Part 1: Leah

Chapter 1

The body strapped in the seatbelt on the driver’s side of the Rolls Royce wasn’t warm, but the fiery pyre I’d fashioned and would set off would raise its temperature beyond the melting point. Unwilling to leave the body to the vagaries of a chance explosion and fire, I’d charred its face and hands black before muscling it into the car. I closed the door, appreciating the expensive thunk of the Rolls one last time, and walked to the rear of the vehicle.

With my back against the trunk and my hands under the bumper, I dug in my heels and pushed, almost tripping when abruptly the weight of the heavy machine didn’t require more effort to move it. I watched it roll down the embankment and off the edge of a cliff. When it struck the rocks far below, I pressed a button, and a huge fireball erupted in the night sky.

I watched the blaze with a critical eye. From my viewpoint, the raging fire was doing its job. Identifying the body would be next to impossible. Cremated bodies don’t give the authorities much to work with, and my hand-written suicide note would give them pause to look deeper.

Using the light from the inferno, I carefully brushed away my footprints with a whiskbroom. Satisfied the prints couldn’t be detected, I stepped onto the asphalt road. I stomped my feet to get rid of any dirt or dust, brushed away that dirt and walked down the narrow highway to a Harley Davidson motorcycle hidden in the brush. Moments later, I kicked life into the engine and roared away from my life as Vince Smith. The Arizona driver’s license in my wallet named me Clint Wilson, age twenty-six.

A shame about the Rolls, but its destruction was necessary to authenticate my death, and this death wasn’t my first. I staged my first demise when I was fifty years old. I’m seventy-six now, but I don’t look a day over thirty, mostly because I stopped aging on December 23, 1959. My birthday was Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. I’m not aging, but I’m not immortal. Although I have an incredibly efficient immune system and heal ten times faster than normal for a man, I can’t regenerate body organs or limbs. Cut me in half or off with my head and I’m a goner.

By the way, I’m also an accomplished telepath.

When the Harley rolled onto I-10, I goosed the powerful engine and cut a roaring swath through the starry night, my destination Phoenix, Arizona, or rather Gold Canyon, a distant suburb of Phoenix. Two years ago I’d purchased high-desert acreage backing up to the Superstition Mountains. I didn’t buy the land in my name, or even my new alias. A number of corporations owned the property, and I defied anyone to trace the labyrinth of corporations, many of them offshore, that would tie ownership to Thomas Patterson, Vince Smith, or my new name, Clint Wilson. During the intervening two years, I’d built a refuge on the high-desert land that would ensure my privacy. I dubbed the estate Refugio de la Vida, or Refuge from Life, and I planned to spend the next twenty years in contemplative solitude.

As it turned out my plan turned into a joke from the get-go.

Two days later, after stopping only to eat and sleep since staging my death, I noted a sign announcing a truck stop a few miles ahead. I was hungry, so I took the exit but filled the motorcycle with gas before entering the restaurant. It was a typical truck-stop eatery, half-full of truckers, and a scattering of other travelers. I told the hostess I was alone but preferred a booth. She shrugged. My request didn’t bother her, and she guided me to a booth. I tossed my helmet into the corner and, before I sat, removed my leather jacket. Sitting, I stretched out my long legs to get the kinks out, and twisted my head on my neck for the same reason.

The shiny menu offered nothing unique or appealing, so I ordered a club sandwich and a glass of ice tea. The cute waitress who took my order looked so young! Surely she wasn’t old enough to work full time as a waitress.

You’re seventy-six, you old fart, I told myself. You can’t accurately guess the age of the young anymore.

I reached out and touched the cute waitress’s mind with mine. Nothing there of interest for me. From her thoughts, I stopped worrying that she was breaking the child-labor laws. She was cute but had a crude mind.

Over the years I’d come up with labels for minds. Crude, confused, shallow, deep, empty, wistful, focused, optimistic, negative, religious, and evil are examples. I was also wise enough to know that any one label didn’t come close to describing how an individual’s thought processes truly functioned. The label didn’t define personalities, either.

Predominately evil minds bothered me, though. I had to tell myself frequently that everyone, and I mean everyone, had evil thoughts from time to time. Still, some minds contain enough evil thoughts and attitudes to truly label those individuals evil. No, I don’t get involved reporting the evil deeds I uncover in the minds of the sociopaths and mentally deranged among us, not anymore, that is. Been there, done that, and didn’t buy the t-shirt. Superman I’m not. I have not and will not dedicate my life to stamping out evil. Put yourself in my shoes. You’re immortal unless you have an accident that injures you beyond repair, or someone injures your body beyond its ability to sustain life. Would you avoid evil men and women? Sure you would.

Then why are you roaring down an Interstate on a Harley? you ask. Isn’t that putting you in harm’s way? Yes, like crossing a busy street or getting into an airplane. I take risks. Life without any risks wouldn’t be living, and I spent a lot of time on a motorcycle when I worked construction jobs in Vegas for five years before I stopped aging. I was competent and comfortable straddling a Harley. I also wore heavy leather and a helmet.

The cute but crude waitress put a club sandwich in front of me, filled my glass with ice tea, gave me a winning smile, and sashayed away carrying the pitcher of ice tea, thinking about some fun things she did with her current boyfriend the night before.

I finished the sandwich, left a hefty tip, and paid my bill. Outside as I forked my Harley, a woman walked up to me.

“Where you headed?” she said.

I took in the sight of her while I connected my mind with hers. She sure wasn’t involved in the trucking industry, not if the tailored, silk designer outfit she was wearing was any indication. She was also drop-dead gorgeous. Thick auburn hair, professionally styled, curled softly around her lovely face. Compared to my six-three, she was five-nine or -ten in her stocking feet.

“Phoenix,” I replied.

Should I, or shouldn’t I? she thought. I’ve got to do something different, something Hal and his birddog would never expect of me. If I don’t, he’ll find me. Find me and kill me.

“How about giving a lady a ride?” she said.

“Don’t have an extra helmet,” I said.

Go for it, she told herself. He doesn’t look like a typical biker. No tattoos. And Hal’s man can’t be more than an hour behind me. This guy is the lesser of two evils.

“I’ll take the risk,” she said.

“Are you in trouble?” I asked. Would she tell me the truth?

“Yes.”

“A man?”

“Yes.”

“Inside the restaurant?”

“No.”

“Chasing you?”

“Yes.”

“To do you harm?” I said.

“If he can get his hands on me, he’ll kill me.”

“That’s harsh. The restaurant has eyes. Walk around the corner. I’ll pick you up there.”

She sighed with relief, turned and strode away. I watched her walk. I would have watched her walk in any circumstance. She was poetry in motion. I started the Harley and rolled it slowly to the end of the building where she waited for me.

“How far behind is this man?” I asked.

“A man sent out to retrieve me by the man,” she said. “An hour, maybe less.”

“Hop on. We’ll take the back roads through Coolidge and Florence.”

By the time the hitchhiker and I roared into Gold Canyon two hours later, her thoughts had given me her story, and I decided to help her more than merely giving her a ride. So, instead of dropping her off farther down the road in Apache Junction, I turned off Highway 60 at Gold Canyon and guided the Harley to my new home with its magnificent view of the Superstition Mountains.

At my walled estate, I pushed a remote, and the heavy, wrought iron gates opened. As the gates closed behind us another remote opened one of the garage doors, and I parked the motorcycle. A Mercedes sedan, a Hummer, and a large Dodge pickup truck also occupied the garage. There was space left for another half-dozen vehicles.

“Where are we?” she said as she stood and straightened her short skirt.

“My home.”

Definitely not a biker, she thought, and then said, “Ah, harboring me will put you in danger.”

“Life without risk isn’t living,” I said. “I’m Clint Wilson. What’s your name?”

“Robyn Carson.”

“Mrs. or Ms.?”

“Mrs.”

“The man after you, is he your husband?”

“Yes, Hal Carson. He labels himself a financier. I label him a controlling, brutal bastard.”

