Blood Ties

CHAPTER 6

DEMARCO WAITED UNTIL Hollis disappeared around the corner of the hallway toward her own room before saying to Quentin, “If someone’s been influencing Diana for years, we need to know about it.” He kept his voice low, since Diana’s closed door was only a few feet away.

“Doctors were influencing her for years. Her father was influencing her for years. The goddamn meds they had her on to treat her because they didn’t understand or refused to accept her abilities influenced her.”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t need to know more about that tonight.” Quentin kept his voice low as well. “Look, she’s been through a lot. A hell of a lot. She’s made progress in the last year, but she’s a long way from feeling secure in herself and her abilities, especially with Elliot Brisco trying to undermine her confidence just about every step of the way.”

“He sounds like a real prince.”

“He’s a very wealthy man accustomed to getting what he wants. And he wants Diana back under his control. To protect her.” Quentin shook his head. “I try to be sympathetic, because he lost his wife and Diana’s sister, Missy, thirty years ago, and he naturally doesn’t want to let go of his only surviving child. And I’ve tried to stay out of it as much as I can, because it just isn’t smart to interfere between a parent and child—even a grown child. And especially between a father and daughter.”

“True enough.”

“Yeah. Though I’ve wanted to deck the man more than once, I don’t mind telling you.” Quentin shook his head. “But that’s not a situation that’s going to change anytime soon. What’s concerning me now is Diana’s reaction to the idea that someone else, some other medium, might have been hiding in the gray time with her since she was a child, watching her and, yes, maybe even influencing her. It’s bound to spook her. Hell, it spooks me.”

“It should spook all of us, Quentin, and you know it. What happened with Samuel plus all the other little leaks and breaches in security we’ve had to deal with these last few months are clear evidence that someone inside the SCU has been passing on information, to the Director and possibly to others.”

“We don’t know it’s one of us,” Quentin protested, because he had to.

“We don’t know it isn’t. In fact, it more than likely is an SCU team member, considering how little specific information about the unit gets out otherwise. Given that strong possibility, we’ve got two alternatives: Either an SCU member is deliberately and consciously betraying the rest of us, or else a psychic outside the unit has found a way to tap into one of us—maybe more than one of us—and get information without our awareness.”

Quentin didn’t like hearing either possible scenario voiced aloud, mostly because he’d considered both long before now. But all he said was, “It can’t be Diana, and I mean can’t. Not only is she new to the SCU, but up until a couple of months ago, she was in training, completely uninvolved in any of our cases.”

“You didn’t talk to her?”

“Not details, not until we were set to join this investigation and she needed to be brought up to speed. And she didn’t see any of the reports until then.”

“Okay. Still, if her ability makes her vulnerable in any way to outside influences, we need to know about it.”

“Not tonight,” Quentin repeated.

“Personal feelings aside—”

“My personal feelings are aside, at least about this. Reese, so far the only remotely psychic activity we’ve had in this case has involved Hollis, Diana—and the gray time. I haven’t seen anything, and if she’s being straight with us, Miranda hasn’t seen much. Unless—can you read her?”

“Miranda? No. Almost always no, but definitely no here and now. I assumed it was because she and Bishop are apart, both shielding and guarding their connection, because it’s a vulnerability.”

“Which it is, at least when they’re separated by physical distance.”

DeMarco nodded. “And with Bishop worried about a possible traitor, he’d most definitely guard his vulnerabilities.”

“Traitor. That’s… a strong word.”

“It’s a strong thing. A dangerous thing. And you know it.”

“I know every team member,” Quentin said. “And many of the active Haven operatives. And none of them is a traitor.”

“Consciously, at least. Let’s hope not.”

Reluctant, Quentin said, “If it’s unconscious, unknowing—if one of us is being influenced or at least tapped into—then it has to be on a level you telepaths obviously can’t reach, or one of you would have picked up on it by now.”

“Probably,” DeMarco agreed. “And if it’s that deep, chances are it is below the level of conscious thought.”

“So it may be only through our mediums that we find answers in this one. In the gray time, where we’ve seen the first real sign of some kind of deception. And if it is, we can’t risk shaking Diana’s confidence to the point that she’s unable to open that door. Because none of the rest of us can do it.”

