Chill Of Fear

PROLOGUE

Leisure, Tennessee Twenty-five years ago

The little girl huddled, shivering, in the back corner of the closet. She didn't like the darkness, and shut her eyes tightly so she wouldn't see it. She held her hands over her ears, pressing hard, to shut out the sound. Tha-thum. Tha-thum. Tha-thum.

But she couldn't close it out, no matter how hard she tried, and had the frightened notion that it was inside herself. Sometimes, if she put her hand over her chest, she could feel her heart beating, and thought it would sound like that. Tha-thum.

But this sound was in her head, thrumming, beating like tiny wings as though something tried desperately to escape.

"Go away," she whispered.

Tha-thum.

Look.

Tha-thum.

Listen.

She couldn't read very well, it had always been difficult for her, but she could see these words as though they were etched in her mind in bright, flowing script. They were always like that, the weird, shiny letters spelling words she understood.

Hurry. Look.

She couldn't not look. Had never been able to ignore or withstand those commands.

Hands still covering her ears, she reluctantly opened her eyes. The closet was dark, as she'd feared, but light seeped underneath the door. And even as she focused on that sliver of brightness, she felt the slow, heavy vibrations in the floor underneath her.

Hide.

"I am," she whispered, trembling. Her gaze was fixed on that sliver of light, and the dread inside her was swelling, huge, filling her.

It's coming.

Her breath caught on a silent sob as a bit of darkness crossed the sliver of light, and the vibrations beneath her ceased.

Then the bit of darkness swallowed the light, and she heard the closet door rattle.

Tha-thum!

Tha-thum!

Tha-thum!

Oh. No.

It's here.

Five years ago

"You're a hard man to find."

Without taking his eyes from the papers spread out on the table before him, Quentin Hayes said, "But not impossible, obviously. Who was looking for me?"

"Noah Bishop."

Quentin did look up then, his brows rising. "Of the Spooky Crimes Unit?"

Bishop smiled faintly. "I've heard the nickname."

"Telepathically? That is supposed to be your psychic ability, right?"

"It is. But I didn't need telepathy to pick up on the ridicule." He shrugged. "We'll probably always hear variations of that. But respect will come with success. Eventually."

Quentin studied the other man, noting the curiously light gray eyes and scarred but striking face that spoke of strength and danger, and undoubtedly prevented all but the bravest souls from expressing open ridicule. That, plus his extraordinarily high success rate as a profiler, had earned Noah Bishop quite a lot of respect within the Bureau, even if this new unit of his was earning just as much mockery.

Still, Quentin had earned his own considerable reputation as a solid investigator who preferred to work alone, and wasn't at all eager to join a team — or go public with abilities he had been at some pains to conceal.

"So why're you telling me?" he asked.

"Thought you might be interested."

"Oh, yeah? I can't imagine why."

"Of course you can." Bishop came into the room and sat down on the other side of the table, still wearing that faint, amused smile. "You saw me coming. Months ago? Years ago?"

Refusing to reply to those dry questions, Quentin said, "I'm not on the clock, in case nobody told you that."

"What I was told was that you've spent at least two previous vacations here in Tennessee. In this same small town. Probably sitting in this same seldom-used conference room of a police department that hasn't had to deal with much except traffic tickets, domestic disputes, and the odd bootlegger or meth lab in the last twenty years or so. Here you sit, going over the same old dusty files while the local cops shrug and keep the betting pool going."

"I hear the odds are tipping in my favor," Quentin said.

"They admire sheer persistence."

"Most cops do."

Bishop nodded. "And most cops dislike mysteries and unsolved cases. So, is that why you're here?"

"You mean you don't know?"

The mockery didn't appear to disturb Bishop in the least. Matter-of-factly, he said, "I'm not clairvoyant. Not a seer, like you. And I'm a touch-telepath, not an open one. Not that touching you would necessarily help me to read you; virtually every psychic I've known has developed a shield to guard themselves."

"Then you just assume I'm psychic, is that it?" Quentin had to ask, even though Bishop's specific reference to "seer" meant he was doing more than assuming.

"No. I know you're psychic. The same way you know I am, because we tend to recognize each other. Not always, but most of the time."

"So when do we exchange the secret handshake?"

"That would be just before I give you your decoder ring."

