Whisper of Evil

by Kay Hooper

  Turning from the window, Tony raised a subject he hoped would occupy his boss’s mind, at least for the moment. “Have you revised that profile of the killer in Silence? I mean, since we got the latest information?”

  Special Agent Noah Bishop looked up from his study of photographs of bits and pieces of physical evidence and frowned slightly as he shook his head. “Nothing we’ve learned recently changes the profile.”

  “Still a cop?”

  “Still probably a cop.”

  “How sure are you of that?”

  Bishop leaned back in his chair and gazed around the sitting room of the hotel suite as if it might provide answers, his pale gray sentry eyes as sharp as always. His reply was slow. “Unofficially? Pretty damned sure. But there’s always room for doubt, Tony, you know that.”

  “Yeah. But you tend to be awfully accurate, for all that. If you say you’re pretty sure, then he’s probably a cop. Tough for our people, having to keep their heads down, look for a killer, and police the police.”

  Bishop nodded, still frowning. The scar on his left cheek stood out more clearly than normal, as it always did when he was tense or upset. A useful and accurate barometer of his mood during those times when even another psychic found it difficult or impossible to read him any other way.

  Not that this was one of those times.

  Tony watched him. “You’re still bothered by something else, aren’t you? In Silence.”

  Since he had long ago learned the uselessness of denying thoughts or feelings another member of his team was picking up on, Bishop merely said, “There’s an undercurrent I can’t quite get a fix on.”

  “What kind of undercurrent? Emotional or psychological?”

  “Both.”

  “With Nell? Or with the killer?”

  Bishop grimaced. “Plenty of undercurrents with Nell, but we knew that going in. No, it’s something about the killer I can’t bring into focus. I think he has another reason for picking his victims. Not just because they have secrets he wants to expose. There’s something else.”

  “His own history with them, maybe?”

  Bishop shrugged. “Maybe. It almost feels as if ... it’s more personal for him. That maybe the sins he’s punishing them for aren’t just the ones exposed by their murders or the investigations. That there’s something else there, if we could dig deeply enough to find it.”

  “So he tells himself he’s killing them, punishing them, to get justice for the innocent people in their lives, but all the time it’s revenge for himself?”

  “At least partly for himself. But he still thinks of himself as a judge and jury. He still believes he’s performing a service for society, he’s convinced himself of that, by sentencing and executing these men for their secret sins.”

  “But also for injuring him.”

  Bishop ran restless fingers through his black hair, slightly disarranging the vivid white streak above the left temple. “I get the sense he despises them, all of them, and all for the same reason.”

  “Because they hurt him? Lied to him?”

  “Maybe. Dammit, I need to be down there. I’d have a better shot at figuring this bastard out if I was there, on the scene.”

  Tony said, “Well, aside from the fact that your face was plastered all over the national papers a few months ago after we cracked that kidnapping case, which would make it a little hard for you to blend into the background down there, we also have this small matter of an active serial killer here in the Windy City.”

  “You don’t have to remind me of that, Tony.”

  “No, I didn’t think I did,” Tony murmured. “Look, maybe we can wrap things up here quickly enough that we’ll be able to get down to Silence and help out.”

  “Yeah.”

  Tony watched him a moment longer, then said, “I know what you’re really worried about. But Miranda’s okay, you know that.”

  “Yes. For the moment.”

  It wasn’t the first time Tony had wondered whether the psychic bond between Bishop and his wife was a blessing or a curse. When they were working together, concentrating on the same investigation, it was undoubtedly a blessing; together they were far more powerful and accurate, both as psychics and investigators, than either was alone. But when they were separated by necessity, as they were now, each working on a different case, then the bond often proved to be something of a problem—or at the very least a distraction.

  Bishop knew Miranda was currently safe and unhurt because, even though they had closed the “doors” connecting their minds in order to keep from distracting each other, they each maintained a constant sense of the other’s physical and emotional state no matter what the distance was between them. Bishop knew Miranda was safe for the moment, just as she knew he was—and also knew he was worried about her.

  Tony didn’t pretend to understand it, but like the other members of the unit, he was more than a little awed by it. Even among psychics accustomed to various, often extraordinary paranormal abilities, some things were still remarkable.

  What must it be like to be so bonded to another person that their thoughts and feelings flowed through you as easily as your own did? To be so connected that if one was cut, the other would also bleed?

  It was Tony’s opinion that such incredible intimacy would require both a great deal of trust in and understanding of one’s partner and an equally great degree of security and honesty in oneself. He seriously doubted that any pair of psychics who were not mates or blood siblings could have formed such a bond.

  But it wasn’t all good, as this situation illustrated. Bishop and Miranda had been together long enough by now that they had learned to function extraordinarily well both as a team and when separated by circumstances, but their unusual closeness literally made each in many ways incomplete without the other.

