Again Cassie gave a little shrug. “There were a few more cases after that, some I was able to help solve and some I wasn’t. Bishop kept turning up, kept asking me to allow myself to be tested. So I finally did. And I flunked all the tests. As I said, I don’t perform well in a laboratory setting. I always did choke at exams.”
“You graduated college,” Bishop pointed out. “Eventually you had to pass those exams.”
“Putting myself through that earned me a degree. Putting myself through your tests again would earn me absolutely nothing.”
“Except scientific validity and recognition.”
“And then what? Go on the talk shows? Find myself getting tons of mail from poor lost souls who think I might be able to help them? Sit in more laboratories while more scientists devise more tests to measure and weigh and define my abilities? Why? Despite what you think, Bishop, I don’t want to be recognized. I don’t want to be validated. And I sure as hell don’t want to be famous.”
“Then,” he said softly, gesturing around them, “why do this? Why involve yourself in police investigations?”
“Because I can help. Not all the time, but sometimes. Because I was raised to believe it’s my responsibility. And because I can’t not involve myself.” She drew a breath and added quietly, “And I really couldn’t care less whether or not my reasons satisfy you.”
“They satisfy me,” Matt said, surprising everyone.
“And me,” Ben agreed, tired of feeling invisible in the room.
Cassie glanced at him for the first time, something he couldn’t read flickering in her eyes. Then she looked at Matt. “In that case, I say we have more important things to talk about. Is there still no word on that poor girl?”
“No, nothing. Do you think you’d have any luck trying to connect with the killer again?”
Before Ben could object, Cassie said, “I’ve already tried a couple of times today, and—”
“What?” He stared at her. “When? And without a lifeline? Dammit, Cassie!”
She avoided his gaze once more. “Not long after I woke up this morning, and in the car coming here. There was no danger. It would have been a shallow contact—if I’d been able to get through. I wasn’t able. He’s keeping me out.”
“Convenient,” Bishop murmured. For someone who’d more or less been told to mind his own business, he didn’t appear to be discouraged or disgruntled, merely calm and watchful.
Matt glanced at him, then said to Cassie, “How about trying to reach the girl? I still have the gloves she left in her brother’s car yesterday.”
Cassie nodded without hesitation. “I’ll try.”
The sheriff jerked his head toward the agent. “Want him gone?”
“No, he can stay.” She smiled faintly. “One of the things that intrigues him about me—I do perform well outside laboratories.”
Bishop made no comment.
Matt reached into his center desk drawer and drew out a plastic bag with a pair of delicate ladies’ gloves inside. He pushed the bag across to Cassie. “I’m assuming you could reach her if she’s still alive. What if she’s already dead?”
“I may get nothing. Or I may know where she is.” She had not yet reached for the bag.
“How?” Ben asked her. “If there’s no mind there to tap into, how do you know?”
Cassie turned her head and looked at him with an odd little smile. “I have no idea. Sometimes I just know.”
He watched as she reached for the bag, opened it, and drew out the pair of gloves. Head bent, she held them in her lap, fingers toying with them. Ben saw her eyes close.
He waited a minute or so, then said, “Cassie? What do you see?”
She didn’t respond.
“Cassie?”
“Poor thing.” Her voice was soft.
The sheriff muttered, “Shit.”
Ben kept his voice steady. “Can you see her, Cassie? Where is she?”
“She’s… in a building. A barn. It hasn’t been used for a long time, I think. There used to be pasture all around it, but now everything’s overgrown….”
Cassie lifted her head and opened her eyes. She was pale but calm. She slid the gloves back into the plastic bag and pushed it across the desk to the sheriff. “I can show you the way,” she told him.
Ben wanted to protest, but he knew it would be almost impossible for Cassie to pinpoint the location on any map; there were far too many abandoned barns in far too many overgrown pastures in the area.
Ben and Cassie went in his Jeep, with the sheriff and Bishop following in Matt’s cruiser. Ben and Matt agreed that the fewer people who knew they were searching for a body, the better. At least until it was found.
As they headed north out of town at Cassie’s direction, Ben said, “I’m surprised Matt’s letting Bishop tag along. In fact, I’m surprised he’s giving him the time of day.”
“If I know Bishop, he probably implied that the Bureau would be very interested in these murders—if they knew about them. The other newspapers in the state too. Although, of course, if he’s busy following the investigation, he won’t have time to report in or call anybody.”
“You seem to know him very well.”
Cassie glanced at him. “I can’t read him, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Even when you touch him?”
“I’ve never touched him.”
Ben digested that. “So he has walls too, huh?”
“Big, thick ones.” Cassie paused. “Turn up here to the left. Beside that fence.”
He did so. “What’s he after, Cassie?”
“I don’t know. If I had to guess, I’d say proof. On the other hand, I’ve always had the idea he’s looking for something he really doesn’t expect to find in a lab or on a score sheet.”
“For instance?”
“I don’t know. As I said, it’s just an idea. Wait—slow down a bit. See that dirt road up ahead? Turn onto it.”
