by Кей Хупер
Ethan rose as well but eyed her in sudden concern. "You sure you're up to this? If you don't mind me saying so, you're looking a little fragile."
So much for her ability to hide some things.
Nell smiled. "I've started going through the house, sorting and cleaning, and it's something a lot like work. But I'm okay. Let me lock up the house, and then we can go."
She made a couple of very quick calls while she was inside, but didn't linger. Ethan waited for her on the porch, and when she rejoined him a few minutes later, she said, "I'm assuming you don't want it known you came to the local witch for help."
"Is that a question?"
"No. I'm just wondering if it was wise to bring along a deputy."
"I can trust Steve Critcher to keep his mouth shut, or else I never would have brought him along."
"Oh. I thought you might have brought him along to make sure nobody seeing us together could get the idea your interest in me was personal. You're sort of between a rock and a hard place, aren't you? If anybody sees us together, that is. Either they think their sheriff has gone to the local witch for a bit of psychic help in solving these murders, or else they believe they're seeing a fascinating little romantic triangle."
Ethan scowled at her. "And you're so sure I give a shit what people think?"
"People? No. Max — yes. I think that at the end of the day, Max is the last man in the world you want to take on when it really matters. Which is exactly the same way he feels about you."
Ethan stared at her, cleared his throat, and very carefully said, "I've questioned him about these murders, you know."
"I know. I also know you've never seriously suspected him. When are you going to make peace with him, Ethan? Don't you think it's long past time?"
"I think this is something we don't need to talk about right now." Deliberately, he added, "Maybe we'll have time for it later."
"Maybe we will," Nell agreed with a faint, rueful smile.
Galen watched the sheriff's cruiser pull out of Nell's driveway, and said into the phone, "The problem with this whole thing is that there are too many threads we have to weave into place."
"I've noticed that. Any sign of our watcher?"
"Just the thing with the doll. Which, God knows, is creepy enough to keep all of us awake from now on."
"I'll second that. And Nell's beginning to believe it might be Hailey?"
"Well, it makes sense, especially if we admit the possibility she could have inherited the family curse, after all. She's connected to two of the victims for sure, plus Adam Gallagher. If Nell can link her up with Lynch and Caldwell…" He sighed. "I checked in with Bishop. He's not backing off the profile."
"Backing off is hardly his style."
"Agreed. Neither is being wrong. But if Hailey is the one we're looking for —"
"Then he's wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Won't be the last."
"And here I was thinking he was Super Fed."
"Say that to his face."
Galen grinned, even though he wasn't feeling particularly amused. "Not on your life. Or, more to the point, on mine. Listen, Nell acted very calm about this doll thing, but I think she's seriously freaked by it. She looked like death this morning, and what we found out at her grandmother's place sure as hell didn't improve the situation."
"Did she tell the sheriff?"
"Not yet. I think she means to take him out there later and show him. Maybe Tanner too. I guess she figures it'll explain a few things."
"Doesn't it?"
"Well, it ties up some loose ends in the past. But the present? Damned if I know." He paused. "You said last night there'd be another murder. Anything on that?"
"Officially, no. Not a whisper I've heard anywhere in town."
"But?"
"But I think it happened sometime during the night."
"You don't know who? Where?"
"No. And since it's Saturday, we can't count on the victim being reported missing because he didn't show up for work. If he lived alone… it may be some time before the body is found."
"Shit."
"I'll let you know if I find out anything. In the meantime, keep a close watch on Nell. Aside from everything else, Sheriff Cole is a long way from being in the clear."
"We need to figure out where he stands, and pronto."
"Agreed. If you have any suggestions —"
Galen sighed. "No. Nell seems to think if she spends some time with him she'll know. I'm not so sure. She isn't a telepath, after all. Or a clairvoyant."
"No, but she is able to get a sense of things, of people. Maybe it'll be enough."
"Want to bet her life on that?"
"No. But we may have to."
The Lynch home was an older house that sprawled a bit on its five-acre lot, somewhat isolated in a neighborhood where cultivated fields and pastures tended to separate houses. So as far as Nell could tell, no one in the area took any notice when the sheriff's cruiser pulled up in the drive.
Leaving his silent deputy leaning against the cruiser, Ethan led the way to the front door. "Just what is it you do?" he asked as he unlocked it. "I mean, if you don't have a crystal ball."
Nell gave him an abbreviated explanation of how she was able to tap into the energy of a place, and she was hardly surprised when he looked disbelieving.
But all he said was, "And that's going to help me… how?"
"I might be able to tell you what happened in this house." Nell shrugged. "It's the most intense events I tend to tap into, so if there was any violence here, any threat, that's what I'm likely to see."
"This wasn't a violent murder."
"No, but according to what I've heard, you guys believe poison was put into Lynch's vitamins, right?"
"There is way too much gossip in this town," Ethan muttered half under his breath.
"Not much fun when it works against you, is it?" Without giving him a chance to answer, she added, "The poison had to be put into the bottles, which means the killer might have been here in the house.
Planning a murder is a fairly intense experience even without the actual killing."
