Free Liars and Tyrants and People Who Turn Blue by Barbara Paul Page B

your move to San Diego. The inquiry won’t last forever. And when it’s over, we’ll try to talk you into staying on and you can tell us all to go to hell if you like. But stay for the inquiry.”
    â€œIt’s not that simple.”
    â€œNothing ever is.” Might as well bring it out in the open . “Your husband won’t like it.”
    â€œHe’d never forgive me. He looks upon California as a place where he’d be free of the stigma of being married to a woman who knows every time he lies to her. But if I’m to be part of this inquiry, everybody in the world will know what I do. Eric’ll be no better off in California than he is here. Oh, I know it all seems very petty to you—what’s one marriage compared to what the Li Xijuan gang has been up to? But it’s not petty to me. It’s my life.”
    â€œI don’t think it’s petty at all.”
    Shelby smiled sadly. “You’re not telling the truth, Mr. Gilbert.”
    Gilbert turned a different shade of red and then laughed. “I can see I’m going to have to be careful around you.”
    Shelby’s smile disappeared. “Yes. Most people find it a terrible burden.”
    And with those simple words, Shelby made Kevin Gilbert see her in a totally new light. My God, yes—what must this woman feel like, knowing that other people regarded her as some kind of freak? Even the police who thought so highly of her ability looked on her as a sort of living machine to be plugged in for their convenience, never to be treated as a normal person. She wasn’t normal—but in only one way. In all other respects she was just a human being, one who must surely be sensitive to the waves of resentment her gift provoked. Maybe that was why she was willing to give up everything for a husband who was giving her only a hard time in return. Maybe Eric Kent was the best she could hope for.
    â€œI thought I knew so much about you,” Gilbert said. “I’m beginning to think I know nothing at all.”
    Shelby looked at him curiously, wondering what he meant. “When does the inquiry start?”
    â€œThe date hasn’t been announced yet, but it’ll be about two weeks from now. They have to move fast. The Security Council’s trying to put down the fear that some kind of worldwide rebellion is in the works. A lot of folks think these attacks on the Militia are all part of a unified drive by person or persons unknown to take over the world.”
    â€œAnd you’re sure they aren’t?” Shelby asked dubiously.
    â€œPositive. Li Xijuan and Aguirrez and Schlimmermann have simply been exploiting disparate groups of malcontents for their own cloudy purposes. Remember Li and Aguirrez supplied their rebels with guns that wouldn’t shoot and bombs that wouldn’t explode. Schlimmermann broke the pattern when he took it on himself to blow up three thousand people in Greece.”
    â€œI notice you say rebels instead of revolutionaries. A way of diminishing them?”
    â€œYes, it’s deliberate, I admit. Revolution has become so commonplace the word has almost lost its meaning. I went to Honduras, I talked to those people. They don’t want to establish a new social order—they haven’t thought that far. They just want to hit out at something, enlarge themselves at the expense of other people’s lives. And they are the sort of people Li Xijuan and her two partners-in-crime have been seeking out. Excitable people, easily stirred up. What those three have been doing is ugly, ugly as hell, and it has to be aired publicly. And fast. So what I want most in the world is to hear a big, resounding yes from you right now.”
    â€œBut you don’t really expect to hear it, do you?” Shelby grinned.
    â€œOf course I do,” Gilbert said stoutly, glowing red.
    â€œSaying yes to you would change my entire life. I’m not sure I want to