From the gathering tension in her voice, Ben knew they were getting close, so he fell silent and concentrated on following her directions. Several miles and a few more turns later, he stopped the Jeep on a fairly narrow dirt road. Cassie pointed, and he could see through the trees a ramshackle building that had probably once been a barn.
Uncertainly she said, “I don’t think the killer came from this direction, but—”
“In case he did, we’ll stop here to avoid screwing up any tracks.”
Matt’s cruiser pulled in behind them, and the sheriff and FBI agent got out and approached the Jeep, both on Ben’s side.
“Is this it?” Matt asked.
Ben pointed and related what Cassie thought about the killer’s approach.
“Okay. You two wait here.”
“Matt?” Cassie leaned forward a bit so she could see him. “This time he arranged the body for… for maximum shock effect. Brace yourself.”
He nodded. He and Bishop disappeared into the trees.
Ben looked at Cassie. “Were you right? About what he intended to do to her?”
Cassie drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Not entirely. He had a few more plans I didn’t know about.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned her head and looked at him with haunted eyes. “He cut her up, Ben. She’s in pieces.”
SIXTEEN
The news that the horribly mutilated body of fifteen-year-old Deanna Ramsay had been found spread through Ryan’s Bluff like wildfire. By the time Cassie and Ben got back to the Sheriff’s Department less than an hour after the body was found, a small crowd was already gathering; by the time the black van belonging to a local undertaker passed through town a few minutes later escorted by a couple of deputies, the crowd had doubled.
With the sheriff still at the crime scene, Ben went out to talk to them. Cassie remained inside and didn’t hear what he said, but she watched from the window in Matt’s office, and she wasn’t surprised when the visibly agitated group calmed somewhat and eventually began to
disperse.
“The man has a golden tongue.”
Cassie turned from the window to find a female deputy standing in the doorway. Her name tag read SHARON WATKINS.
“But how long will they listen to him?” Cassie asked. Sharon smiled. “They’re listening today. That’s really all we can hope for.” She hesitated. “We have some pretty good coffee out here, if you’d like a cup.”
Cassie appreciated the offer, especially since she knew most of the deputies viewed her with uneasiness if not outright suspicion. “Thank you.”
“I’ll get the judge some too. I figure he’ll stay here at least until the sheriff gets back.”
“I think that’s the plan.” Ben had already made numerous phone calls in a concerted effort to keep the lid on the growing panic and anger of the town.
“He’ll have to talk to the mayor again.” Sharon sighed as she turned away. “He’s already called twice in the last five minutes. The man needs a hobby.”
Or a town where no killers lurked, Cassie thought. She hadn’t met Mayor Ruppe, but from what she had heard she got the feeling the first-term mayor had a great deal of charm and very little common sense. Which was undoubtedly why he leaned heavily on the advice and help of other leaders of the town, particularly Ben and Matt.
Cassie returned her gaze to the window to watch Ben speak to the few lingering members of the crowd, then went back to her seat on the leather sofa. She would have preferred to be home, but Ben had asked her to stay with him, and she had agreed more because she hoped she might be of some help than because it was a comfortable or safe place to be.
She knew he was worried about her, that he didn’t want her alone in her isolated house—even with a protective dog and a good security system. Her most recent contact with the killer had unsettled him as much as it had her, she thought. He was also very obviously feeling decidedly edgy about Bishop.
She couldn’t help him there. The agent made her feel edgy herself, and always had.
Cassie leaned her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes—then just as quickly opened them again. The trouble with closing her eyes was that she kept seeing the remains of that poor girl scattered all over that barn. Even with her experience of horrible sights and her hard-won ability to detach herself somewhat, this one was so brutal and dehumanizing that it was branded on her mind’s eye in a way she would never entirely escape. But when her eyes were open she could look consciously at something else.
Anything else. The map behind Matt’s desk made a good focus. Salem County. One of the larger counties in the state, and shaped vaguely like a triangle…
Cassie shook her head irritably. There was some damned song in her head, a tune she couldn’t identify that kept playing over and over again, fading into silence, only to return. It was one of those maddening tricks of the mind that tended to come when there was too much to think about.
Sharon returned with coffee and the offer of sending out for a late lunch if and when it was wanted. Cassie thanked her, and the deputy returned to her desk a couple of minutes before Ben came back into Matt’s office.
Cassie indicated the cup Sharon had left for him, then said, “It looked pretty ugly out there for a while.”
Ben sat down behind Matt’s desk. “It’ll be a lot worse if we ever get a suspect in custody. That’s as close as I ever want to come to facing a lynch mob.”
“They listened to you. They left.”
“This time,” Ben said, unknowingly echoing Deputy Watkins. “But if we don’t catch this bastard, and soon…”
“He’s still blocking me.”
“Dammit, Cassie, stop trying to contact him without a lifeline.”
“I told you it isn’t dangerous.” She shook her head, avoiding his gaze. “And I have to keep trying. What else am I here for, Ben? So far, all I’ve been able to do is tell Matt where to look for the bodies. I’ve been a lot of help.”
