A Deadly Web

by Kay Hooper

  “What happens if you don’t close your eyes?”

  “That depends on where I am. And who’s around me. A place like this, I’d probably see what you see. The people around us. I’d just be hearing their thoughts in my head. It’s confusing, and sometimes I get dizzy and have to close my eyes.”

  Brodie was frowning.

  “That’s what you want me to do? Use my abilities but keep my eyes open? Why? What’s the theory we’re testing?”

  “I still don’t want to influence you,” he said finally. “But if you’re willing, open up all your senses. Without closing your eyes. It might help to start out looking at something very specific. Not a person.” He looked around briefly. “Maybe that tapestry on the wall over there. It’s just color and pattern, not really any shapes.”

  “Never tried that before. Okay.” Tasha had to brace herself even more, but that was more experience than anything else. The dizziness she had suffered in the past had made her physically ill, far worse than just a headache or weariness.

  She had to turn her head only a little to focus her gaze on the tapestry, and Brodie was right, it was a sort of wash of colors, soft rather than bright, with no discernible shapes. So she fixed on that, just sort of let her eyes relax in a way she couldn’t explain—and then opened up that other sense.

  A cacophony of voices at first, then whispers as she gained some control, and then she began to sort through them so that she was actually getting words, phrases, bits of sentences.

  . . . I still don’t know why she wanted to go out tonight . . .

  . . . hate Mondays, just hate them, and tomorrow’s gonna be even worse than usual . . .

  . . . man, this band sucks . . .

  . . . people would think I’m crazy if I said anything . . .

  . . . I deserve another dessert, don’t I, even if it’ll mean longer on the treadmill tomorrow . . .

  . . . it’s just the nightmares, I could handle the rest, but . . .

  . . . I know he’s cheating on me, I just know he is . . .

  . . . just don’t get this hide-in-plain-sight shit . . .

  Tasha.

  She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, staring at the tapestry but recognizing his thoughts among the others.

  You know it’s me?

  “Yes,” she said softly out loud. “People’s voices sound the same in my head. I’ll always recognize yours.”

  I’m glad. Tasha, can you turn down the voices in your head? Like turning down the volume on a TV?

  That was a new thought.

  “I have no idea,” she murmured.

  Try, he said in her mind.

  Because she couldn’t think of another way, she visualized a knob, visualized turning it slowly to the left.

  The voices softened to whispers.

  “It worked,” she said to Brodie, her gaze still fixed on the tapestry. “I just hear whispers now. Almost like background noise. I have a feeling that’s going to come in handy.”

  “All right.” This time, he spoke out loud, but quietly. “Now, if you think you can do it without making a sound, slowly begin to look around the room. Look at the people.”

  She wondered why he thought she would make a sound, but as soon as her gaze slid over one older couple sitting at their table smiling at the music and then to the next table—Tasha heard her breath catch.

  Brodie reached out and covered one of her hands with his. “Tell me what you see,” he said, still quiet.

  “It’s . . . two women from my condo building,” she whispered. “But . . . they aren’t alone.”

  “What else do you see?”

  “Shadows.” She was still whispering. “Behind them. Looming over them. Not their shadows. Not normal shadows. Distorted. Creepy. I have to warn—”

  “No.” His hand tightened on hers. “Listen to me, Tasha. Keep looking around the room. Look at other people. Don’t look at anyone too long, just a few seconds. But try to see everyone.”

  She did as he told her, forcing herself to look from table to table, to see the people who looked normal.

  And the ones who had shadows behind them or beside them or seemingly . . . moving in and out of them, a sight that made her skin crawl. She kept looking around the room. All the way around. Until she reached Brodie.

  Thank God, he didn’t have a shadow anywhere near him, just a frown of concern on his face.

  Tasha knew her hand was cold. She felt cold to her marrow.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. Can I—”

  “Close your eyes,” Brodie said immediately. “Raise your shields.”

  She’d never been so happy to obey an order in her life. Still, even with her shields up, the voices gone, it took her several seconds to work up the courage to open her eyes again.

  She didn’t look around the restaurant, she just looked at Brodie.

  “What the hell,” she said, “does that mean?”

  “You didn’t see shadows near everyone?”

  “No. No, but . . . almost everyone with a shadow is someone . . . near me. In the neighborhood. In my condo building, or one of the other buildings close by. Where I volunteer. Or they work in the neighborhood. Some are . . . people I talk to almost every day, even if it’s just to say hi to. That couple at the table near the band. The girl works at the coffee shop across from my condo. She gets my order almost every morning. But . . . the young man she’s with doesn’t have a shadow.”

  “Just a casual date, probably. They’d have to keep up appearances.” Brodie’s voice was grim.

  “John, what are you talking about?”

  “The women from your condo; how long ago did they move in?”

  “The same week as me,” she said numbly. “The super said he’d been lucky, that almost as soon as a condo was ready, there was someone interested in moving in. Every condo is occupied now. Do you think—”

  “No.” Brodie shook his head. “Not all of them. Not everyone. Just like not everyone here tonight. But . . .”

