Sense of Evil

by Kay Hooper

  “And not even helpful,” he told her as he handed the notes to Rafe, then leaned his hands on the back of an unoccupied chair. “Nobody recognized the name or photograph of Jamie Brower—except to say they'd seen her picture in the newspapers and on TV.”

  Isabel waited out another rumble of thunder, then said, “We need a fresh mind. Travis, if you wanted to bury a secret someplace you could be sure it wouldn't be found, where would you put it?”

  “In a grave.” He realized he was being stared at, and straightened self-consciously. “Well, I would. Once somebody's buried, they're not often dug back up. So why not? It'd be easy enough to strip the turf off a grave, bury whatever it was I was trying to hide between the surface and the casket—assuming it was the right size—then cover it back up and re-lay the grass. As long as I was careful, nobody'd even notice.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Rafe said.

  Isabel was shaking her head. “Why isn't he a detective?”

  Travis brightened. “I was right?”

  “God knows,” Hollis said, “but you're sending us in a new direction, so I say good for you.”

  “Hey, cool.” Then his smile faded. “We got lots of cemeteries in Hastings. Where do we start looking? And what're we looking for, by the way?”

  “We're looking for a box of photos,” Rafe said, feeling the younger cop had earned the knowledge.

  Isabel added, “And it has to be connected with Jamie Brower. We need to know where any deceased family or friends are buried.”

  “I'll go back to my phone,” Travis said with a sigh. “Start calling all the local clergy and asking them. I do not want to have to call the Browers directly, not today. Or tomorrow, or next week.”

  “Yeah, let's avoid that if possible,” Rafe told him.

  When he'd gone, Isabel said, “You really should promote him.”

  “He was on my short list,” Rafe said. “The only reason I've hesitated is because he's currently sleeping with a reporter who isn't quite what she appears to be.”

  Hollis asked, “What is she?”

  “According to my sources, she works for the governor's office, and is sent in quietly during tricky investigations to keep an eye on local law enforcement. So we don't do anything to embarrass ourselves. Or the state attorney general. They're keeping a very close eye on this investigation.”

  “That shows a distressing lack of faith,” Isabel said, but without surprise.

  Mallory was looking at Rafe with lifted brows. “You know that for a fact.”

  “Yes,” he replied with a faint smile. “I keep a fairly close eye on my people.”

  Mallory stared at him, then said, “Oh, don't tell me.”

  “You and Isabel have something in common. Neither one of you is as subtle as you think you are.”

  “I resent that,” Isabel said.

  “Besides,” Hollis said, “Alan Moore is the one who isn't subtle. Even I picked up on it.”

  Mallory got to her feet with great dignity. “Being outnumbered by psychics is hardly fair. I'm going to use the computer in the other room. Excuse me.”

  “I think we pissed her off,” Hollis said absently as she opened the local phone book to begin making a list of churches and cemeteries.

  “She'll get over it.” Rafe shook his head. “Although I don't know if Alan will. Never seen him fall so hard before.”

  Isabel pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Mallory doesn't strike me as the settling-down type.”

  “I don't think she is. I also don't think Alan has realized that yet.”

  “It's always about relationships,” Hollis murmured, with a sidelong glance at Isabel.

  Ignoring the glance, Isabel said, “We need to go back through every piece of paper associated in any way with Jamie's life and death and check out the names of all family and friends.”

  “Chicken,” Hollis said.

  “We have more imperative things to think about,” Isabel told her. “Like finding that grave.”

  Rafe said, “You think it's there, don't you? You think Jamie buried that box in somebody's grave?”

  “I think it makes sense. She was burying a part of her life, so why not put it in a grave? And I'm betting it won't be a family grave, but the grave of someone else who was important to her. A teacher, a mentor, a friend. Maybe her first lover.”

  “Male or female?”

  “At a guess, female.”

  “That does help narrow the field.”

  “Let's hope it narrows it enough.”

