by Kay Hooper
“Believe it or not, for a sign.”
Leo blinked. “A sign?”
“Yeah. I’m told I’ll know it when I see it. And I shouldn’t allow it to distract me. Nothing so far has looked like a sign, at least not to me. So . . . I wait.”
“People are dying, or hadn’t you noticed?” Leo met the other man’s gaze and had to fight the impulse to take a step back. There were, he decided, men you just didn’t want to push. And this was one of them. He really needed to remember that. “I’m just saying,” he added hastily.
“Yeah, well, tell somebody who doesn’t know. I do.”
“Right. Sure.” Leo hesitated, then said tentatively, “Any idea when this sign is going to show itself?”
“Not really, no.”
“You sound a little . . .”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Leo thought about it, and nodded. “Yeah. Guess I would. Frustrated and feeling sort of . . . useless.”
“Thank you so much for putting it into words.”
Deciding to quit while he was still in one piece, Leo cleared his throat and asked, “Are you coming back to the carnival?”
“Not just yet.”
Venturing one last comment, Leo said, “I thought you said you didn’t have to follow Sam.”
“Didn’t say I wouldn’t keep an eye on her.”
“She was afraid.”
Without looking up from the autopsy report he was studying, Lucas said evenly, “Of course she was afraid.”
“You say you felt that.”
Lucas remained silent.
“Well, didn’t you?”
“Let it go, Wyatt.”
The sheriff moved restlessly in his chair. “I just . . . I need to know. What she went through.”
“No. You don’t.”
“I have to, don’t you understand that?”
“You shouldn’t even be here today. Go home. Take time to grieve.”
“I can’t go home. What am I going to do at home? Stare at the walls? Finish the half-eaten bag of popcorn she left at my place nearly a week ago? Go to bed so I can smell her on my sheets?”
Lucas wasn’t surprised by the other man’s raw emotion, nor that the sheriff would allow that to escape in here, behind the closed door of the conference room and before a relative stranger. Grief would find its outlet, one way or another, and many men could tell strangers what they couldn’t tell those closest to them. It was something Lucas had seen before.
But that didn’t make it one bit easier to hear.
“I slept on the couch last night, or tried to,” Metcalf went on roughly. “Like every night since we found her. The bed . . . I could wash the sheets, but I don’t want to do that. Don’t want to . . . lose that. We weren’t public, she didn’t think that would be a good idea, so whatever I have of her is like that, like the sheets. Private.” He shook his head, then blinked at Lucas as if seeing him for the first time. “But you knew that, didn’t you? That we were lovers?”
“Yeah, I knew.”
“Because you’re psychic.”
Lucas smiled wryly. “No. Because you’re a lousy actor, Wyatt. I think most people knew, if the truth were told.”
“Think Caitlin knows?”
“Since she doesn’t live here, perhaps not.”
With a grimace, the sheriff said, “She’ll know once she’s cleared out Lindsay’s apartment. I left stuff there.”
“I doubt she’ll say anything.”
“I don’t care about that. I just don’t want her to think it was . . . was something casual. Because it wasn’t.”
Lucas hesitated, then leaned back in his chair and said, “If it helps you to tell her that, then tell her. But I’d give it some time, Wyatt. Let some of the numbness wear off first.”
“Mine or hers?”
“Either. Both. Just give it some time.”
“From what she said today, I got the impression she isn’t planning to stick around for long.”
“That was the numbness talking. Once it starts to wear off, she’ll most likely want to find out who killed her sister. Some just stay and wait; some try to get involved in the investigation; but virtually all of them want that closure. They need it. Before they can move on.”
Wyatt frowned briefly. “I forgot. You’ve seen a lot of this sort of thing, haven’t you? Death. Grief.”
“Yeah.”
“How do you get through it? How do you keep doing it?”
Lucas had heard the questions before, and answered Wyatt as he had answered others.
