Hunting Fear

CHAPTER 5

Santa Fe, New Mexico

A place this beautiful," Special Agent Tony Harte said, "should not have a murderess living here."

"You won't get an argument," Bishop said.

"How sure are we that she is living here?"

"Reasonably. The police chief is getting the warrant now."

"So we'll be closing up shop?"

"If we're right about her. And if there are no problems in arresting her."

"Should I pack?" "Did you even unpack?"

"Some of us aren't as good at living out of a suitcase as you are," Tony pointed out.

"Wait until we get word from the chief." Bishop looked up from his computer with a slight frown. "What?"

"Now, see, that isn't supposed to happen. You're a touch telepath, not an open telepath."

"And your face is an open book, never mind that overly casual tone. What's up?"

Tony straddled a chair and faced Bishop across the makeshift conference table in their hotel room. "Nothing good. I just got a tip from a pal back East. He's a journalist. A friend of his is covering the story in North Carolina."

Bishop didn't have to ask which story. "And?"

"The news of a serial kidnapper is about to break."

"Shit."

"It gets worse, boss."

"What else?"

"Samantha Burke."

After a moment, Bishop leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Luke didn't mention her when he reported in yesterday."

"Probably not so surprising."

"No. Not so much."

"Well, what he should have told you is that it seems the sheriff there got all nasty and suspicious of her, so she voluntarily put herself under house arrest in his jail to prove she wasn't a kidnapper."

"Thus alerting the media to the fact that another kidnapping was expected."

"Yep. And confirming that prediction when Detective Graham was taken earlier today." Tony frowned. "So Samantha knew the guy would hit again, and there in Golden. He's been on the move all these months, and now he's staying put? Why?"

Bishop shook his head, frowning.

Tony eyed him, then said, "My pal says the bit about a carnival psychic and her apparently accurate prediction is too good to pass up. It's only a matter of time before images of Zarina in her turban appear on the six o'clock news."

"Naturally. Aside from being colorful, there's also the tempting evidence that future events can be predicted. A lot of people want to believe that."

"Speaking of which, have Luke and Jay confided in the sheriff?"

Shaking his head again, Bishop replied, "They felt he wouldn't be open to the idea of psychic investigators."

"So what happens if Luke's able to connect to the victim? It's not exactly something that would go unnoticed."

"They'll have to wing it. Tell the sheriff only as much as he seems able to accept. He may be more open to it as time goes on. Samantha's prediction of another kidnapping may have at least set the stage."

"Looking for the positive?"

"What choice do I have?"

A little surprised, Tony said, "I seem to recall that the last time Samantha entered the picture, you were a lot more concerned with the credibility issue."

"She's not connected with the unit," Bishop pointed out.

"She wasn't then. Or is there something I don't know about that?"

"There were… possibilities then. That she might join the unit."

"Why didn't she? I mean, it's not as if we have too many seers on the payroll-and if I remember correctly, she's an exceptionally powerful one."

Bishop nodded, but said, "We hadn't built much of a reputation or success record at that point. And we had enemies who would have been quite pleased if the SCU had failed in any sense of the word. The unit was too new then to take the risk of accepting a carnival mystic."

"One mention of a carnival seer on the six o'clock news and we'd be finished?"

"Something like that."

"And now?"

"And now… the situation may have changed, at least as far as the unit's concerned. Maybe we could stand up to that purple turban now. But it may be a moot point where Samantha is concerned."

"Because she's bitter?"

Bishop shrugged. "It could have been better handled."

"What about her and Luke?"

"What about them?"

"Hey, remember who you're talking to, boss? I may not read minds very well, but I'm dandy at picking up emotional vibes- and there were plenty between those two."

"You'd have to ask them about that."

Wryly, Tony said, "The only thing that comforts me about a response like that one is the knowledge that you probably guard my secrets as well as you do everyone else's."

Bishop smiled faintly. "We still have work to do here, Tony."

"So I should shut up and get to it?"

"If you don't mind."

"Not at all," Tony said politely, getting to his feet. Then he paused. "We just wait and see what happens in North Carolina, then?"

