Touching Evil

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It wasn't at all unusual for Beau to be working in his studio after midnight, but it was rare for him to be working with his eyes closed.

It was also something he wasn't happy about and wouldn't have willingly been doing except by urgent request. The last time he'd tried it, the resulting painting had given him nightmares for weeks. And it was the only example of his work he had ever destroyed.

"It's not just spatters, is it?" he asked, less hopeful than resigned.

"No. Not just spatters."

"I wish it was."

"I know."

"You know too damned much."

"One thing I don't know is how you're able to use the artistic version of automatic writing and talk coherently at the same time."

"I don't know that either, and it freaks me out to think too much about it. Reminds me of that old horror movie about the pianist who got himself a new pair of hands. Someone else's."

"Now you're freaking me out."

"I'd like to think I could. But you've seen too much to be bothered by anything I can do."

"Don't be so sure of that."

Beau half turned his head, eyes still closed and paintbrush still moving skillfully, and frowned. "Am I going to want to look at this thing when I'm done?"

"No."

"Oh, Christ. Can I stop now?"

"I don't know. Can you?"

"No. Dammit. There's still something…" Beau gritted his teeth and kept painting. He hated this. It was infinitely preferable to have a vision, even if it made his head ache for an hour afterward. Preferable to have bits and pieces of knowledge or information just pop into his head, unbidden. Either of those he could deal with.

But this… this was major-league creepy. He'd wondered more than once if it was really his own mind, his own skills, guiding his hands when he painted this way. Considering the finished products, that was a scary thought. But even scarier was the possibility he wasn't in control in any sense, that someone else was "speaking" through his skills, using them to get a message out.

Out of hell, he sometimes thought.

"Am I the only one you know who can do this?" he demanded. "Is that why you come to me?"

"You're the best I've found. Artistic expertise matched by psychic ability. But in this case, it wasn't either skill that brought me here, you know that."

"Then why ask me to do this?"

"I use every tool I can get my hands on, you also know that."

"And to hell with the cost to me, huh?"

"You can pay the bill."

"You're a bastard, Galen-do you know that?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

Beau was silent for several minutes, then said, "Maggie's just beginning to find out what she can do."

"Yes. I saw the painting."

"So you've been breaking into her house too, huh?"

"You should both invest in a little security."

"Obviously." Beau painted for several more minutes before the brush finally wavered and his hand fell. He turned his back to the easel before opening his eyes and walking to the worktable where Galen leaned to clean the brush and his palette.

"It's almost over, Beau."

"If you're trying to make me feel better, that won't do it."

"Sorry. Best I can do."

"Yeah, right." Beau cleaned his hands on a rag, paying close attention to the task, then said, "I'm going to put the coffee on."

"Late for caffeine."

"Well, if you think I want to sleep tonight, you're crazy. Cover that thing when you're done looking at it, all right?" Without waiting for a response, and without so much as a glance at the painting, Beau left the studio.

Galen looked after him for a moment, then straightened and approached the easel almost warily. He stood back some distance from it, powerful arms crossed over his chest as he studied a painting so complex and skillfully done it was almost impossible to believe the artist's eyes had been closed the entire time.

Almost impossible to believe.

Far from Beau's usual and rather famous impressionist work, this painting didn't shimmer with light but rather with darkness. Bold strokes of black, deep shades of maroon and slate gray and brown made up an indistinct yet oddly unnerving background lightened only by the amorphous flesh-toned faces and forms in the foreground.

Galen considered one face in particular, one of the few that was clearly recognizable. It wore a twisted expression of pain, wide eyes already going empty as life left them. His own rather hard mouth twisted.

"Shit," he said very softly.

Maggie had never been a nervous woman, but by the time John dropped her off at her home very early in the morning, it took all her resolution not to ask him to come inside with her. She told herself it was lack of sleep, but that didn't help much except to remind her he needed rest as well-and did not need to be worrying about her safety.

Worrying never did any good, she knew that.

Besides, if he knew the truth, he'd want to be with her every moment, watching over her-she knew that too. And as comforting as his presence was, she had to be able to spend at least some time alone and without the distraction he presented, recharging her energies while she tried to think this thing through.

At least that was what she told herself when she went into her silent house and cautiously checked all the doors and windows before taking a long, hot shower and trying to get some sleep. But sleep didn't come easily. She dozed, waking several times with a start to find herself tense, listening for some alien sound. But there was nothing, of course.

Of course.

After only a few hours, she finally got up and got dressed, not much rested. She ate only because she knew she should, then checked her garage and car as warily as she had checked her house hours before. Even when she was in the car and moving, doors locked, she didn't relax.

She wondered if she ever would again.

When she walked into Beau's studio a few minutes later, she was a little surprised to find him lounged back with his feet up on the table rather than working. The commissioned portrait of a Seattle businessman's wife that he'd been working on for days reposed on his easel, but from all appearances he hadn't picked up brush or palette today.

"I'm taking the day off," he announced before she could ask him. "Have some coffee-it's a fresh pot."