In the true meaning of the word, I was a bastard. My mother, Elaine, was unmarried at the times of my conception and birth, a scandal in those days. On Black Tuesday, Elaine Patterson lived in Reno, Nevada, a cocktail waitress, she told me, but she also sold her body from time to time to survive. I never held hooking against her. Times were tough during the Great Depression. Besides, her soul remained alive and well. I loved her deeply.

So, I was a bastard, but I wasn’t offended by Robyn’s use of the word. Besides, I was neither controlling nor brutal.

“Come inside,” I said. “We’ll have dinner and you can tell me your story. If you wish to leave then, or if I decide I no longer want to help you after hearing your sad tale, I’ll drive you into Phoenix and drop you off.”

She blinked her large, dark eyes and sighed. “Fair enough.”

Mrs. Greta Sharp greeted us as we entered my home. She was my cook/housekeeper. Two months ago, I’d hired her out of a shelter for battered women. She needed and wanted to get away from her violent husband, so when I offered her the job, which included room and board, she jumped at it. My groundskeeper, Juan Gomez, came from a homeless shelter. Before becoming homeless, he’d owned and operated a landscape maintenance business. He’d been clean for six months when I hired him. Also and surprisingly in this day and age, he was a citizen, not an illegal immigrant. He was born in Arizona and educated in Phoenix public schools.

Both employees fit my needs. I didn’t want long-term help that would notice that I didn’t age. In five or ten years, when they were back on their feet, I’d help them a little more and send them on their way, replacing them with others that needed a leg up in life. I’d do the same with Robyn Carson - or not.

“Welcome back, boss,” Greta said with a bright smile. She was about forty years old, short and a little chubby, with a bubbly personality. I liked her. Shortly after I hired her, I’d returned to Houston to finish up my life as Vince Smith, telling her I was taking a business trip and would be gone for a couple of months.

I introduced the women, and added. “Greta, Mrs. Carson’s husband is chasing her to do her harm. Why, I don’t know. She’ll be joining me for dinner to tell me her story, after which she might or might not stay here for a while.”

Greta chuckled. “Another damsel in distress, huh?”

“Yep. Show her to the guest suite that opens to the pool.”

“All right. What time would you like dinner?”

“Seven.” I turned to Robyn. “Please join me at the bar in the great room at six-thirty.”

She nodded.

Greta said, “Juan needs to talk to you.”

“After I shower and change clothes,” I said. “Say six o’clock.”

“I’ll tell him.”

While the water splashed my head and back, I reflected back over the early years of my life, my life before I stopped aging. Starting a new life encourages a look back, I reasoned.

When I was five years old, my mother married a man named Lawrence Chadwick and promptly had four more children with him, one after the other, two girls first, and then two boys. One of the girls died during infancy, flu that developed into pneumonia. One of the boys died shortly after birth, what medicos call Sudden Instant Death Syndrome nowadays.

I never liked my stepfather, and he detested me. He was a large, brute of a man, and when he drank, he became a mean drunk. I was his favorite punching bag, but my mother and half-sister and half-brother weren’t exempt from his abuse. In the spring after I turned sixteen, I decided to fight back, and as drunk as he was at the time, after our brawl I remained bloody but standing. He lay bloody and unconscious on the floor.

“You can’t stay now,” my mother said, her lovely dark eyes filled with fear. “He’ll kill you when he wakes up.”

“If I leave, he’ll get even by beating you.”

“Maybe, but he won’t kill me. You shamed him. You took him down. He’ll kill you. I don’t want you to leave, Tom, but as things stand, you’ll be better off on your own. Give him some time. Then come and visit.”

Right or wrong, I agreed with her, so I gathered my things, confiscated my stepfather’s hunting rifle, a 30/30 lever-action Winchester, and all the ammunition I could find. I also commandeered his fishing and camping gear. I needed the rifle and camping paraphernalia because I planned to spent the spring and summer of that year in the mountains around Lake Tahoe living off the land, shooting game, fishing, and eating edible plants.

The day I kissed and hugged my mother goodbye and left home was the last time I saw her. I still feel guilty about leaving her to endure my stepfather’s wrath in my stead.

Just before winter set in, I got lucky, or so I thought at the time, and found a job on a working ranch for thirty dollars and found. I lived in a line shack, worked the fences and the cattle, and read books. Billy Williams, the owner of the ranch, let me borrow a set of classics from his library. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Plato’s Five Great Dialogues, Aristotle’s On Man in the Universe, and my favorite, Meditations, written by Marcus Aurelius. In this manner, I continued my education, and I’ve been what folks call a “reader” ever since.

The winter that year was particularly harsh, and I vowed to never spend another winter in the cold country, so come spring, I headed for Las Vegas and got a job on a framing crew building houses. I spent the next five years laboring in various construction jobs. Got married, too, a pretty young woman named Barbara. The marriage lasted two years. She wanted kids, and when we determined the mumps I’d had in my early teens made my squirming baby-makers useless, she took a hike. Discouraged and depressed, I moved back to Reno.

Yeah, I know I’d promised myself not to live through another cold winter. I returned to the place of my birth because I felt guilty about leaving my mother and little sister and brother unprotected and living with an angry, violent drunk. Besides, I wanted to see my family again.

The shack my family lived in when I left Reno at age sixteen was gone, replaced by an Esso service station. My enquiries about my family proved fruitless. Many years later, I hired a private detective, and he tracked down my sister, Penelope. She was sixty-two at the time, and I stood next to her and smiled at her. I desperately wanted to take her into my arms and hug her. I didn’t. She didn’t recognize me. How could she? She was in her sixties; I looked like a thirty-year-old man. I did help her financially, anonymously, of course.

The same detective informed me that two years after I left home, my stepfather went too far during one of his drunken rages and murdered my mother. He died in prison. The detective found no trace of my brother, Clarence, except for the first foster home he occupied after my stepfather was put in prison.

Back in Reno, I got too big for my britches, as my mother would say. I started my own subcontracting company, offering framing and rough-carpenter services to homebuilders. Why not? I’d framed houses for two years in Reno before I moved on to cement finishing and bricklaying. I knew how to do the work, and do it well. What I didn’t know, I discovered, was the business end of contracting. I could hire and fire help, but I couldn’t keep the books, and my bids for jobs came up short half the time. My subcontracting venture failed, and I took a hod-carrying job. After living in the cold country for three more wasted years, I remembered my vow, quit my dead-end job, loaded up my pickup truck with everything I owned and headed for Vegas again.

I went off the road in a blinding snowstorm at ten o’clock on the night of December 23, 1959, and woke up ten days later in a hospital in Vegas, my head swathed in bandages and plaster casts on both legs and one arm.

What I didn’t know when I woke up was that I’d stopped aging, freezing my physical age at thirty.

I turned off the shower, and with a fluffy white towel, dried off my thirty-year-old body that had lived for seventy-six years, dressed and left my bedroom to meet Juan, my groundskeeper.

Juan was a small, wiry man, but strong as an ox. I don’t know how he did it, but he could work all day in the Arizona sun. I was sipping a scotch and water, sitting on a bar stool when he joined me. I didn’t offer him a drink. It isn’t nice to offer booze to an alcoholic.

“Still dry and clean?” I asked.

He grinned. “Sí. Eight months, twenty-two days now.”

“Greta said you needed to talk to me.”

“Yes. I found my wife and son.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said. His thoughts gave me a clue about why he wanted to talk with me. To cut the time needed for the conversation, I said, “Will she let you back in her life?”

“Yes. Ah...”

Then I surprised him. “Move your things and theirs into a two-bedroom unit over the garages.” I’d built a number of servant’s quarters over the garages as well as in a freestanding structure. They were ample and well appointed. “I forget. What’s your wife’s name?” I said.

“Rosa.”

“Does she have a job?”

“Yes, two of them. She’s a housekeeper at a motel in the morning and a janitor on a cleaning crew for an office building at night.”

“I’ll match or exceed her pay for both jobs, plus board and room for her and your son. Rosa can help Greta clean the house, do laundry, whatever. She’ll work for Greta. That will give you evenings and weekends to spend time with your family. Use the pickup as a family vehicle. How old is the boy?”