  Of all the family and friends who had died during Jamie's life, Isabel considered three women the most likely candidates for Jamie's burial of her secrets. One was a former teacher that friends reported Jamie had seemed especially close to, one was a close friend from high school who had been killed in a highway accident, and the third was a woman who had worked in Jamie's office, dying young of cancer.

  Three women, three cemeteries.

  “I think we should check these out before the storm breaks,” Isabel told Rafe.

  Rafe wanted to argue, but he was reluctant to put off doing anything that could help them catch the killer before he took aim at his next target. Isabel.

  And before the press took aim at her.

  “It'll be faster if we split up,” she was saying. Since she had already told him privately that she wanted to stick close to Hollis because her partner seemed to be so affected by the tension of the storm, Rafe didn't object when she added, “Hollis and I will take Rosemont.”

  “You'll also take Dean Emery,” he added. “There's only one entrance to Rosemont, and it's fenced; he can stand by at the entrance while you two find the grave. Mallory can take Travis along to Sunset.”

  “And who will you take to Grogan's Creek?” Isabel asked politely.

  “I might take the mayor,” he answered wryly. “I need to stop and see him before he blows a fuse.”

  Mallory said, “We're doing all this on the way home, right? Because I'm beat.”

  Rafe nodded. “Check out the cemeteries, phone in reports—once you're out of the storm, that is—and then head home.”

  “Got my vote,” Isabel said.

  Twenty minutes later, Hollis was saying, “You had to pick the largest cemetery, didn't you? The one with all the tall monuments and acres of graves.”

  “And don't forget the pretty little chapel with the stained-glass windows,” Isabel reminded, raising her voice a bit as the wind tended to snatch at it.

  “I just wish the place had a caretaker on duty to point out Susan Andrews's grave,” Hollis said, pausing to squint at a headstone. “Because unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” Isabel asked, half turning to look at her partner.

  Hollis would have answered, but she was hardly aware of Isabel in that moment. The sounds of the wind and the thunder had retreated into that peculiar hollow almost-silence. Her skin was tingling. The fine hairs on her body were stirring. And in the strobe flashes of the lightning, she could see Jamie Brower several yards away, beckoning.

  “This way,” Hollis said.

  Isabel followed her. “How do you know?” she demanded, raising her voice again to be heard over the rising wind.

  “It's Jamie.” Hollis nearly stopped, then hurried forward. “Dammit, it was her. But I don't see her now.”

  “Where was she?”

  “Somewhere in this area.” Hollis jumped as thunder crashed, feeling her skin literally crawl. “Have I mentioned how much I hate storms?”

  “You might have, yeah. This area? We'll find it.” Isabel paused as thunder boomed, and added, “Unless we get struck by lightning, that is. I just think we need to do this now. And if you saw Jamie, that makes it even more imperative, I'd say.”

  Hollis didn't argue, just began checking the headstones in the area, flinching with every crack of thunder and flash of lightning. “I hate this,” she called to her partner. “I really hate—”

  “Here.” Isabel knelt by a simple headstone with the name Susa
n Andrews engraved on it.

  “It doesn't look disturbed,” Hollis said, then swore under her breath as Isabel dug her fingernails into the turf and neatly lifted a perfectly square section.

  “You'd think it would have rooted by now,” Isabel said, folding back the turf. “It's tight, but not that difficult to pull up.”

  Hollis knelt on the other side of the grave to help. “A very neat section just at the headstone. Now I'm glad we brought the shovel Dean had in the cruiser's trunk.”

  “I'm an optimist,” Isabel said, unfolding the small emergency shovel.

  Hollis sat back on her heels suddenly. “You knew we'd find it, didn't you?”

  “I had a hunch.”

  “You heard a voice.”

  “A whisper. Help me dig.”

  “We should call Dean,” Hollis said, but it was only a minute or two before the shovel scraped across something metallic and they were able to drag a small box about twelve inches square and five or six inches deep from its resting place at Susan Andrews's headstone.

  “I think we'd better take this back to the station to open it,” Isabel said, the reluctance in her tone clear despite the gusty wind and rumbles of thunder.

