Invisible Touch Read online

  INVISIBLE TOUCH

  Touch of Gray, Book Two

  Leia Howard

  COPYRIGHT

  Invisible Touch (Touch of Gray 02) by Leia Howard

  https://authorleia.blogspot.com

  © 2019 Leia Howard

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Cover By: Melody Pond

  eBook ISBN: B07RHCJVLL

  DEDICATION

  Thank you to Cole, Veronica, and Jen for the beta reads. As always, mistakes are my own.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  WORLD OF TOUCH OF GRAY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Are you trying to kill me, slow down,” I pant. Echo, my 12-week old puppy, continues to stick his tongue out as we finish our Saturday morning jog on my five-acre property. I’ve had him for a month and love him to death, but he’s a spazz. Echo is a border collie mix, with all the herding instinct that entails, and he likes to run circles around me. He also has the requisite puppy growth spurts, clumsiness, and energy that ensues. When Echo approaches six months, I will train him on running off-leash. Currently, we are steadily working on becoming housebroken, and he is learning basic voice commands and hand signals quite well. I do not wish to curtail his puppyhood, but border collies are working dogs and I think he’s happiest performing tasks. In a month or so, I will get a second dog for him to try to boss around. For now, I’m just attempting not to trip.

  We hop up the few stairs to my front porch where I have a paw and shoe cleaning area. I sit on a bench then take off my shoes to clean them with wipes. I put my running shoes in an empty washtub which fits in a compartment under the bench I built. Echo has a specific mat that he uses to wipe his paws on. He gazes at me impatiently from his two-colored eyes, one blue, one amber. “Almost done,” I reply as I grab my house moccasins from under the bench, check his feet, then into the adobe house we go. Echo runs straight to his area and begins to lap up some water. “Like I didn’t water you on our little run, twice.” I bring a sports bottle filled with water and a collapsible bowl for him to drink from during our runs, but apparently, twice was not enough water breaks. I’ll just have to pay more attention. I hear him begin to crunch away at his puppy food. He eats like a horse, but he’ll take a nap on his dog bed when he finishes. This will give me time to get ready for the office.

  Six weeks ago, Sheriff Helki challenged me to become more involved in the Psycept community of the Southwestern Alliance Conservatorship, or SWACon. I’m a Mind Sage, a type of touch clairvoyant that specializes in reading memories and have lived on SWACon for over fifteen years. While he acknowledged that I fulfill the terms of my residency contract by consulting on cases for the Psycept police division of SWACon, he accused me of keeping my distance from most Psycepts. I attended the minimal amount of community meetings and did not interact with other TouchVoyants to better understand and hone our abilities. It was frustrating that Sheriff Helki was right, so I began to reach out to our community. The result, three to four Saturday meetings a week, ugh.

  Psycepts, or those with psychic perception, were genetically confirmed by scientists as a real phenomenon over 25 years ago, when I was a child living in Texas. Legal battles raged over who should be in charge of those identified as Psycepts, themselves or the federal government. My family, all Psycepts, tried to keep a low profile during this time. When the legalities finally settled, the courts determined that Psycepts would be responsible for themselves, but that the government could essentially draft a Psycept to work for them, for a reasonable compensation. The Psycept had no right to refusal if their abilities were deemed essential for national security or in life-and-death aid and were often subpoenaed to help with preventing or solving criminal acts. Psycepts are people and most would help when needed as in natural disasters or preventing acute harm to others. However, it was the broad-term and ill-defined ‘national security’ that many Psycepts objected to. That and dismissively being given money to make up for a restriction on our freedom was not good enough.

  My family had skills that were not highly sought out by the government and chose to stay in America. I, however, had the ability to read memories, either directly from touching an individual, or through touching an object that had value to the person. Fearing what the US would try to make me do, I applied for asylum with the Greater Tribal Council of the Americas, the nation formed by a collective majority of Native American and First Nation tribes over 150 years ago. The Greater Tribe, or GT for short, offered a path to residency for Psycepts, but our residency contracts stipulated our agreement to assist petitioners. My agreement is to work three petitions per week, but of my choosing. I have been a resident of PsyTown-Albuquerque in SWACon ever since.

