Hold Back the Dark

by Kay Hooper

  “Okay.” Her voice remained calm as well. “We’re real too. Nothing we do is magic. Nothing is beyond the realm of science or the limits of the human mind. We’ve just learned to use energy because we have the natural abilities to do that, and because we’ve spent years working to understand and use those abilities. To . . . home in on frequencies beyond the range of our normal hearing. To see further than most people, and see more sharply, even around the next corner sometimes. To focus our own energy and use it in very specific ways. Because these abilities are natural to us.”

  Archer made a slight, helpless gesture. “Okay. Fine. I don’t have to understand. If you can stop these killings, stop whoever or whatever is causing them, and get Prosperity back to normal, I don’t give a shit if you do use magic.”

  Chief Deputy Katie Cole came out onto the porch in time to hear that, holding a bagged pistol and looking a bit queasy. But all she said was, “Oh, good, you told him the rest.”

  “You should have,” Hollis said somewhat severely.

  “Didn’t know how.”

  Archer was staring at her, and Katie managed a rather weak smile. “Sorry, Jack.”

  “You too?”

  “Yeah, since I was a kid. That’s how I knew which unit in the FBI to call. I’d met Bishop a couple years ago, even considered joining his unit.” Her voice was casual, though the hazel eyes were watchful on her boss’s face. “I’m clairvoyant.”

  “Which means?”

  Hollis answered. “It means she knows things, picks up bits and pieces of information without really being able to explain how.”

  He frowned at his chief deputy. “Anonymous tips,” he said somewhat bitterly. “You always said they were anonymous tips.”

  “Sorry, Jack,” Katie repeated, then went on quickly. “The doc’s assistant had a print kit, so this has been printed; I think we’ll find only Weston’s prints on it, and that we’ll be able to match the registration number of the gun to Weston. So far, nobody’s tried to hide anything, so I don’t know why he would have used somebody else’s gun.”

  “Probably wouldn’t have,” Hollis agreed. “And that means, if it’s his gun, he brought it along today. I don’t think real estate agents normally show homes while armed.”

  “No,” Archer said almost absently.

  Hollis, aware that the sheriff’s entire world was in the process of being adjusted rather drastically, looked at him with sympathy as she said, “Which means someone or something told him to bring his gun. And I’m betting that someone or something was . . . whispering in his mind while he was showing the house. Telling him whatever it took to cause him to kill them. And then to forget he’d done it, or care about that or anything at all.”

  “Why?” Archer demanded. “I don’t have to understand how, maybe, but why?”

  “That’s one of the questions we have to answer,” Hollis told him. “And we’ve assembled a . . . unique team for this investigation. Galen stayed behind at the station to wait for the first two, arriving tonight. The rest will be coming in tomorrow. Four more.”

  Archer blinked. “Agent Bishop said there’d be more following you three, but didn’t say how many. Um . . . all psychics?”

  Hollis nodded. “With differing abilities and differing strengths and weaknesses. The idea is to complement each other, each supplying another tool or two for the toolbox. So we can cover all possible bases in terms of abilities.”

  She studied the sheriff and decided to keep things brisk and businesslike. No need to mention the energy . . . dome . . . which she had discovered was eerily visible to her even after dark: a faint reddish glow to the night sky, and softly hissing strands of energy moving high above them like lacy patterns of sheer electricity.

  More weird and crazy.

  No need to mention that. And no need, she hoped, to go into anything but the briefest details about the rest of her team.

  “The other members of the team,” she told him, explaining what they had decided would be cover for the non-SCU members, “have been attached to this investigation because their tools are needed. They’re members of our civilian sister organization, Haven.”

  “The FBI has one of those?”

  “The SCU has one of those.”

  He stared at her. “I’ve never heard of that.”

  “Most law enforcement officials haven’t until they have need of Haven’s investigators and operatives—or until we do. Haven operatives and SCU agents have worked together a lot. They’re all licensed investigators. And part of this team. They wouldn’t be if our unit chief wasn’t convinced they need to be here.”

  Archer might have said something else, but Jill came out of the house just then and joined them on the porch.

  “Preliminary report?” she said to the sheriff.

  “Yeah. Yeah, maybe it’ll help us.”

  “Help you to convict Weston, sure, assuming he’s fit to stand trial if any of this gets that far. Otherwise, not so much.”

  She had examined Elliot Weston briefly when she’d arrived, finding normal vitals and nothing else that had appeared out of the ordinary. Except, of course, for his smiling unconcern.

  Archer nodded. “Okay, got it. Your report?”

  “What you saw in there is what I expect to find in the posts. Two victims, each killed by a single gunshot from the weapon found on scene. No defensive wounds at all. No sign that they were anything but completely surprised and didn’t have time to run or even try to defend themselves.”

  Archer drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You think you’ll find the same with the other victims killed today, don’t you, Doc? That they were killed just as it looked like they were.”