DeMarco drew a breath and let it out in a short sigh, a bit impatient but accepting. “Logical. Even practical. But… if it was me, I’d want to know there might be something hiding in the corner.”

“She already knows that much. And I agree it’s a possibility that needs to be discussed. But leave the timing of it up to me, okay?”

“All right, it’s your call. Just do us all a favor and remember that somebody took a shot at us, moving this case from investigative to actively dangerous. For us. I don’t know about you, but I hate wearing those goddamn vests.”

“So do I. Though if you’re right about the skills of that sniper, he’s just as likely to go for a head shot.”

“Nice thing to remind me before bedtime. Thanks.”

“Speaking of, what the hell time is it anyway? I left my cell in my room.”

“Quarter after two,” DeMarco replied, without looking at his watch.

“You know or guessing?”

“I know. Like Diana’s internal compass, I have an internal clock. Usually accurate to within five minutes.”

“Then why wear a watch?”

“Because I can. They don’t go dead on me the way they do on most of the rest of you; my shield apparently holds the energy in. At least until I use my abilities, and then only if I’m pushing full strength.”

“Which I’m guessing you don’t often do.”

“Without knowing whether it’ll blow a fuse in my brain one day? No, not often. I’m big on self-preservation.”

“When it comes right down to it, we probably all are. Genetically hardwired for it.” Quentin took a step toward his room, then paused to add, “Interesting that within the unit you and Hollis have the highest levels of electrical activity in your brains.”

“I’m sure it frustrates the hell out of Bishop.” When Quentin lifted a brow at him, DeMarco explained, “Another item on the growing list of paranormal inexplicables neither lab work nor fieldwork has provided answers for. Or, really, any basis to even begin comparing: My abilities and Hollis’s are very, very different.”

“Almost opposite,” Quentin agreed. “Which raises the question—”

“I think we’ve had enough questions for tonight, don’t you? We’re supposed to meet in the dining room at eight; it would be nice to get at least a little sleep before breakfast.”

“Oh, yeah, you can say that again. I’m so beat I can barely think. See you in the morning.”

“‘Night.” DeMarco made his way back toward his own room, pausing for only an instant outside Hollis’s closed door. Her light was on.

He wondered if she’d sleep at all tonight.

His hesitation was so slight he doubted she could have heard it in his footsteps. If she could have heard his footsteps at all, which was even more doubtful. In any case, DeMarco returned to his own room.

Long habit made him check the windows, the closets, all the corners, even under the bed before he relaxed. The habit didn’t strike him as extreme; he had lived with it for too long.

He sat down on the edge of his bed and pushed back the loose shirt cuff covering his left wrist. The watch was metal, with a buckle, and it took him several careful tries to pry it open.

The metal was a bit melted.

He grimaced slightly as he peeled the watch off his wrist, revealing scorched skin where the metal had touched it.

Aloud, he muttered, “Note to self: Stop wearing a fucking watch.”

He tossed the ruined watch toward his open suitcase and briefly examined his wrist. Not a bad burn, just painful enough to be annoying. He carried a compact first-aid kit with him when he traveled, another long-standing habit, but didn’t bother to dig it out of his bag. The burn was slight enough and would probably be all but gone by morning.

They usually were.

Not that it had happened very many times. He was a cautious man, after all, and rarely threw that caution to the winds.

But this was the second ruined watch of the day, dammit. The first one had possessed a leather strap fashioned so that no part of the metal watch touched his skin; that watch was now tucked in a side pocket of his suitcase, its metal parts all fused and melted together—an event that had occurred at about the time DeMarco knocked Hollis to the ground to avoid a sniper’s bullet.

At least it didn’t burn me.

He wondered rather idly if a scan of his brain right now would show even more electrical activity than its previous high, which had occurred just after the final confrontation at the Church of the Everlasting Sin. In that deadly hour, during a battle that had been charged with sheer, raw power, the energies hissing in the very air around them had undoubtedly changed all of them in ways they hadn’t even begun to calculate.