“You’ve done everything you could.”
“Have I?” Cassie stared down at her coffee. “I’m not so sure.”
“You seem very tense. What’s bothering you?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Just a feeling.”
He waited, watching her.
Slowly Cassie said, “He had to be in a frenzy this time, you know. To do what he did to that poor girl.”
Ben hadn’t viewed the murder scene, but he had seen Matt’s sickened face and Bishop’s stony one as well as Cassie’s haunted eyes; he could only imagine the carnage that must have lain waiting for them in that barn.
“Don’t think about it,” he said.
“I don’t have a choice. It isn’t something I can put out of my mind. Eventually maybe, but not yet.” She shrugged jerkily. “If I can just make sense of it…”
“How can any of this make sense?”
“Even madmen have their own mad logic.” She looked at him, frowning. “Maybe that’s what’s bothering me.”
“What?”
“Well… it’s like he’s blowing hot and cold. One victim is found far from where she was killed, the crime scene neat, her body virtually unmarked except for the wound that killed her, no murder weapon anywhere to be seen. The next is found in the room where she was killed, blood everywhere, the weapon a knife he found and left right there. Then he picks up another knife and takes it to use on his third victim, who is found where she was killed, but again the scene is neat and calm. And now this. He made the weapon that killed her and took it with him after he was done with her—but killing her wasn’t enough. Raping her wasn’t enough. He had to cut her into pieces….”
Ben drew a breath. “It takes more than a kitchen knife to hack a body into pieces.”
“He used an ax,” Cassie said. “And left it at the scene. He took the garrote with him, but left the ax in that barn.”
Ben didn’t ask her how she knew that. Instead, keeping his voice as composed as hers was, he said, “Seemingly calm and controlled when he kills one victim, then frenzied when he kills the next. As if he needs those violent outbursts?”
“I don’t know. But it bothers me. I’d say he was trying to disguise some of his kills, but leaving the coins at the scene is as good as a signature, and he has to know that.”
Matt had told them tonelessly that the killer had left his usual coin after killing Deanna Ramsay. It was a penny, placed on her forehead between gouged-out eyes.
Cassie rubbed her own forehead fretfully as she considered the mad logic of a madman, and Ben felt a little chill as he imagined a coin lying coldly against her skin.
He didn’t want to let her out of his sight. It wasn’t just because the killer knew who she was now; it was also because Cassie seemed hell-bent on contacting the bastard again and was far too willing to do so without a lifeline.
At least, without him as her lifeline. He was afraid that was it. Cassie had withdrawn so completely from him, she would not accept any kind of contact with him even to save her life. If it could save her life.
“There’s something I’m missing,” she said almost to herself. “Something… I just don’t know what it is.”
“As much as I hate the very possibility, have you considered that there might be two killers?”
Cassie nodded immediately. “Sure. But I’m positive the same man killed these women, all of them.”
Ben knew that Matt had reached the same conclusion thanks to what little forensic evidence they’d managed to gather added to the presence of the coins and the identical way in which the first three bodies had been found posed. And they’d found a bloody footprint at this latest scene that Matt was certain would match one of those found in Ivy Jameson’s bloody kitchen. To Matt the facts added up to one killer.
“I just wish I knew what was bothering me,” Cassie murmured.
“You’re still tired,” Ben said.
“I slept more than twelve hours.”
“Maybe it wasn’t enough.”
Cassie’s smile was slight and fleeting. “It’s nev
er enough. I’m fine, Ben. I told you I wouldn’t collapse, and I won’t. I’m stronger than I seem.”
“I just—”
“I know. You’re worried about me. Don’t be.”
Lightly he said, “For somebody with walls, I don’t hide some things too well.”
Cassie said nothing, just stared at her coffee.
Was he being too watchful, too protective? Ben didn’t know. It was the first time in his life he had found himself coping with an almost overpowering urge to shield a woman; he suspected he was neither hiding it nor handling it too well.
Especially given Cassie’s prickly and independent nature.
He had told himself that morning to back off and give her the time and room she obviously needed, but gazing at her now, he was very conscious of minutes ticking away. Something told him that even if backing off and giving her time was the smart thing to do, it was not the right thing to do, because time was something they simply did not have.
“We’ve never had a chance, have we?” he heard himself say.
She looked at him, those eyes touching him as though with a warm hand, and the wariness he saw there hurt him. She didn’t ask, but her brows rose in an almost indifferent question.
“We’ve never had a chance to… be ordinary. Just two people drawn to each other. We can’t even seem to talk about ordinary things. All we talk about are killers.”
Cassie smiled just a little, sadly, and he wanted badly to go put his arms around her. “I tried to warn you,” she said.
“Cassie—”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Catching a killer matters to you, Ben.” Her voice was suddenly remote. “Making your town safe again matters to you. And maybe… maybe I matter to you.”
“There’s no maybe about it,” he said roughly.
She accepted that without any visible reaction. “All right. But it’s a question of priorities, isn’t it? Nothing can be… can be settled until this killer is caught. All your energy, and all of mine, has to focus on that.”