Ethan Reynolds
Totally made up and out of my inspiration - any similarity to existing stories / books / movies is coincidental and not intended!
Chapter 1
My name is Ethan Reynolds; I’m twenty seven years old, a private detective, 1.89 meter tall, dark brown hair, green eyes and a quite athletic body, which is quite important in my business. I suppose my life would be rather boring if it wasn’t for this special ability that I have.
I can see the future.
Not the entire future, but up to a few hours, sometimes even days ahead. When I was a kid my parents sent me to a therapist, where I learned to be normal and to pretend I didn’t know the future.
But to see the future isn’t too precise, because as soon as somebody saw it, they can change it.
Through my job, I always tried to prevent as many catastrophes as possible, like terrorists, murder, rape and other stuff, where I can do something to change it.
Since I went to therapy, I never told anyone about my ability, because I learned life is easier if nobody knew. By now I have different reasons to do so though.
If I told anyone now, they would lock me up like an animal to make tests and use me for whatever they want to. The other possibility, they’d think I was crazy, lock me up and put me into therapy again. So whatever possibility I’d choose, I’d end up imprisoned.
But all of that is irrelevant!
My life actually began on a sunny day, as I walked out of my favourite coffee shop and ran into her. She was tall, her hair had a dark blond, almost brown, her eyes as blue as the ocean. Tight jeans flattered her long legs and a bright yellow top with butterflies wrapped her full chest.
It must have been destiny or something when she looked at me apologizing and then relieved, “Aren’t you that private detective? Ethan Reynolds?”
Surprised I nodded, “I guess that would be me. Yes.” “I was looking for you, Mr. Reynolds!” she said excited and gestured towards a table, “Do you have a minute?” “Sure,” I said and sat down, my coffee-to-go in my hands. “I’ve heard of you, Mr Reynolds!” the woman said calm. Interested I looked at her, “Am I that famous?” Sparkly blue eyes stared at me, “You have to help me!”
Suddenly I felt tense, something was wrong! For only a few seconds I closed my eyes and concentrated on the young woman in front of me and what I saw let me shudder.
I saw a bunch of men in black clothes enter the shop, they stopped before the woman, shot her with a single shot between her eyes and then the rest of the customers in the shop, including me.
Quickly I opened my eyes and stared at the woman in front of me. “We need to talk! But not here, let’s go Amanda!” I said in a rush and regret flooded my mind, because she hadn’t introduced herself yet! Fast I pulled her out of the shop and through small roads towards my office, where I locked the front door and closed the curtains of all my windows.
“Why were you looking for me?” I asked crossly, but curious. “I need your help, I’m in quite some trouble!” she said a bit nervous, “My friends told me about you. They said you’re a good private detective and you could help me!”
Nervously she looked around the room and towards the windows. Geez! She had forced me to use my ability! “What do you know about me?” I asked through clenched teeth. What exactly did she know?
Still nervous she looked at me and said, “Not very much, to be honest. My friends told me you’re a private detective. They said, you’re the best they’ve heard of and your speciality is to prevent things, to solve a case before things happen.” She paused for a while and looked at me with her blue eyes.
Well, she didn’t know about my little problem, at least not yet!
“Somebody is trying to kill me!” she said seriously. That would explain my vision. “Since when do you know?” I asked in a business voice. “You… believe me? You’re not thinking I’m mad or so?” Amanda said. When I shook my head, she smiled, “Thank you, Mr. Reynolds, I really appreciate it. Well, I’ve felt it for a while, but I’m only really sure about it since a few hours. I’d probably be dead by now if I hadn’t found you.”
If she knew how right that was…
“You see, you don’t look like someone who’d pretend or just imagine things like that. So yes, I do believe you.” I said, serious again, “Why does someone try to kill you?” “I…” she said nervously, “I know something. If I told anyone it would cause lots of trouble, they would kill everyone!” As she spoke, her voice and eyes were filled with panic.
“Calm down!” I said, trying to calm her down, “You’re save here, don’t worry.” She nodded quietly, still staring at the windows. “I know, it’s just… they are after me for so long!” she whispered scared. “My name is Amanda Collins, I forgot to intro…duce…” she said and stared at me. I shuddered, knowing I had to explain how I was able to know her name. “Oh well, you really are a good detective!” she shrugged her shoulders and looked relieved.
I sighed and asked, “Would you like some tea or coffee? Or something else?” “Water, please.” Amanda said quietly. My shoulder long dark hair fell over my shoulders and in my face, while I went to get some fresh water for the naive woman in my office.
Observation, I snorted quietly, a talent for observation was definitely NOT the reason for my knowledge! But it was such a relief to know her naive opinion. A glass of water in my hands, I returned to Amanda.
“So, how can I help you?” I asked politely when she finished her water. “It’s because of my ex-boyfriend!” she said after a while. And he didn’t like it and now he tried to kill her, I thought in disbelief, or she had some mafia boyfriend. I saw a tall, dark haired man, maybe Italian, dark suit, dark sunglasses and a grim expression in his face. Quickly I shook my head and looked at Amanda again, “And what about him? Did he threaten you or something?
