leave them alone together.” With the cello, she adds silently.
“Camping,” Dennis says.
“It’s way too cold for that.”
“African safari?”
“Smart-ass.”
“Tough time of year for outdoor shit. Snowmobile trip in the mountains? Dogsledding in Alaska?”
“How about a week in a cabin somewhere?” Phee says casually. “We drive up in a couple of cars, stay for the weekend, then leave them there to work things out.”
“Hate to be the spoilsport,” Len says, “but isn’t Allie supposed to be in school?”
“Supposed to be, yes. But she’s not.”
“School is way overrated,” Katie says. “Can we make it in the mountains? A ski cabin maybe? I’ve never actually been snow skiing!”
“How about tropical?” Dennis asks, laughing. “Can we rent an island?”
“My old bones vote for a place with hot springs.” Len speaks lightly, but his shrewd eyes narrow as he scrutinizes Phee.
She puts on her most innocent face and claps her hands. “We’re agreed on a cabin getaway, yes? I’ll do the research and find a place. When?”
“Well, Dennis’s consequences adventure is this Saturday.”
“We can always change that,” Dennis says. “Allie’s need seems more pressing.”
“It’s going to take some time to set things up,” Phee says. “Maybe the weekend after, if I can pull it off?”
Assent follows from around the table, and Oscar goes to the door and ushers Braden back to his seat.
“What is my fate? Will I be licked to death by kittens?” he asks, looking at the circle of faces with that twisted half smile that hints at the humor that once was part of him.
Katie giggles. “It would be a long, slow death. Mark off a whole week, not this one but next.”
He sobers. “I can’t leave Allie.”
“She comes, too,” Phee says. “Two adventures for the price of one.”
“You can’t argue with an all-expenses paid vacation with all of us,” Len says. “Got anywhere else to be?”
“Can’t say as I do.”
“Then consider it done. All right. Who had an adventure this week? Jean?”
Phee spends the rest of the meeting paying surface attention while spinning a complex plot in her head. For the first time since the inception of the Angels, she can’t wait for the meeting to be over so she can get to work.
Finally, the last adventure is celebrated, the numbers are tallied. Katie draws Braden off to show him the arrival of a new bird, a parrot that can whistle “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” with surprising accuracy.
Len takes the opportunity to have a private word with Phee.
“What are you up to?”
“Me?”
“Don’t even. You’re scheming.”
Len’s ability to read people is almost as alarming as Jean’s, and definitely more problematic. Jean gets psychic hits but hardly ever dares to say anything about them. Len, on the other hand, honed his skill during a forty-year career as a clinical psychologist, and has absolutely no problem calling people on their shit.
Phee gives him her widest, most innocent smile, the one that Bridgette has always said makes her look guilty as sin. “I need to ask you a hypothetical question.”
“On a personal or professional level?”
“Professional.”
“Hmmm. Why do I feel like the wrong answer will induct me into a secret society without my knowledge or consent?”
“Hush. It’s about somebody I’m taking on an adventure, and I need some help. If an individual has a bad case of, say, PTSD, so severe that they’ve blocked out a whole set of memories, is it possible they’d also have a physical component?”
She holds her breath, hoping his suspicions will be overridden by professional enthusiasm. When his eyes light up with interest and he looks through her without seeing her, she knows she’s scored a hit.
“PTSD is such a fascinating combination of chemicals and psychological blocks, Phee. Very complex. Many sufferers do have a host of physical ailments. They are much more likely to suffer from inflammatory diseases and immune disorders. Chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis. Not to mention higher incidence of blood pressure and even diabetes due to the continual presence of stress hormones—”
“How about something more specific?” Now that Phee has got him talking, the trick is to head him off before he gives her a one-hour lecture on the role of stress in immune disorders. “How about loss of function in a part of the body?”
Len’s gaze sharpens, and she keeps her face open and noncommittal, eyes wide, channeling all of the genuine curiosity she can summon up.
“What I think you’re asking isn’t necessarily connected to PTSD, although there is usually trauma involved. There is a fascinating condition we call conversion disorder. A person is faced with