by Kay Hooper
“No, like I said, it was her day off. But I called the bank before closing just to make sure she wasn’t called in to cover somebody else’s shift. Manager said nobody had seen her since yesterday.”
Mal glanced out the window of his office, which overlooked Main Street, reminding himself what he already knew. It was dark. Even in August, darkness came early to Clarity, nestled as it was in a valley surrounded by mountains.
Wait for dark.
Had Perla Cross received that text at three o’clock today?
It had been dark for at least three hours.
“You waited, hoping she’d come home,” he said, not really a question and not the one he really didn’t want to ask.
“She always has before,” Joe said miserably. “Or at least called from the Holiday Inn by suppertime to yell at me. And since she didn’t take anything, I just figured maybe she’d gone to stay with one of her friends for a while. And left the dog at home because . . . well, I don’t know why she would have done that. But I called everybody I knew, everybody she knew, and they all said they hadn’t seen her.”
The slightly sick feeling had been with Mal for a while now, and it felt worse when he forced himself to ask the question he really didn’t want to ask. “Joe, did you find her cell phone?”
A blank stare greeted that question for several beats, and then Joe Cross said slowly, “It was on the kitchen island. That’s another thing that made me worry. She always has it with her. Usually in a pocket or even in her hand. Always. Her and her friends, and her sisters, they text each other all day long.”
“Did you check it for messages? Missed calls? Texts?”
This time Joe’s flush was an ugly red, and he avoided the sheriff’s steady gaze. “She—once before, I—I looked at her cell. To see who she’d been talking and texting to. And she got real mad. So she traded it in for one she could have password protected. I . . . don’t know the password.”
Mal glanced at his watch, calculating. The FBI team he was expecting was still probably at least two hours away, if not more. He didn’t have a large complement of deputies, but there were others he could call on at need. Retired cops or just men and women with some training, military or law enforcement, people he knew and could count on to be discreet and to not lose their heads if there was real trouble.
If a search was required once it got light, there would be plenty of volunteers.
But if Perla Cross’s cell phone contained that single chilling text, then Mal Gordon didn’t expect to have to send out search teams. Because so far, except for the car accident, all the bodies, all the remains, had been found in or very near the homes of the victims.
Oh, Christ, I don’t want to find another victim.
He’d had more than his fill of dead and mangled bodies in the military; once he’d taken off the uniform, becoming the sheriff of a small Southern mountain town had seemed the best way to put his training and experience to good use without all the carnage.
Especially since he’d grown up in Clarity and knew the place and the people as well as anyone, if not better.
He rose to his feet, hesitated briefly as he considered certain facts known locally, so far, only to him and Emma, then said, “One of my deputies is good with tech; maybe she can break the code on Perla’s cell. I’ll bring a couple more deputies and we can search the house and that big yard of yours.”
“Mal—”
Since he didn’t want to answer any questions now with so many rattling around in his own head, the sheriff merely said, “Let’s be real sure she’s missing before any of us lose our heads, okay, Joe? Come on.”
Visibly baffled and even more worried, Joe Cross obeyed.
THREE
“Hollis isn’t ready,” DeMarco repeated to their unit chief.
“She wants to work.”
“She isn’t okay. Not yet.”
“It’s been more than six months,” Bishop said, “since the investigation in Georgia.”
“I know. And we both know time has nothing to do with it.”
“We also both know Hollis isn’t nearly as fragile as she looks,” Bishop reminded him. “Not physically and certainly not emotionally or psychologically.”
“Yeah. She may well be the strongest person I’ve ever known. But what she faced down there . . . I’ve seen a lot of people face a lot of demons, Bishop. I’ve done it myself, and still do from time to time. But what Hollis faced . . . was pure evil. Maybe what she was able to do after we found that last victim helped, being able to fight that evil on her own terms, but it was brutal. I know she follows her instincts, and so far they’ve guided her true, but absorbing so much dark energy the way she did, transforming it, that went way beyond anything any of us has ever done before. We don’t know the short-term effects of that. And we sure as hell don’t know what the long-term effects might be.”
“All true.”
“Being here, being kept busy with a few refresher courses, working with some of the new agents, digging into the cold case files, it’s been a break she needed. A respite. No lives in danger. No stakes too high. No real pressure. Regular meals and plenty of time for sleep, whether she took advantage of that or not. And I know the visits from Maggie Garrett helped. Maybe a lot.” Maggie Garrett was a co-founder of the SCU’s domestic sister organization, Haven, but more importantly she was an amazingly powerful empath with the ability to heal others, to heal the wounds of the soul and the mind as well as those of the body. “Maybe all of it gave Hollis a chance to really begin recovering from everything that’s happened to her in the last few years, including that original attack.”
“I don’t know if you could ever truly recover from something like that to the extent of putting it behind you, forgotten,” Bishop said. “I don’t know if Hollis will be able to, even with all her strength.”
DeMarco didn’t like to think of Hollis hurting even a little; it haunted him awake and dreaming, the nightmare of the horrific attack that had so changed her life and her self several years before. The sadistic serial rapist and murderer who, after brutalizing his victims, took their eyes, literally, and left them for dead.