  “You just forgot to bring your lock-pick tools,” Hollis said, a little amused. “Need help carrying that?”

  “No, I've got it. You get the shovel, will you, please?”

  As they started back across the cemetery, Isabel carrying the box and Hollis the shovel, the latter stopped suddenly.

  “Shit.”

  Isabel stopped as well, following her partner's gaze. “What? I don't see anything.”

  “Jamie. She's—”

  At first Isabel thought the rumble of thunder had drowned out whatever Hollis had been saying, but then she felt a sharp tug at the small of her back and whirled, instinctively dropping the metal box, filled with the sudden cold certainty that she had been blindsided again.

  A flash of lightning brilliantly lit the scene before her. Hollis falling on the ground with blood blossoming on the back of her pale blouse. Mallory standing hardly more than an arm's length from Isabel, a big, bloodstained knife in one black-gloved hand and Isabel's gun in the other.

  “You know,” she said, “I'm really surprised you didn't pick up on it. All those vaunted psychic abilities, yours and hers. And Rafe's, I suppose. It was so clear, and none of you saw it. None of you saw me.”

  Rafe was able to soothe the mayor's worries, but just barely enough to allow his own escape. He headed toward Grogan's Creek church and the cemetery behind it, a name neatly printed on a piece of paper tucked in his pocket.

  But when he reached a stop sign, he found himself hesitating, looking not east toward Grogan's Creek, but west toward Rosemont.

  There was no reason to worry, of course. She could take care of herself. Besides which, she wasn't alone. Hollis was with her, and Dean.

  He started to turn the wheel toward the east, then hesitated again. “She's okay,” he heard himself say aloud. “She's fine.”

  Except that his gut said she wasn't.

  His gut—and the blood on his hands.

  Rafe stared at the reddish stains, shocked for an instant because it had happened so suddenly.

  But then, just as suddenly, he knew the truth. He understood what it meant.

  And he knew Isabel was in deadly danger.

  He turned the wheel hard, heading west, and reached for his phone to call Dean.

  19

  “MALLORY—”

  “You still don't get it, do you? Mallory doesn't live here anymore.”

  Gazing into eyes that looked dead and empty even when the lightning flashed in them, Isabel fought to keep her voice calm. “So who are you?”

  With an amused little chuckle, Mallory said, “This isn't some split-personality deal, you know. That's a bunch of bullshit, what you read in the books. I was always the stronger one. Always the one who had to take care of Mallory, clean the messes after she screwed up. Always. We were just twelve when it happened the first time.”

  “When what happened?” Was Hollis alive? Isabel couldn't tell. And what had happened to Dean?

  “When I had to kill them. Those bitches. All six of them.”

  “You were— Why? Why did you have to kill them?”

  “Are you stalling?” Mallory asked, interested. “Because Rafe isn't coming, you know. Nobody is coming.”

  “Well, then,” Isabel said, her mind racing, “it's just you and me. Come on, impress me. Show me all the signs I should have seen along the way.”

  “The only thing you and that Bishop of yours got right was gender. Male.”

  “Trapped in a female's body?” Isabel was deliberately flippant. “I think that's been done.”

  “Oh, no, I was male first. Always. I kept telling Mallory, but in the beginning she wouldn't listen. And when she did listen, she got confused. She thought she was a lesbian.”

  Recalling the riot of emotions and hormones of adolescence, Isabel said, “When she was twelve?”

  “Those girls at camp. In her cabin. There were six of them, all giggly and girly. The one who slept with Mallory started touching her one night. And Mallory liked it. It made me sick, but Mallory liked it.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I heard them the next day. All six of them, giggling and looking at Mallory. They knew. All of them knew. The one who'd touched her had told the others, and they were going to tell too. I knew they would. They'd tell, and everybody would know Mallory wasn't normal.”

  “What did you do to stop that?”

  “I killed them.” Her voice was eerily Mallory's and yet . . . not. Deeper, rougher, harder.

