didn’t know how to approach her. “Why don’t you come down here with us?” I suggested.

“This is a tailor-made suit,” he argued.

“The cleaners can fix anything and you know that. You should call your office and have all your appointments canceled for the day. Who needs to work on Saturday, anyway? Then, call Jessica’s grandmother and ask her for help. She can be here in half an hour.”

“How do you know that? You seem to know everything about me.”

“Jessica told me.” It was the truth. The girl looked at me and smiled.

“Dad,” Jessica said, “You and Mom need help. A marriage counselor or something. And you don’t need a teenager underfoot. Grandma will take care of me for a few weeks. Mom needs to stop drinking and you need to help her.”

Jessica’s Dad stared at her as if he couldn’t believe his ears. His daughter was telling him what was needed to repair the family. She had known it all along, but no one would listen to her.

“You have never stood up to me before,” he said. “Where did that strength come from?” He glanced at me as if I had something to do with it. I didn’t. Jessica always had it inside her.

“Dad, I’m your daughter, too.”

He nodded and sat on the floor beside her. He was not worried about his suit any longer. He was genuinely glad his daughter was all right. To reward her, he pulled out his cell phone and called his secretary, informing her that all his appointments were to be canceled for the next week and that someone named Mark would take care of everything. Then, he telephoned Jessica’s grandmother, spoke to her briefly, and then disconnected the call. “She is on her way. Now, tell me what happened.”

Jessica nodded and I saw the clouds cover her face again. She didn’t really want to remember, but now the memory didn’t traumatize her. “We were all together. Megan and Regan and their cousin who is visiting them, Autumn. We were going to see a movie because shopping is boring with guys around. Jared was there and his friends from school. They had their pictures made at Sears with their soccer uniforms on and most of Jared’s team decided to come to the movie with us. They were flirting with Megan and Regan and Autumn.”

I could see the whole scene in my head, of the kids walking through the mall, laughing with each other and the soccer team flirting with the pretty twins. I imagined that every one of the guys had fantasies about dating both twins at the same time.

“We got up to the theater and were trying to decide which movie we wanted to see and then it happened. The guys all just blew apart. I don’t know how...” Her voice trailed off and she started crying again.

“Blew apart?” Jessica’s Dad asked me.

“What’s your first name?” I asked him.

“Henry. Most people call me CEO.”

“Henry, there is going to be a media circus surrounding this because of the mysterious way the boys died. Plus, they were teenagers, which makes the tragedy seem much worse. But, she is right. They just... exploded, is the best word I can think of. This blood all over your daughter is their blood. The boys. She was caught right in the middle of it. Can you even imagine what that would be like?”

“It was still warm,” Jessica said, quietly. “Almost hot. But, Athena, why was it just the boys? Why not us girls?”

“Don’t even think that,” CEO said. “I couldn’t bear it if you had died.”

I sat up straight. It never occurred to me that it was only the boys in the group who were attacked. “I don’t know, Jessica. That may be significant.” Why had they just killed boys and not girls? That was a very selective murder, to say the least. I stood and instinctively, I sought Eli with my mind and my eyes. He was there, beside Bill. He glanced in my direction and I saw the worry on his face. Bill was in the middle of a hornet’s nest and would need me.

Darlene arrived with the clean clothes and I went to the bathroom door. “Jake? Are you there?”

From somewhere inside he said, “Yeah.”

“The Crime Scene Unit can do Jessica, now.”

“As soon as we are done with these girls. It’ll be ten or fifteen minutes.”

“All right.” I turned back to Jessica. “It will be a few minutes before they are ready for you. Darlene, stay with her for a moment. I need to talk to Bill... Detective Townsend.”

The small blonde woman nodded and then opened the bag to show Jessica the clothes. Jessica held up a pink t-shirt that had silver rhinestones embedded on the front that formed the word “Boss.” Yes, that fits Jessica.

Bill stood in the middle of a group of people. From his mind, I knew they were detectives, city officials, including the Mayor of Norfolk, and local FBI agents. They were discussing what should be said to the press and by whom. Bill was adamant in his refusal to allow any information to be released. The Mayor had a valid point when he said that the crime scene was too public and that too many people had taken pictures with their cell phones already. Too many people already knew about it and the media would talk to them if an official statement wasn’t made.

I caught Bill’s eye and he nodded. Within a few seconds, he excused himself and walked over to me.

“What is it?”