“I get through it by focusing on what I can affect, what I can possibly control. Finding someone who’s lost or taken, if that’s at all possible. If it isn’t, if I’m too late, then I try to find what’s left, the body. And if I can, I try to find the killer. Put him behind bars, in a cage where he belongs. That’s what I can do. That’s all I can do, to help the living and the dead.”
The sheriff’s face seemed to quiver for an instant, and he said, “Just tell me one thing. Why Lindsay? Why did the bastard take her?”
“You know why. To make it personal. To give the victim a very familiar face. And as a taunt, a challenge. She was taken virtually from beneath our noses while we were watching someone else.”
“Someone your Madam Zarina told us to watch.”
Lucas shook his head. “Wyatt, don’t go there. I know you want to blame someone, but don’t blame Sam. She may have her faults, but when it comes to her visions she’s the most truthful person I’ve ever known. I’m absolutely positive that she saw what she told us she saw.”
“And even gifted psychics make mistakes, huh?”
“Yes, they do.” Lucas frowned and, almost to himself, said, “Though Sam’s visions were always highly reliable. So maybe the question is—why did she see a different victim?”
Unwillingly, Wyatt said, “Maybe Carrie Vaughn is next on this bastard’s hit parade. Maybe Zarina just skipped one.”
“She saw Thursday’s newspaper, said it was exactly the same as in the photograph you were sent.”
“Then she lied.”
“No. She’d never lie about something like that.”
“Are you sure? Can you be?”
“Wyatt—”
“You’re a cop and can’t smell a setup? She comes in voluntarily for questioning. Warns us there’s going to be another kidnapping and says she’ll stay here to prove her innocence. But the supposed victim we’re so busy watching is safe and sound while one of our own is snatched, all because little miss innocent made a mistake.”
“She didn’t kidnap or kill Lindsay, Wyatt. You know she didn’t.”
“Maybe not with her own hands, but who’s to say we’re only dealing with one kidnapper here? If your so-called profile was more accurate, you would have found him by now. So? What if you guys got it wrong all the way around? Suppose, just suppose, that Samantha Burke had help, Luke. A partner. Or, at the very least, a friend she’s covering for. Suppose one of her carnie pals is behind all this?”
“You’ve checked them out,” Lucas reminded him.
“For past criminal records, sure. But you and I both know there are criminals who never get caught. And it’d be a nice little racket, wouldn’t it? A traveling carnival, never in one place for very long. Kidnap a local and make a few bucks, then move on to the next little town.”
Lucas shook his head. “No. We’ve tracked this bastard for eighteen months, and the carnival was never in the towns where victims disappeared. I would have known.”
Wyatt got to his feet and leaned over the table, hands braced, as he stared at Lucas. “You sat right here in this room and heard her say that all along their route they had heard about the kidnappings.”
“Kidnappings make the news. So what?”
“So maybe the carnival was a lot closer to those kidnapped victims than you knew. Not in the same towns, but maybe nearby. Within driving distance. Near their regular yearly route, a path they know very well. Maybe even well eno
ugh to target victims along the way. Victims whose habits and haunts they had ample time to observe.”
Lucas returned the sheriff’s stare, saying merely, “You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Wyatt straightened. “Let’s find out. I’m going to go put my people on checking out the yearly schedule of the Carnival After Dark. I want to know about every town they visited, every fairground and parking lot where they set up shop. I want to know where they were in relation to every kidnapping you’ve been tracking. I’m going to find out exactly where they’ve been every day of the last eighteen months.”
Lucas didn’t try to stop him.
He was, after all, a man who understood obsession.
“Do you like having your abilities?” Caitlin Graham asked as she sipped her coffee.
Samantha wrapped both cold hands around her own mug of hot tea and smiled wryly. “That’s a loaded question. Sometimes. Sometimes not.”
“Not when you see bad things?”
“Bad, unsettling, frightening. It can feel like I’m trapped in a horror movie, only without the popcorn—or the ability to get up and leave the theater.”
“You don’t have any control?”
