Sense Of Evil

16

ISABEL STUDIED THE NOTE and then nodded, passing it on to Hollis and Mallory. “It looks like a sketch of handcuffs to me. Sort of stylized, the way an artist would maybe do it, which could be one reason we missed it. Nice catch, Ginny.”

“I should have caught that,” Hollis said, more to herself than to the others, and in a tone that struck her own ears as wistful.

“You’re just all a little preoccupied,” Ginny murmured.

“Good thing you aren’t,” Isabel told her. “Okay, a paralegal might have doodled handcuffs, I suppose, but having them on this particular note has got to mean something more than absentmindedness. It’s one more indication Tricia Kane was involved, or looking to get involved, with Jamie Brower.”

Hollis said, “Any chance Jamie might have trusted Tricia with that box we so badly want to see?”

Isabel started to reply, then looked at Rafe. “What do you think?”

“I’m not the profiler.”

“Off the top of your head. What do you think?”

“No,” he heard himself reply, and frowned as he went on slowly. “Jamie wouldn’t have trusted that box with anyone else-unless it was the partner who saw her unmasked.”

“Very good,” Isabel said. “And my feeling as well. That box is either stored somewhere Jamie considered safe, or kept by someone she really, really trusted. And we know by now that she didn’t trust many people.”

Hollis produced the Eyes Only file and opened it to study the photographs. It didn’t take long for her to reach a conclusion and close the folder. “This isn’t Tricia Kane. For one thing, she had a couple of moles on one arm that would have shown up in the photos. For another, unless the photos were taken months ago, there wouldn’t have been time for her hair to grow out.”

“But you can’t see her hair in the photos because of that hood,” Ginny objected. Then she blinked. And blushed. “Oh. That hair.”

Isabel smiled at her. “Why don’t you go make a few copies of Tricia’s note so we can bag the original. And then I really do think we all need to call it a day. Start fresh in the morning.”

As soon as Ginny was out of the room, Isabel said to Rafe, “I’m going to go talk to her. Be right back.”

“Okay.”

“Did I miss something?” Mallory wondered when Isabel had gone.

“We’ll be arresting Hank McBrayer,” Rafe told her. “Assault charges filed by his daughter.”

Mallory looked blank for a moment, then scowled. “Son of a bitch. I’d heard talk, but Ginny never said anything.”

“Most victims of abuse don’t,” Hollis said. To Rafe, she asked, “Is Isabel going to try to convince her to stay in a hotel tonight?”

“She’s going to try to convince her to let you two and a couple of officers go back to her house with a warrant for her father’s arrest and get him out of there tonight.”

“Can we do that?” Mallory asked.

“Yes. I called the judge from the car. The paperwork’s almost ready.”

Mallory was still frowning. “Why Isabel and Hollis? I mean, why not just send a couple of our officers? I’ll volunteer. Since I hate bullies just on principle, I’d love to accidentally break McBrayer’s arm while he’s resisting arrest.”

“So would I,” Rafe said. “But it was Isabel and Hollis who realized what was going on and talked to Ginny about it, and Isabel and I both feel Ginny will be more comfortable if they’re along for the arrest.” He hesitated, then said, “Plus, I think Isabel has something else in mind.”

Hollis looked at him. “Do you, now? Like what?”

“Assuming he’s sober enough to listen, I think she intends to take him down a peg or two. Without laying a finger on him.”

“If anybody can,” Hollis said, “it’s Isabel. Guys look at that beautiful face and centerfold body, all that blond hair, big green eyes all wide and innocent, and think they know exactly what she is. Boy, do they get a surprise.”

“I certainly did,” Rafe murmured.

“Speaking of which,” Hollis said. “Are you?”

He didn’t have to ask what she meant. “Apparently.”

Hollis whistled. “Dunno whether to say congratulations or sorry about that.”

“I’ll let you know when I figure out how I feel about it.”

Mallory said, “Hello? What’s going on? Are you what?”

“Psychic.”

She blinked. “You’re psychic?”