“Twelve.”

“I don’t know about nearby schools, Juan, but you and your wife will need to register your son in a nearby school.”

“We can do that,” he said.

“Your son, is he a good boy? Is he involved with drugs or gangs?”

“No, but Rosa has been worried that he might get involved with both. Where they’re living now ... well, it’s possible.” He smiled and said, “This is good.” Rubbing his brown hands together with glee, he added, “I can teach him the landscape business.”

“What’s his name?”

“Pablo. Paul.”

“Put him in charge of cleaning the pool. I’ll pay him so he has some spending money.”

“Gracias, Mr. Wilson. Thank you.”

“Clint, Juan. Call me Clint.”

He shook his head. “I just can’t do that, Mr. Wilson. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Greta calls me boss. How about jefe?” I said.

He grinned. “I can do that, jefe.”

As Juan was leaving, Robyn walked into the room. I sure did enjoy watching her walk.

“Were you a model when you were younger?” I said.

“Yes, runways mostly but some photographic work, and only for about two years. I couldn’t hold my weight down. Anorexic or bulimic I’m not.”

“What you are is gorgeous.”

“Thank you.”

“What would you like to drink?”

“What are you having?”

“Scotch.”

She grimaced. “Haven’t acquired the taste. May I have a glass of white wine?”

“That’s easy. I even know how to make it.” I walked around behind the bar. If memory served, a bottle of chardonnay was chilling unopened in the cooler. I had a good memory, I discovered, so I pulled the cork and poured the wine, and then sat on a stool next to her.

“You’re a surprise,” she told me after taking a sip.

I chuckled. “Thought I was a member of the Hell’s Angels, huh?”

“No, but I didn’t peg you as a rich man. Your house is magnificent.”

“Thank you. I moved in two months ago, and then promptly left on a business trip. Instead of flying back, I bought the Harley on a lark to relive some moments from my youth.”

“Business trip? What kind of business?”

“I’m a venture capitalist,” I said and then laughed. “A financier. I’m also a bastard, a real one. My mother wasn’t married when I was conceived. She didn’t marry until I was five years old.”

I’d learned that partial truths are easier to remember. Besides, changing identities requires a back-story that can’t be assailed, and my back-story was a doozy.

As it should have, my statement embarrassed Robyn. I accepted her apology by saying I understood that her use of the condition of my birth as it related to her husband implied a different meaning of the word.

“Being a bastard doesn’t bother me, Robyn. I’m only bothered by the term if it’s used to hassle me for being illegitimate. Tell me about the controlling, brutal bastard named Hal Carson.”

She signed and her shoulders slumped. “My marriage was a huge mistake.” Tears dampened her eyes. “He courted me, Clint. Flowers, limos, expensive jewelry, you name it. He said he loved me, and I believed him. What I didn’t know was that Hal isn’t capable of love. I told you that he is a financier, and he is a financier of sorts. He’s a loan shark, and I think he’s been laundering money for some drug lords. I didn’t uncover those facts until after I married him. Hal Carson is a bad man. What he is, is a worthless, evil, no-account ... never mind. What I wanted to say isn’t ladylike. He considers me a possession, Clint, not a wife, and demanded absolute obedience. When I found out what I’d gotten myself into, I told him I wanted out, that I wanted a divorce. He laughed and told me if I ever left him that he’d kill me. Then he used me for a punching bag. ‘To give you a small taste of what I’ll do to you if you leave me, ‘ he said.”

She sipped some wine and continued. “Well, I left him. I planned and connived and I left him, but I didn’t plan well enough. I think ... Clint, I ran out of cash in El Paso and used a credit card to pay for a motel room. He must have had a trace going on my credit cards. The cards are his; I was an additional user. Anyway, as I was leaving the motel in El Paso, I saw a man I knew that Hal employed, a strong-arm type, one of Hal’s collectors. He was walking into the motel office as I was driving away. I needed gas in Las Cruces and used a credit card, and that’s when it dawned on me how Hal might have found me. I was running out of gas again when I pulled into that truck stop in Eloy. I figured I could ditch Hal’s birddog if I hitched a ride instead of filling up my car with gas and paying for it with a credit card.”

“Where were you living with Hal Carson?” I said.

“Houston, a big house in a swanky neighborhood nestled in tall pines. My husband draped himself in phony but expensive respectability, Clint.”

“Where were you headed?”

“I planned to lose myself in Los Angeles.”

“With relatives?”

“No. I planned to get a job and just hide out for a while, disappear among millions, so to speak. Running to my sister in Colorado would have put her in danger. Clint, I’m not exaggerating about Hal. If he finds me, he will kill me, or hire someone to kill me, probably the former. He’s killed before, boasted about it to let me know how dangerous he could be.”

She believed what she was saying, and her story fit her thoughts. Whether her death was imminent if her husband could locate her, or her death was only what her husband wanted her to believe would happen if she left him, I didn’t know. I walked around the bar and retrieved a pair of scissors from a drawer.

“I’ll help you. Cut up your credit cards,” I said, handing her the scissors.

She didn’t hesitate. She pulled her wallet out of her purse, extracted three credit cards and cut them in half.

“You’ll need some things. After dinner, we’ll drive into Mesa, and you can get some clothes and whatever else you need. My treat. We’ll hit the Superstition Springs Mall.”

She nodded. “Keep track. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”

“Did you have any money before you married Hal?”

“Some, but won’t Hal be able to follow the money trail if I transfer those funds?”

Smart girl. I grinned. “Not the way we’ll do it. I am, after all, a financier.”

Chapter 2

At the time of my accident in 1959, I was close to penniless. Hospital and doctor bills put me deeply in debt. I believe the hospital expected me to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying, but I fooled them. As soon as I was released from the hospital, I rolled my wheelchair into the Silver Slipper and up to a poker table. My winnings that day allowed me to rent a room in the Desert Inn, and the next morning, and every morning for the next four months I sat at one poker table or another on the strip or on Freemont Street downtown. The casts on my legs and arm came off, and I started physical therapy midway through my winning streak.

After I paid off the hospital with my winnings, I had enough left over to start another business, this time armed with knowledge about how to run a business to make a profit. After my business failed in Reno, I started to learn accounting and financing principles and a myriad of other areas of study necessary to succeed as a businessman, and I used my time in the hospital and part of each day while I convalesced to learn that much more. By the time I was ready to leave Vegas, I had become what some folks call “self-educated.”

How was it possible, you ask, for me to win so much money playing poker? Was I that proficient calculating the many mathematical odds involved in the game? The honest answer would be ... partially. I have a keen mind. My visual memory is ... well, not photographic, but close enough to total, perfect recall to be termed photographic. Unfortunately, my auditory memory lacks clarity. No, to be frank, my auditory memory sucks. What goes in one ear promptly exits the other with only a slight pause in between. With concentrated effort, however, I could create an image in my mind that let words or numbers dance across my frontal lobe. Then I’d remember what I’d seen in my mind’s eye as if I’d read the words or numbers. Mostly, though, I didn’t concentrate.

What really made it possible for me to be a consistent winner at the game of poker came out of the accident, the accident that shook up and rearranged the synapses in my brain along with my immune system. When I came out of the coma I didn’t know I’d stopped aging. I didn’t realize I’d spend the rest of my life, probably a very long life, at the physical age of thirty. I didn’t associate non-aging with my accident for many years. But the other benefit bestowed on me by the concussion or the surgeon’s scalpel was glaringly evident when I came out of the coma.

I could experience the thoughts of those around me.

I was thirty years old, and although I didn’t know it at the time, I would be thirty years old until my body was injured so badly that it could no longer sustain life. Apparently, I wouldn’t die of “old” age.

And, I was a telepath.

Did I blab when I realized I could suddenly read minds? Nope. I kept my new ability to myself, which wasn’t difficult. My ability to experience the thoughts of others was sporadic at first, and it took me a while to realize what I was experiencing were, in fact, thoughts. By then I figured mentioning my new ability might bring on a straight jacket as well as the bandages and plaster casts I wore to succor my injuries.