With a shrug, Samantha said, “Again, it depends. At a time like this, with emotions running so high, the visions tend to be very . . . intense.”
“As in, so cold they burn your hands?”
“That was a first. I usually just come out of them so tired I want to sleep for a few days.”
“But you saw Lindsay. When she was being held.”
Samantha nodded. She knew Caitlin needed to talk about this, so she did, matter-of-factly. “Like most good cops, she was working the problem. Trying to find an angle, a weakness she could use to her advantage.”
Caitlin chewed her bottom lip, then said, “You’re so sure there’s something after death. Is it because you’ve—you’ve contacted somebody from the other side?”
Without commenting on the terminology, Samantha merely said, “I’m not a medium.”
“Oh. So—you don’t do that?”
“No. Technically, I’m what they call a seer. In carnival language, I see what is and what will be.”
Caitlin smiled slightly at the other woman’s deliberately theatrical tone. “Just like on the sign outside your booth.”
“Exactly. As I understand it, my primary ability is precognition, seeing the future. When I’m seeing the present but something going on beyond my own sight or hearing, that’s a kind of clairvoyance. But unlike most clairvoyants, who tend to pick up information all around them, randomly, what I see is very focused, tuned in to a specific event.”
“Like seeing Lindsay.”
Samantha nodded again. “It’s a secondary ability, much less common to me. I’ve also been told that I’m a ‘touch seer’ rather than an ‘open seer.’ The difference, I gather, is that I have to touch an object to pick up anything.”
“Always?”
Samantha thought of her dream, but nodded and said firmly, “Always. Happily, though, I don’t go through life picking up visions every time I pick up a can of tuna or a hairbrush.”
Very intent, Caitlin asked, “Then what triggers the visions? Why one object and not another, I mean.”
Samantha sipped her cooling tea, giving herself a moment, then said slowly, “People with more scientific knowledge than I have said it’s all a matter of energy. Emotions and actions have energy. The more intense the feelings or events, or the longer they last, the more likely they are to . . . leave some of their energy on an area or an object. Sort of imprinting a memory on it. Since my brain is apparently hardwired to tune in to that kind of energy, when I touch the right thing, I do.”
“That doesn’t really explain Lindsay’s ring. She hadn’t worn it for years, and she never came close to drowning as a child.”
“If it was easy to explain, it wouldn’t seem like magic, now, would it?” Samantha smiled, but also shrugged. “Maybe every individual has his or her own energy signature, as unique as a fingerprint. I’ve heard that; maybe it’s true. They leave their own energy on an object, I touch the object, and—sometimes—my brain homes in on that energy signature. Picks up what’s happening or will happen with that person, especially if strong emotions are involved.”
“So you picked up her future when you touched her ring because . . . because she wore it so much in her past. Her childhood.”
“Maybe. I don’t really know, Caitlin. I generally don’t think about it a whole lot. It’s just something I can do. I can also juggle, I’m a fair shot—at least at pop-up targets—and I’m the carnival champ at poker.”
Caitlin smiled, but said, “Less-troublesome abilities, I imagine.”
“You’ve never beaten Leo at poker. He can be mean.”
Her smile remained, but Caitlin’s eyes were serious. “If I asked you to do something for me, would you?”
“I’d have to hear what it was first,” Samantha replied warily.
“I want you to touch something.”
Not very surprised, and still wary, Samantha lifted her brows and waited.
“I had to go to Lindsay’s apartment. To . . . pick out what she’d wear today.”
Samantha nodded, still waiting.
“I knew she’d been seeing Wyatt Metcalf, so I expected to find some of his things there. And I did see a few things I assume are his. But I also found this.” She reached into her purse and produced a small object wrapped in a handkerchief. Placing it on the table between them, she unfolded the clean white cotton. “There really isn’t room anywhere on it for a fingerprint, but I picked it up with my handkerchief anyway. It isn’t—wasn’t Lindsay’s.”
