“That storm still bothering you?”
“Well, it won’t just happen and be done with it. It hovers, just close enough to this valley to make me feel it.”
“Will it wake you if it hits before dawn while you’re sleeping?” He suddenly found it odd that he didn’t know that.
“Depends on how bad it is. How loud it is. I tried traveling with a sound machine, but usually I’m so tired by the time I get to bed that I kept forgetting I even had it. Besides, hotel rooms almost always have a fan, if only for the heat or AC, and they’re usually not quiet. And, half the time I forget to turn off the TV, or set the timer for it to go off after I’m asleep.”
He glanced at the TV, which had the sound turned really low, and lifted a brow at her. “Bonnie and Clyde?”
“Historical criminals interest me.”
“You don’t get enough crime on the job?”
Hollis sipped her tea, considering the question seriously. “That’s different. That’s . . . happening. Historical crime has already happened.”
“So you can be detached.”
“I guess. Is it important?”
“Just curious.”
Over the rim of her glass, her eyes narrowed at him. “You’re never just curious.”
“Of course I am.”
“No, you’re like Bishop; there’s always a motive lurking.”
“I think I’m offended by that.”
“You can be offended all you want, it’s still true. So what is it you’re really asking me?”
DeMarco considered for a moment in silence. “We’ve talked about this before. Sort of. I think . . . you try very hard not to care. About the cases we investigate. About the people. Victims. Families.”
Hollis set her glass down on the table. “That isn’t a question.”
He chose his words very carefully, aware, as he often was with her in these moments, that he was picking his way across a minefield.
“You know, when I first read your file, read about the attack and how your abilities were triggered, one thing stood out to me.” And something Bishop had pointed out as very important for Hollis.
“Just one?” she muttered.
“You helped the police find him. Catch him.”
“Well, sort of. I mean, I wasn’t the only one. We’d never have been able to do it without Maggie, and—” She half laughed. “And that first spirit I saw.”
DeMarco shook his head slightly. “Hollis, you were still in the hospital. Maggie had helped you, you badly needed to help her—and that was when you were able to see.”
“Why did that stand out to you?”
“Like I said, I never knew the Hollis you were before the attack. By the time we met, you’d been with the SCU a while. You’d been in the field, had learned to be more comfortable with your abilities. And had started developing new abilities. Seeing auras. Being able to heal yourself—that one manifested almost literally in front of my eyes.”
“And certainly came in handy.”
“Yes, it did.”
Hollis waited a moment, then said, “Okay, what am I missing? It feels like you’re . . . tiptoeing all around something.”
“Does it really.” It wasn’t a question.
She frowned at him. “Reese, it’s after two in the morning. I know Mal said for us to sleep in, but I have a hard time doing that no matter how late I go to bed. Especially when we’re on a case.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you trying to say to me?”
“Maybe I should wait until tomorrow,” he said. “I have a feeling it’ll keep you up, and—”
“Reese.”
He cleared his throat. “Okay. It’s something I’ve noticed. When you hold yourself aloof, try to be detached from a situation, you’re . . . very closed up.”
“My shield—”
DeMarco shook his head. “This has nothing to do with your shield, because I noticed it before you had one.”
“Noticed what? How am I closed up?”
“You block yourself. It’s not like a shield protecting you, it’s something inside, a . . . reluctance to let yourself feel what’s going on around you. A need to pull back, to think and not feel.”
Hollis rubbed her forehead. “I’m either really tired or you’re just not making sense. Or both.”
“Hollis, two very important things happened yesterday. Saturday, while we were working. You’re team leader. You felt responsible for the team, especially Cullen and Kirby, so you opened yourself up. You needed to . . . be aware of how they were doing, even if they weren’t in the room with you.”
“Okay. So?”
“It’s been little things, mostly, at least so far. But it’s like I’ve said before, when you need a sense or ability you didn’t have when you got here, to solve a case or help someone, that’s what you get. You’re picking up information in a new way, Hollis. I’m honestly not sure if it’s telepathic, empathic, or clairvoyant, but you’re developing another ability.”
She stared at him for a long moment, almost expressionless. “Another ability.”
“Yes. If I had to guess, given how you try to close yourself off from feeling too much, I’d say it’s empathic.”
“But none of us have been in trouble or danger. I mean—my abilities develop like that, suddenly, because I need them.”
“Yes. And as team leader, you needed to know how your team was feeling.”
“I didn’t feel like myself,” she murmured.
“Yeah. And I think that was one of the reasons. It’s the first time you’ve developed or tapped into a new ability gradually.”
She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, her expression now more bemused than anything else. “A new ability. Fun new toy. Except being an empath isn’t fun. It’s painful. That’s clear watching Kirby. And as for Maggie . . .”
He nodded as she realized. “In a way, you’ve come full circle. Maggie helped you years ago. An empath helped heal what a monster had done to you, so you were able to go on. You’ve healed yourself since then, first just healing from an injury a bit faster than usual, and eventually healing from a different sort of attack that really should have killed you. You helped heal Diana. Probably saved Miranda. At the time, I suppose we all assumed it was that similar energy mediums often have. To be able to tune into the energies of death—and life. But with you . . . it’s so often the case that you’re more than anyone else guesses, much less expects. Even you. Which is why I believe that eventually you’ll be an absolute empath.”
