Maggie took a jerky step backward to physically break the connection and under her breath muttered, “Shit.”
“What?” John was watching her intently, a tiny frown between his brows.
She glanced at the fireplace, where no fire burned today, then looked at the apparently very comfortable couch and sighed. “There’s violence—and then there’s violence. Dammit. I hate being a voyeur.”
“Maggie, what are you talking about?”
“Nothing was done in this room against anyone’s will, John. I just picked up on . . . Well, let’s just say the Mitchells have an active and . . . energetic sex life.”
He glanced at the couch as she had done, then looked quickly back at her face. “Oh.”
Maggie didn’t try to read his face or his emotions or waste time wondering if he believed her; she was reasonably sure he didn’t. Instead, she moved into the next room. She didn’t stop now but walked slowly, looking around her but allowing that inner sense to be the one seeing. And hearing. And feeling.
She caught the flicker of another marital argument in the den that seemed to be about, of all things, a parrot, another scene of rather violent lovemaking in the sunroom, and knew someone had been cut—oddly enough by a broken mirror—in the breakfast room. In Thomas Mitchell’s study, many business arguments had taken place, the most recent of which had been between Mitchell and his father-in-law.
Maggie reported each event calmly and without looking at John, speaking aloud as much to keep herself grounded as to supply him with information. She was holding on to her control with all her will, determined not to allow herself to be lost within the emotional turmoil of these people’s lives.
It was getting more and more difficult to keep herself separate and apart from what she sensed, and that frightened her more than a little. Could she actually get lost in the violence of past events? And if she did . . . would she ever be able to find her way out again?
They bypassed the kitchen, where they could hear the murmur of voices, and moved on to the other ground-floor rooms. There was nothing of interest to report in a powder room or exercise room, a butler’s pantry or laundry room.
Maggie was beginning to wonder if everybody had got it wrong and Samantha Mitchell had walked out of this house of her own free will, when they reached the game room. Maggie walked into the fairly dark room and was staggered by an overwhelming wave of absolute terror.
It was as brief as it was fierce, just cold terror and iron arms around her and the bitter bite of chloroform—and then darkness so intense it was as if she had fallen into an abyss.
“Maggie.”
She came out of it abruptly, shaken. It was John’s arms she felt around her then, holding her upright, and the terrifying darkness receded, leaving only the bone-deep cold behind. And the terrible certainty.
“He’s got her,” she whispered.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In what had once been an ordinary conference room of a New Orleans police station, now transformed by bulletin boards and computers and stacks of files into the base of operations for a very unique task force, Special Agent Tony Harte refilled his coffee cup and then returned to brooding over the photographs pinned to the center bulletin board.
“I just don’t see a pattern,” he announced.
“Look again.”
Tony sighed. “Boss, I’ve looked so often and so hard my eyes are starting to cross.”
Special Agent Noah Bishop looked up from the laptop where he’d been working and said dryly, “Maybe you’ll be able to see better that way.”
“Personally, I think we’ve been hexed.”
Bishop lifted an eyebrow.
“Hexed,” Tony insisted firmly. “That source of yours down in the Quarter talked about voodoo, and I think we should pay attention to her.”
“I think you need a vacation, Tony.”
“Oh, come on—is it so much easier to believe in telepathy and precognition than in hexes?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Telepathy and precognition don’t involve fashioning a doll out of burlap and human hair and sticking pins in it.”
Tony pondered that for a moment. “I don’t know, boss. I’ve seen some pretty weird things since I started working for you.”
“Next you’ll be seeing zombies.”
“I could state the obvious,” Tony observed, eyeing his boss pointedly. “But I won’t.”
Bishop didn’t rise to the bait. “Hand me that file on the banker, will you?”
Tony handed it across the conference table. “Anyway, if you and Miranda could just have a vision and help us out a little, I’d really appreciate it. Try, why don’t you?”
The words were barely out of his mouth when Bishop paled and closed his eyes, an in-drawn breath hissing between his teeth.
Tony watched him intently and had to wait at least a minute or two longer than was customary before the other man’s unusually penetrating gray eyes opened. Hopeful, he asked, “About our case?”
“Shit.” Bishop massaged his temples briefly, then raked his fingers through his black hair, slightly disarranging the vivid white streak over his left temple. He looked decidedly grim. “Who the hell gave Quentin permission to go to Seattle?” he demanded.
Tony blinked. “Not about our case, then. Beats me. I thought his and Kendra’s last assignment was in Pittsburgh.”
“It was. But they aren’t there now, typing up their reports like good little agents. They’re in Seattle, and up to their asses in trouble.” Bishop looked toward the doorway, and an instant later a tall, raven-haired, and strikingly beautiful woman appeared. She was absently massaging one temple with her fingers, and her startling blue eyes went instantly to Bishop.
“Out loud,” Tony requested automatically.
She looked at him, sighed, then came to the conference table and sat down. “We can’t go out there,” she reminded Bishop. “Not yet, anyway.”
“I know.”
