Hunting Fear

PROLOGUE

Five years ago

Sssshhhh. Half consciously, she made the sound out loud. "Sssshhhh." But it was a breath of sound. Less than that. She had to be quiet. He might hear. He might get angry at her. He might change his mind.

She kept herself very still and tried to make herself very small. Don't draw his attention. Don't give him any reason to change his mind.

She'd been lucky so far. Lucky or smart. Because he'd said so, he 'd said she was a good girl and so he wouldn 't hurt her. All she had to do was take the medicine and sleep for a while, and then be still and silent for a little bit when she woke up.

Count to five hundred when you wake up, he'd said. Count slowly. And when she was done-

"-and when you're done, I'll be gone. You can move then. You can take off the blindfold. But not until then, you understand? If you move or make a sound before then, I'll know. And I'll have to hurt you."

It seemed to take forever to count to five hundred, but finally she got there. Hesitated. And counted to six hundred just to be safe. Because she was a good girl.

He'd had her lie down so that her hands were underneath her bottom, her own weight holding them flat and immobile. So he didn't have to tie them, he'd said. She could put her hands underneath her like a good girl or he could tie her up.

He had a gun.

She thought her hands were probably asleep by now, because she felt the medicine had made her sleep a long time. But she was still afraid to try moving, afraid he was somewhere nearby, watching.

"Are-are you there?" she whispered.

Nothing. Just the sound of her own breathing.

She shivered, not for the first time. It was chilly, a little damp. The air she breathed was stale. And in the tiniest corner of her mind, way back in the dark where a terrified little girl crouched, was an idea she didn't even want to think about.

No. Not that.

It wasn't that.

Cautiously, very slowly, she began working her right hand from underneath her. It had gone to sleep, the pins and needles sharp, the sensation as creepy as it always was. She kept her hand alongside her hip and flexed the fingers slowly as the blood returned to them. It made her want to cry or giggle. She worked her left hand free and flexed it as well.

Refusing to admit why she did it, she slid her hands to the tops of her thighs, then up her body, not reaching out, not reaching up naturally. She slid them up herself until she touched the blindfold covering her eyes.

She heard her breath catch in a little sob.

No. It wasn't that.

Because she was a good girl.

She pushed the cloth up her forehead, keeping her eyes closed. She drew a deep breath, trying not to think about how much more stale and thick the air seemed to be.

Finally, she opened her eyes.

Blackness. A dark so total it had weight, substance.

She blinked, turned her head back and forth, but saw nothing more. Just… black.

In the tiniest corner of her mind, that little girl whimpered.

Slowly, fraction of an inch by fraction of an inch, she pushed her hands outward. Her arms were still bent at the elbows when her hands touched something solid. It felt like… wood. She pushed against it. Hard. Harder.

It didn't give at all.

She tried not to panic, but by the time her hands had explored the box in which she lay, the scream was crawling around in the back of her throat. And when the little girl crouching in the tiniest corner of her mind whispered the truth, the scream escaped.

He's buried you alive.

And nobody knows where you are.

"I'm telling you it's no goddamned use." Lieutenant Pete Edgerton had an unusually smooth and gentle voice for a violent-crimes detective, but it was harsh now. And filled with reluctant certainty. "She's gone."

"Show me a body."

"Luke-"

"Until you can show me a body, I am not giving up on that girl." Lucas Jordan's voice was quiet, as it always was, but the intensity lurked, as it always did. And when he turned and left the conference room, it was with the quick, springy step of a man in excellent physical shape who possessed enough energy for at least two other men.

Maybe three.

With a sigh, Edgerton turned to the other detectives scattered about the room and shrugged. "The family hired him, and they have the mayor's backing, so we don't have the authority to call him off."

"I doubt anybody could call him off," Judy Blake said, her tone half admiring and half wondering. "He won't stop looking until he finds Meredith Gilbert. Dead or alive."

Another detective, surveying the stack of files in front of him, shook his head wearily. "Well, whether he's as gifted as they say or not, he's independent and he can concentrate on one case at a time for as long as it takes. We don't have that luxury."

Edgerton nodded. "We've already spent more time than we can afford-and a hell of a lot more manpower-on a single missing-persons case with squat for leads and absolutely no evidence that she was abducted against her will."

"Her family's sure she was," Judy reminded him. "And Luke is sure."

"I know. I'm sure myself, or at least as sure as I can be with a gut feeling." Edgerton shrugged again. "But we've got cases backed up and I've got my orders. The Meredith Gilbert investigation is officially a cold-case file."

