by Kay Hooper
Hollis opened her mouth, obviously to ask a question, then closed it and turned away, pulling her hand gently from his. “Well, let’s keep going, then. We have a monster to find.” She sounded just a touch self-conscious.
DeMarco smiled slightly but didn’t push. Instead, he continued to follow her from room to room, both of them studying the small parsonage for anything that might provide something helpful to the case.
They found absolutely nothing—until they were passing back through the tidy living room toward the front door. They had passed through the room earlier with no more than a cursory look around, but this time Hollis stopped dead in her tracks.
She was staring at a Bible, lying in a position of honor and respect on top of a lacy cloth covering a small table. There was a candlestick on each end—and both of them looked just a little too large for the table. The Bible seemed oddly out of scale as well, one of the larger varieties that tended to be family Bibles kept in some place of honor in the home. But this . . . The whole tablescape looked wrong, too large for the space.
Not really a mistake such a neat and tidy man as the Reverend would have made.
“From the church?” DeMarco ventured.
“Think so.”
He stepped slightly to one side so he could study her face. “What else?”
“He handled them. Our monster.”
“I’d guess he had to.”
“They have auras.”
“I thought only living things had auras. And electrical things, of course.”
“Mmm. You know that thing Bishop tells us about how some objects retain the energy of whoever handles them?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I think there are only three possibilities for what I’m seeing.”
“Which are?”
“These candlesticks have a long and dark history. Our murdered pastor had a very dark soul. Or our monster has way more energy than his body can contain, and he set all this up for us.”
“Is he psychic?”
“No. But there’s something wrong with him. I don’t mean the evil, I mean physically. There’s something not natural about him somehow. I dunno. An injury . . . an attack . . . an illness or sickness. Something.”
“You don’t want to touch those candlesticks, do you?”
“No way in hell,” she answered immediately. “The auras are . . . black. With some red streaks. That is very bad.”
“Okay.” He took her hand in his. “In that case, let’s go ask Cullen to take a look and see what he picks up.”
“And Jill,” Hollis said absently.
“Looking for evidence?”
She looked up at her partner, for a moment puzzled, and then shook her head. “No, because she’s also clairvoyant.”
He let out a low whistle. “One of Bishop’s?”
“Sort of. He knows about her. But she likes being a doctor and a sometimes medical examiner and wasn’t interested in becoming a fed.” Hollis frowned. “You know, I never think about the ones who turn Bishop down for perfectly good reasons.”
“Maybe you can talk to Jill about that.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Hollis glanced back at the candlesticks one more time, then said, “Let’s go. I’m not looking forward to being in that church again, but we need to know if Jill sees something the rest of us missed.”
FOURTEEN
It was nearly midnight when the small task force gathered once again in the conference room of the sheriff’s department, and every single one of them looked weary, tense—or both.
Jill and her assistant had done their crime scene investigating and then removed the body of the Reverend Marcus Pilate to the morgue of Clarity’s one hospital, where Jill had promised to do the postmortem—first thing in the morning. It would be her second straight early-morning autopsy, but having started out this extremely busy day with Perla Cross’s autopsy and ending it with processing an even more bizarre murder scene, she had decided that her day had been long enough. She was tired and didn’t mind admitting it. She had also been uncharacteristically shaken by something found in the Reverend Pilate’s horribly mutilated body and had announced she wanted to take two showers, drink at least two glasses of wine, and fall into bed, trying her best not to think.
Sam had pretty much shown the same intent.
So it was just the agents and the sheriff who gathered for a brief meeting in the conference room.
“Emma’s been on duty all day, so I’m sending her home,” Mal said. “And going home myself. I have a couple of senior deputies who can handle the shop overnight. The warnings are still going out in every way we can send them, but I can’t believe this guy aims to kill two in one night. What he did to Reverend Pilate . . . that took a lot of muscle, according to Jill. If he’s not superhuman, he has to rest sometime.”
Cullen murmured, “More like hibernating.”
“What?”
“Oh—just a really deep sleep. Usually comes after extreme exertion.”
“Well, he had that, all right.”
Hollis, sitting at the far end of the conference table, said, “Tonight answered one of my questions. Thought the unsub might have been physically weak, given all the machines he rigged in some way. But this . . . He has to be strong. And Cullen’s right; strong or not, that kind of butchery takes muscle. He has to be exhausted.”
Mal shook his head, then said, “When I realized it’d likely be after midnight before everybody headed back to the hotel, I called Solomon House and asked that some kind of meal be left in each of your rooms. I wasn’t specific, so it may be a sandwich or crackers and cold cuts, but you all need to eat. None of us has, since lunchtime.”
“Thanks, Mal,” Hollis said. “How about you?”