It surprised a laugh out of Quentin; he hadn't marked Bishop as a man with a sense of humor. "Sorry. But you have to admit, an FBI unit made up of psychics is pretty off the wall. Almost comic book."

"It won't be one day."

"You really do believe that, don't you?"

"Science is understanding more every day about the human brain. Sooner or later, psychic abilities will be correctly classified as just another set of senses, like sight or hearing, just as normal and just as human."

"And you won't be head of the Spooky Crimes Unit anymore?"

"Let's just say that it's only a matter of time before the doubts and disbelief are proven wrong. We only have to be successful."

"Ah, gee, is that all?" Quentin shook his head. "The closed-case-to-open ratio in the FBI is running — what? — about forty percent right now?"

"The SCU will do considerably better than that."

Quentin wasn't sure what he would have replied to the other man's optimism, but an interruption presented itself when a member of the Leisure Police Department appeared in the doorway.

"Quentin, I know you're supposed to be on vacation," Lieutenant Nathan McDaniel said with only a glance toward Bishop, "but I thought you might be interested in this — and the chief okayed telling you."

"What's up, Nate?"

"We just got a call. A little girl's gone missing."

Quentin was on his feet immediately. "At The Lodge?"

"At The Lodge."

When the sprawling hotel had been built back around the turn of the twentieth century, it had been christened with some grand-sounding name, now long forgotten. For more years than anybody remembered, it had been called simply The Lodge, and somewhere along the way the owners had given up and accepted that name. It had been a favored vacation spot of the rich and reclusive fairly consistently throughout its history, for both its grandeur and its isolation; far from any major city and reached only by a single winding, two-lane blacktop ascending miles from the small town of Leisure, it was about as far from civilization as one could get, especially in these modern days of instant or near-instant communication.

But for all its isolation, The Lodge had more than its fair share of amenities to tempt guests to make the journey to its doors. Its large main building and numerous cottages all boasted spectacular views of the surrounding mountains, and among its other attractions were miles of winding trails for hiking or horseback riding, beautiful gardens, a huge clubhouse holding both an Olympic-size swimming pool and indoor tennis courts, and a very nice eighteen-hole golf course.

Add to all that a highly trained and discreet staff ready to pander to a guest's every whim, lovely rooms and cottages with luxurious beds and bedding that guests had been known to purchase after a visit, and first-rate spa facilities, and you had a hotel that had put Leisure, Tennessee, on the map. Or at least on the map of deluxe vacation spots.

"The only problem," Quentin told Bishop as they got out of Quentin's rental in the circular driveway in front of the main building, "is that the place has a nasty habit of losing people — and they're almost always children."

"I don't imagine they include that in the brochures," Bishop said.

"No." Quentin shook his head. "To be fair, there isn't really a pattern to the thing unless you have the sort of suspicious mind I have. And from what I've been able to piece together over the years, the dead and missing, though usually connected to the hotel in some way, are almost never guests. Kids of people who work here, or in the general area, mostly. Locals. And people in this part of the country don't open up to outsiders, or want anyone meddling in their business."

"Even when that business is missing children?"

"They're the self-reliant sort, believe me. They get their dogs and their shotguns and go looking for themselves. In the old days, nobody even bothered to report any kind of problem to the police, and as far as I've been able to make out, it's just as often true in recent years."

"What sort of time frame are you talking about?"

"I've gone back twenty years, at least. And found half a dozen suspicious accidents or illnesses, as well as one unquestionable murder. Not statistically significant for a hotel with as many people passing through as The Lodge can claim, according to the books. But I'm not buying it. And—"

Bishop waited a moment, then prompted, "And?"

"And there have been at least five unsolved disappearances connected with this place, most but not all kids."

It didn't take psychic ability to know that Quentin had changed his mind about what he'd been about to say, but Bishop didn't press him. He merely said, "I think if I were a parent, I'd hesitate to bring my child here."

"Yeah. Me too." Quentin was frowning as he watched Nate McDaniel and another of the local cops speaking to a clearly distraught man near the hotel's front steps.

"And you keep coming back here to find out why this place seems to be... cursed?"

Quentin didn't argue with the terminology. "As you said — most cops dislike mysteries."

"Especially the ones that touch them personally."

Quentin's frown became a scowl, but he didn't reply to that since McDaniel turned and moved toward them, indicating with a jerk of his head that they should join him.

