Blood Ties

CHAPTER 15

WHEN HOLLIS WOKE UP, she had no idea how much time had passed; this was an internal room in the hospital, so no windows allowed any natural light to signal whether it was day or night.

She hoped it was still Thursday; surely she—they—hadn’t slept all day, even though she felt as if that could be the case. Hell, she felt as if she’d slept for a week. Her eyes were scratchy, her muscles stiff from apparently remaining in the same position for God only knew how long, and a gnawing emptiness told her she hadn’t eaten in too many hours.

She wasn’t sure whether DeMarco was awake, until she was able to ease from his loosened embrace and sit on the edge of the narrow bed. Looking at him as she absently finger-combed her hair, she realized she didn’t feel the same uncertainty she’d felt earlier about his state of consciousness; he was asleep, and deeply at that.

His face was relaxed in a way she’d never before seen, his breathing deep and even, and the tension she usually sensed in him was absent.

Hollis frowned a little, though she couldn’t have said why, exactly, she was bothered. DeMarco had as much right to sleep as she did, after all, and even his seemingly ever-vigilant senses had to rest sometime. None of the team had gotten much rest in the last few days and, besides, she had no idea what he might have been doing before joining them in Serenade or how long he had gone without sleep at that point.

She shook off the thoughts, deciding just to be grateful that there would be no more awkward—on her part, at least—conversation while they lay in bed together.

Move. Don’t think, just move.

Given the tininess of the silent, lamplit room, it required only a couple of steps for her to reach the door, and she slipped out without looking back at DeMarco.

They had been offered the use of visitors’ restrooms, complete with lockers for their belongings and private showers; it was a kindness provided for the families of patients who spent long days, even weeks, in the various intensive-care units on this floor. Both Hollis and DeMarco had gotten cleaned up and changed not long after Miranda and the sheriff headed back to Serenade, but Hollis felt the need to shower again now, mostly to clear her fuzzy head.

She found herself in a quiet and unfamiliar hallway, and it took a moment or two for her to remember that she hadn’t exactly been conscious when DeMarco carried her from the IC unit where Diana lay to this room.

Carried me. Jeez.

Hollis pushed that out of her mind and took a few tentative steps to her left down the hallway, wondering if she was headed in the correct direction. Everything still looked unnatural to her, too faded and colorless to be real life and yet not—quite—the desolate emptiness that was Diana’s gray time.

Just creepy enough to make her distinctly uncomfortable.

“Hollis.”

Shit.

Hollis turned slowly to find Andrea standing a few feet away. Like the other spirits Hollis had seen earlier, she looked more real than her surroundings did, and her aura was bright shades of blue and green.

It was, Hollis realized, the first time she’d ever seen Andrea’s aura.

“You have to help Diana,” the spirit said.

“Andrea—”

“You have to help her to heal. If her body isn’t healed, she won’t be able to come back to it.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Appearing to take the wry comment literally, Andrea said, “She’s in great danger. The longer she’s in the gray time, the less likely it is she’ll be able to get back. Her spirit’s being weakened there, and her body is weak here.”

“I tried to heal her body. Or help her heal, anyway. I don’t think I did her very much good.”

“You have to try again.”

Since she’d planned to do just that, Hollis nodded but said, “Listen, can’t you finally tell me who you are? And why you’re apparently attached to me?”

Andrea took a step back, clearly startled. “I—I’m not—you opened a door.”

“Months ago I opened a door. I mean, when I first saw you. So why do you keep coming back? Or are you—did I leave you on this side? Can you not go back?”

“Not until it’s finished.”

“Until what’s finished?”

Andrea seemed distracted for a moment, looking around as though she was lost, then she said, “He’s trying to protect you, but what he’s doing… It’s keeping you from helping Diana. Can’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“He’s tried to put a veil between you and the spirit world. Energy. To keep you safe, he thinks.”

“Who thinks?”

“Reese.”

“Wait. It’s because of Reese that everything looks weird and only the spirits seem real?”

