never guess where I am and what I’m doing.”
“Oh, that shouldn’t be too hard to guess,” John replied. “Joe’s contacted you again last night in your dream. And both of you have come up with a plan to help Burrows.”
“Close! I’m in my car and on the way to the airport. Burrows just phoned and told me to forget the cold case file for now, and get my ass up to Cisco, pronto.”
“What? You can’t go without me!” John wanted to be involved with Alice’s work with Joe, even if it was only driving her and keeping her company.”
“Sorry love, Burrows thinks something big is going down.” She gave a nervous sigh. “FBI and Homeland want Joe’s help right away and Burrows made it sound really important.”
“Homeland Security,” John said, his mind racing and wondering what was going on. “If Frank Brubaker wants Joe’s help, then I bet it’s some kind of terrorist attack or a nuclear bomb hidden somewhere and they want Joe to help find it?”
John looked around to make sure no one was listening to him, then continued, “That’s why Frank Brubaker put your task force together, isn’t it? To use Joe’s gift to find things out.”
“Gee thanks John, a nuclear bomb? I think I might just catch a plane heading the other way.”
“Sorry love, I didn’t mean to scare you, it’s just... well, that’s all we ever hear about from Homeland – terrorists.”He screwed his face up in annoyance at himself for talking without thinking. “You’ll be all right, they probably just want Joe to get into someone’s head and get information they can’t get, so don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I can drive up when I finish work to spend a few days with you. You know you owe me a few days.”
“No honey, you stay there and I’ll call you later to let you know what’s happening.”
“Are you sure, because Joe can’t do anything until there’s contact tonight, can he?”
“I’m hitting a little traffic now so I had better hang up; I’ll speak to you later, love you loads.”
Alice hung up and shook her head at her behavior. She had avoided the question because John wasn’t right about her having to wait until night time for Joe to contact her. Alice and Joe had somehow learnt to communicate telepathically. Neither she nor Joe knew how it happened; it just did. It was surprising to Joe because firstly, apart from Alice, none of his “clients”, as he called them, ever knew he was in their heads. Now Alice was the only client he could telepathically talk to.
Alice had first noticed it one morning when she heard a voice in her head. She was fully awake at the time and it freaked her out so she shouted at Joe to get out of her head. It freaked Joe out as well, for he had no idea how they were communicating. He told her they must be talking telepathically and that they must be the only people in the world with the ability.
It had taken Alice a long time to accept it and ultimately, they had both decided it would be best if they kept it a secret, even from her husband, John. The world would look at them as freaks.
The telepathic thing worked only one way though; Alice couldn’t just call Joe’s mind at anytime but she had to wait for him to call her. Joe told her that all he had to do was close his eyes and think of her and he could get into her mind. As if that wasn’t creepy enough, he told her he could see what she could see; if she was watching TV he could tell what she was watching. Alice didn’t like it but knew that was just part of the Magic Man’s gift.
She couldn’t wait to tell Joe they had a new top secret case to work on. Joe had said he would contact her and go over the cold case file with her. That was another unsettling part of their partnership, she could be reading something and Joe would be in her head, reading it at the same time, miles away. His most common way of communication though, was getting into her dreams, hypnotizing her and having her relate what she had read