"Is that the federal conclusion as well?" Judy asked, brows lifting as she turned her gaze to a tall, dark man who leaned negligently against a filing cabinet in a position that enabled him to watch everyone in the room.

Special Agent Noah Bishop shook his head once. "The official federal conclusion is that there's been no federal crime. No evidence of kidnapping-or anything else that would involve the Bureau. And we weren't asked to officially participate in the investigation." His voice was cool, like his pale gray sentry eyes. He wore a half smile, but the vivid scar twisting down his left cheek made the expression more dangerous than pleasant.

"Then what are you doing here?" the same weary detective asked mildly.

"He's interested in Jordan," Theo Woods said. "That's it, isn't it, Bishop? You came to see the so-called psychic's little dog-and-pony show." The detective was hostile, and it showed, though it was difficult to tell which he despised more-supposed psychics or federal agents.

Matter-of-fact, the agent replied, "I came because there was the possibility of a kidnapping."

"And I guess it's just a coincidence that you've been watching Jordan like a hawk."

With a soft laugh that held no amusement, Bishop said, "There's no such thing as coincidence."

"Then you are interested in him."

"Yes."

"Because he claims to be psychic?"

"Because he is psychic."

"That's bullshit and you know it," Woods said. "If he really was psychic, we would have found that girl by now."

"It doesn't work that way."

"Oh, right, I forgot. Can't just flip a switch and get all the answers."

"No. Unfortunately, not even a genuine and gifted psychic can do that."

"And you'd know."

"Yes. I'd know."

Edgerton, aware both of the simmering frustration in the room and the resentment at least a few of his detectives felt toward the Bureau and its agents, intervened to say calmly, "It's a moot point, at least as far as we're concerned. Like I said, the Gilbert investigation is cold. We move on."

Judy kept her gaze on Bishop. "What about you? Do you move on as well? Go back to Quantico?"

"I," Bishop said, "do what I came here to do." He strolled from the room, as seemingly relaxed and unconcerned as Lucas Jordan had been wired and focused.

"I don't like that guy," Theo Woods announced unnecessarily. "Those eyes look right through you. Talk about a thousand-yard stare."

"Think he really is after Luke?" Judy asked the room at large.

Edgerton said, "Maybe. My sources tell me Bishop's putting together a special unit of investigators, but I can't find out what's special about it."

"Jesus, you don't think he's rounding up phony psychics?" Woods demanded incredulously.

"No," Edgerton replied with a last glance after the federal agent. "I don't think he's interested in anything phony."

Bishop assumed there was speculation behind him as he left the conference room, but beyond making a mental note to add Pete Edgerton to his growing list of cops likely to be receptive to his Special Crimes Unit in the future, he thought no more about it. He went in search of Lucas Jordan, finding him, as expected, in the small, windowless office that had been grudgingly allotted to him.

"I told you I wasn't interested," Lucas said as soon as Bishop appeared in the doorway.

Leaning against the jamb, Bishop watched as the other man packed up his copies of the myriad paperwork involved in a missing-persons investigation. "Do you enjoy going it solo that much?" he asked mildly. "Operating alone has its drawbacks. We can offer the sort of support and resources you're not likely to find anywhere else."

"Probably. But I hate bureaucracy and red tape," Lucas replied. "Both of which the FBI has in abundance."

"I told you, my unit is different."

"You still report to the Director, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Then it's not that different."

"I intend to make sure it is."

Lucas paused, looking at Bishop with a slight frown, more curious than disbelieving. "Yeah? How do you plan to do that?"

"My agents won't have to deal with the Bureau politics; that'll be my job. I've spent years building my reputation, collecting and calling in favors, and twisting arms to make certain we'll have as much autonomy as possible in running our investigations."

Somewhat mockingly, Lucas said, "What, no rules?"

"You know better than that. But reasonable rules, if only to placate the powers that be and convince them we aren't running a sideshow act. We'll have to be cautious in the beginning, low-key, at least until we can point to a solid record of successful case resolutions."

"And you're so sure there will be successes?"

"I wouldn't be doing this otherwise."

"Yeah, well." Lucas closed his briefcase with a snap. "I wish you luck, Bishop, I really do. But I work best alone."

"How can you be so sure of that if you've never done it any other way?"

"I know myself."

"What about your ability?"

"What about it?"

