by Kay Hooper
Some protection he'd be, Alan thought.
“You,” Dana said to him, “are looking far too smug. What do you know that the rest of us don't?”
“Oh, come on, Dana. You think I want a Columbia TV station to scoop me?”
Her brows disappeared up under her bangs. “Scoop you? What old movies have you been watching?”
Refusing the bait, Alan merely said, “It'll be dark soon. I think if I were a blond TV reporter, I'd want to be inside. Behind a locked door. With a gun. Or at least some muscle.” He eyed the cameraman sardonically.
“I hear you have some muscle of your own,” she retorted. “Police muscle. Sleeping with a cop, Alan?”
“If I am, it's hardly newsworthy,” he said dryly, showing no outward sign of an inward flinch. Mallory was not going to like it if this news was common knowledge, dammit. “Unless your station prefers tabloid gossip over substantive news.”
“Don't sound so superior. You were the first print journalist to use the phrase serial killer, and however you intended it, it sounded gleeful and excited in your article.”
“It did not,” he found himself countering irritably.
“Go back and read it again.” She tucked an errant strand of blond hair behind her ear, smiled at him gently, and wandered off toward a magazine journalist here to research serial killers.
“Here you go, Alan.”
He jumped, and frowned at Paige Gilbert, who was holding out a tissue to him.
“Jesus, don't sneak up on people. And what's that?”
“I thought you might need it. For the spit in your eye.”
For just an instant, he was blank, but then he glanced after Dana and scowled as he looked back at the radio reporter. “Ha ha. She was just being all superior because she's a talking head on the six o'clock news.”
“Not today she wasn't,” Paige murmured.
“None of us has had much to report today,” he reminded her.
“True. But you might as well have canary feathers smeared all around your mouth. Come on, Alan, give it up. You know we'll find out sooner or later.”
Alan made a mental note to stop playing poker with Rafe and a few other of their friends; obviously, his serious lack of a poker face was why he had lost so much imaginary money to them.
“I'm done for the day,” he informed Paige. “And even though this is your first really big story, if you want some advice from a veteran, you should go home and get some sleep as well. You never know when you'll get that call that pulls you out of bed at two in the morning.”
Paige gazed after him, then jumped slightly herself when Dana said at her elbow, “He knows something.”
“Yeah,” Paige said. “But what?”
The rented car she and Isabel were sharing was parked near Caleb Powell's law office, so Hollis was able to make it that far. Once locked inside, though, engine and air-conditioning running, she sat behind the wheel and watched her hands shake.
Bishop had warned her that until she learned to fully control her abilities, the door that devastating trauma had created or activated in her mind was likely to open up unexpectedly. And that the experiences were apt to be particularly powerful ones in the midst of a murder investigation when several people had died recently and violently.
But all the months spent in the relative peace of Quantico, learning how to be an investigator, learning about the SCU, plus learning all the exercises in concentration, meditation, and control, had given her a false sense of security.
She had thought she was ready for this.
She wasn't.
First seeing Jamie Brower in the conference room, and now this. Seeing Tricia Kane standing near the desk where she had worked in life, less clearly visible than Jamie had been, oddly dreamlike but obviously trying to say something Hollis hadn't been able to hear.
Why couldn't she hear them? Before, it had been a voice in her head and only the sense of a presence, at least until the very end. Not . . . this. Not these misty images of people—souls—trapped between worlds. No longer alive, but not yet gone, standing in the doorway between this life and the next, the doorway Hollis's own traitorous mind kept opening for them. Talking to her.
Trying to talk to her.
Hollis hadn't expected this.
Not this.
She didn't know how to cope with this. She didn't know if she wanted to even try to learn to cope.
She wanted to run, that's what she wanted to do. Run and hide, from the dead and from—
The ringing demand of her cell phone jarred her from the panic, and she took a deep breath to try and steady her voice before she answered it. “Templeton.”
“What happened?” Isabel asked without preamble.
“I checked out Tricia Kane's office, but—”
“No, Hollis. What happened?”
She'd already had a few unsettling experiences with other SCU members and their easy connections with one another, so Isabel's obvious awareness of Hollis's state of mind didn't surprise her all that much. It still unsettled her, however.
“I saw Tricia Kane,” she said finally, baldly.
“Did she tell you anything?” Isabel's voice was calm.
“She tried. I couldn't hear her. Like before.”
“How long did it last?”
Hollis had to stop and think about that. “Not long. Not as long as in the conference room. And not as clear. She was . . . the image was fainter. Wispy. And it didn't feel as spooky.”
“Powell didn't notice anything?”
“I don't think so.”
“You're out of the office now?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. It's getting late. Why don't you go back to the inn and soak in the tub, have a hot shower, something like that. Relax. Order a pizza. Watch something mind-numbing on TV for a while.”
“Isabel—”
“Hollis, trust me. Take the time while you can, and chill. Just chill. Sleep if you can. Don't think too much. We're just getting started here, and it's only going to get harder.”
“I have to learn how to handle this.”