Hollis had not died. She had fought incredible odds to survive, with her sanity intact. And then she had fought to see, after a medical procedure believed to be impossible. She had fought—and now she saw.
Through the transplanted eyes of an anonymous donor.
Steadily, DeMarco repeated, “I know she’s had help healing. In the beginning and over all the time since. I know being in the SCU is without question the best decision she could have made, because it’s the best place for her to be, where all of us to varying degrees understand what she’s been through and accept her for who she is now. And I know she’s strong.”
“Yes. And now she needs to work.”
“She’s been working.”
“She needs to be in the field, Reese. I can’t keep her here in the nest any longer, not without risking her self-confidence. She’s been showing signs of restlessness for quite a while. She’s run the trainee course three times this week. And outscored all the cadets and trainees, plus three active agents.”
“Do you know she’s started remembering her nightmares? Nightmares about the attack that took her eyes and triggered her abilities?” DeMarco’s voice was level.
“Does she know you remember them?” Bishop countered.
DeMarco didn’t react to that, although he had told no one about his ability to “remember” Hollis’s dreams. In a unit of psychics, few things were secret, even those some would have preferred to bury somewhere dark.
Or thought they had.
He said finally, “We haven’t talked about it. Haven’t talked about . . . anything personal.”
“It appeared you two had made progress on that front.”
“Yeah, well. She has the habit of . . . suddenly retrea
ting, quickly, like a cat wary of being touched.” He made his voice light, almost mocking. “Just out of reach. I turn around, and she isn’t there anymore. Even if she is. I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. And I don’t know if that’s better or worse.”
“She’ll find a way through it,” Bishop said.
“Will she?”
“If Hollis is anything, she’s a fighter. She won’t give in to the urge to hide herself from you. It may still be a battle, but she’s never truly lost a battle yet. I don’t believe she’ll lose this one.”
“Don’t you? Bishop, I . . . see her. And she knows it. Maybe that’s the one step too far. Even if most of her worst memories have been distant for years, they’re still with her. Sometimes trapped in her subconscious, in nightmares she didn’t consciously remember for so long. Sometimes, now, since Georgia, not distant at all. And nightmares that are no longer forgotten when she opens her eyes. Her shield is still iffy, uncertain during the day, when she’s awake, but almost always down at night, when she sleeps. If she sleeps, which is usually when she’s too exhausted not to. Probably why she’s been running the trainee course, with no active case to exhaust her. I’m telling you, Bishop, she isn’t okay.”
DeMarco wasn’t what anyone would have called a talkative man, not at all given to sharing feelings with anyone, but he wasn’t much surprised to find himself talking so frankly with Bishop. People tended to do that, he’d noticed. Even the most unlikely people.
Bishop was looking at him steadily. “And you believe keeping her here will help her get okay?”
“I thought it would. Maybe it still will.” Because I haven’t pushed even though I’ve wanted to, even though I’m back at arm’s length in every way that counts. Because I’ve given her space. Because I want that to be all she needs. Time. Just more time. Not more pain, not for her. There’s been enough pain, more than enough pain she’s had to endure. So time. Just more time to come to terms with . . . everything.
After a moment, Bishop said musingly, “The first time I sent Hollis out into the field I partnered her with Isabel. You know Isabel, blunt to a fault, and at the time she had no shield of her own. She was also the only agent whose psychic awakening was anywhere close to what Hollis had endured. A violent physical assault that should have killed her. And didn’t.
“She didn’t think Hollis was ready, barely seven months after the attack that first triggered the abilities she was more than half afraid of. Even after Maggie helped the way she does, to heal Hollis as much as possible then, to make most of the pain and trauma seem distant, even buried, so she was protected from the worst of it. So she could go on with her life. We all knew she was still adjusting, still learning to cope with more than a new career radically different from anything she’d planned for herself. But Hollis believed she needed to work and I agreed with her, even though she wasn’t yet a full agent. Even though she was still adjusting to so many things, including the differences in her sight. That was . . . just over three years ago.”
DeMarco frowned. “I read that case file. Hollis was almost killed.”
“One of her many near-death experiences.” The words might have been flip, but Bishop’s tone was anything but. “And even though many of us find our abilities changed during some cases in the field, for better or worse, with Hollis, every investigation so far has strengthened or changed an active ability, or activated or created a new ability. Something that is unique to her.”
“Is that why you keep sending her out?”
“I hope you know better than that.”
DeMarco stared at his unit chief for a long moment before finally returning his gaze to the closed files on the table before him. “Yeah, I know. She didn’t nearly die in Georgia, at least not literally. She absorbed and filtered the darkest energy I’ve ever seen, ever heard about. And even if it didn’t damage her, it changed her. She’s still changing.”
“And you don’t know what she’ll be if and when she finally stops changing?”
—
“DON’T YOU SOMETIMES wish you were a telepath?”
Hollis jumped, more than a little startled, and turned her head to stare at Kirby. “What?”
