THRICE

6 -- Misdirections

"We've received word from an anonymous informant," Max told the ragtag group of Gifteds the next day in the common room. "The police in Tatiana's hometown found a body in an abandoned cabin, and it looks like Squall's doing. We've been assured that Squall has already left the area, so we're sending you in to take over the investigation and look for anything useful he may have left behind."

Roran and Inigo glanced at each other ecstatically, but Monisha looked more hesitant. "Why us?" she asked, twisting a curl around her finger.

"I've dealt with town police before," Azarel explained with a sigh. "It's a skill. They can be very stubborn."

"This is also a very straightforward job," Max put in. "No need for Gift-specific work if you're just searching a house."

"I see," Monisha said, though she didn't look completely convinced.

The twins, still in their pajamas, rushed back to their room to get dressed. Tatiana stood awkwardly in the middle of the common room, not sure what her place in the conversation should be. "Was it the cabin in the woods at the end of 12th Street?" she asked Max.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "You know about it?"

Tatiana nodded and dodged his eye contact. "Almost everyone in town does. Kids like to dare each other to go in."

Monisha smiled slyly. "Did you ever go inside?" she teased.

Unperturbed, Tatiana said, "All the time. It was usually nice and quiet, and I don't mind dust."

Max tapped together some papers on his lap. "Excellent," he said with an air of finality. "You can go with them, if you have a good sense of the place." When Tatiana didn't respond, he added gently, "Only if you want to, of course."

Tatiana slowly shook her head. "No, you're right, I should go."

Max's grin returned, and he stood, sliding the papers into a manila envelope. "I'm sure you'll be a big help. Good luck!" He playfully saluted them and left.

Azarel watched him go with a concerned frown as Inigo and Roran chased each other back down the hallway. "Our main job is to keep the local police out of this," she told them. "It's a good idea to search the cabin anyway, but I doubt we'll find anything. Squall always covers his tracks."

Squall sat on the edge of a long-forgotten bed, running his finger slowly down the length of his sword. Duana had cleaned and sharpened it before leaving, but he wanted to make sure it was in top condition. When he was satisfied, he set it down on the sheets and closed his eyes. Even without sight, he'd found that doing that helped him focus.

Activating this part of his Gift was much harder, since it didn't have an outside trigger. Squall fiddled with one of his fingers while he searched his mind, repetitively bending and straightening it in double time with his breathing. Finally, he felt something familiar and latched onto it, vaguely noticing his awareness of the outside world fading out. Finding what he wanted, he took it. Then, he passed out with a sigh of annoyance.

When he came to, he stretched and groped around for Lucian's battered old laptop. His hand patted flat metal, and he pushed himself up against the bed's headboard, opening the computer and fiddling with its text-to-speech function. He increased the speed and changed the pitch to what he was familiar with on his own computer.

As Squall rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he tediously guided the program to read his new messages. One caught his attention immediately, and he nodded with the slightest of smiles when the computer read it out. It finished with the sender. "Leopold, Max. Director, CAMIO."

Squall smirked, pausing the screen reader, and shifted on the metal-frame bed, making it creak like a tree branch. "Well, Leopold, Max, you're in for a surprise." He hit a key to continue and kept listening for anything else interesting. When nothing came up, he said impatiently, "Read from Duana."