Fear the Dark (6 page)

Sam shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket and frowned at him. “There were photos in the file, when the car was still here. Presumably taken before the rain. No sign of any footprints, and no mention of them.”

“True,” Jonah said. And that was all he said. He didn't exactly look stubborn, but it was clear he had nothing else to say for the moment.

To his people, Luke said, “Let's just walk the area, okay? Keep an open mind, see if we notice anything helpful.”

Jonah waited at the Jeep, leaning back against the front, not showing much expression except weariness.

As soon as they were a few feet away, Sam said, “We being tested?” She was still more than a bit touchy about that sort of thing, especially given her background as a carnival “seer.”
*

“No,” her husband and partner replied. “He's not asking us to jump through hoops, Sam. He hasn't offered details, but it's clear Bishop was right about there being things Jonah didn't put in his reports. There's something odd about every one of these scenes, something connecting them. Whatever it is, he couldn't explain it, and he wants to know if we find the same thing.”

“Without prejudice.”

Luke nodded. “Without prejudice. Are you sensing anything yet?” Samantha was a touch clairvoyant, which meant that she generally only had to shield when she was touching something connected to a crime or other violent event. She had, however, been working with
other SCU clairvoyants as well as Luke in teaching herself to sense more intangible things—such as the mood of a small town.

“I feel that the whole damned town's on edge, but it's a general sort of uneasiness and bafflement. Plus a lot of fear. But faint. What about you? Sensing anything from the missing?”

“You know my shields are up.”

She did. “Yeah, but you've gotten better at picking up on fear or pain even with them up.”

“I didn't want to try until we got to the scenes.”

“Well,” Sam said, “here we—” She stopped so abruptly that Lucas stopped as well, half turning to look at her.

“Sam?”

After a long moment, she said in a distant-sounding voice, “What?”

Luke glanced at the other two agents, who had stopped just behind them. Both looked curious—and guarded. Typical for new agents. He looked back at his wife.

“What are you sensing, Sam?”

She looked up at him, blinked, and then her eyes closed and she went completely limp, only Luke's quick catch keeping her from hitting the ground.

—

“WELL, I KNEW
you all had some kind of abilities, psychic abilities, but I didn't expect them to knock any of you out.”

“They don't, as a rule—though we do have a couple of agents who suffer from blackouts. But Sam can be exceptionally powerful, and unlike most clairvoyants or seers, if what she senses is unusually strong, sometimes she . . . goes somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else? Like where?”

“A galaxy far, far away,” Samantha murmured as she opened her eyes, blinking several times with a frown. She was in an unfamiliar vehicle—she assumed Jonah's Jeep, since it had been closer—mostly sitting up in the backseat.

The door was open and Luke was standing there beside her. She looked at his hand holding both of hers in her lap, then turned her head enough so she could see his face. He didn't look quite as grim as he might have, which told Sam she must not have been out long, and he wasn't showing any external sign of strain.

“A galaxy far, far away?” he said to her, dryly.

“When I was coming out of it, I could hear you and Jonah talking,” she said. “And I couldn't resist.”

“So where were you?” Jonah asked in the tone of a man who wanted answers. “The future, or now?”

“It wasn't a vision. Nothing from the future.”

“Then the here and now. What was it?”

“I have a question first.” Samantha looked at her fellow agents one by one. “Anybody else feel anything unusual up there?”

Rather surprising everyone, including herself, Robbie immediately said, “Some kind of energy. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stirring. And really faint, there was sort of an uncomfortable crawly sensation in my skin.”

“Any idea what kind of energy?” Luke asked her.

Robbie shook her head. “I haven't really learned to differentiate. “But . . .” She drew a quick breath. “For just a few seconds, I could hear whispers.”

“Saying what?” Sam asked.

“I don't know. I was caught off guard. It happened too fast, and they were too faint.”

“Sam?” Luke was watching her steadily. “What did you sense?”

