Hidden Salem

by Kay Hooper

  “You saying she’s psychic?”

  “My guess is it’s a strong maybe. If so, she doesn’t have much of a shield, and what she does have is . . . unusual. Those threads of energy felt . . . almost alive. And her concentration was as much external as internal. Tied to something outside herself. Something physical, I mean real physical, like a barrier of some kind, or what she believes is one. An article of clothing, maybe. Don’t know if she was wearing it, but she was using it somehow.”

  Grayson felt his eyebrows rising. “Never heard of anything like that.”

  “I have.” Geneva was still frowning as she finished her protein drink and looked around for a trash can, spotting one and disposing of the bottle with a practiced and accurate toss. “It was years back, and I only heard a remark or two, but I pieced together that one of the psychics Bishop had found while looking for more of us for the SCU needed something outside herself, something she could see and touch, to focus on, turn into a barrier her own mind was always aware of and could believe in to protect herself. I think it was gloves. I remember because that’s the only time I’ve heard of him using that technique to help a psychic build up a shield, and I wondered if it worked.”

  It was Grayson’s turn to frown. “Does Bishop have any idea just how much you know about stuff you really don’t need to know?”

  She ignored that. “I wonder if it’s her. She didn’t want to join the SCU is what I got, and it was before Haven really got started. She already had responsibilities, for one a very successful financial company of some kind she’d inherited and built on. And she wasn’t real happy that she was psychic, hid it all her life.”

  “What kind of psychic?”

  “Telepath with bells and whistles. The more dangerous kind. I got that was why Bishop tried something outside the box to help her to control her abilities.”

  “And you touched her mind just now? Gen—”

  “It was a really brief and shallow touch, and I don’t think she was at all aware of me. Really concentrating on those control techniques. Which, if I’m right about those bells and whistles and why Bishop thought outside the box, is probably a good thing.”

  “Bells and whistles of the more dangerous kind, inside a psychic who has to use a trick to raise any kind of shield. And she’s here in Salem, where there’s a weird sort of static that usually means energy being used or held under some kind of pressure or whatever the hell. Great. That’s just great.”

  “I could be wrong,” Geneva said, in the tone of one who knew she wasn’t. “And even if she is here, she might have nothing to do with whatever’s going on in Salem.”

  “Wanna bet? Bishop doesn’t believe in coincidences, and neither do I. He also doesn’t like wasting a psychic, whether officially one of us or not. If he found her, he kept track, and I’m betting he knows she’s here. For whatever reason.”

  “What reason could she have?”

  “Maybe we should be asking ourselves whether those three missings might have been psychic.”

  “Four,” Geneva said.

  “Four?”

  “Yeah. Well, a body that didn’t belong to the first three or the missing little girl. I’m guessing he’ll turn up on Bishop’s list soon, if he isn’t already there.”

  “You saw the site?”

  “Dump site. I’ll show you the pictures later. I beat the militia there, but they cleaned it up quick. Nothing to see now.”

  “I’m still wondering about a psychic connection. All that static around here feels like energy to me. Psychic energy.”

  “Me too, to be honest. But would that be a reason to kill them?”

  Grayson headed for the small desk where he’d set up his laptop. “I have no idea. But we’ve found plenty of psychics whose abilities could be used even unwillingly to harm others if they lack at least necessary control. If this woman has abilities on the dangerous end, maybe she disappeared the little girl.”

  “You said she just got here.”

  “Doesn’t mean she hasn’t been lurking.”

  “Jesus, you’re more suspicious than I am.”

  “Just considering possibilities, though I agree that one is unlikely, if only because of the timing. This little girl—”

  “Bethany Hicks.”

  “Right, Bethany Hicks. So, she just vanishes into thin air. With the aid of some psychic ability enhanced by all this damned static?”

  “Unless Bishop is hiding something absolutely huge, no psychic he’s located can disappear people. Static or no static. And I haven’t felt that kind of power since I got here. As for our fellow guest and psychic, what I got is that she can channel energy, probably a lot of it, in a very . . . specific way.”

  “Channel. And if all this static is from energy, psychic energy, that could be a likely trigger for her abilities, and even if she doesn’t need or want it, extra energy to draw on.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And that doesn’t sound scary at all,” Grayson muttered, sitting down at the desk and opening his laptop. “Only a handful of us can do that on any level. Channel energy. Just tell me she can’t channel lightning. That’s spooky as hell, aside from being painful if you get caught in the backwash.”

  “I don’t think she knows whether she can do that,” Geneva said cautiously. “But there is something about her and storms I couldn’t quite get.”

  “We both heard the thunder earlier. Not now, though.”

  “So maybe that’s why she’s practicing control techniques. She doesn’t have to channel actual lightning to gather energy from a storm; all of us tend to be affected by them.”

  “And with all the granite in this valley, I’m betting storms are common even in winter.”

  “Been a couple of bad ones since I’ve been in town.”

  “Don’t get too near,” Grayson warned hastily as Geneva started toward the small desk where he’d set up his laptop.