Andrea nodded. “He wants to help. To protect. But he can’t stand between you and the spirit world. He can’t block your natural energies. That’s why the real world looks faded to you, because his energy comes from there and only works the way he believes it works there. You have to stop him before he pushes you closer to the spirit world. That’s not the way. Especially not now. You have to help heal Diana, and you have to be very much in the living world to do that.”

“Last time I had to help Ruby.” Hollis wasn’t really protesting, just trying to understand what was going on.

“They both have a role to play.”

“Andrea, for God’s sake—”

The spirit began backing away, fading. “There’s a better way to use his energy, his shield. His protection. Tell him that. Help Diana. Everything depends on it, and there’s not much time….”

Hollis found herself alone in the corridor once again. She drew a breath, let it out slowly, and then turned back to the room where DeMarco slept. She went in and sat on the side of the narrow bed, put her hand on his shoulder, and attempted to shake him.

“Hey!”

It occurred to Hollis only afterward that rudely awakening a man with DeMarco’s background, training, and apparent nature probably wasn’t the wisest thing in the world, but at that moment she wasn’t thinking about any possible danger from him.

His eyes snapped open, and in the same heartbeat of time his hand moved in a blur and grabbed her wrist. She felt his fingers tighten for just an instant and then relax.

Interestingly, she was never frightened for a second.

“That,” he said calmly, “was not very smart. I might have taken your head off.”

She pushed that aside with a gesture of her free hand. “Never mind that. You have to stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Your shield. Projecting it—I guess. Something like what you did at the church Compound back in January. You’ve actually got it between me and the real world rather than the spirit world, and you have to stop doing that.” Even as she said it, another thought occurred, and she added absently, “I wonder if that’s why I couldn’t reach the spirit world then. Not the same thing, but maybe your dampening field was doing a lot more than we thought it was.”

Without denying anything, DeMarco merely responded, “Who says that’s what I’m doing?”

“Andrea.”

“Spirit Andrea? The one who warned you about the bomb?”

Hollis nodded. “And she knew what she was talking about then, so I have to listen now. You have to pull it back, Reese; stop trying to stand between me and the spirit world. That’s what I do, and you can’t stop it.”

“According to Andrea.”

“Yeah, according to her. Also according to her, I have to help heal Diana before it’s too late. And I can’t do that effectively with your shield wrapped around me. That might even be the reason I went out like a light when I tried earlier to help her heal. Energy pushing against energy is—well, most of it would rebound, don’t you think?”

After a moment, he released her wrist and pushed himself up on an elbow, continuing to regard her calmly. “Rebound?”

“Rebound. I push and your energy pushes back.” She frowned suddenly. “Why, by the way? I mean, why’re you trying to protect me?”

“I wondered when you’d ask that.” He hooked one hand around the back of her neck and drew her close enough so that he could kiss her. It was hardly a gentle sort of first kiss, more a kind of claiming just this side of forceful, and by the time it was over Hollis had no doubt at all what it was he wanted.

“Any more questions?” His voice was a little rough.

Very conscious of his fingers moving against her neck and of the hardness of his shoulder beneath her own clutching fingers, Hollis thought, Wow, but had sense enough not to say it.

Except he’s a telepath and… Dammit.

“Urn… this is very sudden,” she heard herself say inanely.

“Not really. We met months ago.”

“Yeah, but… we haven’t… I mean… You never said anything.”

“I’m saying something now.”

Casting about for something not inane to say in response, she finally managed, “I think your timing could use a little work.”

DeMarco smiled slightly. “Never the time and the place. Hollis, if something happens to either of us, I’m not going to be like Quentin, wishing I’d spoken up when I had the chance. So I’m speaking up now. You don’t have to say anything one way or the other, but I wanted you to know that I’m… more than interested. In you. In being with you.”

She hesitated, conscious of a clock ticking away in her mind with the uneasy urgency Andrea had created. Still, she had to say something. He probably already knew, but… “Reese, to say I’ve got a lot of baggage is a huge understatement.”

