STEALING SHADOWS
HIDING IN THE SHADOWS
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
READ ON FOR A TANTALIZING PEEK
AT THESE THREE TERRIFYING
NATIONAL BESTSELLERS!
STEALING SHADOWS
Psychic Cassie Neill helps the L.A. Police catch
killers—until she makes a terrible mistake and
an innocent child dies. . . .
LOS ANGELES
AUGUST 16, 1998
Talk to me, Cassie.”
She was all but motionless in the straight-backed chair, head bowed so that her hair hid her face. Only her hands stirred, thin fingers lightly tracing and shaping the red tissue petals of the exquisitely handmade paper rose in her lap.
“I think . . . he’s moving,” she whispered.
“Where is he moving? What can you see, Cassie?” Detective Logan’s voice was even and infinitely patient, betraying none of the anxiety and urgency that beaded his face with sweat and haunted his eyes.
“I . . . I’m not sure.”
From his position a few feet away, Logan’s partner spoke in a low voice. “Why’s she so tentative with this one?”
“Because he scares the shit out of her,” Logan responded, equally quietly. “Hell, he scares the shit out of me.” He raised his voice. “Cassie? Concentrate, honey. What does he see?”
“Dark. It’s just . . . it’s dark.”
“All right. What is he thinking?”
She drew a shaky little breath, and those thin fingers trembled as they held and traced the paper rose. “I—I don’t want to . . . It’s so cold in his mind. And there are so many . . . shadows. So many twisted shadows. Please don’t make me go any deeper. Don’t make me touch them.”
Logan’s already grim face grew bleaker at the fear and revulsion in her voice, and it was his turn to draw a steadying breath. When he spoke, his voice was cool and certain. “Cassie, listen to me. You have to go deeper. For the sake of that little girl, you have to. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she replied forlornly, “I understand.” There was a moment of silence so absolute, they could hear the soft crackle of the tissue paper she touched.
“Where is he, Cassie? What is he thinking?”
“He’s safe. He knows he’s safe.” Her head tilted to one side, as though she were listening to a distant voice. “The cops will never find him now. Bastards. Stupid bastards. He left them all those clues and they never saw them.”
Logan didn’t allow himself to be distracted by the disturbing information. “Stop listening to him, Cassie. Look at what he’s doing, where he’s going.”
“He’s going . . . to get the girl. To take her to his secret place. He’s ready for her now. He’s ready to—”
“Where is it? What’s around him, Cassie?”
“It’s . . . dark. She’s . . . he’s got her tied up. He’s got her tied up . . . in the backseat of a car. It’s in a garage. He’s getting into the car, starting the engine. Backing out of the garage. Oh! I can hear her crying. . . .”
“Don’t listen,” Logan insisted. “Stay with him, Cassie. Tell me where he’s going.”
“I don’t know.” Her voice was desolate. “It’s so dark. I can’t see beyond the headlights.”
“Watch, Cassie. Look for landmarks. What kind of road is he on?”
“It’s . . . a blacktop. Two lanes. There are mailboxes, we’re driving past mailboxes.”
“Good, Cassie, that’s good.” He glanced aside at his partner, who grimaced helplessly, then returned his attention to that dark, bent head. “Keep looking. Keep watching. You have to tell us where he’s going.”
For a few moments there was nothing but the sound of her breathing, quick and shallow. And then, abruptly she said, “He’s turning. The street sign says . . . Andover.”
Logan’s partner moved a few steps away and began talking softly into a cell phone.
“Keep watching, Cassie. What do you see? Talk to me.”
“It’s so dark.”
“I know. But keep watching.”
“He’s thinking . . . horrible things.”
“Don’t listen. Don’t go too deep, Cassie.”
She lifted her head for the first time since they had begun, and Logan flinched. Her eyes were closed. He’d never seen such pallor in a human face before. Not a living face.
HIDING IN THE SHADOWS
Accident victim Faith Parker has done what
her doctors feared she never would: awakened
from the coma that held her prisoner for
weeks. Now as Faith begins to regain her
strength, she’s shocked by intimate dreams of
a man she doesn’t recognize and tortured by
visions of violence which feel painfully real. . . .
She opened her eyes abruptly, as though from a nightmare, conscious of the pounding of her heart and the sound of her quick, shallow breathing in the silent room. She couldn’t remember the dream, but her shaking body and runaway pulse told her it had been a bad one. She closed her eyes and for several minutes concentrated only on calming down.
Gradually her heart slowed and her breathing steadied. Okay. Okay. That was better. That was much better.
She didn’t like being scared.
She opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling. Gradually a niggling awareness of something being different made her turn her head slowly on the pillow so she could look around the room.
It wasn’t her room.
Her other senses began to wake then. She heard the muffled, distant sounds of activity just beyond the closed door. She smelled sickness and medicine, the distinct odors of people and machines and starch. She noted the Spartan quality of the room she was in, the hospital bed she was lying on—and the IV dripping into her arm. All of that told her she was in a hospital.
