by Kay Hooper
“Ah. One of the rare psychics possessing more than a single skill. And your primary ability?”
“Once upon a time, it was precognition. But I burned that one out pretty thoroughly years ago. The … visions… are few and far between these days.”
Harte's spaniel-brown eyes widened, and he looked at Bishop with something like wonder. “My God,” he said softly. “Three separate abilities?”
“Four,” Bishop said. “Aside from being adept, pre-cognitive, and able to project a shield, she's also a pretty fair touch telepath. On our scale … probably eighth degree.”
“Wow,” Harte said, again very softly.
Miranda wasn't entirely sure she liked Bishop's frankness, but knew only too well that she herself had opened the door. It just felt odd to be discussing it so openly after so many years of careful silence. She didn't want to admit even to herself that it also felt sort of nice to talk to people who understood and accepted.
But curiosity drove her to ask, “Eighth degree? What the hell kind of scale are we talking about?” Since Harte still appeared a bit stunned, she had no choice but to look, finally, at Bishop.
He gazed at her steadily, his pale eyes unreadable. “A scale we developed at Quantico while putting the program together the last few years.”
“Being anal feds,” she said dryly, “you just had to weigh, measure, and evaluate even the paranormal, huh?”
“Something like that.”
She realized he wasn't going to tell her unless she asked, and it annoyed her. “Okay, I'll bite. So how high does this scale of yours go?”
“To twelve.”
“Which, I suppose, is your degree?”
Bishop shook his head. “We have yet to encounter a psychic with any kind of twelfth-degree ability. I rank at a little above ten telepathically.”
“How about the spider-sense? What does that rank?”
“Maybe six. On a good day.”
“To put things into perspective,” Harte murmured, “Sharon and I both come in around three on the scale as adepts. Most of the other members of the unit, in fact, don't go above five. And only one other agent besides Bishop has even an ancillary ability, far less a fullblown secondary ability. This is the first time I've ever met anybody with more than two. In fact, it's the first time I've even heard of it.”
“Yeah, well. I come from a long line of overachievers.” Miranda wasn't as impressed with herself as Harte was. Familiarity had not bred contempt, but it had bred acceptance; to Miranda, the paranormal was just a part of life.
“Why in hell are you stuck way out here in the boonies instead of playing on our team?” Harte exclaimed, then winced and sent an apologetic look to Bishop. “Yikes. Sorry, boss.”
“Tony,” Bishop said mildly, “I think the coffeepot is empty. Why don't you go fill it?”
“Hey, you don't have to drop a house on me to get me to go away. I'm psychic—I can take a more subtle hint than that.” He grabbed the coffeepot and beat a hasty retreat, closing the door gently behind him.
Miranda didn't know which emotion was stronger, furious embarrassment that her past was not, apparently, as private as she had supposed, or furious pain that Bishop had evidently discussed her with at least one member of his team.
“I'm sorry, Miranda.”
She forced herself not to look away, and called on all her self-control to present an indifferent front. “About what? Discussing me with your agents? Should I have expected anything else?”
“I hope so. It isn't what you obviously think.”
“Isn't it?”
“Miranda, they're psychics. And even though my walls are fairly solid, I can't project an impenetrable shield the way you can—even around my own mind.”
She was glad her shield was firmly in place just then, glad he had no idea of her thoughts and emotions. But all she said was, “So whose idea was this new unit of yours? It doesn't sound at all typical of the Bureau.”
For a moment, she thought he would fight her, but finally he answered.
“It isn't. There was a great deal of resistance at first, until it was proved that unconventional methods and abilities could produce tangible results.”
“And who proved that? You?”
“Eventually.”
“Really? How?”
He drew a breath. “I tracked down the Rosemont Butcher.”
Miranda rose to her feet slowly, staring at him. “What?” she whispered.
“Lewis Harrison. I got him, Miranda. Six and a half years ago.”
