“And?”
“People go missing around here all the time. I mean in the mountains all along the Blue Ridge, not specifically Baron Hollow. With all the tourists, the hikers…Jeez, I’m betting some of them never show up in any record because they hike in and out, just passing through on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. Often without family, or with family six states away who have no idea where they’ve been for years. Unless something happens to cause a disturbance, none of the locals would even notice; new faces just passing through is the rule around here, not the exception.”
“A perfect hunting ground,” Maggie said.
“The thought had occurred. I haven’t narrowed down the area, but a quick check showed me there are more than eighty people currently listed as officially missing in North Carolina, and those are just the ones on the record; God knows how many have really disappeared without a trace. Men, women, and children. But the only thing I found local was a bit on a girl who went missing last summer. Big news, major search and rescue that went on for days. And then her boyfriend, who had reported her missing, seems to have rather sullenly admitted she probably hiked out of the mountains and hitched a ride back home after they’d fought. The chief of police followed up, and turns out that’s what happened. Case closed.”
“So, no killer.”
“Well, none that I’ve been able to find any evidence of. But we both know spirits don’t show up just to yank somebody’s chain. Pardon the pun.”
“Mmm. You’re on vacation, Jessie. Hunting a killer wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Tell me about it.”
After a moment, Maggie said, “I’ll do some checking on this end and get back to you if I find anything. In the meantime, why don’t you spend some family time, like you planned.”
“Unless and until another spirit shows up?”
“The only investigating you should be doing is trying to figure out—or remember—why you ran away when you were seventeen. That’s all for now.”
“Yeah,” Jessie said. “That’s all.”
THREE
Haven
JUNE 28
Nathan Navarro walked into Command Central with a cup of coffee in hand, yawning. “Christ, I feel like I’ve been asleep for a week,” he told Maggie.
“Nearly twenty-four hours. But after that last case, you were overdue. Have you eaten?”
Navarro couldn’t help but smile inwardly. She was his employer and he respected her more than just about anyone else in his life, but it never failed to amuse him that Maggie just naturally mothered everyone around her.
She looked at him out of serene golden eyes in a sweet face surrounded by an unruly cloud of reddish hair, nothing about her appearance offering any indication of the very sharp and oddly calculating mind capable of juggling many operatives and usually several assignments at any given time and of making some extraordinarily tough-minded decisions.
“I’m not mothering,” Maggie said. “Just testing the readiness of one of my operatives for a new assignment.”
“Stop reading me.”
She smiled. “Your emotions are easy to pick up on, pal. I don’t even have to try. Which sort of fascinates me, because you’re very, very good at masking them visibly and maintaining an unemotional facade.”
“One of my many strengths.” He changed the subject. “I’m ready for another assignment. Put me to work.”
“By rights, you should have a week off, at least.”
“I don’t want a week off. I want to work.”
“Mmm.” She studied him for a moment, seeing a big man with obvious physical strength and an unmistakably military stance, and wondered fleetingly if Bishop was right and Navarro would eventually end up in the SCU. There was nothing to disqualify him, after all—except for his reluctance to too quickly re-up with the US government again after years with Naval Intelligence.
Well, that plus the fact that he was still dealing with the traumatic event that had awakened his latent psychic abilities. And learning to deal with the abilities themselves, at least one of which was most certainly emotionally unsettling. And possibly emotionally damaging; Maggie wasn’t sure about that yet.
“Put me to work,” he repeated. “What’ve we got?”
“A bit of a mystery.” She caught him up, quickly and concisely, with Jessie’s trip home, the reasons for it, and the spirit she had encountered warning of a killer hunting in that small, isolated town.
Navarro frowned. “I’ve never worked with Jessie. Is she a strong medium?”
“Erratic. Same with her telepathy, though that’s tested as definitely a lesser ability.”
“But you believe she saw a spirit?”
“Oh, yes. Jessie has a…singular lack of imagination in many ways. It’s helpful in some cases, and a disadvantage in others. But one thing you can be sure of is that if she says she saw a spirit, then she saw a spirit.”
“So I’ll be looking for the remains of that victim—and possibly a few more.”
“That’s the idea. If there’s a killer operating there, he has a wilderness in which to dispose of his victims once he’s done with them. And there are plenty of isolated homes and other places where he could hold them. Torture them. Use them however he does to satisfy whatever his particular twisted needs are.” Her voice, always gentle, made the matter-of-fact words sound more chilling.
“Do we know that’s what he’s doing?”
“As soon as Jessie reported in, I knew. Because, somewhere deep down inside, unconsciously, Jessie knows too. I don’t know how or why, but she knows.”
“Maybe picking up on the negative energy of months or even years of murders?”
“Maybe. She’s capable of that.”
“Have you told Bishop about this?” Navarro asked.
“I have. Just talked to him before you walked in. For now, all we have is the word of a spirit that something’s been happening there. No evidence. Not only have the local police not asked for outside law enforcement help; they clearly have no awareness that anything unusual might be happening there. The FBI can’t show up and launch an investigation without being asked, unless they have evidence a federal crime has been committed or the crimes have crossed state lines. So far, no evidence.”
