by Kay Hooper
“Wow. Years? How did you get through that?”
“I had teammates,” Hollis answered firmly. “People around me who understood. People to help me learn, and sometimes use their own abilities to help me. Which is what you have and will continue to have. Believe that.”
ELEVEN
DeMarco added, “Our minds tend to do what they need to in order to protect us. Sometimes the mind of a psychic, their nature, is stronger than they realize. They can endure more than they believe they can. And for whatever reason, the Universe insists that they endure.” He wasn’t looking at his partner, though the other two agents glanced at Hollis. “And for those psychics, the mind apparently doesn’t give building a shield a priority.”
“Why is my mind giving me trouble?” Kirby asked with a tinge of desperation in her voice. “I’m not strong, really. I mean inside. Not tough. Too many things still scare me. And feeling what others feel . . . I think it’s a good bet the emotions in this town are going to be getting more intense, especially after the sheriff’s warning. Panic, worry, fear. Is my mind going to protect me from that?”
Hollis said, “You haven’t been in this kind of situation before, right? With a whole town, even a small town, feeling way too much to be calm about it?”
“No, I haven’t. My abilities were triggered by a car accident around two years ago. And it wasn’t long after I started freaking out the nursing staff at the hospital that Bishop paid me a visit. I don’t have any family except distant cousins I never kept track of, and since I’d left Chicago to move to New York and had the accident on the way, there were no friends nearby. When I was discharged, Bishop was there to take me directly to a big house up in the mountains here in the South. Really high up, like a sort of . . . aerie. I don’t know if you guys have been there, but it was like someone’s private home, only it had half a dozen guest suites and a pretty amazing communications center, and incredible views out of every window. And a helicopter pad, which is good because I’m not sure there were roads.”
Hollis glanced at her partner, their eyes meeting briefly as both of them remembered that particular aerie. It was where they had met for the first time. At that amazing place that was part home and part business, where Bishop and Miranda occasionally met up with teams during their cases and where they tended to spend what off time they could carve out together. But neither Hollis nor Reese interrupted the younger agent as she went on.
“From what I saw and what I was told, I gather that’s where Bishop takes some of the more . . . fragile . . . psychics before he decides whether they belong in the FBI or at Haven. Or neither. There were other people there, other psychics including Miranda, almost all of them with shields, so it felt very peaceful to me. And there were tests, I suppose to see what I was capable of. I honestly don’t know why Bishop thought I belonged at Quantico, but he convinced me. About six months after the accident I joined up, took the tests the FBI required, somehow passed them, and he and Miranda have been working with me ever since. Other agents as well. Some tests in the lab, but mostly learning or trying to learn to develop that shield. They didn’t seem to feel I needed to work as much on the empathy.”
“That’s because you’re a very strong empath,” Hollis said calmly. “You tested at the upper end of the scale. So the priority was to teach you how to protect yourself from being hurt.”
“I don’t think I’m there yet.”
“Probably not. But if I know Bishop—and I believe I do—he reached the conclusion that you and I share a trait, and it’s probably why he put our teams together on this case.”
“What kind of trait?”
“Our minds and abilities adapt, usually quickly, especially when there’s danger, and they do what’s necessary to protect us or help us survive. It’s not something that happens in the quiet moments of concentration, or in the lab. We’ve figured out that much. If it happens at all, it’s virtually always in the field, and because of the intense pressure of an investigation.”
Uneasy, Kirby said, “Isn’t that assuming a lot? That this case will help me rather than hurt me?”
“Bishop rarely assumes,” DeMarco said dryly. “And he’s virtually always right about how our abilities develop. That said, our shields develop to protect us, usually, from a threat, and often enough the threat does at least some damage initially, enough to . . . wake up the defenses of your mind. So chances are good you’ll find yourself being overwhelmed by the emotions of those around you, and may well also face some kind of threat, maybe more than one, before your shields are truly strong enough to protect you.”
“Great,” Kirby said faintly.
“You have us,” Hollis told her. “We’re a team, remember? In most cases, we can help protect each other. You’re not alone, Kirby. Never forget that.”
“Okay.” Her voice was still rather small, and her almost childlike face was anxious.
Hollis hadn’t really expected to fully allay the younger agent’s fears and uncertainties, but it was a start, and sometimes that was all they got. She nodded, then looked back at her partner. “Have you picked up anything?”
“Same thing from Mal a couple of times today, that he had the sense there was a conversation going on around him somehow, and he wasn’t invited.”
“Does it bug him?”
“Momentarily. More puzzlement than anything else, and so far brief. I don’t think we need to confide in him about our abilities. Not yet, at any rate. Hollis, have you picked up anything?”
She hesitated, glanced at the other two agents, then nodded. “There’s something, I just can’t get a fix on it.”
Kirby said, “But isn’t it easy for you to see—spirits?” She lowered her voice hastily on the last word and actually ducked her head a little, obviously realizing she needed to speak quietly because the conference-room door was open.
“Yeah, it is. Has been for years now. This isn’t about that.” Hollis kept her own voice quiet. And she didn’t tell them that several times during the day the spirit of a deputy had walked through this very room without, seemingly, taking any notice of the living.
