Fear the Dark

by Kay Hooper

  “Which tells us something else about him,” Dante said.

  Sarah looked at him, brows raised in question.

  “Control is an issue with this unsub. He’s turned people into his puppets, mindlessly doing his bidding. I’m guessing he has little to no control over any of the people in his normal life. And that there’s probably someone he’d love to control but hasn’t yet gotten the nerve to try.”

  Clearly uneasy, Sarah said, “How far would he take that when it comes to our missing people? I mean, okay, let’s say he used a little bit of psychic control and some decent computer skills to abduct these people. And then—what?”

  None of them wanted to consider worst-case scenarios, but it was Robbie who finally said, “Since we don’t yet know why these people were taken, what their connection to him—and to each other—is, why these particular people were his targets, we can’t even speculate about what he did after he abducted them.”

  “No,” Jonah agreed. “We can’t. All we can really know is that none of their bodies have turned up. Yet.”

  —

  HE HADN’T REALIZED how tired he was until he was showered and had to force himself to eat something. Had to eat. Had to keep his energy up.

  But he realized just how tired he was when he heard faint sounds coming from his Collection, and had to concentrate hard for several moments until they were still and silent again.

  He had been able to keep them still and silent even while he slept, but that was a different thing. He supposed, having done some reading on the subject, that what he used then was a kind of posthypnotic suggestion, planted deeply in their minds.

  Maybe too deeply. The girl was, as far as he could tell, the only one who never stirred.

  Maybe he had gone too deep with her.

  He thought about it, but not really with any anxiety. After all, it was his Collection. It didn’t matter what they wanted or needed. They belonged to him. He only fed them because it pleased him to keep them alive.

  For now, at least.

  —

  SARAH WAS FROWNING again. “Wait a minute. The first abduction. The teenagers. Simon Church’s old Jeep isn’t exactly crammed with electronics, unless you count those god-awful loudspeakers he jerry-rigged in the back. Nobody could hack into that thing except with an axe.”

  “True,” Jonah conceded. He half sat on the conference table after finding a small space free of file folders. “But there’s still the mind-control thing. Or whatever it is. Hate to say it, but neither one of those kids could come close to winning an academic scholarship, and they were both very self-centered.”

  “Easy targets,” Dante noted.

  Sarah hadn’t stopped frowning. “Say you’re right about that. We are still left with two very large elephants in the room,” she said. “The first is those photographs I took that didn’t show the open car doors or the footprints both Jonah and I saw. And the second is those energy bubbles.”

  Robbie shook her head. “I still think those energy bubbles have something to do with him and his abilities. I don’t know why it’s only outside and not inside, or how it monkeys with time like that. But I’m certain he’s the cause.”

  “And the photographs?” Sarah’s voice was a bit tense.

  Dante murmured, “The more intelligent the person . . .”

  “You think he played one of his little mind games on me?” She didn’t quite snap the question.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger,” he said, holding up a placating hand. “But at least until he killed Officer Duncan, this unsub was apparently a two-trick pony. Computers. And some kind of psychic mind control. We really haven’t seen anything else from him in the way of skills.”

  It’s not difficult at all to cut someone’s throat.

  Nobody said that. Out loud, at any rate.

  Jonah said, “Sarah, we know there was time for him to take those kids wherever he took them and still get back to the car before you found it.”

  “Okay. But you saw the open doors and footprints too, Jonah. And there was not a lot of time between you leaving and Tim getting there with the tow truck.”

  Nobody said anything, until finally she swore and said it herself. “Him too, huh?”

  Jonah spoke carefully. “It was just before that cloudburst. You took the photos quickly, and Tim got the car hooked up to his tow truck quickly. If the unsub did have to . . . mess with your memories, both of you, it wouldn’t have been for long.”

  “All he really had to do,” Robbie said, “was stall you two long enough to close the car doors and rake away the footprints—but leave the memory of that in your mind and Tim’s.”