“They sent over a boxed meal for me, some kind of sandwich and potato salad, I think. May be what you guys got as well. It’s waiting at my desk. I’ll grab it on the way out.” He shook his head again. “I know none of us has an appetite after what we found, but I’m betting tomorrow’s going to be a bitch of a day, so please try to eat, and try to sleep tonight. Since Jill’s doing the post on the Reverend in the morning, there’s no reason why any of us has to be back here at dawn. Sleep in. Whenever you get here will be soon enough.”
“Yeah, you too,” Hollis said. She didn’t move as Mal turned toward the door, but said, “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask. Where’s Felix? Don’t remember seeing him all day.”
He looked back at them with a spark of amusement. “Well, after he insisted he sleep with me last night, it was pretty obvious you were right and he’d made his choice. Hate to admit it, but I actually slept better with him snoring beside me.”
Hollis couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve never heard a Yorkie snore.”
“I hadn’t either. Sounds remarkably like my ex-wife.” Without following that interesting tangent, he added, “I brought him back here this morning, put a crate with toys in my office for him, and the junior deputies have been taking turns walking him every couple of hours. I’ll grab him too on the way out. Looks like I have a dog.”
Shaking his head, he left the conference room.
Her smile fading, Hollis leaned forward in her chair, resting her forearms on the table, and looked at Cullen. “Hibernating?”
“Yeah, it’s weird. Jill felt it too. Oh, she’s—”
“Clairvoyant, yeah.” Hollis didn’t seem to realize that was a sort of knowledge she usually didn’t pick up. “What did you two sense?”
“Something really off anywhere near the candlesticks, though not the body, which is also odd.”
Hollis nodded. “I thought so too. Can you describe what you felt near the candlesticks?”
“Something old. And really, really tired or somehow . . . spent. The word I got was hibernating. Jill got it too. I mean the actual word. I think this unsub is . . . burrowed in somewhere. An
d I don’t think we’ll see or hear from him for at least a day, maybe two.”
She frowned. “Do you usually pick up actual words?”
“Well, not like that. It was practically in neon. For Jill too. But enough odd things have happened over the years that it didn’t really surprise me. Except the old part. I mean, this guy can’t be old, right? Not and do the things he’s done.”
After a moment, Hollis said, “Maybe it was just the candlesticks. They’re old, they must have a history. We’ll check on that in the morning. Kirby, are you okay?”
The younger agent, who had sat down silently at the table as soon as they’d arrived, started slightly and looked around the room as though noticing the presence of other people for the first time. “Oh—sure. I mean, it was tough in the church, with everybody so sickened by what we found. And . . . what we found. But I’m okay. Like Jill, I plan to shower twice, maybe three times, and then probably take a couple of those sleeping pills the Quantico doctors gave me for—nights like this.”
Grave, Hollis said, “Shower, eat something, and take the pills. If you absolutely can’t face the food, at least drink a glass of milk. Most of us have used meds at one time or another, especially early on. We can’t function without food and rest. You—both of you—hang out your DO NOT DISTURB signs and sleep until you wake up.”
Kirby looked like she thought that was a wonderful idea. “I will, thanks.”
“Come on,” Cullen said, offering her a hand up. “I’ll walk you over.”
“Thanks. Night, guys.”
Both Hollis and DeMarco bid them good night, though again, neither moved to leave the room.
“Did you take meds?” DeMarco asked her.
Hollis looked at him steadily. “Not once I healed from the attack. I’ve been tempted a few times. But not since I met Diana. You know her story.”
“About being medicated most of her life by her controlling bastard of a father?” His voice was level. “Yeah. And I know what it cost her. Lost years. Lost experiences. Even experiences in how to interact normally with other people.”
Hollis nodded. “It made me realize how lucky I was. I mean, I knew surviving the attack was some kind of victory, and finding something useful to do with the rest of my life was another one. Diana talked about . . . moving through years of her life in a fog, not caring about anything, and I realized how easy that would have been for me to do after the attack. I thought about it while I was in the hospital. A lot. But it seemed . . . cowardly . . . to hide from life just because I’d gotten a raw deal. Like Diana, I realized I didn’t want to follow that path. I didn’t want the easy way out.”
—
HE HADN’T EXPECTED that killing the good Reverend would leave him so drained. It hadn’t been like that with the others, or at least he didn’t think it had. He thought he’d had the strength to perform the Ceremony to ask for more strength.
Hadn’t he?
All he really knew was that he was tired, exhausted, and he needed sleep. Because tomorrow he had to be normal. Tomorrow he had things to do. Ordinary things, but important things to do.
The Plan. And . . . timing. He had to be certain everything happened in its own time.
A final sacrifice. A final sacrifice, and then you’ll be done.
“Then I can rest.”
Yes. Then everything will be fine. Absolutely fine.
—
NO MATTER HOW tired she was, Hollis never gave herself up gracefully to sleep. Or gratefully. Because of the dreams, of course. And because . . . there was no way for her to control the dreams.
Not remembering them in those first years had been necessary, she knew that. Remembering them now was just as necessary, no matter how painful, because no trauma could be left in the past until it was faced. And accepted.