  After a quick shower, I dress in my usual jeans, mid-calf boots, and a long-sleeved shirt with thumbholes, then apply my liquid powder foundation and some watermelon lip-gloss. Since I will be riding my bike this afternoon, I pull my chestnut brown hair into a ponytail bun and stuff it into one of the messy bun beanies that my best friend, Wendy, knitted for me. She also makes custom jewelry, paints hand-held fans and screens, and is generally awesome. I can barely stitch a straight seam and my crochet skills are abysmal, I don’t know what she gets from our friendship. In addition to her creative skills, Wendy is also a formidable PsyWitch, supplying me and others with healing charms. Combining her PsyWitch abilities and her jewelry know-how, Wendy also made the ‘Keep Away’ arm braces I wear to discourage people from wanting to touch me. Along with wearing the bicep bracelets, I also always don gloves. Since my shirt is long-sleeved, my gloves are wrist length. If you’re getting the impression I don’t like to be touched, nor touch others, you would be correct.

  I head to the kitchen to eat a small fruit salad for breakfast, then pack a mixed green salad and my Honey-French dressing for lunch. After cleaning up a bit, I grab my things, gather my puppy’s paraphernalia, and head out the door. Echo does his business while I load up my green electric bike with our items. The bike has two carrier cases that I secure various items to, a basket on the handlebars and a rack behind my seat. My tablet and its travel case with chargers, plush hoodie, an extra shirt, lunch, and a reusable water bottle go in their various spots. Attached to the rear of my bike is a large covered pet trailer. It’s left from my two adult dogs that passed away over a year ago. Three-month old Echo looks small, but adorable, surrounded by his blankets. The pet trailer has a portable water dispenser secured to the side that I make sure to fill before we leave. It’s only seven miles to my office, so we should get there in less than an hour. Earphone in one ear, phone secured to my upper left arm with my commute music playing, we set off.

  We are a few weeks away from Winter Solstice and the morning temperature is in the low 40s and rising. Pedaling briskly, we cover the miles in a timely fashion. I stop mid-way to the office to check on Echo, plus it’s just after a large incline and I need a little break. Echo is doing well, he likes our little rides. Good thing, since we do this six days a week. We arrive at the office, a converted mobile home unit, around 8:30 a.m., plenty of time before the first meeting at nine o’clock. I secure the bike and trailer to the rack on the side of the small parking lot, gather our things while Echo stretches his legs, then unlock the office door and we head inside.

  I am th
e founder and owner of Gray’s Agency, a virtual assistance company. I currently employ an office manager and three full-time virtual assistants, soon to be four. Thinking of our expanding workforce, I do a quick rundown of available parking space. Dani Lowell, our office manager and the girl I used to babysit, is dropped off and picked up from work. So too is Rhea Morningsong, one of our virtual assistants, at least on the days she doesn’t bike to work. Soon Yee Ngo, another assistant, takes her daughter to school in the mornings and drives her electric car to work. Our newest employee, Eladio, currently bikes to work, but recently indicated he expects to purchase an electric car after a few more paychecks. With the occasional visitors I receive from my Psycept police consultative work and the new assistant we will soon hire, we need more parking slots. Five weeks ago, I incurred the expense of new office equipment and an office space redesign to add cubicles. Good thing the lot is a dirt one. I just need to move the lone yucca plant from the front to the side, then presto, more parking space.