  Sarah remained stubbornly silent.

  Robbie tried again. “I doubt he can create images on film, not that specific, at least. The energy he leaves is too . . . uncontrolled.” A thoughtful expression crossed her face briefly, but then she shook her head slightly and finished, “You took photos of the scene as it actually was; you only remember the way it looked when you found it, and showed it to Jonah.”

  Grim, Sarah said, “Any way you can prove that?”

  “In court? No.” Robbie sighed. “But I can probably prove it to you. Telepathically.”

  “So you can read more than surface thoughts,” Jonah said.

  “Memories sometimes. Especially if the person I’m reading has been . . . fretting about something. And I can usually project those memories back to whoever I’m reading. Look, Sarah, it’s up to you. I can keep my focus very narrow, and look only for those memories.”

  Not exactly protesting, Sarah said, “Is it dangerous for you to try reading me with the unsub around somewhere?”

  “I’m not so sure he’s near enough to matter,” Jonah said. “It’s not dawn yet, barely twenty-four hours since he abducted Nessa Tyler. And it’s been a very busy twenty-four hours for him. He has to be feeling the strain. Seeing Samantha go out the way she did is all the proof I need that psychic abilities take, sometimes, more energy than a psychic has to give.”

  Robbie was nodding slowly. “He abducted Nessa, touched Sam’s mind at least once and probably twice, messed with my memories, murdered someone . . . And if he’s keeping our missing people alive, he has to do whatever it takes to accomplish that. You’re right. He can’t keep up that kind of pace, not unless he’s a hell of a lot more powerful than any psychic I’ve ever met. He has to eat, to sleep.”

  “So,” Jonah said, “maybe this is our chance to try to get ahead of the bastard.” He looked at his second. “Sarah, I hate to ask, but it would help if we could cross off one more supposedly spooky thing from our list of what he can do. We’re never going to figure out who he is unless we know what he isn’t.”

  “Okay, okay.” Sarah drew a breath and let it out. “Just . . . don’t expect me to like it.”

  Keeping her own voice brisk, Robbie said, “I’m not a touch-telepath, but probably best if we’re both sitting down when I try this.”

  “When you try it?”

  “Well, I know I can read you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I can read you right now. Control is one of the things we struggle with.” She looked suddenly at Dante, brows raised. “Maybe part of the unsub’s control issues?”

  “Maybe. If those energy bubbles are what’s left over when he uses his abilities, it could be he doesn’t have as much control as he thinks he does, and is . . . spilling . . . the energy he can’t fully control.”

  “That’s all we need. If Sam says his energy is negative, I believe her. Especially since we know now that he’s a killer. I hadn’t thought . . . but killing Officer Duncan could have added to that negative energy. I wonder if he even realizes.”

  Sarah said, “Hate to interrupt, but can we please get this over with? Just because I’ve been comfortable with the idea of psychic abilities doesn’t mean I’m all that anxious to have my mind r
ead. No offense,” she added to Robbie.

  “None taken. I’m still not entirely comfortable with reading people, and I’ve been able to do it all my life.” She sat down at the table, while Sarah sat down immediately to her left.

  “What do I do to help?” Sarah asked.

  “Sounds trite, but close your eyes and think about that morning. When you found the car, and the teenagers gone. Just think about that, okay?”

  “Got it.” Sarah drew another breath and let it out slowly, closed her eyes, and concentrated. It was a Saturday, early Saturday, and she was doing an easy patrol alone because she’d wanted to get out of the station for a while. Just an easy patrol on a peaceful morning—

  —

  WHAT THE HELL is the Church boy’s old Jeep doing out here? Honestly, I would have thought him too lazy to be up and about so early. Unless it’s late for him . . .

  Huh. Why’re the doors open?

  She pulled her cruiser off the road and far enough back not to disturb any evidence—just in case there was some. She even unsnapped her weapon holster once out of her cruiser, though that was, she told herself, just a precaution.