Do me a favor. Think about your own thoughts. Would they always make sense to someone else if they could be heard? Most thoughts are disjointed, bouncing from subject to subject, and relate only to the individual rolling the words and related obscure images around in his or her mind. The individual understands the thoughts because they are in context, a context that relates only to the person thinking them. Much is omitted but still fully understood by the thinker. A mental eavesdropper doesn’t have these benefits.

Then place more than one person in range of your telepathy, and then add another. Yep, it’s like two or more radio stations playing at the same time. Talk about confusing! Fortunately, volume isn’t involved.

It took me weeks to gain a semblance of control. At first, I’d been passive like a radio receiver, accepting every mental signal within range, which through trial and error I determined was about a ten-foot radius. Obstructions, like walls or other barriers, had no effect. I even tested leaded walls while in the x-ray room. Unlike Superman’s x-ray vision, lead didn’t affect my new ability.

I felt fortunate that I occupied a small hospital room. More than two or three visitors made the room crowded, so the static was kept to a dull roar. Also, fortunately, the nurse’s station was more than ten feet away, so their mental gymnastics weren’t added to the static.

Then one morning, by switching the process from passive to active, I discovered that I could shut off the thoughts of others.

Bliss! No more static. No more mental noise.

Next, I worked at reaching out to mentally connect with a person in the room. The reaching was an invisible link from my mind to another mind, sort of an electronic tendril sent out to make the connection. What’s more, purposeful connections made in this manner were more powerful than passive acceptance. Purposeful telepathic connections doubled the effective radius.

Then I worked at excluding junk thoughts and picking up context understood but not expressed by the thinker, as well as folding in the amorphous mental images that went along with thoughts that gave them clarity.

By the time the hospital cut me loose, sitting around a table with expert poker players took the gamble out of the game for me. Having a poker face did not translate to having poker thoughts. A little advice for the unwary: it isn’t wise to play poker with a mind reader. By the time I’d earned enough to pay the hospital and give me a stake to start a new business, poker bored me to tears.

I needed purpose. I was thirty years old, divorced and without a career. I didn’t count framing houses or carrying hod a career. I’d lived off the land, worked on a ranch, and failed at marriage and business. I was aimless, without long-term goals. And gambling held no interest for me. I wanted to be an important man, make a difference in the total scheme of things, which to my way of thinking back then meant that I’d need to be a wealthy man.

Won’t be too difficult to get rich, I told myself, not if I can read minds.

Hah! The rich men that I’d met exhibited a character trait that I lacked: complete and utter ruthlessness. I couldn’t ruin innocent lives to achieve wealth. I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t have it in me. My sweet mother had taught me otherwise. I had a stake to make a new start, though, and I’d failed once, which had given me the incentive to study business on my own, both out of books and speaking with successful businessmen. And I could read minds. Could I become a wealthy businessman without climbing over the backs of others, particularly innocents?

Hah! you say. Isn’t that what you did at the poker tables in Vegas? No, not to my way of thinking. If you sit at a poker table and push out your chips, you will win or lose; it’s a risk you accept by sitting in the game. Innocent, you’re not.

And subcontracting wasn’t the way for me to go. Real wealth came to general contractors and real estate developers, not subcontractors. And Las Vegas wasn’t the place for either business, not in the late fifties.

I moved to California, the San Diego area, to be specific. I spent a few months looking around, listening, learning, and then I bought a building lot in La Jolla, hired an architect, and put up a house. I sold that house, and bought two lots. While I constructed those houses, I bought more lots, which required a brief visit to the poker tables in Vegas to replenish and increase my stake. Two years later, a different architect designed a small apartment project for me. I built it and became a landlord. A strip shopping center followed, and then a small office building. The apartment projects, shopping centers and office buildings became larger. I was driven to succeed.

Success? What is success? How is success defined? Oh, I made a lot of money, but my private life was a mess. I’d married again, but my business came first, and after years of neglect, my new wife, Nora, stopped loving me. I could read her mind, so I can’t claim I was unaware of the change in her emotional frame of mind, and I also knew almost immediately when she started to cheat on me with other men. That hurt, but even then, I didn’t assume any blame. I was too self-centered, too driven. I hired a private detective whose efforts made the divorce equitable for me.

Nora presented the first clue that I wasn’t aging. We’d been married for five years. She’d aged. I hadn’t, and during one of our last verbal battles, she’d screamed, “You might not be getting older, but I am! You don’t look a minute older than the day I met you. How is that possible?”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

She turned me to a full-length mirror. “Look! Look at yourself! Look at me. I’m getting older. You aren’t.” She ripped open my shirt. “Look! Youthful, hard pecs on your chest. A washboard on your stomach. Do you exercise? No!” She tore her blouse off and removed her bra. “Look at me! I exercise. I work at it. But ... see the slight sag in my breasts, the little bulge in my belly. See the small wrinkles around my eyes. Yes, I cheated! I’m getting older. I’m not...”

“You’re still a beautiful woman, Nora.”

“Humph, then why did you ignore me? Why did you spend all your time working?”

Even after that argument, I still didn’t realize I’d stopped aging. Years flew by. I became more successful in business, but my personal life suffered. How could it be otherwise? I worked every waking minute. Shortly after I turned forty-three, I ran into Nora at a cocktail party, a benefit for some cause that I couldn’t avoid.

She stood in front of me, looking lovely but older. Her jaw gaped, and she was holding her breath. With effort, she closed her mouth and sighed.

“What’s your secret, Tom?” she said calmly. “Have you discovered the fountain of youth?”

“Just clean livin’, Nora,” I quipped, but by then I didn’t need her validation that I wasn’t looking my age.

“I hate you,” she said, turned and walked away, the lights in the room reflecting off the sudden tears in her eyes.

Others who had known me, or worked with or for me since I’d landed in the San Diego area began to notice that I didn’t show my age. Few commented about it out loud, but I heard their thoughts. It wasn’t until I made a trip to Vegas for some more capital that I connected not getting older to my accident.

“Tom, you don’t look a day older than the first time I saw you across the poker table years ago,” a fellow card-player said. He frowned. “Fifteen or sixteen years it’s been.”

“Clean livin’,” I said flippantly, but my answer sounded hollow even to my ears.

Had I stopped aging when the synapses in my brain became rearranged by the accident, the same accident that produced my ability to experience the thoughts of others? I’d never know, not with certainty, but I accepted the possibility as the most likely scenario.

Regardless, my continuing youthful appearance was becoming a problem for me, so I took steps to give the appearance of aging. Slowly, more and more gray hairs appeared in the dark tresses at my temples. Ironically, the gray hairs came from a bottle. I moved slower on purpose, complained about aches and pains I didn’t have, and attributed them to getting older.

But I wasn’t getting older. My forty-eighth birthday arrived and became the past, and I soon realized I wouldn’t be able to hide my apparent lack of aging for many more years. That’s when I started to plan my first demise and resurrection as a new and younger man.

The fiery pyre representing my first demise wasn’t in a Rolls Royce crashing on the rocks at the bottom of a cliff. The fiery pyre was in a boat, an expensive boat that exploded and burned on Mission Bay in San Diego. I’d sold most of my assets and stashed my millions in offshore accounts that I could access under my new alias and spent the next twenty-six years in Houston, Texas, easily multiplying my net worth ten times.

I also spent time learning how to protect myself by studying martial arts and improving my ability with various firearms. I did not get married again, but not because I’m opposed to the institution of marriage. I just didn’t fall in love. I’d believed I loved both my wives, but thinking back, I married Barbara because at the time I believed a young man should marry, have children and live happily ever after, but Barbara wanted children more than she wanted me. I liked Barbara, and I wanted her, but love ... I wondered. In the end, love didn’t matter. Barbara took a hike, and I squelched my need to propagate the species.

I married Nora because she was beautiful and smart and fun, and I’d believed a businessman could be more successful with the support of a beautiful wife on his arm, but then I ignored her to achieve my business goals.

I blame myself for both failed marriages. I didn’t truly put in the effort to keep either of them alive and well.