“Something dark,” she replied slowly. “Something really, really dark. And really, really
hungry.”

Jonah didn't quite understand when Luke told him that they would need to wait until the following day to again approach the site where Simon Church's abandoned car had been found.

“Sam might get something from the car, though,” he added. “After she's rested a bit.”

“I don't need to rest,” she protested, getting herself out of the Jeep under her own steam and rather relieved when her legs remained steady. “And even if trying again here is useless for the time being, we still have four other sites where people disappeared. One of us could pick up something at any of them. The judge was next, right?”

“Right,” Jonah said.

Telling herself she was only reading the frustration on his face, Robbie said, “It's like static electricity.”

“What?”

“When psychics pick up on an energy signature. If it's a place, then
tapping into that energy once is like—walking across carpet in your socks and touching something metal. You get shocked the first time. But then the static has to build back up for the same thing to shock you again.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “I get that. I think.”

“We're happy to answer questions as we go,” Luke told him. “But when we get to the areas where people are likely to be all around the site of a disappearance, we might want to be discreet.”

“We
definitely
want to be discreet,” Jonah said. “Sarah is the only one of my people who knows about your unit; nobody else at the station could even access the law enforcement FBI database, because it's password-protected. And I've told nobody in town. As far as they're concerned, you're FBI agents, period.”

“Probably for the best,” Robbie said. “Prevents those what-kind-of-freak-show-have-I-wandered-into glassy-eyed stares.”

Jonah looked at her but didn't comment.

Before the silence could become obvious, Luke said, “Sam, why don't you ride with us to the second site.” It wasn't really a question. Or a suggestion.

“I told you I'm fine.”

“Still.”

“I didn't get a nosebleed. And I'm not tired. Stop fussing.”

“Since when was that an option? Come on, let's go. We'll be losing daylight soon.”

Samantha sighed but climbed back into the Jeep's backseat while Luke went around to the front passenger seat and Dante and Robbie returned to the black SUV. In just a couple of minutes, they were turned around and headed back toward town.

“Who's the lady in the cast?” Samantha asked.

Without looking as they passed the house, Jonah said, “Mildred Bates. If it weren't for that cast, she'd have joined us back there.”

“Town busybody?” Sam guessed.

“Yeah, pretty much. She's not malicious, but she does like to know what's going on. Sounds awful to say, and no pun intended, but it's a break for us she's laid up with that cast.” He paused, then changed the subject. “What was that about nosebleeds?”

“I get them sometimes,” Sam answered readily. “If I push too hard. Reach too far.”

Luke said, “Most of us pay some kind of price for our abilities, Jonah. They always come with strings. Pounding headaches and nosebleeds are fairly common. Especially—”

Jonah glanced over at him as the fed broke off. “Especially?”

Sam leaned forward, an elbow resting just below the headrest of Luke's seat, and said, “Especially for those of us not born with our abilities,” she said.

“Sam, you don't have to,” Luke said without turning his head.

“Oh, I'm not going to offer details. No offense, Jonah, but I don't know you that well.”

“Okay,” he said, obviously puzzled. “No offense taken.”

“It's just that those of us not born with psychic abilities, even latent ones, usually have them triggered at some point in our lives. Almost always because of trauma. Emotional, psychological, physical. Sometimes all three. The more traumatic the trigger, the stronger the abilities tend to be.” She paused, adding, “As Luke told you, I have strong abilities.”

Jonah heeded the warning and didn't question her about that. All he said was, “Are any of the four of you born psychics?”

“I am,” Luke said. “Though I didn't know about it in the earliest years of my life.”

“Sometimes,” Samantha murmured, “we're latent as children, born with . . . possibilities. The abilities are there, often full-blown, but we don't know about them unless and until we experience some kind of trigger.”

Jonah glanced at Lucas but didn't ask. “Okay. Anybody else?”

“Robbie is. And she was aware of being different pretty much as soon as she could understand the concept.”

