Page 130 of Captive Omega

He grins at me. “Nothing like a bit of bass drum and bass at night to encourage a person to go deal with the music.”

The door swings open. Blaine at least has changed out of his paint splattered clothes into a pair of black sweatpants and a black turtleneck. “So, did she like it?”

“I think so.”

Blaine sighs before he crosses over to the table and takes a seat, nudging his glasses up the bridge of his nose when it slides down. “I need more than that.”

“She seemed pleased,” I say mildly.

I come under direct fire from withering stares.

“You know,” Vaughn says thoughtfully, “If you ever decide to change careers, I beg you to never take up writing greeting cards. She seemed pleased tells us nothing. Where is the passion? Did she smile? Laugh? Kiss you?”

“She did not kiss me or laugh. She smiled a bit though, but we were talking about the puzzle at the time.”

Vaughn snorts, then reaches forward, snagging my open file. “So, what are you working on?”

Blaine leans a little to the right to avoid his shoulder bumping into him.

I pretend not to notice.

I’m not the most tactile person in the world, but everyone needs touch. A hug, a pat on the back… something to connect a person to another in the world. But Blaine? Blaine has gone years without it. And annual doctor check ups do not count.

He spent nearly two years in the hospital and then his room recovering from the car accident. Those two years opened up an enormous gulf between us and him, and him and the rest of the world that I worry if he will ever recover. The offer of self-defense lessons seemed like he was a step closer to recovery. Now I wonder.

I tug the file back and close it. “That’s the Jerome Walker case, but it’s solved now.”

“Since when?” Blaine frowns.

“Since five minutes ago.” Before he can ask for details, I get up from the table and cross over to the whiteboard that takes up almost the entire wall.

When we gutted this mansion and turned it into half home-half headquarters, Blaine pushed to have a massive white board we could use to brainstorm and plan for big events.

Blaine used it more than the rest of us. He likes to explain things using pictures. I just talked, enough to put someone to sleep, Vaughn would joke. What Resa wants is going to require precision like planning. Big picture and small.

I pick up a black marker, hope it’s not dried out, and remove the lid. “Resa saw that plea on TV for witnesses to speak at Sloane Eddiswood’s trial,” I say. “She wants to do it.”

Silence.

“You didn’t agree to what will undoubtedly be the most dangerous place for her to show her face, did you?” Vaughn asks.

In the center of the whiteboard, I scrawl two words:

Exterior

Interior

Then I draw a vertical line separating the words.

“We need solutions to solve both of these problems. Inside the courthouse and outside it.”

Blaine sits back in his seat, frowning. “That place is going to be a circus, Garrison. Reporters, strangers just there to ogle, and undoubtedly people who would want to silence Resa before she gets one step inside.”

“It will be a challenge,” I say.

Vaughn and Blaine stare up at me, faces expressionless.

“Seriously, no greeting card writing for you. Ever,” Vaughn mutters.

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