In Houston, I wasn’t driven to become wealthy. I started out with more money than I could ever spend, and still my net worth increased tenfold. During my last ten years as Vince Smith, I slowly moved out of the real estate development business while learning how to be a venture capitalist. A name change, I reasoned, should include a new profession. I’d also learned the importance of balance in life. I worked and I played, and I went through a lot of women, short-term, fun relationships. I read books, hired tutors for languages and mathematics and other subjects I found interesting, improved my innate artistic ability by learning how to paint with acrylics and oils, and as the years went by, I became more and more introspective, spending more time with myself than with friends and acquaintances.

What would my life as Clint Wilson offer me? I’ve gotta admit I didn’t have a clue. I was lonely, but I’d learned to accept loneliness as a byproduct of my immortality and telepathy. If I had to stage my death every twenty-five years, give or take a few years, having lifelong close friends or loved ones wasn’t in the cards.

“Oh my,” I breathed out loud. I’d poured myself a cup of morning coffee, doctored it the way I like it, and wandered into the great room. Outside, Robyn stood on the diving board, wearing a bikini. She took my breath away.

“She’s somethin’ else, huh?” Greta said.

Not knowing Greta was behind me, I jumped a little when she spoke.

“I never looked that good on my best day,” Greta added and sighed with dismay.

“She is beautiful,” I said as I watched Robyn perform a perfect dive, slicing into the sparkling water, making hardly a splash. “Athletic, too.”

“You want breakfast now or later?” Greta said.

“Later. I exercise before I eat.”

“That’s right, I remember. Tai chi, you said it was.” And if memory serves, he’s even more beautiful than that sexy woman when he exercises, she thought, and then said, “That was a nice thing you did for Juan and his family.”

“Thanks, but with more mouths to feed, you’ll need some help keeping this big house clean and, at the same time, cooking for everyone, so there was a selfish motive behind my largesse. I told Juan that Rosa would answer to you. Please meet with her this morning and divide up the work anyway you see fit.”

Greta smiled and shook her head. “You’re somethin’ else, too, boss.”

I glanced at Robyn again. She excited me. I wanted her, but I wouldn’t initiate a relationship with her. Had I known I wasn’t aging, I would not have married Nora. It just isn’t fair to marry a beautiful woman who will age if her husband will forever remain the same age physically, especially if the beautiful woman is vain about her looks, like Nora was. And Robyn was no less vain. Love could alter that equation, but like I said, I didn’t fall in love during my second life. Besides, none of the women I spent time with fell in love with me, probably because I took a hike at the first blush of love I noted coming my way from the minds of the women I dated.

After my experience with Nora, I vowed that if I fell in love and wanted to marry a woman that I’d tell her about my perpetual physical state at age thirty. The decision to grow old with a man who doesn’t grow old with her should be made by the woman.

Robyn joined me for breakfast in the small dining room. The house had three dining rooms: a large room off the kitchen for staff with two dining tables that could seat twelve (I anticipated more staff), the small dining room where Robyn and I were eating, and a large, formal dining room for dinner parties.

“Will you teach me tai chi?” Robyn said as she sipped fresh-squeezed orange juice.

“No. I’m not a good teacher. I will arrange a teacher for you, if you wish.” She’d watched me perform the movements of my exercise. Instead of working out in my dojo, I had exercised outside by the pool. The morning temperature had been perfect, the sky clear and blue, and I’d enjoyed the view of the mountains and the bikini-clad beauty in my pool while I tried and succeeded in finding my center. I chuckled to myself when I admitted that I was also showing off a little for the bikini-clad beauty.

“I wish,” Robyn said.

“I’ll arrange for a teacher for both of us. I included a dojo in the design of my house and planned to hire a teacher for me. The trick will be talking a good teacher into coming to the house rather than us going to him.”

“From what you said, may I assume that tai chi is also a form of martial arts?”

“Yes, but I use tai chi more as a form of meditation, a way for me to find my center, than as a martial art. I studied karate for years, but I’ve recently started to study and practice Krav Maga, a form of self-defense that originated in Hungary and Czechoslovakia and, later, perfected by the Israelis. The Krav Maga style I learned is focused on combat with kicks and punches similar to those used in other martial arts, but Krav Maga also employs elbows, knees, joint locks, throws and some weapon disarm techniques. It’s pretty intense, but if you want to learn how to protect yourself in hand-to-hand combat, Krav Maga is the way to go.”

“I want that more anything I can think of. Clint, I’ll never allow another man to intimidate me, let alone beat the living daylights out of me.”

“Do you know how to fire a handgun?”

“No.”

“Then you should also take some shooting lessons. I understand there are some excellent instructors at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility. It’s a long drive from here, but worth it, if you’re serious. They also give classes that will let you acquire a conceal-carry permit.”

“I’m serious. When can we transfer my money so I can pay my way with you and hire a shooting coach and a Krav Maga...”

“We can transfer your money this morning,” I said, interrupting her. “Don’t worry about the cost of a Krav Maga instructor. I’d planned to hire one for me anyway, and once you get the basics on firearms, I have a shooting range here on the property where you can practice. If the Krav Maga instructor doesn’t teach tai chi, there are a lot of places that offer inexpensive tai chi training as an exercise and for meditation. About paying your way with me, forget it.”

Perfect, she thought. With enough time, I can learn how to protect myself if Hal or one of his cruel thugs finds me. She looked me in the eye. Clint Wilson is perfect, too. Why couldn’t I have met him before I met Hal?

“A dojo, a shooting range, how large is your property, Clint?” Robyn said.

“Eighty acres, but I fenced only the five acres smack dab in the middle.” I grinned and wiped my mouth with a napkin. “I bought the rest to keep the riffraff at arm’s length. Would you like the nickel tour?”

My artist’s studio surprised Robyn. It was an outbuilding, designed and constructed as a studio. The walkway to the studio from the main house crossed a watercourse that started at a small waterfall. I lived in the desert, but I’d insisted that water had to be an integral element in the design of my estate.

“I’m an amateur artist, Robyn. I hang fine art in my home, not the canvasses I paint. Painting satisfies my creative urges.”

“May I see one of your paintings?”

I chuckled. “I burn them after they’re finished. In my youth, I wrote a novel, an extremely bad novel. I kept a copy for a lot of years. I don’t know why? Anyway, one day I reread the novel, and that same day I invited all my friends to a book-burning party. I’m impressed with excellence in the visual arts or literature and believe mediocre art and writing should be set to the torch.”

“Ah, but who decides what is excellent and what is mediocre?” she said.

“In my home, I decide.”

“No tennis courts. No putting green,” she said.

“No. I tried golf, even belonged to a country club. Golf bored me almost as much as talk about golf. Frankly, I never enjoyed competitive sports. I run and swim or practice tai chi and Krav Maga for exercise. I have reserved acreage outside the walls of the compound for a small horse ranch that I will develop over the coming year, so I will add horseback riding along the faint and ancient trails in the Superstition Mountains.” I grinned. “Perhaps I will find the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine purported to be somewhere in those craggy mountains. Come, let me show you my pride and joy.”

The library was three stories tall with walkways around the second and third floors that were cantilevered from the perimeter walls and hung from ceiling rafters. In this manner, the center of the large room soared fifty feet toward a skylight in the roof. A spiral staircase wound up to the walkways. Sliding ladders gave access to books on high shelves. The ground floor was a reading room with comfortable chairs and good lighting. The room was stunning architecturally, my favorite room in the house.

“Notice the third floor is barren of books. I plan to fill those shelves over the coming years,” I said. “Books I’ll read, not merely buy.”

“You have time to read that much?”

“I’ll take the time, Robyn. To read and learn. Protecting yourself is a priority for you now, so you’ll learn Krav Maga and how to handle firearms. Those are laudable and necessary goals, but knowledge is always the best defense. What’s more, knowledge also gives more meaning and joy to life. I read to learn, but I also read to be thrilled by the turn of a phrase or the visions a gifted author can conjure in my mind. I named my estate Refugio de la Vida, or Refuge from Life. I will spend the next twenty years in contemplative solitude, away from the hustle and bustle of business and a heavy social life as much as possible, so I can learn and grow as a human being, so I can - and this might sound contradictory - so I can increase my capacity to enjoy life.