Maybe in dark ways. Dangerous ways. A sobering thought, but more than possible; Samuel’s energy had certainly been dark, and God knew there had been plenty of that blasting their way. It wasn’t as if any of them carried around some special protection against negative energy—the opposite, if anything. Energy affected them, period.

Energy as black and negative as Samuel’s… God only knew how that might affect them.

DeMarco had a hunch that was the major reason Miranda had kept Hollis with her since the investigation into the church ended; of them all, Hollis had shown the strongest—or at least most obvious—response to the attack against her, developing an entirely new ability, full-blown and extraordinarily powerful. DeMarco doubted that even she knew for sure how else she had been changed, for good or ill.

Just like he didn’t know what that energy might have done to him. Maybe especially him, since he’d been close to Samuel, right there in the Compound, virtually every day for more than two years.

How can I not be changed by that? All the roles I’ve played over the years… That role may have cost me the most.

He hadn’t dwelled on it because that wasn’t in his nature, but he had to wonder how he had been affected. Changed. He had no doubt at all that he had been, because he felt… different. In some ways stronger, but in other ways just different. The certainty of that and the uncertainty of precisely how different he might be now lay uneasily in the pit of his stomach—the constant low-level dread of an unknown he couldn’t control.

But he knew himself well aside from that and knew that, caution and training notwithstanding, he was a creature of instinct and always had been.

No doubt always would be.

He thought Hollis was probably going to have a hard time with that.

Hollis stifled a yawn and then took another swallow of the B&B’s rather excellent coffee. She hadn’t slept very well after returning to her room the night before, especially since she hadn’t even closed her eyes until after four, but at least the bone-deep weariness was gone.

More or less.

And breakfast, served by the B&B’s cheerful owner, Jewel, and by an equally cheerful young maid named Lizzie, had been both delicious and plentiful. So Hollis felt reasonably ready to face another day.

Reasonably.

She wasn’t so sure about Diana, however. The other woman was noticeably pale and hollow-eyed this morning and was definitely withdrawn. Quentin had been watching her closely, if unobtrusively, until he’d left the room just minutes before to go to Jewel’s office for an expected fax.

Miranda and DeMarco were busy shifting a few tables around and setting up workstations, assisted by the still-cheerful Lizzie, so Hollis took the opportunity to speak quietly to Diana.

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Not really. Does it show?”

“A bit.” Hollis looked around the pleasant dining room, with its big, bright windows and comfortable furnishings, then joined Diana at the small table where she sat with both hands wrapped around a coffee mug. “All this is mostly setup, you know. Just getting ready to work. Nobody’d mind if you went back to your room and took a nap.”

“I’d mind. Besides, I don’t really want to sleep.”

Hollis didn’t have to ask why. Instead, she said, “So I guess in all these years you haven’t figured out a way to keep yourself out of the gray time when you don’t want to visit.”

“I might have.” A touch of bitterness entered Diana’s voice. “If I hadn’t spent so many of those years medicated, with virtually no control over what I consciously thought or did. My subconscious wasn’t looking for control, it was busy learning to function separately in order to provide an outlet for the mediumistic abilities. Or at least that’s what Bishop says.”

“And he has an annoying habit of being right.”

“Yeah, well, he also believes it may take a while—months, maybe even years—before my conscious and subconscious minds become… integrated normally. Or what passes for normal with psychics.”

Slowly, Hollis said, “Did Bishop seem to consider the separation a strength or a weakness?”

Diana frowned. “I’m not quite sure. He said he could envision situations in which there could be some benefit to having an independent subconscious. To be honest, the very idea sounded so unnerving that I didn’t ask him anything more about it.”

“Can’t say that I blame you.”

Keeping her gaze fixed on her coffee cup, Diana said, “Yeah, it sounded way too much as if my own subconscious is… an alien thing. Something not under my control. Listen, do you think Reese might also be right? That another medium could have been in the gray time with me all these years? Some of the time? Every time?”

“I don’t know about that, but I have to admit, when he pulled me out, all I could think was that maybe Samuel’s pet monster had died and that his spirit was in the gray time—all ready to torture spirits the way he had bodies. Because that’s where we were, in the asylum where he did that.”

