“If you say so.” He looked dubious, but shrugged.
Nellie frowned. “Well, never mind that. Here’s the thing. What makes Haven different from any other outfit of private investigators I’ve been able to find is their special…talents.”
“What kind of talents?”
“Psychic talents.”
Conway barely hesitated. “Oh, come on.”
“Seriously. I mean, the cops I’ve talked to were guarded about it, but it’s clear they believe something paranormal was going on in their different investigations, at least as far as the Haven operatives were concerned.”
“Okay, well…that’s weird, but so what? Just looking around, watching TV or going to the movies, you can see folks seem to be more than a little interested in the paranormal right now. All those ghost hunters and paranormal investigators and groups showing up here are proof of that. Hell, I hear another one of them is staying at Rayburn House right now.”
“Really?” Nellie was somewhat irritated that this was news to her.
“Yeah.” Conway was frowning now. “Wait—are you saying that Jessie’s psychic?”
“I don’t know what Jessie is. But she works for Haven, and they’re an outfit of psychics.”
“Okay, but—”
“So what’s she doing here, Sam?”
“She came home for a visit.” Conway shook his head. “And to check out her inheritance. The simplest answer is usually the right one, you know.”
“Uh-huh. And what about the body that writer found? Jessie comes back here after fifteen years of absolutely no sign she was even remotely interested in coming back home, didn’t even come back for her father’s funeral, and first thing you know we’ve got an unidentified body?”
“Well, but she didn’t find it.”
“Doesn’t mean she wasn’t looking for it,” Nellie said stubbornly.
Conway tried to work out her logic and failed. Which didn’t surprise him in the least. “I’m not seeing a story in it, Nellie. Not yet, anyway,” he added hastily when she opened her mouth to argue with him.
For a moment, Nellie was tempted to show him the piece of paper with its bloody message, and explain her own coldly frightened response to it. But she knew Sam Conway very well, so all she said was, “Maybe there won’t be, when all’s said and done. But it’s an itch, Sam, and I have to scratch it. Do you mind?”
“Would it do me any good to say I did?” Without waiting for a response, he added, “Just for God’s sake be careful, will you? Dan Maitland hates amateurs nosing around his business.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Conway let out a snort of disbelief, but also shrugged in resignation and went on about his business.
So, Nellie had his tacit approval to continue scratching the itch. Part of her didn’t want to, though, because every instinct she could lay claim to was telling her that what she might pry open in the attempt wasn’t a can of worms but more likely something a lot worse.
She opened her brief bag and pulled out a copy of the note—the original was in her safe-deposit box—glanced around and listened a moment to make sure she was alone, then opened the folder and stared down at the note.
HELP ME…MURDERED
FIND THE TRUTH. BE CAREFUL.
HE’S WATCHING.
JESSIE…THREAT
PROTECT EMMA
Since she knew Emma, however casually, Nellie had started with the only named unknown in the note: Jessie. And she had found plenty, though far more questions than answers. She’d also done a bit of snooping around town, only to discover that nobody was seeing much of Jessie, including her sister.
Which, to Nellie’s mind, added weight to the idea that Jessie was here investigating something.
But what?
Was there a murderer watching? Who was he watching? Jessie? Or Emma?
Who was the threat? Who was being threatened?
And who could Nellie trust with any of this?
HE HADN’T REALIZED how angry he was until she made a wet gurgling sound and went limp.
He stood there, panting, riding out the surge of pleasure for several long moments. But then, all too soon, the pleasure ebbed, and he was left staring down at what was left of Carol Preston.
He hadn’t intended to kill her so quickly. He liked to play with them, cut them up slowly so he could listen to them beg and see the stark terror in their eyes.
But he was still angry about the one who had escaped him. And he was angry because things were happening in Baron Hollow, things he couldn’t seem to control. And that anger, he told himself in a rare moment of clarity, was pushing him.
He’d meant to spend more time with Carol, his June Rose. But his anger…
He sighed regretfully, and stepped aside to lay his bloody knife on the workbench. He thought the storm was probably still pounding the countryside, but couldn’t hear it down here; this place was very effectively soundproofed.
He didn’t especially relish planting his June Rose in the garden in the rain, but he also didn’t want to have to store her—and he wasn’t certain when he’d be able to get free long enough to get back here.
He checked his watch, swore under his breath, and got to work. He moved a couple of the big lights back into the storage room, leaving himself only one to work with. In the storage room, he double-checked the freezer, and smiled at the disembodied head of—what had her name been? Catherine something. The one who had escaped him.
He had left her where he’d found her—but taking her head, though he admitted to himself he had done it in anger, had proven very useful. Arranging it on the chair just within reach of his June Rose, for her to find in the pitch-black darkness, had quite effectively terrified her.
He had watched the tape from his infrared camera.
He was still smiling about that when he sensed something.
In the cabin above his head.
THIRTEEN
Jessie had returned to the cabin again and again, watching, listening, but not daring to get closer. It was only now, Friday, that she finally convinced herself no one lived there.
