Hold Back the Dark

by Kay Hooper

  NINE

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8

  The neat little house in its neat little planned development was lighted from top to bottom, and this time Archer had ordered crime scene tape surrounding the whole house and yard.

  Neighbors in the mostly full development remained in their own yards, but some had migrated toward fences with other neighbors, to talk, to exclaim, to wonder. And to stare toward the inexplicable.

  Inside the perimeter that only law enforcement and their acting medical examiner and her assistant had entered, a few uneasy deputies hovered here and there, staring at the lighted front porch where a murder suspect sat in a white wicker chair, hands cuffed but still smiling, a faintly inquiring expression on his pleasant face as he looked at the sheriff and two of the feds.

  Chief Deputy Katie Cole was inside the house with their acting medical examiner and her assistant.

  Archer had sat down in the neat wicker chair that was separated from the other one by a small table and which made up the attractively staged front porch.

  It seemed surreal to Archer. It was surreal.

  He looked at Hollis and DeMarco, both leaning back against the white-painted railing side by side, only a couple of feet from the chairs, studying the murder suspect with calm, thoughtful eyes.

  “He sold me my house,” Archer said to them, wondering vaguely if surreal was going to be his new normal.

  “And I know you’re happy with it,” real estate agent Elliot Weston said with his pleasant smile. “I’m very good at my job.”

  Archer drew a breath and tried again, as he’d already tried several times, to get the answers he needed and quite desperately wanted. “Elliot, why did you kill them?”

  “Kill who, Jack?” He looked puzzled.

  “The couple you were showing this house to. The couple lying dead on the kitchen floor, shot with what appears to be your own gun. Why did you kill them, Elliot?”

  Weston shook his head, clearly puzzled. “I don’t know why you’d say something like that, Jack. I’d never kill anybody. You know I’d never kill anybody.” His voice was mild, his eyes guileless.

  Trying a different tack, Archer asked, “Then what are you doing here, Elliot?”

  “Well, this house is one of my accounts. And I stopped by here on my way home just to make a few notes on my phone,” Weston explained, pausing a moment because he lifted a hand to gesture, perhaps even to produce the cell that Archer had earlier removed—along with everything else in his pockets—from his person. It was only then that he seemed aware of the handcuffs. “Why am I wearing handcuffs, Jack? Is this some kind of silly joke?”

  “Christ, I wish it were.” Archer looked at the agents. “You two haven’t said much.”

  Hollis frowned slightly as she looked at Weston. She kept her voice quiet as she said, “Well, he’s feeling pretty much the way he looks and acts. Calm and a little puzzled. But his aura . . .”

  Archer blinked. “His aura?”

  “Mmm. One of the tools in my toolbox. Everyone gives off an electromagnetic aura; some of us can see that. Tends to show me someone’s mood even if I can’t read them any other way. And whether they’re holding in too much emotion, too much energy. Or fighting off some kind of attack.”

  “Attack?” Archer really wanted this day to be over.

  “Energy, usually. The really odd thing is . . . he doesn’t have an aura.”

  “Sure?” her partner asked her, his voice quiet as well.

  “Yeah. The energy doesn’t seem to be interfering with that. I mean, I can see everybody else’s, so if he had one I should be able to see it. I don’t. And I haven’t a clue what that means.” She looked at DeMarco. “Are you getting anything?”

  “Same as you. He’s calm, he’s puzzled. Not really thinking about anything. In fact, his mind is almost completely blank, at least as far as surface thoughts go. He forgets about the cuffs until something draws his attention to them. And he has no idea what the sheriff is talking about. Even more, he doesn’t really care.”

  Archer looked at them a moment, then rose and gestured toward the nearest deputy. “Matt, you and Kayla take Mr. Weston back to the station. Don’t talk to him. Don’t ask him any questions. Just put him in a cell and keep an eye on him.”

  “A close eye,” DeMarco murmured. “I wouldn’t leave him alone, Sheriff. Not until we figure out what’s going on here.”

