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Chapter 11
"He actually walked in on you in the shower?" Katie laughed, imagining her brother's flushed face as he walked in on Lexa while she was in the shower.
Lexa nodded. "He did. I kept adjusting the towel on purpose, just to make him more flustered. It's so cute," she mocked. She said this in a sardonic tone, but the truth evident in her eyes, despite what her voice tried to convey.
"Okay, too much information," Katie said, putting a hand up. "Jesse always was eager. Whenever he learned something new, he always wanted to tell someone about it. Mother and Father usually couldn't be bothered, so he came to me a lot."
"And what exactly did your parents do that made them so unavailable?" Shalimar asked bitterly.
Brennan, who was walking alongside her and behind Katie and Lexa bent down to her ear. "Play nice, kitty," he admonished, letting her know that her feral side was showing.
Shalimar whispered back, "I like her, I don't like Noah."
Brennan nodded as he straightened up. He could hardly berate her for something he agreed with. "So, Katie, has this place been in your family very long?"
"Not really," Katie said as she led down the hallway lined with portraits and landscapes. "My family is an old one, but grandpa had this house built about 40 years ago, and that's nothing compared to the ages of the really old houses in this part of the country." She had been giving them a tour of the house. They had already seen the kitchen – where they had ransacked the refrigerator, the living room, the dining room, the parlor, the study and the library. All were elegantly decorated in classic, yet modern styles. And all of which, except for the kitchen, Katie told them, were hardly used.
Lexa noticed how the hallways echoed. "Seems kind of desolate. I guess the family doesn't spend much time here."
"I'm the only one. Josie lives her, though. Her husband does too – he's the groundskeeper. There's a cleaning crew that comes by once a week, but that's about it."
"Why do you stay here? Why not just close the place up and move to the city. It's not like you couldn't afford it."
"I did live in the city for a few months, after I graduated college. But then Father suddenly signed over all the accounts and control of the business to me a couple years ago. Gave me power of attorney over everything. I double majored in business administration and economics, so I guess he thought I could handle it. I haven't heard from him since. Jesse said he saw him a couple years ago. If it was anytime in September, maybe it had something to do with that."
"I think it was late August when we ran into him." Brennan looked to Shalimar for confirmation.
She nodded. "Your dad tried to get Jesse to help him blackmail the company he worked for."
Katie sighed. "I was afraid it was something like that. You see, most of the family's wealth was inherited from my mother's side. Her father was an investment banker and later gained ownership of a company that designs microchips. Before they got married, mom was a socialite. It was basically her job to schmooze with the customers and maintain good relations. Father worked as a security consultant."
"Nexxogen," Shal supplied.
"Yes. After he married mother, he kept working, eventually becoming head of security. When Grandpa Lawrence died, control over the investment firms and the company went to my father. He controlled them exclusively until he suddenly handed them over to me a couple years ago. Ever since, I've been working on sorting them all out. Father may be an expert in security, but he really sucked at organization. I've taken care of the businesses, but I'm just now getting around to organizing all his legal papers. I brought them all here to work with because the house in Philadelphia was getting a little crowded with all of mom's socialite friends." Katie snorted as she stopped by a door. "Her lovers de jour, too."
"So your parents didn't exactly have a loving, monogamous relationship, did they?" The tone of Shalimar's voice made it clear that it was more of a statement than a question.
"Nope. Father was always on business trips and Mother was always working the social circuit. Grandpa kept an eye on Jesse and me, though. He lived with us in the house in Philadelphia. He was always asking us how are day was, writing letters to Jesse asking how he liked his new school, things like that." Katie looked down at her feet for a moment, but then returned her gaze to her visitors. "He passed away from a heart attack about a year before Jesse die– disappeared," Kate caught herself. It was still hard reconciling herself not only to the fact that her beloved older brother was still alive, but that her father had known that he was still alive.
Brennan once again utilized his classic tactic of changing the subject – he cleared his throat. "Ahem. So, uh, what's this room?"
Katie looked at the door. "This was Jesse's room. Mom and dad asked me to take care of it, but I didn't have the heart to clean it out. I figured I'd be the busybody younger sister and show it to his friends."
Brennan chuckled. "All the more to tease him with, my dear. Let's take a look."
Shalimar was the first to step in to the room. "Holy shit. It's a mess!"
Katie laughed. "When he was home it was usually a lot worse than this. Dirty clothes were all over the floor. There was almost always some electronic thing that he was taking apart spread out all over the place. He left so quickly the last time I ended up cleaning all the dirty laundry and stuff so the place wouldn't smell, but I left everything else for him to take care of. Hence, the computer spread all over the bed and papers all over the desk."