“So, it’s Haven. I look until I find something to convince the locals they have a problem serious enough to call in the feds, or else find something that makes it clear we have a federal crime on our hands.”
“Exactly.”
“Will I be working with Jessie?”
Maggie didn’t hesitate. “No. Jessie needs to concentrate on what she went there to do—find out about and remember the trauma in her past. Unless and until either you or she finds a connection between that and this possible killer, I want you working separately. You’ve never met, right?”
“Never, oddly enough. Every time I’ve come back to base, she’s been off on assignment.”
“It’s not so unusual,” Maggie told him. “We have dozens of agents based in other states now. Since you live in Chicago, you’re only here briefly, just like many of our other operatives. Nathan, are you sure you want to go straight into another assignment?”
“I’m sure.”
Maggie studied him a moment longer, then nodded. “Okay. I’ve e-mailed what info I’ve got to your tablet. Also the dossier on who you’ll be in Baron Hollow.”
“That’s the name of the town? Odd.”
“Odder still, it used to be Barren Hollow.” She spelled it. “Apparently someone along the way decided that was redundant.”
“Or just plain unsettling. I’m guessing the place has a history?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve also e-mailed you what background I have; you’ll have to dig for the rest yourself, on the way or once you’re there.”
“Copy that. So who am I this time?”
“You’ll be using your real name, so that’s a plus—unless Jessie happens to recognize it.”
“And if she does?”
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“Play it by ear. Confide in her if you see the need. But I’m betting she’ll be preoccupied with her own concerns. If she doesn’t ask any questions, or you two don’t cross paths, keep your investigation separate until you have something worth sharing.”
“Copy that,” he said again.
“This time around, you’re a writer. Go start reading up on the file, in case you have questions. The jet’s standing by. Wheels up in three hours. That should put you in Baron Hollow late this afternoon, and you’re booked into Rayburn House for the next two weeks.”
“Two summer weeks in the southern mountains looking for a killer. Just my idea of a good time.” He lifted his coffee cup in a rather mocking salute, then left the room.
Almost immediately, Maggie picked up one of the office phones and hit a speed-dial number.
“Bishop.”
“Nathan will be on his way shortly,” Maggie said without preamble. “Listen, are you sure this is the way to go? Sending him in there without telling him about Emma Rayburn?”
“I’m sure.”
“And I don’t suppose it’ll do me any good to ask why?”
“Some things have to happen just the way they happen.” Noah Bishop, an exceptionally powerful telepath and seer, possessed a normally cool and virtually always calm voice that gave away nothing he didn’t want it to. So, as usual, he gave away nothing. Especially when reciting what had become the SCU mantra.
“Nathan’s going to be pissed when he finds out,” she said.
“Oh, I think not,” Bishop replied. “In fact, I think that by the time he finds out about Emma, Navarro is going to have far too much on his mind to worry about…trifles.”
“Trifles? Bishop, one of these days either one of your people or one of mine is going to stumble over one trifle too many and come after you with blood in their eye. Better watch your back.”
“Oh, I do,” Bishop said. “I always do.”
“SERIOUSLY, WHAT’S WITH us and the weather?” Special Agent Tony Harte of the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit stood at the window, frowning as he stared out at the heavy rain. “No matter where we land, the weather invariably begins to suck. Are we carrying around our own dark cloud?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?” Bishop asked absently. He was half sitting on one end of a long conference table as he studied crime scene photos, suspect photos, time lines, and other notes on an evidence board in front of him.
“It’s been raining for three days straight, Boss.”
“It’s Seattle, Tony. It rains here. A lot.”
Tony sighed and moved away from the window. “Yeah, yeah. At least it’s just rain now and not a storm. I hardly slept a wink last night. The storms just kept rolling through, hour after hour.”
“I know.”
Not for the first time, Tony reminded himself that if he, only a second-degree telepath and so relatively weak in terms of sensitivity, had been disturbed to the point of wakefulness by the energy of the storm, then Bishop, whose abilities were redefining the limits of power even within the SCU, must have been driven nearly mad by it.
Then again, he was Bishop. So probably not.
Tony said, “Well, it makes things difficult. The rain. If there was any evidence at that murder scene, it’s been washed away, same as with the first two.” He frowned as he sat down at the conference table near his unit chief. “Do you think that was deliberate? Waiting for the weather to help him?”
“I think there’s very little about this killer that isn’t deliberate,” Bishop responded.
“But it’s gotta make it harder for him to hunt,” Tony said.
“Maybe somewhere else. But in Seattle? If people stayed inside to avoid the rain, they’d never go anywhere. He’s chosen spots that aren’t well traveled but do serve as handy shortcuts for people who live and work downtown. Pedestrian shortcuts.”
“Good point. I guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
Bishop turned slightly to look at his agent. “Something on your mind, Tony?”
“You don’t already know?” Tony frowned, then said, “Oh. You’re shielding.”