"It's Luke's case. He and Jaylene are calling the shots, and neither of them has asked for help."

"Do you expect them to?"

"No. Not unless…"

"Unless?"

"Unless things get a lot worse."

"You have something specific in mind?"

"No."

Tony sighed as he turned away. "You're a lousy liar, boss." But he didn't ask Bishop to explain what he knew or didn't know.

Because it would have been useless, and because Tony wasn't at all sure he wanted to know what the worst might be.

Samantha was aware of being in a vision, as she was always aware, but this one was different. Try as she might, she couldn't turn her head and look around the room in which Lindsay Graham was held captive. It was as though she were a camera fixed on Lindsay's seated, hooded self, on the spotlight illumination that cast everything around the captive woman into deep shadow.

Sam could hear his voice, hear Lindsay's. Hear, somewhere, a faucet dripping. The hum of the fluorescent lights. And she knew what Lindsay was thinking, feeling.

Which was new and more than a little unsettling.

So was the deep cold she felt, a chill so intense it was as if she'd been dropped into a freezer. The sensation was so powerful and her response so visceral that she wondered how Lindsay and her captor couldn't hear her teeth chattering.

"If I'm going to die," Lindsay was saying steadily, "then why not get it over with?"

"I don't have the ransom yet, of course. The good sheriff could demand to see proof of you alive before he pays up."

Samantha knew that Lindsay was thinking about the investigators' conclusion that this wasn't about money, and she felt immensely relieved when the detective didn't mention that.

Instead, Lindsay said, "Okay, then why do I have to die? Why did any of your victims have to die? The ransom was always paid. I certainly can't identify you, and if a cop can't it's not likely any of the others could have."

"Yes, I know."

"You just like killing, is that it?"

"Ah, Lindsay, you just don't get it. I don't kill-"

Samantha opened her eyes with a gasp, so disoriented that for a long moment she had no idea what had happened. Then she realized she was looking at Lindsay's cruiser, the driver's door open, from a distance of several feet. And from ground level.

"What the hell?" she murmured huskily.

"Take it easy," Lucas said. "Don't try to move for a minute."

Ignoring that advice, Samantha turned her head to look up at him, realizing only then that she was sitting on the pavement and that he, kneeling half behind her, was supporting her. Baffled, she looked down to see that he was holding both her hands, his palms covering hers.

"How did I get out of the car?" It was the only specific thing she could think of to ask.

"I pulled you out."

"How long was I-"

"Forty-two minutes," he told her.

"What?" She realized she was stiff, cold. "It can't have been that long."

"It was."

She frowned down at their hands, vaguely aware that her thoughts were scattered, that she wasn't quite back yet. "Why are you holding my hands like that?"

He released one of her hands, and she found herself staring at a ragged white line across her palm. "What the hell is that?"

"It's called frostnip," he said, covering her hand again with his own warm one. "The first stage of frostbite."

"What?" Was that the only word she knew? "It must be eighty-five degrees out here."

"Nearly ninety," Sheriff Metcalf said.

Samantha jerked her head around in the other direction to see the sheriff and Jaylene standing nearby. He had his arms folded across his chest and looked both skeptical and suspicious. Jaylene was, as usual, serene.

"Hi," Samantha said. "Almost ninety?"

He nodded.

"Then how the hell do I have the beginning of frostbite?"

"You don't know?" he demanded sardonically.

"I'm cold, but-"

"You were holding the steering wheel," Lucas said. "The frost-nip is exactly where it would have been if the wheel had been frozen."

She looked back up at him, then swore under her breath and struggled to sit upright without his help. He let her go without protest but remained kneeling where he was as she twisted around so she could see all three of them.

Flexing her fingers, she realized that the white streaks across her palms were numb.

"Tuck your hands under your arms," Lucas advised. "You have to warm the area."

Samantha badly wanted to get up off the ground and stand on her own two feet but had a feeling that if she tried that too soon, she'd only find herself leaning heavily on Lucas for support. So she crossed her arms over her breasts and tucked her hands underneath to help warm them.