Slowly the woman with the honey brown hair shook her head, “No, not directly.” Confused I looked at her, “So why is he trying to get rid of you?” The blonde smiled warily, “I saw something.” Well, a bit more precise please? Requesting I looked at her, expecting her to explain what she meant, but she remained silent.
“Look, Amanda, if you’re not telling me what happened,” I said, when my mind suddenly drifted away.
I heard an explosion and my front door got blown away, while a bunch of men stormed my office with sub machine guns and bazookas, siks and barettas. They checked out the room and shot every moving thing, even the fish in the fish tank on the other side of my office. I checked the time; it was four, thirty nine.
Quickly I opened my eyes and continued my sentence, “How can I help you if you don’t want to tell me what happened?” Checking my watch on the wall, I shuddered; it was only half an hour ‘til four, thirty nine!
“Ok, you know what Amanda; we should go somewhere else to talk. You want me to help you, right? You want me to protect you.” I said seriously and looked at her. She nodded confused. “Alright, for now, just remain calm, I have to do a few quick things and then we have to go!” I said strictly and sat down in front of my computer.
And I had only cleaned the office out of all research possibilities! This place was as unknown as the core of the earth! Nobody had been able to find its location. Only an untraceable telephone number! How could that happen? Geez! This woman was dangerous! She pulled me into some deep shit! Quickly I entered a few quick orders, immediately the fish tank sunk deeper into the commode and disappeared, leaving only an empty space. The diplomas on the wall disappeared into the wall and turned into landscape pictures. There were no pictures of myself or anyone I knew in the office anyway, so I didn’t have to look for that kind of crap.
With only one last order, I shut down the computer and returned to Amanda, we only had about fifteen minutes left! “Come on, we have to go now!” I reached out for her hand to help her up and pulled her along with me to the bathroom. I didn’t plan on using my secret passage way that fast, but we had no other choice.
If we’d go outside, those guys would catch up with us soon enough to kill us, while our chances to escape were quite high by using the tunnel. It was something like a one way tunnel though… Once used, I wouldn’t be able to use it again, because part of the construction was, that the tunnel would close as soon as I pressed the button at the end.
Alert I opened the bathroom wardrobe and climbed in, opening the back of it. “Come on Amanda, we have to go down there!” I said quietly and let her go in first. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked nervously, “I don’t really feel comfortable in dark narrow places!” “If you want me to protect you, do as I say. For now, climb down there and wait for me, I’ll be right behind you.” One last time I looked at my office through the opened bathroom door and I climbed back into the wardrobe, pulling the door shut and stepped on the ladder in the back. With a sigh I pulled the back of the wardrobe back down, so the tunnel couldn’t be seen and climbed down after my new client.
Chapter 2
“How did you do that?” Amanda asked me when we climbed out of the tunnel. The small room at the train station was mostly used as storage for cleaning utensils and only accessible for stuff. The board, covering the exit of the tunnel looked just like all the other tiles of the ceiling.
“This is, well, was my escape route in case of an emergency.” I said, closed the board and pressed the closure button, sealing the tunnel with quickly drying cement. “And why did we use it? Was there an emergency?” she asked confused. “Sort of,” I said with a smile. It wasn’t her fault that those guys were after her. Anyway, it was a good thing to try to get out of what ever she had gotten into. And there was always a way out, even if it required a bit of help from my side.
“Ok… what does that mean?” Amanda asked and looked at me. “Well, I have special security surveillance and we were about to get unwanted visitors.” I admitted calm and opened the door for her. “Wow! I didn’t even see a thing!” she said amazed and followed me through the train station to the next train. “So for now, I’ll get you to a different safe place where we can actually talk. Are you ok?” I asked carefully since Amanda seemed to be really pale now. “I think so…” she said and sat down in the train. “By the way, I was thinking about the payment, Mr. Reynolds, what ever you charge, I can pay. I have enough money!” she said excited and looked at me.
“Listen,” I said and carefully looked around, “That is definitely not a subject to discuss in public and we’ll see about the payment at a later point, for now, let’s find a way to settle your problem!” Luckily nobody seemed to pay any attention to us. “Ok,” she sighed and sunk down a bit more, “That sounds… positive… how did you get into that business anyway?”
I sighed and sat down beside her, while the train left the station. “How come we’re at the train station?” she asked and closed her eyes. “In my job security is really important, so I had this tunnel installed when I got the flat.” “Aren’t you a little suspicious?” she asked and sighed, “And how did you get into the private detective business now? You didn’t answer my question!”
With another sigh I observed the other people in the train, but nobody seemed to care, “I’ve always had this type of talent, and I wanted to use it to help people, so I became a detective.” For a few seconds I closed my eyes and checked on my ability for our train ride, but there wouldn’t be any complications. Silently I opened my eyes again and observed patiently.
A few stations later I led her out, watching everyone carefully, so no one would follow us and led her towards one of my safe houses. The house itself looked like a real neutral, normal house, but the inside was designed by a close friend of mine, who worked for the government, building safe houses and such. I opened the door and let her in, nobody would find us here… there was no signal leaving this house, so no traceable signals or something. There was internet and a pre-programmed internet usage and phone usage, so nobody would suspect anything suspicious.