“That’s okay. Baggage doesn’t bother me. It makes us who we are.”

She tried again. “After what happened to me, I don’t even know if I can respond normally to a man.” She hated making that admission but figured once again that he probably knew anyway.

He pulled her toward him again just far enough to kiss her, and this time it lasted awhile.

When she could breathe again, Hollis murmured, “Okay, maybe that isn’t going to be such a problem, after all.”

DeMarco was still wearing that faint smile, only now there was something sensuous about it. “I’m thinking it probably won’t be. But you don’t have to worry. I won’t pressure you.”

“Yeah?” She managed an unsteady laugh. “And when does the not-pressuring me part start?”

“Right now.” He kissed her one final time, briefly but not at all lightly, then let her go and got up off the bed. In a perfectly normal voice, he said, “If you mean to try to help Diana, I think we both need time to shower and get something to eat first.”

“But—”

“You need energy, Hollis. Fuel. It won’t do Diana any good if you collapse because you haven’t eaten in more than twenty-four hours. It’s well after two.”

She resented his normal voice, especially since she couldn’t match it; to her own ear she still sounded out of breath and flustered. And full of inane questions. “A.M. or P.M.?”

“P.M. Still Thursday. Come on.”

Hollis took his extended hand, conscious of faint panic and a much stronger sense of inevitability.

Some things had to happen just the way they happened.

If she’d learned nothing else with the SCU, she had most certainly learned that.

Washington, D.C.

He was surprised but not astonished when the Director got in touch to arrange another meeting, assuming there had been a change of mind after some considered thought. He was a little annoyed that the venue Micah Hughes chose was a conference room in a small hotel just off the Beltway but guessed it was the Director’s attempt to avoid more openly public spots and the risk of recognition.

He found the room without the need to ask a staff member and opened the door fully expecting to see FBI Director Micah Hughes.

Instead, Noah Bishop was seated on the opposite side of the big Conference table between them, his hands resting on a plain manila folder. The folder was closed.

“Well, Agent Bishop. Fancy meeting you here.” He remained outwardly calm as he came into the room; he had faced too many powerful men across too many boardroom tables to fold at the first sign of trouble. He remained on his feet, resting his own hands on the tall back of one of the chairs but not pulling it out. Once he sat down, he conceded the power position to Bishop and he knew it.

His mind raced, considering the possible ramifications of this, but he had no intention of making it easy for Bishop, no matter what the agent was up to.

“Thank you for coming. We weren’t sure you would. I gather you usually choose the meeting spots,” Bishop said coolly.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Bishop shook his head just once. “I didn’t intercept the call, if that’s what you’re thinking. In fact, from all I can gather you seem to have greatly exaggerated the extent of my reach. And my interests. It’s never been about power with me. Not your kind of power.”

“Of course not. You merely cultivated other powerful people because it amused you.”

“No. Because I knew I’d need them one day. When a man like you came after me—for whatever reason.” The scar down Bishop’s left cheek stood out whitely against his tanned skin, the only visible sign of any tension. “I have to admit, I never expected a reason like yours. Revenge, sure. Retaliation. Even just to remove me before I could become a problem for someone. But I didn’t expect to be a kind of rival. This kind, at any rate.”

“Agent Bishop—”

“You’re so wrong on so many counts it’s hardly worth talking about. Except to note that your jealousy and resentment led you down one of the darkest paths I’ve ever seen.”

“So dramatic. Should I ask you to define this ‘dark path’ for me?”

Again, Bishop shook his head just once. “You do realize that once I tell him who is really responsible for the murder of his daughter, Senator LeMott will destroy you.” It very clearly wasn’t a question.

He stiffened but said, “I was in no way connected to that unfortunate girl’s tragic death.”

“You most certainly were. Oh, I don’t have courtroom proof. But I have proof enough for LeMott. Believe me. He had Samuel killed on a lot less. Unlike you, he has complete faith in the abilities of myself and my team. All our abilities.”