  Archer nodded to his deputies. “Somebody keep watch. Don’t leave him alone at all.”

  “Copy that, Sheriff.”

  Somewhat gingerly, Deputies Matt Spencer and Kayla Nelson each took an arm, helped Weston to his feet, and led him off toward their cruiser. He could be heard asking them if they could stop for coffee.

  Weston was smiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  When they were out of earshot, Archer stared at the feds, his gaze roaming from one to the other, finally settling on Hollis. “Auras? I know people give off energy, plants, all living things, but—you can see that? Colors around people’s bodies? And you’re seeing that around everybody else but not around Weston?”

  She nodded, utterly matter-of-fact. “And about what I’d expect. The colors all mean different things, different emotions. There are a lot of colors around everyone else I’ve seen today, and more now because everybody is tense, edgy, and feeling a lot.” She frowned again and rubbed the back of her neck suddenly. “I’m sensing those too. Neighbors are scared, your deputies are horrified, and—you don’t know quite what you’re feeling.”

  “Good guess.”

  Hollis offered him a faint, rueful smile. “Not a guess. We all have a primary ability; most of us have at least one more, and some of us more than one more. My primary ability is as a medium. And I can see auras. But I’m also an empath.”

  “You see dead people.” His voice was stony.

  “And talk to them.”

  “Empath. Empathy. You feel what other people feel?”

  “Yeah. New ability for me, so not really under control. Sometimes it takes us a while to adjust.” She rubbed the nape of her neck harder.

  Archer stared at her a moment, then looked at DeMarco. “And you?”

  “Telepath.”

  “So you read minds.”

  “Not all minds. None of us can control our abilities a hundred percent, and none of us can read every single individual we encounter. We’ve theorized, and science has pretty much backed us up on it, that each individual human mind has its own frequency, as unique as a fingerprint. Virtually all telepaths have a limited range. Think of it like a radio. I can pick up . . . stations . . . within a certain range of frequencies, but there are frequencies beyond my abilities to tune in.”

  “Can you—”

  “Yes, I can read you.” DeMarco didn’t offer more, just looked at his partner, a slight frown drawing his brows together. “If the effects of the energy don’t lessen at all even after dark, then more than one of us is likely to be affected with or without shields.”

  She stopped rubbing her neck and straightened, frowning up at him. “Well, I don’t feel the energy lessening, but not intensifying either, not the way it was before dark. Thing is, I’m not sure I could tell at this point, at least not unless the difference was really strong.”

  “Emotions getting in the way?”

  “Oh, yeah. And that crawly feeling all over, especially on the back of my neck, is worse. Distracting.” She drew a quick breath. “On top of everything else, I don’t think we’re done, even for the day. Something else is going to happen.”

  Archer, pushing aside the intense discomfort of even the possibility that his thoughts might well be an open book to one or both of the feds, spoke up then to say, “You can predict the future too?” He was a little surprised at the mildness of his voice, since he wanted to yell and break things.

  “No
, thank God,” she said with definite feeling. “It’s . . . I think it’s still the empathy. There are so many emotions it’s hard to sort through them, but . . . I can . . . feel somebody out there struggling. Fighting against whatever he’s being urged to do.”

  “Urged?” Archer managed.

  She stared at him. “Sam Bowers blew his brains out, leaving a note that said, ‘Just me, not them,’ as if arguing with someone who wanted him to kill the rest of his family too. Leslie Gardner slaughtered her entire family and then went to sleep and remains asleep; I’d say she lost the argument, and it might just have broken her mind. For good. Elliot Weston shot and killed two clients—and can’t seem to remember a thing about it. Or care at all. Please tell me you don’t believe things like that are just happening, randomly in a single day in your nice little town, without being driven by something external.”

