by Kay Hooper
Marc said, “Jordan, I can think of at least three local businesses owned and operated by members of Reverend Butler’s church; let’s see if we can put together a list of the rest.” As his chief deputy nodded and left the room, he added, “Not that I see how any of this might help us track a killer.”
Quietly, Hollis said, “Well, here’s the thing. The church owns an awful lot of the seemingly abandoned warehouselike structures in Venture, yes. The church, in fact, owns lots of those kinds of buildings in other parishes around the country. In plenty of small towns probably like this one. And in quite a few cities. Portland, Kansas City, Cleveland, Baltimore, Knoxville.”
It was Paris who guessed “Boston?”
“Boston.”
The smell of bleach stung his nostrils, but he breathed it in deeply anyway. He liked the smell of bleach. It was clean.
He liked things to be clean.
His worktable had been scrubbed down, and after he poured the bleach onto the stainless-steel surface, he let it remain there for a while, thoroughly disinfecting, before rinsing it off.
In the meantime, he went to his trophy wall, studying the pictures, enjoying them. All the different candid shots, taken without their knowledge, as they went about their day.
Each individual board told the mundane story of a life.
Walking. Shopping. Getting the mail. Going to church. Pausing on the sidewalk to speak to a friend. Walking a dog. Kissing a husband. Working in a garden.
“This is your life,” he murmured, and chuckled.
Such ordinary, sad little lives they led.
Until he transformed them, of course.
First Becky. Then Karen. Then Shirley. All taken from their bland lives and transformed.
He knew they weren’t really Audrey.
He wasn’t crazy, after all.
They came into his hands someone else, someone boring and uninteresting. Someone the world would have failed to notice if not for his work. Nobodies.
He made them Somebody.
He made them Audrey.
Standing before the first board, he reached out and touched one of the two central images, an eight-by-ten he had taken himself, the record of all his preparations.
Becky as Audrey. Naked on his worktable, her dark hair glossy, her brown eyes staring into the camera’s lens, because he had turned her head just so before taking the picture.
Brown eyes filled with terror.
He savored that, the power swelling within him, his body stirring, hardening. He unzipped his pants and freed himself but kept his gaze on the photos.
The other central image was the final shot of Becky as Audrey, when he had finished his work. He touched that lightly, his index finger slowly stroking the image of her, all laid open on his table, her breasts and sex removed and her torso slit from throat to crotch, the cold fluorescent lights above making her exposed organs glisten.
Her eyes were closed for the final shot.
He always closed them for that, because while he enjoyed dying eyes, dead eyes bothered him.
Haunted him—or would, if he let them. But he didn’t believe in ghosts. Didn’t believe in an afterlife. That’s why he worked so hard to make this life fit him, because every moment, every second, had to count.
He stroked the picture a moment longer, feeling himself hardening even more, then moved to the second of his trophy boards.
Karen as Audrey. Same pose, same terrified brown eyes staring into the camera’s lens.
And the same growing sense of power inside himself, the feeling that he could do anything, bend anyone to his will.
Anyone.
The knowledge, the certainty of his own invincibility caught at his breath with its strength. He was so hard he ached but exercised his self-control by touching only the record of his work, not himself.
He touched each of the two central photos, stroked them, savored them. The throbbing of his power spread throughout his body, pounded in his ears, and he could hear his breath coming fast now, not quite panting. His vision began to blur, but he forced himself to move on to the third board.
Shirley as Audrey.
Hers was the most complete transformation yet, and he spent long moments stroking the images, remembering every action, every detail of the process.
“Almost perfect,” he whispered.
He took a step back but then leaned forward and braced his hands on either side of the board, his gaze fixed on the central photos, refusing to touch himself. His rigid legs were trembling, and his hips wanted, needed, to thrust, to pound, but he forced himself to remain utterly still. His eyes completely lost focus, his breath rasped, but he was otherwise silent as the memories of Shirley/Audrey’s final moments made his hard flesh throb and twitch and finally empty itself in spasms of pleasure.
Teeth gritted, he rode out the waves of release without making a sound. Not because he had to, but because he could.
He was Power, and he could do anything.
The Prophecy said so.
Dani—
“Dani, are you ready to—” Marc broke off, staring at her with a frown. “What is it?”
She pushed herself up from her seat at the conference table. “Nothing. My mind must have wandered. Did Paris and Jordan report back in?”
“Yeah.” He was still frowning. “So far they’ve managed to quietly talk to two of Karen Norvell’s fellow tellers from the bank. Only one says she remembers actually seeing a man with a camera last summer, maybe taking pictures of Karen, but she doesn’t remember what he looked like. Paris said both women are worried that they didn’t take what they thought they knew seriously, that they didn’t report it to someone. Guilt, of course. Jordan said it was pretty obvious they were afraid Karen’s dead.”
Absently, Dani said, “Smart to interview them at home rather than at the bank. But you know the news is bound to break by Monday, don’t you? I mean, break publicly in a big way.”