The cabin was used, but it was not occupied.
Not, at least, on a regular basis.
Still, she might not have chosen this day and time to finally explore the cabin if it hadn’t been for the storm. It rumbled up out of nowhere, as storms so often did in the mountains, and one look at the sky told Jessie that this one was going to be rough—and long.
She approached cautiously as always, and circled the cabin completely just to reassure herself that it was empty today. She saw nothing that made her think otherwise, even though she still had that skin-crawling feeling of dread, of unease.
Oh, get on with it.
She had managed during the last few days to shore up her walls even more, so that very little got through now. And, as always when she got near the cabin, her own unease seemed to make the walls even stronger; she doubted even another psychic would be able to sense her when she was near the cabin.
Still, her instincts kept telling her to leave, or at least to call for help before exploring whatever lay inside that innocent-looking cabin. But the last thing Jessie wanted to do was call Haven in, maybe even the SCU, when she didn’t have anything other than the words of a spirit that something bad had happened, was happening, here.
Especially when Maggie had specifically told her to get on with her vacation and leave the investigating—other than of her own past—to others.
She needed more before she called in the troops.
Satisfied that the cabin was as empty today as it had been the day before, Jessie finally left the cover of the woods and walked across the well-kept yard and up the steps to the front porch.
Which was just about the time the storm hit.
Ignoring the rumbling thunder and driving rain, Jessie went to the front door, which she tried only after donning a pair of latex gloves.
Locked.
Not too surprised, she dug into h
er backpack for a small, zippered leather case and took from it the tools she needed to pick the lock.
“So we’re going to be breaking the law?” she had asked her boss, Maggie Garrett, when this particular lesson began.
“It’s likely we’ll have to bend it from time to time,” Maggie had replied calmly. “If you have reason to believe an innocent may be at risk, or can convincingly argue you suspected something was wrong, then a locked door can and should be breached.” She had paused, then added dryly, “Kicking a door down may be all well and good for TV and the movies, but as often as not we’d rather no one knew we got inside in the first place. So—you learn to pick locks. Problem?”
“No. No problem at all.”
As it turned out, Jessie had learned her lessons very well.
The cabin’s front door was almost ridiculously easy.
It made her a bit wary, so once inside with the door closed, she left her backpack beside it and did a quick search, gun in hand.
Empty.
The cabin had, basically, two fairly small rooms. There was a living room with a kitchenette, and there was a bedroom and tiny bathroom. Everything was neat and clean, with a colorful quilt on the double bed and a number of locally made rugs scattered on the weathered wooden floor. Both the quilt and the rugs were old, and she had a strong hunch it would be difficult if not impossible for her to find out who had bought them.
But she had a digital camera she had fully charged the night before in anticipation of today and this search, and she was able to take numerous pictures of the space and close-ups of the rugs and quilt before the camera died on her.
Definitely a downside of being psychic.
With a smothered curse, she returned the camera to her backpack, then stood just studying the space. It was, she thought, a man’s space, and yet it was oddly impersonal. No photographs or artwork, and the small bookcase in the living area held a dozen or so rather pointedly generic books on hunting and fishing and gardening.
A rapid check showed her there was no name written in the front of a sampling of the books, no bookplates or other indication of ownership. None of the books was new or recently purchased, she judged.
Several kerosene lanterns sat about: one on the kitchen counter, one on the bedside table, one on a rustic coffee table between the leather couch and the rock fireplace.
A gun rack hung above the fireplace, but no rifle or shotgun occupied it. In the kitchen were basic pots and pans and flatware, mostly old, nothing special about them or the plates and cups and glasses also in the cabinets. The place settings were for four, but Jessie didn’t take that as significant; she knew very well that most “starter sets” of dishes and glassware and the rest came in fours.
Again, however, everything showed signs of age and wear. Even the checked curtains at the windows looked as if they’d been hung in place years before.
Both the kitchen and bathroom faucets worked, and the water ran clear, which told her that either there was a well somewhere near with electricity run to it, or else whoever built this had managed to pipe through a lot of land to connect to the town’s water supply. Or perhaps the church’s, since it was, by Jessie’s estimation, the closest building. She assumed a septic system for the toilet, but if the owner had tapped the town’s water system, or the church’s, she supposed he could have tapped the sewage system as well.
But not electricity. Because that usage was monitored, and somebody would have noticed.
Okay, suspicious—but squatters were experienced at staying off the grid, and maybe it was just that. Land gone unused for decades, remote and difficult to get to, so why not make a home of sorts here?
Because nobody was living here; she was sure of it. Visiting, yes. Staying a weekend or a couple of days now and then, sure. But not living here.
“Think, Jessie,” she murmured aloud. “Is there any sign a killer uses this place? Because there are always signs…”
All she had to do was find one.
HE COULDN’T HEAR her moving about above his head, but he knew she was there. He could feel her, just as he’d been able to feel her years before. Sense her. It was why he had made the choice he had made that night. Well, one reason, anyway.