"It doesn't make sense," she told him, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. "It wasn't cold there. Lindsay wasn't cold. So why would I-"

"Lindsay?" Metcalf took a step toward her, then brought himself up short.

Perfectly aware that while he was eager to hear about Lindsay he was unlikely to believe what Samantha told him, she said,

"She's okay, at least for now. Tied to a chair and wearing some kind of hood over her head, but okay. She was even talking to him. Trying to find a weakness she could use."

"Sounds like her," Metcalf said, again almost involuntarily.

"Did you see or hear anything helpful?" Jaylene asked.

"I don't think so. There was a kind of spotlight over the chair so the rest of the room was in shadow. I never saw him, and his voice was so… bland… I doubt I'd recognize it if he spoke to me right now."

"Did you get a sense of the place?" Lucas asked.

Samantha tried hard to concentrate, to remember. "Not really. The hum of the lights, a faucet dripping, the sort of deadened echo you get in an underground room with a lot of hard surfaces."

"Underground?"

"I think so. It felt that way."

"You didn't see any windows?"

"No. Nothing reflective. Just that light shining down on her, and the rest of the room in shadows."

"What else?"

"She was asking him why he killed his victims when they couldn't identify him. He started to answer her, saying she didn't understand, that he didn't kill-something. But I never heard the end of what he was saying, I guess because you pulled me out."

His tone more one of explanation than of excuse, Lucas said, "You were white as a sheet and shivering, and you had a death grip on that steering wheel. It didn't look like a normal vision to me."

Metcalf snorted. "Normal vision?"

Samantha ignored him, saying to Lucas, "It didn't feel like a normal one. I couldn't seem to move, to look anywhere else but at Lindsay. That's never happened before."

Lucas nodded, but instead of commenting got to his feet and helped her up. "We still need a place to start. If you didn't see or hear anything helpful-"

Remembering, Samantha said, "He told Lindsay he didn't have any connection to this town, that it was one reason he felt safe in sticking around. But he has to be living somewhere. And there must be a place he kept Callahan and where he has Lindsay now. If I had to guess, I'd say you're looking for at least two different places. Where he lives, and where he keeps them."

"Somewhere private," Lucas said. "Where he can hold his victims without too much fear of discovery."

Jaylene said, "Sounds like a place to start."

Still looking at Lucas, Samantha said, "That's what you asked for. And it's all I can do. I don't see any reason for me to return to the sheriff's department. So, if you wouldn't mind dropping me back at the carnival before you get started with your search, I'd appreciate it."

Metcalf said, "To get ready for tonight's show, I suppose."

"That is how I make my living."

"Cheating people. Lying to them."

Samantha sighed. "Sheriff, I'm trying hard to make allowances for someone who's ignorant of what he's talking about and worried half out of his mind because someone he cares about is missing. But right now, I'm cold, I'm tired, my hands are beginning to hurt, and I really don't give a shit what you think. So why don't you concentrate on doing your job and finding Lindsay and just leave me the hell alone."

Metcalf turned on his heel and stalked back toward his cruiser.

"Way to get local law enforcement on your side," Jaylene murmured.

"I don't care if he's on my side."

Lucas was eyeing her thoughtfully. "You usually don't go out of your way to antagonize them, though."

"Usually? There's no usually, Luke, at least not that you know. It's been more than three years since you were any part of my life. Things change. People change. Now, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to get back to the carnival."

"You should see a doctor about your hands."

"Ellis is still an LPN, and I'll see her."

Jaylene said, "I guess one of us can collect your stuff back at the station and drop it off at your motel first chance we get."

"That'll be fine."

Silently, Lucas gestured toward his rental, and all three went to the car. Samantha got in the back and was silent, staring out the window, all the way to the fairgrounds. Once there, she merely said, "Thanks for the ride," and got out before either of them could say anything.

Watching the other woman walk away, Jaylene said, "I think I should be the one to gather up Sam's stuff."

"You think you'll pick up something?"

"I think she's acting strangely. And I think you think the same thing."

"Maybe. She's right, though-it's been years. Maybe neither one of us knows Samantha at all now."