“As you know, I was a bastard, but when I was five years old, my mother married a rich man, a rancher in Montana. My sweet mother planted the importance of learning in me. Notice I said “learning,” which is different than education. I did not go to college. When my mother and my stepfather died in a plane crash, I inherited everything. That’s when my real education started. I went to a business school - the school of business hard knocks. I had some failures at first, so I hired tutors to teach me what I needed to know.”

I’d just spouted part of my so-called unassailable back-story.

“The instructor I will hire for Krav Maga will not be the only teacher I hire,” I added. “As needed, I will engage the services of a variety of tutors to expand my knowledge of this earth and its dominant life form - man.”

Crap, she thought. I’m starting to fall for this man. Not good. Living here with him puts him in danger. I warned him; he accepted the risk, but if I fall in love with him...

I must leave. Leave now!

“Next stop, my security room. Come with me, Robyn,” I said, ignoring her mental diatribe. I found it curious that I didn’t want Robyn to leave my protection. Why? I wasn’t in love with her.

Not yet.

The two words echoed in my mind.

I wanted to fall in love. Loving and being loved would shatter the constant loneliness I lived with, but I also knew that love was elusive. Love would happen ... or not. It couldn’t be forced.

The lock to the security room opened to my finger.

“It’s a fingerprint lock,” I said as we stepped into the room. An array of monitors provided 360° views around my refuge. I pointed. “Hidden video cameras, and infrared cameras for nighttime viewing. For my estate to be a refuge, it has to also be a fortress, a stronghold that can be defended. I plan to hire a protector, note I said protector, not bodyguard, and he will hire men or women to tend this room, to drive me from place to place as I move about Phoenix and its many suburbs, or to other cities when I must travel for business or pleasure, to protect my life and limbs from attack. With the threat against you, I will move up my schedule to hire this protector. Robyn, if you take care whenever you leave my refuge, you will be safe here with me.”

Leave anyway, her mind told her. Then, No, stay. Stay and learn. Learn self-defense. Acquire the knowledge that will keep you alive. And try, try very hard not to fall in love so you can leave when you can without looking back.

At our next stop, my fingerprint was yet again necessary to open the door. “My safe room,” I said as we entered the room. “I’ll program your fingerprint to open this door. Greta can open it, Juan, as well. If the alarm sounds, and I guarantee you that you won’t mistake the sound of the alarm, come to this room. It’s impervious to assault, and there’s food and water for more than a week for all who live or will live on the estate. Notice the bunk beds. It’ll be close living, and not a happy place for anyone with claustrophobia, but this room offers a safe haven until the authorities arrive to capture or chase off the bad guys.”

Robyn smiled and thought, Yep, stay and learn. I can be safe here.

“Let’s go transfer your money now,” I said. “We’ll use a number of off-shore accounts, bounce your money around to take it away from the purview of your husband before it lands in its final resting place. I also believe you should obtain a new identity, and then give your new identity access to your money.”

“How much will a new identity cost?” she asked.

She’d told me the amount of funds she had hoarded that Carson didn’t know about, money she’d earned as a model in her late teens and early twenties. Robyn was twenty-eight years old now, two years older than the age I’d assumed when I became Clint Wilson. A new, foolproof identity would cost more than she had, but she had no need to know the real cost. I gave her a number she could afford and planned to make up the difference.

Her happy smile dazzled me. “Let’s do it,” she said.

“Good. My office will be our last stop on the nickel tour.”

Shucks, she thought. He isn’t going to show me the master bedroom.

I accomplished the transfer of funds and ordered her new identity with two telephone calls, one call to the man I’d used to set up the untraceable transfer of Vince Smith’s money to Clint Wilson and the next call to another man I’d used to create the Clint Wilson identity. The two men had never met and didn’t know each other.

Looking up from the telephone while speaking to the forger who would create Robyn’s new identity, I said to Robyn, “Do you have a preference for a new name?”

She remained silent for a long moment while she considered my question. Finally she said, “Use Darcy for my surname.” She smiled coquettishly. “I want you to pick my first name.”

I spoke the first feminine name that came to mind. “Sable.”

Why Sable? she asked herself. Is Sable the name of a woman he admired or loved in his past?

“I know of no woman named Sable, so I have no association with the name, my preference by the way, and I like the sound of it,” I said.

She nodded, smiling. “Sable Darcy, a fine name.”

I passed on the name to my forger.

“I’ll need photographs and preferences for a back-story, and give me two weeks,” the forger said.

“I know the drill,” I said and hung up.

“Two weeks,” I said to Robyn. No, not Robyn. Sable. Get in the habit, and inform Greta of the name change. “In two weeks you’ll be able to open a bank account in the name of Sable Darcy.”

“What about a social security number, federal and state taxes, a past, those sorts of things?” she asked.

“All will be handled,” I said. “Part of the package will be a back-story that you must memorize, but you will have input regarding your new past to make it as real as possible for you and, therefore, easy to remember.”

She cocked her head at me. “How or why do you know so much about creating a new identity and transferring funds so they can’t be traced?”

I smiled knowingly and said, “I, too, have enemies, Sable.”

True, but none I knew that would do me harm. Let her think what she will.

I knew the questions she wanted to ask. She reviewed them in her mind before opening her mouth. I stopped the questions by raising my hand, palm outward. “No questions because I will give you no answers, not now, maybe never. To put you at ease, I assure you that I have committed no crime beyond establishing a false identity, and I am not wanted by any police authority, not even for questioning. Now, let’s talk about your goals and aspirations. What do you want out of life?”

She chuckled and shook her lovely auburn mane. “You sure know how to ask the hard questions, questions I’ve asked myself, questions for which I have no definitive answers right now. My modeling career interrupted my education, but after I stopped modeling, I did return to college. With my knowledge of fashion, I thought I might enjoy opening and operating a high-fashion boutique, possibly creating a chain of boutiques, so I studied business management. I have an MBA, Clint, but other than modeling, I haven’t worked a day in my life.”

“Have you given up the boutiques as a goal?” I asked.

“No, but opening a high-fashion boutique requires more capital than I have.”

I scrunched up my eyebrows, a body-language habit I’d tried to break, but when a new idea struck, I often forgot, and the scowl appeared.

“If you recall,” I said, relaxing my brow, “I told you I am a venture capitalist. With your MBA, I figure you have a concept of what my business entails. Am I right?”

“Yes. You loan and/or invest money in new businesses, or existing businesses that need to expand but lack the capital to grow.”

“Close enough. Wanna job?”

“Huh?”

“I have discovered that I am more successful if I turn over various elements of my business to others, specifically, those parts of the job I don’t enjoy performing. I don’t enjoy reviewing business plans presented to me for consideration.” I pointed. “That stack represents business plans I haven’t read. They have accumulated here during my absence over the last two months. They didn’t arrive here directly. They came from a CPA I hired to weed out the obvious losers. Normally, I would review what remained and eliminate those that didn’t interest me for one reason or other. I’ve been thinking about hiring an up-and-coming MBA to work through that stack and thoroughly investigate the businesses, including their financials, critical personnel, markets, and so forth, for those plans I accept for potential investment. The job calls for a $10,000 per month salary. Are you interested?”

She sat stunned for a long moment, and then squared her pretty shoulders and said, “I am very interested.”

“Good. Please pick up the business plans and come with me.” I stood up and crossed the room, opening a door to another room. “This will be your office.”

Holy crap! He wasn’t kidding about planning to hire someone, she thought.

Crap seemed to be Sable’s favorite mental cuss-word. I supposed it could have been worse. I set the business plans on the desk.