“So I’m told.”

“How could you be and not know?”

“The short answer,” Hollis said, “is that he always was, but it was an inactive ability, so he wasn’t aware of it. I think we talked about latents when we first got here. Rafe, as it turns out, was a latent. Something happened to activate his abilities.”

“What?”

Hollis lifted her brows at Rafe.

“Damned if I know. She-I was told it could have been some kind of subconscious shock, which I suppose it had to be since I don’t recall any consciously shocking or traumatic events in my life recently. Other than this killer.”

“No bump on the head?” Hollis asked. “Concussion?”

“No,” he said. “Never, in fact.”

Mallory eyed him somewhat warily. “So what can you do?”

“Not a whole hell of a lot. Yet, anyway. The consensus seems to be I am-or will be-clairvoyant.”

“Like Isabel? Just knowing stuff?”

“More or less.”

“And that doesn’t scare the shit out of you?”

“Did you hear me say it didn’t?”

“No.”

“Well, then.”

Mallory leaned back in her chair, tipped her head back, and addressed the ceiling-and whatever lay beyond. “A few weeks ago, I led a perfectly ordinary existence. No killers. No spooky psychic abilities. Nothing on my mind more weighty than which kind of takeout I wanted for my supper. Those were the days. I’m sorry now I didn’t appreciate them.” She sighed and looked at the others. “I must be paying off karma for a really, really bad decision in a former life.”

“You must be?” Rafe shook his head.

Isabel returned to the room before the discussion could continue, saying, “We have a slight change of plan. Hollis, we’re going to swing by Ginny’s on the way back to the inn and pick up her mother; both of them will be staying there tonight.”

“Hank’s out on the town?” Rafe guessed.

“Yeah. Seems he often spends Sunday afternoons and evenings drinking in an undisclosed location with others of… like temperament.”

Rafe sighed. “Yeah, we have a few basement bars in the county. Unlicensed, unregulated, and highly mobile. They tend to change location more often than they wash the glasses.”

“Well, apparently Mr. McBrayer has a semiregular habit of drinking all evening and passing out somewhere between the bar and home. Or at the bar, sometimes. In any case, he seldom makes it home on Sunday nights. But on the off chance that tonight would be one of those nights, I’ve persuaded Ginny to get her mother and come stay at the inn.”

“I’ll have all the patrols keep an eye out for him tonight,” Rafe said. “If they don’t spot him, we’ll catch up with him tomorrow.”

“Good, thanks.” Isabel frowned slightly.

“I’ve also arranged to have all single female officers escorted home and their places checked out before they lock up for the night,” Rafe said. “And each is under orders to wait for two male officers to meet them tomorrow morning, if they’re on duty, to be escorted back here.”

“You’re reaching through again,” Isabel said.

“I am?”

“I was just thinking about Mallory’s report that some of the female officers feel they’ve been watched or followed and wondering what we should do to help protect those most likely to be at risk if it’s our killer-the single ones in the right age range. Don’t tell me you read that on my face. I may not be subtle, but I’m not a damned billboard.”

Mallory looked at Hollis, who shrugged.

“They’ve got me, too, this time.”

Rafe hesitated, then shrugged. “You looked worried; I wondered why; I knew.”

Isabel frowned again. “Okay. Now I’m worried about something else.”

Peculiarly enough, Rafe found this answer coming as easily as the one before had, just knowledge in his mind. “Sorry. Since neither one of us knows who the killer is, I don’t have a solution for your worry.”

“It was,” Isabel said, “more fun being the clairvoyant one.”

“Yeah, I can see how it would have been.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Not all of it. Just… some of it.”

“I know gloating when I see it. I don’t need extra senses for that.”

“Good thing too. Since yours are all boxed up, I mean.”

Straightening her shoulders, Isabel said, “I’m leaving now. We’re going to borrow a patrol to go with us just in case Hank McBrayer shows up unexpectedly while Ginny and her mother are packing overnight bags. If that’s okay with you, of course.”