“There’s a creepy thought.”

“No kidding. But Reese said the killer is still very much alive. And he’s right; I looked it up later, just to be sure. He is still alive, still imprisoned. In a padded cell, actually.”

“He… isn’t a medium, right? That pet monster?”

“Far as we’ve been able to tell, he has zero psychic ability. And several of our psychics were able to read him, so we’re as sure as we can be.”

“So it couldn’t be him in the gray time. But Reese’s theory still makes sense, doesn’t it? That somebody, another medium, could be in there, watching me?”

Hollis kept her tone deliberate. “I think it’s easy to theorize—when you haven’t been there.” She waited until Diana looked at her, then added, “You’re comfortable and confident in the gray time. Strong. I think if another medium had been there, you would have known it, the same way you instantly knew that the fake Quentin was just that.”

Diana drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s what I’ve been telling myself.”

“Believe it. Trust your instincts.”

“I guess that’s all any of us can do.”

“True enough.” Hollis lifted her own cup in a slight salute. “So here’s to trusting our instincts. And to me finding an anchor on this side so I’m not yanked into the gray time against my will. Or, if I am yanked in, that an anchor here means I can pull myself back out.”

Diana lifted her own cup, but said dryly, “Yeah, well, thing is… you have an anchor on this side.”

Hollis felt suddenly uneasy. “I do?”

“Uh-huh. Reese.”

Now Hollis knew why she’d felt unease instead of relief. Because something inside her had known Diana would say that. She kept her voice low. “Look, just because he was able to pull me out—”

Diana was nodding and kept her own voice low when she said, “Yeah, just because. Hollis, Reese isn’t a medium and wasn’t able to open a door to the gray time, but he was able to pull you out of there nevertheless. Find you and pull you out, neither of which is an easy or simple thing to do. We may not know a whole lot about how my connection to the gray time works, but one thing Quentin and I found out is that a nonmedium on this side can act as a lifeline—and an anchor. But that’s only if there already exists some kind of connection or tie between you and that person, and only then if he can touch you physically on this side.”

Hollis could feel herself beginning to frown. “So that’s why you and Quentin had such an odd reaction when Reese said he pulled me out.”

“That’s why. It was a bit… unexpected.”

Shaking her head, Hollis said, “No, there has to be another reason. Because there’s no connection between us. I barely know the man.”

“Well, there’s knowing… and then there’s knowing.”

“I don’t know him like that either.”

A little laugh escaped Diana. “I didn’t mean knowing in the biblical sense.”

“Oh.” Hollis tried not to look too self-conscious. “Well, knowing how, then?”

“You’ll have to tell me that. All I know is that a psychic’s strength has nothing to do with it. We experimented in the lab, and Bishop and Miranda together couldn’t connect with me in the gray time. None of the telepaths could. One seer—You know Beau Rafferty, right?”

“Maggie Garrett’s brother? Yeah, a bit.”

“Well, he’s the only nonmedium I’ve ever physically encountered in the gray time. There in spirit, I mean, but visible to me. And not dead.” She frowned. “Anyway, that was an extreme case, extreme circumstances, and he’s scarily powerful, so that probably explains how he was able to get in. And out. But Quentin… Quentin can connect with me there. I don’t see him or even hear him, but I know if I reach for him, he’ll be there. And he’ll pull me out.”

“Oh.” Hollis hoped she didn’t look as unnerved as she felt. “Which means?”

“What I said. There has to be a connection, a tie. Bishop believes a close blood relation, even a nonpsychic, could possibly do it given a strong enough motivation, though that’s a theory we haven’t tested.”

“Because of your father’s attitude?”

“Yeah, asking him to participate in a lab experiment exploring his daughter’s psychic gifts would not go over well at all. In fact, I suspect he’d go back to trying to buy a judge and have me committed.”

Hollis blinked. “Buy a judge?”

“He’s never let morals or ethics get in the way when there was something he wanted.” Diana shook her head. “Never mind him. The point is, failing a blood relation, and given what we know, the connection has to be something emotional or psychological. Or psychic, of course.”