As they stepped into the foyer, Ethan eyed her with lifted brows. "You spend a lot of time tapping into murders?"
Silently berating herself for slipping up, Nell replied calmly, "It's a bad world. Amazing how many places hold the memories of bad things happening."
It was Ethan's turn to shrug. "Okay. I guess you want to wander around, maybe touch things. Check out the vibes."
"The vibes?"
"I asked you not to give me a hard time about this."
Nell smiled, but as she walked into the living room and began looking around, she said, "Actually, I don't have to touch anything. Where did he die?"
"Master bedroom, upstairs."
"Was he alone when he died?"
"Yeah. Terrie had left earlier for an appointment in town. Peter's usual routine was to down some kind of breakfast drink with his vitamins, make a few calls from the home office across the hall, then work out for an hour or so in the exercise room off the master bedroom. He was in workout clothes when his body was found. Looked like he had been on his way to shower afterward when his heart gave out."
"Not all that uncommon, I guess. A man his age to have a heart attack after exercising."
"So the doc said. We were satisfied. Until Terrie had a fit and demanded an autopsy."
"Which turned up evidence of poison."
"Yeah. And by then we didn't exactly have what you'd call an uncontaminated crime scene. But we searched the place anyway. And I guess you heard what we found hidden in his closet."
"Porn."
"Very sick pom. Also evidence of the very young mistress he kept in New Orleans."
Without emotion, Nell asked, "Any signs of other abnormal… tastes?"
"Just the pedophilia," Ethan replied dryly. He was about to add that he considered that quite enough abnormality for one man when he saw Nell's face change almost imperceptibly. She
turned her head slightly, looking toward the front of the house with what Ethan read as uneasiness in her eyes.
Thinking she might be having one of those visions, he said, "What? Do you see something?"
"Not yet." She sighed, and when she met his eyes her own were definitely uneasy. "Better tell your deputy to let Max come in. He's not likely to stay outside willingly."
Ethan's surprise was brief. "I didn't hear his truck. You sure he's outside?"
"Just turning into the drive."
"A vision?"
"No."
Ethan decided not to try and figure that one out. "So he really is playing watchdog, huh? Or is it because you're with me?"
"Six of one and half a dozen of the other, I'd say."
Ethan couldn't tell how she felt about that. He wasn't sure how he felt about it either. "Okay. And I'm supposed to let him tag along during an official investigation?"
Nell sighed again. "Look, the last thing I want to do is worsen the tension between you two, but we both know how stubborn Max can be. He knows I'll be trying to use my abilities here, and he knows I pay a price for that, so short of arresting him you are not going to be able to keep him out of this."
"Price? What kind of price?"
Nell kept it simple. "Headaches, blackouts. It takes a lot of energy, Ethan, and sometimes my body rebels. Max knows that. He… worries." She shook her head. "It's my risk to take, and I want to help if I can. As for Max sticking close, that's something you don't have to like, but you do have a murder investigation very much at the top of your priority list, so I think we can all be grown-ups about it. Don't you?"
"Think that'll work on Max?"
"It will if you tell your deputy to let him pass before he's stopped at the door and loses his temper."
After a moment, Ethan nodded and reached for the radio clipped to his belt. He issued a brief order to Deputy Critcher to allow Max into the house, then turned the volume back down so they wouldn't be disturbed by radio calls but he could hear it if any were directed specifically at him.
"Thanks," Nell said.
Ethan grunted. "I should have known you'd call him. It was when you went back into the house, right?"
Nell hesitated for only an instant. "I didn't call him."
"Then how did he know we were here? Christ, don't tell me he's watching you that closely?"
She was spared having to answer when they heard the front door open, and a moment later Max came into the living room. Nell knew at once from his guarded but calm expression that Max had made up his mind to keep his temper under control and avoid any confrontation with Ethan, which eased her mind at least a bit.
The last thing she needed was these two at each other's throats.
In lieu of a greeting, she said to Max, "I thought I might be able to offer something useful to Ethan's murder investigation."
Ethan lifted a brow at her in silent appreciation but didn't comment on her version of who called whom for help.
And all Max said, with a brief nod to Ethan, was, "Anything so far?"
"We hadn't had time to get started. Ethan, you said he died upstairs?"
"In the master bedroom."
"Lead the way," Nell said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Nell wasn't sure she would be able to tap into anything at all with both Ethan and Max so near, the tension between them unexpressed but obvious. And even without that, given her druthers she would have avoided trying to use her abilities again so soon after the trauma of this morning's vision. But she was more conscious than ever of time ticking away, and she knew she couldn't afford to wait.
"So how does this work?" Ethan asked when they had reached the airy, light-filled master bedroom.
Nell stood in the center near the foot of the bed, looking around, and answered absently, "I concentrate and try to tap into whatever energies and memories this room might hold."
"And we stand very still and don't bother you?" She looked at him and smiled. "Something like that." Max said, "Are you sure you're up to this, Nell?"
"I'm fine." She didn't give him a chance to question further or protest, but simply closed her eyes and began to concentrate, forcing herself to drop her shields and open herself up, to begin to reach out.