“An absolute empath. You mean if I try to heal someone with a wound—”
“The wound will disappear from them and appear on you. And stay on you until you heal that too. Which will demand an incredible amount of energy and strength from you, especially if you heal a serious, possibly even mortal, wound or other injury. Even more than helping to pull yourself or someone else almost back from the dead. Because then it’ll be both.”
Sunday
“Is Hollis okay?” Kirby’s voice was low.
DeMarco looked at her, wishing he could answer that question fully. But all he could say was, “I don’t think she got much sleep.”
Kirby didn’t appear quite satisfied but nodded tentatively and reclaimed her seat at the conference table, a laptop open in front of her. They were hoping to hear from the analysts at Quantico, but so far nothing had come through.
Hollis came out of the kitchen alcove in the conference room with a cup of coffee, looking deceptively fragile.
DeMarco knew it was deceptive because he knew Hollis. She might need an arm now and then after expending too much energy, but even then there was nothing in the slightest bit fragile about her. He agreed with Bishop on that point, that she had the strongest will to survive of anyone he’d ever known.
He wondered
then, as uneasily as he had wondered when it had first occurred to him, if her sense of self-preservation, her will to survive, would stop her from sacrificing herself to save someone she cared about. Bishop said it would stop her, and Hollis had appeared to believe that as well. DeMarco had expressed his own doubts.
He had seen her risk death more than once on the job, for the sake of the team or to face off against the evil they had hunted; as contradictory as it seemed, her instinct to help those she cared about was every bit as strong as her will to survive.
Hollis sat down, in one of the chairs rather than on the table this time, and stared across at the evidence boards that now contained more photos and additions to the timeline.
“Okay,” she said, “there was no camera on the morgue, so no visual on who took it. Does anybody want to venture a guess as to why our monster unsub felt the need to leave Brady Nash’s arm inside Reverend Pilate?”
“God, I can’t even wrap my mind around that,” Cullen said, leaning back in his own chair as he stared at the evidence board. “I can’t decide if it’s incredibly twisted in a dark way or—a childish way.”
“I thought the same thing,” Hollis said, frowning. “There really is something childish about some of these things. Like a kid trying to shock people.”
Cullen glanced toward the door to make sure Mal hadn’t returned, and said in a lower voice, “And yet both Jill and I felt something really old. At least around those candlesticks.”
“Where are we on them?”
“Far as I know, Mal’s still in his office with that antiques expert he called in. You think it’s just the history of the things? Religious objects should soak up positive energy, shouldn’t they?”
“That,” Hollis said, “depends on who had them and how they were used. Religious objects have been bought, sold, traded, used in very disrespectful ways. Even used in dark rituals.”
“Satanic?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised, depending on how old they are and how many hands they’ve passed through.”
DeMarco leaned back in his own chair and said, “We should probably be careful with that word. People panic when they believe some evil ritual took place, but whisper that it might have been satanic and they totally freak out.”
Kirby said, “They’re already freaking out. One of the two main churches in town is circled with crime scene tape and has deputies posted at the doors. They know Reverend Pilate was horribly murdered—and the details are getting out. Anybody murdered unsettles people even if they didn’t know the victim. Murder several people, and everyone starts to panic. Include a holy man in that victim pool, and panic doesn’t begin to describe it.”
She was rubbing the nape of her neck and was definitely more pale than usual.
“Kirby?” Hollis was looking at her.
“Oh, I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine. The pills let me get a good night’s sleep, and that always helps. It’s just that people are really getting scared. Very scared. I don’t think Reverend Pilate was all that well-liked, but he was a pastor, a holy man.” She frowned suddenly. “Some doubt about that, I think, but still. People are terrified. If this monster would kill a man of God, nobody’s safe.”
Hollis looked at her partner. “I’m guessing just about everybody, even the usual part-time or holy-holiday-only attendees, will be in church today. They need to come together as a community. And they need reassurance, which their pastors will hopefully give them, at least for now.”
“You’re probably right.”
“The Ferguson family took in Joe Cross, right?”
It was Cullen who answered. “Yeah, one of Perla’s sisters and her husband.” He looked through a stack of files on the table before him and found the one he was looking for. “Um . . . Yeah. Carla and Keith Webb. And looks like they, along with the rest of the Ferguson clan, live in that cluster of houses out between downtown and the Cross residence. Says here the whole family goes to the same church, Cane Creek Baptist.”
Hollis said, “That’s the big church with the elaborate landscaping? Opposite end of town from Reverend Pilate’s church.”
“Yeah.”
DeMarco said, “I’m betting Joe Cross isn’t in any shape to go to church today. Probably at the Webb house with at least one of the family watching over him.”
“Might be our best chance to talk to him without a dozen protective relatives hovering around.”
