by Kay Hooper
Jonah hadn’t been told not to talk during this . . . procedure . . . but the silent attention of the others was a good indication to him that he should keep his mouth shut. And all he could think about for several minutes was how on earth he was going to tell Annie Duncan’s parents she’d been brutally murdered.
How could a parent ever recover from that?
And what about Nessa Tyler’s parents? The Grimes and Church families? Judge Carson’s many friends and the far-flung family he seldom mentioned? Sean Messina’s family and girlfriend? Luna Lang’s husband and infant child?
He told himself that his missing people weren’t dead, couldn’t be, that this group of very matter-of-fact FBI agents with their odd abilities was going to help him find his people alive.
All of them.
Because he was pretty sure he couldn’t live with any other outcome.
Even as that realization surfaced, Samantha sucked in a hard breath, and even in the poor light of the streetlamp, he was certain he saw her normal pallor increase.
A glance at Luke’s face told him only that the other man was grimly watchful, but not yet ready to pull his partner and wife from . . . wherever or whenever she was.
In Annie Duncan’s dying moments? What kind of hell must that be? How could anyone still breathing get that close to a violent death . . . and return to tell the tale?
—
SAMANTHA NEVER HAD any preconceived notions whenever she focused on an object used in violence—or a person whose life had been brutally destroyed. Not anymore. She had discovered the uselessness of that peering into a crystal ball as a carnival seer. No matter what she expected back then, using abilities still raw and mostly untried, reality was always something else.
Lesson learned.
She didn’t think about what she might see or hear because it was always different. Always unique.
And sometimes horribly painful.
Annie Duncan died in agony and darkness. Not just pain, and not just night. In her final moments of consciousness, she could feel him behind her, flesh and bone like her. Except not like her. Dark. Something once human coated in darkness, like a sludge of . . . evil. And strong. So strong. And cold. And inescapable.
You shouldn’t have been watching, little girl.
Wait. Who?
For a strange and dizzying instant, Samantha knew that their psychic unsub had abruptly become aware of her. It didn’t make sense, because she was in Annie’s mind, in Annie’s memories of what had happened, so how—
Annie tried to force words past the forearm pressed against her throat, but couldn’t. Wanted to tell him she hadn’t seen anything, anything at all. Too tired to cook but hungry, she had taken a shortcut from her condo to the favored local pizza place, walking instead of driving because she’d thought the walk would do her good, clear her head, so preoccupied with her thoughts it hadn’t even occurred to her to bring her gun. Something had been nagging at her, and she just couldn’t make it come clear in her mind. Something she had read in a report or a statement, something someone had said to her or something she’d said to herself—
She didn’t really feel the knife, not immediately. Just his forearm removed, and before she could say anything at all, there was something else preventing her from speaking. She put her hands up and felt the horrendous opening of her throat, felt the hot blood flowing over her hands, and her legs went weak.
And then the agony came, and the terror, and she hardly felt him give her a shove so that she stumbled the last few feet through the alley and toward the light she could see ahead. Light that was dimming with every staggering step she took. Her life flowing redly between her fingers.
It was too soon. She hadn’t done everything she wanted to do. There was nobody here to say good-bye to. She wondered if anybody would mind her leaving. If anybody would mourn. Her parents. Oh, God, her parents . . .
Darkness was closing over her, and she barely felt the cold hardness of the pavement as she fell. In those final seconds, she wasn’t thinking of sins or regrets or even things left unsaid. Except one, because that one thing might bring the little girl home, might bring them all home, and she was the only one . . . the only . . . the . . . only . . . one . . . who . . . knew . . . It was getting so dark. Why was it getting so dark . . .
“No!” Sam knew her voice was shaking, but only because she was shivering so violently. Luke had already put his jacket around her and was holding her back against him, his hands firmly gripping her wrists, and she didn’t have to look at her fingers and palms to know they were marked by frostnip.
Which only happened when she got too close to evil.
Or too close to death.
“Dammit,” she whispered.
“I had to pull you out, Sam.” His voice was rough.
She nodded and let herself relax against him. “I know. And it was . . . it was the last seconds anyway. She was almost gone. But . . . dammit. Something had been bugging her. Something she’d seen in the reports, or read in a statement, something someone had said to her. And in the very last seconds of her life, she realized that whatever it was could help bring that little girl and the others home. But she was slipping away even then. If I’d followed—”
“You’d be dead,” Luke said. He pulled her even closer, crossing her arms over her chest while being careful not to further hurt her cold, cold hands.
Samantha didn’t argue.
Catching a glimpse even in the dim light, Robbie said, “Your hands are white where they were touching her. Why?”
Lucas answered. “It’s frostnip. If she goes too deep, that’s one of the things that happens. If she’s holding an object, it marks her with its shape, as if it were colder than you can imagine. The marks can last for months.”
“No nosebleed this time,” Sam offered. “And my head’s just a little sore, not really pounding.”