"And maybe there's something specific she doesn't want us to know."

Lucas frowned. "Her whole attitude seemed to change once she had that vision. You think she saw something she didn't tell us about?"

"I think I want to touch her belongings and see if I can pick up anything. And I think we've got some long, hard hours ahead of us trying to find Lindsay."

"Yeah." With an effort, Lucas pushed Samantha out of his mind and turned the car back toward town.

Leo spotted Samantha and met her halfway up the mostly deserted midway. "Hey."

"Hey. Did the sheriff arrest anybody, or was Jay able to stop him?"

"Well, between us we managed to convince him he was wasting valuable time here."

"That must have been fun."

"The high point of my day." Leo studied her and said more seriously, "My guess is that your day was even worse."

"I'll have to tell you about it sometime. At the moment, though, I need to see Ellis. Is she around?"

"Yeah, in her caravan. You sick?"

Samantha showed him her palms. "Just a bit dented."

"How the hell'd you do that?"

"Long story. Leo, I want to open my booth tonight."

Both his bushy eyebrows lifted. "You sure? I mean, we've had tons of interest, even with your poster not out on the marquee, but-"

"Put it out, please. My hours tonight will be from seven until. I'll see as many as I can."

"And when the reporters show up asking to speak to you?"

Her smile was wry. "Tell 'em to buy a ticket like everybody else."

"I'll love the publicity," he said frankly, "but are you sure, Sam? What's good for the carnival isn't necessarily good for you, we both know that."

"I'll be fine."

"You look tired already," he pointed out. "After three or four hours of readings, you'll be half dead."

"As long as I'm half alive." Samantha shrugged. "Don't worry about me, Leo. Just pass the word that my booth will be open tonight, please. I'll see you later."

"Hey, try to take a nap or something before tonight, will you?"

"I will," Samantha lied. She continued on past Leo, heading for the line of RVs parked off to one side of the midway and colorful collection of booths, rides, and tents. She knocked on the door of one RV whose protective awning was hung with multiple wind chimes and whirligigs and, when she received a response, went inside.

"How was the voluntary jail time?" Ellis Langford was at least sixty-five but looked twenty years younger, an improbable redhead with a still-head-turning figure. And she dressed to turn heads.

"Bearable," Samantha replied with a shrug.

"Even with Luke Jordan there?"

"Him being there didn't change a thing."

"Don't tell me what you think I want to hear, Sam, tell me the truth."

Samantha grimaced. "Okay, then. It was hell. That's the truth. Half the time I wanted to scream and throw things at him, and the other half…"

"You wanted to find the nearest bed?"

Without replying to that, Samantha thrust out her hands, palms up. "I'm told this is frostnip. What should I do about it?"

Ellis studied her hands, brows rising. "Is the feeling coming back?"

"A bit. Tingling. Sort of an ache."

Ellis went into the kitchen area of her RV and filled a large pot with warm water. Then she returned to the living area and instructed Samantha to sit down and immerse her hands in the water.

Sitting obediently with warm water up to her wrists, Samantha said, "How long do I have to do this?"

"Do you have somewhere else to be?"

"Not immediately. But I want to get my booth ready to open."

Ellis sat down across from Samantha and picked up her knitting. What she was knitting looked rather like a tulip-shaped vase. Samantha didn't ask what it was supposed to be; Ellis was famous for presenting friends with odd knitted things, and Sam already had quite a collection of tea cozies, caps, paperback dustcovers, and various other colorful accessories.

"So you'll be reading tonight?"

"I thought I would."

Needles clicking, her hazel eyes fixed on Samantha, Ellis said, "You think he's coming back, don't you?"

"Maybe you should be the one doing the readings."

"No, I don't have your gift for reading strangers. I read people I know. And I know you. Why do you think he'11 come back here, Sam?"

"Because he likes carnivals well enough to have been here at least twice; much as I love this place, one visit usually satisfies anybody over the age of twelve." With a shrug, she added, "And because he doesn't know about me yet."

"I don't suppose you've mentioned that to Luke."

"It didn't come up."