Hollis seized on the latter. “Must be psychic. Somehow.” Then she remembered. “Back in Samuel’s Compound that last day, there were weird energies all over the place; we were all affected by them, probably even changed. I know damn well I was changed. So maybe it happened then. Maybe while Reese was reaching out to try to dampen Samuel’s energies and I was trying to do my thing, some of our energies got… tangled.”

Solemn, Diana said, “That sounds as likely as anything else. Maybe Reese, at a critical moment for each of you, tuned in to your frequency, as Quentin would say. Only it happened during a time when both of you were being exposed to unusual energies, and that made a fleeting contact something a bit more… substantial.”

Hollis felt herself frowning again. “Yeah, I’d bet that was it. Something like that, anyway. Still, I’d… I’d rather not have to depend on him to drag me out of the gray time if I get in trouble there.”

Diana smiled ruefully. “Believe me, I really don’t want to depend on Quentin either, not like that. But I don’t know if either of us has a choice, at least for now.”

Hollis wasn’t at all happy about that and wasn’t sure she wanted to even begin to examine her mixed emotions on the subject. So she was relieved when Quentin returned to their becoming-a-makeshift command center then, fax in hand.

“Things just got very interesting,” he announced, after a quick look around to make sure the agents were alone in the dining room.

“Don’t you mean more interesting?” Diana shook her head. “Because I haven’t been bored yet.”

“More interesting, then. Since we’re not completely up and running in the command center here, the sheriff faxed this through as soon as his office was notified. It looks like we’re being—you should excuse the word—haunted by Samuel. So to speak.”

Miranda looked up from the laptop she was in the process of setting up and frowned. “He does seem to be a part of this, at least in spirit, doesn’t he? What now?”

“If everybody recalls, we had one supposed church member AWOL and unaccounted for there at the end: Brian Seymour. Part of the security team.”

“In his own mind, maybe,” DeMarco muttered.

“Yeah, well, as we all know, he vanished without a trace. And we never found out for sure who, besides Samuel, he was working for.”

“Senator LeMott denied it was him,” Hollis noted.

“And since LeMott was straight about everything else—finally, when it was all over with—we pretty much have to believe him. So Seymour has been a very large question mark in a supposedly closed case.”

“Until now,” Diana prompted.

“Until now. Well, sort of. He’s still a question mark, only of a different kind. We finally got a hit on the prints from the male victim.” Quentin waved the fax he was holding. “Got his rap sheet right here. He is—or was—Brian Seymour, aka David Vaughan, the name he was born with. Nothing serious on the sheet, just some petty theft, B&E, minor assault. Dropped off the grid about five years ago, when the church records indicate that he went to work for Samuel.”

DeMarco leaned back in his chair with a lightly exhaled breath, eyes suddenly narrow in his usually expressionless face. Methodically, he said, “Somebody reported it to the Director when Galen was shot, and there were only three of us who witnessed that. Carl is still involved with the church—such as it is—so highly doubtful it was him. It wasn’t me. Brian’s disappearance marked him as the likely snitch. But there was no sign whatsoever that he was linked to the Bureau. No sign he ever acted as a police or other law-enforcement informant. In fact, despite his seemingly easygoing personality, the man was all but a ghost and too careful for me even to get a clear set of his prints.”

“Yeah,” Quentin said, “and we all know you took it personally that you were never able to track him down after that whole manufactured history of his fell apart.”

Ignoring that, DeMarco said, “And now, months later, he turns up as a victim in a serial-killer case we’re investigating? Unless there’s a connection we don’t yet know about, I’m guessing the odds against that have to be astronomical.”

Hollis said, “And it’s just plain weird. Very weird. It can’t be coincidental. Can it?”

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” DeMarco said.

Quentin shook his head. “Neither do I. Not this kind, at any rate. So … two very different cases, one of them apparently solved months ago, just linked up. And what do we do with that?”

Speaking up finally, Miranda said, “We find out a hell of a lot more about the common denominator. David Vaughan: aka Brian Seymour.”

“Hey, what’d you do, pull a double shift?” Duncan asked, pausing in front of Bobbie Silvers’s desk.

