Touching Evil

CHAPTER EIGHT

In what had once been an ordinary conference room of a New Orleans police station, now transformed by bulletin boards and computers and stacks of files into the base of operations for a very unique task force, Special Agent Tony Harte refilled his coffee cup and then returned to brooding over the photographs pinned to the center bulletin board.

"I just don't see a pattern," he announced.

"Look again."

Tony sighed. "Boss, I've looked so often and so hard my eyes are starting to cross."

Special Agent Noah Bishop looked up from the laptop where he'd been working and said dryly, "Maybe you'll be able to see better that way."

"Personally, I think we've been hexed."

Bishop lifted an eyebrow.

"Hexed," Tony insisted firmly. "That source of yours down in the Quarter talked about voodoo, and I think we should pay attention to her."

"I think you need a vacation, Tony."

"Oh, come on-is it so much easier to believe in telepathy and precognition than in hexes?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Telepathy and precognition don't involve fashioning a doll out of burlap and human hair and sticking pins in it."

Tony pondered that for a moment. "I don't know, boss. I've seen some pretty weird things since I started working for you."

"Next you'll be seeing zombies."

"I could state the obvious," Tony observed, eyeing his boss pointedly. "But I won't."

Bishop didn't rise to the bait. "Hand me that file on the banker, will you?"

Tony handed it across the conference table. "Anyway, if you and Miranda could just have a vision and help us out a little, I'd really appreciate it. Try, why don't you?"

The words were barely out of his mouth when Bishop paled and closed his eyes, an in-drawn breath hissing between his teeth.

Tony watched him intently and had to wait at least a minute or two longer than was customary before the other man's unusually penetrating gray eyes opened. Hopeful, he asked, "About our case?"

"Shit." Bishop massaged his temples briefly, then raked his fingers through his black hair, slightly disarranging the vivid white streak over his left temple. He looked decidedly grim. "Who the hell gave Quentin permission to go to Seattle?" he demanded.

Tony blinked. "Not about our case, then. Beats me. I thought his and Kendra's last assignment was in Pittsburgh."

"It was. But they aren't there now, typing up their reports like good little agents. They're in Seattle, and up to their asses in trouble." Bishop looked toward the doorway, and an instant later a tall, raven-haired, and strikingly beautiful woman appeared. She was absently massaging one temple with her fingers, and her startling blue eyes went instantly to Bishop.

"Out loud," Tony requested automatically.

She looked at him, sighed, then came to the conference table and sat down. "We can't go out there," she reminded Bishop. "Not yet, anyway."

"I know."

"He can take care of himself. Kendra too. You trained them well."

"Maybe. But this… Jesus Christ. Why do I put up with him, can you tell me that?" Bishop asked.

"Because he's good. A good investigator and a strong psychic. Too good to lose even if he does sometimes try your patience."

Bishop shook his head grimly. "Be that as it may, Miranda, it's taken us years to get this unit on its feet and earn enough respect from law enforcement and the Bureau to be taken seriously. Far from gaining the autonomy we want, one major public screwup and we'll find ourselves chained to our desks doing background checks for security clearances. And any time we stick our noses in where they aren't wanted, we run a huge risk of political fallout as well. Quentin knows damned well we don't get involved unofficially in ongoing investigations."

She smiled slightly. "You mean like the one you got involved in a couple of years ago in Atlanta?"

"That was different."

"Was it? Kane's your friend. John Garrett is Quentin's friend. We should have expected it, you know. Once Garrett's sister became a victim out there, it was only a matter of time before Quentin had to get involved-officially or unofficially."

Tony, who had been listening intently, decided he was up to speed at last and ventured a comment. "That serial rapist? Lots in the papers about the case."

Miranda looked at him, still smiling. "And what are you doing reading the Seattle newspapers?"

Caught, Tony grimaced and said "shit" under his breath, then tried to brazen it out. "Look, I didn't know for sure what was going on, it's just that Kendra had made a modem request for some data, and the return tag said Seattle, so I figured…"

"And you didn't think we'd be interested?" Bishop demanded. He shook his head. "Jesus, Tony, you're as bad as Quentin is. Keeping you two even marginally under control is like trying to herd cats."