  Isabel told herself what she smelled was the lightning, not brimstone. But she knew the truth.

  Nothing this side of hell smelled quite like brimstone.

  Except for evil.

  “See, they weren't supposed to take the boats out onto the lake, not without one of the counselors. But I made Mallory talk them into it. So they took a boat out, way out, and I made sure there were no life jackets. And then I turned the boat over. None of them made it to the shore, but I got Mallory there, of course. So sad, those other girls drowning like that. Mallory was never the same afterward.”

  Rafe found Dean Emery slumped over the wheel of his cruiser. He knew nothing could be done for him, but he called for backup and an ambulance, then hurried through the gates of the cemetery, gun drawn, reaching out desperately with every sense he possessed, old and new.

  To hell with the goddamned shield.

  Mallory shrugged. “That was when her parents moved here to Hastings. So nobody would know what had happened and she could get over it.”

  “But she didn't.” Isabel was dimly aware of the voices, whispering louder, but the thunder and her own fixed concentration on Mallory kept them distant.

  “No, not really. She was afraid to have girl friends after that, so all her friends were boys. She played sports, got tough, learned to take care of herself. So I didn't have to worry about her.”

  “When did that change?”

  “You know when it changed, Isabel. It changed in Florida. Mallory was in college in Georgia, but she transferred to a college in Florida to take a few courses one semester.”

  “There was a redhead,” Isabel said. “She was attracted to a redhead, wasn't she? A woman. Were they lovers?”

  In the eerie twilight, Mallory's mouth tightened. “That bitch. She got Mallory drunk and slept with her. And in the morning, she acted like it was nothing. But I knew. I knew she'd tell. I knew she'd tell her redheaded friends. So I had to take care of them, of course. All six of them, just like before.”

  Isabel didn't waste her breath with any reasoned argument. Instead, she said, “We wondered why the women were going with . . . him. Why they didn't feel threatened. It was because Mallory was a woman.”

  “It's not my fault if people don't look beneath the surface.” She—or he—laughed.
<
br />   “Mallory didn't know what you were doing, did she?”

  “Of course not. She wouldn't have been able to hide our secret. I had to do that. And I had to protect her. When she got abnormal that way.”

  “What about the women in Alabama?” Isabel asked, only vaguely aware that the wind was gusting wildly now. “The brunettes? Mallory got involved with a brunette woman?”

  “She was staying with a cousin over there. Just for a couple of weeks. But that was long enough. Long enough to start mooning over that dark-haired bitch. I didn't even wait for that to get started. I just took care of it. I got rid of her. And the rest of them. The other five.”

  “The ones who would have told?”

  “Of course.”

  “How did you know they would have?”

  “Oh, don't be stupid, Isabel. I always knew who'd tell. As soon as I saw you, I knew you would.”

  “But Jamie was first, wasn't she?” Isabel asked. “Jamie was the one who caught Mallory's eye.”

  “I thought she was over it,” the thing inside Mallory said. “She was involved with Alan, she was—was normal. But then she talked to Jamie about buying a house. And she felt . . . that . . . again. That longing. That desperation to be touched like that. By her.”

  “They became lovers.”

  “Lovers? What they were doing had nothing to do with love. Mallory thought she deserved to be punished, because she'd lived when the other girls had died. So she let Jamie punish her. And take pictures of it. But I made her stop. I made her go back to Alan.”

  Realizing, Isabel said, “And you made her forget. Always. You made sure that her attraction to other women was … like a fantasy to her. Didn't you?”

  “It was an aberration. She didn't need to remember that.”

  Isabel nodded slowly. “That's why Mallory never reacted to anything we found out about Jamie. As far as she knew, as far as she could remember, they'd never been involved.”

  “I protected her. I always have.”

  “So you sent her back to Alan. Then you watched Jamie for a while, didn't you?”

  “So sick. Ugly. And she was mad at Mallory for not wanting to do those things anymore. That's why she got too rough with her next lover and killed her.”