  She felt . . . odd. The hair on the back of her neck was stirring, and she didn’t know why. She wanted to call out for the Church boy but knew she was close enough to wake Mildred Bates, and that was the last thing she wanted. Even though it was more likely than not the dratted woman would be up any time now.

  She approached the Jeep warily.

  Engine off, but key in the ignition. The back packed full of stuff, like somebody was moving. And in the front passenger seat, a girl’s colorful, bespangled purse.

  Amy Grimes. She was very proud of her gaudy purse, carried it everywhere even though most girls her age had ditched purses in favor of little pouches just big enough for cell phones, driver’s licenses, and maybe a credit card or a few bucks.

  Sarah pulled a pair of nonlatex gloves from the inner pocket of her lightweight jacket and put them on. Amy Grimes’s purse contained an equally bejeweled cell phone, the usual girly stuff—plus what looked like several thousand dollars in cash.

  An elopement. Of course.

  So . . . where were the soon-to-be-wed teenagers?

  Sarah walked around to the driver’s side—and that was when she saw the tracks down the gentle slope of the embankment and to the flat below.

  Footprints. A large pair and a smaller pair. Weirdly precise footprints that just . . . stopped.

  Sarah stood looking around for a few moments, puzzled but also conscious of that uneasy sense of things being not right.

  Amy wouldn’t have left her purse like that, especially with so much cash. Simon Church wouldn’t have left his Jeep just sitting on the side of the road, keys in the ignition as though inviting it to be jacked.

  Not that carjacking was the sort of thing that went on in Serenity. Still.

  She sat gingerly in the driver’s seat and started up the engine. Seemed to be working fine. Tank was full of gas, according to the gauge. Nothing in the car said there was anything wrong. Except for the absence of the teenagers.

  Sarah turned off the Jeep and got out, and after a slight hesitation she walked farther down the grassy verge so that when she went down the sloping embankment, it was not close to the footprints. She walked around the area carefully, noting that last night’s rain had left everything soaked, the dirt now mud that clung to her shoes.

  She was careful. She circled widely, looking for any sign that the kids had gone beyond the point where the eerily precise footprints had stopped.

  No signs they had. No signs of anyone else, at least since the rain. Absolutely no sign to tell her what had happened here.

  Except that two teenagers appeared to be missing.

  It wasn’t a conclusion Sarah jumped to. Simon Church was inordinately proud of his old Jeep and had a habit of twirling the keys around one index finger.

  The keys were in the ignition.

  Amy Grimes was inordinately proud of . . . well, herself. Her possessions. And she was a girl who liked to make plans.

  Sarah doubted that any plan of Amy’s would include leaving her prized purse and a wad of money behind.

  It would have been easy, of course, to call the Church and Grimes families and ask if their kids were home, safe and sound and, if so, could they please tell Simon he’d left his car inexplicably here and Amy had left a purse full of cash . . .

  Sarah returned to her cruiser, sighed, and made the call that would undoubtedly wake up Jonah. And then—

  “Skip ahead, Sarah. Jonah arrives, you both check out the scene, and he asks you to take photographs and call for the police tow truck. Isn’t that the way it happened?”

  An odd voice, Sarah thought. Soothing and yet . . . an order. So she skipped ahead.

  Yes, that was the way it happened. Jonah left in his Jeep, and Sarah was making adjustments to the camera before taking the pictures—

  No. When Jonah left, she was already down the embankment and on the flat, placing a ruler beside the footprints before photographing them. Wasn’t she? She thought she had been doing that. But here she was, near the hood of her cruiser, making adjustments to the camera, just fiddling, really.

  And then Tim came with the tow truck, and they stood there talking for just a minute or two, she was sure it was no longer than that, because thunder was rumbling and they both knew they had to hurry to beat the storm.

  So then Sarah took pictures of the car with the doors open, so Tim could go ahead and close them and get the Jeep hitched to his tow truck while she took photographs of the footprints on the bank and down on the flat.