Tony grinned. "Maybe you should stop trying, boss."

"They do tend to land on their feet," Miranda observed. "Although what I can't figure out is how either of them believes they can hide anything for long in a unit run by a telepath."

"Eternal optimists, both of us."

"Um. And you're both convinced you can charm your way out of trouble."

"Only because we usually do," Tony said guilelessly.

Bishop groaned.

"Don't waste your energy," Miranda advised him, still amused. "You'll never fit either of them into any kind of FBI mold."

"I wasn't going for that," Bishop confessed, staring at Tony. "I seldom hope for miracles. Just something reasonable, like occasional obedience to my so-called authority. Not very much to ask, I'd think."

"Would it make you feel better," Tony inquired, "if I said I'd always considered you an authority figure? I mean, I do call you boss, after all."

"Only to remind yourself that's what I am. Otherwise, you'd never remember."

"Hey, you're the one who always says psychics are a prickly, independent lot, prone to go it alone more often than follow the rules or the regs. Can I help it if Quentin and I fit your definition to a T?"

"You could at least pretend to follow the rules every once in a while."

"Oh, I do. Every once in a while." Tony's smile died, and he added quietly, "Okay, you've both done a dandy job of trying to lead me away from asking about your vision."

"Not so dandy," Miranda murmured.

"I'm also tenacious," Tony reminded her. "So what is it you're trying very hard not to tell me?"

Miranda exchanged a glance with Bishop, then said, "We need you here, Tony."

"I know that. I won't go haring off after Quentin and Kendra no matter what you tell me. Like you said-they can take care of themselves." But he could feel tension seeping into his muscles, and when he looked at Miranda, he had the sudden, disquieting idea that she knew. And if she knew…

It was Bishop who said, "They're into something a lot more complicated than they realize."

"A fairly common trait of investigations we get involved in," Tony said, trying not to think about how much both of them knew about things he would have preferred to keep to himself. "So what did you see?"

Miranda said, "Sometimes visions are as clear and distinct as if they're scenes from a movie, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. But sometimes they aren't. Sometimes they're flashes of stop-motion images, out of sequence, all jumbled together. Even worse, instead of presenting a single prediction, they can be-variations on a theme. Possible outcomes to a complex, fluid situation."

Tony scowled. "Meaning you don't know exactly what's going to happen out there, but at least one possible outcome is a bad one?"

"No," she said softly. "Meaning only one possible outcome is a good one. The deck's stacked against them this time, Tony. Against all of them."

"We have to warn them." Tony spoke before he considered and wasn't surprised by Bishop's response.

"You know better than that. In the kind of situation they're in, any foreknowledge, especially from outside, could trigger the very events we want to avoid. We can't help them by telling them what may or may not happen. They have to make their own choices, their own decisions, based on what's happening at any given time and based on their own abilities-paranormal and otherwise. Anything else is virtually guaranteed to only make things worse."

"Then what the hell good is it to even be precogni-tive?"Tony demanded.

Bishop smiled wryly. "Who told you it was a good thing? You've been listening to fairy tales again, Tony."

"Shit." Tony drew a breath. "So we say nothing? We leave them to… fate?"

Miranda said, "Fate's a very big player in this one, and some things really do have to play out as they're meant to. So, yes, we leave them to fate. We don't have a choice."

Tony looked from one to the other of them, then said with forced lightness, "I guess this is where I demonstrate my ability to obey orders and follow the rules, huh?"

"I'm afraid so," Bishop said.

"Okay. Well, then, if you two don't mind, I think I'll go see how Sharon is coming with that autopsy." He didn't wait for approval but left the conference room briskly.

Bishop said, "You know he's rattled when he voluntarily observes an autopsy. He hates them."

"Yeah. This isn't going to be easy for him." Miranda hesitated. "Are we right to keep him away?"

Bishop sighed explosively. "Hell, I don't know. You saw the same thing I did. That whole situation's so damned precarious, one player too many turns it into a bloodbath. Quentin and Kendra are involved now, there's nothing we can do to change that. Pull them out, and we could make things immeasurably worse. Go in ourselves and the same thing could happen. And, like you said-this one's about fate. We'll have to leave them all to find their destiny."