  Tony had absolutely no qualms about serving with either one of them alone; even when lacking their vital other half, both Bishop and Miranda were formidable psychics and investigators, skilled and tough cops, and more than a match for most situations in which they found themselves. But he would also be the first to admit that it was far more comfortable to serve with them both, the partnership intact and the two of them functioning smoothly as if with a single mind and heart.

  A hell of a lot less tension that way.

  With all of that very much in his thoughts, Tony spoke carefully. “We’re spread pretty thin right now, with a half-dozen separate major investigations scattered across the country all going on at once. We have to use all our resources and all our aces. Every team in the field has to have a dominant member, that’s your rule. A lead investigator with as much experience as possible who’s also the most powerful psychic available.”

  Bishop said, “Something else you don’t need to remind me of, Tony.”

  “All I’m saying is that Miranda being the lead might make all the difference in her case, and you know it. Just like you being the lead here and Quentin being the lead out in California, and Isabel running the show in Boston. Besides, Miranda took care of herself for a good many years before you tracked her down and reappeared in her life.”

  “I know that.”

  “She’s a black belt and a crack shot, besides being able to read at least two-thirds of the people she encounters. All of which gives her quite an edge in the survival department.”

  “I know that too.”

  “I know you know that. All of that. I also know none of it makes a damned bit of difference at the moment because you’ve spent way too many sleepless nights alone in bed. It’s starting to show, boss.”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  Tony started slightly and felt his face get warm. Damned inconvenient sometimes, he thought, working with a telepath. Especially one as powerful as Bishop. “Never mind me.”

  Remorselessly, Bishop said, “Nothing like getting the scare of your life to advance a relationship to the next step.”

  “Shit. How long have you known?”

 
“About you and Kendra?” Bishop smiled slightly. “Longer than you have, Tony. Long before she was shot.”

  Tony considered that, then shook his head. “I knew Quentin was on to us but figured that was mostly because he’s usually Kendra’s partner in the field. And because he so often knows things he shouldn’t, damn his eyes.”

  Mildly curious, Bishop said, “Why even bother trying to keep it quiet?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah—I do know. You’ve said yourself there are few secrets in a unit full of psychics; sometimes it’s fun to have a secret. Even if you’re only fooling yourself that’s what it is.”

  “I get that where you’re concerned. It’s just the sort of thing you’d like. But Kendra? She’s awfully level-headed to enjoy a secret romance.”

  Tony grinned. “Are you kidding? It’s the level-headed ones that go off the deep end, believe me.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Do that. I’m not nearly sure enough of her to risk having everybody openly watching us to see what happens next.”

  “Remember who you’re talking to. In this unit, we don’t have to openly watch to know what’s going on.”

  “Yeah, but at least that way we won’t feel quite so much like bugs under a microscope.”

  Deadpan, Bishop said, “So we should be subtle while we gleefully observe?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you would,” Tony responded earnestly.

  Bishop lifted a brow at him. “It occurs to me that you’re having a shot at that sort of subtlety now. Tony, are you trying to distract me?”

  “I was working on it, yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “You know damned well why. The tension in here. That’s something you couldn’t be subtle about if you tried. And you never try.”

  With only a mild attempt to defend himself, Bishop said, “I’m always tense during an investigation.”

  “No, that’s a different kind of tension.”

  “And you’d know.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Bishop grimaced slightly. “Okay, okay. I will do my best to stop worrying about things I can’t control. In the meantime, would you care to come away from that window and do something useful? Like work?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Tony responded cheerfully, joining his boss at the conference table. But before he picked up a photograph to study, he added in a musing tone, “Getting back to Silence for just a minute—what do you think about this connection Nell has? Think it’ll make things easier for her?”

  “No,” Bishop replied soberly. “I think it’ll make things harder for her. Much harder.”

  Tony sighed. “And there’s nothing we can do to help?”

  “Some things have to happen—”

  “—just the way they happen,” Tony finished. “Yeah, I was afraid you were going to say that. And in some cases, boss, it really sucks.”

  “Tell me about it,” Bishop said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to these ... episodes of yours,” Max said, releasing her shoulders only because she moved away.

  Nell nearly reminded him that he wouldn’t have to since she didn’t intend to remain in Silence for long, but instead heard herself say, “They’re unnerving, I know. Especially for someone else. Sorry about that.”

  He shook his head. “Never mind. Just explain a few things, will you, please? I’m getting really tired of groping through this fog of confusion.” Even though the words were flippant, his tone was anything but. “And before I try to figure out what the hell you mean by saying your father was murdered too, can you start with the basics?”

  “It’s getting late,” she hedged, wondering if she was only talking about the lateness of the hour on this particular night or something a lot more important. She had a hunch it was the latter, and it bothered her more than she wanted to admit even to herself.

  “I know. But I doubt either one of us is going to be able to sleep anytime soon. I need to understand, Nell. And I think you owe me that much.”