“Yes. But you don't have to learn everything today. Today you just have to get some rest and get centered again. That's all. I'll be back at the inn myself in a couple of hours. I'll check, see if you feel like company. If not, that's cool, I'll see you at breakfast. But if you want to talk, I'll be there. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Don't mention it, partner.”
Rafe watched Isabel close her cell phone and return it to the belt pack she wore in lieu of a purse. They were standing in the living room of Jamie Brower's apartment, but they had barely arrived before Isabel reached for her phone, saying without explanation that she had to call Hollis.
“She was in trouble,” Rafe guessed, watching Isabel.
“She saw another of the victims. Tricia Kane. It freaked her out a bit.” Isabel shrugged, frowning slightly. “Still couldn't hear what Tricia was trying to tell her, so no help for us.”
“You knew she was in trouble before you called her. How?” Before Isabel could answer, Rafe did himself. “Connections. A psychic connection. She's your partner.”
“A connection she finds more unnerving than reassuring at this point,” Isabel said wryly. “I'm sure you can relate.” She began walking through the very nice apartment, looking around her with interest.
Rafe followed. “What do you mean by that?”
“I make you nervous. Admit it.”
“I've known you barely twenty-four hours,” Rafe retorted. “That isn't enough time to get used to a woman's perfume, let alone the fact that she knows without looking what kind of shorts you happen to be wearing.”
Isabel chuckled. “Okay, you win that round.”
Rafe thought it was about time he won one. “Is Hollis all right?”
“She will be, I think. This time. But if she doesn't get a handle on her abilities pretty fast, things are just going to get harder for her.”
&nbs
p; “I'd think talking to dead people would never get easier.”
“No, from all I'm told, that part doesn't. It takes an exceptionally powerful medium with a strong sense of self to open that door and yet remain detached—and protected—from all the emotional and spiritual energy pouring through.”
“Protected?”
Isabel paused in the kitchen, running a hand lightly along the immaculate granite countertops. The usual small appliances were scattered about: toaster, blender, coffeemaker. “She didn't cook much.”
“Not according to what her family and friends said, no. A lot of takeout. What do you mean about a medium needing to protect herself?”
“Or himself. It's not a gender-specific ability, you know.”
“I stand corrected. Are there any gender-specific abilities?”
“Not as far as we know.”
“Okay. What did you mean about the medium protecting him- or herself?”
Isabel left the kitchen and went down the short hallway to the bedroom. She stood in the center, looking around. “A medium is the most vulnerable of all psychics to what you called possession. They're the ones who open the doors angry or desperate spirits usually need in order to return to this plane of existence. And the nearest potential host when the spirit comes through.”
“Usually need?”
“We've theorized that an unusually powerful spirit could make its own doorway, if it were determined enough. So far, though, our experience has been that mediums or latent mediums provide the doorways.”
“I can't believe I'm talking about this. Listening to this.”
She looked at him, smiling faintly. “This stuff has always been with us, always been a part of our lives. For most of us, it was simply a case of not seeing what was there. Who knew there were protons and electrons until we found them? Who knew germs were responsible for illnesses until somebody figured it out? Who knew even fifty years ago that we had a chance in hell of mapping the human genome?”
“I get the point,” Rafe said. “Still, this is—or at least feels—different.”
“It's human. And one day, eventually, science will catch up, figure out a way to define, measure, and analyze, and make us legit.”
“It's just . . . it's difficult to wrap my mind around it.”
“I know, but you have to.” Isabel walked over to the bed and rested a hand on it, frowning. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. Get used to it. Here endeth the lesson.”
Rafe accepted the mild rebuke with a nod. “Okay. Though I do reserve the right to ask questions if anything unusual happens right in front of me.”
“I wouldn't expect anything else.”
He had to smile a little at her dry tone. “Picking up anything useful here?”
Touch me there . . . like that . . .
Harder . . .
Christ, you feel good . . .
Years of practice enabled Isabel to keep her face expressionless, but it was unexpectedly difficult with Rafe's eyes on her. He had very dark eyes, and there was something very compelling in them. She hadn't expected that.
Hadn't expected him.
“This is where she kept her sex straight. A few male lovers over the years. No women.”
“So you think the room in the pictures was hers? One of the properties she owned? A place she kept separate and secret for those . . . encounters?”
“Seems likely. She led a very traditional life here, so obviously her secret life was kept a thing apart. Really a thing apart; there are no secrets at all here. In fact, I'm more than a little surprised Emily found the photo box in this apartment.”
“Unless Jamie had lost her most recent lover and hadn't yet found another. In that case, she might have needed to look at those pictures.”
Isabel smiled. “You'd make a fair profiler, know that?”
Rafe was more than a little startled. “I was just guessing, that's all.”
“What do you think profilers do? We make guesses. Mostly educated guesses, and for some of us occasionally psychic ones, but at the end of the day they're still guesses. Speculation based on experience, knowledge of criminals and how their minds work, that sort of thing. A good profiler probably gets sixty to seventy-five percent right if he or she is especially tuned in to a particular subject. A good psychic with solid control gets, maybe, forty to sixty percent in hits.”