"It's just a little surprising. I've always known Jesse to be a neat freak. He's got everything organized. Everything's neat, everything has its own little place." Shalimar opened the closet, pawing through the clothes. "Still dresses the same though. Well, he did, anyway. How many button-down shirts can a man own, anyway?"
Lexa walked over to the desk, stepping over a backpack on the way. She grazed her fingers over the haphazardly stacked pile of books. "Chemistry, Physics, Advanced Calculus, Structural Engineering. Jesse was reading this stuff when he was 15?"
Katie looked away from the closet where she was telling Shalimar a story about eggnog and Jesse's favorite shirt. "Yeah. He was almost 16 and he had just graduated high school. He was boning up for his first semester at Colombia.
Lexa gave a small smile. "That sounds like the egghead we all know and love." Her smile faded. "Jesse never did make it to Colombia, did he?"
Katie shook her head. "Before I asked Father where Jesse was I did a search – hacked into as many college admissions databases as I could trying to see if he was just away at college."
Lexa sighed. "Just more proof that all the money in the world can't buy happiness."
Katie nodded, but before the silence could get awkward, Brennan's voice echoed from across the room. "He didn't have bad taste in posters, though."
The three women turned to look at the posters lining the wall. There was a periodic table above the desk. Next to it was a poster from the most recent World Cup soccer match. They all remembered Jesse's affinity for the game. Many a time he had tried to start a pick up game in the hallway. Unfortunately for him, Brennan preferred basketball, Shalimar preferred the dojo, and Lexa preferred the dojo and, of all things, tai chi. Lexa remembered how, after she revealed that to Jesse on afternoon she explained by saying that it was a good way to relax. Jesse had joked that she needed to do it more. She had slapped his arm and stalked out. Lexa shook her head at the memory and resumed her perusing of Jesse's wall. There were a couple more soccer posters and one of a Brazilian rainforest. Next to the door, she saw a couple posters of pin-up girls, one of which Brennan was presently admiring. Noticing the appreciative look he gave the poster, Shalimar slapped him on the arm.
Lexa turned her attention back to the desk while Shalimar admonished Brennan on the women's rights while Katie laughed. Reaching behind the stack of textbooks, she pulled out a well-worn paperback book. Recognizing the title, she began to flip through it.
"Sophie's World. It was – is – Jesse's favorite book." Katie's voice came from behind her.
Lexa nodded as Katie moved to her side, and briefly touched the cover of the book. "I know. I went to visit him in his room after he had been shot – "
"Shot! Jesse's been shot before? Jeez, the work you do must be dangerous."
Lexa placed a hand on the younger woman's arm when she heard the panic in her voice. "He's fine, and as far as I know, it's only happened the one time. Jesse's ability to mass out protects him – and us – from most bullets. The bullet was designed by someone who had studied Jesse, and made a bullet that could penetrate his massed state. We took care of the guy." Lexa left out the part about the bullet attaching itself to Jesse's nervous system and containing explosives. "Anyway, I went to visit him and he was reading this book. He told me all about Sophie and how the guy teaches her about all the different philosophers. He always said it made him remember that it's a big world out there and that the scales are pretty big, so something that seemed big to him wasn't necessarily big in the grand scale of things. Plus he said the scales are balanced. He might be having a real bad time of it, but that meant that somewhere else, someone else was having a good time of it."
"That sounds like Jesse. He used to say the same things to me."
"Yeah, well, I guess it explains his optimism."
"And his desire to help others."
Lexa mind started to mull over the newest revelation about Jesse. Her conscious mind stopped her however. She knew how Jesse felt about her. She knew that she cared about him, but she wasn't ready to examine all those feelings just yet. Breaking her mental trance, she looked to Shalimar. "Hey, guys. How long has it been since Jesse went into The Cave?"
Shalimar checked Brennan's watch. "Almost two hours." She thumbed her comring. "Hey Jess – you there?"
There was no answer. Shalimar tried again, but with the same result.
Brennan rubbed her back. "Hey, he said that the comrings might not work away from the hole in the grid. We'll just have to wait a little longer."
"But what if he can't get the grid open? He was able to phase down, but there's no way he could phase back up into the house."
"Hey – this is Jess we're talking about. He's hacked into countless military databases, company records and even Adam's personal files. He'll do it. We just have to wait," Brennan reassured her.
Silence filled the room. Katie, ever the peacemaker and hostess, grabbed a board game off Jesse's dresser. "Hey, who's up for a game of Life?"
Brennan burst out laughing. Shalimar and Lexa soon followed, both of them recognizing the irony of the question.