  * * *

  • • •

  KIM LONNAGAN STUDIED her husband rather anxiously across the supper table. She hadn’t been a cop’s wife all that long, and in a normally peaceful little town like Prosperity the job wasn’t nearly as dangerous as it would have been somewhere else, so anything other than brief worry was somewhat alien to her. But this day had been unsettling and more than a little frightening.

  Talk had been flying ’round all day, carried by mail carriers and the checkout people at the grocery store and neighbors, and even if nobody was clear on details, it was definite that people had died today, died horribly.

  So Kim was worried and anxious, and not a little bit scared.

  Her husband’s preoccupied air and expression weren’t helping things.

  “Jim?”

  He looked at her, his normally clear gray eyes sort of . . . odd. Holding a kind of flat shine. For no reason she could have explained, a cold shiver rippled up Kim’s spine.

  “What is it?” he asked politely.

  “You’ve hardly touched your supper.” It was the only thing she could think to say, the only thing that seemed normal.

  He looked down at the plate of spaghetti, the crisp garlic bread, the nice salad on the side. Then looked back at his wife. “I’m sorry. You went to all this trouble. And it looks great. I’m just not that hungry right now. I’m sorry.”

  Kim had the scary feeling that he wasn’t really apologizing for not tasting his supper, or for the “trouble” she’d gone to fixing it for him. As she did every single night.

  “Jim, you don’t sound like yourself,” she said a bit unsteadily.

  He blinked, then smiled. “Do I sound like somebody else?” he asked in that odd, polite tone.

  “What?”

  “Do I sound like somebody else?” The flat shine that seemed a veil over his gray eyes increased. “Do I sound like your lover?”

  Kim literally felt the color drain from her face. Not from guilt, because she’d done nothing to feel guilty about. But because infidelity was something she was abnormally sensitive to; she’d watched her parents’ marriage break up because of her father’s chronic cheating. But not before they’d torn each other to emotional shreds and hurt their children dreadfully in all the turmoil.

  And Jim knew that.

  Finally, she managed to force words out, hearing them shaking. “Jim, I don’t have a lover except for you. I love you. I would never betray you like that. I couldn’t. You know I couldn’t.”

  His head tilted slightly, and though his strangely veiled gaze was fixed on her, he seemed to be listening to something else. “How could I know that?” he asked almost absently. “I’m at work all day. Sometimes all night. And you’re here alone.”

  “Jim—”

  “Alone. And so tempting. Tight jeans and a blouse I can almost see right through.”

  “Jim, sweetheart, listen to me.” She held her voice as steady as she possibly could. “I love you. I don’t want anybody else. I swear to you, I don’t want anybody else.”

  He didn’t seem to hear her. “I have to work tonight. I have to leave you alone. For hours and hours. But you won’t be alone, will you? Because I’ve seen them watching you. The men in the neighborhood. I’ve seen them. They want you.”

  “Jim, I would never cheat on you. You have to believe that.” It was just a whisper, all she could force through a throat clogged with fear and misery.

  He rose slowly from the table, almost as if every muscle hurt, and his distant gaze saw right through her. “I have to go to work,” he said. “But . . . I can’t leave you here alone, can I, Kim? I can’t trust you here alone.”

  She was on her feet as well, moving instinctively to put herself between the kitchen and his work gun belt and service weapon, lying on the living room coffee table. Even though there was a small gun safe on his nightstand for his service revolver, something required by his job, they didn’t have to be so careful with his other guns when it was just the two of them in the house, he had explained to her. Not yet. Not until they had kids.

  “Jim, you trust me. Just like I trust you. It’s so important to both of us, that trust. You know it is.”

  He moved around from his side of the small table, stopping less than an arm’s length away from her. “I don’t think I want to leave you here alone,” he said. “I don’t think I can trust you. Or them. The men all around, watching you with their lustful eyes.”

  It took all the courage Kim had not to back away from him, and her own fear of him hurt her. “No, Jim. None of them watch me. And I don’t care about them. I love you. I love you so much.”