Since Peter Lynch had died in this room more than eight months before, and since his death had been sudden and apparently without warning, Nell really didn't expect to pick up much from that event. She had discovered that she seldom saw anything of an actual death scene, a fact that both relieved and puzzled her.
But she often got something of the minutes before or after, depending on the violence or intensity of emotion involved, and since she was concentrating as specifically as she could on Peter Lynch and his death, she expected to see something of that.
Instead…
It was initially difficult to reach out, as if she had to push her way through something, and she was dimly aware of using more energy or energy of a different kind to do that. Finally, she felt that distinctive time-out-of-sync sensation, but veiled again, oddly distant, and she was uneasy about that even before she opened her eyes and found herself in a different room entirely, a living room.
A completely unfamiliar room.
Nell looked around, trying to figure out where she was as well as find something to mark time, something to tell her when this was. An open magazine lay facedown on the coffee table, and when she stepped closer, she saw that it was dated January of the previous year. Most people read magazines the month they arrived, didn't they?
She stood looking around, uneasy. Where was she? And why was she here? What she saw was definitely a vision: The edges were blurred, softened, her attention as always directed to the center. But there was something peculiar about it, about the sensations of it, so much so that Nell felt a chill of real fear. Her first instinct was to try and fight her way out of the vision, but both an innate curiosity and an even deeper need to understand the limits of her own abilities made her hesitate. And in that moment of hesitation, she saw Hailey stalk into the room, obviously upset.
Ethan was right behind her.
"What, I'm not supposed to be pissed about it?" he demanded, grabbing her arm and swinging her around to face him just as they came abreast of Nell.
"No, you're not. You have no right, Ethan, and we both know it."
"No right? I've been in your bed for two months — that doesn't give me the right to get just a mite upset when I find out you've also been sleeping with Peter Lynch?"
"I told you, it's none of your business. We don't have a relationship, Ethan, we fuck." She pronounced the harsh word with complete deliberation, even enjoyment. "Period. You have fun, I have fun, that's it. No strings, expectations, or obligations on either side."
Ethan didn't seem to be buying that; his face was tight, eyes grim. "Not even respect, huh?"
Hailey laughed, and the smile she gave him was incredulous. "Respect? What does respect have to do with anything we do together? If we did it outside in the dirt instead of in a bed, we wouldn't be the slightest bit different from two stray dogs meeting up when one of them's in heat."
"So which one of us was in heat?" he asked roughly. "Which one just had an itch that needed scratching?"
Hailey laughed and jerked her arm free of his grasp.
"Me, of course. I'm always in heat, didn't you know? Hadn't you heard? Jesus, Ethan, don't try to pretend you weren't convinced I was a whore long before you came on to me. And what about the scars left by a whip on my back? The cigarette burns? You never even asked about those, did you? Because it's just what you expected to find when you got my clothes off, isn't it?"
"Hailey —"
"Whores are always marked, aren't they, Ethan? Not with a scarlet A, maybe, but we're always marked. So men like you won't feel guilty kicking us out of your beds before dawn."
"Goddammit, I never asked you to leave. Never."
"You didn't have to ask. I knew what you wanted. I always know what men want." She
began to turn away from him abruptly, obviously on the point of storming out of the apartment — but then froze.
Nell found herself staring into the widening eyes of her sister and had the sudden, terrifying knowledge that Hailey saw her. That she was actually, physically there, in the past.
No longer just a witness.
"Some detective I am," Justin muttered. "I don't even have a clue what I'm supposed to be looking for."
However reluctantly, Shelby had to agree with him, at least about their fruitless search. "Lots of births in this parish in the last forty years. Listen, are you sure there was nothing in George's desk at the bank to explain why he was so interested in these old records?"
Justin leaned forward to drop several pages of birth listings onto the stack on the coffee table, then stretched absently. "There was nothing I could see. Christ, look at the time. Didn't we just have breakfast?"
Shelby heard her stomach rumble and grinned at him. "My stomach says the donuts were hours ago. Why don't we really give the gossips something to talk about and go to the cafe for lunch?"
"Aren't you tired? We've been poring over these damned records for more hours than I want to think about."
"I'm a natural night owl, and it's not so unusual for me to skip a night's sleep if I get involved in something." She shrugged. "Anyway, since tomorrow's Sunday, we can both sleep as late as we want, so what the hell. You did say this is your weekend off, right?"
"Officially. Sheriff Cole has us all working overtime, but he's insisted everybody gets at least one weekend a month off the clock, and this one's mine. So unless another body turns up, nobody'll expect to see me at the office."
"Do you want to go home and crash? Or lunch at the cafe? Maybe we can figure out a way to find some clue as to what George was looking for in these birth records."
Justin had his doubts, but he was also enjoying Shelby's company and was far too wired to even think about sleep, so agreed that lunch sounded like a good idea.
It was fairly busy in town on this Saturday afternoon, but the lunch crowd at the cafe was already thinning out and they had no difficulty getting a somewhat secluded booth near the back.