Hidden Salem

by Kay Hooper

  Well aware that she did indeed worry more about kids than adults tangled in a case, Grayson merely nodded, turned his attention to the laptop, and began typing.

  She took a step closer and eyed him suddenly in a faintly hostile manner that he could feel was more automatic than real, because what he mostly felt from her was a chilled weariness and the need for sleep. “I better not see the word rescue appear on that screen.”

  “Right,” he murmured, fingers flying over the keyboard as he established the connection and requested real-time communication. He was beginning to understand that he knew her a lot better than he’d realized, and it was an unsettling realization.

  “I mean it, Gray. I got myself out of that cellar. Besides, you weren’t even supposed to look for me; you were supposed to find Bethany.”

  Ignoring the first part of her comments, he said merely, “Bishop’s got people searching data banks for info, and they’re a hell of a lot more likely to find something than I am. Jesus, Red, there are twenty-eight girls under the age of thirteen missing within a five-hundred-mile radius of Salem, and I didn’t even have a name. And the Chronicle isn’t online in any sense, so I could hardly check their archives for info. Far as I could tell, nobody local was missing a kid. Or at least not talking about it or feeling about it if they were.”

  Somewhat mollified, she said, “I suppose you did your best.”

  He bit back the natural retort, saying instead, “I also didn’t find any sign of the three people who mysteriously headed this way last month, and though I hate to assume, I think it’s probably safe to assume they ended up like your supposed hiker.”

  “Which maybe means four people we haven’t been able to connect to each other in any other way came to Salem, maybe were lured here—and died. I dunno, though. That’s the problem. There’s nothing solid to hang your hat on except disappearances we can’t prove and one set of tortured human remains with only photographic evidence. No evidence at all to show if they were grabbed and if so by who. No evidence to show they weren’t grabbed just like I was.”

  He turned his head to stare at her. “You think whoever grabbed you intended to kill you?”

  Geneva was standing with her hands jammed into the pockets of her thick jacket, and met his gaze with no hint of fear in her own. “No idea. Possible, of course, and something I considered, even though they left me food and water, even candles and a mattress to sleep on. But I wasn’t lured here and I wasn’t asking any questions other than those I would ask, given my cover. So I can’t see how I was even a possible threat to them until that night, when I apparently was someplace they didn’t want me to be. So they locked me up until they could decide what to do with me. Just a guess, though. Didn’t have much time to form an impression before they grabbed me, and never heard, saw, or sensed in any other way one of them in that house the whole time I was there.”

  “You think they grabbed you because you were in the woods at night when a photographer just wouldn’t have been? Or was it where you were? Maybe getting close to something they didn’t want you to find?”

  “Yeah, either way, if they’d been watching me. Or if the crows were. I mean, the crows were there, I’d seen them before in the woods and in town, and nothing unusual happened those times. And I’d been up there in the general area a couple times at night, though not too far. But, maybe . . . maybe that night I crossed some invisible line. The only thing I know is that I didn’t have my cameras, and it was late. Too late and too damned cold for a casual hike up that mountain. Hell, I would have been suspicious of me.”

  “Then they knew or guessed you were looking for something.”

  “I would have, in their place. I have to assume that’s what was on their minds.”

  “Then you are a threat to them.”

  “That,” Geneva said, “depends on whether they’re hiding something I could have found.”

  “You’re thinking of Bethany.”

  Steadily, she said, “All the remains found so far, if we can trust what little information we have of the first three, and my evidence of the fourth, have been of adults. And as near as I can figure, the bodies turned up shortly after our missings went missing. So it’s more than likely the first three bodies belonged to our missings. As for the fourth set of remains found . . . A young man, but a man. Could have been looking at thirty as his next birthday.”

  “And nonsense symbols painted on rocks in his own blood. So what’s your take? Are we dealing with the occult, or just window dressing?”

  “Off the top of my head, window dressing. We can study the photos later, but nothing about it looked like genuine occult signs or symbols to me. Though there were some weird things about what was left of that body.” She paused, then added more briskly, “Where did you look for the other missings?”

  “Haven’t had much time to look anywhere. I did manage to check the register downstairs, but I had to be damned quick since Ms. Payton definitely hovers.”

  “Oh, you noticed that.”

  “Hard not to. Unless she’s showing a newcomer to their room, she stays within sight of the front desk all the time; she can see it even from her office across that little hallway. So it’s her during the day and their night porter the rest of the time.”

  “Then you found what I found. Zip. A whole bunch of people checked in back before Christmas, quite a few of them singles, our missings among them, and as far as that register goes, most of those guests stayed for a long weekend and then checked out and left as planned. With others coming and going before and after.”

  “Yeah. And they keep things old-fashioned; all the guest information I could find is in that old register. Payton has a computer in her office, but I couldn’t get close enough to see if there’s anything but an accounting program or Facebook or something.”

  “She likes to play mah-jongg on the computer,” Geneva said.

  Grayson wondered how she’d discovered that but decided not to ask. “Well, all I know is that the three guests whose names we know are in that register, checked in and checked out when they were supposed to, at least according to this B and B, and that the cars they drove had the correct license plate numbers. According to the register, again. And that their cars are definitely not here.”