Ellis shook her head slightly. "Sam, we've had reporters nosing around here the last couple of days. Leo took down your posters, but even so a few photographers got pictures. What if this maniac sees you on the six o'clock news? He'll definitely know about you then."

"I don't think he watches the news. I think he watches Luke."

"Willing to bet your life on that?"

Samantha shrugged again. "The life of a cop I happen to like can be measured now in hours. If Lindsay isn't found by late tomorrow afternoon, she'll be found dead. The other cops are doing their thing. Luke is doing his, or trying to. The only thing I can do is what I can do. Open my booth and do readings, and hope he shows up."

"For a reading? Would he be that reckless?"

"Depends. He might be curious, the way most people are. If I'm for real. If I can sense what he's up to."

"And if you can?"

"Then I'll do my damnedest not to let him know I know while I memorize his face and try to gather all the information I can from him."

"Dangerous."

"Not if I keep my wits about me."

"Even if. And do you really believe he'd leave someone he kidnapped alone while he visits a carnival?"

"Yes." With a frown, Samantha added, "I don't know why I believe that, but I do. If Luke hadn't pulled me out of that car, I might have seen more, heard more, picked up something to tell me who the bastard is."

Reading between the lines-something she was good at-Ellis said, "Ah. So the frostnip is from the steering wheel?"

"Yeah."

"And since Luke pulled you out of the car-"

"I won't pick up anything by touching it a second time, at least not for a while. Somebody explained it to me once. Something about tapping into and releasing electromagnetic energy. It's like static. Touch something metallic once, and you get shocked; touch it again right away and you don't, because the energy's already been discharged. You have to walk around on the carpet in your socks and let the static build up again." She frowned. "Or something like that."

"You don't really care how it works, do you?"

"Not so much. It is what it is."

"Mmm. But you did pick up enough to believe the kidnapper likes carnivals."

Samantha looked down at her hands, absently moving them in the water. "I think he likes games. And right now, we're the only other game in Golden."

"The other one being Catch Me if You Can?"

"I don't think it's even that. I think it's I'm Smarter than You Are."

"Than who is?"

"Luke."

"I hope you told him that, at least."

"I did. He wasn't happy."

"I can imagine. Word is, this kidnapper has more than a dozen victims to his credit, all but one of them dead. If it's all just been a game…"

"Nightmarish, yeah."

"Certainly not easy to live with. Even if it was beyond your control."

Samantha frowned and lifted her hands out of the water. "The water's cooling. And my hands are tingling and itching like crazy."

Ellis put her knitting aside and went to refill the pot with fresh warm water, saying, "Once more, and then you should be okay. Your hands'll probably tingle and itch for a while, though."

Sighing, Samantha plunged her hands back into warm water. "You don't seem surprised that I got frostnipped by a vision," she commented.

"I've seen enough over the years to know that your visions are pretty damned real. So, no, not very surprised. But what was cold in the vision? Where she's being kept?"

"No. She wasn't cold at all. But almost the instant the vision snapped into focus, I was freezing."

"Why, do you think?"

"I don't know."

"The universe trying to tell you something, maybe?"

"Well, he's not holding her at the North Pole, I know that much."

"Stop being so literal-minded."

"I'm always literal-minded, you know that. It comes from a lack of imagination."

"You do not lack imagination. You just have a practical streak about a yard wide, that's all."

Samantha shrugged. "Whatever."

"Think about it, Sam. If she wasn't in a cold place, then what caused the frostnip? When you think of that sort of bone-deep cold, what else do you think of?"

"I don't know. Something empty. Bottomless. Something dark." She paused, then added reluctantly, "Death. It felt like death."

Lucas would have been the first to admit that what they were doing was searching for a very fine needle in a huge haystack, but that didn't stop him from trying to find it.

Her.

All afternoon, as they sifted through property records and rental agreements supplied by local realtors, he tried to reach out mentally and emotionally, to connect with Lindsay.

Nothing.

"I knew she had a lot of self-control," he told Jaylene as the late afternoon grew gloomy and thunder rumbled in the mountains all around them. "She's the type who won't want to show any fear at all. Which means that as long as she's hiding it from him, she's also hiding it from me."

