“Max, heel,” she told him firmly. He stopped barking but was growling low in his throat by the time they got within a few feet of the visitor.
“Hi,” she greeted Ben.
“Hi.” He was eyeing the dog. “Well, he’s big enough. Does he bite?”
“I don’t know yet, though the shelter said he was gentle as a lamb the whole time they had him.” Cassie glanced down at the still-growling dog. “Abandoned by people who apparently just didn’t want to move him along with the furniture.”
“It happens, sad to say. At least our shelter doesn’t put them to sleep.”
“That’s what they told me.” And that the younger Judge Ryan had been partly responsible for the shelter’s policy of never euthanizing healthy animals—an interesting insight into his character. “Abby adopted one too, did you know?”
“Matt mentioned it.” Ben smiled. “A very large Irish setter who loves to sleep with Abby. Matt wasn’t entirely happy about that.”
“I’ll bet.” Cassie wondered if Abby had confided in the sheriff about the prophecy but decided not to ask.
Max’s growl got louder.
“You’d better introduce us,” Ben said.
Cassie had little experience with dogs, but knew instinctively how it needed to be done. She told Max to sit, keeping one hand on the dog, and gestured for Ben to step closer. When he did, and after only the slightest hesitation, she reached out and took his hand. It was very warm, even on this cold winter day.
“Max, this is Ben,” she said steadily. “He’s a friend.” She guided Ben’s hand close enough for the dog to sniff. Max either liked the way this new person smelled or else accepted Cassie’s reassuring touch; his tail thumped against the frozen ground and the growling stopped.
Ben petted the dog with a casual yet experienced ease and spoke to him kindly. By the time he straightened, Max was completely relaxed.
“So far so good,” Cassie said. She released the collar, and they watched as he went to investigate the tires of the Jeep.
“We’ll see how he greets me next time.” Ben paused. “Does he sleep with you?”
Cassie decided not to take the question too personally. “He has a bed of his own beside mine. So far, he’s stayed in it.”
Ben nodded. “I’m glad you got him.”
“So am I.” It was the truth. She had discovered it was pleasant to have an attentive and undemanding companion who listened when she talked. And it had surprised her how much she had talked to the animal.
“I’m sorry to drop in on you without calling.” Ben’s voice held that same restless note she had heard when he had called the previous night. “But I was out this way, and—”
Cassie allowed the silence to last only a moment. “It’s cold out here. Why don’t we go inside? It’ll just take a few minutes to warm up the coffee.”
“That sounds good. Thanks.”
Max left off investigating the Jeep to accompany them, and as usual followed Cassie into the kitchen.
“He sticks close,” Ben observed from the doorway.
“So far.” She glanced at Ben, reading more tension in his posture, and said, “I was planning to light a fire in the living room fireplace. How are you at getting them started?”
“Fair.” He smiled.
“Then you get the job. It always takes me way too much newspaper and kindling.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
By the time Cassie came into the living room carrying a tray, Ben had the fire going briskly. He had shed his suit jacket and rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and was standing by the fireplace, loosening his tie. Cassie put the tray on the coffee table and sat down at one end of the sofa.
“I think there’s a knack to lighting fires,” she said, pouring the coffee. “I don’t have it. You obviously do. Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” Ben watched Max carry a rawhide bone in from the kitchen, eye the fire distrustfully for a moment, then collapse on a rug not too far from Cassie.
“We’re getting into a routine,” she said. “I give him a rawhide bone about this time, and it takes him the rest of the night to demolish it.” She held out Ben’s cup, and when he came to take it, added, “Have a seat.”
He chose the other end of the sofa, and sat half turned so he could look at her. “I hope I’m not disrupting your routine.”
“No. I’ve been sorting through some of Aunt Alex’s things, but taking my time.” She gestured toward a large box occupying a nearby chair. “That’s mostly papers, correspondence and the like. I’ll probably go through it tonight. But there’s no hurry.”
“So you haven’t been bothered by anything else?”
Cassie shook her head and sipped her coffee. “No, nothing. I would have called the sheriff and offered to try again, but I imagine he’s determined to try all the normal lines of investigation first. He won’t look to me until he gets really desperate.”
Ben didn’t smile. “Do you think he will?”
“If you mean do I think the killing is over—no, I don’t.”
“Why not? Maybe three satisfied him.”
“I don’t think so. There’s a… need in this one, a hunger. Killing appeases something inside him. The terror of his victims appeases something inside him. But he isn’t sated yet. He’ll kill again.”
“It’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Ben said. “Matt’s investigation hasn’t uncovered anything new, or at least not anything helpful. No witnesses have come forward. There are no viable suspects. And the whole town is holding its breath.”
Cassie refused to say it for him. She merely waited.
Ben shook his head. “Maybe Matt’s willing to wait and depend on traditional police methods, but I’m not. Not when there’s another option. Cassie, would you try again? See if you can pick up any new information, something that might help us catch this bastard before he kills again?”
