by Kay Hooper
Callie was certain Cesar would have scented the blood even at that distance, had it been here.
Yes. Would have. Wasn’t here then.
Do you know who she is?
Not familiar scent. But fear. Much fear.
Was she running?
No. Carried.
By Jacoby?
Not sure. Strange scent.
Strange like what?
Cesar looked at her, and for a moment Callie was certain she could discern bafflement in his calm eyes.
Strange. Old. Dark. Black. Evil.
It surprised Callie more than a little that Cesar gave her that answer; even with all their investigations over years, he had never used the word “evil,” and she would have said it was a concept he didn’t understand.
Clearly, she would have been wrong.
Bad. Very bad. Hungry bad. Needing bad.
Needing what?
Needing . . . power. Needing energy.
Why?
To escape. And . . .
And what?
Fight.
Fight what? Fight who?
Not sure. Fight. Escape. Dig.
Callie could feel the strain as her dog tried to sort through impressions and concepts that were familiar to his canine mind, and others that were clearly difficult for him to understand.
“It’s okay,” she murmured aloud, resting her free hand briefly on his head. “This is my job too.”
And that job had just become a lot more complicated.
There was darkness and evil; she felt that herself.
But there was also blood, and fear.
And a girl.
So who had passed this way in the last couple of hours, in darkness and in silence, and bleeding?
Was there another danger on this mountain, or had Cole Jacoby become much, much worse than a bank robber?
Can we help the girl? Callie had to ask.
No. Cesar’s response was instant.
She’s already dead?
Dead. Gone. Worse.
Callie was almost afraid to ask, but steeled herself and did.
Worse than dead?
Pain. So much pain. It needed energy. It made her afraid.
Jacoby?
The evil. Inside. Becoming.
Becoming what?
More evil.
SEVEN
Special Agent Tony Harte was frowning at a map pinned to an evidence board in the cramped room they were using here at this small police station in a little town an hour or so from Boston. He had been working on a geographical profile, marking both abduction and dump sites for a string of murders that, so far, numbered eight.
Rather unusually, all the victims were men.
Also unusually, their profile pointed to a female killer.
“Think I found her comfort zone,” Tony announced. When only silence greeted that, he turned to face the only other person in the room.
Bishop had been working his way through a stack of evidence folders spread out on the small conference table, but he was motionless now, staring into space in a way that was both familiar to Tony and yet still unsettling.
Watching a premonition from the outside was like that.
Tony had a fair enough idea about what it was like from the inside to be glad precognition wasn’t one of his abilities.
He waited patiently, until the pale gray eyes of his boss slowly lost the weirdly metallic sheen that always accompanied a vision, until some of the color returned to his lean face and the scar down his left cheek, almost invisible unless something had disturbed him, became less noticeable.
“Something I should worry about?” Tony asked finally, very deliberately keeping his tone light.
Bishop blinked, looked at Tony for a moment as if he didn’t see him—and then he was completely back, completely normal. For him.
“Maybe something we should all worry about,” he said.
That surprised Tony, since his queries at such times usually earned him no more than an evasive nonanswer that was very characteristic of the Special Crimes Unit chief. “What is it?”
“The situation in Tennessee.”
Tony thought about that for a moment, then asked wryly, “Which part? You’ve got Callie and Cesar there in the wilds of the mountains, and Haven sent in—Brinkman, wasn’t it?—as well. To go after Jacoby, figure out if he used some psychic ability to escape and, if so, what it is and how powerful. Presumably get him back into somebody’s official custody before too much longer, and maybe even find all that missing money. And then you’ve got Hollis and Reese over in the next county so Hollis can work on her medium skills and take the only kind of break we all know she’d take from working active cases.”
He eyed his boss, waiting.
And then Bishop said a remarkable thing.
“I may have miscalculated.”
Tony gave that the silent respect it deserved, then said slowly, “So who’s in the hot seat?”
“All of them.”
“All of— What, for the same reason?”
“I’m not sure.”
Tony wasn’t sure he’d ever been rendered speechless twice in a few short moments, even by Bishop.
Seemingly unaware of the effect he was having on Tony, Bishop said, “We can’t even contact Callie or Luther unless and until she reports in, they come down off the mountain and find a landline, or they find one of the very few sweet spots on that mountain with cell reception. Hollis and Reese, on the other hand, might not have decent cell service, given how far out they are, but are currently guests in a private home with a landline, so they can contact us—and we can contact them.”
“And tell them what?” Tony asked slowly. “What’s the danger? Is Jacoby more dangerous than you thought? And even if he is, could it affect Hollis and Reese a mountain or two away? Or is Hollis in danger of letting something really bad in, like what happened to Quentin and Diana?”4
“I don’t know,” Bishop said slowly. “I’m not even sure a warning of any kind might not do more harm than good.”
