Destiny's Revenge (Destiny Series - Book 2) by Straight, Nancy (management books to read .TXT) 📕

“Anything else?” His voice was dismissive and, as well as I knew Seth, or at least used to know him, he had no intention of doing what I asked.

I knew I needed to try a different approach. I needed to make this sound good. “You have no idea what I’m going through right now. That two years I lost, I’ll never get back. I’m still getting used to you and Amanda. I know we can’t go back to the way we were before the accident, but I have to be able to trust someone. I don’t think you even know me anymore. I need to work some things out in my head - alone. All I’m asking is that you just go on about your life like I’m still in the nursing home. You don’t have to see me or even think about me.” That might have been a little thick, and I sat quietly, wondering if he had seen through all the drama.

A tender voice responded, “Lauren, I care about you. I don’t know what happened with Max. I know he’s lost his mind, and I think you know it, too. Whether something happened in Afghanistan, or the bear attack, I don’t know which, but he isn’t firing on all cylinders anymore. I’m glad you got away, but there’s no need to hide from the rest of us. We can keep him away from you.”

Not firing on all cylinders? Max must have tried to tell Seth the whole truth about me leaving. Perfect, now if I can just keep him going down this path, maybe I can keep Seth and everyone else safe. “I just need some time to think, by myself. Just whatever you do, stay away from Max and please don’t tell my parents what Max is like now. It might be temporary. Maybe one day he’ll snap out of it. This guy my dad hired, I just don’t want him to tell my parents, you understand, right?”

“Yeah, I get it.” Seth paused for a long time then finally added, “I’ll keep quiet - for now. Do you really believe Max is going to get over all this stuff? He’s delusional right now. I’m not a doctor, but delusions are normally neurotic with long term meds. I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

“Seth, sometimes hope is all anyone has. I just need a couple weeks to let things work themselves out. Stay away from this private investigator until then, and don’t say anything to my parents. Once I get everything sorted out, I’ll go home.”

Seth agreed. I hated to lie to him. I could tell he bought it: he believed Max was crazy. Seth didn’t like gossip. Revealing Max as mentally ill to my parents would have been like pulling teeth. This was not something he would have liked sharing with my parents, so getting him to keep quiet, for now, was easy.

Poor Max, I hope he never finds out that I pretended he was mentally ill. I promised to check back with Seth in a couple days to let him know I was okay. I told myself all I really needed was a few more days.

Chapter 20

I spent the next several days in and out of my sight tunnels, always focusing on the same one. The Beast’s name that he used most often was Samael, but his identity was as much of a chameleon as he was. He had tracked down nearly every friend I ever had; every time the same series of questions. When was the last time they had talked to me? Did they know of any place that I liked to go that others may not have thought of? If they had to guess where to find me, what is the first place that came to their mind?

None of these interviews produced anything at all. Strangely enough he didn’t go anywhere near Max - which baffled me. If anyone had any idea where I might be, Max would be the logical candidate. I purposely didn’t watch Max for long, only checking on him briefly each day. I knew as soon as I watched for longer than a couple minutes I would feel the need to contact him and doing so would just put both of us at risk. After three full days of watching my new friend Samael, I became so attuned to him that I didn’t even need to shut my eyes to watch him: I could produce the viewing tunnel no matter where I was.

The frustrating part was that he never stayed in the same place two nights in a row - the last three nights he had gone to three separate houses. He seemed to have a veritable fleet of cars that he rotated, never driving the same one frequently. He did seem to follow a regular routine: healthy breakfast of granola and yogurt in the morning, a mid-morning snack, salad for lunch, some sort of a snack mid-afternoon, and for dinner every night, a rare steak. I knew his cell phone number from seeing his screen so many times. I knew he favored dressy shoes and Dockers, but one of his houses had a closet full of suits and ties.

Samael was on a mission: his days were consumed with finding me. He had a massive chart on his wall with everyone he had interviewed as well as their answers to his questions. He had circles and arrows, diamonds and strange symbols, as if he were trying to map out my most likely locations. As it turns out, all the friends I had before my accident were of no help at all.

Marvin from the shooting range had been dismissed by Samael as nothing more than a passing acquaintance. His answers to the questions were written down on the massive chart, but from what I could see, Samael had