Accepting seemed to be the problem.
Bishop had told her something odd once. Well, he had told her many odd things over the years, but this one had been very specific—and yet very vague. There would come a time, he’d said, when she would rediscover whatever it was that the attack had cost her most dearly. The one thing that monster had ripped from the core of her being.
And when she rediscovered that, faced that, then the nightmares would truly fade from her nights. From her life.
Hollis had wondered once or twice if it was her ability to have children. If that was what Bishop had meant, what her attacker had ripped from her—literally.
Except . . . when she thought about that, though it cost her a pang of regret, it wasn’t an agonizing thing. She hadn’t thought much about having kids until that choice was taken out of her hands, and when it had been she hadn’t grieved about it. She had the notion that children had never been part of the future she had seen for herself, even before the attack. That not becoming a mother would not be something she would regret.
No, she didn’t think that was the loss Bishop had spoken of. She wondered if he even knew. Sometimes, and even though he had the uncanny ability to be right about way too many things, she had a hunch even he wasn’t sure where some of the words came from. The warnings. The . . . alerts.
Hollis thought about that as she both showered and then soaked in the wonderful old claw-footed bathtub her room boasted. She generally didn’t linger long over bathing. There was still one physical scar remaining, and though all the others had faded and the final scar was in a place she couldn’t see unless she turned her back to a mirror, she was always aware of it.
It marked her.
Branded her.
Hollis had the notion that she herself could remove that final scar. Because all the other scars were gone. This one could be too. When she was ready. When she could let it go.
But not yet.
Not just yet.
Tonight she didn’t want to think of scars. Or nightmares. She soaked in the hot water until it cooled, then reluctantly pulled herself from the tub. She never did much more than towel-dry her short hair and run her fingers through it, and a drugstore moisturizer served for her face.
She got into what she favored for summer sleepwear, a tank top and boxer pajama bottoms, and wandered out into the bedroom. Her bed was turned down invitingly—a foil-wrapped chocolate on the pillow.
And in her nightstand was the gift Reese had left for her the previous night, something neither of them had spoken of today even though Hollis was grateful, because he had given her a different perspective on her scars.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Definitely something to think about.
But tonight Hollis was almost too tired to think.
The storm on the other side of the mountains was still rumbling around, which kept her just a bit on edge. She had this weird mental image of a storm slowly moving among the old mountains and along the valleys, gradually working its way to her.
Hunting her.
Man, I need to sleep.
She also needed to eat. Not that she had an appetite after today, but she was too sensible, and too aware of her responsibilities, to skip a needed meal.
A rolling table had been left in the little sitting area by one of the windows, and Hollis explored to find tea in a carafe, an ice bucket that already held a smallish bottle of milk—and coffee that was still reasonably hot. All the best options for a before-bed meal, she thought.
She also discovered under a silver cover what looked like a very nice club sandwich and potato salad, so Mal had been right about that.
She turned the TV on, absently choosing a favorite channel that aired crime documentaries. It wasn’t that she couldn’t get enough of crime in her everyday life and work, it was just that she didn’t feel like the news and had no particular urge to channel surf this late on a Saturday night.
It was a documentary about Bonnie and Clyde, and for
some reason Hollis found that amusing.
She decided on tea and poured out a glass, unwrapped her silverware from the napkin, and was just beginning to pick the roast beef out of the club sandwich when DeMarco spoke from the connecting door between their rooms.
“Hey, you decent?”
“Enough. Thought I’d better eat before bed. Come on in.”
He did, carrying his own glass of tea and, oddly enough, wearing the same sort of sleepwear, except his sweatpants were long.
“You always pick out the roast beef,” he noted, sitting down on the love seat at right angles to her chair and the table.
“I don’t like roast beef. I like turkey and ham and chicken.”
“Just as long as you eat something.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah, after my shower. Same menu, except I got two sandwiches.”
“I’m sure they thought, big man with a big appetite. They do seem to be very efficient here, in a nicely discreet way.”
“True enough.”
He idly watched as she destroyed the club sandwich and then began to eat, and thought, as he often had, how odd it was that they were very comfortable with each other—sometimes.
And the odd thing was, he could never predict when those times would be. They had worked together long enough to be comfortable as partners, of course, so both tended to slip easily into the familiar partnership roles. But in private, and especially since he had first made it clear to her that he wanted to be her partner in life as well as in work . . .
He just never knew. Never knew if he’d find Hollis guarded, or tense, or wary—or perfectly comfortable and casual. If they would find themselves suddenly at some kind of emotional crossroads, as they already had at least once in this case, or if the last thing either of them wanted to discuss was how they felt in the moment. If she would be distant, or so intently focused on him that sometimes he wondered what it was she searched so intently to find.
And whether she had ever found it.
Tonight, at nearly two a.m., she was relaxed, thoughtful. Not yet sleepy, but not especially tense—or at least he thought so until she flinched very slightly and sent an irritated glance toward the window.