They'll make it, Miranda said through the telepathic link they shared.

I hope so. But I've found fate to be a… brutal master. Even if they do make it, they'll never be the same again.

Her hand reached across the table, and their fingers twined together in a gesture neither of them had to comment on. No matter how intimately minds touched, sometimes the only real comfort to be found was in the warmth of flesh touching flesh.

Maggie turned off her cell phone and returned it to her pocket. "Andy said he'd have the forensics team go over the game room again, just to be sure. Apparently they didn't find much the first time, but he said they were figuring she was grabbed in the kitchen or front hall."

"So he believed you when you told him Samantha Mitchell was attacked in that room?"

"Yes, he believed me. Experience has taught him to trust my… instincts."

They were sitting in John's car, still parked in the drive of the Mitchell house, and he made no move to start the engine. Instead, turned slightly in the driver's seat, he watched her intently. "You haven't shown him what you've shown me, have you? Why not?"

Maggie was trying very hard not to shiver visibly, but the cold weariness she felt was getting harder and harder to ignore. She just wanted to go home and soak in a hot tub, maybe listen to some peaceful music and simply try to forget for a while.

"Why not?" John repeated.

"Because it wasn't necessary," she answered, almost too tired to think. "All Andy ever needed from me was sketches, and he could believe what I gave him without questioning where it came from, because I'd proven he could believe it."

"So I need more from you?"

For a moment, Maggie was tempted to tell him what a loaded question that really was. Instead, she abruptly opened her sketch pad and turned to a certain page and stood the pad up on her lap so he could see the sketch.

John caught his breath.

It was a sketch of Christina as she'd been before the attack that had ruined her face and destroyed her life. This face he stared at was, John realized dimly, more than simple pencil lines on ivory paper. Much more. The pale brown hair, straight and cut casually mid-length, surrounded a delicate oval face that was unusually pretty, with large sparkling eyes and a beautiful smile with a deep dimple on one side…

It was his sister as he remembered her, so vividly alive he expected her to laugh suddenly or cut her eyes sideways at him the way she always had when she found him amusing or he tried her considerable patience when he was, as she put it, "being big brother."

"Jesus," he murmured.

Maggie tore the sketch neatly from the pad and handed it to him. "If this was all you needed from me, you wouldn't have to believe anything beyond what you understand. I knew your sister, I drew her likeness-there it is. I'm an artist, it's what artists do. Nothing paranormal about it."

"I'm not so sure," John said, handling the sketch carefully. "But thank you for this."

"You're welcome. Do you mind if we leave now? I know you wanted me to go with you to talk to your friend Quentin at this command post you guys have set up, but I need to be home for a while first. I'm a little tired."

John looked at her for a moment, then nodded.

"Quentin said you probably needed to spend time at home alone whenever one of these… events… tired you."

"Quentin was right."

He got his briefcase from the backseat and secured the sketch carefully inside before starting the car. It was several miles before he spoke again, and then it was to ask a slow question.

"So what more do I need from you?"

She didn't hesitate. "Answers."

"About Christina?"

"About all of it. You want to know why she killed herself, but more than that. You want to find the man who destroyed her life. And…"

He frowned. "And?"

Maggie stared out through the windshield. Was Beau right about this man? He was usually right. And if he was right-she had to be very, very careful.

"Maggie?"

"And… you want him to pay for what he did. You may not fully believe there's anything paranormal about my work, but you do believe I can help you find this rapist."

After a moment, he said slowly, "Why do I think that isn't what you were originally going to say?"

She was silent.

"Okay, then tell me this. How is it you're so sure Samantha Mitchell was abducted by the serial rapist? Abducted I'll buy, but how can you know it was him?"

Maggie hesitated, then said deliberately "Because it felt like him."

"You… don't mean felt emotionally, do you?"

"No. It physically felt like him. When he grabbed her from behind, the feel of his arms around her, his chest against her back, the way he… rubbed himself against her as she struggled, were all just the same as with the other attacks."

"You felt that because they did?"

"Yes."

"When you interviewed them? When they relived those memories?"

She nodded.

"Did you go to the places the other women had been abducted from?"