  She nodded. “I’d rather not speculate too much until I get them all on the table, especially the apparent suicide victim I haven’t seen yet, but it all looked pretty clear to me at the Gardner house that the victims either were subdued by fairly lethal blows before they were mutilated and killed, or else—as seems the case with Mr. Gardner—were taken by surprise. No sign of defensive wounds.”

  Archer looked toward the end of the driveway behind the ME’s white van at the dark hearse parked there. They had never needed a coroner’s wagon in Prosperity, so one or the other of the local funeral homes generally transported bodies to the hospital morgue—or directly to their own, if victims had died naturally and there was no suspicion attached to their deaths.

  Which had virtually always been the case. Until today.

  The sheriff sighed. “A couple of my deputies will help load the bodies as soon as they’re in body bags. They’ll be taken to the hospital morgue, like the others.”

  Jill Easton nodded. “Good. Sheriff, the chances are I’ll only be able to get one of the posts done tonight. I’d like to start with the apparent suicide, since that was the first scene you were called to. I’ll get you that report ASAP, then start on the other posts first thing in the morning.”

  “Long day for you,” he murmured. “Today and tomorrow.”

  “I’m used to it.”

  Katie Cole spoke up then to say, “We’ve reserved rooms for you and your assistant at the largest hotel in town, the Jameson. It’s about halfway between the sheriff’s department and the hospital, just off Main Street. Very comfortable, good service and food.”

  “Thanks,” Jill said. “It’ll probably be midnight before we can get checked in, but I definitely want a good night’s sleep before tomorrow.”

  Katie nodded. “They have room service until midnight; if you think you’ll be later, call the front desk and they’ll be happy to leave meals in your rooms. Sandwiches, salads, soup—whatever will keep best if you’re delayed longer.”

  “Appreciate that.” Jill looked at the two feds. “Are you guys staying there?”

  Hollis nodded. “Bishop called ahead and arranged for us to have the entire top floor.
Since the team is larger than normal, we’ll need the space. Apparently, most of the rooms on that floor have connecting doors, plus there’s a comfortable lounge common space we can use if we need to.”

  “Thinks of everything, our Bishop, doesn’t he.” It wasn’t a question. Jill smiled faintly, then said to the sheriff, “You can send your deputies inside for the body bags in about five minutes, Sheriff.” She went back inside the house.

  “She knows Agent Bishop too?”

  Casual, Hollis said, “Bishop knows a lot of people, especially in and associated with law enforcement and support services. Jill was part of the last case Reese and I worked on, and Bishop joined us at one point.”

  “Does he often show up himself?”

  “No, not very. He’s a field unit chief, so he tends to be out working cases just like his teams are.”

  Nodding an acceptance of that without much interest, Archer looked at his watch and grimaced slightly. “Hardly later than suppertime. Christ, this has been the longest day of my life.” He rubbed his face with both hands wearily, then looked at Hollis and DeMarco. “We still don’t have much in the way of reports or evidence for your team to get started on tonight. I say we go back to the station long enough for me to meet the two team members arriving tonight, toss around a few ideas if anybody has ’em, and then we all should try to get some rest. I don’t know about you, but I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. Just going over autopsy reports takes a lot out of me.”

  “Same here,” Hollis murmured.

  He’s forgotten about the other potential killer you felt struggling.

  Yeah. But no need to remind him right now—he’s got enough on his mind. Especially since I can’t even point him in a specific direction toward that person, far less give him a name. Let’s find out what Victoria and Logan have sensed. If anything.

  Probably best.

  Oblivious of the mind talk, Archer said to the agents, “I’m assuming we keep Weston in a cell tonight. Should I call a doc to take a closer look at him?”

  “I sort of doubt any of your doctors would find much,” Hollis said. “But he needs to be kept under someone’s eye all the time; we should try talking to him again tomorrow. And, if you don’t mind, Sheriff, could you have the deputy with Leslie Gardner notify either you or one of us when she wakes up? Even if it’s the middle of the night? We’ll definitely need to talk to her.”

  He looked at her with mild curiosity. “What do you expect her to tell us, assuming she says anything at all?”

  Prompt, Hollis replied, “If anything at all, I expect some version of what we got from Elliot Weston. No memory of what happened to her family and no awareness that she did anything at all. I don’t see how she could have just gone to sleep otherwise. I think her own mind put her to sleep to protect her from the horror of what she’d done.”

  The sheriff winced. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Dammit. Okay. Gabby was due to rotate off shift hours ago; I’ll send somebody to relieve her.”

  “Sounds good. Meet you at the station,” Hollis said.

  Archer nodded again, following them far enough off the porch to beckon to two more of his deputies to come to the house.

  Hollis caught a slightly wary, slightly surprised glimpse from one of them as she and DeMarco walked past headed for their SUV, and murmured, “Feds holding hands. That’s what they’re thinking, right?”

  Calmly, her partner said, “One of them is thinking it must be nice to not have to pretend there’s no personal involvement between partners.”

  “I thought I was picking up a little envy from someone close.”

  “So you can sense emotions even through my shield?”

  “Just the people really nearby, I think. And probably not many of them. You know, we’ve never discussed whether our personal relationship will affect how we’re viewed and treated by any of the law enforcement people we’ll have to work with.”