“Fine,” Rafe said, his tone as polite as hers.

“Great. We’ll see you guys bright and early in the morning. Hollis?”

Her partner rose obediently and followed her from the room. As she passed Rafe, Hollis murmured, “You’re a lot smarter than you look.”

“Christ, I hope so,” he responded, equally low.

When the two agents had gone, Mallory looked at Rafe. “Do you know what I’m worried about?”

He frowned at her. “No. Not a clue.”

“So it only works with Isabel?”

“Apparently. So far, anyway.”

“Um, then I’m worried about two things.”

“What’s the other thing?”

“We’ve now got an awful lot of people watching an awful lot of women while we try to anticipate this killer’s next move; what worries me is that he may have changed the rules.”

It was nearly midnight when Emily Brower’s bedside phone rang, and she was more than half asleep when she fumbled hastily to answer it before it could wake her parents.

“Yeah. Hello?” She listened for several minutes, then said sleepily, “Okay, but-now? Why now? Yeah, I understand that, but- Right. Right, okay. Give me ten minutes.”

She cradled the receiver, then pushed back her covers and sat up, muttering, “Shit, shit, shit.”

It didn’t take her more than a couple of minutes to exchange her sleep shirt for jeans and a T-shirt and slide her feet into a worn and comfortable pair of clogs.

Her parents slept like the dead, especially these days with the aid of various sedatives, so she didn’t hesitate to leave her bedroom and walk down the lamplit hall, down the stairs, and out the front door, snagging her car keys from the foyer table.

She wasn’t surprised not to see the customary patrol car parked across the street, since she’d heard it fire up its sirens and speed away sometime before her phone had rung. An accident somewhere, she assumed.

And, anyway, the reporters always left by dark or shortly after, so there was no good reason for the patrol car to stay out there all night. She’d meant to call the police station and ask the chief or one of the agents about it but kept forgetting.

Shrugging off the question, Emily got in her car and backed it out of the driveway. She knew the way, of course, and hadn’t thought much about it until she was almost there. But by the time she parked her car off the side of the road and got out, she was beginning to feel more than a little uneasy.

She got a flashlight from the glove box and carried it to light her way, feeling a surge of relief when she reached the clearing and the light turned the shadowy outline of a person into someone she knew.

“I don’t understand what I can show you out here,” she said immediately. “And this is creepy, in case you hadn’t realized it. We might not have been close, but still-this is where my sister was murdered.”

“I know, Emily. She was quite a woman. Very intelligent. It’s a pity you aren’t.”

“What?” Emily moved her hand, the flashlight’s beam cutting through the hot, humid night. And that was when she saw the knife.

She tried to scream, but only her killer heard the bloody gurgle that emerged as she was nearly decapitated.

Monday, June 16, 7:00 AM

When the phone rang, he rolled over in bed and had the cordless receiver in his hand even before his eyes opened.

And even before his eyes opened, he smelled it.

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got another one, Chief.” It was Mallory, her voice bleak.

Still holding the receiver to his ear with his left hand, he held out the right one and stared at it in the early-morning light streaming into his bedroom.

His hand was stained with blood.

“Where?” he asked.

“Isabel was right when she said he’d probably start taunting us. He used the same place. As far as I can tell from the report that came in, the victim is exactly where Jamie Brower died. I’m on my way there now.”

“Who is it? Who’s the victim?”

“It’s Emily. Jamie’s sister.”

“Goddammit, where was the patrol watching her?” Rafe demanded, sitting up in bed.

“They were pulled away from her house last night at about eleven-thirty and were only away a couple of hours. A traffic accident with fatalities.”

Rafe drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Which takes precedence over watchdog duty.”

“Yeah. As per standing orders.”

He shoved the covers away and got out of bed, heading for the bathroom. “Have you called Isabel?”

“Not yet. I only took the report instead of you because I went into the office a bit earlier than usual. I couldn’t sleep past six, so I just came in.”

“I thought I ordered you to accept an escort.”