  “But all around me. They’ve been all around me from the beginning, haven’t they? Watching me? I didn’t escape them when I left Atlanta. I’m exactly where they wanted me to be.”

  —

  Murphy had completed three slow patrols around the neighborhood, the last one when she’d known Brodie and Tasha Solomon were in the restaurant, and she did not like how unsettled she felt. She had tapped in to Tasha just far enough and long enough to get more than the gist of what was going on.

  And even though she was no longer in mental or emotional contact with Tasha, she knew she felt nearly as shaken as the other woman did. Because this was something new, something different, and Murphy didn’t understand the tactic.

  Feeling that way, rare as it was, usually drove her to ground until she could figure out what was going on. But this time, she had a source.

  At least, she hoped so.

  She checked her watch, scowled briefly, and then slipped into an alleyway that provided a shortcut. Hardly ten minutes later, she was slipping into the unlocked back door of one of the rare industrial buildings in the area. Hulking machinery loomed silent in the mostly dark building, but she quickly found her way to a security spotlight that wouldn’t be visible to anyone who wasn’t actually in the building.

  She stepped to the edge, just far enough into the light to let herself be seen, and said, “That’s a dandy shield you two have.”

  “It does come in handy,” Bishop admitted as he and Miranda stepped into the light a few feet away.

  “It’s you,” Miranda said, more in understanding than surprise. “Noah said we’d crossed paths with some of the operatives in your organization, but I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “That’s sort of the point,” Murphy said, but more in amusement than sarcasm.

  “True enough.�
�

  Murphy looked between them, then settled her gaze on Bishop. “Behind that dandy shield, want to tell me how you knew about this place before we did?”

  “I was right?”

  “In spades. I suggested that Brodie utilize Tasha’s talents in a little test of a theory. And it worked; she saw them. Way too many of her nice, friendly neighbors with unnatural, distorted, and usually invisible shadows attached to them. So she’s totally freaked out.”

  “Can’t say that I blame her.”

  Murphy nodded. “So answer the question. How did you know?”

  “Didn’t know for sure,” Bishop admitted. “Some of us have developed something we informally call spider senses, because they let us know if something is wrong, off—even behind our shields, though what we get in that case tends to be muffled. When we can use the spider senses, our normal senses are enhanced, even though we still don’t read as psychics.”

  “Okay. And so?”

  “The whole neighborhood just felt wrong, from the moment we were even close to the area. Off-kilter. I took a guess, given how badly you say Duran wants Tasha Solomon, and given that he knows about your standard security practices—right?”

  “Yeah, he knows. Like we know his.” Murphy nodded. “Which is why he might try something different when his target is especially important to him.”

  “It’s pretty damned elaborate,” Bishop noted. “And uses up a lot of manpower. Either he’s put a disproportionate number of his assets here around Tasha, or else their organization really is huge.”

  “Either way is not good for our side.” Murphy frowned at the two of them. “Appreciate the theory and the intel, but you shouldn’t be here. If Brodie found out, he’d put you on his very long list of people he doesn’t trust. And that’s not what we want.”

  “I know. But I also know something I didn’t when I first met with Brodie.”

  “Let me guess.” Murphy’s voice was still grim. “One or more of the psychics you’ve been monitoring has disappeared.”

  “That’s a very good guess.”

  Murphy made a sound that was half amused and half angry. “It just figures. You wouldn’t be this close to the action after you were told we needed another ace more than we needed another soldier unless the stakes were very high. Very high for you, personally. How many?”

  “Four in the last few weeks, two of them very recent.”

  “Shit. And from here, in Charleston?”

  “Both the recent abductees lived in the area.”

  “Strong psychics?”

  “In different ways. Two born, two triggered in their late twenties. A clairvoyant, a medium, a seer—and a telekinetic.”

  “Rare birds, telekinetics.”

  “Yeah. She’s one of those triggered by physical trauma, a head injury. Her control tends to slip when her emotions run high, but she was working on that.”

  Murphy hunched her shoulders, then sighed. “Bishop, I know your reputation for success in your work, but this . . . We don’t get them back. If the other side has them, they’re gone.”

  “I can’t accept that. Not without doing everything I possibly can to find them.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say something like that.”

  “I think Duran knows anyway, Murphy.”

  “About you?”

  “Yeah. All my senses are muffled and I can still feel the tension, especially around Tasha Solomon. All around her. I don’t know what his plans for her were, but between us all, we’ve managed to somehow upset them. I don’t think it’s just me, but I’m betting I’m the last person he wanted to get involved in this.”

  “On our side, at least,” Murphy said with a sigh.

  “Look, I’ll do my best not to get in anyone’s way. But I can’t just accept that four gifted people have been abducted and I can’t do a damned thing about it.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Bishop smiled faintly. “Who gets to tell Brodie?”

  “Oh, Christ. I may just let our base do that. And I don’t want to be in the area when he’s told.”

  Miranda said, “I don’t know him, but my bet is he’s too concerned about Tasha Solomon, especially now, to worry too much about us as long as we aren’t a threat to her.”