  DeMarco opened the passenger door of the SUV and helped her in without releasing her hand. “Do you care?” he asked politely.

  Hollis grinned faintly. “Nope. The married couples in the SCU don’t seem to have any problem, so I don’t see why we would. Will. You’re planning on keeping me inside your shield all night, aren’t you?”

  “I am. You need whatever break I can give you from all this energy trapped with us, and you need to sleep tonight. You’ll have more than enough to deal with tomorrow.” He released her hand finally and went around to the driver’s-side door.

  The loss of physical contact, however brief, brought Hollis’s abilities back into sharp focus, and as DeMarco got behind the wheel, he both saw and felt that she was picking up something she did not like.

  “What?” He frowned slightly as he looked at her.

  “Don’t shield me for a minute,” she murmured, staring straight ahead. “I think . . . whoever was struggling is . . . terrified almost out of his mind. Maybe out of his mind. All I’m getting is a sort of desperate terror.”

  “Then maybe he can resist.”

  “I dunno, maybe.” She turned her head and looked at her partner. “I can tell you he’s not where he was before. Feels like he’s closer. And still moving. Let’s get back to the sheriff’s department. If something happens or has already happened, that’s probably where we should be.”

  “Agreed.” DeMarco started the SUV and put it in gear, only then reaching for his partner’s hand. “Between here and there, take a break.”

  “Do I have a choice?” she asked dryly.

  “No,” DeMarco said, and headed for the sheriff’s station.

  TEN

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8

  They found Galen, as expected, in the conference room at the sheriff’s department, seated at the far end of the big table, slumped and apparently sleepy as he watched the two other people sitting along one side of the table, Victoria Stark and Logan Alexander.

  As Hollis and DeMarco walked into the room—not holding hands any longer—they came in on what had apparently been a rather tense discussion.

  “All I’m saying,” Victoria told Logan, “is that maybe you need to try to see them.”

  “I don’t want to try,” Logan responded sharply. “All this energy in the air is bad enough without adding in spirits.”

  “Hey, guys,” Hollis said, rather glad that no deputies were near enough to overhear. Although she wasn’t at all sure the psychic abilities of her team wouldn’t be an open secret, among the deputies at least, very soon. They’d all learned in their everyday lives to hide or at least keep quiet about their abilities, her non-SCU team members, but they had never been called upon to work as a team, or work with law enforcement without giving away the details of how they acquired the information they did, and they didn’t have the experience the SCU agents had with a whole lot of strange and crazy.

  She and DeMarco sat down across from them, and Hollis smiled faintly at Logan’s stubborn expression. Her gaze turned to Victoria, who was looking a bit impatient but otherwise not giving away much.

  Without wasting time, Hollis asked both of them, “What are your impressions of the energy?”

  “I can barely feel it,” Victoria replied. “Sort of a tingle on the back of my neck, and I’m more tense than usual for me, but that’s pretty much it.”

  Hollis nodded. “About what I expected. Logan?”

  “What?”

  She laughed under her breath, undisturbed by his snapped response. “I gather you haven’t seen any spirits since getting here?”

  “No.” He eyed her, then added, “It’s been a nice break.”

  “I hear that. You can obviously feel the energy in this valley; could either of you see it on the drive here?”

  Victoria said, “Bishop asked us to stop at one of the overlooks when we could see the valley and find out if we could see what you did, but it looked
normal to me.”

  “Logan?”

  “Normal.”

  “Okay. What about now? What, exactly, are you feeling?”

  “Not much,” he answered. “Skin’s tingling a bit. And there’s pressure, I think. Faint.”

  “But no spirits.”

  “No spirits.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Hollis said, “but you always see spirits. Right?”

  “Yeah, since I was a kid.” He could remember the very first instance. He’d been three, and his grandmother had been smiling at him. Standing beside her open casket.

  “Everywhere you go? In a broad range of places and circumstances?”

  “Yeah.” He hesitated, then said, “Didn’t see any on the jet, which is usual, but there were some around the airport in San Francisco, also usual. And—that’s the last time I saw any. None at the airstrip near Bishop’s base, and none at the house. None along the drive here. None here.”

  “Have you gotten any sense at all of spiritual energy?”

  Logan frowned. “I generally don’t. I mean—I don’t really differentiate when it comes to energy.”

  “How do you know you’re looking at a spirit and not a living person?”

  “I just know. Look, Bishop wanted me to learn about some of this shit, but I wasn’t all that interested because I didn’t believe it would make a difference for me. I see dead people. They talk to me. They follow me around. Usually they want me to do something for them.”

  “And do you?” Hollis asked.

  “Sometimes. If I can, which is pretty much limited to anonymously alerting officials of something or other.” He grimaced. “I’ve spent a hell of a lot of time over the years calling police departments all over the country to tell them where to find bodies. First using pay phones and nowadays using burners. Probably spent a fortune on the damned things. But the last thing I wanted was to get involved in some murder or missing-persons investigation just because a spirit told me where to find their bodies.”