“You suggested, just like you suggested it for Stacy, the only other female detective in the department. We both passed. She’s a black belt, and I can take care of myself. And neither one of us is a blonde. You want me to call Isabel?”

“Yeah. Have them meet us at the scene. I’m on my way.”

“Right.”

He turned off the phone and literally dropped it on the bathroom rug, immediately turning on the water and washing his hands in the hottest water he could stand.

Again.

Jesus Christ, again.

The gnawing fear that had been with him for so long was less acute this time, and he understood why. Because this morning he knew something he hadn’t known all the other mornings.

This morning, he knew there was something new and unfamiliar going on in his brain, and it wasn’t homicidal madness.

It was psychic ability.

You could be calling me rude names in your head or worrying about some deep dark secret you don’t want anybody to know, and I wouldn’t necessarily read that either.

Deep, dark secret. That’s what it had been all this time, a secret fear buried so deep he had almost been able to forget about it during the bright, sane light of day. Almost.

He was no killer. He knew that. He had known that all along, even with the fear that something inside him might have been capable of such acts.

But if he was no killer, then why had he been waking up with blood on his hands for nearly three weeks?

Yesterday morning, he hadn’t had a clue. This morning…

Rafe thought he was beginning to understand what was going on-though he only had a hunch as to why. And he thought he understood why his shield was so strong that it not only enclosed Isabel but also blocked her.

Gripping the sides of the sink, he stared into the mirror at his unshaven face and haunted eyes. “I have to be able to control this,” he murmured.

Because he couldn’t keep blocking Isabel, not even to keep her from knowing his secret fears, his self-doubts and uncertainties, all the demons a man carried inside him if he lived long enough and saw too much. In shutting that away from her, he had both shut her out and imprisoned her.

Imprisoned her abilities, the extra senses that could be all that was standing between her and a killer.

Isabel stood just inside the area blocked off with yellow crime-scene tape, her hands on her hips, grimly studying the clearing.

“Jesus, I don’t know where to start,” T.J. said as she and Dustin arrived with their crime-scene kits.

“Follow procedure,” Isabel advised.

Eyeing the ME, who was examining the body, Dustin said, “Even Doc looks queasy. And he was a state medical examiner, until he got tired of the parade of bodies.”

T.J. murmured, “Bet he’s sorry he chose Hastings to finish out his professional life.”

“I’m having second thoughts myself,” Dustin told her.

“I know what you mean. Come on, let’s get to work.”

Hollis joined Isabel as the two technicians moved away, saying, “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. I lost my breakfast the first three times I was called to an early murder scene.”

“I’ll remember that. Next time. I thought I could handle something like this, especially after a couple of weeks of classes at the body farm. But, Christ…”

“Yeah, he made a real mess this time.” Isabel half turned as Mallory joined them. “I’m betting her car’s clean, though.”

Mallory nodded. “Looks like it. It’ll be towed back to the station so T.J. and Dustin can go over it thoroughly, but the only difference I noticed is that she didn’t leave her purse in it.”

Isabel said, “If the doctor confirms that she died around midnight, then she’d have had to leave her house just after the patrol was called away for that accident. Maybe she left in a hurry and didn’t even bring a purse.”

“Had to be to meet someone,” Hollis said. “You’re a twenty-something blonde in a town where twenty-something blondes are being killed, including your own sister, and you go out alone near midnight? She was either very stupid or really trusted whoever she went to meet. Or both, if you ask me.”

Isabel looked at Mallory. “When we were in her home, I didn’t get any sense of a steady boyfriend.”

“Far as I know, she didn’t have one. Dated, but never anybody serious.”

Hollis shook her head. “Who could she possibly trust enough to meet, around midnight, at the scene of her sister’s murder?”

“And why?” Isabel mused, frowning. “The only reason I can think of is that someone must have told her she could help by coming out here so late. That there was something out here she needed to see, and after dark. If that’s true, I can’t see any possible answer as to who called her out here except-”

“-a cop,” Mallory said. “Has to be.”

