by Kay Hooper
Except that day by day the pain grew stronger. Day by day the pain meds were less effective. Barely taking the edge off and not even that for very long. And by Monday he was waking several times in the night, trying not to disturb Stacey as he fumbled in his nightstand for the pain meds he’d stashed there.
By Tuesday afternoon, he was beginning to get worried about it. Because the pain was worse, because his irriration was edging into an uncharacteristic anger, and because sometimes when he looked around, there seemed to be a faint, red mist just at the periphery of his vision. And there was a whispery sound in his head. Not words, not that. Just a whispery sound.
Not words. He couldn’t hear words.
But he swallowed the pills and waited for them to take effect, promising himself that if his headache wasn’t really better by tomorrow, he’d go see the doctor. Just to put Stacey’s mind at rest that nothing bad was wrong.
That was what Sam Bowers told himself.
* * *
• • •
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7
Galen hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair to look at the others in the conference room. Along with Bishop, Miranda, and Tony, he’d been taking calls from SCU agents all over the country as well as a few currently working in other countries, and the legal pad on the desk in front of him was filled with his neat printing.
He noted the lull in what had been a very busy afternoon, with Bishop and Tony looking over notes they’d made on the calls they had taken (and, in Bishop’s case, at least a few calls he’d placed), and Miranda seated across from Galen at the other desk working intently on a laptop.
“So,” he said, “does anybody know what the hell’s going on?” He was a big man, dark, extremely powerful, with a hard but curiously impassive expression that rarely changed. “I’ve talked to a dozen agents with pounding headaches who also experienced a skin-crawling sensation and saw some kind of color effect they mostly described as ‘not normal.’ So far, none I’ve talked to has felt any compulsion to leave their current assignments or vacations, and nobody mentioned Prosperity.”
Absently, Tony said, “Maggie reported in from Haven that, so far, none of their operatives has been summoned. But most felt what the majority of our agents did, all the physical . . . symptoms.”
Haven was the unofficial civilian counterpart to the SCU, a private organization that had originally been the brainchild of Agent Quentin Hayes, one of the first group of psychics Bishop had recruited, after an incredible case in Seattle that had involved Quentin’s longtime billionaire friend John Garrett. Not a psychic himself, Garrett had married a rather amazing empath-healer involved in the same case, Maggie Barnes.
Haven had officially been co-founded by Bishop and the Garretts, the organization meant both to complement the SCU and to serve as a place where psychics unable or unwilling to cope with the rigors of being full-time FBI agents trained and functioned as private investigators. It was, by design, a calmer, more peaceful, and more laid-back organization than the FBI could ever be, offering highly flexible hours and jobs, to say nothing of a warm and welcoming home where many psychics, for the first time in their lives, didn’t feel like freaks.
Sited on more than five hundred acres of fairly remote land outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, the sprawling compound that was Haven boasted a huge central home and command center where both the Garretts and dozens of operatives could live in comfort, temporarily or for years, as some had. There were also numerous neat homes built near the main house, also for operatives and sometimes their families, plus for some of the technical and maintenance people necessary to keep such a large compound clean and operating at peak efficiency.
On the same acreage but not near the compound was a private airstrip, fully staffed, with a hangar large enough to house the three company jets plus two helicopters.
Haven had grown just as the SCU had, now boasting dozens of operatives trained and working cases all over the country, and dozens more learning about their own abilities as well as how to be effective investigators. Some made their home base in different cities across the map, while others lived or spent most of their off-duty time at the Haven compound.
John Garrett’s wealth and brilliant business mind kept Haven running, practically speaking, but it was Maggie Garrett, with her deep empathy and compassion, and her unique ability to heal wounds of the mind and soul as well as those of the body, who was without question the heart of Haven.
“Did she say any of their people experienced nothing?” Bishop asked, looking up from his notes.
Tony nodded. “Yeah, five so far. One operative is, like Kendra, pregnant. The other four are brand-new, not yet trained, and tested low on our scale in terms of how strong their abilities are.”
Slowly, Bishop said, “So far, with the exception of Hollis and Reese, all of those summoned are not members of the SCU.”
“And that means?” There was a frown in Galen’s voice, if not on his impassive face. He had experienced all the symptoms of something extraordinary, as most of the unit had, but had not felt anything beyond those, and certainly not anyone or anything calling him to go to Prosperity.
And he hadn’t needed to tell anyone in the room that being contacted in such a way, with all his walls up and likely stronger than they had ever been in his life, had disturbed him more than it had most of the other agents. He was a guarded man by nature, and after a fairly recent case in which his mind had been touched and even used without his awareness, he was extremely wary of anything similar happening again.
“At a guess, it could mean that whatever happens in Prosperity won’t be the sort of situation that drives law enforcement to invite us in officially,” Bishop replied.
“So no actual crime?”
“Could be. Or crimes that seem normal, crimes the locals believe they should be able to solve.”
“You and Miranda didn’t see anything that could answer at least that question?” Despite the rather impatient words, his tone could best be described as deceptively mild. Not that anyone in the room was deceived.