He wondered idly just how much she remembered about what had happened. Not very much at the time, obviously, or so it had seemed. Afterward. Maybe not anything at all.
Or maybe just enough to cause him problems.
Why else would she be here?
Unconsciously, he made a clicking sound with his teeth. “Oh, Jessie,” he murmured. “You should have stayed away. You should have left well enough alone. I had the others under control. Everything was going along just fine.
“Why did you have to come home and spoil it?”
QUICKLY BUT METHODICALLY, conscious of her inner clock ticking away the time she’d have until the end of the storm and approaching darkness forced her to head back to town, Jessie began to search. She found nothing unusual in the kitchen or bedroom—the latter holding only a bed and a bedside table with no drawers or shelves.
There were no toiletries in the bathroom beyond a very generic bar of soap on the sink. Old and worn—but clean—towels, otherwise nondescript.
Returning to the living area, frowning, she began a more careful search, tapping walls that felt solid, lifting chair and couch cushions to look beneath them, checking the books—all of them, this time.
She found it on the bottom shelf, a thick book whose title proclaimed it to be The Complete Book of Gardening, but whose pages had been cut to hollow out an opening for a small wooden box.
It looked handmade, and reminded Jessie instantly of other boxes she had seen just that morning, locally carved with various original designs by artists who loved and understood wood.
Jessie carried the book a few steps away so she could sit on the couch and lay the book on the coffee table. Carefully, she pried the wooden box out of its hiding place. It had a tiny lock.
Child’s play. Jessie had that open in about three seconds.
She didn’t know what she had expected to find. Such a hiding place was, after all, not particularly suspicious in and of itself; ready-made “safe” books were easy to buy, with velvet compartments fashioned in pretend books so a homeowner’s small valuables could be hidden in plain sight.
But this box didn’t hold small valuables.
It held trophies.
Jessie knew what they were as soon as she opened the box, even though she had never, in her work for Haven, been on a case involving a serial killer. She had studied, as every Haven operative did, the cases investigated by the SCU in recent years. And despite a fair noninterest in the sciences, she had a solid working knowledge of the basics of law enforcement investigative techniques, including profiling.
Most serial killers kept trophies, reminders of the victims they had slaughtered.
There was a part of Jessie that told her she should have felt shocked, or sickened, by what she found, and she was bothered by the fact that what she felt was only intense interest. Until she really looked at what the box contained, and it hit her with the force of a blow that she was looking at the representations—in some cases pieces—of people. People who had lived and laughed and thought they had a normal life ahead of them.
Until they encountered a monster wearing a human face.
Jessie set the open box carefully on the table, swallowed hard, and began removing the items it held one by one.
Half a dozen tiny locks of hair: blond, brunette, coppery, and shades in between. A dozen driver’s licenses, all belonging to young women, the oldest issue date going back seventeen years, the issuing states covering the Southeast and up the Eastern Seaboard. Half a dozen student ID cards from colleges and universities, two from as far away as California and Nevada. A small gold cigarette lighter. Two silver charm bracelets. Four gold stud earrings, each with a different semiprecious stone in the center. And—
Jessie saw her gloved hand trembling, a
nd had to try twice before she was able to pick up the final item lying at the bottom of the box. It was another earring, but unique: a small, handmade dream catcher with a fringe of three tiny, beaded rawhide strips dangling from it.
Dear God.
Her free hand lifted to her ear, and Jessie had a flash of memory. That night, that hot night, fingers fumbling at her ear, pain when the earring was roughly taken from her as so much had already been taken from her.
The mate to that earring had been lost at some point that night as well, and Jessie was glad.
She stared at the earring, thoughts and memories tumbling through her mind. Just a few weeks after her mother’s death in a car accident. She and Emma still numb. Their mother’s jewelry box held open before them, and their father telling them with matter-of-factness that each of them, Emma and herself, could choose one piece of their mother’s jewelry to keep as a memento. The rest, he’d said, would be offered to Sonya Rayburn’s favorite charity, sold to raise money for a worthy cause, like her clothing and most other possessions.
Not a bit sentimental, their father.
Jessie, the elder, went first. She’d known what Emma would choose: the strand of pearls their mother had almost always worn. Not because Emma, only eight then, knew the value of pearls, but because her mother had often let her borrow them when she played dress-up.
But Jessie, who had always sensed beneath the poised and proper surface of Conner Rayburn’s wife a suppressed and perhaps half-forgotten bohemian side, had chosen the earrings she had never even seen her mother wear.
If her father had been surprised by the choice, he hadn’t shown it, merely accepting it with a shrug.
Jessie had treasured the earrings, wearing them only on special occasions.
Like that “party” when she was seventeen, when everything changed.
The ticking of the clock in her head grew louder, breaking through the memories and her absorption with a literal crash of thunder, and a glance toward one of the windows told Jessie that despite all the noise, the storm was beginning to wind down. And it was getting late.