Alex had been more or less ordered not to come into the office on Sunday. He'd been working nearly three weeks without a break, and Miranda claimed the town council would have her head on a platter if she didn't see to it that he took time off whether he wanted to or not. Overtime was one thing, she said, but he was carrying it to extremes—even if they did have a serial killer to find.
He hated days off. He wasn't a sporting man, so hunting and fishing held no appeal for him. Neither did golf. Watching sports on television was an enjoyable pastime only during baseball season. He ran and worked out to keep in shape, but a man could hardly do that all day.
And then there was the house. It was too big and too damned empty. He should get rid of it, he knew. But Janet had loved the house, had decorated it with painstaking care, and in the year since her death he hadn't been able to face the thought of someone else living in Janet's house.
But living in the house alone had its own kind of pain, and though sleeping there was, finally, possible, Alex could seldom spend much time in it when he was awake.
Unfortunately, Sundays in Gladstone didn't offer a lot in the way of entertainment once church let out. And even less if one wasn't particularly interested in church.
He finally drove to town, resisting the urge to stop by the office and find out what was going on. Instead, he parked near Liz's bookstore and coffeeshop, forced to wait nearly forty-five minutes for Liz to unlock the doors at two o'clock.
“I heard about Lynet,” she said.
“Yeah, poor kid.” Alex sat at the counter rather than his usual booth, since Liz worked alone on Sundays.
“And I heard the FBI is in town.”
“Well, three agents anyway.” He smiled. “Your dark man with a mark on his face is one of them. And Randy knows him.” Then Alex recalled what Liz had said about the fate of that man, and his smile faded. “You don't still think—”
Liz chewed on her bottom lip. “When I read the leaves again, it was more fuzzy, less definite, but I'm sure it was the same thing, Alex. Does—does Randy like him?”
Alex considered the question. “To be honest, the only thing I'm sure of is that she feels a lot about him. Whether it's like or dislike, positive or negative, I can't tell.”
“Maybe I should talk to her about what I saw,” Liz suggested hesitantly. “She's never scoffed. Never let me read the leaves for her, but—”
Alex shook his head. “Not right now, Liz. Randy has enough on her plate, I think, without having to worry about something that might not happen.”
“I knew it would be a strange year, new millennium and all, but I really don't like all these bad omens, Alex.”
“More dogs howling at night?”
Before she could answer, Justin Marsh stormed into the coffeeshop, his thin little wife, Selena, on his heels like a mute shadow.
“Elizabeth, I'm asking you again not to conduct business on the Sabbath!” he thundered as though from a pulpit.
Alex sighed. “Justin, why're you picking on Liz? Half the retail businesses and all the restaurants and cafés open up after church. Afternoon, Selena.”
“Hello.” She smiled timidly, holding her Bible with both hands as though she feared it would escape any minute. She might have been pretty once, but Selena had been married to Justin Marsh for nearly thirty years and the ordeal had worn her down. She was seldom seen in public without him, and Alex couldn't recall hearing her say much more than hello and goodbye
, with an occasional Praise the Lord or Amen thrown in at appropriate pauses in Justin's oratory.
“As a matter of fact,” Alex went on, “didn't you use to open up your car lot on Sundays before you retired and sold out?”
“I saw the error of my ways,” Justin declared piously, his face reddening. “And now I'm commanded by the Lord to guide the others of his flock toward the light of salvation!”
Alex almost gave that one an Amen himself. He always appreciated a good dramatic performance.
Gravely, Liz said, “Can I get you two some coffee, Justin? Purely on the house, you understand—not a business transaction.”
He leaned across the counter, eyes intent on her face.
“Elizabeth, I will place your feet upon a godly path. You must not be allowed to follow the evil way. A good woman such as you should have an honored place in the house of our Lord.”
Normally Alex was patient with Justin's excesses, but with the memory of poor little Lynet's battered body vivid in his mind, he snapped. “Justin, if you want to seek out evil, you might begin with whoever killed our teenagers. I'd think that would be a damned sight more important to any god than whether Liz should sell coffee and books on Sunday!”