Jaylene, knowing what was on his mind without any need of psychic ability, said, "There's no way we could have known she'd be taken, Luke."

"Still. If we'd told Wyatt and Lindsay about our abilities- mine, at least-then maybe she'd be trying to reach out to me instead of damping down the fear."

"Maybe. And maybe not. Chances are they'd never have believed us anyway. Wyatt's still convinced Sam makes a living conning people."

"The badge makes a difference. You know that." His mouth twisted. "Credibility."

"I say it was the right call at the time."

"We'll never know, will we?"

"Look, we're making some progress here." Jaylene tapped the legal pad on the table in front of her. "The list of likely properties is fairly long, but at least it's manageable. The question is, can we cover them all before tomorrow afternoon? And how do we persuade Wyatt that having his people storm these places is not the best way to go?"

"He won't do anything to further endanger Lindsay."

"No, I won't," Metcalf said as he came into the room. He looked a bit haggard, but calm. "What is it you don't want me to do?"

"Storm these places," Lucas replied readily. "They need to be checked out, one at a time, but quietly, Wyatt. If we get lucky and find him, we can't forget he has a hostage he could use to hold us off for a long time. We have to be careful, approach every area with all possible caution so he isn't alerted. That means we can't send your deputies searching on their own unless you're very, very sure they know what they're doing and will follow their orders to the letter."

The sheriff considered, then said, "I have, maybe, half a dozen people I'm absolutely sure of. They have the training and experience to do this right, and none of them will panic or jump the gun. They'll follow orders."

"We've got a lengthy list of possibilities," Lucas told him. "All of them remote properties with plenty of privacy."

"Because Zarina says that's where he'll be."

"Because common sense says she's right. He might have taken advantage of abandoned property somewhere, but it would be risking someone showing up and discovering him, and I don't believe he'd do that. If he doesn't have a connection to Golden-and right now, that's all we've got to narrow the search-then chances are good that he leased, rented, or purchased property sometime before Mitchell Callahan was kidnapped and since the victim just before him, two months ago in Georgia."

Jaylene murmured, "Unless he's been planning this a lot longer than we know and got the property anything up to a couple of years ago."

"Oh, hell, don't even suggest that," Lucas said, so immediately that it was obvious he'd been thinking along similar lines. "We have to go with the most likely possibility, and the most likely is that he got the property fairly recently, over the summer."

"We move a lot of property in the summer," Metcalf noted.

"Which is why the list isn't a short one."

Jaylene checked her watch, then listened to yet another rumble of thunder. "It won't be easy if the weather's against us, but I say we get started whether it storms or not. We don't have much day-light left either way-but I don't think we should wait for dawn."

The sheriff had brought in a large county map, which Lucas unrolled on the conference table, and all three bent over it. Within forty-five minutes, they had all the properties on their list marked in red on the map.

"All over Clayton County," Metcalf said with a sigh. "And some of these places are remote as hell. Even with all the luck we can muster, we'll be hard-pressed to check out every location by five o'clock tomorrow."

"Then we'd better get to it," Jaylene suggested. "Wyatt, if you want to call in the deputies you trust to help, Luke and I will start dividing up the list. Three teams, I think?"

He nodded and left the conference room.

Jaylene watched her partner as he frowned down at the map. "Getting anything?"

His eyes moved restlessly from red mark to red mark, and half under his breath he murmured, "Come on, Lindsay, talk to me."

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than Jaylene saw him go pale and suck in a sudden breath, his eyes taking on a curiously flat shine. It was something with which she was familiar, but it never failed to send a little chill down her spine.

"Luke?"

Still gazing at the map, he said slowly, "It's gone now. But for just an instant I think I connected. It was like… she felt a jolt of absolute, wordless terror."

"Where?" Jaylene asked.

"Here." He indicated a handsbreadth area in the western part of the county. "Somewhere here."

The area covered at least twenty square miles of the roughest terrain in the county and held nearly a dozen of their red marks.

"Okay," Jaylene said. "That's where you and I start looking."