Bishop shook his head. “No, we saw nothing specific as far as actual events are concerned.”
“Then what did you see?” An edge had crept in.
Tony looked at Galen in faint surprise but didn’t comment or question the other agent’s uncharacteristic insistence. He just looked at Bishop and waited, curious.
“Nothing specific,” Bishop repeated, calm. “Except . . . evil. A doorway we have to keep closed. And seal.”
“A door someone or something is trying to open?” Galen asked.
“So it seems.”
“But not an enemy we know.”
“Not one we can put a name to. But likely a negative force we’ve encountered before.”
“Want to explain that?” Galen invited.
“At this point, all I know is what I feel, what Miranda and I felt during that vision. We’ve destroyed countless evil killers over the years. But only a handful were truly destroyed in a real sense, their negative energy transformed and dispersed.”
“So they exist. Their evil still exists.”
“As I said, it’s nothing we can point to specifically. More an emotional . . . certainty.”
“That somebody’s out to get even? Maybe a lot of somebodys?”
“It’s what we feel, Galen. That we . . . received . . . emotions is rare enough. The power of these . . . Whatever this enemy is, it’s something very old and very dark. And very determined. It’s pressing against the other side of that door. Trying to force it open.”
“To get at us?”
Bishop glanced at his wife. “That’s the way it feels.”
“But?
It was Miranda who answered that, her voice very steady. “What we felt was something gleeful. Playful. Destroying us may be the endgame, but this . . . thing . . . intends to have f
un. To manipulate people. To hurt people in ways most sane minds can’t even imagine.”
Tony muttered, “No wonder you both looked so shook.”
Galen said, “But not a crime? Not a killer?”
“It’s not what we saw, Galen.” Bishop remained calm—and was uncharacteristically willing to talk about that vision; normally he and Miranda said as little as possible, wary of doing anything that could make a bad situation worse. “No specifics, just emotions. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. In fact, it’s very likely to happen. If something dark, maybe negative energy, begins to exert an influence over the people in Prosperity, anything could happen.”
“Hell,” Tony murmured, “everything could happen.”
Bishop didn’t appear to find that statement overly dramatic. “Yeah, everything could. Including horrific crimes. We’ve seen monsters shaped like human beings. We’ve seen negative energy affect people and events, causing death and chaos. We’ve seen men able to manipulate negative energy who thought they were gods.” That last seemed to be very deliberate, and Bishop kept his gaze steadily on Galen.
After a moment, without looking away, Galen said, “I have to be there.”
“You weren’t summoned.”
“Doesn’t matter. I have to be there.”
“Why?” Bishop asked simply.
Entirely unwilling and not trying to hide it, Galen said, “It’s something I feel.”
Almost immediately, Bishop nodded. “Okay. Hope you brought your go bag.”
“I did.”
Bishop exchanged glances with his wife, who had looked up from her laptop to silently observe. She had been right; Galen was ready to come off official leave and rejoin the unit.
Do you think he’s really ready?
He obviously believes he is. We have to respect that, beloved.
Yes . . .
Out loud, Miranda merely said, “So far, I’m not finding anything on Prosperity except chamber of commerce stuff. Pretty little town with much to recommend it to passing tourists. No crime to speak of, so far, at least. Popular sheriff, well-trained deputies, well-funded police, fire, and other emergency services. They have a very good small hospital with quite a lot of state-of-the-art equipment and first-class doctors. A weekly newspaper still in print, with the online version updated daily. A radio station, but no local TV station.”
Galen asked, “Is anything unusual happening yet?”
“If it is, it’s being kept quiet. No law enforcement alerts, nothing unusual from the radio station, and the closest TV stations are all wrapped up in politics and their own local stories, including the usual sort of local crimes.”
Tony said, “We probably should have someone monitor social media.”
“We already have someone doing that at the mountain house,” Bishop said.
Though he hadn’t been there very many times, Tony was fairly certain that Bishop kept either permanent or semipermanent technical and maintenance people onsite at the mountain house, which was a remote but huge complex, dug into the mountain so that it was even more vast than it appeared, with an impressive command center that nonetheless was also a home that could probably house more than a couple dozen people indefinitely and in comfort. And though he’d never heard anyone say, he was also fairly certain that the house was privately owned by Bishop and Miranda, and that whatever went on there was not an official part of FBI functions.
He hadn’t asked before and didn’t ask now.
“What else are they doing?” Galen asked.
With a faint smile, Bishop said, “Working on official identity credentials for the six non-SCU people summoned.”
“Credentials?”
“They’ll officially be private investigators with Haven. On the books if anybody wants to check.”
Tony murmured, “All six? Add in Hollis, Reese, and Galen, and that’s nine investigators descending on a town that hasn’t asked for help. Yet.”
But Galen was clearly thinking along different lines. “I guess not even you could make them FBI agents with a wave of your hand.” It wasn’t a disrespectful tone, exactly, just a Galen tone.
Bishop’s faint smile remained. “No?”