Hollis looked around at the police technicians and the dozen or so uniformed officers searching the area surrounding the crime scene and in various positions between this clearing and the rest stop at the highway, which had also been roped off, and sighed. “Great. That’s just great.”

“We still can’t rule out some other authority figure,” Isabel reminded them. “For that matter, we can’t rule out a member of the media. Who’s to say some reporter didn’t offer Emily a nice big chunk of cash to meet out here where her sister was killed? And being here well after dark was the only real guarantee a passing patrol wouldn’t see them, since we’ve had all these areas under watch. Her car was well off the road and behind that thicket, so either the killer moved it there afterward or told Emily to park there to avoid being seen by a passing patrol.”

“But a reporter? For a story?” Hollis said. “That’s sick. Would Emily have gone for something like that?”

“To step out of Jamie’s shadow? I’m thinking yes.”

“That might explain this,” Mallory said, “but what about the other victims? Could a reporter have lured them out of their cars and into the woods?”

Hollis said, “You know, maybe we’re making a giant assumption that he does it the same way every time. He could be gearing his approach to each woman individually. Isabel, you and Bishop both believe he has to get to know his victims. Maybe this is why. To find the right bait for each catch.”

Isabel looked at her for a moment, then said, “If you ever feel useless in an investigation, remember this moment. Damn. Why didn’t I see that?”

Hollis was pleased, but nevertheless said, “You’ve had a lot on your plate.”

“Still.” Isabel took a step toward the body, then stopped and turned back. The other two women also turned to watch as Rafe approached them from the highway. He looked grim, and on a face as rugged as his, grim was an expression to make even the bravest soul take a step back.

Isabel met him halfway.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I got held up at the station.”

“What else has happened?” she demanded, reaching out without thinking to touch his hand.

His fingers immediately twined with hers. “The accident that pulled the patrol away from the Brower house,” he said. “There were two fatalities.”

“I’d heard that much.” She waited, knowing there was more.

“Hank McBrayer was one of them,” Rafe said flatly. “He was driving too fast, drunk, and apparently crossed over the center line. Hit the oncoming car head-on. The other victim was a sixty-five-year-old grandmother.”

“Jesus,” Isabel said. “Poor Ginny. This is going to eat her alive.”

“I know. I’ve got the department counselor with her and her mother now.” He glanced past her at the taped-off crime-scene area.

“He was incredibly vicious this time,” Isabel warned. “He cut her throat, probably first, and with enough force to nearly sever her head. And then he started to enjoy himself.”

Without releasing her hand, Rafe continued toward the crime scene. “Has the doc offered his preliminary report yet?”

“No, but I think he’s about to.”

They ducked under the tape that Mallory and Hollis automatically held up for them.

“If nobody minds,” Hollis said, “I think I’ll stand right here. I’ve seen all I want to.”

Nobody objected, and as they walked toward the body, Isabel murmured, “Hollis is dealing with her own guilt. She saw Jamie again, last night in the conference room, obviously desperately trying to say something.”

“And Hollis couldn’t hear her.”

“No. At the end, Jamie was so frustrated she apparently focused enough energy to scare the hell out of Hollis by scattering half the paperwork on the table across the room.”

Rafe looked at her, frowning. “I seem to remember you telling me something like that would be unusual.”

“Oh, yeah. Jamie was a very strong lady. And she was trying very, very hard to communicate. She must have known her sister would be the next victim. Which is another indication to me that Emily knew something dangerous to the killer.”

“You don’t believe she was killed just because she fit the victim profile?”

“No. She was too young, I think. Not successful enough for his tastes. I also think she would have died no matter what color her hair was. Emily snooped in her sister’s life, and it got her killed.”

“And we still have a reporter missing.”

“Who may also have found out something dangerous to the killer,” Isabel said.

They stopped several feet from where Dr. James was still examining the body, and Rafe muttered an oath as he saw her up close for the first time.

Isabel didn’t respond to that. Neither did Mallory. There wasn’t much they could say.