“He can take care of himself. Kendra too. You trained them well.”
“Maybe. But this . . . Jesus Christ. Why do I put up with him, can you tell me that?” Bishop asked.
“Because he’s good. A good investigator and a strong psychic. Too good to lose even if he does sometimes try your patience.”
Bishop shook his head grimly. “Be that as it may, Miranda, it’s taken us years to get this unit on its feet and earn enough respect from law enforcement and the Bureau to be taken seriously. Far from gaining the autonomy we want, one major public screwup and we’ll find ourselves chained to our desks doing background checks for security clearances. And any time we stick our noses in where they aren’t wanted, we run a huge risk of political fallout as well. Quentin knows damned well we don’t get involved unofficially in ongoing investigations.”
She smiled slightly. “You mean like the one you got involved in a couple of years ago in Atlanta?”
“That was different.”
“Was it? Kane’s your friend. John Garrett is Quentin’s friend. We should have expected it, you know. Once Garrett’s sister became a victim out there, it was only a matter of time before Quentin had to get involved—officially or unofficially.”
Tony, who had been listening intently, decided he was up to speed at last and ventured a comment. “That serial rapist? Lots in the papers about the case.”
Miranda looked at him, still smiling. “And what are you doing reading the Seattle newspapers?”
Caught, Tony grimaced and said “shit” under his breath, then tried to brazen it out. “Look, I didn’t know for sure what was going on, it’s just that Kendra had made a modem request for some data, and the return tag said Seattle, so I figured . . .”
“And you didn’t think we’d be interested?” Bishop demanded. He shook his head. “Jesus, Tony, you’re as bad as Quentin is. Keeping you two even marginally under control is like trying to herd cats.”
Tony grinned. “Maybe you should stop trying, boss.”
“They do tend to land on their feet,” Miranda observed. “Although what I can’t figure out is how either of them believes they can hide anything for long in a unit run by a telepath.”
“Eternal optimists, both of us.”
“Um. And you’re both convinced you can charm your way out of trouble.”
“Only because we usually do,” Tony said guilelessly.
Bishop groaned.
“Don’t waste your energy,” Miranda advised him, still amused. “You’ll never fit either of them into any kind of FBI mold.”
“I wasn’t going for that,” Bishop confessed, staring at Tony. “I seldom hope for miracles. Just something reasonable, like occasional obedience to my so-called authority. Not very much to ask, I’d think.”
“Would it make you feel better,” Tony inquired, “if I said I’d always considered you an authority figure? I mean, I do call you boss, after all.”
“Only to remind yourself that’s what I am. Otherwise, you’d never remember.”
“Hey, you’re the one who always says psychics are a prickly, independent lot, prone to go it alone more often than follow the rules or the regs. Can I help it if Quentin and I fit your definition to a T?”
“You could at least pretend to follow the rules every once in a while.”
“Oh, I do. Every once in a while.” Tony’s smile died, and he added quietly, “Okay, you’ve both done a dandy job of trying to lead me away from asking about your vision.”
“Not so dandy,” Miranda murmured.
“I’m also tenacious,” Tony reminded her. “So what is it you’re trying very hard not to tell me?”
Miranda exchanged a glance with Bishop, then said, “We need you here, Tony.”
“I know that. I won’t go haring off after Quentin and Kendra no matter what you tell me. Like you said—they can take care of themselves.” But he could feel tension seeping into his muscles, and when he looked at Miranda, he had the sudden, disquieting idea that she knew. And if she knew . . .
It was Bishop who said, “They’re into something a lot more complicated than they realize.”
“A fairly common trait of investigations we get involved in,” Tony said, trying not to think about how much both of them knew about things he would have preferred to keep to himself. “So what did you see?”
Miranda said, “Sometimes visions are as clear and distinct as if they’re scenes from a movie, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. But sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they’re flashes of stop-motion images, out of sequence, all jumbled together. Even worse, instead of presenting a single prediction, they can be—variations on a theme. Possible outcomes to a complex, fluid situation.”
Tony scowled. “Meaning you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen out there, but at least one possible outcome is a bad one?”
“No,” she said softly. “Meaning only one possible outcome is a good one. The deck’s stacked against them this time, Tony. Against all of them.”
“We have to warn them.” Tony spoke before he considered and wasn’t surprised by Bishop’s response.
“You know better than that. In the kind of situation they’re in, any foreknowledge, especially from outside, could trigger the very events we want to avoid. We can’t help them by telling them what may or may not happen. They have to make their own choices, their own decisions, based on what’s happening at any given time and based on their own abilities—paranormal and otherwise. Anything else is virtually guaranteed to only make things worse.”
“Then what the hell good is it to even be precognitive?” Tony demanded.
Bishop smiled wryly. “Who told you it was a good thing? You’ve been listening to fairy tales again, Tony.”
“Shit.” Tony drew a breath. “So we say nothing? We leave them to . . . fate?”
Miranda said, “Fate’s a very big player in this one, and some things really do have to play out as they’re meant to. So, yes, we leave them to fate. We don’t have a choice.”