Bishop smiled slightly. "How well do you know it? Do you understand what it is, how it works?"

"I understand it well enough to use it."

Deliberately, Bishop said, "Then why can't you find Meredith Gilbert?"

Lucas didn't rise to the bait, though his expression tightened just a bit. "It isn't that simple, and you know it."

"Maybe it should be that simple. Maybe all it really takes is the right sort of training and practice for a psychic to be able to control and use his or her abilities more effectively as investigative tools."

"And maybe you're full of shit."

"Prove me wrong."

"Listen, I don't have time for this. I have an abduction victim to find."

"Fair enough." Bishop barely hesitated before adding, "It's the fear."

"What?"

"It's the fear you pick up on, home in on. The specific electromagnetic-energy signature of fear. The victims' fear. That's what your brain is hardwired to sense, telepathically or empathically."

Lucas was silent.

"Which is it-their thoughts or their emotions?"

Grudgingly, Lucas said, "Both."

"So you feel their fear and know their thoughts."

"The fear is stronger. More certain. If I get them at all, the thoughts are just whispers. Words, phrases. Mental static."

"Like a radio station moving in and out of range."

"Yeah. Like that."

"But it's the fear that first connects you to them."

Lucas nodded.

"The stronger the fear, the more intense the connection."

"Generally. People handle their fear in different ways. Some of them bury it, or hold it so tightly reined none of it can get out. Those I have trouble sensing."

"Is it the fear of being… lost?"

Meeting the federal agent's steady gaze, Lucas shrugged finally and said, "The fear of being alone. Of being caught, trapped. Helpless. Doomed. The fear of dying."

"And when they stop feeling that?"

Lucas didn't respond.

"It's because they're dead."

"Sometimes."

"Be honest."

"All right. Usually. Usually I stop sensing them because there's no fear to sense. No thoughts. No life." Just saying it made Lucas angry, and he didn't try to hide that.

"The way it is now. With Meredith Gilbert."

"I will find her."

"Will you?"

"Yes."

"In time?"

The question hung there in the air between the two men for a long, still moment, and then Lucas picked up his briefcase and took the two steps necessary to get to the door.

Bishop stepped aside, silent.

Lucas walked past him but turned back before he reached the top of the stairs. Abruptly, he said, "I'm sorry. I can't find her for you."

"For me? Meredith Gilbert is-"

"Not her. Miranda. I can't find Miranda for you."

Bishop's expression didn't change, but the scar twisting down his left cheek whitened so that it was more visible. "I didn't ask," he said after a momentary pause.

"You didn't have to. I pick up on fear, remember?"

Bishop didn't say another word. He just stood there and looked after the other man until Lucas was gone.

"I almost didn't call you," Pete Edgerton said as Bishop joined him on the highway above the ravine. "To be honest, I'm surprised you're still around. It's been three weeks since we closed the investigation."

Without commenting on that, Bishop merely said, "Is he down there?"

"Yeah, with her. Not that there's a whole lot left." Edgerton eyed the federal agent. "I have no idea how he found her. Those special gifts of his, I guess."

"Cause of death?"

"That's for the ME to say. Like I said, there isn't a whole lot left. And what is left has been exposed to the elements and predators. I have no idea what killed her, or what she went through before she died."

"You're not even sure she was abducted, are you?"

Edgerton shook his head. "From the little we found down there, she could have been walking along the edge of the road here, slipped and fell, maybe hit her head or broke something, couldn't get back up. Lot of traffic here, but nobody stops; she could have been lying there all this time."

"You think the ME will be able to determine cause of death?"

"I'd be surprised. From bones, a few shreds of skin, and some hair? We wouldn't have been able to I.D. her so fast-if at all-if it hadn't been for the fact that her backpack was still mostly intact and there was plenty of stuff inside with Meredith Gilbert's name on it. Plus that odd pewter bracelet of hers was found among the bones. The DNA tests will confirm it's her remains, I'm sure of that."

"So she wasn't robbed and her killer didn't take a trophy."

"If there was a killer, doesn 't look like he took any of her belongings, no."

Bishop nodded, then headed toward the wide gap in the guardrail that should have been repaired long before.

"You'll mess up your nice suit," Edgerton warned.

Without responding to that, Bishop merely picked his way down the steep slope and deep into the ravine. He passed a few crime-scene investigators but didn't pause until he joined Lucas Jordan in a boulder-strewn area in the shade of a twisted little tree.