The younger agent nodded gravely toward the conference room off the far end of the bullpen, its big windows clearly showing Bishop and DeMarco still talking. “I mean, it would make some things easier, right?”
Hollis wasn’t much of one for backpedaling—except with DeMarco—so she didn’t avoid the fact that she’d been caught staring and brooding. Even if she did needlessly fiddle with one of the straps of the compact go bag on top of her desk as she replied, “That coming from an empath is rich. Does it help you to know what other people are feeling?”
“Well . . . sometimes.”
Figures.
But all Hollis said was, “If everybody were meant to know what each other was thinking, we’d all be telepaths.”
Kirby untangled that in her mind and nodded, still solemn. “I guess so. Do you know what they’re talking about?”
“No.” But she would have bet it was about her. “Do you?” she added unwillingly.
“No, I’ve caught feelings from other people, so I’m pretty sure it’s not my shield blocking them. They both have very solid shields, don’t they? I mean, I knew Bishop did, but I’ve never worked with Reese before. His shield is really strong.”
“Double shield,” Hollis heard herself saying. Because that was hardly a secret and wasn’t really anything personal. Was it?
“Really? I’ve never heard of that.”
“Neither had the rest of us,” Hollis said dryly. “Far as anybody knows, it’s unique.” Before the younger agent could ask more questions, as she showed every sign of doing, Hollis added, “Is your go bag ready?”
“Yeah.” Kirby smiled a little. “Just tell me it’s none of my business if I ask too many questions. I’m just curious by nature, but I don’t mind being told to quit it.”
Lightly, Hollis said, “Quit it.”
The younger agent nodded, clearly unoffended. “Okay. I’ll go see what’s keeping Cullen.”
Hollis nodded, and watched the petite redhead wend her way among all the desks in the bullpen to get to Cullen’s desk, where he appeared to be searching through his bag for something.
Hollis kept her gaze on the other two agents, all the while concentrating on shoring up her shield.
She didn’t look toward the conference room again.
—
WITH A FROWN, DeMarco said, “She’ll be Hollis, I know that. All I care about is that whatever changes, it won’t bring her more pain.”
Bishop nodded, but said, “You can’t stop that. Protect her from that. Trust me, I know.”
“I can try.”
“Yeah, you can do that. And will. It’s human nature.”
“But?” DeMarco heard himself ask, totally against his will.
“But she’s an exceptional woman, we’ve both learned to appreciate that. She wasn’t supposed to live, wasn’t supposed to survive that first attack. All the doctors said so. I still don’t know how she did, except . . . She wants to live. With a will stronger than any I’ve come across yet. So when her survival or that of a team member or a loved one is at stake and she has to change, has to adapt, even to create a brand-new ability because it’s what she needs, then she does.”
“Without even thinking about it.”
“Spontaneously.” Bishop nodded. “None of us know what her true limits are, not even Hollis. Maybe especially her. But all my experience tells me that she’ll never be truly healed from that first attack until she becomes . . . the person she has to be. And for Hollis, that means accepting what happened to her, all the horrific memories, accepting that it didn’t leave her damaged or broken. And then leaving it behind her, where it belongs.”
“That isn’t what she’s been
doing. Being brutalized the way she was . . . She kept that buried deep, Bishop, like I said, all of it. She kept it inside her, part of her. Kept it in those nightmares she never remembered then. Maybe it should have stayed there. Maybe that’s the only way anyone could live with the pain of memories that horrific.”
“If that were true, she wouldn’t have faced them, finally and really for the first time, in Georgia.”
“She didn’t have a choice.”
“Of course she had a choice. The Universe puts us where we need to be, but we still have free will. We can choose to leave. To run or keep running. You said yourself that she knew beforehand what she’d find behind that closed door. She knew it was a horrific, bloody message meant for her. Meant to hurt her, weaken her, even destroy her. She could have run. Nobody would have blamed her for that. She could have just turned away. But she opened the door. Because it was time for her to face what happened to her years ago, face it wide awake and unblinking.”
DeMarco shook his head. “I’d love to call that New Age bullshit, but I know you’re right. It’s just . . . agony like that doesn’t heal just because you face it. That’s only the beginning. It’s still a hell of a painful journey for her. And a long way to go yet.”
“You might be surprised. And, after all, she doesn’t have to take that journey alone.”
With forced lightness, DeMarco said, “Yeah, that’s what I keep telling her.” Not that it’s done a damn bit of good.
“She’s stubborn. Don’t stop telling her. Reminding her. That her life has purpose. That she’s helping people. That we’re her family. And that she isn’t damaged, isn’t broken somewhere deep inside, no matter what she believes.”
“But she was damaged. Hurt so badly there aren’t even words for it. I’ve seen career military men fall apart in battle with less severe injuries, less severe psychological trauma, doomed to spend the rest of their lives trying to cope with PTSD.”
“And some never recover.”
DeMarco nodded. “Some never recover. Not with therapy. Not with meds. Not surrounded by caring, supportive people who have some idea what that kind of trauma feels like. Even with all the help, too many of them take all that pain with them to the grave. And too many of them go to that grave too young.”