“Some things have to happen?”
“Maybe.”
“Boss . . . not having all the facts is one thing, and a thing we’re more or less used to, but not even knowing there’s danger about is something else entirely. Callie and Brinkman at least know there’s a potential threat; Hollis and Reese aren’t on a case.”
“No, but neither one is going to treat the situation lightly, Reese because he’s always wired and alert and Hollis because she’s wary of opening herself up too much. Even without any warning, they’ll take care.”
“You hope.”
“It’s a reasonable assumption, given their training and abilities.”
“And you’ve spent a lot of time teaching us not to assume anything, especially if we’re not in possession of all the facts.” Tony barely hesitated before hammering home at least one point. “Which, working for you, is most of the time.”
Bishop reached for one of the file folders on the table and opened it, saying calmly, “Well, then, no one involved will assume danger might not face them around the next corner.”
Tony thought about expressing his feelings. He thought long and hard about it. But in the end, he turned back to his geographical profiling without saying another word, certain only that no matter how tangled or enigmatic they looked from the outside, or how many curve balls fate threw into the mix, Bishop’s plans had a way of working out.
Most of the time.
* * *
HOLLIS REALLY HAD intended to go back to sleep, but in the minutes after Reese returned to his room to shower and get ready for the day, she found herself wide awake—and still conscious of that creeping unease.
Giving up finally, she got out of bed and got herself ready for the day, a ro
utine that took very little time; she wasn’t a woman who fussed about her appearance, and since she’d showered the night before, that was a step easily skipped. She washed her face and brushed her teeth quickly, as usual, and even after years avoided her reflection in the mirror.
And those blue eyes that still looked . . . alien . . . in her face.
Stupid. She should be used to them by now. But she wasn’t. And she didn’t know if she ever would be.
Pushing that thought aside for maybe the thousandth time, she ran a brush through her short hair and got dressed in jeans and a loose sweater and slid her feet into comfortable flats.
She paused at the doorway to the shared sitting room and could dimly hear the shower in Reese’s room. And then heard it shut off.
There was no clear plan in Hollis’s mind, no intent to explore or sense that she should. Just that general unease that Reese had picked up on, something she tried very hard, now, to tamp down inside herself. Even if she did tend to broadcast under stress, there was no reason she couldn’t practice at least a bit of self-control and maybe even build a shield for . . . most of the time.
Bishop had told her she could do it, and if anybody would know about that sort of thing, it would be him.
Of course, he hadn’t told her how.
Typical.
Hollis slipped out of her room, closing the door quietly behind her. She wasn’t surprised to find, in the dark old house, scattered lamps burning on tables and chests in the wide hallway. Maybe on timers. Or maybe left on all night. It was still very early, and she seriously doubted that either Owen or Anna was up. They didn’t seem the up-with-the-chickens sort. Just the staff, probably.
Not that she had any idea who or how many made up the staff that cared for this huge house. She had seen only the butler, Thomas, and a silent youngish maid who had helped serve dinner the night before.
There had to be more, if only daily help. A cook, maids. Maybe a housekeeper to oversee everything. Just keeping up with the main part of the house would take a small army, never mind the two wings of assorted rooms and bedroom suites.
Their rooms were in the East Wing, which also housed the family “apartments” that were on the ground floor.
Hollis vaguely remembered some of the conversation going on around her sleepy self at dinner, and she was almost sure Anna had made the comment that the West Wing of the house was closed most of the year and opened up only during the weeks in spring and summer when the public was admitted.
During those weeks, Owen and Anna were . . . “not in residence” was the term Hollis thought she remembered. An estate manager was in charge of the place, plus other administrative staff, and the family was gone, presumably visiting elsewhere, like maybe a city or the beach or somewhere that wasn’t to hell and gone in the mountains of Tennessee.
And while they were gone, the Alexander mansion was turned into a very exclusive hotel. Alexander House. Full service, Owen had said, glum rather than boasting. He’d have preferred a bed-and-breakfast, but given how far they were from anything resembling a good restaurant, it was full service or don’t bother.
Apparently, they bothered to the point that the place was booked up for all of the coming season, with a few reservations already made for next year. To hell and gone as a vacation spot clearly held attractions Hollis couldn’t appreciate.
Somebody had mentioned extensive gardens the night before, she thought. Said to be gorgeous spring through summer. Tennis courts, a swimming pool. And horses. She remembered mention of a stable and horses, with miles of mountain trails. All of which added numerous employees to the growing number of staff Hollis had been compiling in her head. Not just staff working in the house, but gardeners or landscapers, people who cared for horses and tack, and probably a lot of purely maintenance people inside and out, to keep this place in tiptop shape and running smoothly.