Why?
It took a surprising effort to raise her head and look down at herself; her neck felt stiff, unused, and a rush of nausea made her swallow hard. But she forced herself to look, to make sure all of her was there.
Both arms. Both legs. Nothing in a cast. Her feet moved when she willed them to. Not paralyzed then. Good.
With an effort, she raised the arm not hooked to the IV until she could see her hand. It was unnervingly small, not childlike but . . . fragile. The short nails were ragged and looked bitten, and the skin was milky-pale. She turned it slowly and stared at the palm, the pads of her fingers. No calluses, but there was a slight roughness to her skin that told her she was accustomed to work.
Afraid of what she’d find, she touched her face with light, probing fingers. The bones seemed prominent, and the skin felt soft and smooth. There was no evidence of an injury until her exploration reached her forehead and right temple. There, a square of adhesive bandage and a faint soreness underneath told her she’d suffered some kind of cut.
But not a bad one, she thought, and certainly not a big one. The bandage was small, two or three square inches.
Beyond the bandage, she found her hair limp and oily, which told her it hadn’t been washed recently. She pulled at a strand and was surprised that it was long enough for her to be able to see. It was mostly straight, with only a hint of curl. And it was red. A dark and dull red.
Now why did that surprise her?
For the first time, she let herself become aware of what had been crawling in her subconscious, a cold and growing fear she dared not name. She realized she was lying perfectly still now, her arms at her sides, hands clenched into fists, staring at the ceiling as if she would find the answers there.
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
A picture-perfect Tennessee town has just
become a monster’s hunting ground. Now a
third person goes missing and Sheriff Miranda
Knight is determined to make her
small town safe once more. . . .
So when’re the feds due in?” Alex asked Miranda as they stood near the top of the hill and watched
as the lake down in the hollow was slowly crisscrossed by half a dozen small boats. The last light of the day was just making it over the mountains to paint the lake shimmering silver; another few minutes and they’d either have to put up floodlights or continue the search tomorrow.
“Anytime now.”
Alex looked at her curiously. “So how come you’re out here instead of back at the office waiting for them? I mean, dragging the lake is a good idea— anonymous tip or not—since we haven’t found a trace of the Grainger girl anywhere in the area, but I can call in if we find anything.”
Miranda’s shoulders moved in an almost irritable shrug. “They’ll have to drive in from Nashville, so it could be late tonight. Anyway, I left Brady on duty at the office with instructions to bring them out here if they arrive before I get back.”
Still watching her, Alex asked, “Do you have any idea how many are coming? Isn’t this crack new unit supposed to be made up of a dozen or more agents?”
“I don’t know for sure. There isn’t much information available, even for law enforcement officials. We’ll get what we get, I guess.” She sounded restless, uneasy.
Alex was about to ask another question when he saw Miranda stiffen. All her attention, all her being, was suddenly focused elsewhere. She no longer saw the lake or the people below them, wasn’t even aware of him standing beside her.
Then he saw her eyes shift sideways, as if she was intensely aware of some sound, some thing, behind her but didn’t want to turn her head to look at it.
“Randy?”
She didn’t respond, didn’t seem to hear him.
Alex half turned to look behind them. At first, all he saw was the hilltop and light flooding over it because the sun had not yet set. Then there was an abrupt, fluid shifting of the light, and the silhouette of a tall man appeared.
Alex blinked, startled because he hadn’t heard a sound. Two more silhouettes appeared on either side of the first, another man and a woman. They paused there on the crest of the hill, looking at the activity below them, and then lost the blinding halo of light as they moved down the slope toward Alex and Miranda.
The man on the left was a couple of inches shorter than the other but still plenty tall at about six feet. He was maybe thirty, on the thin side, and had nondescript brown hair. The woman was roughly the same age, not very tall, slender and blond. Both were casually dressed in dark pants and bulky sweaters.
But it was the man in the center who caught and held Alex’s attention. Dressed as casually as the other two in jeans and a black leather jacket, he was a striking figure. He was very dark, his black hair gleaming in the last of the day’s light, and a perfect and distinct widow’s peak crowned his high forehead. He was wide-shouldered and navigated the rock-strewn slope with far more ease than his slipping and sliding companions. As he neared them, Alex saw the vivid scar marking one side of his coldly handsome face.
He looked back at Miranda and saw that her gaze was fixed once more on the lake below. But her breath was coming quickly through parted, trembling lips, and her face was a little pale and very strained. He was astonished at how vulnerable she looked. For a moment. Just a moment.
Bantam Books by Kay Hooper
Touching Evil
Out of the Shadows
Hiding in the Shadows
Stealing Shadows
Haunting Rachel
Finding Laura
After Caroline
Amanda
On Wings of Magic
The Wizard of Seattle
My Guardian Angel
TOUCHING EVIL
A Bantam Book / September 2001
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2001 by Kay Hooper
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eISBN: 978-0-307-41866-1
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Kay Hooper, Touching Evil
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