"Only one of them. Laura Hughes was abducted from her high-security apartment building, so I was able to do a walk-through there. But the others were grabbed either in very public places or places where there had been far too many people around later. It would have… muddied the impressions."

"Impressions?"

Dryly, she said, "What do you expect me to call them-psychic vibes?"

"You flatly denied being psychic just the other day."

"Yeah, well, that's always the safe thing to do-at least until I get to know whoever's asking."

He shot her a quick look. "Is that why you're finally being honest with me?"

"Well, I thought it might avoid a game of twenty questions. Obviously, I was wrong."

That surprised a laugh out of him. "Okay, point taken. It's just that I really do want to understand, Maggie."

"And believe?"

He barely hesitated. "And believe. It's just so far outside my experience that I know virtually nothing about it."

"You don't like not knowing, do you?"

"No, I don't. So I ask questions."

Maggie waited until he turned the car into the police lot where she'd left her own to say, "I really don't mind questions, John. But my brain isn't working too clearly at the moment, and I'd rather postpone them, if it's all the same to you."

He pulled into the slot beside her car. "Will you come to the hotel later? I still think we should sit down and go over everything with Quentin and his partner, come up with some kind of game plan from here on out."

"Partner?"

John swore under his breath, wondering if Maggie's apparent psychic abilities included being able to make him say things he had no intention of saying. "Yes, his partner."

"He's a cop, isn't he?" Maggie had one hand on the door handle but was waiting, brows slightly raised. "Quentin's a cop."

"He's here unofficially, Maggie."

"Uh-huh. What kind of cop?"

"Federal," John answered reluctantly. "FBI."

"Oh, lovely. And if Drummond finds out?"

"Then everything hits the fan. But I'm hoping he won't find out-at least until we have something to help his people put this bastard behind bars for the rest of his miserable life."

Maggie shook her head. "You do like to live dangerously."

"Maybe. Will you come to the hotel later?"

She didn't think there was a maybe about it but was too tired to worry much about it at the moment. "Look, I'll see how I feel in a couple of hours and let you know, okay? I still have your cell number."

He nodded but turned the car off and got out when she did, saying, "I want to talk to Andy for a few minutes."

Maggie unlocked her car door and said calmly, "Do you want me to write down the stuff I told you at the Mitchell house so Andy can try to verify it for you?"

John stood on the walkway a few feet away, staring at her. "Shit. Was I that obvious?"

"Let's just say I'm beginning to understand the way you think."

He smiled slightly. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"I'll let you know."

He half laughed. "Fair enough. No, you don't have to write anything down. As it happens, I have a very good memory."

"Now, that doesn't surprise me at all. See you later, John." She got into her car and closed the door. She started the engine, watching him walk toward the station, and muttered under her breath, "FBI. Great. Just great."

Andy hung up the phone and frowned across his desk at John. "Okay, I checked. And, as you heard, an understandably bewildered Thomas Mitchell confirmed. He and his wife did have an argument in their den about a parrot last week, his wife did cut herself on a hand mirror in the breakfast room the week before that, and he and his father-in-law did have a rather loud 'discussion' about business in his study just the other day. Now I've left the poor bastard wondering if somebody's got him bugged. I'm wondering too."

John tried to head him off. "I've got to know more about the parrot. Why'd they fight about that?"

"Samantha Mitchell wanted one as a pet,' Andy answered impatiently. "John-"

"Who won the fight?"

"She did. The bird's on order. John, how the hell did you know about this stuff?"

He hesitated, but only briefly. There really wasn't another explanation and, besides, John had a hunch that if any one of these cops could accept Maggie totally no matter how bizarre her talents seemed to be, it would be Andy.

"I know," he answered finally, "because Maggie told me. While she was walking through the Mitchell house."

Andy didn't even blink. "So she is psychic, huh? Well, I always thought so."

"I'm still not a hundred percent convinced," John said, "but I have to admit she's been pretty damned impressive. I was just a step behind her when she walked into the Mitchells' game room, and I'll swear whatever she was experiencing nearly knocked her to her knees. She says the attacker felt a certain way, his arms, his body behind her. And she claims to have felt those same physical traits when the victims she interviewed relived their attacks."