“Notice that besides a desk, chair and computer that the room isn’t decorated. You have $15,000 for a decorating allowance to make the room yours. This office is closer to the small conference room and the entrance to my home than my office. This was done purposefully. If possible, I don’t want to personally meet anyone involved with the businesses in which I will invest. I will not invest less than $1,000,000 in a business or more than $10,000,000. The up-side limit can be increased for businesses with which I have or had a previous position, or if a business can go public within a year or two. I’ll give you more parameters later, and our discussions regarding the investment opportunities you select for my review will give you more guidelines. The job carries a $20,000 hiring bonus. You owe me $2,500, thereabouts, from your shopping excursion. I’ll deduct the $2,500 from the bonus and deposit the remainder of the bonus in a new business checking account you will control. I’ve mentioned a job, and a job it is, but legally you will be a consultant, not an employee. We will create a new corporation for you to receive the monthly fees, and the new corporation will pay the taxes you’ll owe for the income. Perhaps more than one corporation will be necessary. We’ll let my lawyers guide us. In all other ways, you will be an employee, and what you’ll do for me will be a job. Besides, reviewing business plans for me, you will be my assistant for other tasks I must handle.” I grinned. “But I won’t ask you to fetch coffee or take in or pick up my laundry. Greta does those types of things for me. Your title will be Executive Assistant to the President of EPC Investment Company.”

Yep, EPC stood for Eleanor, Penelope and Clarence, the members of my lost family. My stepfather killed my mother many years ago. Penelope died last year, and I’d yet to locate my half-brother. I suspected that he’d left this earth for a better place many years ago like my mother.

The dazed look in Sable’s expression cleared. She flashed a teasing smile and said, “What about benefits?”

I laughed. “Good question. Full health and dental plans. Vacation and sick leave benefits start to accrue from the get-go. A 401K Plan for retirement, and I’ll match half your contribution, so you’d be wise to make the maximum allowed contribution.”

Still smiling she said, “What’s my cost to the company store for board and room?”

“Included in and on top of your salary, smart ass,” I quipped with a grin. “By the way, one of the first extra tasks I mentioned will be explaining the 401K Plan to Greta, Juan and his wife, Rosa. Greta and Juan also manage bank accounts and have a credit card, Greta for the household account, and Juan for the grounds. I’ll expect you to monitor their accounts. I don’t believe they will cheat me, but...” I shrugged. “Soon, I’ll add a security account, and there will be others in the future, my horse ranch, for example. Sable, you will earn every penny I pay you.”

“And I’ll give you my best effort for the pay. What about us?”

“Huh?”

“Does the pay include a personal relationship?”

Anger struck. It was sudden and red hot. “No, and I’m insulted that you would even think I’m the type of man who has to pay for sex. Worse, that I’d consider you a whore!”

Her smile faded. “I apologize. It’s just that ... never mind.”

What if I want a personal relationship? she thought. That’s what I was leading up to ask, but ... crap! I messed up.

I appreciated but ignored her clarifying thought, except for allowing the clarification to filter off my anger. Leave well enough alone for now, I told myself.

“Apology accepted,” I said and smiled. “Let’s go see what Greta made for lunch.”

As we stepped toward the kitchen, I said, “Why Darcy?”

“It is the name of a distant relative on my mother’s side. He left a journal, and I had occasion to read it. It read like a novel, an adventure.” She chuckled. “He was quite the lady’s man, a cad sometimes, other times a gallant. With a new name I will start a new life, a life I hope will contain adventure. By choosing his name, I honored him.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye as we walked. “Why Clint Wilson?”

I laughed boisterously and said, “You are tenacious, aren’t you?”

She grinned. “I am.”

“Someday, I might tell you why Clint Wilson.” I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “And then again, I might not.”

“Argh,” she muttered.

Chapter 3

This one made it so easy. They all did, but this one ... So naïve. So trusting.

“Fuckin’, dirty squaw,” he muttered under his breath. “The best kind of squaw, though, a filthy half-breed. Maybe less than half. This one could even handle a little firewater.”

A half-breed excited him more than a full-blooded squaw. They weren’t as prone to obesity, and he considered the mix more attractive. More exotic. During his search, he watched for a breed.

Young, but not too young. College age.

“Doesn’t make them clean, though. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty.”

He didn’t kill them. He raped them but didn’t kill them. Usually. If they cooperated, and most did, he left them alive. Those that died took their last breath after he left them. Usually. One slit her wrists and died. That pleased him because it meant that he’d gotten through to her. That from what he’d told her, she had figured out that she wasn’t worth taking up space on the planet. Figured out that her only value was for servicing white men. White men like him.

He followed the breed, stalked her, but he knew where she was going. “To her hovel, her white man’s teepee.” No, he thought, not a teepee, not for this one. Her white man’s hogan. She’s Navajo. Half Navaho. Maybe less.

Your business is finished here. Take her tonight. Now. Leave tomorrow.

He moved closer, moved silently in the shadows like a mountain man.

When she unlocked her door, he rushed her. She turned toward him. Started to scream. But the rag in his hand muffled the sound. And the trichloroethylene on the rag muddled her mind, and with prolonged exposure would make her unconsciousness.

Trichloroethylene was a halogenated aliphatic hydrocarbon related to chloroform, sometimes called trike or tri. That trike was also carcinogenic didn’t matter to him. That trike could cause cardiac arrest didn’t bother him at all. If the breed died, so be it. There’d be one less dirty squaw on the planet.

He didn’t want her to die, though, and for a number of reasons, preferred that she remain conscious, so he removed the rag from her face, and dropped it to the floor. He shoved her inside, and kicked the door shut behind him. Perfect, she appeared drowsy, dizzy, and confused. He pushed her to the floor and fell on her with his knees, knocking the wind out of her. He quickly gagged her, using a ball gag he’d purchased at a sex shop. Then he bound her hands and legs with plastic ties. He left her lying on the floor and searched the apartment. It was empty. The rag doused in trike went into a plastic bag and then into a shopping tote - his bag of tools.

Returning to the gagged and bound squaw, he looked down at her. She couldn’t give the authorities a description that would lead to his arrest. He wore a ski mask. He wouldn’t leave fingerprints. He wore surgical gloves. He wouldn’t leave DNA. He’d wear a condom. The latex sheath was already in place.

“Dirty squaw,” he hissed. “You don’t deserve to live, but I’ll let you live if you cooperate.”

She looked up at him with terror-filled eyes, watering eyes, probably from the trike, but maybe from tears. He preferred tears, and the terror in her eyes gave him an erection.

He lifted her from the floor and tossed her over his shoulder. In her bedroom, he dumped her unceremoniously onto her bed.

“If you kick me, I’ll kill you,” he hissed and cut the ties on her ankles before binding her spread legs to the bed. She didn’t try to kick him. Then he secured her hands to the bed over her head without removing the plastic ties from her wrists.

He took a sharp pair of scissors from his bag of tools.

“Time to find out what you look like naked, squaw.”

Snip. Snip. Snip. He enjoyed the sound of scissors cutting fabric, a sound from his childhood he remembered fondly. His mother had been an accomplished seamstress.

Throughout the night, he demeaned the breed verbally and raped her repeatedly, but before first light, he gathered his tools, replaced the ball gag with a length of duct tape over her mouth, and left the white man’s hogan, left the worthless squaw tied to her bed. She’d be discovered and released - maybe. If she wasn’t - he shrugged - there’d be one less dirty squaw walking around contaminating the air he breathed.

---

Time slipped by as time has a habit of doing. Sable immersed herself into the work I gave her with dedication and, from all indications, great intelligence and a high level of street-smart intuition that surprised me. I’d taken a chance with her, and I’d gotten lucky.

She also hired an instructor at the shooting facility, and after her new identity was established, she purchased her own weapon and obtained her conceal-carry permit.

I used a Springfield XD 9mm semi-automatic polymer pistol. It weighed only about 23 ounces. That’s plenty light for a 10-shot, 9mm pistol, and because of the low bore axis created by the XD’s striker-fire design and a comfortable grip, the pistol’s recoil is very manageable despite its light weight. Sable tried the weapon, liked it, and ordered one. She practiced about an hour everyday in the shooting range on my property. I joined her on occasion.