  She had come home from afternoon errands full of horrified gossip and speculation.

  He had come home from his own afternoon errands with something unusual, with more guns, saying only that they couldn’t be too careful with all the craziness going on in Prosperity, that he planned to buy a big gun cabinet and keep it in the basement, safely locked. While she had gotten supper ready, he had spent nearly an hour in his den with the guns, saying he had to clean them.

  Kim had been only vaguely surprised then.

  Now she was terrified.

  “Jim—”

  He stared at her, his hands coming to rest lightly on her shoulders. “You love me?”

  “You know I do. More than anything.”

  His hands slid upward until they closed gently around her throat, and he smiled almost sadly. “I wish I believed that, Kim. I really wish I did.”

  * * *

  • • •

  ARCHER DREW A breath, trying to fight against the insanity of this. “External. Okay, I’ll buy that. Maybe it’s . . . some new kind of disease, making people crazy. Something that’s contaminated the water or the food supply. Something only some people are affected by. I could call the CDC, and—”

  Hollis cut him off. “And before they did anything else, they’d ask Jill and your local doctors about symptoms, and they’d be told that Leslie Gardner appears to be fine, normal bloodwork, just sleeping. That bloodwork on Sam Bowers came back normal. That Elliot Weston, when his bloodwork is done, will also appear perfectly normal. No drugs. No pathogens. No signs of any organic disease or infection.”

  She held her voice level. “It isn’t a disease, Sheriff. It isn’t something in the water or the food supply. The CDC is no more equipped to handle what’s happening here than you or your excellent deputies are. Because what’s happening here is nothing natural. Not even some new disease. What’s happening here is weird and crazy. And that’s our specialty. It would help a lot if you could believe that.”

  “I don’t know what I believe,” he said, holding his voice quiet with an effort that showed. “Just . . . tell me you and your team can do something about this.”

  “We’re going to do our best,” DeMarco said. Then he surprised Archer somewhat when he reached out and took his partner’s hand, holding it firmly.

  Hollis immediately looked less tense but frowned up at her pa
rtner. “You shouldn’t—”

  “I know it’ll interfere with what you can pick up, but you need a break,” he said. “And if whoever you’ve sensed is still struggling, maybe we have a little time.”

  “I’d hate to bet his life on that,” she said. “And the lives of whoever else he might be struggling not to kill.”

  “You still need the break,” DeMarco insisted. “This thing’s just getting started, and it’ll be a lot worse before it’s better. I’m betting you’re the one who’s going to hold the team together for the duration.”

  “Oh, shit, don’t say that.”

  “You know it’s true. You’re team leader.”

  “They don’t even know how to be a team.”

  “Which is why they need you. You can—forgive the term—empathize with most if not all of them because of your own abilities and experiences. I can’t even empathize with Dalton, even though he’s another telepath.”

  “I still think he may have the best defense of us all,” she said, then frowned and said, “or the most vulnerability. Just depends on how his rage is affected by all this damned energy. Bishop didn’t give him a gun, did he?”

  “Of course not. None of them will be armed until we have some idea of who might be affected and how. And possibly not even then.”

  “I’m worried about Reno. Her ability is wholly receptive, and unlike Sully she’s never needed a shield. She’s wide open. If all this energy is looking for vulnerable minds, it won’t find one in hers, I know that, but it’s bound to have some kind of effect on her. And it’s likely to be a negative effect.”

  Archer drew their attention, silently making a “time-out” gesture with both hands. His face was very calm.

  Hollis wasn’t tempted to laugh. “Sorry. I know it’s confusing,” she told the sheriff. “Baffling, crazy, unbelievable—whatever you want to call it. But it’s real. What’s happening here is real. You get that, right?”

  “I’ve got seven people dead since daybreak,” he said in a very, very steady voice. “One killer sleeping and another one who is clearly unaware he’s done anything wrong, much less shot two people to death in cold blood. Believe me, I know this is real.”