Hidden Salem

by Kay Hooper

  There was a brief pause, and then Bishop responded with a question.

  With all the static in the area we both know you should be cautious, but . . . have you reached out?

  I let my walls down a little in case Gen reached out. Got a pounding headache and a lot of emotional baggage from the general area, but nothing from Geneva.

  What kind of emotional baggage? The usual?

  Yeah. Job troubles, money troubles, relationship troubles, resentments. A happy bride-to-be, a worried father-to-be, a preacher concerned he’s losing his flock.

  Wait. That last. Did you focus on the preacher?

  No. I was concentrating on Gen, so only got the gist from everybody else. Why?

  A hunch.

  Grayson knew very well that Bishop’s “hunches” were always more than that, but he was in no mood to probe. He just wanted to find Geneva, and then find a missing little girl who no one in Salem seemed to be missing.

  You think focusing on the preacher could lead me to Gen?

  I think it could lead you in the right direction. But wait until after dark.

  Why?

  You know why. With your cover, openly searching any part of the area in or around Salem will draw the wrong kind of attention. It could also connect the two of you. And if Geneva warned you not to look for her, that’s probably what she was worried about.

  Grayson didn’t want to agree with that, but he did, because that’s what he believed would have been uppermost in her mind. There was no obvious connection between the two of them, and until he found out what she knew, that’s the way it needed to stay.

  Okay, okay. It’ll be dark in a few hours, maybe sooner. I’ll go out at least an hour after that, a bit longer if people here haven’t settled in for the night. And do my best to focus on the preacher. What about the missing girls?

  I’ll get some of our people looking deeper into the records. Geneva found enough to convince her the child was missing. We have to find the same information. Though if she discovered it telepathically, there may not have been an official report. Which means you’re still her best bet—to find her and information about the missing girl.

  He didn’t have to add that there was always the chance Geneva would be in no shape to tell them anything. He didn’t have to add that nugget because Grayson’s imagination was busy working overtime all by itself.

  He thought again that it was a curse to have a vivid and active imagination. A bitter curse to have an educated and experienced imagination.

  Don’t count her out just yet.

  Bishop might have been reading his agent’s mind from a considerable distance, something relatively new according to the agents who had been with him longest. But with the static sensed by their psychics outside the area, and his own virtually-always-faint empathic sense of his boss that was normal no longer present, Grayson doubted it was anything so cut-and-dried as an actual telepathic connection. Maybe it was simply that Bishop knew his agents very, very well. In any case, Grayson didn’t question that. He just grasped for reassurance.

  We both know she’s stubborn as hell. If somebody’s been trying to get information out of her—

  I doubt that’s why she was taken.

  Grayson counted to ten silently.

  Which means you know why she was taken. And that she’s alive?

  Mad as hell, probably, Bishop answered laconically.

  Grayson gave up counting. But for that moment, he really, really, really wanted to know whether the unit chief’s formidable telepathic abilities had mined that nugget of information somehow, static or no static, or if he’d gained it in some other way.

  Bishop—

  Follow your instincts, Gray. The first thing you have to do is find her. And you need to be cautious. If she’s being held incommunicado it’s because they suspect she might find—or already has found—something they want to keep hidden, or else they’re afraid she may get in their way. Or both.

  He didn’t, Grayson noted, define them.

  You need to get her out of their hands before she poses a greater threat to them. Find out what she knows. After that, it might be best if you two . . . rediscover an old relationship.

  Grayson had been afraid his boss was going to say that.

  Why didn’t you just send us in as a team, dammit?

  This way is better. Follow your instincts, Gray. Find Geneva, whatever it takes. We’ll look for the missing girl.

  Copy. I’ll be back in touch when I know something.

  In the meantime, go get the meds for your migraines. And take them.

  Grayson didn’t even ask.

  Copy. I’ll do that before it gets dark.

  Watch your back. Bishop out.

  No more white words appeared on the screen. But Grayson stared at the ones he was fairly certain his boss had meant quite literally. He was to find Geneva.

  Whatever it took.

  ELEVEN

  “Does she know anything?”

  “No more than the others did.”

  “Sure about that? She’s using fake ID. None of the others did that.”

  “The others were descended through the female lines and didn’t have the family names. She was born a Cavendish.”

  “So maybe she was warned being a Cavendish might not be such a good thing to be here.”

  “Maybe she was. Maybe she’s just cautious. Her father’s been gone more than ten years, and there’s nobody else. Who would have warned her? Who could have?”

  “I don’t know, and that’s what’s making me nervous.”

  “Look, she’s acting like a normal tourist. She had lunch at the café and now she’s walking her dog around town; that’s all.”

  “And that’s another thing I don’t like. That dog. One look, and you know he’d throw himself between her and any threat. If she’s the one he’s been searching for, you know what he’ll say. And if she isn’t the one, well, same thing. He isn’t big on pets, never mind threats. So we’ll have to take care of the dog too.”