Kirby ventured, “Is he a suspect? From everything we’ve been told about him, he doesn’t sound very likely.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the thing. So far, all we’ve had to go on when it comes to Joe is what other people have told us. I’d like the chance to talk to him ourselves.”
DeMarco lifted a small day planner lying atop files and legal pads on the table before him. “And then there’s this. According to his list of appointments, the last visit Reverend Pilate made yesterday afternoon was to Joe Cross. Presumably to offer his condolences, even if none of the family attended his church.”
FIFTEEN
Admitted to the Webb residence by Perla’s brother-in-law Keith, DeMarco and Hollis found him more resigned than welcoming. A stocky man of about thirty-five with a pleasant face and calm brown eyes that barely glanced at the credentials they offered, he seemed to have an extremely unshakable temperament—which probably made him an ideal husband to one of the reportedly volatile Ferguson sisters.
“I figured at least one of you feds would want to talk to Joe,” he said, leading the two through the foyer and into what was obviously a den or family room. “Especially when we heard about what happened to Preacher Pilate last night.”
“Were you here when he called on Mr. Cross?” Hollis asked.
“Yep. Joe seems calmer when it’s just me. Have to warn you, though. He hasn’t said much of anything.” He paused in front of the near end of a big sectional sofa, where a young, very thin, and very pale man sat staring straight ahead at something only he could see.
“Carla’d skin me if I left you two alone with him,” Webb said, still calm. “So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll go back to my chair over there. Good luck getting him to talk to you.”
He waved a hand in what appeared to be a general invitation for them to sit wherever they liked, then went himself to sit at the opposite end of the sectional, reaching down to pull a lever that swung a footrest up under his waiting legs. Then he used a remote to unpause the game he’d been watching, but hit mute before more than a second or so of a roaring crowd could be heard.
Hollis glanced at her partner, then slid the folder holding her credentials into a pocket; she doubted Joe Cross would know or care who was talking to him. For a moment, she studied the younger man, the blanket draped over his shoulders emphasizing his thinness and making him appear even younger than he was. Both hands lay limply in his lap, loosely holding a wad of tissues that looked damp. On the arm of this end of the sectional was a big box of tissues; beside Joe Cross’s sock-clad feet was a wicker trash basket overflowing with used tissues.
“Mr. Cross?” She kept her voice quiet. “Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”
After a long moment, he murmured, “Feel? I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine.”
“Told you,” Keith Webb said laconically, without taking his eyes off his very large flat-screen.
DeMarco said, “Mr. Webb, did Mr. Cross leave this house after Reverend Pilate visited?”
Webb grunted. “He hasn’t left here since Carla and me brought him home from the sheriff station Friday.”
“Has he been alone at all since then?”
“Nah. Even when the doc knocked him out, Carla and her sisters and their mom took turns sitting with him. Yesterday after Preacher Pilate left, we had to get the doc out again.” He paused, then continued, “Pilate was better preaching fire and brimstone than helping anybody through grief. Less c
oncerned with Joe than with a possible donation of Perla’s things, ’specially her shoes. Likes to hold what he calls yard sales to raise money. Daycare center, new roof. Churches always seem to need new roofs. Anyway, he wasn’t here five minutes before the girls showed him the door.”
“Your family didn’t attend his church.”
“No, we all go to Cane Creek. Preacher Webb—no relation—his sermons are a lot more cheerful. Sees the glass half-full ’stead of half-empty, if you know what I mean.”
“I wonder if he will today,” Hollis murmured.
It hadn’t really been a question, but Keith Webb responded, “I had the same thought. Mostly why I said I’d stay here with Joe. Preacher Webb always said this was such a peaceful town. He kept up a good face when the accidents started, but by last Sunday he was pretty damned depressing. He didn’t care much for Pilate, was my take, but I’m betting today’s sermon is going to be even darker since the maniac that murdered poor Perla decided to butcher a man of God.”
—
“SO JOE CROSS is off our suspect list?” Cullen asked when Hollis and DeMarco returned to the sheriff’s department.
“We haven’t got a suspect list,” Hollis reminded him. “But if we had one, I don’t see Cross on it. He’s tall, but thin, and looks years younger than he is. Maybe wiry, but nowhere near strong enough to do some of the things our unsub has done. Besides, he has a solid alibi for the time Reverend Pilate was killed. And if he’s not genuinely mourning his wife, I need to hang up my profiler’s hat.”
“You’re frowning,” DeMarco said.
Kirby added, “You’re also chewing your thumbnail.”
Hollis forced herself to at least stop gnawing on her nail and didn’t bother to waste a glare on anybody. “Yeah, yeah. Something’s still bugging me and I still don’t know what it is.”
“Well,” Cullen said, “at least we were right in saying the unsub would kill a man next.”
“It does confirm the pattern,” DeMarco agreed.
“Yeah, but where does that get us?” Hollis shook her head, frowning now at the evidence board. “We couldn’t profile the first two murder scenes because there was nothing to profile. Nothing really at the third scene, with the elevator car already removed. And even if Brady Nash’s . . . remains were at the scene of his murder, they weren’t any use to us. Jill didn’t find anything unusual in his arm, the only part of his body left relatively intact.”