Galen eyed him, a slight frown pulling his brows together.
Miranda intervened to say calmly, “We’ve set most everything in motion, pretty much all we can do from here. I say we get to the jet, fly up to Vermont to pick up Olivia Castle, then head for the mountain house tonight.”
Tony asked, “Do we pick up anyone else along the way?”
Bishop looked at him, clearly undisturbed by Galen’s continued frowning stare. “No. Reno Bellman has already headed west in the other jet to pick up Dalton Davenport, Logan Alexander, and Sully Maitland. I doubt they’ll reach the mountain house before late tomorrow.
“I spoke to Victoria Stark; she was already heading north, on the road leaving New Orleans. She’ll probably be at the airstrip near the mountain house by the time we land.”
Tony lifted an eyebrow. “Determined, stubborn, independent, or all of the above?”
“All of the above.” Before Tony could ask anything else, Bishop said, “We need you to stay here at Quantico, Tony. Quentin and Diana are on their way in. Isabel and Rafe. Possibly others as they wind up their investigations. Depending on how long this takes.”
“And what’re we supposed to do here?” Tony asked.
Bishop’s reply sobered him a lot more than he cared to admit.
“You’ll coordinate with us at the mountain house to begin forming a second line of defense. In case those summoned aren’t able to . . . hold the line.”
* * *
• • •
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7
It was still fall even in Kodiak, Alaska, but a chilly one, and the temperature had been dropping all day. Still, when Dalton Davenport wrenched open the front door of his small cottage in response to an imperative fist pounding on the wood, his breath was only slightly visible in the low light of the front porch fixture. It was dark, it was getting late, and Dalton was very clearly in no mood for visitors.
Even a visitor he knew. Maybe especially a visitor he knew.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snapped.
“Hello to you too, Dalton.” Serenely undisturbed by the greeting, Reno Bellman strolled in, pretty much forcing him to give way or be touched. And he hated to be touched. He all but slammed the door behind her and followed her into the small but comfortable den, whose best feature was a large picture window that overlooked the beautiful harbor far below, not much of which was visible currently except a number of twinkling lights.
Reno was a tall, willowy woman with shoulder-length black hair and exotic green eyes. Not conventionally beautiful, but completely unforgettable.
Dalton hadn’t seen her in two years.
“Well, if you’re going to get away from people, at least you found a nice view,” she commented, standing with her hands in the pockets of her light jacket as she faced the picture window. “At least, I assume the view would be nice if we could see it. The harbor, I think.”
“How did you find me?” he asked roughly.
“I found you two months after you bolted from Chicago.”
“I didn’t—”
“It wasn’t long after that last conversation in person with Bishop, as I recall. It apparently occurred to you that he was not about to give up on you. Maybe it even occurred to you that I wasn’t going to give up on you. So you bolted without a word. Or even a note left on the pillow.” Her voice remained serene. “For future reference, Dalton, should you ever need it, going to bed with a man and waking up without even a note is rough on a woman with even the strongest ego, especially when her bedmate flees the city.”
He couldn’t see her face. “Reno—”
“You bolted. To Alask
a, of all places. You do realize he knows exactly where you are, I hope? Those sat phones he gave us contain nice FBI-strength GPS trackers. And no matter how much you might want him to butt out of your life, you hang on to that phone like we all do. Just in case.”
“Never mind Bishop. Reno, what are you doing here?”
No expletives, she noted. Maybe he was mellowing. “Oh, just visiting.”
“Fuck that. You’re here for a reason and I damned well want to know what it is.”
Or maybe not.
She swung around to face him, a challenge in the tilt of her head. “Tell me you didn’t experience something very strange earlier today, and I’ll get back on that damned floatplane and be on my way back to the mainland and the far more comfortable jet waiting there for me.”
He scowled at her.
Reno decided he hadn’t changed much in two years, at least not physically. He was still too thin for his height of just under six feet, though his wide shoulders and strong bones made that fact less obvious than it might have been. His thick brown hair needed cutting as usual, and his hazel eyes, which still changed color according to his mood, were dark and angry under slash-straight, frowning eyebrows.
“Well?” she prompted.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he snapped.
She nodded. “Ah. So you did get the summons. Just guessing, but I’d say you got slammed by the worst headache of your life, saw some very weird and very bright colors, and heard voices or whispers, a whole lot of them, telling you that you have to go to Prosperity.”
“I,” he repeated grimly, “am not going anywhere.”
Pulling one hand from her pocket, Reno gestured with a thumb over one shoulder to a small desk in a corner of the den. “And that’s not a map of the southeastern US of A spread out on your desk. I take it you found Prosperity? A hitherto peaceful little mountain town in North Carolina?”
If an already-murderous glare could get worse, his did.
Reno wondered idly why she’d never been afraid of him. He was a very dangerous man, after all, far more so than even Bishop knew. Or, at least, she thought so. “Come on, Dalton, if you were curious enough to look for Prosperity, then you’re curious enough to at least wonder what it’s all about.”