Chapter Three

Riley thumbed through pages of his book before ultimately deciding to scan the index for something having to do with beginnings and Freemasonry, finding his own entry of the official story on page seventy-three. He turned to the page and scanned it until he found what he was looking for, at which time he read carefully. Unfortunately, he'd only contributed one sentence to the official story, as per his editor's suggestion: 'The first Masonic Grand Lodge of which there is record is in London and was founded in 1717.'

He pulled his laptop out of its bag and logged on. When the computer finally decided to cooperate, he clicked on the icon for his Internet browser. When that finally decided to cooperate, he entered his query into the search box. He waited until he could finally scan through link after link, with text samples, but he only needed to scan the first five and find one that seemed promising. His lips curled up in a mischevious smile when he found something interesting. He fished out his phone and, in the manner of one worthy of the title 'Flying Thumbs', texted this tidbit to Tanya.

He recieved a reply almost post haste: 'keep address we might need it'. He put the address in a note to be stored on his phone and returned his attention to the computer, scanning the screen for more useful tidbits. Finding none, he shut his computer off and put it back in its bag. He set his phone on the nightstand and lay back in his bed, hoping almost against hope that his little intervention was enough to get what seemed at first glance like a wild goose chase to come to a recognizable, sane conclusion.

He rubbed his eyes and sighed. When he really thought about everything that happened over the past two months, really since he met Tanya as Andy, he figured he really had it easy. She'd admitted it herself that she thought, more than once, that she was losing her mind, just because her gut feelings were a little more accurate than most other people's and just because she saw him get chased in some kind of vision. So far, the vision hasn't come true, but he really didn't know what would happen within the next week, or month, or however long the rest of this hunt lasted.

He only hoped to be able to survive that long.

NTNT

"Got a tip," Tanya said as soon as she sent out her text message.

"Oh, what is it?" Ian replied.

"Turns out, Riley has an address for the first Grand Lodge, which is somewhere in London."

"The one founded in 1717?"

"The very same. I think that's where we start looking."

"So what do we do about the President?"

"I don't know yet."

Ian walked into the living room and sat next to Tanya on the sofa. She set her phone on the coffee table, next to a notebook and pen. "If he still has the pen, we still have the program."

"Are you sure about this?"

"Of course. We keep going until we get caught."

"And when we do?"

"Then we pay our dues and figure something else out. That's how we Howes role." Ian smiled softly, and Tanya responded in kind before turning her gaze back down to the notebook on the coffee table. The page it was open to was covered in text, items that've been crossed out heavily and doodles, especially of items of interest, such as the Square and Compass symbol, of which there were multiple copies of varying sizes dotting the page. She studied this page for a few moments before looking down at the carpet.

"Howes are also, at least as far as I can gather through our history, are psychic circus freaks."

"We are, but that's a good thing. It's saved us on more occasions than either of us realize, and that's just independently of each other."

"I know that, but visions-"

"Have you had another one?"

"No, but I worry."

"Which is why perhaps you should rest a little."

"Ian, I know you worry about me, and I know you love me. We're family, siblings. We're Howes. That's the most important thing."

"Yes, it is, more than you realize."

They settled into a comfortable silence, and then a phone started ringing. Ian fished his cell phone out of his pocket and answered with his usual, "Yes?" He walked off into his study, via the kitchen, leaving Tanya alone in the living room with the notebook page of seeming chaos.

NTNT

Ben rubbed his eyes and collapsed into a recliner. Abigail took a seat on the sofa, in the seat closest to him. "Everything okay?" she asked.

"Well, I keep thinking, with everything that's happened, maybe it could be one of us next time," Ben replied. "One of us could be the one to die, or maybe Riley, or his girlfriend, or her brother and his men?"

"Ben-"

"It's just that I don't want anyone else to get hurt."

"Ben, we can't worry about that. We have no idea how this is going to turn out or how long it takes, but we can't spend all our time hoping nothing goes wrong and blaming ourselves when something does."

"Y'know, you know a lot of things."

"Thank you," Abigail said with a slightly smug smile.

Ben turned his eyes toward the floor in an effort to hide the smile on his face, and he shook his head. A small laugh escaped from him, but it was soft, barely audible. Abigail just rolled her eyes. So far, as far as she was concerned, everything was normal.