by Kay Hooper
With a certain grim satisfaction, Lucas said, “Well, he’s got a lot to learn, doesn’t he?”
“Even so, you’re right to worry about Samantha. We both know she has a tendency to go deeper than she needs to.”
“We also both know that she’ll do what she feels is right, no matter how dangerous it might be.”
“True.”
“You want to tell me how I can protect her from herself?”
“Luke, we’re both married to strong women. And we both know they can take care of themselves.” He paused, adding wryly, “We both also know that knowledge doesn’t put a dent in the worry. Look, you’re there with her, and you know the danger signs. Don’t hesitate to pull her out if you have any doubts at all.”
“I never have.”
“We both know that too.”
Lucas sighed. “This unsub has been active for nearly a month, with six disappearances—and no bodies found. No way to know if his victims are alive or dead. We checked all the records we could find, and so far there’s nothing remotely similar to this unsub either at an earlier time here or anytime anywhere else in the southeast.”
“I took it nationwide,” Bishop said. “No hits. Unless he made some drastic changes, he started in Serenity less than a month ago. And that’s likely where he’ll finish.”
“I told Robbie and Dante to stay within sight of each other at all times. Also told them we’d split shifts, at least unless and until there’s a break in the case. This unsub being psychic ups the stakes. A lot. I don’t want any one of us vulnerable because we’re tired.” Lucas knew more than most the dangers of being tired—and psychic.
“Good. Now take your own advice and get some rest. You know you don’t have to stay awake to watch over Samantha.”
They had that in common too.
“Yeah, I will.” Luke paused, then added, “This town’s been keeping it together mostly, but this murder is going to change everything.”
“Yes. Get some rest, Luke. Check in tomorrow.”
“Right.”
—
“THIS STRONG WOMAN is worried,” Miranda said as her husband pushed the speaker button on the phone to end the connection and then came to join her on the sofa in front of a low fire. Nearly June or not, there was still patchy snow all around their comfortable mountain aerie.
“So am I, love,” Bishop confessed. “But Luke has more than proven he’s one of our top team leaders. Together, he and Sam are a formidable pair.”
“I know that. I just wish . . .”
“That we could tell them? Warn them?”
It could help.
It could also make things immeasurably worse. We agreed, remember?
Aloud, she said, “We could have warned them he’s psychic.”
“They figured that out quickly enough.”
“What about the price, Noah? The price of our silence. If he touched Sam’s mind and Robbie’s . . . he’ll try to use that to his advantage. And if he was powerful enough to drop Sam in an instant, then he’s too powerful.”
“I know that. And so does Luke.”
“If they’d known in advance, they would have been more guarded. He might not have gotten in at all.”
Bishop pulled his wife even closer. “We both learned long ago the difference between prediction and prophesy. Do you really believe anything we could have told them would have changed a future we both saw?”
“I don’t know. No . . . I suppose not. It’s just . . . so many of our people have to go through some sort of baptism of fire, either before they join the team or after. They work their asses off to make the world better. To save lives. To destroy monsters. The universe made them psychic, and God knows that’s enough of a burden. Why these . . . tests?”
“I can’t speak for the universe.”
Miranda gave him a look.
“But if I could, it would probably be in clichés. What doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger, for instance. You’re stronger for what you’ve been through, as brutally painful as some of it has been. So am I. So is every member of the team.”
Steadily, she said, “Yeah, but sometimes, if things get really bad, people do get destroyed.”
“We didn’t see that.”
“We saw the possibility.”
He was silent.
“We saw darkness, Noah. A darkness neither of us has ever seen before. What if they aren’t strong enough to fight that?”
“They have to be,” he said simply.
She half shook her head. “We’ve been incredibly lucky as a unit; if our agents weren’t psychics, half of them would be dead.”
“Not half,” he objected.
Miranda couldn’t manage a smile. “I just . . . I have a bad feeling about this one. Over and above what we saw. That maybe our luck has finally run out.”
“You know I don’t believe in luck.”
“I know. Still.”
“You want to go down there, don’t you?”
“I think . . . we need to be closer than we are. Not in town, not visible, but nearby.”
“And if he senses us?”
That did conjure a smile. “If he senses us, love, he pretty much has to be that ‘perfect psychic’ you’ve been waiting for. And if he’s that, if darkness instead of light got your perfect psychic, then we have to fight him with everything we’ve got. And much better to meet him on our terms than on his.”
“You’ve got a point.” He paused. “Then again, he could just be your garden-variety psycho with one of our tools in his toolbox. Or something like one of our tools. Something more than telepathy.”
“Either way, I think we need to be closer. Not because Luke and the others can’t handle themselves, but because of what we saw. I don’t know how they’re going to handle that. Do you?”
“No,” Bishop admitted. “I don’t. Especially Luke. He’s good at finding people. Not good at losing them.”
—
ROBBIE AND DANTE did their best to help Jonah and his officers as they went about the grim task of looking for evidence on and around the body of their fallen comrade, but they quickly discovered that their best was simply to keep their distance and keep a respectful silence.
