“And what about that later explosion?”
She shrugged. “Sounds like trouble followed him.”
“Maybe the government terminated his research—with prejudice.”
She winced. “You think they’d do that?”
“Maybe, if it was part of a cover-up.”
“Do you think Smith did it?”
“Don’t know. But I’m sure he knew what happened.”
Although Olivia tried to gather more information, there wasn’t much more to learn about Dr. Solomon and his clinic. Finally, she closed the laptop with a sigh. “Dead end.”
“But we should figure out what we can do.”
“A lot of choices.”
“We should start with something easy.”
“Which is what?”
“I’m not sure. But it’s probably better to go outside before we try hurling any thunderbolts.”
“Agreed. And begin by mastering something easier first.”
Her gaze fell on the napkin holder at the side of the tabletop. It was one of her own creations, an old wooden box painted with a garden scene. Taking out a napkin, she laid it on the table.
“It’s not heavy. Maybe we can make it move.”
“How?”
“If we both tried to move it, we’d be fighting each other. Maybe one of us should try to do it, and the other will add...power.”
“You do the moving,” he suggested.
As she focused on the napkin, she sensed Travis’s energy pushing into her. It felt strange, a little like a mild electric current. She kept her gaze on the napkin, willing it to lift from the table, putting her own energy into the attempt, although she wasn’t exactly sure what that meant.
For long moments, nothing happened, but she wasn’t going to give up so easily. Hadn’t Smith been sure they could do this kind of thing?
She felt her muscles tighten as she focused on the napkin, willing something to happen. And then, to her shock—it did. The thin paper lifted off the table, then fell back to the flat surface as though it had been hit by a fleeting air current.
She glanced up at Travis and saw a look of triumph in his eyes. “I’ll be damned.”
The small success made her redouble her efforts. Now she had a little better idea of what she was doing. As Travis gave her a kind of power assist, she raised the napkin a couple of inches off the table, making it ripple like the motion of a manta ray’s fins as it glides through the water. The manta ray image caught Travis’s imagination. He grinned at her, and she knew he had taken control of the experiment. Now she was the one lending him energy as he made two edges of the napkin flutter more as it took flight and sailed off the table. She watched in amazement as it flew around the room, picking up speed as it went, circling the table.
“My God,” she gasped.
The napkin executed one more circle before coming down for a landing where it had originally been lying.
You didn’t think we could do it.
I wanted it to work.
You were the one who suggested we try out some of those things Smith told me about.
I did. But I wasn’t sure.