  “Don’t borrow trouble. We don’t know anything yet. We have time to find out what we do need to know.”

  “It’s barely a week until her birthday. That’s how much time we have.”

  “It’s enough.”

  “Is it? What about the woman out at the house? You planning to keep her alive and well another week?”

  “She’s an innocent.”

  “Oh, hell, one look and you know she’s hardly that.”

  “You know what I mean. She’s innocent in this. Not a part of Salem, far less of the Five.”

  “We don’t know what she is. That’s the problem.”

  “She’s a professional photographer here on a job. You saw the e-mails on her laptop just like I did; you saw the darkroom she’s rigged in her suite, and all the supplies and pictures. She has an editor and an agent in New York, both of them check out as legit, and both of them know where she is and what she’s doing here. She makes money for both of them. You really want to get rid of her and then deal with all the questions somebody is going to start asking when their meal ticket vanishes into thin air?”

  “Well, I sure as hell don’t want to just turn her loose in a week like nothing happened. We found her out in the woods, for one thing, near the house. In the middle of the night. And she’s been kept prisoner. How’re we gonna explain that?”

  “There are things we can do; you know that. So she won’t remember anything we don’t want her to.”

  “Forbidden things.”

  “For some. Not for all. And in . . . extreme circumstances, extreme measures can be justified.”

  “You think he’ll agree with that?”

  “He doesn’t have to know about it. The last thing he needs is too much attention of the wrong sort, especially now. When it’s all said and done, he’ll
agree with that.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not something he can do—and he won’t trust either one of us to do it. He’ll have to be sure.”

  “He will be.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Don’t worry about the woman. We’ll take care of it so she isn’t a problem.”

  “You’ll take care of it, Finn. Her. Because she’s your mess. You’re the one who decided to keep her alive.”

  “Yes,” Finn said. “I did.”

  * * *

  —

  GENEVA DECIDED SHE was being an idiot. And weak, like some stupid fairy-tale princess bemoaning her fate and longing in her tower for a prince to come and rescue her.

  Screw that.

  Geneva had lived long enough and seen enough to know that even the best of men weren’t princes, and any woman with a grain of sense learned to take care of herself and not count on anyone else—even the best of men—to come rushing to her rescue.

  No matter what kind of trouble she was in.

  So. Here she was. And she would damned well get herself out of this prison, this mess, somehow.

  Common sense told her that if anything was going to change here, she’d have to change it. And soon, because if they intended to keep feeding her—and that was a big, big if—then when the food ran out somebody was bound to come with more supplies. Someone she was reasonably sure would want her unconscious—by some means, possibly that vent in the ceiling—before entering her prison.

  And even though she had recognized that first voice when they’d grabbed her, so he wouldn’t be concerned she knew who he was, she doubted he’d pop in for conversation while bringing more food and water, even if he did intend to keep her alive.

  She hadn’t been able to read him, either, so she had no idea at all why he was keeping her alive. She had no doubt it had been his decision, because she was reasonably sure he was high up in all this—whatever this was. High up, at least, among the men chosen to keep law and order in Salem.

  Their idea of it, at any rate.

  Any way she looked at it, if she was going to get herself out of this mess, time was running out.

  “My kingdom to be telekinetic for just five minutes,” she muttered, startling herself when she heard her own voice and realized she hadn’t said anything out loud in quite a while.

  The creative cursing had run its course that first day.

  Geneva stood there for a moment, then lit four of the big pillar candles and placed one about a foot in from each of the four corners of her prison. The remaining fifth one was lit as well, and went on the floor in the center of the room. Then she faced each wall for a slow, thorough study, moving slightly to make sure the candle nearest her wasn’t casting her shadow. She slowly studied—really for the first time—her prison in its entirety.

  And that was when she saw a possible way out.

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS NEVER the same dream—and yet it was. The same terror and shame and confusion. The same overwhelming sense that this wasn’t her, that she was watching in horror someone else do these inexplicable, sickening, unspeakable things while somehow wearing her body.

  It was always in the woods, dense woods like those that surrounded this odd little town. There was always a big fire, a bonfire, with shadowy, hooded figures she could never quite make out throwing more branches and handfuls of other things she couldn’t identify onto the fire to keep it burning high and hot.

  She could never tell if it was a mist or smoke that made it difficult for her to see clearly, but she never could. The brightness of the bonfire, the shifting human shapes of shadows. Smoke or mist swirling, distorting everything.

  There was always chanting. Words she could never make out, or maybe a language she didn’t know. Or maybe she just didn’t want to understand what they were saying, because something inside her, inside the sane her, didn’t want to understand.

  They were all around her, moving, perhaps dancing in some kind of primitive rhythm as they chanted. In the shadows mostly but occasionally a flicker of the bonfire would catch the gleam of eyes or the maw of an open mouth chanting, or a hand raised briefly. Men and women, she knew that much.

  Chanting . . . something. Slowly at first, softly. Then louder. Faster. Frenzied.