  She stopped with a sigh. “Bishop and his geniuses can figure out how to send and receive utterly secure messages between him and his agents practically anywhere on earth, but they can’t figure out how to keep me from killing laptops with one touch.”

  “Maybe some mysteries are better off that way,” Grayson suggested. “Want to keep comparing notes before I put through the call to Bishop?”

  “Where is he?”

  “No idea. But he got back to me quickly this afternoon.” There was, after all, no telling where Bishop was, so times and even time zones rarely came into the matter. “Did you get a look at whoever grabbed you?”

  “No, he put me down too fast.”

  “How did he put you down?” Grayson kept his voice cool and professional with an effort.

  Geneva gave him a look, but all she said was, “Some kind of injection is my guess. A very quick-acting one. He didn’t hit me or grab me or Taser me; I just went out like a light.” She frowned a little. “I never did find an injection site, though. And I did go out awfully fast.”

  “Wake up feeling queasy, dizzy?”

  “Not that I remember. One minute I was in the woods, staring at those damned crows and realizing I’d spent too much time in one place, and the next I woke up in that cellar prison.” She shook that away, not as she would have a nightmare memory, but certainly something close. “But I know who at least one of them is. He asked me something just before he took me out, if I was out for a night stroll or words to that effect. Sarcasm of the first order. I recognized his voice.”

  “Somebody you’d been watching?”

  “At a distance, since he seems to be high up in the local militia/deputy squad. I mean, I couldn’t read him, but he was the one giving orders as far as I could tell whenever I saw him with one of the others I’ve tagged as likely militia. It’s not like they wear uniforms, and even though some seem to be armed, it’s an open-carry state and winter means coats and jack
ets. So it’s taken me a while to recognize the players.”

  “But you think you know them now?”

  “Most of the militia, I think.”

  “Most?”

  “I think there’s a top guy, the one really in charge, and so far I haven’t been able to find out who he is.”

  “From one of the families?”

  “Oh, yeah, bound to be. They aren’t real obvious about it, but nothing of importance happens in this town unless someone from one or more of those five families is behind it, pulling strings.”

  “Speaking of pulling.” Grayson sighed. “Gen, don’t make me feel like I’m trying to pull teeth here. Just tell me what you’ve found out. Do you have a report with specifics for Bishop, or not? I haven’t been here long enough to do much more than settle in, but it might help in understanding what’s going on here if we had at least a few more puzzle pieces.”

  “That’s about all I have, a lot of bits and pieces I haven’t been able to fit together,” she admitted frankly. “Not much to report that Bishop doesn’t already know. Except that this place is strange in more ways than just the energy static, and he knows that.”

  “What doesn’t he know?”

  There was a faintly stubborn look in her eyes he recognized; Geneva preferred to make complete reports when she reported in at all, with all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed. But he waited, watching her steadily, and finally she shrugged.

  “Well, like I said, there was that fourth body found up in the mountains earlier in the day before Bethany disappeared. Mutilated like the others. Tortured before death. Rocks ringing the body with nonsense symbols smeared in the victim’s blood. Nothing occult I recognized, but it was designed to scare the shit out of anybody who saw it.

  “Which is exactly what happened, and how I found out about it. A very shaken hunter was the first to stumble over the remains, and he was horrified almost beyond words. Happened to pass by where I was lurking in town, and I was able to get a general location from him. Found the remains myself a while later.”

  “I thought hunting was forbidden in Salem,” Grayson muttered, frowning over the new information that someone untaught might be using the occult to hide or disguise just plain old murder.

  “For sport, yeah. Pretty sure he was hunting for food. Something extra for the pot, I think was the gist. Though I seriously doubt he ate anything that night.”

  Grayson looked at her for a moment, then shook his head.

  Geneva ignored his suppressed amusement. “And something is behind the weird lack of curiosity or concern in the townsfolk when stuff like that mutilated body happens, because as far as I could tell they barely noticed it.”

  “You said you checked out the dump site.”

  “For all the good it did me. The first time I was in such a hurry I just stayed back and took photos, all I could. Didn’t dare get close enough to take a biological sample, and I can’t tell you exactly what killed the victim.” She paused, a slightly odd look on her face for a moment, then went on calmly, “By the time I got back up there later, the militia had indeed been there, and lemme tell you, they clean up a crime scene or dump site like real pros, because I didn’t find anything at all helpful, and I crawled around on my knees.”

  “Find anything not helpful?”

  She frowned at him. “I could swear I smelled bleach around some of the larger rocks at the scene, like somebody had been cleaning off that blood, which makes sense. And scorch marks. It looked to me like they’d set off a controlled burn to eliminate any signs of whatever they’d found. No sign of a grave or that anything else had been buried up there. And no sign of the body, in whole or in part.”

  “They do appear to know how to get rid of evidence.”