Lucas appeared quite different from the man Bishop had last seen. He was decidedly scruffy, unshaven, thinner, his casual clothing rumpled as though he had slept in it. If he had slept, that is. He stood, hands in the pockets of his denim jacket, and stared down at the rocky ground.

What held his fixed gaze were bits and pieces only experts would have recognized as being human. Bits of bone and scraps of clothing. A tuft of chocolate-brown hair.

"They've already taken her backpack," Lucas said. "Her parents will get it, I guess."

"Yes," Bishop said.

"You knew. From the moment you got here, you knew she was dead."

"Not from the moment I got here."

"But from the day."

"Yes."

Lucas turned his head, staring at Bishop incredulously. "And said nothing?"

"I knew she was dead. I didn't know where she was. The police would never have believed me. Her family would never have believed me."

"I might have."

"You didn't want to. You had to find her yourself. So I waited for you to do that."

"Knowing all the time she was dead."

Bishop nodded.

"Jesus, you're a ruthless bastard."

"Sometimes."

"Don't say it's because you have to be."

"All right. I won't."

Lucas grimaced and returned his haunted gaze to the ground and the scattered remains of Meredith Gilbert.

"It ends this way more often than not." His voice was beyond exhausted. "With a body or what's left of one. Because I wasn't fast enough. Wasn't good enough."

"She was dead an hour after he got his hands on her," Bishop said.

"This time, maybe." Lucas shrugged.

Judging that the time was right, Bishop said, "According to the laws of science, it's impossible to see the future, to know ahead of time what's going to happen next. Impossible to have that sort of edge as an investigator. I don't believe that. I believe that telepathy and empathy, telekinesis and precognition, clairvoyance and all the other so-called paranormal abilities can be tools to give us more than an edge. To make us, maybe, better. To make us faster."

After a moment, Lucas turned his head and met Bishop's steady gaze. "Okay. I'm listening."

Two days later, both looking and feeling considerably better after round-the-clock sleep and a couple of showers, Lucas pushed his plate away, picked up his coffee cup, and said, "You don't have to baby-sit me, you know. I'm not going to bolt on you. I said I'd give your new unit a try, and I will."

"I know that." Bishop sipped his own coffee, then shrugged. "I just figured we might as well get an early start back, since we're heading east. The jet's warmed up and waiting for us."

Brows lifting, Lucas said, "Jet? You rate a Bureau jet?"

Bishop smiled slightly. "It's a private jet."

"You rate a private jet?"

Replying seriously, Bishop said, "I'm trying to do more than build a unit with the FBI. I'm also working on building a civilian support structure, a network of people in and out of law enforcement who believe in what we're trying to accomplish. They'll help us in different ways, including fast and effective transportation."

"Hence the jet."

"Exactly. It's not overhead for the unit or the Bureau and isn't a burden on the taxpayers. Merely a generous contribution from a private citizen who wants to help."

"One of these days," Lucas said, "you're going to have to tell me how all this came about. I am, after all, another man who understands obsession."

"We'll have plenty of time to talk."

Lucas set his cup down, murmuring, "But I wonder if we will."

Bishop didn't reply to that, merely saying, "If you're packed and ready, why don't we go?"

"Before I change my mind?"

"Oh, I don't think you're going to do that. As you say, we both understand obsession."

"Uh-huh. I have a hunch the Bureau doesn't have a clue what they're really getting into."

"Time will tell."

"And if they close us down once they realize?"

"I won't let that happen."

"You know," Lucas said dryly, "I almost believe you."

"Good. Shall we?"

The two men left the small diner and within an hour were in Bishop's rented car on the road to the airport. Not a lot was said at first, and it wasn't until they were nearly there that Bishop finally asked what he had to.

In a very controlled voice, he asked, "Why can't you find her for me?"

Lucas replied immediately, obviously expecting the question. "Because she isn't lost. She's hiding."

"Hiding from me?" The question was clearly a difficult one.

"Only indirectly. You know who she's really hiding from."

"She's afraid. You can feel that."

"Distantly, through you. You two were linked at one time, I gather. Your fear for her is strongest. What I got from her was brief and faint. She's afraid, but she's strong. Very strong. In control."

"She's safe?"

"As safe as she can be." Luke glanced at him. "I can't predict the future. You know that too."

"Yes," Bishop said. "I know that. But somewhere out there is someone who can."

"Then I expect you'll find them," Luke said, returning his attention to the road ahead of them. "Just like you found me."