She could see through him.
“Scott,” she whispered. Every instinct urged her to run or scream or even close her eyes again. But she couldn’t.
He seemed to be trying to speak to her, but there was no sound, and as she stared he faded away until there was nothing.
No image of a murdered one-time lover.
Melanie still couldn’t look away from where he had stood, where she had surely imagined him to be standing. She didn’t know how long she stood there, staring at the spot, almost willing him to return.
But he didn’t return.
Something else came.
A hint of motion near the wall drew her gaze a foot or so to the right of where Scott had stood, and as she watched, something black seemed to ooze through the pretty wallpaper she had chosen with such care, slowly taking shape as though filling an invisible mold. Melanie grew colder and colder, unable still to scream or move or even look away.
It became the shape of a person, but distorted, larger than Scott had been, looming. And it was utter, complete blackness. It was blacker than it was possible to be, so black she could see nothing through it, see nothing else as it loomed over her.
Hungry. Needing. Evil.
—
“SECRETS DO TEND to be magnified in small towns,” DeMarco observed to his partner. “To at least appear to be bigger or more tangled than secrets in other places.”
“I doubt it’s an optical illusion,” Hollis said dryly.
“Maybe another kind of illusion. No anonymity in a small town. Everybody knows—even the secrets. Maybe especially the secrets. They just usually agree to keep them. At least from outsiders.”
“Which we will be.”
“Which we will definitely be. Outsiders with badges. And questions they won’t want to answer.”
“Standard police work,” Hollis said, acutely aware of the lack of enthusiasm in her voice. “Looking at reports, interviewing witnesses, asking all those questions nobody will want to answer.”
“Building a profile,” DeMarco reminded her.
“Given the file we’ve seen so far, the glaring lack of any evidence at the scene, I don’t see how I’ll use that particular tool from the toolbox. Not unless there’s another murder. And it does seem unlikely that two serial killers would be operating so close to each other at the same time.”
“True. But possible.”
“You’re thinking of why Bishop sent us here.”
“Well, he rarely sends a team to investigate a single murder, even if it’s an odd one.”
“True.”
“And even if this really is a simple police investigation without any psychic frills, you have been working on building a shield,” DeMarco said.
“And you know damned well I’m still broadcasting like a beacon more often than not. Which means nada on the shield.” She sounded frustrated.
When he glanced at her, the same frustration was written clearly on her expressive face.
Choosing his words carefully, DeMarco said, “I’m sure you remember that Miranda also offered a theory about that.”
“Yeah. That all my abilities, including initially becoming an active rather than a latent psychic, have been triggered by . . . events. By need.” Her voice was calm and even wry and offhand, the way it always was whenever she mentioned the subject of her developing abilities.
DeMarco wondered if she realized how much she distanced herself emotionally when she spoke of them, especially when the subject was the devastating attack that had triggered her latent abilities as a medium.
Though God knew it had to be a survival mechanism for her to say as little as possible—and that, light and almost flip. The report of that attack had held only the cold, brutal facts, but those had been enough to shock and sicken even a man who had been to war.
Knowing what had been done to her gave DeMarco horrific nightmares—and if some of those were her nightmares, unremembered in the sane light of morning, it was something he would never tell her about. Because she would only take another step away from him, guarded and wary.
Not ready to truly face it herself, far less ready to share it with the man who loved her.
It didn’t help DeMarco to know that the serial rapist and murderer who had brutalized Hollis, leaving her terribly injured body and soul, even her sight, her eyes taken from her, had paid for his crimes with his life. It didn’t help him to know that Maggie Garrett, a gifted empathic healer, had helped ease the worst of the pain and trauma so that Hollis had emerged from the horror of that attack able to not only continue to live her life but also thrive and grow, reinventing herself rather than retreating into darkness, as that monster’s other surviving victims had done.
It didn’t even help that a gifted surgeon—and, DeMarco suspected, her own innate healing abilities—had given her back her eyesight.
None of it helped.
Because Hollis had been hurt terribly in ways no human being should ever be hurt, and no matter how deeply buried the agony of that was, no matter how easily she seemed able to refer to “the attack” almost as if it had happened to someone else, the truth was that she would live forever with a dark knowledge of true evil and unspeakable loss, and that might never, ever heal.
And there wasn’t a goddamned thing DeMarco could do to help her deal with that.
Unaware of his thoughts or the pain they brought him, Hollis was going on in that almost flip, uncaring tone she invariably used when discussing the evolution of her psychic abilities.
“The first new sense opened up because of extreme trauma and because I’d lost one of the original five, and nobody knew it’d be a temporary loss, even my own mind. Later I apparently needed to see auras, so I did. I needed to be able to heal myself because I’d be dead otherwise, needed to be able to heal others because Diana would most probably be dead otherwise—and I’m not going to let a friend die if there’s anything I can do to stop it.”