“You said we could sign up for overtime if we wanted. I signed up.” Before he could protest further, Bobbie hurried to add, “I think maybe I found something interesting, Sheriff.”

“You mean about these murders?” He was honestly surprised, not because he doubted her investigative instincts but because she’d had so damn little to work with.

“Yes. At least—maybe.”

Duncan rested a hip on the edge of her desk. “Okay. What?”

Bobbie didn’t have to gather her thoughts; she’d been rehearsing what to say for more than two hours as she waited for him to arrive. “First, I reached out to all the other law-enforcement agencies, as ordered, and asked for any missing persons who might possibly fit our victims. Only I went five hundred miles out rather than a hundred.”

Duncan winced. “Given how little specific information we have, that must be some list.”

“More than a hundred names,” she admitted.

“That’s a hell of a long list, Bobbie,” he pointed out.

“Yeah. I didn’t want to try to eliminate any on my own, for obvious reasons. I don’t know enough about the victims. But every missing-persons report had snippets of additional information, some of it not listed in the computer databases but written in by the investigating officers. Years ago I had a really experienced cop tell me that there are always things in the paper file that don’t fit into any of the forms—some hunches by the investigating officer, naturally, but also bits of hard data. So I went looking for that kind of information.”

Duncan cocked his head as he studied her. “You got cops to dig out and read through files for you in the middle of the night?”

“I owe a deputy in the next county over a drink,” she said somewhat sheepishly. “The rest were mostly bored and willing to help out.”

Suddenly uneasy, Duncan said, “We’re not ready to go public with any of our speculation, Bobbie.”

She nodded. “I told them I was updating our missing-persons database and, because of spotty Internet out here, I had to do most of it manually. Boring second-shift work. They were sympathetic.”

“First spot comes open on the day shift is yours,” Duncan promised.

Bobbie grinned, then tried her best to recapture her professional air. “Well, I’m nowhere near done yet, but I did cover about two dozen of the reports so far, closest first. So within a fifty-mile radius, I’ve probably got detailed reports on two-thirds of the missing persons.”

“You’re not working three straight shifts,” Duncan warned her.

“Don’t worry, Sheriff; I’m so tired I wouldn’t even try. But I’ve got a start, and if you and the agents think it’s necessary, or even worthwhile, I’ll pick it back up when I come in this afternoon. That’s assuming the agents don’t take up where I left off and get it all finished by then.”

“Okay. So what in that two dozen reports so far struck you as interesting?”

“Just one report, actually. You know how things stick in your mind? Well, about a year ago, there was all that excitement over at The Lodge. Remember?” {see Chill of Fear}

“When that kind of thing happens practically in your backyard, you remember. It was a real mess. They found old bones on the grounds—and in some cave nobody knew about. Human bones. And they had a murder at the time. Somebody went nuts and killed one of the maids.” He frowned. “I seem to recall the feds were in on that one too.”

Bobbie was nodding. “One fed in particular—Quentin Hayes. The local investigating officer, Captain Nathan McDaniel, noted in the file that Agent Hayes had visited The Lodge several times over the years and that he had a childhood connection to the place. I… uh… read about it at the time. I was curious.”

“At the time” had been just after she got her job with the Pageant County Sheriff’s Department.

Duncan frowned but said mildly, “Don’t do that again, Bobbie. Use your position here to satisfy personal curiosity.”

Sheepish again, she said, “Yes, sir. I know better now, honest.”

He was satisfied she did. “So Quentin spent some time at a pretty reclusive resort thirty miles from here. Don’t see as how that would have anything to do with the murders here.”

“Neither did I. Until I found another connection.” She opened the topmost file of the stack on her blotter and turned the page so he could read it if he so chose, even though she was relaying the information. “Reported missing ten days ago, Taryn Holder, age twenty-eight. Blond hair, brown eyes, five foot seven, a hundred and twenty pounds. Single. Her boyfriend in Knoxville reported her missing when she failed to return from the latest spa break she was in the habit of taking at least twice a year.”

Duncan got it quickly. “At The Lodge?”