Eli and Aaron had moved closer to me, too. “Jessica realized it before I did. Bill, it was just boys who died. Eleven boys. Not the four girls with them. That is pretty selective.” I felt the jolt go through all of them as if they collectively stuck their finger in a light socket at the same moment.

“Holy Hannah,” Bill said. “Let’s hope the media doesn’t figure that one out. Maybe we can keep the girls out of it, completely. It is easier to get the Mayor to agree to that because they are all minors. In fact, we can keep their names out of the media, too, for a while.”

“Why just the boys?” Eli asked.

“I don’t know,” I said and it was true. Was it just a coincidence? Did Phobos simply learn a new trick, like picking someone out of a crowd? The boys all had uniform shirts on, so it would be easy to kill just the guys with the blue soccer shirts. Or was there another reason for doing that? I was completely stumped.

Bill touched my arm and said, “I need you over here to listen to what these guys have to say.” Bill asked me to come along with him and I did. He wanted my perspective on what was happening. A psychic perspective.

The Mayor addressed the group as if the cameras were already rolling, “Okay, we make a brief statement that several boys from a local high school mysteriously died in the Mall today. When they ask how the boys died, just say it is under investigation. I don’t want any of you to use the word ‘Terrorist’ or ‘Bomb’. Don’t give those media vultures any more fuel than they already have.”

“But, if not a bomb of some kind,” a man asked the group, “then what the hell was it?”

Bill opted for the truth. “Probably a psychic killing.”

The group erupted into a flurry of questions and comments that became too confusing to understand. The Mayor took charge. “Quiet! Quiet down, all of you.” He waited for his order to be followed. Then, “Would you explain that, Detective?”

Bill forged ahead. “All I am saying is this wasn’t a bomb. This wasn’t terrorists. This was something else, totally different. For the sake of argument, just say I’m right and someone can do that, psychically.”

“Who can do that?” the Mayor asked.

“I don’t know,” Bill answered, truthfully.

“You've been watching too many scary movies, I think,” a man said and from Bill’s mind, I knew he was an FBI agent. Several of the people in the group chuckled nervously.

“You got a better explanation?” Bill asked.

“Yes. It is some kind of bomb. Something new. That girl in the office said she thought a bomb had gone off,” the FBI agent persisted. “Maybe someone invented something that only kills people and not buildings. Remember those neutron bombs they came up with a while back? Maybe they did that again, only better. I think they are terrorists.”

Another FBI agent nodded. “I agree. A crowded mall on Saturday afternoon. That is the perfect place to demonstrate a new kind of bomb.”

I felt when Eli urged Bill to back down. Arguing with the FBI wouldn’t convince them he was right and it would damage his reputation. Let the FBI handle its own investigation. We could handle ours. Bill heeded the unspoken advice and said, “Yeah, you’re probably right. I just didn’t want it to be terrorists. That would be too scary to think about, how a radical invented a way to selectively kill people. Because did you notice, Mr. FBI, that only the boys died? Did you notice that the girls with them didn’t get a scratch on them? That is something a lot more special than a neutron bomb. Yes, Mr. FBI, that is just too scary to think about.”

Bill walked away from the group he had just stunned into silence with his statement and I followed him. He stopped in the lobby and ran his hands through his hair in a gesture that meant Bill was frustrated with the ignorance around him. Breaking through barriers of prejudice, regardless of where those barriers lie, is never easy. People get comfortable in their thinking and they expect the world to be a certain way. When their beliefs are shaken, people get very nervous and uncomfortable.

I put an encouraging hand on Bill’s arm and his smile was only a ghost.

Another man extricated himself from the crowd and approached us. What was left of his hair was gray and cut short and he had deep wrinkles around his rheumy blue eyes. “Speaking of bombs, you sure know how to drop them,” the man said to Bill. “Who are your new friends?”

“Captain Hayden, this is Athena Weaver, Eli Morning, and Aaron Battle,” Bill said.

“So, they got names. Who are they?”

“Good guys.”

“No offense intended,” he said aloud, but I knew he held no remorse when he said, “Are they more of your psychic weirdo friends?”

Bill stared at the Captain, the one he called Cap. I saw in Bill’s mind that his name was Capstone Hayden. Small wonder he was Cap to everyone.

“Look, I think you may be right,” Cap said. “But, you need to soft-peddle that theory around the Mayor and the FBI. Let them chase terrorists with bombs that only kill teenage boys. You know something else, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” Bill said.

“You know who did this?”

“Yes, I do,” Bill said. The Captain gave him a knowing smile and nodded slowly.