“I don’t think there was a ‘probably’ about that one,” DeMarco murmured. “Without you, she would have died.”2
Hollis half nodded, acknowledging that. “And I needed to be able to channel pure energy, dark energy, and scrub it clean, because it was causing all kinds of trouble and threatening more; someone had to take care of it, and evil has a nasty habit of deceiving most people, even most mediums. But not me, I’m not deceived, mostly due to that first traumatic event in my life, where I met evil up close and intensely personal, so the evil behind that energy at Alexander House couldn’t trick me, couldn’t hide itself from me.”
She frowned suddenly. “I wonder if channeling energy like that was a one-time deal for me? An extreme situation demanding an extreme ability? Or whether it’s in the toolbox now.”
“Bishop didn’t say?”
“No. Though in fairness, I didn’t ask.”
“Then I imagine,” DeMarco said, “you’ll find out soon enough.”
“Yeah.” Still fretting about her inability to construct for herself any kind of reliable psychic protection, she said, “But a shield . . . that really does tend to be a necessity for us. You telepaths block out the chatter of minds all around you. Precogs, most of them, try to keep up some kind of barrier against seeing the future when they aren’t looking for it so that they aren’t always blindsided by visions they aren’t braced for. Clairvoyants block out bits and pieces of information that can come at them like bullets. And we mediums . . .”
“Usually have to open a door. Consciously. Which you’ve sometimes been able to do. But especially these last months you’ve been pretty much wide open. So you don’t need a shield so much as a lock and key.”
“Yeah, but if I’ve ever had a lock or key, I’ve never been able to consciously use them. I mean, at least before I’d concentrate and I’d think I’d opened a door, but the longer I do this the less certain I am that even that much control seems to be present in me. It’s more like . . . I show up, and some spirits are able to come through, usually because th
ey need to, because they have unfinished business.”
“That plus you,” DeMarco pointed out. “Bishop seems convinced that your very presence attracts spiritual energy.”
“It hasn’t attracted any lately,” she retorted, then went on before he could respond. “But no matter why I see and talk to spirits, they aren’t a dangerous drain on me.”
“It does drain you,” he pointed out. “To varying degrees.”
“Yeah, but not enough, apparently, for me to feel the need to shut them out at will. I haven’t needed a shield so far. Not like that, not to protect myself. Not out of the desperate need to . . . close out all the spiritual signals I’m such a dandy receiver for. I’ve always needed to be open, not closed. Even in the beginning, when I was resisting, I didn’t have a shield—I just refused to listen. Until I didn’t have a choice. Eventually, according to Miranda, I’ll discover a reason why I really, really need a shield. And when I do that, when I badly need a shield, I’ll have a shield. Presto, just like magic.”
“You know better than that.”
Hollis sighed. “Yes. I do. Which is why I can’t decide whether that possibility sounds too simple or just scary as hell. Because we both know how strong past events were to trigger new abilities in me. How extreme. Mostly traumatic. Mostly painful. Events that nearly got me killed. Should have gotten me killed. Several times. So what’s it going to take to create that shield, Reese? How bad do things have to get before my mind decides to protect itself?”
Sheriff Trinity Nichols said dryly, “I’m sure you understand why this is the first time I’ve . . . shared this information in Sociable.”
Deacon glanced at the dog, who returned his gaze intently, then looked back at her. “So none of your deputies know.”
“I told them an anonymous tip led me to the body. That’s also what I put in the file, the official report. So nobody knows. Except you. And Bishop.”
“So you told Bishop.” Deacon frowned slightly. “I wonder if he’s sending Callie, then.”
Trinity raised her eyebrows.
“Callie Davis. She’s the only one in the unit, to my knowledge, who has experience communicating with animals telepathically.” He kept his tone completely matter-of-fact. “Her only true SCU partner has been Cesar, a Rottweiler she raised and trained. I’m told it’s pretty remarkable to watch them work.”
“So she talks to him. Telepathically.” Trinity didn’t sound doubtful, just as though she wanted everything to be perfectly clear.
“Definitely. In complete sentences or close enough, according to what’s known within the unit. I’ve never worked with her, so I don’t know for sure. But last I heard, she was working with at least three other dogs to find out if her bond with Cesar is unique.”
“What’s the verdict so far?”
“The bond seems to be unique, but she’s nevertheless been able to communicate, on a far more basic level, with at least two of the other dogs. Only been working at it a few months, and her bond with Cesar was developed over years, so there’s every chance she’ll be able to improve on the basic communication.”
“I see. So maybe she could . . . communicate . . . with Braden.”
“Maybe.” Deacon frowned again. “Although when I was told she was working with the other dogs, I was also told she was—more or less—on extended leave. Or the more typical SCU version of it, anyway. Not working on active cases but working on the psychic toolbox.”
“That’s what you guys call it?”
“Well, it fits. Bishop started the unit because he believed psychic abilities could be used as investigative tools. Not that we’d ride in on our white horses and solve everything with a single reading, dazzling the locals with our seemingly magical abilities, but just that we’d be cops, trained investigators, with a few extra investigative tools we could use to help hunt down and catch the bad guys.”
“Any edge is usually welcome and often makes all the difference between success and failure,” she agreed.