“Yeah. She was last seen checking out and driving away. She never made it home.”

Miranda said, “You should give that deputy a raise. Whether this pans out or not, she showed real initiative.”

Duncan nodded. “Yeah, I’m bound to lose her to some big-town police department. Or to you lot. Look, I sent her home to get some rest, but if you need any of my people to help out later on—with anything that doesn’t involve carrying or using a weapon—I’d recommend Bobbie.”

Miranda smiled. “She’s one of your part-timers.”

“Yeah. She grew up in a hunting family and probably knows how to handle a gun better than I do, but she hasn’t gone through the training yet, so I’m not about to issue her one. That aside, she’s smart, she learns fast, and as you can see she’s ambitious and resourceful. Plus, she just plain enjoys the work.”

“We may well need her.” Miranda looked at the stack of files with a rueful sigh. “Unless another murder victim turns up far outside your jurisdiction, we might be staying in Serenade awhile longer than I’d anticipated.”

“Because of what Bobbie found?”

“That. Also the fact that this location is fairly central in relation to the other murders, so it’s a good base for us geographically, especially given the helicopter we have at our disposal. And… this is a small town, quiet. No TV station, and the one newspaper is a weekly. Working here, we have a better shot at avoiding the media spotlight at least a little longer.”

It was Duncan’s turn to sigh. “I know it’s a judgment call as to when to go public with this kind of information, but if this is a serial killer with eight notches already on his belt…”

DeMarco spoke up then to say, “No commonalities, Sheriff. We don’t have a clue how he’s choosing his victims, how he’s hunting them, or how often he needs to kill. Warning people that a killer is on the loose when you can’t also tell them how to protect themselves is only going to lead to panic.” He shrugged. “Chances are, your people here are already doing what they can. Locking their doors, bringing outside dogs in at night, sleeping with shotguns within reach. They would have started taking steps yesterday morning, when word of the first victim got around. By last night, after we had a second victim, I’m betting the whole town was on alert.”

“True enough.” Duncan looked at him curiously. “You’re from a small town?”

“No. But people are pretty much the same all over.”

Duncan nodded, then said, “Well, since I’m sure I’d only cramp your style by hanging around, I’ll head back to the office.” He held up a hand when Miranda would have spoken, and said with a rueful smile, “No need to be polite about it; we both know it’s the truth. Since the ID on the male victim marks him as an out-of-towner, I’ll have my people ask around, show his mug shot, see if we turn up anybody who saw him. But I’m guessing all we’ll turn up is zip. His body was dumped here, like you figured. Chances are he never walked here on his own two feet.

“As for the female victim, if she turns out to be this Taryn Holder from Knoxville, it would seem like she was dumped here as well. Why here I don’t know, and what that shooter yesterday has to do with either I also don’t know. Honestly, I’m hoping he was just passing through, happened to see what was going on, and got crazy stupid enough to take a couple of shots at cops.”

Quentin murmured, “Could be.”

“Yeah, well. We all know that isn’t likely. But if it turns out that neither of the victims is local, that sniper is pretty much your problem—unless he decides to keep on shooting at people. Especially if he’s your serial killer. We aren’t equipped to even start to hunt for a serial killer, like I told you. But if there’s anything me or my deputies can do for you, let us know. If you need another warm body or two, for research or knocking on doors or filing paperwork, whatever, say the word. Until then, we’ll go about our usual business and try to stay out of your way.”

“Thanks, Des,” Miranda said, matter-of-fact. “We’ll keep you informed of any progress we might make.”

“If it concerns my county and this town, I expect you to,” he said, an unexpected trace of steel entering his drawl. Then he smiled again. “Otherwise, I’m not all that nosy. You don’t have to send these files back; Bobbie made copies for you. Good hunting.”

Quentin gazed after the sheriff for a moment, then said rather absently, “I like him.”

“You like anybody who gets out of your way,” Miranda noted.

“It’s a lot less trouble when they do.” Quentin drew a breath. “Okay, if nobody else will say it, I will. If the sheriff’s industrious young deputy is right about the I.D. of our female victim, we could have another connection to another prior case.”

