GUARD is convinced that a freak storm in Tennessee was caused by one of the Loric’s powers, but we haven’t been able to track down any evidence. The story came from a police officer who had too much whiskey one night and started yelling to everyone at a bar about how some magic kids with the power to control thunderstorms were tearing across the state, and somehow that made it into the local paper. I called to see if I could talk to the officer, pretending I was someone from the Paradise police department, but they told me the guy had been transferred to a different county and they couldn’t put me in touch with him. I have a sneaking suspicion that’s the FBI’s version of sending a dog to a nice farm upstate, which probably provides more evidence that it was John and the others than anything else.

JOLLYROGER182: want me 2 look into it some more? i can try to call around again

GUARD: No. Take a look at this. Sound familiar?

He sends me a link to a post on an online journal. It belongs to some girl named Meredith down in Miami. It starts out really sad—her parents think she’s on drugs and have had her in and out of institutions—and I can’t figure out why GUARD is interested in it. Then, after a few paragraphs, I get to what he’s talking about: the reason her parents think she’s on drugs is because she says she watched some random dude on the streets of Miami use what she describes as “mind powers” to shove her boyfriend up against the wall of a coffee shop, keeping him pinned there a few feet off the ground.

My chat window dings while I’m reading.

GUARD: What do you think? Telekinesis?

GUARD: Could this be your friend? The time stamp on the journal entry is yesterday, but she doesn’t say when the coffee shop event happened.

GUARD: Emailed to find out more info but she hasn’t gotten back to me.

JOLLYROGER182: hold on

Luckily, this girl’s listed the facility her parents had checked her into and her full name. Not exactly smart stuff to put on the internet, but great for me. I look up the hospital and call the front desk.

“Hi,” I say when a woman picks up. “I’m trying to get in contact with Meredith Harris.”

“Just one minute,” the woman says. I can hear the clacking of keys in the background for a few moments before her voice comes back again. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir, but Ms. Harris was checked out a few days ago.”

“Oh, um . . . ,” I say, trying to come up with my next question. I realize that I probably should have thought this through more before I called, but thinking before I act isn’t really my style. I go off instinct.