Haunted (A Bishop/SCU Novel Book 15) (9 page)

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 they 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 anything 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?”

“Yes. And then talked him into surrendering his guns once he’d sobered up. I don’t think he would have done anything crazy sober, but drunk is another thing entirely. Drunk makes all kinds of crazy possible.” She paused, then added, “Other gun owners who know him, especially his friends, have been warned against allowing him to borrow one of theirs, no matter how sympathetic they might feel. We have a lot of hunters in the area.”

“He’s the only one with . . . notions?”

“So far he’s the only one who’s voiced them, at least within my hearing. But I can feel people getting edgy. This needs to be over and the killer behind bars before others start eyeing their guns. And having notions.”

Deacon noted her very emotionless voice, and wondered what would happen when Trinity Nichols finally let go of the pressure undoubtedly building inside her. She was clearly a strong woman, and when strong people held their feelings in check too long . . .

He couldn’t decide if he wanted a ringside seat for that or not.

—

THE SHERIFF’S JEEP
was easy enough to spot parked in front of a coffee shop, especially since there weren’t a lot of vehicles parked on Main Street, and by mutual consent that’s where DeMarco parked their SUV.

“Because we don’t know how official she wants us to be,” Hollis had remarked. “Bishop said it’s up to her whether we’re just consulting, here to offer a profile or Bureau assets, or to be truly active in the investigation. She might prefer to meet up casually rather than at the sheriff’s office. And besides, I could use some coffee.”

They got out and stretched cramped muscles; even though they had been less than a hundred miles away as the crow flew, they weren’t crows, and the winding mountain roads had taken a toll. Stretching felt good.

A nice, hot bath would feel better,
Hollis thought, hoping the downtown hotel where they’d booked rooms would provide an opportunity for that. Later, of course.

They had barely reached the wide sidewalk when the coffee shop’s door opened and the sheriff emerged. Along with a dog—and a familiar man.

“Hey, Deacon,” DeMarco greeted him, calm.

“Reese. Hollis. So it’s you two Bishop sent.”

Before the other two could wonder, Deacon added, “My sister Melanie lives here and called me when Scott Abernathy was murdered. He was . . . a friend. And Melanie was spooked, like most of the town. I didn’t think of it as a case, just supporting family. So it’s only annual leave time for me. But Sheriff Nichols has been kind enough to bring me in . . . unofficially.”

“I still don’t know how official
we’re
supposed to be,” Hollis complained mildly. “Up to you, Sheriff.”

“Trinity, please. I think we’ll play the question of your status by ear, if you don’t mind. I gather you’re the team Bishop told me to expect today?”

They introduced themselves, and it wasn’t until then that Hollis said. “Beautiful dog. Why is he staring at me?”

He was, Deacon noted with some surprise.

“He’s Braden, my dog.” Trinity frowned down at him. “And the staring is a bit . . . unusual. He usually just focuses on whoever is speaking.” She glanced around to make sure they were pretty much alone on the chilly sidewalk, then said, “You aren’t a telepath, are you?”

“Medium,” Hollis replied without a blink. “With a few bells and whistles.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m assuming you know about the SCU? Hence the question about telepathy?” Hollis’s voice wasn’t low so much as it was utterly casual.

Trinity nodded.

“Well, very few of us do . . . just one thing. One primary thing, which tends to be our strongest ability, but sometimes other things as well.”

“For instance?”

It wasn’t a challenge so much as genuine curiosity, so Hollis responded more openly than she might otherwise have done. “One of my other things is the ability to see auras. The electromagnetic field common to all living things, but as unique as a fingerprint.”

“Unique?”

“Yeah. To the person, but also changing with mood and . . . circumstance. You have a troubled aura, Sheriff—I mean, Trinity. A lot of energy close to you, very positive reds and yellows and some bright blue, which I’m thinking is your natural state, but right now all the colors are brighter than they should be, more intense, and the whole aura is mostly enclosed, tamped down closer to your body than it should be, with heavy, dark blues, almost navy, forming a thin sort of barrier along the outer edges, probably a hell of a lot stronger than it looks. Which in my experience tends to mean either unusual stress or a high degree of natural energy. Which also tells me you have a pretty dandy shield, not so uncommon in small towns, and also that you’re holding in way too much for your future mental or emotional health.” She paused, adding, “I can also heal a bit if you start having headaches. Which you will, holding in that much energy.”