"According to the girl's father," he told them, "she's not the type to wander off. The mother was having a day at the spa, so he and his daughter were spending the day together. Horseback riding this morning, then a picnic lunch out in the rose garden. But the hamper The Lodge provided didn't have the girl's favorite drink, so he went in to get it. Says he wasn't gone five minutes, though it was probably closer to ten. When he got back to their blanket on the grass, she was gone."

McDaniel sighed. "Half the staff's out looking for her, but they didn't call us for at least an hour."

Bishop said, "They've covered the grounds nearest the buildings, then?"

"So they tell me." McDaniel eyed him. "I know why Quentin turns up here every so often, but what about you, Bishop? The chief said you were here to talk to Quentin, but might be willing to help us out with this."

"I'm always willing to help search for a child," Bishop said. "Did anybody see her after the father left her in the garden?"

"Nobody we've talked to so far. And there were other picnics going on in other parts of the garden; it's a Lodge tradition, especially in summer, like now. But all the others were couples, and my guess is they were too wrapped up in each other to pay attention if a child wandered by."

"What about if she was dragged or carried past?" Quentin demanded.

Bishop glanced at him. "People notice what's out of the ordinary. If the child had been resisting or protesting, someone would have taken note. Assuming she was seen at all."

McDaniel said, "And there's no sign of a struggle of any kind, Quentin. We won't find footprints in a garden that's mostly grass and flagstone paths, though we are checking the planting beds. The only thing the girl left behind was the sweater she was wearing earlier. I've called in one of the local search-and-rescue canine teams; they should be here within the next half hour."

"What's her name, Nate?"

"Belinda. Her father says she's never answered to a nickname. She's eight."

Quentin turned without another word and headed in the direction of the rose garden out behind the main building.

"There goes a man with demons riding him," McDaniel said almost absently.

"What sort of demons, Lieutenant?"

"You'd have to ask him. All I know is what I've observed the last couple times he's been here. And all that tells me is that he's haunted by a crime nobody's been able to solve in twenty years of trying. The difference is, Quentin just can't let it go."

Bishop nodded slightly, but all he said was, "We all have that one case, don't we? The one that haunts us. The one we dream about at night."

"Yeah. But there's another difference for Quentin. The case that haunts him is right out of his nightmares. And his own childhood."

"I know," Bishop said.

It was, everyone agreed, creepy enough that a child had vanished right out of a bright rose garden on a sunny summer afternoon; what was even more chilling was when the search-and-rescue bloodhound, after sniffing Belinda's little pink sweater, merely sat down and howled mournfully.

"Has he ever done that before?" Bishop asked the handler, who shook his head adamantly.

"Never. Cosmo knows his job, and he's the best tracker I've ever had. I don't understand it." He bent to his dog, murmuring reassuringly to the trembling animal.

McDaniel shook his head as well, baffled, and told those of his people that had been standing by to continue searching without the aid of a dog. To Bishop, he said, "If you have any special expertise to offer, now would be the time."

"Yes," Quentin agreed, staring at Bishop challengingly. "Now would be the time."

"I don't know the terrain here as well as the rest of you," Bishop said, "but I'll do my best. Quentin, perhaps you could show me the layout of these gardens?"

"And I'll go talk to the father again," McDaniel said with a sigh.

Quentin watched the cop stride back toward the main building, then said to Bishop in a lowered voice, "Okay, so no dog-and-pony show for the locals. I get that. But whatever abilities I may have aren't telling me a damned thing, and I'm hoping yours can be a lot more help in finding this little girl."

"Telepathy won't help," Bishop said, his own voice low. "But there's another little knack I have that might."

"What is it?"

Without answering that specifically, Bishop said, "I need a high place, somewhere I can see as much of the surrounding area as possible."

"The main building has an observation tower. Will that do?"

"Lead the way."

The "tower" was little more than a cupola jutting up from the roof on one side of the Victorian-style building and housing a twenty-five-foot circular room whose shutters were left wide open in summer. Since The Lodge was centered in a sprawling valley, it was possible to see for miles from this vantage point.

Bishop was silent until they reached the top of the stairs and the tower, then said, "I've always believed animals are sensitive to things most people are oblivious to, things beyond even their own keenest senses."

"Unfortunately, they can't tell us what's upset them. Or are you telepathic with animals as well as people?"

"People only, I'm afraid. And not much more than half of them. You know these extra senses of ours are as limited as the usual five."