“Sorry,” Jonah said as he paused briefly near them. “They don’t really blame you, it’s just . . .”
“It’s okay,” Robbie said, keeping her voice low and matter-of-fact. “We get it. Nobody died until we came to town, at least that they know of. They’ve needed somebody to blame for weeks. We can take it.”
Jonah frowned. “It’s irrational, and in their right minds they know it. Once her—once Annie is taken to the morgue at the clinic and Dr. Calder gets started on the post, I’m calling a meeting at the station. Probably best if you two don’t come.”
Dante was nodding, but Robbie said, “Don’t be too hard on them, okay? They need time to process what’s happened. So do you.”
“Yeah. My head gets that.” He continued on.
Robbie sighed. “Why do I get the feeling he’s blaming himself for Annie’s murder?”
“You’re not reading him?”
“Are you kidding? After this maniac got into my head before, I closed up tight as a drum. I don’t want to read anybody.”
“Listen, it was you who told me that’s not healthy.”
“Over the long term, it isn’t,” she replied. “But it’s night, his favorite time to hunt, and I’m betting he’s close enough to watch this. This is the show he’s been denied so far. A spellbound audience for his work. And I really hope he isn’t realizing it.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“No, me either. If he decides he likes this show more than his abracadabra abductions, we’re really in trouble. Does he want to stay mysterious and watch the town slowly tear itself apart? Or w
ould he rather do this again and watch it happen faster?”
“You think that’ll happen? Destroy the town?”
Robbie waited while two cops with set expressions walked past them without a glance, then said, “It’s already happening. When people disappear, those left behind can hope. But with every day that passes and he isn’t caught, there isn’t even a decent lead, and more people disappear, hope turns in on itself. Maybe the cops aren’t working hard enough? Let’s blame them. The FBI should be able to find people, right? Let’s blame them. Or maybe . . . maybe it’s somebody they know. Neighbor suspects neighbor. Friend suspects friend. Spouses suspect each other.” Robbie paused, then finished, “Murdered bodies start turning up, and muttered questions and deflected blame won’t be enough for these people. Things will start to get loud and ugly.”
“That does not sound fun.”
“No. It won’t be. Not for anyone.” Robbie sighed. “Small towns depend on community more than cities do. Neighbor helping neighbor. Everybody coming together in a crisis. But this . . . it’s been weeks and they feel helpless. After this murder, helpless is going to turn to angry.”
“Great.”
They were standing near the opening of the taped-off alley, which gave them a clear view into the tent where Annie Duncan lay as well as a good look at how much more active the downtown area had become, and not just with cops.
They were certainly frightened of the predator hunting among them, but this, this brutally murdered officer, was the first tangible evidence the people of Serenity could actually see. Even if all they saw was a small white tent with grim-faced CSU and other officers moving about, as well as the coroner, who had gone into the tent for a while but now waited patiently, expressionless, leaning back against the tailgate of an old black hearse with a magnetic CORONER sign clapped to each of the front doors.
Dante said, “They really weren’t prepared for all this, were they?” He looked around at the yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape, behind which were gathered a goodly number of Serenity’s citizens—excepting children, presumably left home with at least one frightened adult behind a locked door.
It was after midnight, but the downtown area was brightly lit, by streetlamps turned up to full wattage and storefront lights on as well. The downtown Diner had even reopened, offering coffee and sandwiches to the working cops.
“Nobody’s prepared for this,” Robbie said. “They read about evil in a book or see it on TV or a movie screen. And if they’re very unlucky, something bad done by evil will happen to someone they know—which is more than close enough. Nobody wants to see evil up close and personal. Except us.”
“I don’t really want to see evil,” Dante confessed.
“You know what I mean. We hunt evil. Professionally. We go out looking for the monsters other people wish didn’t exist.”
Dante eyed her. “You’re a glass-half-empty sort of person, aren’t you?”
“Only at murder scenes.” She shifted restlessly, frowning. “Dammit, I feel so helpless doing nothing.”
“I don’t think any of these cops want us helping,” Dante reminded her.
“No, but—” She saw Jonah coming back from wherever he’d been and stepped out to meet him. “Hey. I don’t think our being here is doing anyone any good,” she told him, keeping her voice low. “If you’ll post officers at each end of this alley and keep it taped off for later, Dante and I will go back to the command center and start working through whatever information we’ve gotten so far. I know there was a delay in getting Bishop’s info from Quantico, including enhanced video from the security cameras, but we should have that by now, as well as more files from your people.”
Jonah nodded, and before she could bring it up, he said, “I’ll go myself to Annie’s desk and gather up everything she’d been working on, and bring it over as well. If you’re right that she had some kind of realization, surely one of us will see it.”
“I hope so,” Robbie replied, adding, “Jonah . . . he’s probably watching all this.”
The chief’s expression didn’t change. “That crossed my mind. But I’m reasonably sure he’d notice if I sent out my photographer to get shots of the crowd.”