Justin made a choked sound, then turned away. Selena, out of long practice, skipped nimbly aside, then shadowed him faithfully as he stalked out of the store.
“I don't like that man,” Alex said.
“But you shouldn't have said that, Alex. You know he'll go straight to the mayor.”
“Oh, don't worry about it. Right now, even the mayor has more to worry about than Justin Marsh's ruffled feathers.”
Sharon Edwards stripped off her rubber gloves and looked across the table at Peter Shepherd. “No question about it.”
Shepherd grunted. “I don't get it,” he said. “What would be the point?”
“We'll add that to our list of questions to ask this lunatic when we catch him. In the meantime, if you'll box up all the slides and tissue samples, I'll get started on the report for the sheriff.”
“Six and a half years ago,” Miranda repeated numbly. “But … there was nothing about it on the news.”
“Not the national news, no. Coincidentally, a far more famous killer was captured that week—a mass murderer out in Texas—and he got all the national media attention.”
“I checked NCIC,” Miranda protested. “As soon as I joined the Sheriff's Department here and had access, I checked every month to see if he'd been caught.”
“I'm sorry,” Bishop said. “Some inside the Bureau were convinced Harrison had a partner, that one man couldn't have done everything he'd confessed to doing. The decision was made to keep the case file open, to list him as at large to make certain any similar crimes would send up a flag.”
“But how could they do that unless—” She sat back down in her chair. “He's dead?”
Bishop nodded.
“You?”
“Yes.”
She was, on some level, surprised to feel so little about the death of Lewis Harrison. For so long, he had been a part of her life, a continual threat, the monster hiding in the closet ready to spring out when darkness came.
She doubted there had been a single night in the last eight years that she had not thought of him in the instant before she turned off her bedside lamp. As for Bonnie, the poor kid still had nightmares, horrible ones. Not so often now, but it was clear she had forgotten nothing of terror.
Miranda couldn't help but wonder how her life might have been different if she'd known Lewis Harrison could never take anything away from her ever again.
What would have changed?
“I wanted to tell you, Miranda. I tried to find you.”
“I didn't want to be found,” she murmured.
“That became obvious sooner rather than later. Not even FBI resources can locate an angry psychic if she doesn't want to be found.”
Miranda didn't explain the methods she had used to start her life over again, though she knew he was curious. Even with the threat of Harrison gone, she was wary enough to want to protect secrets she might need again someday.
Always assuming she survived the next few weeks.
She looked across the table at Bishop and suddenly a dark, chilling doubt twisted inside her. He was ruthless, always had been. When it came to doing his job, he believed the end justified the means, and he was perfectly capable of doing whatever it took to accomplish his objectives.
God, how well she knew that.
So what were his objectives now? To persuade her to drop her guard, her shields, so he could use her abilities to track down a vicious killer? To convince her there was no threat to her and Bonnie, no reason for her to protect herself and her sister?
Would he lie to convince her?
Even though he certainly couldn't read her thoughts, Miranda saw a change in his face, as if he realized what she was thinking.
“I am not lying,” he said evenly.
She conjured a brittle smile. “You'll have to forgive me if I don't take your word for that.”
Bishop moved slightly, an unconscious shifting of his weight in protest or denial, but all he said, in that same level voice, was, “I'll make sure you're allowed access to the sealed records concerning Harrison.”
“You do that,” Miranda said.
FIVE
It was after noon when Tony Harte stuck his head cautiously into the conference room. He found Bishop alone, still sitting on the table, still staring at the blackboard. He appeared perfectly calm, but the scar on his face stood out whitely from the tanned flesh surrounding it and Harte took due note of a warning sign he had learned to be wary of.
“Um … the sheriff left a few minutes ago,” Harte offered.
“I know.”
“I mean, she left the building.”