“That must have been . . . difficult,” Jonah ventured.

“Most of us don't exactly look back on rosy childhoods,” Samantha said matter-of-factly. “One way or another, these abilities can and usually do put us through hell.”

Lucas exchanged a look with his wife, then said to Jonah, “Both Robbie and I are able to tap into very specific energy signatures. Unlike Sam and Dante, who have more diverse abilities, we tend to focus very narrowly in order to use our abilities effectively.

“Robbie's a telepath, able to read about half the people she encounters, at least when she does her version of dropping her shields. That's a high average; most telepaths are lucky if they can read a quarter or less of those around them.”

“And you?” Jonah asked after a moment.

Luke said, “What I am doesn't really have a name. It's partly telepathic and partly empathic. What I
do
is home in on the specific electromagnetic energy signature of fear.”

“And his specialty,” Sam said, “is finding lost people.”

“People who are afraid,” her partner and husband said. “People
who are in pain. Even before I joined the FBI and the SCU, I was using my abilities to find lost people, though in those days I barely had any control at all. I'm better now, thanks to Sam and the SCU.” He paused, but instead of elaborating on that, he added steadily, “But I can't find people who don't want to be found. And I can't find the dead, at least not by using my psychic abilities.”

Jonah asked slowly, “Do you feel the difference? I mean, would you know if the missing person just didn't want to be found—or was dead?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then—”

But Luke was shaking his head. “No, I haven't picked up anything here, not so far.”

“What does that mean?”

“Maybe nothing. We haven't been to all the sites yet. I haven't been here long enough to get a sense of the place, and I usually need to do that. And . . . I've never been able to read anything, feel anything, from people who are drugged or otherwise unconscious.”

“Unless they're having nightmares,” Sam reminded him quietly.

“Yeah. I do pick up on nightmares sometimes. But like any other psychic, I have abilities that are limited. People often mask or suppress their fear, especially men. I'm less likely to tap into those people. Like all the other psychics in the unit, my abilities also limit themselves, and no matter how much I practice, how hard I try, how hard I push, I can't get past those boundaries. There are some people I just can't read, no matter how much pain they're in or how afraid they are.”

“That must be tough,” Jonah said finally.

“Yeah,” Luke said. “It is.”

—

WHEN THEY REACHED
the site where the judge disappeared, Sam hesitated, then said, “I think I'll wait here by the Jeep. I want to see if any of you sense something. I think I distracted everybody at the first site.”

Jonah was reasonably sure she had—and before any of them had reached what he and Sarah believed was the perimeter of . . . whatever it was. He had also noticed that only Robbie was wearing a watch—nondigital, like his own—and he really wanted to know if her watch would stop.

“I'll hang back too,” he told the others. “We bagged the judge's chair, rod, and tackle box, but you can see where he always sits. Couple yards from the water just to the left of that wooden stake there at the edge. It's where he always ties his catch, and nobody ever moves it. Not even kids trying to be funny.”

“Well, he's a judge,” Sam murmured. She watched the others move toward the stream, in a line parallel to the stream rather than in a group, and said to Jonah, “What is it you expect them to find?”

“Whatever's there,” he replied promptly.

Sam sent him a look. “That was a very Bishop-like answer. You two don't know each other, do you?”

“I've only talked to him on the phone,” Jonah replied honestly. He kept his gaze on the agents moving toward the stream. “You said before that you sensed something dark and hungry. You ever sense anything like that before?”

“Not exactly like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean . . . evil is always dark in some way. Always . . . hungry, grasping. Once you sense it, touch it . . . it's familiar. Even if it's not quite the same as before.”

“So what you sensed back there is evil?”

“Yeah.”

Jonah started to ask her to elaborate, but then the three agents approaching the stream stopped suddenly. Robbie, in the middle, lifted both her hands and slowly moved them as if she felt some kind of barrier. Luke and Dante were both looking at her, and both were wearing frowns.