  And then there was her. As if she stood back and watched, she could see herself. Or someone that appeared to be her, which was what she desperately hoped was the truth. Not her. Just someone who looked like her. Dressed in some filmy white dress with layers and bits that fluttered as she danced and whirled. Barefoot, her hair loose and whipping about. Layered or not, the dress was nearly transparent, more obviously so when the layers and bits lifted and shifted with her movements, and it was utterly clear she was naked underneath it.

  Naked. Aroused.

  It made her want to turn away, to writhe in shame and disgust. Because she, that other her, that stranger, was wild, pagan, and dancing with total abandon growing more frenzied as the chanting grew more frenzied.

  Out of control.

  A shadowy partner danced with her near the bonfire, a partner who was clearly male and clearly aroused as well, because he was naked.

  She couldn’t see his face because he was wearing some kind of mask, but the firelight glinted off sweat-slick muscled flesh as he danced with a grace that was riveting.

  That was what Nellie hated, that she couldn’t look away, couldn’t turn away and run from this. She stood frozen, staring, watching herself—watching that stranger that looked like her—behave in a way she never had, never could, in some kind of ceremony or ritual or, hell, just insanity, and what she felt even over the disgust and shame and bewilderment was this awful certainty of . . . inevitability.

  It wasn’t a dream. Wasn’t a nightmare. It was something else.

  It was something real.

  And it terrified her.

  The chanting grew louder, the shadows in the background moved with more frenzy, she moved with more frenzy, and then she started taking off the filmy white dress, the sheer layers of it falling away from her, her sweating face twisted in an expression of lust, and the naked man pulled off his mask, was reaching for her, his hands grasping—

  That was when Nellie wrenched herself from the nightmare and woke with a cry, sitting up in bed, Leo whining anxiously beside her.

  * * *

  —

  THE DREAMER STIRRED, then sat up slowly. His face was a little pale, and he looked drained.

  “Well?” Duncan demanded.

  “She pulled herself out of it before the end. Jesus, that hurt like hell. I feel like I have a concussion.”

  Duncan waved the complaint aside. “When did she pull free? Did she see him? Know him?”

  The Dreamer grinned wearily. “Oh, yeah. She saw him. And she knew it was Finn.”

  * * *

  —

  NELLIE TOUCHED HER dog reassuringly and wasted no time in leaning over to turn on the lamp on her nightstand. The big bed was as comfortable as she’d imagined it would be, but it had not been able to ward off the nightmare.

  And it had come swiftly this time. She’d gone to bed early, and the clock on the nightstand told her it wasn’t yet midnight.

  She plumped her pillows behind her and leaned back, absently petting Leo as he lay back down near her hip. She wasn’t nearly ready to go back to sleep, especially when she heard the faint rumble of thunder in the distance.

  Meditation. Right.

  She tried some of that, concentrating on remaining calm, on distracting her thoughts, directing them to memorized lines of poetry, choosing the fun nonsense of Lewis Carroll over anything more serious or darker she had also memorized for occasions like this. Just reciting the verses in her head in no particular order, refusing to allow the nightmare to upset her again. Even though . . .

 
Calm. She had to be calm before anything else.

  It took about ten minutes according to the clock, but when she finally opened her eyes again, she couldn’t hear thunder.

  “Maybe it works after all,” she said to her dog, still working to keep her voice steady. “After a fashion, at least.” She hadn’t really had to put it to a serious test until all . . . this . . . had started.

  Especially the nightmare. But as bad as it had been before, tonight had been especially awful. More than shame and humiliation and the feeling of not being in control of herself, tonight . . .

  A rumble of thunder made her start, and she closed her eyes again, trying not to remember Finn’s sweating, lusting face as he’d reached out for her, unmasked for the first time.

  But what did it all mean? Everything in her rebelled at the very idea of being involved in anything portrayed in her dream. No matter what kind of ritual she had witnessed, it was nothing that roused in her anything except revulsion.

  Which was a relief that cut deeply into her, though she wasn’t exactly sure why.

  Pushing that question aside, she replayed, as calmly as she could, the meeting and conversation with Finn. She’d already done that numerous times, and never reached any conclusion about whether she could or should trust him.

  Tonight, after the nightmare, she felt a revulsion not only toward her own behavior, but toward him. But even as that memory fought its way back to the surface of her thoughts, even as thunder rumbled again, she was conscious of the strangest sensation inside her mind.

  Like a door . . . opening. She couldn’t see anything, but that’s how it felt. An open door . . . and a quiet, reassuring whisper.

  They’ve put this nightmare into your mind, my daughter. It isn’t real. They mean to frighten you, to drive you away before you do what you came here to do.

  It wasn’t her father’s voice, Nellie realized dimly.

  Then . . . her mother?

  Warmth. Love.

  I’ve always been nearby, waiting. Knowing that one day you would come back here. I’m with you now. And when the time comes, I will help you.