  “Oh, yeah. And they are quick. The hunter who’d stumbled on the remains was headed straight to report to somebody, but I didn’t get a name. I haven’t seen him since, and as far as I can tell, the militia put out the victim was a dead tourist hiking the Trail at the worst time of year, just a sad accident, and they’d taken care of things. As per usual. Nothing to worry about here, folks, move along. Whether they shared any of that with the county sheriff I couldn’t find out. It’s hell being undercover and unofficial in a situation like this one.”

  “Have we had a situation like this one?” he asked wryly.

  “We haven’t had a town like this one—I know that much. There aren’t just undercurrents; there are layers of undercurrents, and all kinds of things moving in them. Look, Gray, along with the bits and pieces, I’ve got nothing more than a whisper here, a hunch there, the flicker of a thought. Nothing to hang your hat on. Nothing to report to Bishop, other than the latest death. Way too many questions I can’t ask of way too many people who might have answers.”

  “You got the name of the missing girl. That’s more than I knew when I checked in, so Bishop doesn’t know it either. The name should help his people find her, if she can be found.”

  “Yeah, there’s that.” Geneva frowned and chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “And maybe something else. The kind of walls I kept bumping up against are strong and solid. The woman down the hall here and us aside, there are definitely a lot of psychics in this town. Powerful ones. And given the balance of power here, I’m guessing—just guessing, mind you—that there’s at least one psychic in each of the five families. Maybe more than one. And whatever’s going on here, they’re at the heart of it.”

  FOURTEEN

  Bethany did her best to sleep, because she felt so tired it was an ache in her bones, but the cot was lumpy and she was just too scared to close her eyes for more than a few short minutes.

  She thought.

  Everything was a guess here. Everything except that she was alone, more alone than she’d ever been in her whole life, and she wanted a hug from her mom and dad in the worst way.

  Did they know she was gone? Were they looking for her?

  Was anyone?

  She didn’t think Jason would tell anyone he’d dared her to go up to the scary house and pick that flower to prove it. And even if he did, she knew he wouldn’t tell a grown-up. He’d tell one of his buddies, and they’d laugh and tell him not to worry.

  There hadn’t been any more water or broth. The tray with the small cup and bowl lay just where she’d put it. The pinched feeling in her middle was worse, especially since she’d finally given in and used a corner of her small cage to empty her bladder.

  She was so thirsty. So hungry.

  Bethany rubbed her arms with both hands, feeling cold even though she was warmly dressed. Maybe that was the ache in her bones, or maybe it was because it was so quiet and she had an awful feeling she was going to die here, all alone, in this cold, dim place of rock and silence.

  It was the silence that was almost the worst.

  Maybe was the worst.

  Because it added to her feeling so alone. It made her even more afraid to try to sleep.

  And because she could almost swear there was something moving out there, past the point she could see. Something.

  Something coming for her.

  * * *

  —

  GRAYSON FROWNED. “YOU think that’s why they’re still in charge of things in Salem even after generations? A psychic edge?”

  “Well, we know it can run in families, so why not?”

  “Yeah, but even if, how could they be using it to stay in control of the town?”

  “That’s what scares me. They shouldn’t be able to do that. Not even in a small town.”

  He coped with her extremely rare admission of being scared, deciding not to comment on that part of what she’d said. “Mind control is pretty much a myth—we all know that. Oh, sure, minor things, unimportant things, definitely short-term. Maybe a bit more between blood siblings or other bonded psychics. But even psychics who can barely influence, far less c
ontrol, another mind are rare. Control a whole town?”

  “I’m not sure it’s that clear-cut. A little psychic ability and a lot of superstition could have been the beginning. Customs form, and then just become the way of things. Over generations, what’s normal is what you get used to. Habits, beliefs. So maybe if you’re born under a kind of authority and grow up under it, how many are going to challenge it?”

  “Especially if your life is an easy and comfortable one,” he agreed, thinking it over. “The families make sure everybody gets a fair deal, good jobs with good pay, reasonable housing prices, no crime to speak of—if you set aside those mutilated bodies.”

  “Explained away as careless tourists or hikers and accidents, not exactly uncommon in the mountains, especially this close to the Trail,” she added. “All evidence removed quickly and smoothly, so virtually nobody has to see the blood. And as far as I could find out, the one newspaper obediently reports just that. Probably because the owner is a Deverell.”

  “Ah. I didn’t catch that.”

  “It isn’t printed anywhere on the paper itself. I only picked it up by chance eating lunch out one day,” she admitted. “Playing my part of being very visible and yet as unobtrusive as grass and rocks the way professional photographers have to be. I’ve been wandering around with my cameras and smiling at people until my face feels like it’s going to break, and they’re finally getting used to me. Relaxing. A little. Sometimes.”

  “Have you picked up another telepath? Besides our fellow guest, I mean.”

  “I’m sure there are psychics all around, like I said, maybe more than we’ve ever found in one small town. But what I’ve picked up is less about specific abilities and more about those damned solid walls. It’s almost like . . . one wall. Pieces of something that fit together to protect or contain diverse abilities. Look, can you go ahead and find out from Bishop if they’ve had any luck in locating Bethany Hicks? She’s only ten years old. I’m worried about that kid.”