“Maybe, but you’re frozen clear through and exhausted. I can feel it. Jonah, she’s done for at least ten or twelve hours. I’ve got to get her warm and she has to sleep.”
It was Robbie who said, “You two go get checked into the hotel, then. Take the SUV. Dante and I will help Jonah and his people here, and then we’ll find out what Officer Duncan’s been working on. Maybe we can figure out what was bugging her.”
Lucas got to his feet, bringing Samantha easily with him. “It’ll probably be close to lunchtime tomorrow before we’re back working,” he warned.
“I don’t need that much sleep,” Sam said, ruining the claim with a yawn. “Jesus. Maybe so. Listen, you guys—rope off that alley till daylight, and don’t let anyone go in there, even your crime scene team. One of us needs to check that out. Hell, maybe all of us. I know we didn’t see anything with flashlights, but he was right behind her, and if he didn’t leave footprints in her blood, then he was definitely pressed back against the wall when he was holding her in front of him. I’m not sure what it is, but something about that alley is definitely bugging me.”
After glancing down at the dead woman, Lucas said, “In that case, I’m not letting you out of my sight for the duration.”
“There’s something else,” Sam told them, her voice growing fainter. “The unsub . . . he knew I was in Annie’s head, her memories.”
“How could he know that?” Dante asked.
“Dunno. But he did. Not sure if he knew which of us it was, except I think he’d recognize Robbie. I don’t understand how it could work like that . . . but I felt him become aware of me. Just before he cut Annie’s throat.”
NINE
Either because he didn’t realize the significance of what Sam had told them or merely because he had more pressing issues on his mind, Jonah didn’t question what Samantha had reported. Sounding unutterably weary himself, he said, “I’ll send a couple of uniforms and the CSU. And alert our coroner. He’s a semi-retired surgeon who spent a fe
w years as a medical examiner down in Florida; he knows his stuff.”
“Good,” Lucas said.
“I have to go notify her family. After I tell my people at the station. They’re going to take it hard. Annie was well liked.”
Robbie opened her mouth to offer to come along but then stopped herself when Lucas caught her eye and shook his head slightly.
Lucas said, “Robbie and Dante will stay here and make sure no one disturbs the scene.” He paused, then added, “Along with the usual equipment and supplies, we brought along one of those small, collapsible tents they use over in England to protect—and shield—victims while the medical and other technicians work on them. Respect for the dead as well as preserving as much of the scene as possible and shielding the victim from curious eyes. Probably a good idea to use it here, since this area is so public. So visible. We’ll be drawing a crowd here soon. It could take hours before she’s ready to be moved, maybe not even until daylight or close to it.” He didn’t add that shielding Annie Duncan’s body from anyone other than police might at least lessen the shock of her murder.
Maybe.
“Thanks,” Jonah said, briefly but with real gratitude. He gave a last look toward his fallen officer, then turned and headed back toward the station.
Speaking low to Lucas, Robbie said, “I might have been able to help. I doubt he’s had to make many notifications like this one.”
Sounding very sleepy now, Sam said, “Don’t sell him short. For a small-town police chief he’s gotten himself some big-city experience.” She pronounced those last three words very carefully, adding just as carefully, “Pretty sure he’s done this before. Just . . . not here in his hometown.”
Knowing she was about to go out, Lucas said to the other two, “Help Jonah and his people any way you can without stepping on anybody’s toes. But stay together. And I mean within sight of each other. Especially out here.”
“You know something we don’t?” Dante said.
“Ask Robbie. As soon as I get Sam settled, I’ll check in with you two, but I’ll stay with her. Unless we get a break soon, this could drag on awhile. It’ll be best to split the duty whenever we can, especially since this unsub does his hunting at night. When Sam and I come back, you two can get settled into the hotel and get some rest.”
“Copy that,” Dante said.
“I’ll come by and drop off the tent on our way to the hotel.”
This time, Dante merely nodded, and barely waited until Lucas and Samantha were out of sight before looking at Robbie with lifted brows. “Ask you?”
“You know, I think that telepathic part of how he does what he does is a lot stronger than he’ll admit,” she said.
“Robbie.”
She sighed, glanced down at the murdered cop, then returned her gaze to her partner. “The bastard got into my head, Dante. He didn’t make me do anything—except have to sort my way through a few false memories and then see this poor woman stagger out of that alley and die on the sidewalk.”
Dante waited, frowning.
“With everybody in the room then, I had my shields up—and the window closed. And yet he got in.”
“You’re a strong telepath,” Dante said slowly. “Maybe he homed in on that.”
“Yeah, well, that’s probably what has Luke worried. Has me worried too. Of all of us—at least in theory—I should be most conscious of any attempt to manipulate my mind. The one most likely to sense another presence before that presence can have any effect on me.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Not at first. Not for too damned long. I was too busy feeling shaken and uncertain because my memories were . . . stirred up and spread out in a different way. No lies. What was said was said, more or less. Only not like that. And what it means is that monster is a scary-powerful psychic able to manipulate memories, manipulate reality. Individual reality, at least. And if he can do that to a psychic with pretty strong shields . . .”