“So you’re going to tell him you saw my face in your crystal ball?” He managed a laugh and knew it sounded convincingly amused.

“I’m going to tell him the truth. That Samuel and his pet monster were fully funded by you in Boston. I don’t know whether you were aware going in of exactly what he meant to do—or how he meant to do it. But I do know you continued to fund him even afterward, when you had to know how your money was being used.” Bishop’s wide shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. “Not that LeMott will be listening beyond that point. He’ll only care that you were the catalyst that got his daughter killed.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

As if he hadn’t heard that, Bishop said, “It was an interesting tactic you chose, that attack on three levels. First Samuel’s rampage, keeping myself and the team fully occupied, then you dripping poison into the Director’s ears about the unit and me, and, finally, making sure I’d know about that poison. And wonder where you got it.”

“Maybe you have a traitor on the team, Bishop.” Despite his best efforts, the words emerged viciously.

“No. That’s what you wanted me to think. Wanted all of us to think. So we’d doubt one another, or at the very least wonder. So the trust painstakingly built up between us for years would begin to break down. And that was really where you overplayed your hand. Because that was … very personal, that part of the attack. That was an attempt to gut me—and the SCU. So I had to wonder who could possibly hate me that much. And why.”

“I’d be wondering about that traitor if I were you.” He couldn’t let that go, still believing it was the wedge he needed.

Still hoping.

A very faint smile curved Bishop’s hard mouth. “I stopped wondering about that when we faced Samuel at his church. When I felt the power of his mind firsthand. We didn’t have a traitor. What we had was an enemy capable of creeping among us—psychically. Unseen. Taking note of what we said and did. And much of what we thought.

“That’s the ultimate irony, you know. That you trusted the information Samuel gave you—perfectly accurate information—without questioning where he came by it. Maybe you knew, deep down, what he’d tell you if you asked. Maybe that’s why you didn’t ask.”

“You need help, Bishop. You’re a sick man.”

“I’m sick and tired of your crusade. And so is the Director, just so you know. He’s given me a complete statement of his dealings with you. And he’s given me the discretion to use it however I please.”

His mouth twisted. “He’s a gutless wonder.”

“No, he’s an honorable man. An ethical man. I knew that. And I knew he would ultimately decide to support the SCU. A decision he undoubtedly would have come to sooner if not for your poison.”

He was silent.

“Not that I really needed most of the information Director Hughes was able to give me. I already knew most of it. He was just confirmation.”

“How could you know?”

Bishop shook his head slightly. “You’re good at a lot of things, but this? This is what I do. Investigate. I had to find a bitter enemy with very deep pockets, and unfortunately there are several. So it took time. Time and far too much of my attention. But one by one, the others were ruled out. It’s taken me months, but eventually you were the only one left.”

“The Sherlock Holmes maxim? Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains must be truth? I’m surprised at you, Bishop. That’s so terribly… old school.”

“If old school works, I use it. I use anything that works. Everything. Every tool I can get my hands on—except for one. I never make a deal with the devil.”

“If you’re implying I did—”

“I’m not implying. I’m stating. You knew what Samuel was, what he was capable of. But you believed he could get you what you wanted, and that was all you cared about. As long as the SCU was destroyed, I was destroyed, then nothing else mattered to you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The words were almost mechanical.

“I wish I could believe you didn’t. I wish I could believe there were lines you wouldn’t cross no matter how determined you were to win. To destroy me. But I don’t believe that. You knew. You just didn’t give a shit about anyone else.”

“I’m going to ruin you, Bishop. No matter what you think you have on me, it won’t stand up in court. And by the time my attorneys are finished with you, the FBI won’t have you. Your own wife won’t have you.”

“Oh, it won’t go to court,” Bishop said, ignoring the more personal claim. “You’re right. I don’t have enough evidence against you for a court case. Not yet, at any rate, though I’m sure there’s some to be found when my people know exactly where to dig.”