“What would the sheriff say about that?”
“He said plenty,” Ben replied with a grimace. “Especially when I said I didn’t want to bring you to his office and draw attention with everybody in town so edgy and watchful. He refused to come out here, and didn’t want to let me bring something you could touch. But he finally gave in, probably to get me out of his office.”
“So you weren’t just in the neighborhood, huh?”
He hesitated. “I would have called first, but I wanted to see you before I asked you to try again, make sure you weren’t as drained as you were before. To be honest, I drove around for half an hour before I could convince myself I had to ask you.”
Cassie could believe that. It explained his disquiet since arriving; he was beginning to understand how much it took out of her, and he was torn between need and the reluctance to cause hurt.
“It’s all right, you know,” she said. “I did agree to try to help.”
He gave her a quick look. “You wanted to stop, Cassie, we both know that.”
“And we also both know I don’t have a choice. Not if I stay here.” She paused. “And I’m staying here. So let’s see whatever it is you’ve brought for me to touch.”
Ben set his cup on the coffee table and went to get his jacket from a chair near the fireplace. When he came back to the sofa, he was holding a small plastic bag labeled EVIDENCE. Inside the bag was a scrap of drab-colored cloth.
“Matt said this might tell you something.”
Cassie put her cup on the coffee table and then took the bag from him and opened it. She braced herself mentally, closed her eyes, then held the scrap of cloth between her fingers.
Ben watched her. Since the night she had been unable to read him even after touching him, he thought she was a bit less wary in his presence; she was definitely making eye contact more often than she had at first.
But she was still very much shut inside herself, guarded and watchful. Her smiles were almost always brief, her eyes unreadable. And though the strain he had seen at their first meeting was still visible in the faint sha
dows under her eyes, she seemed somehow less torn by it, as though acceptance of the situation had bred a kind of peace.
Or a kind of fatalism.
That bothered Ben, this feeling that Cassie was resigned to a fate she was convinced lay in store for her. She had not had to tell him that the fate she saw for herself was not a happy one; it had been obvious. And that had been the reason he had driven around arguing with himself before finally coming to her. Not because an attempt would most likely drain her, but because he couldn’t shake the feeling that with each attempt she was moving nearer a destiny that would take her far beyond his reach, maybe beyond anyone’s reach.
And she knew it.
He made himself put that aside for the moment, and was about to ask her if she sensed anything, when her sudden smile threw him off balance.
“Cassie? Does it tell you anything?”
She opened her eyes, the smile lingering. “As a matter of fact, it does.” She returned the scrap to the plastic bag and dropped it carelessly onto the sofa between them. “It tells me the good sheriff has a sense of humor as well as a suspicious nature. I wasn’t entirely sure about that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s a test, Ben. A test for me.” She was still smiling. “I invited him to do it, actually, so I can’t complain.”
Ben picked up the evidence bag. “Are you telling me this didn’t come from any of the crime scenes?”
“Afraid not.”
“Then where the hell did it come from?”
“As I said, the sheriff has a sense of humor. That scrap of material is from his own Boy Scout uniform.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Don’t be too hard on him. I knew he wouldn’t refuse a challenge and I gave him one. To test me unexpectedly. That’s why he refused to come along, of course. He’s such an open book, I would easily have read his intentions. He’s sure I can do that, even if he’d argue there’s nothing paranormal about it. This way, he’s not here, and even if I could read you, you had no idea the so-called evidence wasn’t genuine.”
Grimly Ben said, “I certainly didn’t.”
Cassie shrugged. “Well, I passed his little test. It won’t convince him, but it should at least give him pause. Maybe in the end that’ll be worth something.”
Ben heard himself say, “What is the end, Cassie? Can you tell me that?”
She looked away, amusement fading. “I told you I can’t see the future.”
“But you saw yours. Your fate.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it? Can you tell me your fate isn’t tangled up with this investigation?”
Her profile was still, expressionless, as she gazed toward the fireplace, and her voice was calm when she said, “I can’t tell you anything about my fate.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s mine. Because telling you could somehow be the spur to make it all happen just as I saw it.”
“And what if not telling me is the spur? Can you be sure it isn’t?”
“No.”
“Then—”
“I had to make a choice, Ben. Act in any way to try to change what I saw, or not act. I acted. I ran three thousand miles. And in running, in acting to try to change what had to be, I put myself right back into the kind of situation I was running from.” She turned her head and looked at him at last, smiling faintly. “I don’t think I’ll act anymore.”
“You acted by agreeing to help us.”
“No, that was just one foot following the other. I’m here. Trying to help is the logical, natural thing to do. I’m not trying to change fate. I’m just doing what I have to do.”
“You saw your own death, didn’t you?”
“No.”
He frowned at her. “You’re lying to me.”
“No, I’m not. I did not see my own death.”
“Then what did you—”
“Ben, I don’t want to talk about this. It won’t do either of us any good. Just… stop feeling guilty for pressing me to help, all right?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“To me it is. Can we change the subject now?”