  After I stick my salad in the breakroom refrigerator, Echo and I walk down a short hallway into my personal office, which is to the right of the main room and office conference space. The breakroom was converted from the former kitchen and breakfast nook area of the mobile home. The conference room was the dining area at one time and the main room was the living room. Now, the main room is Dani’s domain and she is the queen. The left hallway leads to two offices and the shared office bathroom. When I first purchased the mobile home, the main bathroom was already built with double toilet and sink space. It must have been designed for siblings to share the bathroom. Having a brother and sister, I know the struggle of battling to get ready at the same time in the morning. Five years ago, when I first redesigned the mobile home for an office, I removed the bathtub to add space, then slapped up a couple of stall dividers. That decision came in very handy now that we are soon to have five employees sharing one bathroom. The assistant offices were originally bedrooms and were adapted to single offices. Now with the recent redesign, both rooms can house two assistants, each with their own cubicle. Soon Yee and Dio shared one room leaving Rhea alone in the second office, at least for now.

  In my personal office, I remove my Bobcat mouse gun and its inside the waistband holster and place them in my gun safe. In exchange, I grab my RAMI and shotgun from the safe and place the RAMI in its desk holster, then secure my over/under breech-loading shotgun to the wall mount behind my desk. Echo settles into his corner area to the left of my desk and next to my en suit doorway. I remove my gloves, make sure his food and water bowls are full, then we settle in, Echo to nap and me for the meetings.

  I enjoy coming to the office on Saturdays. I have the place to myself, flexible arrival time, easy meetings, and can catch up on work in a relaxed environment. Most of the agency’s clients are in the US to our east, Canada to our west, or Mexico to our south, and they follow the Monday through Friday work week, as does Gray’s Agency. The GT nation founders viewed every day as a work day and the seasons dictated the work. The white and Latinx settlers that chose to remain in the newly formed GT observed limited to no work on Sundays. In current time, the conservatorship workweek follows the Monday through Saturday model, with some essential jobs still performed on Sundays. Thus, my Psycept client and project meetings are on Saturdays, to not interfere with my virtual assistant work.

  I dial up the video conferencing website on one monitor and leave my second monitor free for notes and document viewing. The vidcon banner changes color and a room filled with a table surrounded by occupied chairs appears on screen. Detective Sergeants Randolph and Tamez, co-heads of the Psycept unit, their administrative assistant Mark, and the sub-chief of the Bosque division police, Sheriff Helki, fill the seats.

  “Gray, Wendy will love you’re wearing her beanie. You should post a pic and link her website,” Sgt. Sully Randolph, Wendy’s twin brother and Rhea’s boyfriend, said.

  “I’m glad you think that Wendy’s handiwork can overcome my sloppy hair enough that a pic will be good advertisement. I’ll send something out after the meeting. So, what do y’all have for me?”

  “We have a couple of doozies to drop on you, sorry Gray. Tamez and I’ve led the unit for just a few weeks, but with Helki’s encouragement, we already want to start making some changes. The biggest is unfortunately, the one we need you to work on first. Mark, did you send her the link to the project box you set up?”

  “Yes, I sent it yesterday. Gray, right now, only the people on this call have access. You and I are administrators of the project box, while Sgt. Tamez, Sully, and Sheriff Helki are users. I created three main folders, named phases one through three. As expected, phase one is the area that Sgt. Tamez and Sully would like to focus on first. Can you please refresh the phase one folder? I added documents just prior to the start of the meeting.” I knew that Mark was giving such a thorough explanation more for the other attendees than for me. We’ve worked together for several years and were in sync. He also knew that I would have the project box pulled up before the vidcon began.

  “Sure, I have the folder up. What document do you want to discuss first?”

  “The phase one project task list. I’ll leave the timetable creation up to you as I know you love that stuff.”

  “Okay, Gray. The project list should have our phase one purpose statement. Basically, we want to change how we have our officers and detectives organized in the Psycept division.” Sully said.

  “Currently, our detectives are linked with specific Psycepts, and then there is a three-officer team per each detective. So, when Tamez and I were detectives, we each had about twenty Psycepts whose cases we handled. Before you think that’s too much, just realize that most Psycepts only do one or two cases a week. Your three to five weekly cases were my biggest workload. And as you know, once the Psycept completes the case, the detective reviews the results. If follow-up investigative work is needed, then we do it as a team, led by the detective. If a notification to the petitioner is all that’s required, one of the officers handles it. The detectives are paired up to cover for each other. So, when I had to leave SWACon, Tamez would be point not only for her Psycepts, but mine as well, and vice versa.”