He managed another laugh. “Good luck with that. And since you have no evidence to support these wild accusations, I’ll be on my way. You can talk to my attorneys if you have anything further to say to me.”

“No, what I have to say to you, I’ll say to you now.” Bishop picked up the folder lying on the table in front of him and slid it across to the other man. “I want you to take a look at what your money bought you.”

“I’m not going to—”

Flatly, Bishop said, “There are two agents waiting outside that door. You’ll take a look inside that folder, or I’ll have you arrested the instant you step outside. Believe me, I do have enough evidence to detain you. And question you formally. And make a hell of a public mess for your PR people to clean up.” He paused, watching the other man seethe, then added, “Or we can avoid all that—at least for now—and you can look inside the folder. Your choice.”

After a moment, he reached stiffly for the folder. He opened it, his expression impassive. But then he sucked in a breath, the color drained from his face, and he all but fell as he fumbled for the chair in front of him and sank into it. The manila folder dropped to the floor, leaving him clutching the single photograph it had contained.

Bishop watched him, feeling not a single twinge of compassion for what he knew very well was genuine shock, grief, and guilt. “I could have shown you all the victims of your crusade. But I decided this one was what you needed to see. Money can buy a lot of things. But what it can never buy, what nothing can ever buy, is complete control over events. Whatever you thought your money was buying, that’s what it bought.”

Elliot Brisco stared down at the stark photograph of his only surviving daughter lying in the street in a pool of her own blood. “It isn’t true. This is—lie. This is a lie. She isn’t dead. She isn’t dead?” His voice was shaking, his hands were shaking, and when he met Bishop’s gaze his eyes were wide and curiously blank.

“She’s fighting for her life. And it doesn’t look good, according to the doctors. A sniper’s bullet can do terrible things to a human body.” His voice was measured, steady. Implacable. “She was collateral damage at best, in the wrong place at the wrong time. At worst, she was a target he intended to hit for reasons of his own. Either way, you’ve lost whatever control you imagined you had over the situation.”

“He… Who are you talking about? Who did this?”

“Your pet monster. Samuel.”

“He’s dead. Samuel’s dead.”

“Let’s just say he left a…legacy behind to survive him. With orders to finish the job you gave him money to start.”

“Bastard… bastard…”

Bishop didn’t ask whether that referred to himself or the killer—killers—he was after. He merely said, “So you’re going to tell me who’s been on Samuel’s private payroll all this time, on your private payroll. Because that’s who’s doing this. That’s who’s down in Serenade conducting a war. You’re going to tell me who it is, and you’re going to tell me everything else you know or believe you know about the situation. Everything. So that maybe, just maybe, I can stop this from getting any worse than it already is.”

Serenade

The dogs had had no luck in tracking the sniper, but by four o’clock Thursday afternoon the pair of bloodhounds known in the area as the very best did manage to find Acting Deputy Bobbie Silvers.

Or what was left of her.

They found her just outside the town limits, her naked body tumbled into a shallow ditch off a side road and partially covered over with wet and rotting autumn leaves.

Miranda stood gazing down at the pale face she had carefully uncovered, only distantly aware of Sheriff Duncan’s broken curses and the utter stillness and silence of the other deputies and agents gathered around. She looked at that very young face she had barely noticed when it was alive, remembering how Bobbie had worked overtime to find information for them.

Eager. Smart. Ambitious.

Gone.

Finally, Miranda lifted her gaze and found Dean Ramsey nearby. “It’s a dump site, but we’ll get what we can. Crime-scene protocol,” she said quietly.

“Copy that.” He moved away, gathering a couple of other agents with a gesture so they could begin the work of locating, photographing, tagging, and preserving what evidence there was to be found.

“Miranda.” Tony was at her side. “I’m feeling a little exposed, even with the trees and our vests.”

“We have people covering this area,” she pointed out. “Media crawling all over the area outside our perimeter, despite our warnings. And there are no buildings near enough to provide a clear line of sight. I wasn’t trained as a sniper, but I can tell you he’d be a fool to be up in one of these trees close enough to see us. So far he hasn’t shown a sign of being a fool.”