Tony looked from one to the other of them, then said with forced lightness, “I guess this is where I demonstrate my ability to obey orders and follow the rules, huh?”
“I’m afraid so,” Bishop said.
“Okay. Well, then, if you two don’t mind, I think I’ll go see how Sharon is coming with that autopsy.” He didn’t wait for approval but left the conference room briskly.
Bishop said, “You know he’s rattled when he voluntarily observes an autopsy. He hates them.”
“Yeah. This isn’t going to be easy for him.” Miranda hesitated. “Are we right to keep him away?”
Bishop sighed explosively. “Hell, I don’t know. You saw the same thing I did. That whole situation’s so damned precarious, one player too many turns it into a bloodbath. Quentin and Kendra are involved now, there’s nothing we can do to change that. Pull them out, and we could make things immeasurably worse. Go in ourselves and the same thing could happen. And, like you said—this one’s about fate. We’ll have to leave them all to find their destiny.”
They’ll make it, Miranda said through the telepathic link they shared.
I hope so. But I’ve found fate to be a . . . brutal master. Even if they do make it, they’ll never be the same again.
Her hand reached across the table, and their fingers twined together in a gesture neither of them had to comment on. No matter how intimately minds touched, sometimes the only real comfort to be found was in the warmth of flesh touching flesh.
Maggie turned off her cell phone and returned it to her pocket. “Andy said he’d have the forensics team go over the game room again, just to be sure. Apparently they didn’t find much the first time, but he said they were figuring she was grabbed in the kitchen or front hall.”
“So he believed you when you told him Samantha Mitchell was attacked in that room?”
“Yes, he believed me. Experience has taught him to trust my . . . instincts.”
They were sitting in John’s car, still parked in the drive of the Mitchell house, and he made no move to start the engine. Instead, turned slightly in the driver’s seat, he watched her intently. “You haven’t shown him what you’ve shown me, have you? Why not?”
Maggie was trying very hard not to shiver visibly, but the cold weariness she felt was getting harder and harder to ignore. She just wanted to go home and soak in a hot tub, maybe listen to some peaceful music and simply try to forget for a while.
“Why not?” John repeated.
“Because it wasn’t necessary,” she answered, almost too tired to think. “All Andy ever needed from me was sketches, and he could believe what I gave him without questioning where it came from, because I’d proven he could believe it.”
“So I need more from you?”
For a moment, Maggie was tempted to tell him what a loaded question that really was. Instead, she abruptly opened her sketch pad and turned to a certain page and stood the pad up on her lap so he could see the sketch.
John caught his breath.
It was a sketch of Christina as she’d been before the attack that had ruined her face and destroyed her life. This face he stared at was, John realized dimly, more than simple pencil lines on ivory paper. Much more. The pale brown hair, straight and cut casually mid-length, surrounded a delicate oval face that was unusually pretty, with large sparkling eyes and a beautiful smile with a deep dimple on one side . . .
It was his sister as he remembered her, so vividly alive he expected her to laugh suddenly or cut her eyes sideways at him the way she always had when she found him amusing or he tried her considerable patience when he was, as she put it, “being big brother.”
“Jesus,” he murmured.
Maggie tore the sketch neatly from the pad and handed it to him. “If this was all you needed from me, you wouldn’t have to believe anything beyond what you understand. I knew your sister, I drew her likeness—there it is. I’m an artist, it’s what artists do. Nothing paranormal about it.”
/>
“I’m not so sure,” John said, handling the sketch carefully. “But thank you for this.”
“You’re welcome. Do you mind if we leave now? I know you wanted me to go with you to talk to your friend Quentin at this command post you guys have set up, but I need to be home for a while first. I’m a little tired.”
John looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “Quentin said you probably needed to spend time at home alone whenever one of these . . . events . . . tired you.”
“Quentin was right.”
He got his briefcase from the backseat and secured the sketch carefully inside before starting the car. It was several miles before he spoke again, and then it was to ask a slow question.
“So what more do I need from you?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Answers.”
“About Christina?”
“About all of it. You want to know why she killed herself, but more than that. You want to find the man who destroyed her life. And . . .”
He frowned. “And?”
Maggie stared out through the windshield. Was Beau right about this man? He was usually right. And if he was right—she had to be very, very careful.
“Maggie?”
“And . . . you want him to pay for what he did. You may not fully believe there’s anything paranormal about my work, but you do believe I can help you find this rapist.”
After a moment, he said slowly, “Why do I think that isn’t what you were originally going to say?”
She was silent.
“Okay, then tell me this. How is it you’re so sure Samantha Mitchell was abducted by the serial rapist? Abducted I’ll buy, but how can you know it was him?”
Maggie hesitated, then said deliberately, “Because it felt like him.”
“You . . . don’t mean felt emotionally, do you?”
“No. It physically felt like him. When he grabbed her from behind, the feel of his arms around her, his chest against her back, the way he . . . rubbed himself against her as she struggled, were all just the same as with the other attacks.”