"Jesus," Andy murmured. "If she felt that… then she must have felt the rest. All that pain and fear. I knew she was strong, but I had no idea just how strong."

John studied him. "You don't doubt that, do you? That she really feels what she says she does."

"No, I don't doubt it." Andy drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "About two years ago, we had what looked like a simple case of a runaway teenager. Normally, I wouldn't even have been involved, but the parents were political players in the city, and the chief wanted his best people looking for their fifteen-year-old daughter.

"So we interviewed dozens of her friends, trying to establish when and how she might have run away. Maggie sat in on the interviews because the chief asked her to, but she never asked a question, just listened. When we were done, none of us had a clue where that girl might be, but everything-and I mean everything-pointed to her having simply packed up some things and left home. Even the shrink agreed."

"So what happened?"

"We'd spent the better part of two days interviewing the friends, and afterward Maggie asked if she could walk around the girl's house and the yard. Well, we'd been all through the house, forensics had been over it, and I didn't hold out much hope Maggie could find something all of us had missed. I think they call that hubris, don't they?"

John smiled slightly. "She found something?"

"You could say that. I knew by then, of course, that she preferred to walk a scene alone, so I was keeping my distance. I was standing out near the garage and hadn't realized she'd come back outside until I saw her near the patio. She was walking very slowly, apparently not looking at anything in particular. When she got to the edge of the yard, she just stood there for the longest time. I didn't realize at first that she was crying, but it eventually dawned on me.

"I figured she was just upset about the missing girl, and I didn't want to embarrass her by calling attention to it, so I went to the car and waited. She came back a few minutes later, and except for a little red around her eyes, she looked the same as always. I asked if she'd found anything and she said no. Then, about halfway back to the station, she started talking about the interviews. She said something about one of the older boys bothered her. Nothing she could put her finger on, mind you, just a hunch. Wondered if I'd mind calling him back in for another talk, if maybe she could ask him a question or two.

"I wasn't looking forward to telling the chief we had squat for leads, so I said sure, why not. The boy wasn't a suspect, and since he was eighteen we didn't have to interview him in the presence of his parents, but we did tell him he could have a lawyer if he wanted one. He didn't. I asked him a few questions, then Maggie started talking to him. Just talking to him, quiet and gentle. About his school and his parents. About the girl."

When Andy fell silent, John said, "She got him to confess."

Andy nodded. "Took nearly an hour, and by the time he finally told the truth he was bawling his eyes out. The girl was supposed to meet him in the woods for what had become a regular session. Only that night she'd had a fight with her parents and decided to run away. To him. So she'd packed a bag, left a note for her parents, and there she was, expecting him to take care of her.

"He hadn't bargained on having a fifteen-year-old hung around his neck for life, and he panicked. They argued, and at some point he shoved her. When she fell, she hit her head on a rock. She didn't get back up. He had a shovel in his car. The gardeners had been doing landscaping around the yard and the ground was soft, covered with a dense layer of pine mulch. It was all too horribly easy, he said, to bury her and her little suitcase right there."

Andy sighed. "Right there-not ten feet away from where I watched Maggie stand and cry. She knew. She knew exactly what had happened to that girl. There wasn't a sign to be seen, a clue to be found. But she knew."

"You never told her what you'd seen?"

"No. Figured if she wanted me to know, she'd tell me. It seemed to me it was the sort of thing that would be difficult to live with, so I guessed she was used to coming up with… other explanations for the things she knew." Andy looked at the other man steadily. "It was fine by me. I'd learned to trust her by then, and to be perfectly honest I don't give a damn if she reads tea leaves or peers into a crystal ball. In five years and hundreds of tough cases, I've never known her to be wrong."

"Never?"

"Never. Oh, there've been times when she was no closer to an answer than we were, but whenever Maggie got one of her hunches I knew damned well the case was about to break."

John shook his head slightly. "I don't know what I believe, except that whatever Maggie experiences is obviously very real to her. So why does she do it? Why does she put herself through this kind of trauma, this kind of suffering?"

"You asked me that last week, more or less. I don't know the answer, John, but I'm willing to bet that if you ever find out what it is, you'll have the key to understanding Maggie Barnes."