Page 25 of Power of the Mind

“But you’re helping.”

“For one—”

“Week, yeah, I got it. You’ve driven that point home. In that case, I want to talk to Mackie, Amber’s brother. Can you help me locate an address or phone number?”

With a long-suffering sigh, I pointed to a drawer. “Find the iPad.”

Tallus delivered it reverently into my outstretched hand. “This is going to be so much fun.”

I glared.

He adorned his sultry and mischievous smile and winked.

I opened the iPad and mumbled, “Full name.”

“Mackie Wells.”

“Is Mackie short for something? Like Mackenzie?”

“I don’t know. He wrote the review under Mac, so I don’t think so.”

“Do you know how old he is?”

“No. Younger than Amber. She was eighteen. He’d be a high schooler. Does that help?”

“Yes.”

Tallus waited patiently while I filtered through the various Mackie Wells living in the Greater Toronto Area. It didn’t take long to narrow it down and find the one we sought. Sixteen-year-old Mackie Wells attended Leaside Secondary School off Eglinton Avenue East. He played football for the Leaside Lancers in the fall and swam on their swim team all winter. In the spring, he ran track and field, one of the top kids in his age classification according to the previous years’ statistics. From there, it wasn’t hard to discover a geographical location for where he lived, which turned out to be in an apartment in East York with his mother, Kaitlin Wells. No father was on the lease, so he probably wasn’t in the picture.

I relayed the information to Tallus, who checked the time on his phone. “Should we head over to his house? It’s dinner hour on a school night. He should be home.”

“Keep in mind, he’s a minor. His mother could tell us to fuck off if she doesn’t like the look of us. If she’s not home, we could get in a world of trouble for talking to Mackie behind her back.”

“So what do we do?”

“We do our best not to come across as threatening.”

“You meanyoudo your best not to come across as threatening. I’m charming. Everyone loves me.”

I narrowed my eyes.

Tallus smirked and stood. “Correction. Everyone but you. Come on, Guns. We’ve done this song and dance once or twice. I’m sure we can find our groove again without getting into trouble.”

“You are the definition of trouble.”

He tossed me the fedora. “And you are the definition of a Negative Nancy. Let’s go.”

7

Tallus

Diem drove us to Mackie Wells’s apartment complex while I considered the best approach for bypassing the kid’s mother should she be home or attempt to intervene. I didn’t want to ask Diem’s advice since he’d put me in charge of the case—I was still reeling—and wanted to appear competent.

How I had so easily talked him into going along with my wildly outrageous theory about murdering, mind-controlling psychics was the question of the century. Kitty was right. I had powers beyond my reckoning. A young Peter Parker. What had Uncle Ben said?With great power comes great responsibility.I would need to remember that. Kitty was right. Despite Diem’s daunting and somewhat menacing exterior, he was a squishy and vulnerable marshmallow inside, especially when under my spell.

However, despite my unforeseen power, I wasn’t sure I could convince Diem to ask me out on a date. Time would tell. I wasn’ta quitter, and despite the cramped timeline, I’d be damned if I lost a bet to Memphis.

Did I want to date Diem Krause, Man of Many Moods, Keeper of Secrets, Wearer of Scars, and Mr. Anti-Touch himself? I didn’t know for sure.