“Then what’s it about?” Cullen asked.
“Energy,” DeMarco said. “It almost has to be energy. Even if our auras appear normal to you, that doesn’t mean there isn’t some kind of unusual energy in this place the rest of us can’t sense and aren’t threatened by. You’re probably more sensitive to energies of all kinds than anyone else in the unit.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself, that it’s energy, and since it’s not negative I don’t need to worry,” Hollis responded. “But if it is energy, it’s unlike any I’ve ever sensed before.”
“In what way?”
“That’s the hell of it. I don’t know. It just feels . . . wrong. Not negative, not dark, just . . . wrong.” She felt the way she’d felt the previous evening, that whatever was wrong, it was somehow wrong with her. And that was not something she wanted to confide in the newer agents unless and until it was necessary.
But DeMarco wasn’t going to drop it so easily. “Wrong enough to be worrying you. The same as yesterday?”
“Sort of the same.” She rubbed both temples, frowning. “Hell, I dunno. Sometimes it seems almost like everything is . . . slightly out of focus. So maybe it’s just me. My eyes. Maybe my eyes—”
“Your eyes are fine.” DeMarco didn’t touch her, but he did lean toward her until her gaze met his. “Whatever this is, it isn’t because of your eyes.”
After a long moment, Hollis nodded. “Okay. It’s not my eyes. So what is it?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
Hollis half laughed. “Right.”
Kirby said, “Should we be worried?”
DeMarco answered her. “Any anomaly is a reason for concern. That said, as you both probably know, Hollis has a history of developing entirely new abilities during a case, sp
ontaneously, and there’s nothing to say that’s not what’s happening.”
Hollis frowned at him. “Seriously?”
“It’s as likely as anything else, isn’t it? And it certainly fits the pattern with you. So far, nobody’s extra senses have helped us figure this thing out. You know we’re on a tight timeline, that he could kill someone tonight, and that could easily be enough of a threat. In an investigation, you instinctively reach out with everything you have. Maybe this time, like other times, you need something you didn’t have when we got here.”
Kirby said suddenly, “My head hurts.”
“It’s confusing,” Cullen sympathized.
“No. I mean my head hurts. Like something hit it.”
She was very pale, her gaze fixed on nothing. Then she flinched, and her nose began to bleed.
—
“KIRBY—” CULLEN PRODUCED his handkerchief and quickly rose and moved to her chair. “Here, tip your head slightly forward.”
She accepted the handkerchief, saying rather thickly, “I thought you were supposed . . . to tip your head back.”
“Forward is better. Keep the cloth pressed to your nostrils; keep them gently but firmly closed. Breathe through your mouth. I’ll get some ice.”
Luckily, the conference room’s small alcove kitchenette had an under-counter fridge with an ice maker, so he returned to the table only a few moments later with two small bundles of ice wrapped in several layers of paper towel. Using the best angle, he stood behind her chair and carefully pressed the makeshift ice packs to both sides of her face, touching her cheeks and her nose.
Kirby’s eyes were a bit glazed, but she fixed them on Hollis, an obvious question in them.
“Nosebleeds are fairly common with psychics,” Hollis said, calm and matter-of-fact. “Sometimes we push too hard, or just get slammed by thoughts, emotions, or information when we’re not ready for it. Most of us have learned what to do.” She sent a glance toward her own partner. “Though we usually don’t need ice.”
“Or don’t have it so handy,” DeMarco said. “Aren’t headaches more common with empaths?”
“Yeah, usually, at least as far as we know, if only because they can feel what people around them feel. This . . . this looks like something she’s picking up from someone else.”
When Kirby would have spoken, Cullen said immediately, “Keep still for now. It can take ten minutes or more to make sure the bleeding has stopped. That’s the important thing for the moment.” He sent a glance toward the two senior agents, then looked at the wall clock, obviously monitoring the time.
“Too early for the unsub,” DeMarco murmured.
Keeping her voice just as low, Hollis said, “Maybe not too early for him to already have his victim. We think it’s at least possible he was with Perla Cross for anything up to a few hours before he killed her. Could be the same thing again. And he could have used a blitz attack, for whatever reason, to disable this victim quickly. It could be the blow Kirby felt.”
“Hell of a blow,” DeMarco noted.
“Yeah. I’m not happy that she had an actual physical reaction. Empaths often do, but . . . she needs those shields.”
“Then we’ll help her build them.”
“I hope we can,” Hollis said.
DeMarco nodded, then said in a normal, not-so-quiet voice, but almost musing, “The texts really are for the unsub, not the victims.”
This was what profilers did, Hollis thought. Gather information, signs of behaviors, and possible answers—and then just consider what they had, including hunches, musing, examining from every angle.
Shuffling the puzzle pieces, examining them, turning them this way and that until they started, finally, to drop into place and show what the whole picture really was.
Hollis nodded. “And I can’t think of a way for us to find out or figure out why that phrase or why dark is important to him. Or why just sending the text is important. It doesn’t make any sense to me no matter which way I turn it.”