Tony glanced around. “You have a point. Several, in fact. Still, if the plan is to spend any kind of time here, I say we move the mobile command center down here. Otherwise, we should go back into town.”

“And what makes you think town is any safer?”

“Nothing solid,” he confessed. “But we’ve done all we can to clear it out and guard the most likely buildings, so it’s as safe as it’s going to be until we catch this bastard. In the meantime, there’s nothing else you can do here—and we still have all those files to go through.”

“You’re probably right.” Miranda knew he was, but she was finding it difficult to turn her back on this poor girl and walk away.

Jaylene said, “When do the reinforcements arrive?”

“Anytime now.” She pulled out her cell phone to check for a signal. “I’ll get an ETA. Why don’t you two get back to the command center and get started on the files? I’ll catch a ride with the sheriff.”

Without commenting that the sheriff was likely to remain here awhile, Tony merely said, “Watch your back,” then turned and followed Jaylene toward the lone remaining SUV.

Watch your back.

She could feel it too, in the very air around them, a skin-prickling sense of danger, of threat. Her training told her at least part of it was psychological; knowing a sniper was still out there, capable of shooting someone in the head from more than a hundred yards away, was hardly something easily forgotten or even pushed aside.

But there was more to it than that. Despite the shield that guarded her mind, her innermost self, Miranda had the uneasy feeling that there was a chink somewhere in her armor and that the enemy knew it.

She shook her head finally, acknowledging to herself that they were—that she was—doing everything possible to protect themselves; there was nothing else to be done except get on with the job. She returned her attention to the cell phone, realizing that she had accidentally brushed a thumb against the wrong touch key—which wasn’t so unusual with the sophisticated little unit—and had called up the phone’s photo in-box.

She found herself staring down at a brightly colored photo on the cell’s screen: a shot of Diana as she had lain bleeding not so many blocks from where Miranda stood.

She looked at it for several heartbeats, then very deliberately deleted the picture, wishing it was as easy to remove it from her memory. She returned to the call screen, only to discover there wasn’t even a single bar indicating minimum signal strength.

Sighing, Miranda returned the cell to its specially designed case on her belt, then touched the tiny device hidden in her ear. “Gabe?”

Static.

She estimated she was no more than two miles from the command center, probably less. Far enough, obviously, to have lost the shaky reception they had nearer the center of town. Whether by accident or design, Serenade appeared to be the ultimate communication dead zone.

Now there’s a phrase.

Trusting that Gabriel was keeping an eye on this area as per orders, Miranda dismissed the lack of communication as something beyond her control for now and turned her attention to Sheriff Duncan.

“Des?”

“This is gonna kill her mother. I told you about her mother, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.” He had rambled on a great deal during the last frantic hours of searching for his young deputy, so Miranda knew that Bobbie Silvers had lived with her widowed mother in a small house on the opposite side of town, only the two of them left of the family since Bobbie’s father had died years before.

“I just… I don’t understand. She was a sweet kid. Who’d want to hurt her like this?” He looked years older than he had only days before, deep lines in his face and his eyes red-rimmed and haunted. He gestured toward the body, exposed enough so they could all see some of the numerous cuts and deep slashes that had undoubtedly killed her.

Miranda drew a breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know if it’s better or worse to say that to him she wasn’t a person. Wasn’t a girl who lived with her ailing mother, a girl who worked hard because she wanted to be a cop. To him, she was only… a thing. Maybe just an experiment in how long it might take someone to bleed to death.”

“Jesus Christ.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Des, let the others take care of her now. You know they’ll treat her with respect.”

“I don’t want to just… leave her.”

“I know. But there’s something you and I have to do, and it’s best done as soon as possible, before the media or helpful neighbors or anyone else beats us to it.”

Duncan looked at her, his eyes full of dread.

Miranda nodded. “We have to tell her mother.”