  “So either they were grabbed after they left here,” Geneva said, “or Payton is in on it.”

  “Yeah, but in on what? Wait—here’s Bishop.”

  Gray?

  Yeah. Found Geneva. She’s okay. Somebody had been holding her prisoner in the cellar of an odd house up on the mountain, but she got herself out just before I found the house.

  Glad to hear it. Was her prison guarded?

  Geneva took a step closer and pretty much dictated what Grayson was supposed to type in response to that, and since his head was really beginning to throb and since it was her story, after all, he just typed as she talked.

  No, she says she never saw, heard, or otherwise sensed anyone in the house or nearby once she woke up from whatever they used to knock her out. An injection of some kind, she thinks.

  She’s sure it wasn’t a psychic knockout?

  Grayson and Geneva exchanged surprised looks, and Grayson typed: We’d both heard you had a new recruit now in training who could put somebody down psychically, but she has to touch them, right? Geneva doesn’t remember any kind of touch.

  If touch can do it, and it can, then so can sheer energy if the psychic knows how to focus, Bishop returned. I’m guessing somebody is using plenty of energy in and around Salem. Reports from outside are that the static is getting stronger, much stronger, quite possibly building toward something, planned or not. And we all know that energy affects us, for better or worse. Both of you keep on your toes. Gray, did you have time to explore, either tonight or when you were coming down off the Trail?

  Grayson had omitted a few things from his report before, largely becaus
e Geneva had been uppermost on his mind. Something he decided not to think about.

  Coming down off the Trail. Found a set of parallel tracks, definitely not from a vehicle, mostly boots and shoes, a few indications of bare feet, that seemed to start in the middle of nowhere and led to the ruins of a very, very old stone building. Maybe a church, though why original settlers would have put one literally on the side of the mountain so far from where the town was sited is something I can’t even guess at. I didn’t get too close because my tracks would have been too obvious, but in the center of the ruins was what looked like a stone altar, hacked out of granite. And there were stains. Quite a lot of them. I’m guessing blood, violently spilled. Not recent, but not too long ago, I think. I took some photos and will upload them to you ASAP.

  Even as he’d typed, Grayson was still a little preoccupied by the now virtual certainty of building energies he had felt earlier and his uneasiness at the changes—maybe slight and maybe not—he had experienced in his own abilities.

  But before he could think much about that, Geneva was finishing her report for now, and he just continued to type. As per Geneva, the girl we’re looking for is Bethany Hicks, Bishop. Age ten. Still no sign of her here, and nobody seems to even care that she’s missing. Or possibly they just don’t know. Weirdly, her family left with her two sisters, apparently on vacation, right after she disappeared. We don’t believe there was ever a missing-persons report of any kind. And pretty much everybody we’ve encountered so far doesn’t seem too worried about anything. Including missing little girls or the mutilated bodies of supposedly careless tourists or hikers. Gen says there’s been another one found, just before Bethany disappeared.

  Geneva, did you get a look at the scene?

  Grayson continued to type obediently as Geneva reported what little she was able to, and he knew her frustration with the too-efficient militia came through the brief words.

  Anyone see you two together? Bishop asked.

  Grayson barely stopped himself from wincing, because he knew what was coming. No, he typed. Except maybe for the damned birds.

  What birds?

  Crows. A lot of crows. Gen and I both agree somebody’s using them. Trained them somehow, or controls them. Spies, guards, I dunno, Bishop. They are very strange birds. Both of us have seen them, especially in the woods, but—he glanced at Geneva for confirmation—in town as well. Something else nobody in town seems to be bothered by. And even though it isn’t my thing at all, tonight I got a strong empathic sense of the crows watching me in the woods just before I found that house. Very weird feelings in bird heads, let me tell you. At one point I could swear they were laughing at me.

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Geneva observed as she watched the words appearing on the screen.

  “Because it sounded crazy,” he retorted. “But Bishop always wants everything, even crazy.”

  “Maybe especially crazy,” she murmured.

  What else did you get from them?

  That they’re . . . watchers. Guards, spies, like I said. Sentinels. Got the sense they report back to someone and, crazy as it sounds, I also got the sense that whoever they report back to is someone they’re afraid of. Way down deep in a cold place I didn’t think birds even had.

  Evil?

  It should have been a melodramatic query, but neither Grayson nor Geneva thought so.

  Dark at least, Grayson typed in reply. Really dark. Really cold. And they felt . . . in bondage somehow. Trapped. But that was at a deep level, almost hidden or buried. If it was meant to be hidden, I’m not sure that was for my benefit, or . . . whatever. And I have absolutely no idea how I can suddenly read the deep emotions of goddamned crows. Do you?

  “Cue Bishop nonanswer,” Geneva said.

  Try again when you have the chance. You need to know if it was a onetime thing or a genuine new ability.

  “We could make a fortune,” Geneva mused. “Except nobody who knows him would bet on a straight answer from him after a question like yours.”

  Grayson sighed. She was right. Dammit.

  Copy. I’ll get the photos of that odd building and the altar to you ASAP.