“You’re stretching, don’t you think?” DeMarco said, but not as if he really believed that.

“Am I? What’s the good of being psychic if we can’t take an unexpected fact and make an intuitive leap or two?”

“Especially,” Miranda said, “when we haven’t caught a single break in this case so far.”

“I’m not arguing,” DeMarco said. “Speculation tends to consist mostly of intuitive leaps, anyway, and we do plenty of speculating.”

Hollis said, “You noticed that, huh?”

“It sort of sticks out.”

When Hollis looked at Miranda with lifted brows, she smiled faintly and said, “It’s his military background. Every ex-military agent we have is the same. Just a little bit uncomfortable with speculation.”

“I didn’t say I was uncomfortable,” DeMarco retorted. “But defining a thing is important, that’s all. And, so far, what we have here is speculation.”

Quentin said, “Okay, then let’s speculate. We know David Vaughan, aka Brian Seymour—look, I’m just going to hyphenate the names for convenience, okay? We know Vaughan-Seymour was involved with the church in North Carolina, definitely on Samuel’s payroll and maybe someone else’s. On our side, of those of us here, Reese, Hollis, and I were active in the investigation. Now we may have a connection between the second victim here and The Lodge, where, a year ago, Diana and I were involved in what became an official investigation of a new murder and a lot of old ones.”

Slowly, Diana said, “That makes you the common denominator, Quentin.”

“So far.” He was looking steadily at Miranda. “But we haven’t tried to tie any of the six previous victims to old cases of ours, have we?”

“No,” she replied. “There was nothing in the profile, no hint we should have been looking for a connection to us or to past cases. So we had no reason at all to go in that direction.”

“I’d say we have a reason now.”

Hollis nodded and said, “Let’s suppose for a minute. Suppose we do find that the other victims can be tied, however tenuously, to previous cases. Not only cases Quentin worked on, but others too. Is that the key here, or at least something we can use to break open this case? Are we looking at a serial killer who just found a nifty new way of choosing his victims? A more than usually twisted version of a copycat?”

“No copycat as far as the actual murders go. The M.O. is different,” DeMarco pointed out. “No victims tied to Samuel’s church showed signs of the sort of torture and mangling found on Vaughan-Seymour’s body.”

Half under her breath, Hollis said, “No, they showed signs of an even creepier sort of torture.”

“The point,” DeMarco said, “is that the victims in this case were killed and tortured in ways completely unlike any previous SCU investigation I’m aware of.”

Quentin said, “Yeah, there was no victim at The Lodge killed or left the way the female victim here was. So Reese is right: no copycat, at least as far as killing the same way, leaving the bodies the same way.”

Hollis said, “But if we find out that every one of the victims does have some kind of tie to a past case, that has to be the way he’s selecting his targets. Right?”

“I’d say so. Which takes us to a whole new level of serial killer.” Miranda was shaking her head. “Because someone able to go to all the trouble of researching the SCU—in itself not an easy thing to do—is not your typical serial killer. To then kill people who can be tied in some way to cases or places where we investigated, choosing them for that reason only… That’s not about fulfilling his need to kill, the motive that drives virtually all serial killers. That’s personal. That’s a message. It’s about us.”

Grim, Quentin said, “We’re back to this enemy of Bishop’s?”

“Maybe. An enemy of the SCU.” Miranda shook her head again. “We’re getting way ahead of ourselves. These two victims make for a hell of a coincidence, I’ll grant you—but they could be just that. Until we check out the other six victims and see if there are any ties to past SCU investigations, we’re wasting our time speculating.”

“So,” Quentin said, “we go back into all the files.” She nodded. “There are five of us; we’ll each take a victim’s file and start digging, and we’ll hand off the files until each of us has the chance to study every one of them. All the information we have so far is in our own secure database; after we go through that, we start reaching out to the individual law-enforcement agencies and cops who worked on each of the murders. Maybe they know something that didn’t get shared at the time. Maybe there are other seemingly unimportant notes jotted down in every one of the files.”

Hollis had to ask. “And if that’s what we find?”

“Then,” Miranda said, “we have a completely different investigation on our hands.”