He nodded. “We’ve been damn lucky, but with every Venture citizen we talk to, we knock a few minutes off the clock.”
“We can only do what we can do. So where’s Hollis? Aren’t we off to see the reverend?”
“She’s in the bullpen talking to one of my deputies who has in-laws in the congregation of the church. We figured a little inside information couldn’t hurt. Dani, what is it you’ve been trying very hard not to tell me all day?”
Paris was right; he read her all too easily.
“It’s probably just my imagination.”
“The voice? His voice?”
“It’s an exaggeration to call it a voice, at least now. A faint echo of a whisper.”
“Because you’re able to shut him out?”
“I wish I could say yes.” Dani shrugged. “But I’ve only been taught the bare bones of shielding, and since I never needed it, I haven’t really practiced. No, I don’t think it’s anything I’m doing.”
“Which is bothering you more than anything else.”
“Well, yeah. I should be able to shut out psychic contact from someone else. If that’s what this is. Dammit, I just don’t—”
Marc put his hands on her shoulders. “Dani. Why do you keep trying to carry all this alone? You aren’t Cassandra, but if there’s a war coming, you sure as hell can’t stop it alone. Let us help. Let me help.”
She stared up at him, very aware of his hands, aware of the connection with him that she had tried her best to block ever since that other voice had pushed its way in. Because she didn’t want Marc to sense or feel that, not that cold, implacable, evil voice, not in her—even if it wasn’t her.
Especially if it wasn’t her.
Instinctively, she tried to close off a bit more of herself. “You are helping. One step out of this building, and I’m practically surrounded by your deputies.”
“That’s an exaggeration. And not what I meant, as you damn well know.” He sounded frustrated, and his frown deepened.
“The best thing you can do for me,” sh
e said deliberately, “is to keep looking for this killer. And Reverend Butler is a possible lead, right? So let’s go. If that was thunder I just heard, we may be in for a storm.”
She hoped she was speaking literally and hoped it would only be the weather that would turn violent.
His fingers tightened, and for at least a minute Dani wasn’t sure if he was going to let this drop—for now, anyway. But finally he said in a match of the even, deliberate tone she had used, “You of all people should know that none of us can get through this life alone. When you’re ready, I’m here, Dani. I always have been.”
He released her shoulders and turned away. Dani followed him from the conference room, wishing she didn’t feel so strongly that she had just made an awful mistake.
The Reverend Jedidiah Butler was an imposing man, at least in his own mind. To the rest of the world outside his admiring congregation, he was rather average in size and build, could have been any age between forty and sixty, and possessed as his single distinguishing feature a shock of silver hair.
He didn’t even boast the sort of booming voice common among Southern preachers, but instead spoke to Marc in the slightly nasal tone of someone with bad allergies.
“Sheriff, I don’t understand this visit. As I explained to the town council, I haven’t the means to—”
Marc waved that away before the usual rant could get good and started. Thunder was rolling all around, and since they hadn’t been invited inside, he wanted to get this interview over before the storm finally broke.
At least, he hoped it would break. They needed rain in the worst way.
“I’m not here because of the council’s concerns, Reverend.” He glanced at Dani, saw the almost imperceptible shake of her head, and bit back a sigh.
Well, it had been worth a try, he thought. But even without the benefit of Dani’s vision, his own judgment told him this onetime grain-storage facility was unlikely to be the “warehouse” she had seen in her dreams. For one thing, the silo was still standing, and even with that the building was by no stretch of the imagination “huge.” It was, however, in need of serious repairs and smelled strongly of chickens.
Besides, having shaken hands with the good reverend on more than one occasion, Marc already knew the man lacked psychic ability or, indeed, any level of perception even as high as simple intuition.
“Then why are you here?” Reverend Butler demanded. “Is it about those murdered women?”
Marc stared at him, not as surprised as he wished he could be, especially after talking to Miss Patty. It was a bit difficult to read anything sinister or even suspicious in a local preacher’s knowledge when the local florist shared it. He mentally knocked a few more minutes off the clock in terms of when he could expect the media to descend on Venture.
It was Hollis who stepped forward, offering her I.D. folder and badge for the preacher to see. “What do you know about that, Reverend?” she asked pleasantly.
He studied her I.D. for a long moment, then answered with a show of exaggerated patience. “Everybody knows about the murders, Agent Templeton. But out of respect for the families, of course we’ve kept our distance and our silence. Especially as you and the sheriff haven’t seen fit to positively identify the victims.”
Marc stopped himself from going on the defensive, though it wasn’t easy. “Lab results take time,” he said.
“Yes, one of my congregants was the gardener out at the Blanton place. He found the…remains.”
Marc and Hollis exchanged glances, but all the sheriff said was “Information he was ordered to keep to himself.”
“He came to me in confidence, Sheriff, as any troubled soul would.” Butler shrugged. “But, as I said, the situation was already being discussed.”
Hollis’s voice was not quite light when she said, “Just as long as there are no lynch mobs forming up.”