  “The organization was established from the initial Psycept divisions,” Sgt. Tamez took over. Tamez was a mid-40s aged woman of Latinx and Jicarilla Apache descent. She was no-nonsense and even with her recent promotion to detective sergeant, still wore her thick dark brown hair in a bun at the base of her head. Through the vid conference, her dark brown eyes were competent, cool, and compelling. When standing, Tamez was only a few inches above five feet but had such a presence that others gave way.

  “Auraria was the first city that began to take in Psycepts. I don’t think anyone was prepared for the response of asylum seekers, and Auraria was quickly overwhelmed with housing the new residents. Plus, they were the first to use the hastily created Psycept case database, which as with any new system, had hiccups and growing pains. Lowell said that Albuquerque began to accept residents almost four months before they originally expected to. So, it was a little chaotic the first couple of years and by the time it died down, our unit organization was set. At that point, everyone felt it was just easier to deal with it than to try to change it. I know you and Lowell created some basic police protocol and procedures for working petitions. They informally flowed out to the Psycept divisions on other conservatorships and it seemed to ease the ache to manageable levels.” Lowell was the former sheriff of Bosque division which Albuquerque falls under. Bosque is one of the four regions of SWACon and each has their own sheriff but only Bosque has Psycepts.

  “The current organization means that each detective and officer require legal knowledge of multiple countries,” Sully said. “Right now, all SWACon police are trained centrally at Wir-Kiva and if a candidate is selected to become a Psycept officer here in Albuquerque, then they receive unit specific training at Wir-Kiva. That additional information is more devoted to imparting knowle
dge of Psycept categories, history and abilities, and how to navigate the Psycept database. However, there is no teaching of how a county deputy, a city police lieutenant, or a federal police officer are ranked or what their duties and jurisdiction are. Or the laws of the country, state, county, or city we are receiving the petitions from. And that is just the US, not to mention Canada and Mexico.”

  Wir-Kiva is the capital seat of the SWACon and houses our conservatorship government including the Head Chief over SWACon. The four regions of SWACon, Bosque, Chaco, Hohokam, and Mesa Verde, each have their own regional government termed a council. Each regional council reports to the Head Chief and certain regional authorities have dual reporting to both the regional council and a chief in Wir-Kiva. Sheriff Helki is the Bosque division police leader, his rank is sub-chief, and he serves on the regional council as well as reports to Chief Yanaba, the central Chief of Police for all four regions. The central chiefs are part of our conservatorship council, which is led by Head Chief Tala. In addition to Chief of Police, other chiefs include War Chief, Fire Chief, Spiritual Chief, Chief Healer, and so on. Only the Bosque division has a Psycept council, as Albuquerque was the only city in SWACon approved for Psycepts to live. Not all Psycepts live in Albuquerque, many have since been granted dispensation to live elsewhere in the region, but we all fall under the Bosque region governance and responsibility.

  “I understand the reasoning behind this,” Sheriff Helki imparted. “When the Psycepts originally arrived in conservatorships, all petitions came through the police divisions and the police unit found themselves acting as social workers. The detectives and officers were working with PsyWitches on requests for healing, flora PsySapients for crop blights, or TouchVoyants working homicides and missing persons. After opening Psycept police departments on the next three conservatorships, someone finally realized using the police for all Psycept cases was not efficient nor a good use of police resources. So, we created the PCSS and much of the social work was moved from the police unit to the civilian unit. The civilian unit still reports to the police, for ease of petitioner and worker background checks, central training, and materials transport as post services are still under the police umbrella. However, recently, we took a step that changed Lowell’s position to give him more autonomy and separation from the police and it seems to be working out. Now it’s time to reorganize the Psycept police unit.”