  “Mine have to be uploaded too,” Geneva said, frowning at what he had typed. “I’ll slip the photos under your door if I’m up first so you can scan them in and send them.”

  “Up first? Tonight—”

  “Tonight we both need to sleep,” she countered flatly.

  It was the both that got him. Grayson nodded and typed. We’ll get Gen’s photos of that dump site uploaded as well.

  And was answered before he could say when.

  Do it in the morning. In the meantime, get some rest, both of you. Keep your shields up and don’t drop them entirely unless there’s no other choice.

  Copy.

  Meet up at breakfast, if possible.

  Do we know each other? Grayson made himself ask.

  You have your camera, and it’s loaded with pictures of the Trail back to Georgia. Geneva is a photographer. I imagine you can arrange a casual meeting. Or rediscover an old acquaintance. Up to you.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t see it coming,” Geneva said. “Just because we’ve had . . . issues . . . as partners doesn’t mean Bishop doesn’t believe we work well together. And we both know he’ll try more than once to match partners if he thinks they should be.”

  Grayson didn’t bother to answer her. He simply responded to Bishop.

  Copy. We’ll upload all the photos and check in tomorrow in case you have news of Bethany Hicks or we have anything to report. And we’ll see if we can gather a few more puzzle pieces.

  Watch your backs.

  Copy. Out.

  Grayson closed the laptop and rubbed his eyes with both hands. They ached, and his head not only felt like it was stuffed full of cotton, but was really beginning to pound. He was also still cold and hoped he could manage a hot shower before he made it to bed and the sleep he also needed.

  “Breakfast is from seven to nine, right?” he asked Geneva, half-consciously keeping his voice quiet because everything was beginning to sound way too loud in his pounding head.

  “Yeah. Let’s make it toward the later end, okay? We both need sleep, Bishop was right about that.” Her voice was also softer than normal. “I want a long, hot shower, and then maybe a snack or three, and I’m hitting the sack. Do you have your migraine meds?”

  “Yes.” He kept it simple.

  “Both of them?”

  “Yeah, but the doc said—”

  “I know what the doc said. Not to take both at once unless it was one of the bad migraines and you could fall into bed and sleep immediately. Which is what you need to do.”

  She produced a second small bottle of protein drink from a pocket of her jacket, even though he hadn’t seen her get it from her suite.

  “I know you won’t go out or even call down and ask for a glass of milk, so take this with the meds; you need something in your stomach.” Her soft voice was brisk.

  Grayson didn’t bother to argue because she was right. “Thanks. We should plan to go down in the morning about eight thirty. That’ll give me time to upload all the photos.”

  “See you there.” She set the drink down on a small table not too close to him and the laptop, waved casually, and left his suite.

  Only Geneva, he thought a bit fuzzily, could emerge from the scary uncertainty of imprisonment by person or persons unknown and act like nothing unusual had happened. Only Geneva.

  FIFTEEN

  Miranda, well able to see and read the report and response glowing on the screen of the laptop on a nearby desk, waited until her husband returned to their bed before saying, “You didn’t tell them about Nellie.”

  Bishop slipped into the warm cocoon of covers and drew her close. “I think they both know she’s there.”

  “But not
who or what she is.”

  “Nellie isn’t even sure of that,” he responded.

  “You mean not yet.” Miranda felt her body fit itself to his as though to her other half, which he was, very glad that they had this time together. They worked hard to carve out time for themselves and managed, for the most part, but the SCU tended to have a heavy caseload, and even though the unit was still expanding as new members joined, and Haven existed now to aid in their investigations as well as plenty of their own, it was still more usual that she was out in the field leading one team while he was leading another. Sometimes with thousands of miles between them.

  But not tonight. Tonight, they had time for themselves. Still, their unit was very much a part of what they were, together and separately, so the teams working cases without them were always very much on their minds.

  “You’re expecting something to happen,” she said, not reading him even though their connection was open, thoughts and feelings flowing easily and familiarly between them.

  Just knowing him.

  “Nellie’s the catalyst,” he answered. “And she turns thirty in a week. They’re running out of time.” He stroked the warm, silky skin of her shoulder and back, the physical touch as important to their connection as the easy mental link.

  “It’s an . . . oddly exact deadline,” she mused. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it before. Custom, or fact?”

  “Custom made it fact.”

  Miranda lifted her head from his shoulder and smiled down at him, seeing his slightly amused expression even with no more than the dim firelight in the hearth beyond the foot of the bed to aid her. “Sometimes,” she said, “I can really understand how you madden some of our team members. And why Hollis calls you Yoda,” she added, referring to one of the more irreverent SCU team members.

  His soft laugh was a sound very few people ever heard. “Beloved, some puzzles just are. I don’t create them.”

  “No, but you revel in them.”

  “I like the Universe with mysteries still to be solved. If they can be.” He sobered. “Salem is one of those mysteries, quite likely a bigger one than we know. When all is said and done, I don’t know if we’ll understand much more than we do now. It’s hard to conceive of in this modern world, but some people and some places can be so isolated from the rest of our society that they almost . . . create their own reality.”