Mind Games

Thea knew the house rules. First day home, she sat while her grandmother fussed.

“Now. What’s this about today?”

“Two things. I guess I’ll take them in order of appearance. Professor Cheng—he’s Game Design—texted he wanted me to come to his office. Naturally, I worked myself up into a state, I guess that’s how I’m built, about tanking my finals project.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute. You worked so hard on it, and Rem said it rocked hard—that’s a quote.”

“Rem’s my brother, and Professor Cheng’s a hard-ass. I learned a lot from him, maybe because he’s a hard-ass.”

“What did he have to say?”

Thea lifted her glass in toast. “A hundred percent. Believe me, he doesn’t toss those around like Mardi Gras beads.”

On a hoot, Lucy clapped her hands together. “Oh, Thea, I’m so proud!”

“There’s more. His cousin works for Milken.”

“The games people?”

“Yeah, and he’s going to send my game to his cousin. He said he’s never done that before.”

Lucy sat back. “You mean to say they might make your game?”

“I don’t know about that, but if I get any kind of feedback from them, it’s gold, Grammie. And maybe a connection when I get my degree.”

“I should’ve gotten champagne.”

“We won’t jinx it. It’s an opportunity, and inside I’m dancing. But we won’t jinx it.”

“I’ll be lighting a candle and sending out light with intent that my girl gets what she’s earned and deserves. No jinx there.”

“I’ll take it. Then there was something else. When I floated back to the dorm to get my things, Detectives Howard and Musk were waiting for me.”

Lucy’s hand shot out to grip hers. “Riggs. But … no, not Riggs.”

“No, nothing about him. They told me that right away because I thought the same. It was about a girl who’d been abducted.”

She told it all, beginning to end.

When she finished, Lucy rose to pour them each a second glass. “That girl’s safe because you followed your heart and your conscience.”

“I didn’t want to, Grammie. I really wanted them to go away, leave me alone. But…”

“You followed your heart and your conscience,” Lucy repeated. “You helped when help was needed.”

“And you helped me open to seeing that way, by touching or holding. It hurt, Grammie. I mean I could feel her pain, her terror. Removed from it, but still feeling her, knowing it.”

Lucy nodded. “It’s part of the price.”

“But once I started, I couldn’t stop, whatever the price. The things he’d done to her? We know there’s cruelty in the world, we’ve lived through it. But, Grammie, the things he’d done to her, what he would do to her.”

Pausing, she breathed out, drank some wine. “I understand how I could see his car, because she did. And the basement, because she did. And him, because she did. But she didn’t see the house from the outside. She didn’t see the inside except for the basement. But I did.

“I didn’t see through him, not like Riggs. It wasn’t like that.”

“You stepped back, so you could see. You put yourself there, with her, then stepped back to see more.”

“I don’t know how.”