“And sharpening or improving control over those tools is usually a priority, though it tends to be done in the field and through sheer time and experience.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yeah, but we generally fly under the radar, so to speak. It’s the usual type of police work observers see, not the psychic abilities. We tend to be not real open about those extra tools, even quite often with the law enforcement people we’re working with. I mean, it’s getting more common now for us to encounter members of the law enforcement community who do know about us, and who accept what we do even if they don’t believe in it, but that’s because we have a high success rate, a strong reputation for discretion, and we don’t ride roughshod over the locals. If anything, we go out of our way to stay . . . back in the shadows and out of the media spotlight. If there is one. Will there be here?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” Trinity’s tone was just a bit grim. “The local newspaper hasn’t gone digital and has kept reports low-key at my request. No local TV or radio. We’re isolated geographically, miles off a main highway, and those serial killings of women in the mountains north of us are keeping the national and most of the regional media occupied for the moment. This time of year isn’t part of the major tourist season for us, not without a ski slope within easy driving distance. If anything, uncertain weather can make driving treacherous in a hurry and without much warning, and so tends to keep visitors at a minimum in winter. But you know as well as I do that one kid with a cell phone can upload an image or video to YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook—and the whole world knows what’s happening in Sociable.”
“So you’ve done what you could to keep access to the crime scene restricted, especially visually?”
“And threatened my deputies with firing or worse if any of them leaks information. In any way, shape, or form.” She paused, then added, “We were lucky that this killer left his victim inside a locked apartment rather than in some high-traffic public area. If we have a one-time murder, that may take care of any publicity worries. But . . . if he is a serial and kills again, if he evolves the way I was taught that serial killers evolve . . .”
“He may want media attention sooner rather than later. Hey, look at me. Look at what I can do. Can’t catch me.”
“Which is what I’m afraid of.”
Deacon brooded for a moment, glancing once or twice at Braden to find the dog looking steadily back at him. “So . . . the body was found in a locked room, which is about as private as it could be.”
“Scott Abernathy. In his own bedroom in his own apartment. If I hadn’t been . . . alerted . . . as quickly as I was, the first person there might have been the building manager or a concerned coworker. Or relatives; Scott has—had—a few locally. Widowed mother, brother. A cousin, I think.”
“You knew him?”
“I know most everybody in Sociable. Grew up here. Left for college and to be a cop in Atlanta for a few years, but I came back here. And I still know most everybody.”
Deacon nodded slowly. “So family might have discovered the body, but instead of any of them finding him, it was you and Braden.”
“Yeah. Far as I can tell, no family was expecting to visit him or expecting him to contact them, so it likely would have been the apartment manager, urged on by a coworker concerned when he didn’t show up for work. Had a spotless work record and had never failed to call in on the rare occasions when he was sick. He would have been missed that day, certainly by the next day; he was killed early on a Tuesday, apparently about to go out on his regular morning run.”
“Habits,” Deacon murmured.
“Habits the killer would have known about, if he lived here and paid attention. Or just if he’d watched for any length of time,” Trinity agreed.
“Any signs he did?”
“Not that we could find. No vehicle loitering, no place within view of his apartment where there was evidence someone had spent some time lurking and watching. No neighbors who noticed anythi
ng odd in the days and weeks leading up to the murder, or even that day. And his usual running route was almost all public, one used by most of our regular runners. There was about a half-mile twist through the woods where he might have been alone at that hour, but otherwise he was in full sight of plenty of people. When he usually ran, I mean. Not that morning.”
“Anybody else know you and Braden found his body? Your coroner? Some of your deputies?”
“Doc Beeson didn’t ask who, just when. Of the deputies, only two were allowed into the apartment. Lexie Adams and Douglas Payne make up my crime scene unit, such as it is. I sent them up to Quantico to be trained and equipped nearly two years ago, shortly after I took office, and roughly every four months since I’ve sent them down to Atlanta to work on a case for a week or so and keep their skills sharp, since those skills are rarely needed here. Or were rarely needed. Nobody else got close, it’s locked up, taped off, and under guard, and the crime scene photos are Need to Know.”
She paused, then added, “Far as I’m concerned, nobody outside the investigation needs to know, and precious few inside the investigation do.”
“Is the mayor happy about that?”
“I didn’t ask him.”
“Or the county commissioners?”
“Or them. My job, not theirs.”
He decided not to comment on that. “How’re the families taking it?”
“Still in shock. Scott Abernathy’s widowed mother is still under a doctor’s care, heavily sedated. His brother, older, has been drinking. A lot.”
“It’s been noticed, I take it.”
“Yeah. The only alcohol served in any restaurant or café here in the downtown area of Sociable is wine or beer, but there’s a liquor store out near the highway—and he’s been making regular visits out there, then back here and brown-bagging wherever he goes. Also spent a night in my jail for drunk and disorderly. Nobody blamed him for being upset about his brother, but he was talking wild about getting his guns and going looking for whoever murdered Scott.”
“So you let him spend a night in jail?”