Bishop looked at him briefly. “Yes. I know.”
“She seemed to be in an awful hurry. Couldn't wait to get out of here, was my take.”
Bishop kept his gaze on the blackboard.
Harte came in and got a fresh pot of coffee brewing. He debated with himself silently, then sighed and ventured where many before him hadn't dared to tread.
“Back when I joined up, the word was you didn't get official approval for the new unit until you threatened to quit. Even after all the stuff you did unofficially, the years of planning and testing and building the program, after all the fieldwork and a growing list of closed cases, the Bureau still didn't want to openly sanction—or appear to sanction—highly unorthodox investigative methods. Even after you gave them results they couldn't deny. But they didn't want to lose one of their top profilers, so they finally gave the unit their official seal of approval—even if it did make them queasy to do it.”
“If you get anywhere near a point, Tony, make it.”
Harte didn't let that warning voice dissuade him. “I was just thinking that Sheriff Knight probably has no idea that because of her there are a lot of monsters in cages where they belong.”
Bishop didn't respond.
“And I was thinking maybe you should tell her.”
“If you think it would even the score,” Bishop said, “you're wrong.”
“Maybe. But she might feel better knowing something positive came out of tragedy.”
“You mean she might hate me a little less?” Bishop's smile was hardly worthy of the name. “Don't count on it.”
“If you'll excuse me for saying so, boss, letting things go on the way they are between you is just going to slow us down. If we're going to catch this bastard, we'll need every ace we can pull out of our sleeves—and that includes an incredibly gifted psychic with singular abilities who right now is very much shut inside herself.”
“She couldn't sense him before we got here,” Bishop argued.
“Probably because of her shield. Because she's had to hide what she can do, had to be careful. And … because she was hiding here herself. Hiding her sister.” Harte paused. “I gather s
he knows she doesn't have to do that anymore.”
“She knows what I've told her. Whether she believes I told her the truth is something else entirely.”
“You can prove it's the truth.” Then Harte shook his head. “Except that official records have the bastard still alive and at large. You'll have to get her access to the sealed records.”
“I know.”
Harte eyed him, wondering if Bishop wanted Sheriff Knight to believe him without proof. Definitely a proud man, was Bishop. But not a stupid man. He had to know that his past actions made Miranda Knight nothing but suspicious.
Harte tentatively sensed the emotions in the room, much as a trained hunting dog would sniff the air for telltale scent, and was startled by the turmoil he detected in his normally composed boss. The feelings went deep and sharp, a confusion of anger and guilt, hunger and regret, pain and need and shame.
Slowly, Harte said, “Proof or no, it'll take her some time to get used to the idea, I imagine. But once she gets past that, once she realizes she can open up … then there's you.”
“Then there's me. Keeping her closed.” Bishop sighed and stared at his subordinate with grim eyes. “Sometimes I hate working with psychics.”
“Ninety-eight-percent success rate,” Harte reminded him.
“Yeah, yeah. Just stay the hell out of my head, will you, please?”
“Hey, boss, I can't get into your head. That's not my forte, remember? I just pick things up from the air. Not my fault if you're tossing 'em out there.”
“I'll try to watch that,” Bishop said dryly.
“Yeah, you might want to,” Harte murmured, fixing his attention on a small and unnecessary adjustment to the coffeemaker.
A tinge of hot color stole into Bishop's cheeks. “Any idea where she went?”
“Nope. But it is lunchtime, more or less; maybe she has a usual haunt. Being the sheriff, I'd assume she has to always leave word where she'll be. Or wear a pager, I suppose, though I didn't notice one earlier. I saw her speak to the receptionist—what's her name, Grace?— before she went out.”
Bishop didn't bother to invent an excuse for leaving the conference room; there really were precious few secrets among a team of psychics, and if it disturbed him to have his thoughts and emotions plucked out of hiding, at least it also made prevarication useless and explanation unnecessary.