"I don't know a whole hell of a lot about the subject, if you want the truth," Quentin said, moving to the side of the tower that overlooked the garden area. "Not much science on it, at least that I could find, and I wasn't very interested in most of the cockeyed theories masquerading as science."

"Join the SCU, and I can guarantee you'll learn everything science and experience can tell us about psychic abilities. Your own and others'."

"I'm not what you'd call a team player."

"That I can live with," Bishop said, joining him and gazing out over the gardens. "I need a seer, Quentin, and they're rare."

"I don't see anything. I just know things sometimes," Quentin finally admitted. "Stupid, useless stuff, mostly. That the phone is about to ring. That it's going to rain. That I'll find the keys I lost in some unlikely spot."

"But sometimes," Bishop said, "you know where an important piece of evidence will be found. Or precisely which questions to ask of which suspects. Or which line of an investigation is going to be a dead end."

"You've been reading my file," Quentin said after a moment.

"Of course. You're one of the few psychics I've been able to find already in law enforcement — and the only one already within the FBI."

Quentin glanced at him, then shrugged. "I've never been able to use my ability as an investigative tool. It's never been under my control in any sense."

"We'll teach you how to exert whatever control is possible. Teach you how to focus and channel your abilities. How to use them to aid an investigation."

"Will you? Can you do it?"

Bishop smiled faintly at the direct challenge, but rather than answering looked out over the valley and put all his concentration into opening up and strengthening his "normal" five senses. It was like having a blurry image snap suddenly into focus, while in the background faint sounds became louder, clearer, and he could smell the roses far below.

He wasn't about to admit to Quentin that the term coined for what he was doing was using his "spider sense," not after the other man's mocking reference to comic books.

"Bishop—"

"Wait." He reached out farther, and heard bits of conversation from the searching officers and hotel employees, words and phrases, disjointed and unimportant. Beneath the scents of roses and other flowers and freshly mown grass, he caught the savory odors of cooking from the hotel's kitchen, and someone's tangy perfume or aftershave, and the warm, dusty scents of horses and hay and leather. The razor-sharpness of what he saw blurred as though a zoom lens sought distant objects and struggled to bring them into focus.

Bishop pushed harder, reached farther.

The colors washed into one another, the scents blended unpleasantly into a thick miasma that caused his stomach to churn, and the sounds and voices he heard were a cacophony pounding inside his head—

" — or we could check down by the creek — "

" — of course I wasn't flirting with him — "

" — the guest in the Orchid Room needs — "

" — empty stables she might have — "

" — only a matter of time before we have to drag the streams and lake — "

"Daddy? Where are you? I'm afraid — "

It's coming.

"Bishop!"

He looked down at Quentin's hand on his arm, then at the other man's face, his vision blurry for a heartbeat or two before it cleared. And he could hear only the distant sounds that were normally audible from this height. Smell only the distant, pleasant scents of a summer afternoon.

He didn't have to ask to know that he had been too still and too silent for too long, and had to mentally shrug off the lingering chill he felt. He wondered if he had been able to tune in to his surroundings with such unusual strength because there was, as Quentin believed, something different about this place. The coldness Bishop had sensed was at least an indication that he might be right.

But there was little time to ponder that.

"Can you ride?" he asked, unsurprised by the slightly hoarse sound of his own voice.

Frowning, Quentin said, "Yeah, I can. What the hell did you just do?"

"I... tuned in to this place. Let's go."

Quentin followed, still frowning, and within ten minutes they were aboard two of the hotel's horses and following one of the trails that wound up into the mountains. Bishop led the way, not saying much but intent, concentrating, as though listening to some inner voice that was guiding him.

Quentin wasn't really surprised to see that Bishop rode well; he had a strong hunch that the other man was the sort who would master whatever he chose to no matter how much effort or time was involved.

Which, Quentin knew, undoubtedly included his psychic abilities.

But what had he done back in the tower? Whatever it was, it had been an actual, physical effort; his eyes had dilated so much that for an instant, gazing into them, Quentin had thought of ice rimming a deep, black pool. Unsettling, to say the least. And what had Bishop said — that he had tuned in to this place? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

He urged his horse up beside the other man's despite the narrowness of the trail, and said, "Do you know where she is, or are we just out for a nice afternoon ride?"

"I know where she is," Bishop replied calmly.

