Free Psychic Siblings (The Helmsworth Project) by Madison Key

Chapter 1
    Claire Helmsworth was just heading out the door of her childhood home, one that she shared with her younger siblings, when the phone rang. Normally, she would ignore it and let the answering machine take the call, but she and her siblings had been awakened in the wee hours of the morning with an ominous feeling plaguing them.
    Jason and Diane Helmsworth, the parents of the three siblings, had been scheduled to make a routine phone call to their children at 9 o’clock the night before. The call had never come. Claire had begun to worry at 9:01 p.m., as her parents never missed a scheduled call. Never!
    In all of her twenty-three years, she had never been disappointed like some of her friends had. Her parents always kept their promises and were never late. It just didn’t happen.
    She and her siblings had gone to bed, having joked with each other that there was a first time for everything, and with their parents reaching the ripe old age of forty-five this last spring, maybe they had finally begun to slip.
    Claire had tossed and turned, finally falling asleep around midnight, only to be awakened by both Jenna and Brian as they entered her room, worried and scared.
    Hearing the phone ring again, she backtracked across the room and picked up the phone lying on the coffee table, “Hello?”
    “Is this Claire Helmsworth?” asked a male voice she didn’t recognize.
    “May I ask whose calling?” Claire was the cautious one of the three siblings, and talking to strangers was only okay when she was standing behind the checkout desk in the small library where she worked.
    “Ma’am, I need to speak with you and would prefer to do so in person. I am about fifteen minutes away from your location.”
    “Well, I…I was just heading out to work. What’s this all about?” Claire was not going to let some stranger come to the house, one that wouldn’t even give her his name!
    “I really do need to speak with you in person. You work at the library, is that correct?”
    Claire was growing more suspicious by the minute, “How did you know that?”
    “I know lots of things about you and your siblings. I will be at the library in thirty minutes. Make time to meet with me.”
    The caller hung up the phone, leaving a very confused Claire staring in disbelief at the phone in her hand. Who did I just talk to? And what gives him the right to give me orders?
    Claire replaced the phone, anxious to get to work and make sure she had people around her before the mystery caller arrived. She headed for the front door, closing her eyes for a moment and concentrating to still her mind and reach out to her siblings. Strange phone call just now. Meet me at the library in fifteen minutes!
    She waited for the acknowledgement to come from both Jenna and Brian before leaving the house and getting into her car. Something definitely wasn’t right!

Chapter 2
    Claire arrived at the library and opened up for the day, relieved when her two part-time employees showed up only moments later. Jenna followed and gave her a quizzical glance as she walked past the checkout counter towards the back room Claire used as an office.
    Claire glanced at the clock and realized that her mystery caller would be arriving within minutes. Brian wasn’t there yet, and she really wanted to know that he was close by. When he walked in a few seconds later, she let out a sigh of relief.
    Brian just shrugged in a nonchalant way and headed for her office. She smiled at him, liking the fact that his carefree attitude hadn’t been hampered by the worry of their parents.
    Precisely thirty minutes from the time she had hung up the phone, two very large, very handsome men walked into the library. They were both dressed in black suits, with white button-down shirts and black ties. One of the men was older, with greyinghair and a thin mustache. He appeared to be about 5’10” tall and looked like he could easily be someone’s grandfather.
    His companion was his exact