“We’re God-fearing people, Agent Templeton. Even if we had some idea who this evil killer is—and I assure you we do not—we would never take it upon ourselves to hunt him, far less punish him. That is for the law, and the courts, and God to do.”
It was a nice little speech. Dani wondered why she didn’t believe it.
Because she was a cynic, probably.
Or maybe it was something else.
She tried to concentrate on the possible something else, not really listening as Marc asked Butler a few routine questions about whether he’d seen or heard anything suspicious during the last few weeks. Instead, against her better judgment, she realized she was listening for that voice again.
His voice.
Because with every second that passed, she became more uneasy, more uncomfortable. She was acutely aware of the urge to look back over her shoulder, behind her, but when she looked she saw nothing but the countryside she recognized.
So what was it she was feeling? Sensing?
The fine hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight up, her hands felt cold, and there was a leaden queasiness in the pit of her stomach. Yet when she looked at Butler, at her surroundings, nothing about him or them seemed responsible for what she felt.
Thunder rumbled louder now, rolling around as it did in the mountains so that it seemed to circle them, and she wondered if that was it. Could it be? She had never been as sensitive to storms as many psychics were, to the point of discomfort, but they did tend to affect—enhance, strengthen?—her normal senses.
So maybe that was all it was. Still, she knew she was trying to listen for something beyond her normal senses and honestly didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that she could hear no faintest hint or echo of the whisper that so terrified her.
“Dani?”
She blinked at Marc, then scrambled mentally as she realized the reverend had already turned to go back inside his church and that Marc and Hollis were both looking at her with raised brows.
“Sorry.” She got back into the front passenger seat of Marc’s car, hoping she hadn’t missed anything important.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
“Fine. My mind just wandered, that’s all.” She was still listening for that voice but at the same time was aware that what she was feeling physically was very familiar. Pressure. Like in the dream walk. Could that be from the approaching storm?
She reached up surreptitiously to touch her nose, a little surprised to find no blood there. Because the pressure was increasing, and she had to fight the urge to move, to try to somehow get out of the way of whatever it was that was pushing at her, pressing against her.
Nothing. There’s nothing. Just the storm coming. Just my imagination.
Marc looked at her a moment longer, frowning, then started the car and began to maneuver it down the long, rutted “driveway” that wound through a mile of countryside to the old storage facility.
From the backseat, Hollis said, “I hate storms. But maybe that’s why. Because I’ve never been able to see auras before.”
18
DANI TURNED IN her seat, noting as she did that Marc shot a quick glance at the rearview mirror so he could see the agent’s face. A face that was, Dani saw, just a little strained and far more pale than was normal for her.
“I gather that wasn’t the non sequitur it sounded like?” Dani said.
Hollis was looking at Dani. Or, rather, her gaze seemed to be probing the space about a foot out from Dani’s body.
“No. It wasn’t a non sequitur. It was…completely on topic.”
“Which topic?” Marc demanded.
“On the topic of monsters.”
Dani forced a laugh. “Who, me?”
“No.” Hollis met Dani’s eyes finally, her own holding a weirdly flat shine. “Dani, can you shield?”
“A little. Not much, but—”
“Do it. Now. Concentrate.”
Dani obeyed without hesitation, closing her eyes and doing her best one more time to remember how she’d been taught to wrap herself in a protective blanket of her own energy. It didn�
��t seem to be getting any easier.
Through gritted teeth, Marc said to Hollis, “What the hell do you see?”
“Something I’ve never seen before.” Hollis’s voice was low, tense. “But I believe…it’s not a normal aura. It’s an attack of some kind. Someone or something is trying to get at Dani. Marc—”
He didn’t wait for whatever Hollis had been about to say but instantly reached over with one hand and covered both of Dani’s cold and tightly clenched ones, holding on even when he felt a jolt, even when she cried out in such pain that it broke something inside him.
Without another sound, Dani went limp.
Dani looked around, puzzled for a moment because there was nothing but darkness as far as she could see, and silence, and she had the feeling she was alone here. Perhaps it should have frightened her, but oddly it did not.
She couldn’t feel a floor or ground beneath her feet. She couldn’t, actually, feel her feet, and when she looked down she couldn’t see them, because her body just sort of dissolved into darkness.
That probably should have scared her too.
It probably should have scared her a lot.
“No, you were always more comfortable with this sort of thing than I was,” Paris said as she mostly emerged out of the darkness in front of Dani.
“I’m the one who tried to run away from it,” Dani pointed out, not as distracted as she should have been by the fact that Paris seemed to have a body only from the navel up.
“It was the stuff out there you were running away from, the stuff you couldn’t control. People, relationships. Emotional stuff. The psychic stuff was always easier for you.”
“I can’t control this.”
“Oh, of course you can. You always could.”
“Bullshit.”
“To paraphrase what you said to Marc, that’ll fix things—a good, resounding bullshit.”
“I didn’t tell you what I said to Marc.”