"How?"

"I heard her."

Quentin digested that for a moment. "From the tower? You heard her way up there?"

"Yes."

Quentin glanced back at the considerable distance they had already covered, then said almost involuntarily, "Bullshit."

"The mind," Bishop said, "is a remarkable tool. And so are the senses. The usual five, plus whatever extra ones we're lucky enough to have."

"Bishop, you're out of your mind — and all your senses."

"We'll see."

Quentin dropped back but continued to follow Bishop, telling himself that he was just humoring a lunatic. But the quiet voice in his own mind that had so often told him where to look or what to ask or what would happen next was telling him that little Belinda was going to be found, and that it would be because Bishop had, somehow, heard her.

"Belinda?"

"Go away," she mumbled, blinking in the brightness of Quentin's flashlight. She was squeezed back into a corner near the old rock fireplace, but seemed to do her best to make herself draw even farther away, to make herself smaller. "Don't hurt me." Her voice was thin and shaky, the plea ending in a hiccuping sob.

"It's okay, Belinda, you're safe now. We're going to take you back to your parents." Quentin tried to make his own voice soothing, but the child's terror was palpable and he dared not reach out for her.

"Let me try," Bishop said.

Quentin gave way willingly; there was very little space inside the ramshackle building that might once have been a house of sorts, and between them he and Bishop were probably looming over the sobbing child, he thought. She was obviously dazed and confused, though appeared unhurt barring a small cut on her forehead.

What Quentin couldn't understand was how she had managed to get way up here, much farther from The Lodge than a child her age should have been able to travel in the time allowed. Under her own power, at least.

"It's okay, Belinda," Bishop said, softly repeating Quentin's assurances. But he didn't hesitate to reach out and gather the child into his arms.

To Quentin's surprise, the little girl not only didn't resist or protest, but actually visibly relaxed, and stopped crying. She even looked a little sleepy, as if exhaustion had caught up with her.

"Let's get her out of here," Bishop said.

Quentin radioed the other search teams that Belinda had been safely found, and Bishop handled her slight weight easily as he carried her before him on his horse back down the mountain.

As relieved as he was that the child had been safely found, and impressed though he was with the way Bishop had been able to do that, what interested Quentin the most was Belinda's response to the other man. With those pale eyes and the angry scar down his left cheek, his didn't seem a face that would inspire confidence in a terrified little girl, yet from the moment he had touched her, she had seemed perfectly trusting and content in his arms.

"You're good with kids," Quentin noted as they rode the last half mile back to The Lodge. "Any of your own?"

Bishop glanced down at the dark-haired girl nestled against him, and Quentin saw a flicker of pain, quickly gone.

"No," Bishop replied, "none of my own."

"I guess some people just have the knack. I never did. I like kids okay and all, but they don't warm up to me quickly."

"She's been through a lot," Bishop said.

Quentin didn't bother to say that it wouldn't have made much difference in how she reacted to him. Instead, he glanced at Belinda's drowsy face and lowered his voice to say, "You heard her all the way up there; I assume you can hear her now. What happened to her?"

"She doesn't remember." Bishop's voice was low as well.

"What, nothing?"

"Nothing after waking up this morning. She doesn't remember the earlier ride with her father or the beginning of the picnic." Bishop paused, then added, "Not so uncommon after a head in-jury."

"No, but... how did she get that injury? And how the hell did she travel miles across a valley and up into the mountains in hardly more than a couple of hours?"

"I don't know."

"No hoofprints around that old shack, except for those our horses made. No tire tracks. Hell, no footprints that I saw — not even hers."

"Yeah, I noticed that."

Since they had nearly reached The Lodge, Quentin dropped the subject for the time being. But after Belinda had been safely returned to her overjoyed parents and all the questions and exclamations and thanks had been dealt with — with amazing discretion and creative evasiveness on Bishop's part — he brought it up again.

The two men sat at a fairly isolated table in a shady section of one of the verandas with a couple of cold beers — compliments of The Lodge.

"You noticed there were no footprints up there. I think we both believe she couldn't have gotten all that way on her own. So what do you think happened to Belinda?"

"I don't know. Without evidence of any kind, there's no way to know."

"I'm not asking what you know. I'm asking what you think. What you feel. I saw your face when we got to that old shack up there, and it didn't take a telepath to know you were picking up something you didn't like."