  And Tim helped her up the bank, both of them cursing the mud on their shoes, and—

  “That’s not the way it happened, Sarah. Concentrate. When Jonah left, you were down on the flat, placing a ruler beside the footprints. What happened then?”

  Annoying voice now. Annoying command.

  No, I was by my cruiser, fiddling with—

  “Sarah. You’re down on the flat. You’re bending over to place a ruler beside the footprints. Jonah saw that. He’s driving away now. What are you doing?”

  For a moment, it seemed that all Sarah’s memories flipped and rolled in her head, a confusion of what was real and what had been . . . given to her. Stuck in her head, in her mind, by an alien voice she . . . almost . . . recognized.

  Almost.

  I . . . pick up the ruler and stick it in my back pocket. And then . . . I look at the pictures I’ve taken, and I delete them.

  “Why, Sarah?”

  Because . . . he told me to.

  “Who told you, Sarah?”

  I . . . I’m not sure. I think I know his voice, but . . . it’s strange in my ears. In my head.

  “Listen more closely, Sarah. Do you know who he is?”

  I . . . No. He doesn’t want me to know. He’s nearby, over in the bushes, but every time I try to see him . . . it gets dark. So dark I can’t see anything at all. I don’t like the dark.

  So I do what he wants. I go back up the bank, and wait for Tim. And when Tim comes, we . . . I thought we talked, but I think . . . I think we just stood there. For the longest time, we just stood there.

  And then, when he told us to, we could move again. I took pictures of the Jeep so Tim could close the doors and hook it up to the tow truck. But I took the pictures after Tim closed the doors. And then I took pictures of the bank and the flat.

  “Did you see the footprints, Sarah?”

  Yes. No. No, they were gone. But he told me to take the pictures. He told me the footprints would be there. I didn’t want to believe him, but I had to.

  “Why did you have to, Sarah? Why did you have to believe what he told you was the truth?”

  I had to . . . because . . . he said if I didn’t . . . if I didn’t believe w
ith my whole heart and mind that the footprints were there . . . he’d know. And he’d leave me to drown in the darkness.

  “Sarah—”

  He’d leave me to die. Alone. In the darkness. Where no one would ever be able to find me again.

  TWELVE

  Sarah was pacing the floor, fuming. Robbie eyed her with more than a little sympathy.

  “I’m sorry. It’s not much fun to realize you can’t even trust your own memory. Believe me, I know.”

  “That son of a bitch. That sorry son of a bitch.” Sarah swung around abruptly to face the others. “Okay, how do we go about finding this bastard?”

  Robbie nodded toward the files piled all over the conference table in the center of the room. “For now, old-fashioned police work. We have to go over these files, one by one. In fact, we should double up, make sure at least two of us study each file. Jonah, you and Sarah know this town better than anyone, so one of you should look at every file. Dante and I are strangers to the town, which means we may spot something important that anyone belonging here would take for granted.”

  Jonah nodded toward a file box he’d set on a chair near the door. “What about Annie’s files? And her notes. As a matter of fact, I got just about everything I could from her desk.”

  Robbie thought about it briefly, then said to the chief, “Whichever of you—you and Sarah—knew her best should go over those files separately. And whether or not you find anything, Sam should go over them when she gets here. She’s the one who caught at least a glimpse of Annie’s memories. She may see something all the rest of us miss.”

  “Sarah knew her best,” Jonah said.

  Sarah was nodding. “She was on my shift, usually. Jonah and I switched it up so we each got a couple nights off every week, and Annie was pretty much on the same schedule. I’m talking first and second shift; we kept a skeleton staff on the third shift because it was so quiet here. Until the disappearances started. Since then it’s been all hands on board and you rest when you can. We even have a few cots scattered around the station, in the break room and a couple of unoccupied offices and storage rooms. At least half the cots tend to be occupied whenever you walk through. Lotta overtime.”