They were almost exactly six yards away from where the judge always parked his chair.

“Shit,” Jonah breathed.

“Energy bubble?” Sam's voice was remarkably calm.

“You tell me.”

Still calm, Sam said, “You knew whatever that is had a defined perimeter, didn't you? How?”

“That,” Jonah said, “depends on whether the watch Robbie is wearing has stopped.”

“Energy affects electronics,” Sam said, more considering than surprised. “Some places hold on to energy. So do some people. We have an agent who blows out every lightbulb in a room if she gets upset and drops her shield.”

Steady himself, Jonah said, “All I know is that watches stop—and cell phones lose time.”

Samantha didn't even appear startled. “How much time?”

“Far as I can tell, all the time you spend inside that perimeter.”

“There's one at the site of every disappearance?”

Suddenly struck, he said, “All except the Tyler house. There are several clocks in that kitchen. Oven, microwave, even a plain old wall clock. They looked fine. My watch didn't stop. And I don't remember my cell losing time. Why didn't I notice that?” He pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his Windbreaker and looked at it, compared it to his watch.

Sam waited until he put the phone away again, swearing under his breath, then said, “You didn't notice because last night a little girl was taken. Kids always hit us the hardest.”

He nodded. “Even those of us who aren't parents. Yeah, it's something I've noticed before. Though, thankfully, I haven't had to go through it many times.”

Sam turned her head and looked at him, brows lifting in a silent question.

“No, it wasn't here. I trained to be a cop in Nashville, and worked there a few years before I came back here. Plus, I've taken advantage of things the FBI has offered, from seminars to being temporarily attached to federal task forces around the country.”

“Including child abductions?”

“Yeah. After three different cases, I decided I didn't want to be a part of those particular task forces again. Though I have taken part in others over the years.” He shrugged. “It's a small town, and I love it here, but it isn't—usually—the best place to keep a cop's instincts sharp.”

Sam nodded. “I get it. And points to you for taking the time and trouble. A lot of small-town police chiefs wouldn't bother. Not their circus, not their monkeys.”

Jonah smiled faintly but said only, “I want to be a good cop. Besides,
I enjoy a challenge. Usually.” He returned his attention to the stream, where Robbie was slowly walking what appeared to be the perimeter of energy—or whatever it was. She didn't go into the stream, so she walked a half circle on the stream's wide bank.

The two men didn't follow but stood watching her intently.

“They can't sense it?” Jonah asked Samantha.

“Luke doesn't pick up energy from places or things, just people. As for Dante, he could probably sense it if he dropped his shields. Most mediums tend to be pretty good barometers for negative energy. But it can be dangerous for them.”

“How?”

“Mediums open doors,” Sam said matter-of-factly. “Depending on your belief system and experience, those doors lead to a spirit realm, another dimension, maybe even another time. Hell, maybe all three. But wherever or whenever it is, what's usually waiting on the other side of those doors and eager to come through them is energy of some kind. Sometimes human. Sometimes not. And very few mediums can control whatever comes through those doors. Negative energy is very destructive.”

“Is that what took my missing people? Negative energy?”

“I doubt it,” she replied. “What Robbie's sensing, what affected your watches and cell phone is probably residual energy from a very bad person or people. Or evil acts committed. That's what usually creates negative energy. Or makes energy negative.”

“You've lost me,” Jonah confessed.

“Well, I'm not the scientific type, but one thing I've learned is the law of physics most of us have to cope with in some way, and on a fairly regular basis. Energy can't be destroyed, only transformed. With the
right conduit, otherwise harmless energy can be turned dark, negative. The right conduit tends to be an evil person, an evil act, or an evil force.”

She frowned. “But the energy here has lingered, hasn't it? The judge vanished over two weeks ago. The teenagers more than three weeks. I would have thought the energy would have dissipated by now. Especially since it's outside.”