DeMarco frowned. “How much juice do you figure Bishop has?”
“As much as he needs. Why?”
“I’m just wondering what sort of assets we could call on.”
“Pretty much anything within the realm of the possible,” Hollis said. “We’re really on borrowed time with the media as well as the unsub, and once they show up they’ll only cause chaos in a town this small, never mind slowing us down. We need to get as much accomplished as we possibly can before that happens. Bishop will be on alert already, especially since the body count went up even before we could get here. I don’t know if he’d send in the military, but probably anything short of that. What did you have in mind?”
“Media or not, I also think we’re definitely on a very tight timetable, especially if the unsub does kill again tonight. Given that, given the ongoing threat, I think we’d be justified in asking that the top analysts available at Quantico do complete background checks on every soul above the age of sixteen in Clarity.”
“Especially our victims,” Hollis said slowly. “Clara Adams, Brady Nash, and Perla Cross have lived in Clarity all their lives, with the exception of college in Clara’s case and a military school in Mr. Nash’s. Except for her honeymoon to Aruba, Perla Cross never left this town, at least as far as we know.” She was gazing at the board, her gaze studying the photos of the victims one more time.
DeMarco nodded. “We also need someone who really knows what they’re doing to comb through all available public records and documents for the town, going back at least ten years. It’s the fastest way we’ll get enough information, especially since we’re looking for any sort of event that could have created this monster. My guess is, it won’t be an insignificant event even from our point of view, though it’s likely intensely personal, even if for most people it went unnoticed. A divorce or broken engagement, maybe a death or some other kind of abandonment. Involving an attractive woman in her twenties.”
Hollis blinked, then said slowly, “It’s a pretty small town, so I’m sure it’s doable even though it’ll probably take a couple of days for the background checks at least. The public records and other documents on the town can likely be searched more quickly. Though without a warrant I don’t think even the FBI is going to want to get caught searching through any records or documents that contain private information.”
“No way a judge would sanction a search that broad and at the same time that intensive.”
Hollis reached a hand to rub her temple briefly and almost absently. “Probably depends. Bishop seems to know a lot of judges. And either they’re all on our side or else they owe Bishop big-time, because he’s been able to get us legally into some pretty protected places. We both remember Samuel’s church. Judges really are reluctant to act against a church even if it’s really a cult—and we didn’t have legal proof it was. You were already inside, but the rest of us wouldn’t have gotten past the gates without that warrant.”
“True. But we did have cause there, if not actual physical evidence. Just my testimony could have put Samuel and his inner circle away for a long time.” He watched her rub her temple again, and again she didn’t seem to be aware of doing it. “Say even Bishop can’t get a warrant for this one. Do you think he’d balk at something on the shady side of legal?”
Dryly, Hollis said, “He gave each of us a set of lockpick tools and taught us how to use them. What do you think?”
“I think we should report in and make the request. He’s the boss. If he knows the right friendly judge or is willing to take the risk, then he will. If he says no, it’s no.”
“I somehow doubt he’ll say no. He seems to view this sort of thing as a challenge. I think.”
“In his position, I imagine he has to. Building and running a unit like the SCU is very much outside the norm for the FBI.”
“True,” Hollis said.
“Hey,” the sheriff said from the doorway. “What the hell happened?” He came in, staring at Kirby and Cullen.
“Nosebleed,” Hollis answered. “Nothing to be concerned about.”
“You sure? She looks awfully pale.”
“I’ll be fine,” Kirby said in that weird voice everyone has with their nostrils pinched closed.
“Okay, if you say so.” He eyed her a moment longer, then looked at Hollis. “The warning about the text has started going out. The majority of Clarity’s citizens will be notified in the first hour, but making sure everyone got the message is probably going to take tonight and most of tomorrow. We’ve even asked all the downtown stores to make the announcement via their own PA systems, every half hour from now until they close tonight.”
Hollis said, “Virtually all the victims have been killed and left either at their homes or somewhere near. Even the car crash was—what?—about two blocks from Clara Adams’s condo?”
“About that, yeah. What’re you thinking?”
“The emergency warning system for cell phones, is there a response when the message is delivered?”
“Yeah, it pings back, and our communications system records the response. The cell company that installed the system is trying it out in several places around the country, both small towns and big cities. Trial runs, they said. They want to take it national. Big warning sirens and the emergency-alert signal on TV just don’t reach everyone, not anymore. But I gather the tech people are expecting more cell towers, and more smart watches and cell phones and tablets and other handhelds, until that’ll be the way virtually everybody can be alerted in case of an emergency.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” But she was frowning slightly. “What response do you get if somebody’s cell is off or dead? Because I forgot to charge mine last night, and just noticed a little while ago that it’s dead.” She lied easily, which bothered her somewhat, but there was no good reason to go into even a nonpsychic reason why her cell phone could never carry a charge more than a few hours. Especially since she knew the other members of her team had the same issue. DeMarco had been known to carry a watch, though she had noticed that he stopped doing that not too long after he’d left his undercover assignment and come fully into the SCU.