Emily Brower lay sprawled out almost exactly as her sister had lain and almost exactly three weeks afterward. The slash across her throat was so deep the white vertebra of her neck was visible, and the gaping wound had literally drenched her in blood. Her once-pale T-shirt was soaked with it, and her blond hair lay in a pool of congealing blood and dirt.

“You were right about the escalation,” Rafe said, his deep voice raspier than normal. “That son of a bitch. Sick, evil, twisted animal…”

The killer hadn’t just murdered Emily, hadn’t just repeatedly stabbed her breasts and genitals as he had the previous three victims. It looked as if he had stabbed her once in each breast-but had twisted and turned the knife as though trying to bore holes through her body.

And rather than stabbing her genitals through her clothing, he had pulled her jeans and panties down around her ankles, pulled her knees up and pushed them apart, and used the knife to rape her.

“If it helps,” Isabel said, holding her voice steady, “she never felt that. Never knew about it.”

“For her sake I’m glad,” Rafe said. “But it doesn’t help.”

Dr. James straightened and came to join them, his face very, very tired. “Anything you need me to tell you that you can’t see for yourself?” he asked wearily.

“Time of death?” Rafe asked.

“Midnight, give or take a few minutes. She died almost instantly with both the jugular and the windpipe slashed. Blood gushed like a fountain, the last few beats of her heart pumping it out as she fell. He didn’t touch her face, but he used something heavy to crush her skull in two places once she was on the ground.”

“Why?” Mallory wondered, baffled. “She was already dead, and he had to know it.”

“Rage,” Isabel and Rafe said in almost the same breath.

She added, “He had to make certain she couldn’t see him. Couldn’t see his sexual failure.”

“He knew before he tried that he’d fail,” Rafe said.

Isabel nodded. “He knew. Maybe he’s always known.”

The doctor looked at them rather curiously but continued with his report in a monotone. “She fell backward, and he didn’t move her much. Spread her arms out to the sides, judging by the abrasions I found on the backs of her arms. Fanned her hair out and then pressed it into the pool of blood around her head. God knows why. I don’t.”

“What else?” Rafe asked.

“What you see. Did his best to gouge out her breasts, then brutalized her with the knife. It was a big knife, and it did a lot of damage. If I had to guess, I’d say he drove it between her legs at least a dozen times.”

“Excuse me,” Mallory said in a very polite tone. She walked to the edge of the clearing, lifted the crime-scene tape and ducked underneath it, and took several steps beyond, then bent over and vomited.

“I plan to get drunk,” Dr. James announced.

“I wish I could,” Rafe said.

The doctor sighed. “I’ll write up the preliminary report when I get back to the office, Rafe. You’ll have the rest when I get her on the table. It’s going to be a long day.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Doc.”

When the doctor walked away, Rafe said to Isabel, “I’m not getting anything but rage here, and just the vaguest sense of that, not even enough to be sure it isn’t my imagination-or the training telling me to draw logical conclusions from what I’m seeing here. I don’t know how to reach for anything more. You have to do it.”

“I can’t. I’m not getting anything either. Silence. Like you, I know he was furious from what I’m looking at, not from anything I hear or feel.”

“We need more, Isabel.”

“I know that.”

“We have to stop him here and now. Before he goes after anybody else. Before he comes after you.”

“I know that too.”

You have to do her. The first chance you get, you have to do her.

He tried to ignore the voice, because it wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. All it was doing was making his head hurt even more.

She knows. Or she will soon. And he’s helping her know. Look at them. You understand what’s happening, don’t you?

“No,” he whispered, because he didn’t, he really didn’t. All he knew was that his head hurt and his gut, and it had been so long since he’d slept that he’d forgotten what it felt like.

They’re changing.

An icy jolt went through him. “No. I’m changing. You said. You promised. If I did it. If I killed them before they told. You promised.”

Then you’d better do her. Kill her. Before they finish changing. Or it’ll be too late. Too late for you. Too late for both of you.