He nodded slowly. “All right. Tell me something. When you took my hand outside a little while ago, were you able to read me?”
“No.”
“Then it wasn’t because you were tired before.”
“No, it wasn’t. I can’t read you. You have walls.”
His gaze was intent. “What does that mean?”
Cassie hesitated. “I’m not so sure you want to talk about this.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because… it’s been my experience that people have walls for a reason. To protect themselves. To keep other people out. To… reveal as little of themselves as possible.”
“Are you saying these walls exist because I deliberately built them?”
“Deliberately—probably. Consciously, probably not. Ben, I’m not making some kind of an accusation. We all have defense mechanisms.” She watched him with a slight frown, aware that she had touched a nerve and uncertain whether to continue. But something in his eyes made her go on. “Most of us learn early to hide things about ourselves, to disguise what others see, and only those closest to us ever realize it. It’s human nature. But for some people, hiding or disguising what’s there is impossible, for one reason or another. Maybe because the inner pain is too great, or maybe just because the personality is particularly sensitive and empathetic. It feels so much and so deeply that it has no defenses. So the mind, if it’s strong enough, builds walls to protect itself.”
Cassie shook her head. “Just like the defense mechanisms other people use, the walls usually pass unrecognized, even unnoticed except by those closest to you.”
“Unless you happen to meet a psychic,” Ben said.
“Psychics look beneath the surface. It’s what we do.”
“And beneath my surface is a wall.”
“That bothers you.”
“Shouldn’t it?”
Slowly Cassie said, “It’s there for a reason, Ben. It was put there for a reason. If and when it’s no longer needed, it won’t be there anymore.”
Ben drew a breath. “I see.”
Cassie realized she had not in any way reassured him, but she didn’t know what else to say.
“I suppose I should be grateful. If not for my walls, you’d still be avoiding my eyes and doing your best not to touch me.”
She nodded. “Probably. Your walls mean I don’t have to work so hard to keep my own in place. From my point of view, it’s a welcome respite. Nice to be able to talk to someone and not have to worry about listening with the wrong sense. So far, it’s just you, Abby—and Max.”
“You can’t read Abby?”
“No.”
“She wouldn’t have struck me as the kind of person who’d need walls,” he mused.
Cassie smiled. “Which only proves that hers work.”
“I guess so.” He hesitated, then said reluctantly, “I should probably go and let you get back to your sorting.”
Old and solitary instincts prompted Cassie to agree that he should leave, but newer urges got in the way. His eyes were attentive, and that restlessness was back in his voice, and she didn’t have to read his mind to know that he did not want to leave her just yet.
She wondered when it had gotten hard to breathe, and was vaguely surprised her voice sounded normal when she said, “If you don’t have other plans, I fixed a huge pot of soup yesterday, far too much for Max and me. You could stay awhile, help us finish it.”
In the momentary silence between them, they could hear the whine of the wind as it built outside, and a sudden quiet rattle against the windowpanes announced the arrival of sleet.
“It sounds like a perfect night for soup,” Ben said. “What can I do to help?”
He moved very carefully, wary of the dog’s keen ears even with the noise of the building storm. Caution told him to stay bac
k, but he wanted to get closer, close enough to see inside.
So cozy in there. A nice fire in the fireplace. Lights and the appetizing aroma of good food making the kitchen warm and snug. Quiet voices that were comfortable with each other and yet aware, the edges of their words blurred with longing.
They were oblivious of his watching eyes.
He stood outside, his collar turned up and hat pulled low to protect his face from the stinging sleet. It was cold. His feet were cold. But he remained where he was for a long time, watching.
She was protected.
Not that it mattered.
• • •
“Why didn’t you tell me before now?” Matt demanded.
Abby shrugged. “Because I didn’t think you’d take it seriously.”
“Until a killer started butchering women?”
She winced but nodded.
Matt shoved his plate back and made a rough sound. “You should have told me, dammit.”
“So you could do what? A week ago you would have scoffed, told me I was foolish for letting some cockeyed prediction bother me. Since then, what would you have done? Told me to get security installed, get a dog, be careful—all of which I’ve done.”
Matt glanced at the big red dog sprawled near Abby’s side of the kitchen table and could hardly help but say, “I wouldn’t have told you to get a dog. At least, not one so attached to you.”
She smiled. “I like my males possessive. But don’t worry. I’ve had a talk with Bryce. He won’t try to get between us in bed again.”
Matt wasn’t at all sure that “having a talk” with a dog could possibly do much good, and once more turned a jaundiced eye toward the Irish setter. “Yeah, right. Bryce. What kind of name is that for a dog?”
“Blame his former owners, not me.”
The beautiful dog lifted his head and looked at each of them briefly, tail thumping against the floor, then stretched out again with a gusty sigh.
Matt returned his gaze to Abby. “He’d damned well better protect you, is all I’ve got to say.”
“I’m sure he’ll do his best,” she replied, rising to carry her plate to the sink.