  “You don’t know him,” Murphy repeated darkly.

  “We have a couple of places to check out first thing tomorrow,” Bishop told her. “Outside Charleston. If we find anything useful, I’ll be in touch.”

  “I hope you find something,” Murphy told him honestly. “I really do. Something that’ll lead you to them. But . . .”

  “But?”

  She drew a breath and let it out slowly. “We don’t get many happy endings, Bishop. And the one thing we are reasonably sure of in all this is that the psychics are never taken for some . . . benign reason. And whatever they go through happens pretty much right away. Even if you find them, even if you find them alive, they won’t be the people you knew. They’ll never again be the people you knew.”

  It was Miranda who said quietly, “We have quite a lot of experience in helping . . . damaged psychics. Maybe whatever was done or is being done to them can be healed.”

  “Know a good healer, do you?”

  “We know a remarkable one,” Bishop told her. “But the first thing we have to do is find them and get them back.”

  “I know better than to try to stop you. But if you do find them, don’t try to go after them alone. Call me.”

  “Understood.” Bishop took his wife’s hand. “Watch your back, Murphy. You and Brodie both. And the Mackenzies.”

  She sighed again. “Why am I not surprised you know about them?”

  Taking that as a rhetorical question, Bishop said, “I know they’re outside the perimeter of this . . . web Duran has surrounding Tasha and Brodie. I don’t think he knows they’re here. Not what or who he’s focused on. I’m guessing Sarah is even more powerful than she was when I—crossed their path. And I’m fairly certain she’s going to be able to help you more than you know.”

  Murphy lifted her eyebrows in a silent question.

  “Call it a hunch,” he told her.

  Miranda lifted her free hand in a parting wave, and then she and her husband melted back into the shadows.

  Murphy remained where she was for several minutes, frowning in thought.

  Outside the perimeter, he’d said. Murphy hoped he was right.

  Sarah?

  Yeah? came back instantly.

  Don’t do your out-of-body thing, but can you sense the area close around Tasha?

  Astrid is gone, so the extra-strength headache worked. I don’t think they’ve replaced her, at least for tonight. What do you need me to sense?

  Any other psychics.

  There was a long pause, and then: You—barely. Good shield. Tasha, mostly because she’s shaken up; she’s shielding, but not nearly as strongly as normal. And . . . Brodie.

  Brodie isn’t psychic.

  Well, he’s reading as one now. I caught the glimmer of an ocean, maybe a mental projection he uses to visualize his shield, but that’s down now. He’s worried about her. They’re headed back to her condo. He’s armed.

  I know. I made sure he would be.

  He needs to lose the gun, Murphy. Before he gets back to the condo.

  Oh, Christ, don’t tell me.

  Something odd about one of the security guards. Doesn’t read as psychic, but something off about him. Best I can tell you without getting closer.

  No, don’t do that. You and Tucker stay where you are for now. And stay away from Duran, Sarah. Promise me.

  Okay. I promise. Just get that gun away from Brodie. I have the awful feeling that security guard is just looking for an excuse to use his own gun, and I’m betting he’s trained to spot a weapon, especially when he
’s looking for one.

  Got it.

  Murphy was already moving, away from the light, out of the building, with a silence beyond stealth. She could cover a lot of ground very fast, especially when she trusted the information that no psychics from the other side were lurking to get in her way.

  Of course, that didn’t mean the other side wasn’t represented. But Murphy had been certain earlier today that Duran had pulled back his “visible” watchdogs. She had no idea why he’d done it, unless it had been to offer Brodie and Tasha a false sense of security so that his web of “unthreatening” neighbors and friends could get even closer to Tasha before either she or Brodie was aware of the threat.

  And it could still work, despite Tasha and Brodie’s awareness of just how close the shadows had been lurking. Because they’d only been watching Tasha, creepy as that was, just watching her, so where was the real threat?

  Why? Why like this? He could have grabbed her and didn’t. He could have killed her and didn’t. He planted bugs and cameras in her condo, and what was the point of that? What the hell is Duran up to?

  What is he waiting for?

  She caught up to them half a block from Tasha’s condo, just out of reach of the very good security cameras, emerging rather suddenly from an alley—and it was only because she softly called Brodie’s name that she didn’t find herself looking at the business end of the automatic she’d slipped to him hardly more than an hour before.

  “Jesus, you know better,” Brodie snapped, but low. One hand was in his jacket pocket, and the other held Tasha’s hand. “Coming at me like that out of the dark.”

  “No choice. You need to give me back the gun.”

  He didn’t move. “I know the building security is good, but—”

  “It’s not just good. It’s been infiltrated.” She looked at Tasha. “The way some of your neighbors aren’t really neighbors.”

  “Oh, God,” Tasha said numbly.

  “How do you know?” Brodie demanded, his voice still low. “Tasha can see them, but you can’t, can you?”

  “Through her.” Murphy offered Tasha a slightly apologetic gesture with her hands. “Sorry. I tapped in, but only for a few seconds.”

  Tasha merely nodded.