Bishop didn’t change expression, his face remote in a way that might have made someone who didn’t know him uneasy. “Miranda is working that serial case outside Chicago.”
Tony did know his boss, and nodded in understanding. “Then you two are taking the threat against her task force seriously.”
“Yes.”
“And you believe the serial they’re after is psychic.”
Bishop nodded.
So he and his wife had closed down the link between them as much as possible, the two of them shielding their abilities, both for their own protection and to safeguard what information both knew about their investigations.
Tony wondered, not for the first time, what really would happen if one of them was—He shut even the wondering down, remembering instead what had happened only a few months previously, on a painfully bright street in a terrorized small town, Miranda lying there bleeding while her husband, ashen-faced, held on to her hand and to the telepathic link between them with all the considerable strength at his command.1
Psychic connections could be lifelines.
They could also be very, very dangerous.
“Tony. What is it?”
Pushing that horrible memory aside, Tony said, “What’s going on with Haven?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean all the e-mails and phone calls and other communication between Haven and the SCU. Between you and Maggie. I know what’s normal, Boss, what’s usual. And I know what’s unusual. This is unusual. What’s going on?”
Bishop didn’t question his agent’s knowledge of communications that were, to say the least, sensitive. Within the SCU, it was commonly recognized, however wryly, that there were few if any secrets inside a unit made up of psychics.
Instead, he merely explained the situation with Jessie, her homecoming, and what she had seen there.
“So we’ve got another killer? Who’ve we got checking it out?”
“There’s no evidence of a crime, Tony. Jessie saw a spirit. No name, no good description, no idea when the woman died. Even the most open-minded of small-town police officials are going to have a hard time justifying an investigation into something like that.”
“But we’re not doing nothing.” It wasn’t a question; Tony knew his boss very well.
Bishop’s shoulders lifted and fell in a faint shrug. “Haven doesn’t have to wait for an invitation, so Maggie’s sending in Nathan Navarro, with a solid cover story.”
With a frown, Tony said, “Now, that’s a name I know. He’s a bit like Lucas, isn’t he?” Lucas Jordan, another SCU team member, specialized in locating missing persons.2 And Haven operatives tended to “mirror” SCU agents when it came to their abilities. With a few extras and oddities thrown in, of course.
“A bit like him. Except that Navarro’s unique ability is to find the dead.”
“But he isn’t a medium.”
“No, not as we define mediums. He doesn’t see the dead, but he’s able to locate their remains. He says he feels pulled in the right direction. Starts with a map or a logical place to search and just…follows his instincts. His secondary ability is clairvoyance, also useful but nowhere near under his control yet. He came out of Naval Intelligence with considerable investigative skills as well.”
“Another ex-military operative.”
Bishop nodded. “They do seem to find us. Or vice versa. In any case, military training means additional survival skills that are likely to come in handy. Especially in this case, since Navarro is in a small town surrounded by the closest thing we have to wilderness.”
“Something else that sounds familiar. I know we often work in cities—such as now—but we do seem to end up in nice little towns surrounded by wilderness and inhabited by a human monster or two an awful lot more often than chance would dictate.”
“True enough.
”
Tony brooded for a few moments while his boss returned to studying the evidence board for their current case. Finally, Tony said, “If Maggie sent in Navarro, she must be pretty sure whatever Jessie saw is just the beginning.”
“I’d say so.”
“But the beginning of what? New murders—or the uncovering of old ones?”
“That,” Bishop said, “is what Navarro is there to find out.”
Baron Hollow
“I think I want to go to church today. Do you go to church?” Jessie asked suddenly at breakfast.
“Sometimes. Not every Sunday.”
“Still the First Baptist?”
“Yeah, like half the town.”
“Good,” Jessie said. “Want to come along today?”
“Why not?”
“Then let’s get ready. If that clock over there is right, preaching starts in about an hour.”
Emma might not know her sister very well as an adult, but it didn’t take sisterly knowledge to look at the closed, almost secretive expression on Jessie’s face and know that she was going to church for a good reason, and it had nothing to do with prayer or singing hymns.
Emma just wished she knew what that reason was.
She was no wiser nearly an hour later, except in her realization that Jessie intended to visibly be at church. Not only was she wearing a dress, which had been rare for her back in the day; she was wearing a red dress.
A very red dress.
Emma wasn’t embarrassed or otherwise bothered by the display, just curious. She was even more curious when Jessie led the way to the front of the church, to the “family” pew, and took a seat there. As if she wanted every person in the packed church to know that Jessie Rayburn was back home.
And afterward, during the customary socializing out in the church’s front yard, Jessie asked Emma to reintroduce her to people she had known, or who had known the family when she was a teenager.
Which meant just about everybody, or at least those who lingered to talk.
Emma didn’t know what her sister was up to, but she had a strong feeling that she wasn’t the only one who viewed Jessie’s calm smile and curiously flat eyes with unease. Worse, she thought Jessie knew exactly the effect she was having on those around her, and that it was very deliberate.