“I’m sure too. But just standing here, we’ve had a good chance to look around. Most of these businesses have some kind of camera or cameras covering their entrances and even the parking spaces in front; please tell me they aren’t dummy cameras.”
He swore under his breath. “I should have thought of that. No, there used to be a lot of dummy cameras along Main, but not since people began disappearing. Everything is wide-angle to cover as much territory as possible. Sarah and I have reviewed footage after every disappearance, just to be sure. I’ll have her pull the tapes and put in new ones to keep running. She’ll bring what we have so far to the command center.”
“We’ll be there.”
TEN
Sarah Waters delivered the promised security tapes less than half an hour later and elected to stay at the command center and help the agents. She had, of course, put herself back on duty as soon as Annie Duncan’s murder was discovered, which meant she’d gotten next to no sleep.
Still, Dante reflected, she seemed to wear the same bright-eyed, brisk, unrumpled look that Robbie always managed—and just as effortlessly.
Dante wanted a shave and a shower. And he wouldn’t have minded a nap. He also suspected he looked decidedly rumpled but refused to ask and have that confirmed.
“I can review the security tapes, since I know most everybody in Serenity,” Sarah said, “but until we can narrow things down so I have some idea of who to look for, it seems fairly useless.”
“Yeah,” Dante said. “There was no camera covering that alley, front or back, we checked. If he’s on the recent security tapes, blending in with the crowd of townsfolk watching, we’d never know it. Not yet, at least.”
Robbie looked at the piles of folders on their round table and sighed. “Who was it that said we’d be a paperless society shortly after computers came along?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, “but he was obviously an idiot. Even when we do store information on a computer, we always have hard-copy backups. Always. Boxes and boxes of files in the basement.”
Robbie nodded. “For the zombie apocalypse. I’m the same way about my books. Buy the e-versions for my tablet, but always buy a hardcover or paperback copy as well, for the shelves.”
“You’re weird,” Dante told her without looking up from his computer station.
“Yeah, yeah. Come the zombie apocalypse, you’ll be at my house looking for something to read by candlelight. Bring wine.”
“Come the zombie apocalypse, I’ll probably be looking for guns and food,” Dante said. And then he looked up to frown at her. “How did you pull me into that?”
“It’s a gift. Sarah, did you have a chance to eat before coming back on duty?”
“Yeah. I even managed a nap, though I don’t think Jonah believes that.”
Robbie sat down at the table, pulling the top dozen files off a fairly tall stack. “He’s looking pretty haggard. Normal for him?”
“It’s become a familiar look these last weeks,” Sarah said frankly as she sat and reached for files. “But before then . . . no. He’s a good chief, a good cop, and he works hard to do right by the people in this town. But he also knows how to delegate, and knows he needs rest to function at his best. Least he did. Until the teenagers vanished, and all this started.”
“He wanted to believe it was a stranger, didn’t he?”
Sarah paused in studying her topmost file and frowned. “You know, I’m not sure. I think maybe he knew all along that it was somebody here in Serenity. He’s the kind of cop who knows why people do the things they do, if you know what I mean.”
“A natural profiler,” Robbie said.
“I’d say so. It�
��s been minor things until this started. Something got stolen, he knew whose door to knock on. Kids causing trouble at the high school, he seemed able to sit them down and talk to them—and whatever he said, it stuck.”
“What other kinds of crime have you guys had to deal with?” Robbie asked.
“Usual. Vandalism, petty theft, a few domestic disturbances over the years. Nothing like this. Nothing even close to this.”
In the same casual voice, Robbie said, “When the teenagers disappeared, that was weird about the car doors and footprints.” Jonah had of course filled them in hours before on the other “oddities” of the various disappearances.
“Very weird,” Sarah said with some feeling. “You don’t know how much I’m hoping you guys can explain it—with or without psychic trimmings.”
“How do you feel about psychics?” Robbie asked.
“Total believer,” Sarah replied calmly and without hesitation. “Born and raised. My grandmother had the sight, and the whole family paid attention whenever she had something to say. And it was none of that vague you’ll-meet-a-dark-man bullshit either. Very specific. I came home from college once—went to UC Berkeley in California, so I didn’t get home often—and she told me flat-out to stop dating the guy I’d had only a couple of dates with. She’d never seen him, and I hadn’t mentioned him, even though I liked him. But she was adamant. ‘Stop. Do not see him again.’”
She had Dante’s attention now as well, both feds listening intently.
“I asked why, of course.”
“What did she say?” Robbie asked.
Sarah looked at Robbie. “She said, ‘He’s a killer. He will kill at least a dozen young women before the police find the evidence they need to put him away.’”
—
HE HATED THE blood. The way it smelled, the way it felt on his clothing, his skin.
He hadn’t realized there would be so much blood.
But she’d surprised him in what he’d thought would be a safe place, what with the curfew and all. As close as he dared get to the feds’ makeshift command center.