“Is that your percentage?”
She shrugged. “More or less.”
He decided not to try to pin her down on that; he had a feeling it was one he wouldn't win. He hadn't known Isabel Adams an hour before reaching the conclusion that she was extremely unlikely to let slip by accident anything she didn't want him to know.
Isabel said, “We have to find the box or that room. Both, preferably. I need to know how Jamie felt about her secret life, really felt about it. And I'm getting nothing about that here.”
“So you're getting no sense of a secret hiding place my people missed?”
“No sense of anything secret. I mean at all; this lady obviously knew how to compartmentalize her life. This was her public self, what the world was allowed to see. All bright and shiny and picture-perfect. We know her public self. We need to know her private self.”
Rafe frowned as he followed her from the room. “Do you believe Jamie was targeted because of her sexual preferences? Because she was a dominatrix?”
“I don't know. It's about relationships, I'm sure of that. Somehow, it's about relationships. I'm having a hard time seeing Jamie's sexuality, or even the S&M games, as the trigger, that's all. Given his history. But it's the only thing hidden in Jamie's day-to-day life, and that means we have to be sure how much it means.”
“Makes sense.”
“So we need to find that room. And we need to find it quickly. It's been four days since he killed Tricia Kane; even if he waits a full week between murders, we only have three days to find him and stop him before another woman dies.”
And before Isabel moved up on the hit list, Rafe thought but didn't say.
“You think he's stalking her now?” he asked instead.
“He's watching her. Thinking about what he's going to do to her. Imagining how it's going to feel. Anticipating.” She was surprised that after all these years and so many similar investigations, it could still make her skin crawl.
But it wasn't just the fact of this killer, she knew that. It wasn't even what he had done to his victims. It was him. What she felt in him. Something twisted and evil crouching in the shadows, waiting to spring forward.
She could almost smell the brimstone.
Almost.
“Isabel—”
“Not now, Rafe.” For the first time, there was a hint of vulnerability in her slightly twisted smile. “I'm not ready to talk about that evil face I saw. Not to you. Not yet.”
“Just tell me this much. Does it have something to do with you becoming psychic?”
“It had everything to do with it.” Her smile twisted even more. “The universe has an ironic sense of humor, I've noticed. Or maybe just an innate sense of justice. Because sometimes evil creates the tool that will help destroy it.”
Cheryl had planned to drive back to Columbia for the night, especially after Dana's warning, but something was bugging her. It had been bugging her all day, ever since she'd noticed it early this morning.
She had her cameraman wait for her in the van and went to check it out, telling herself she'd be safe; it wasn't even dark yet, for God's sake. Of course, telling herself was one thing, and feeling it something else entirely.
Every time the breeze stirred it felt like somebody touching her with a ghostly hand, and she caught herself looking back over her shoulder more than once.
Nothing there, naturally. No one there.
The whole thing was just her imagination, probably. Because it didn't make sense, not if she'd seen what she thought she had. Not if it meant—
A hand touched her shoulder, and Cheryl whirled around with
a gasp. “Oh, Jesus. Scare a person, why don't you?”
“Did I? Sorry about that.”
“You of all people should know—”
“I do. Like I said, sorry. What're you doing out here?”
“Just following up a hunch. I'm sure the rest of you saw it, but it's been bugging me, so . . . here I am.”
“You really shouldn't be out by yourself.”
“I know, I know. But I'm not a blonde. And I hate it when something bugs me. So it seemed like a risk worth taking.”
“Just for a story?”
“Well,” Cheryl said self-consciously, “that's part of it, sure. The story. And maybe to stop him. I mean, it would be so cool if I could help stop him.”
“Do you really believe your hunch could do that?”
“You never know. I could get lucky.”
“Or unlucky.”
“What're you—”
“Not a blonde. But nosy just like they are. And you'll tell. I really can't let that happen.”
Cheryl saw the knife, but by the time understanding clicked into place in her head, it was too late to scream.
Too late to do anything at all.
Friday, 11:30 PM
Just occasionally, whenever her day had been particularly stressful, Mallory was so wild in bed that it took everything Alan had just to keep up with her.
Friday night was like that.
She held him with her arms, her legs, her body, as though he might escape her. The pillows were shoved off the bed, and the sheets tangled around them, and still they wrestled and rolled and held on to each other. They finished, finally, with Mallory on top, riding him fiercely, one hand on his chest and the other braced behind her on his leg, grinding her loins to his in a hard, hungry, rhythmic dance.
He held her hips, surging up to meet her, his gaze fixed on the magnificence of her face taut in primitive need, her eyes darkened, her lithe, toned body glowing with life and exertion.
When she finally came with a cry, shuddering, he spent in almost the same instant, feeling her inner muscles spasming, milking him dry.
Usually, at that point Mallory rolled off him to lie at his side, however briefly, but this time he held on and shifted their bodies himself so that they lay on their sides, facing each other. He kept his arms around her.