  She didn’t protest, all too aware that she owed him a lot more than that. What was the going price for leaving a man in limbo? High. Maybe too high to pay. She set her coffee cup on the scarred old butcher-block table in the center of the kitchen and sat down in one of the ladder-back chairs. She waited until he sat down across from her, then spoke slowly. “Explain the visions, you mean?”

  “Can you explain them?”

  Nell shrugged. “I understand them a bit better than I did while I was growing up—even though what I felt instinctively way back then turned out to be pretty accurate.”

  “For instance?”

  “What it is I actually tap into during a vision. A sociologist would say I had just experienced what they call an apparitional event. That I had seen—or at least claimed I had seen—the ghost of my father walk through this room. But that’s not what I saw.”

  “No? What, then?”

  “It was . . . a memory.”

  “Whose memory?”

  She smiled faintly. “In the very broadest sense, it was the memory of the house.”

  “Are you saying this house is haunted?”

  “No. I’m saying the house remembers.”

  “You said something like that before, years ago,” Max noted. “That some places remember. But I don’t understand what you mean. How can a house have a memory?”

  “Any object—a house, a place—can have a memory. Life has energy, Max. Life is energy. Broken down into their most basic form, emotions and thoughts are energy: electrical impulses produced by the brain.”

  “Okay. And so?”

  “And so energy can be absorbed and retained by an object or a place. By walls and a floor, by trees, even by the ground itself. Maybe certain places are more likely than others to retain energy because of factors we don’t yet understand, because their physical composition lends itself to storing energy, or there are magnetic fields—or even that the energy itself is particularly powerful at a given moment and we ourselves stamp that into a place with our own strength and intensity.

  “However it happens, some places remember some things. Some emotions. Some events. The energy remains trapped in a place, unseen and unheard until someone with an inborn sensitivity to that particular kind of energy is able to tap into it.”

  “Someone like you.”

  “Exactly. There’s nothing magical about what I do, nothing dark or evil—or inhuman. It’s just an ability, as natural to me as your instincts about horses are to you. A perfectly normal talent, if you will, that not everyone has. Maybe it’s genetic, like the color of our eyes or whether we’re right- or left-handed; in my family it certainly seems to be, at least partly. On the other hand, there’s every possibility that every human being has the capacity for some form of psychic ability, that everyone has an unused area of the brain that could perform seemingly amazing things if we only knew how to ... turn it on.”

  Nell shook her head and frowned slightly as she looked down at her coffee. “We’re pretty sure that some people are born with the potential to develop some kind of psychic ability, that in them the area of the brain controlling that function is at least partly or intermittently active, even if it’s entirely on an unconscious level; we call them latents. They usually aren’t aware of it, though another psychic often is.”

  Max frowned, but all he said was, “But latent abilities do sometimes become active on a conscious level?”

  “They have been known to. As far as we can tell, turning a latent into a conscious, functioning psychic requires some sort of trigger. A physical or emotional trauma, usually. Like a shock to the brain, literally or figuratively. Something happens to them, an accident or an emotional jolt—and they find themselves coping with strange new abilities. Which would explain why people with head injuries or who develop certain kinds of seizures often report psychic experiences afterward.”

  “I had no idea,” Max said.

  “No
t many people do. I didn’t, until I joined the unit and began to learn.” She shook her head again. “Anyway, in my particular case, my brain is hardwired for a sensitivity to the sort of electrical energy produced by . . . emotional or psychologically intense events. Those events leave electrical impressions behind, energy that’s absorbed by the place where the events occur, and I have the knack of sensing and interpreting that electrical energy.”

  Max spoke carefully. “Isn’t sensing electrical energy a long way from envisioning an image of a dead man?”

  “Is it? The mind interprets the information it’s given and translates that into some form we recognize and understand. What happened in this room had a form, a face, a voice—and all that survived as energy. As a memory. Just the way you recall a memory of your own, I can recall the memory of a place. Sometimes quite vividly, and sometimes only bits and pieces, images, feelings, scattered and unclear.”

  “Okay. Assuming I can accept all that, explain to me why that particular scene—your father walking through a kitchen he must have walked through a million times—is what this room retained. Why that? Out of everything that must have happened here in decades, all the emotional scenes and crises so common in every kitchen everywhere, why was that very normal scene important enough to retain?”

  “Because it wasn’t normal. What my father was feeling when he walked through this kitchen then was . . . incredibly intense. He was emotionally devastated.”

  Max frowned. “You felt that?”

  “Sensed it—some of it, at least. It was difficult to get a fix on his emotions, simply because he was overwhelmed by them himself. But I know he was distraught, in shock, that he’d just discovered something he could hardly believe was true.”

  “Something she should have told him, isn’t that what you heard him say?”

  “Yes. Given the calendar I saw, that must have been when he found out whatever it was that made him disinherit Hailey. He died in late May, and he’d changed his will just a few weeks before that, not long after she left.”

  Still frowning, Max said, “So why do you believe he was murdered? No one suspected it was anything other than a heart attack.”