“He could really do a number on a nonpsychic with little or no shielding.”
“Exactly. Like, maybe, our six missing people?”
—
“YOU’RE SURE?” BISHOP asked.
“I’m sure he got inside Robbie’s head,” Lucas replied, keeping his voice low even though he knew that Samantha was deeply asleep in the next room. “From what she said, the first thing he did was manipulate some of her memories. She said there were no lies, no deceptions, just information . . . rearranged.”
“Not something we’ve seen before,” Bishop said slowly.
“Yeah, I was kind of hoping you might have encountered it even if we haven’t. This creep really is unique?”
“He didn’t make Robbie do anything.”
Long accustomed to his unit chief’s habit of answering some questions obliquely and some not at all, Luke merely said, “Far as we could tell, no. Maybe just a test, to see if he could get in and mess with her mind. But he did give her a memory she shouldn’t have had, or maybe a vision. She was standing on the sidewalk watching as Officer Annie Duncan staggered out of an alley and collapsed with her throat cut.”
Since Lucas had already related information about the murder, Bishop was aware of what had happened.
“Do you think he was showing her that as it happened?”
“If not in the moment, then damned close. Sam said Officer Duncan’s body was still warm.”
“I know you don’t like it,” Bishop said, “but Samantha’s ability to retrieve memories is also unique.”
“She retrieved memories from a dead woman’s dying brain, Bishop. Just the idea is something out of a horror movie and we both know it. At best, it pulls too much of her own life force from the psychic, and at worst she could be pulled into the energy escaping the brain and end up God knows where. Now, you and the doctors and whoever may find that fascinating, and maybe something new can be learned about the brain, even about the death process, but Sam’s the one taking the risks. Both her hands were frostnipped, and she was out before I could get her up here to our room. She came close, really close this time.”
“You said she went out earlier in the day. Do you have any idea what caused that?”
“As far as I can tell, there’s a choice between at least two possibilities, and I don’t like either of them. First, Sam reacted to that energy bubble—though why it knocked her out when Robbie was able to sense the energy without it harming her is anybody’s guess.”
“And the second possibility?”
“Same as with Robbie. He got into her head somehow. But Sam isn’t a telepath, and she had a lot of experience in her carnival years in warding off negative energy, plus what she’s learned in the SCU since then. Maybe she pushed back without even thinking about it, but the effort took enough of her own energy and strength that she went out before even she could realize what happened. It is pretty much her default response to using too much energy.”
“True.”
“Also true that it would have taken a tremendous amount of energy to knock her out like that, so quickly.”
“I would say so.”
“And she’s certain he was aware of her later, Bishop. While she was tapping into the last of Annie’s memories, experiencing her murder. How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know,” Bishop said.
“You want to venture a guess?” Lucas tended to be intense often enough for it to be fairly usual, but to speak to his unit chief and a man he respected deeply with that snap in his voice was ample evidence of just how worried about Samantha he was.
Bishop paused, but not out of temper as his thoughtful voice indicated. “We know that when minds touch they leave . . . bread crumbs. Even if Samantha wasn’t aware of the contact earlier, he apparently did try to get through her shields. Maybe he did. Not far, obviously, but maybe just far enough to leave a bread crumb or two. And whe
n Sam was using her abilities later to get what information she could from Annie Duncan, the unsub somehow became aware of that and . . . followed the bread crumbs.”
“That’s a lot of qualifiers.”
“It’s that sort of situation.”
Lucas sighed. “So . . . he wasn’t sensing her when she was reliving Annie’s memories just before Annie died because those memories were in the past; the unsub just managed to become a part of Sam’s process.”
“That makes more sense, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not sure anything in all this makes sense.” Lucas sighed again. “Sam has a better shield than I do, but I know damned well she’ll insist on using her abilities again. And soon. We have evidence bagged from the scenes of four of the six sites of the disappearances; I talked her out of touching any of that today, but with a murder added to the abductions, the clock is moving faster, and we both know what she’ll do.”
“If we don’t, we should after all this time.” Bishop paused, then said, “When she first went out, when he presumably touched her mind or some part of it, it was during the day, right? You were walking the scenes where the missing people disappeared, during the day.”
“Yeah.” Lucas frowned, repeating, “Yeah. So he strikes after dark, but could be keeping an eye on us during the day as well. Shit.”
“Could have been just the one day,” Bishop suggested. “Because you all got to town today and he either knew or heard you’d be arriving. It would have been news and spread around town very quickly. Maybe he just wanted to watch you work.”
“And test our defenses. So he knows we’re psychics.”
“He knows Samantha and Robbie are. No way to be absolutely sure he tested you and Dante. In fact, he probably didn’t. Too many men believe women are the weaker, more vulnerable targets, especially predators like this one; he may have simply tried them first for that reason.”