After a moment, Bishop said, "It was an old building, and like most old buildings it held a lot of... echoes. Unfortunately, there's no way I know of to separate layers of time, to distinguish the psychic echo of something that happened a century ago from something that happened yesterday. Or today. Or twenty years ago."

There was another pause as Quentin stared at him, and then he said quietly, "It didn't happen up there. What happened twenty years ago."

"I know."

"You know a hell of a lot, don't you." It wasn't really a question.

Bishop smiled. "You think I'd try to recruit a new team member without knowing everything I could about him first? There won't be many secrets in the SCU, Quentin, that goes without saying. We're a unit of psychics. And from the telepaths who can pick up thoughts to the empaths who can pick up pain, we're going to eventually know pretty much everything there is to know about each other."

"If that's your recruitment speech, it's likely to scare away more potentials than it entices," Quentin muttered.

"Is it scaring you away?"

"Answer something for me first," Quentin said. "What did you feel or sense at that shack?"

"The same thing I felt, for a split second, up in the observation tower. Something old, and dark, and cold. Something evil."

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Never felt anything like it before. But I can tell you that it's been here a long time. That we frustrated it today by finding Belinda when we did. And I can tell you that it's what touched your life twenty years ago."

"How could you possibly know that?" Quentin demanded roughly.

"You grabbed my arm in the tower, remember? I felt it then. That whatever's happening here is something you're connected to. It's why you keep coming back here, because you're tied, bound, to this place, and not just by your memories. By something else as well. And you'll come back again and again until you've found the answers you need."

"You can't offer those to me?"

Bishop shook his head. "No. And you won't find them this trip, I'm sure of that. It isn't yet time."

"You said you weren't a seer."

"I'm not. But one thing I've learned is that there's a kind of rhythm to most things. To the universe. A sequence of events, a pattern, a proper order. I feel that sometimes. And what I'm feeling here is that the time isn't right, that the darkness here will stay hidden a while longer."

With a stab at humor, Quentin said, "You're just saying that so I'll leave and join your unit."

"No. If I could help you settle with your past here and now, I would, believe me." Bishop's mouth twisted slightly. "I know what it is to spend too much time looking back instead of ahead. But that hasn't crippled me, and it won't cripple you."

"You sound very sure of that."

"I am sure. Just as I'm sure of what I said to you a few hours ago. You did see me coming, didn't you, Quentin? You knew I'd ask you to join the SCU."

Quentin laughed ruefully. "Oh, hell, I saw you coming years ago."

"It's why you joined the FBI."

"Yeah. I had a law degree I didn't know what to do with, and was actually thinking of becoming some kind of cop. And then one day I... knew the SCU was something that would happen. I knew I'd be part of it."

Dryly, Bishop said, "And still made me come to you."

"Well, a man wants to be valued."

"I think," Bishop said, "you undoubtedly earned your reputation for reckless independence."

"I think you're right. I also think we've wandered a bit from the subject. I'm not willing to give up here, Bishop."

"I wouldn't ask you to. I'm just asking you to look ahead rather than back. For a while. Your past will always be there, trust me on that."

"The girl in my past died," Quentin heard himself say.

"I know. And the girl — the woman in my past is out of my reach almost as surely as if she were dead. At least until the universe is ready to pick that thread back up again."

"And weave it back into the pattern?" Quentin shook his head. "What if it's a lost thread?"

"It isn't. She isn't. And neither is your Missy, Quentin."

It was the first time anybody had said that name to him in a long time, but Quentin felt himself flinch inside. "She's dead. All I can do for her now is find out why she died."

"I'll help all I can. You have my word on that."

"But not until the time is right?"

"Some things have to happen just the way they happen."

Quentin looked at him curiously. "Your mantra?"

"Something like that. Believing it keeps me sane."

"Then maybe you can convince me. In the meantime... what the hell. It seems we both knew this was inevitable." He held out his hand to the other man. "You've got yourself a seer, Bishop."

And as they shook hands, he almost told Bishop about the little voice in his head that was whispering, He'll find Miranda. But not yet. Not just yet.

Then he saw the flicker in Bishop's pale eyes, and realized that the telepath had read him and his little voice. But he hadn't needed a seer to tell him what he was utterly convinced of. He would find his Miranda. Sooner or later.

Quentin wondered if he would be so lucky with the end of his own troubled quest.