Most employees would be full time and year-round in order to keep this place at its best. Even during the off-season, Alexander House was probably the major employer for that little town with its odd name of Devil’s Gap and its apparent lack of amenities to attract visitors.
Offering plenty of amenities plus the opulence of an earlier era, Hollis supposed, would attract to Alexander House plenty of visitors looking for quiet and luxury and excellent service. She supposed all that could offset the almost eerie isolation of the place.
Or maybe that was just her take, the eeriness of this place. She was, after all and even trying her best to shield, fully conscious of spiritual energy hovering at the fringes of her awareness. A lot of it. She was, in fact, surprised that Alexander House was not one of the places frequented by paranormal investigators. But it wasn’t, at least according to their briefing.
The briefing given by Bishop.
And when has he ever told any of us the whole truth?
The thought was more resigned than angry or even irritated; by now, it was a character trait in the unit chief familiar to if not expected by all who worked with him.
Hollis began moving down the hall toward the main part of the house, frowning. She was reasonably sure she would have remembered if either Owen or Anna had mentioned the house being haunted. In fact, she was sure one of them would have said something about it the evening before when she had seen the spirit of Jamie Bell.
And later, talking about hotel visitors, surely someone would have mentioned the draw of a reputedly haunted Alexander House?
Then again, between Owen’s scorn for the paranormal and the business sense that undoubtedly told him he could charge visitors more for luxury and service than for ghosts, perhaps it was not something discussed.
Or even . . . known?
Jamie Bell had waited a long time, after all, for help in passing on her message to Owen; if any genuine medium had visited here in all the years since that tragic death, Hollis had to believe Jamie would have come through, and if not her then certainly someone else—because there were others. Surely at least one genuine medium would have tuned in to the right frequency to let someone come through.
Or maybe Anna Alexander really was the first family member to actually consider the paranormal, was driven to do so, and she was so focused on trying to contact her husband—and had clearly had little luck either in finding genuine mediums or one able to tune in to this place—that Hollis doubted she’d given any thought at all to contact beyond reaching Daniel.
Probably one reason she’d been so surprised when Hollis had made contact with Jamie. The idea that there might have been other spirits waiting about had clearly never occurred to her.
So . . . no family stories of hauntings, or if there were, certainly no recent ones. It was a surprise, that realization. Granted, Hollis was considered a strong medium, but she would have thought someone either living in or visiting this house over decades would have experienced something paranormal. That was almost always the case in haunted places; sooner or later, someone saw or heard something eerie to tell someone else about the experience.
Or just bolted out the door without looking back.
But there were doors—and then there were doors.
“Don’t open the door too wide or leave it open too long,” Hollis muttered, mostly under her breath. “Thanks, Brooke, that’s swell—except that I don’t seem to have a whole hell of a lot of control right now.”
“May I help you, ma’am?”
Hollis nearly jumped out of her skin and tried not to look embarrassed when she realized she was being addressed by a maid in a neat uniform, apparently carrying folded linen.
“Oh. No, thanks. That is . . . I was just exploring a bit. If that’s okay?” she added tentatively.
“Certainly, ma’am.” The maid was serene. “If you need it, there’s a map of the house and grounds downstairs, in the top drawer of the foyer table by the front door; it’s printed up for the hotel guests, but private guests
have found it useful as well.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am. Breakfast is served at eight thirty, but if you wish something before then there’s a bell in the dining room. Anyone will be happy to serve you.”
Hollis could only imagine the consternation an order for breakfast was likely to cause in the kitchen, given that it was barely six A.M., but she merely nodded and silently told her growling stomach to shut up.
“Okay, thanks. Thanks very much.”
The maid nodded, smiled, and then bobbed a curtsy, turned toward what Hollis assumed was another bedroom door, a closed door—and vanished through the solid oak.
Hollis slowly looked down at her arm, pushing back the sleeve of her sweater. No gooseflesh. No sensation of the hairs stirring on the back of her neck. No cold wave washing through her. No oddly muffling quality of the normal sounds around her.
None of the signs she had grown used to, signs telling her that the door between this world and the next was open or opening, and that she was able to communicate with spirits.
No signs. No warning.
“Oh, shit,” Hollis said rather numbly. “It’s worse than I thought. If I can’t tell the living from the dead here . . .”
Then something new had been added to her bag of psychic tricks.
Either that . . . or something very, very strange was going on here in Alexander House.
And neither possibility was at all reassuring.
* * *
COLE JACOBY TRIED to shake off that dark pressure he could feel inside him, even as he stood in the tiny shower stall and washed himself head to toe, in cold well water with strong soap, to get rid of the blood.
He refused to think about where it had come from beyond the fleeting hope that when he thought about it he’d realize that he had simply killed a game animal even now hanging outside in the cold somewhere near the cabin.
That was it. That had to be it.
And never mind that the dogs had never growled about that.
Never mind.