Lying in the center was a small piece of costume jewelry, a charm or pendant meant to be worn on a chain. A novelty probably intended for Halloween, it was a small black spider in the center of a silvery web.
Staring down at it, Samantha heard herself ask, “How do you know it didn’t belong to Lindsay?”
“Because she was terrified of spiders.” Caitlin grimaced. “Dumb for a cop, she said, but she’d been that way since we were kids. The last time we talked, she told me she had her apartment exterminated once a month just to make damned sure none of them got in. It was a real phobia, believe me.”
“Still,” Samantha said, “this isn’t a real spider.”
“Doesn’t matter. Lindsay couldn’t bear even a picture of one, and she would never—ever—own a piece of jewelry with a spider on it.”
“Could have been a gift.”
“She wouldn’t have kept it. Samantha, I’m absolutely positive this didn’t belong to Lindsay.”
“Where did you find it?”
“On her nightstand, of all places. She really wouldn’t have had anything like this near her bed. That would have totally freaked her out. When she was just a toddler, a spider got into her crib. Our mom was downstairs, and it took her a few minutes to get up there; Lindsay always said it was the longest few minutes of her life and that she could remember every second vividly, how she was so terrified she couldn’t even move. The spider wasn’t poisonous or anything, but she’s had nightmares about it ever since.”
“So you think . . . somebody put this in her apartment?”
“Lindsay wouldn’t have touched it, I know that much.”
“If the sheriff gave it to her—”
Caitlin was shaking her head. “From what I gather, they’d been lovers for months and worked together much longer than that. He’s not the sort of man to consider something like this a joke, especially since he’d know what she was genuinely afraid of. Lindsay would have told him. Hell, it was practically the first thing she told anybody she met, especially socially. ‘Hi, I’m Lindsay and I hate spiders with a vengeance.’ Didn’t she tell you?”
“As a matter of fact, she did,” Samantha admitted slowly. “When I was staying at the sheriff’s department, she came down and had coffee with me a couple of times. Sort of jokingly asked if I could
look into the future and promise she wouldn’t—”
“Wouldn’t be bitten by a spider and die,” Caitlin finished steadily. “When we were kids, Lindsay was afraid of two things, and only two things: spiders and water over her head. She overcame her fear of water by learning to swim. In fact, she was on a champion swim team in college. But she was never able to conquer her fear of spiders.”
To herself, Samantha murmured, “Spiders would have been impractical, maybe impossible. No control there. Just seeing them would have caused her to panic. Not the slow, dawning realization he wanted. The gradual buildup of fear. So he had to use water.”
Grim, Caitlin said, “When they told me he’d drowned her, all I thought at first was how horrible it was for her to die that way. The way she’d once feared she would. And what a coincidence that he’d pick that. When I found this on her nightstand . . . It wasn’t a coincidence at all, was it? He didn’t just want to kill her, he wanted to scare her.”
“You’re assuming he put this in her apartment.”
“Aren’t you?”
Samantha nodded slowly. “The question is, did he do it before or after he took her?”
“Had to be after,” Caitlin said immediately. “Or at least after she left home that morning. I wasn’t kidding when I said she wouldn’t have something like this near her. If she’d seen it, it wouldn’t have been left there. A pair of kitchen tongs and a paper bag, probably.”
“If that’s the case,” Samantha said, “then this wasn’t left for Lindsay to find. It was left for someone else.”
“Me? Knowing I’d clean out the apartment?”
“I don’t think so. He sent the ransom note to Metcalf. I’m willing to bet he expected the sheriff to be the one to check out her apartment. In fact, I bet he did, right after she disappeared. But she didn’t disappear from home, so it wasn’t a crime scene and wasn’t sealed—and he was extremely upset. Probably just charged in and looked around quickly. He must have missed this.”
“I don’t get it,” Caitlin said. “Why try to alert the sheriff—her lover—to the fact that he wanted to scare her?”
Samantha drew a breath and rubbed her hands together briefly, then reached out for the pendant. “Let’s find out,” she said.