The only Krav Maga instructor that I could talk into coming to the estate to teach us self defense didn’t feel competent enough with tai chi to instruct Sable, so Sable found a woman offering tai chi classes in Apache Junction. She drove herself to the weekly sessions, which made me nervous, so I started my search for an executive protector that would work exclusively for me. I soon squelched that effort. Executive protectors wanted more money than I was willing to pay, but I didn’t want just a bodyguard.

Sable solved the problem when she said, “How about an ex-Navy SEAL? I read somewhere that their training is the most advanced for the special services in the various branches of the military.”

A solution but yet another problem. I didn’t know how to go about recruiting an ex-Navy SEAL, and in the end, it wasn’t a Navy SEAL I recruited, but a man with different training, not of the water, but for the desert, a better solution to my mind. After all, I lived in a desert. An enquiry at the V.A. Hospital in Phoenix gave me his name.

Captain Gregory Benton, Ret., had been a member of the 5th Special Forces Group, commanding an A-Team. Unfortunately, he was, in his words, shot to pieces during a mission in Iraq. The Army didn’t want him anymore. I did, so I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He didn’t.

“No wife? No Children?” I said to Greg during the interview. He’d told me that he preferred Greg to Captain.

“Ex-wife, daughter. Ginny, I mean Virginia, she’s my daughter; she lives with her mother and her mother’s new husband,” Greg said. “Ginny’s eleven years old going on twenty-one. Ginny and I, we’re close, Clint, but...” He shrugged and tears misted in the tough man’s eyes.

“But what?” I encouraged.

“As I said, Ginny lives with her mother and stepfather ... in New York City. I’ve got visitation rights, but I’ve got to go to her. Frankly, what with physical therapy, I haven’t had the time, and without a job, I couldn’t afford the trip. New York City isn’t cheap.”

“Why can’t she come to you?”

Greg looked embarrassed. “Clint, while working hard at physical therapy to bring me back to close to where I was before I was wounded, I’ve been living in a studio apartment so I could save up the money for a trip to the Big Apple. I couldn’t ... Ginny’s new stepfather is a rich man. They live in a glitzy apartment in Manhattan. I’ve been living in a hovel.”

“Come with me,” I said. “It’s time for you to see where you’ll be living if you go to work for me.”

When I discussed the design for housing live-in staff, I told the architect and decorator that the living units should look like a suite in a swanky hotel. One two-bedroom suite and four one-bedroom suites sat over the garages. Two two-bedroom suites and two one-bedroom suites were freestanding. I took Greg to one of the freestanding two-bedroom units.

“Would you be ashamed to have your daughter stay in the extra bedroom?” I said.

He gulped and shook his head.

“The suite has a small kitchen behind those louvered doors, but you and Ginny should eat with the staff whenever possible. As you can see, you’ll have your own television, but unless I’m using the entertainment room in the main house, which isn’t often, she can watch television or movies on the big-screen with surround sound. She can also use the pool, and soon I’ll be adding stables and other outbuildings for horses. If you want, you could buy her a horse, one for yourself, too, and the two of you could ride the trails on the Superstition Mountains. Juan Gomez, my groundskeeper, has a twelve-year-old son who lives with him and his wife in a two-bedroom suite over the garages, so Ginny won’t be the only child living on the estate.”

“Yes! This is perfect, Clint! Ginny could live with me full time and visit her mother during school breaks. Perfect!” He rubbed his hands together with joy.

“Would such an arrangement be Ginny’s preference?” I asked, a little surprised.

“Hell yes! And my wife’s, too. Ginny tells me that her stepfather really doesn’t want her around. For me, the only drawback to this job was the live-in requirement. This changes everything. Let’s talk turkey, boss.”

I chuckled. Captain Gregory Benton, Ret., was more than happy with the salary and benefits I offered. We discussed job responsibilities, and I showed him the shooting range, safe room, and security room. I opened a door off the security room, a door that opened with my fingerprint.

“I reserved this room for an armory,” I said. “As you can see, it’s almost empty. Fill it with whatever you think we’ll need.”

“Which brings up the question,” Greg said. “Why all this security, boss?”

“I’m a rich man. Rich men often become targets, but there’s more. Sable, my executive assistant, ran from her abusive husband. He told her that if she ever left him he’d kill her. She left him. Right now, I’d say Hal Carson, Sable’s husband, is our most serious threat, but Greta, my cook, also left an abusive husband. He could be a threat. If he is, he’s a low-level threat, I’d guess. I’ll want you to order dossiers on both men and make your own threat assessments. For what it’s worth, Sable told me that her husband is a loan shark and is laundering money for some drug lords. Accordingly, please hire a driver for Sable as soon as possible. Her driver should live in the compound. You’ll be my driver.”

Gathering my thoughts, I continued “Perform a security audit, Greg. Make any changes to security demanded by the audit. Man the security room as you see fit. The security room personnel don’t need to live on the premises unless you feel otherwise. You’ll manage a security budget and bank account, and you’ll be given a debit card for the account. Sable will have overview on the account, and she’ll help you set up your budget. My CPA has overview on Sable, so your expenditures will be checked twice. I’m a venture capitalist, which means I loan money to fledgling companies. I’ll be asking you to do security audits on some of those companies, as well. You’ll earn your keep, Greg.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said.

My new security chief moved into his new home that afternoon.

The bougainvillea bloomed bright almost overshadowing the orange and red blossoms of the stunning bird of paradise. Purple fountain grass waved their plumes in the evening breeze.

“I like Greg,” Sable said to me.

We were walking around the running path inside the walls of the estate, a habit that we’d developed to discuss the day, the business, and other subjects. The habit would end when the days and nights heated up.

“You said he was shot to pieces. What does that mean?” Sable said.

“He wasn’t actually shot. An I.E.D. exploded near him.”

“What is an I.E.D.?”

“An improvised explosive device, in Greg’s instance, the device contained ball bearings. Four of them ripped into his flesh. He’s a lucky man. They saved his arm and leg, which was questionable at first. Still, the medicos and physical therapy were only able to restore his leg to about 80%. The arm is a little better at 90%. He could have stayed in the service at a desk job, but he knew he’d be stuck at captain, so he took a medical retirement. As far as I’m concerned, he’s not so disabled he can’t run security here, and I have every confidence that he and his crew will protect us should we come under attack.” I grinned. “He tells me he enjoys tai chi. He’ll be joining us tomorrow morning at dawn.”

“Dawn?” She groaned mentally.

“The best time for tai chi. We can watch the golden glow of a new sun cast its warmth over the chilled surface of the high-desert land.”

“Since you put it that way, I’ll set an alarm. What time does the sun come up tomorrow morning?”

I chuckled. “Don’t know. You’ll have to check. I’ll be up regardless. When the sky starts to lighten in the pre-dawn, I wake up and get up.”

That’s why he’s always up and about when I crawl out of bed, she thought.

“All right,” she said. “To change the subject, did you decide which restaurant you want to fund?”

“Neither,” I said. “Jim Burke is an experienced restaurateur, but his business plan doesn’t name a capable chef. Harold Gaunt is a superlative chef, but I don’t believe he can run the business end of a restaurant. If Burke and Gaunt were partners, I’d fund their restaurant in a heartbeat.”

Sable smiled. “That’s a good idea, Clint. I think I’ll sit the two of them down in the same room and see what happens.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” I said. “The architectural design work is finished, and the land is tied up for both restaurants. They’re both excellent locations and far enough apart so they won’t be competition, one with the other. If the two men can get along and agree to be partners, I’ll fund both restaurants.”

“That’d work,” she said. “What about the art gallery?”

“We’ll fund it,” I said. The art gallery was a no-brainer. Philip Sams had successfully operated a gallery in Scottsdale for many years. His buyer list was more than adequate, and his affiliations with other major galleries around the country were superior. The location downtown was excellent, and the renovated old warehouse would end up being the largest, most impressive and prestigious privately owned art gallery in the city. “Subject to a million dollar life or disability insurance policy on Sams naming EPC beneficiary, an insurance policy necessary because Sams is a one-man band,” I said and huffed a laugh. “If the Burke/Gaunt partnership works out, introduce them to Sams. They can cater his openings. We’ll pass on the internet venture. It’ll fail within three years.”