Maggie fixed herself a cup and sat down across from him, studying his angelic face with a frown. "Not that it really shows, but I could swear you'd been up all night too."

"I didn't sleep," he admitted. "Called your house pretty late and figured you were at the station."

"I was. We had a sort of war council just before midnight and ended up staying there until dawn." Briskly, she filled him in on everything that had happened since they had last talked, as usual not sure just how much he knew without being told, and finished up, "I went home a few hours ago for a nap and a shower, like most of the others."

"Most?"

"Andy's up for the duration, I think. And Quentin and Kendra seemed wide-eyed and energetic when I left."

Beau, who knew most of the detectives Maggie worked with at least by name, since she talked about them, nodded and said, "From what you've said about Andy, that isn't surprising. As for the two feds, unusual endurance is probably the rule rather than the exception for that unit."

Eyeing him thoughtfully, Maggie said, "You never really told me why you turned Bishop down when he asked you to join up a couple of years ago."

"Didn't I?"

"No. And don't try to sidestep now. Quentin and Kendra haven't said anything, but I'm willing to bet they've known about the connection between you and me for days. You said yourself Bishop more or less told you that the plan was for him and his agents to keep track of the psychics they're aware of outside the unit, just in case of need."

"That's what he said."

"So they've probably known about you since they got here." She shook her head. "I'll give them full marks for discretion; far as I can tell, they haven't said a word to anybody, even John."

"Knowing Bishop, he'd see discretion as necessary. One of his goals was always to build the unit and earn a solid success record long before the public found out anything."

Maggie nodded. "Makes sense. So-why did you decide not to join up?"

"I don't have a law degree."

"Which wouldn't be necessary, if you went on the books as technical support for the field agents. That was another of Bishop's goals, wasn't it, to build a support team made up of people with psychic abilities and other talents that could prove useful in investigations? I'd say an artist might come in handy, especially one with a name so well known it would provide excellent cover for any federal snooping he was doing."

"You've been around cops too much. You're beginning to think like them."

"Don't try to distract me. Why'd you say no? It's certainly the kind of thing you'd enjoy doing."

Beau shrugged. "Let's just say the timing wasn't right."

Maggie frowned at him. "It wasn't because of me, was it?"

Honest as always-at least when pressed-Beau said, "Not entirely. Anyway, you're the one Bishop would have loved to have on his team. An empathic sketch artist already accustomed to working with the police? Perfect. But I knew you had a pretty big job to finish here, and because I knew, so did he."

"He must be a powerful telepath."

"Oh, he is. Even more so these days, I hear, since he teamed up with and married another equally powerful psychic."

"And how did you hear? The psychic newsletter? Because I don't get that."

Beau grinned at her disgruntled tone. "I keep trying to tell you there are lots of connections in life."

"Yeah, right. That degrees-of-separation stuff?"

"Sure. So I know you-and by extension everybody you know as well. It adds up."

Maggie was never entirely certain if these interesting theories of Beau's were theories-or universal facts he understood simply because he was unusually plugged into the universe.

"Urn… okay."

He grinned again. "Never mind. So what's the plan for the day?"

"I'm going to interview Ellen Randall again in about an hour. I want to check on Hollis, make sure she's all right. Then back to the station and meet up with the others, see what if anything they've managed to find out about a possible connection in Tara Jameson's life to the man who abducted her."

"You shouldn't be out alone."

"I work best alone, you know that."

"Not this time, Maggie. This time, working alone is dangerous for you."

"I'm being careful."

"Are you?"

She conjured a smile and hoped it was reassuring. "Of course I am. Besides, you know only too well that hiding won't do me any good. I have to do what I can to stop this animal. I have to."

"Yes. But not alone. You have to use all the tools you've been given this time."

"Some of them are no help at all." Broodingly, she looked down at her closed sketch pad. "The irony is that this is the monster I'm supposed to stop, the reason I'm here-at least this time around- and even though I've been given an ability that's helped me stop others, it isn't helping me the least bit with him. I can't see him. I'm as blind as his victims are."

"And there must be a reason for that."

"The universe wants to piss me off?"

He smiled. "Maybe. I've always suspected there's a real cosmic sense of humor out there."

"If so, it's a twisted humor, Beau. This is not funny."

"I know. But there's something you have to keep in mind, Maggie. As much as you're focused on stopping this man, the universe is a huge and complicated place. The patterns all around us are made up of uncounted threads, woven in complex designs, and every thread is important to the whole. It isn't just about him. It isn't just about his victims, or the cops."

"Or me."

He nodded. "Or you."

She drew a breath, then said dryly, "Thanks, Master."

"You're welcome, Grasshopper."

Maggie had to smile. "Well, while I keep the immensity of the universe firmly in mind, I have to go on working in my little corner of it. Any advice-this time?"

"Brush after every meal."

"You know, you're not nearly as funny as you think you are."

"No? Ah, well. One tries."

"One fails."

"You're just grumpy because you don't get the psychic newsletter." His smile faded slightly. "Maggie? I was right about John Garrett, wasn't I?"

She got up and for a moment just looked at him. Then her mouth twisted, and she said, "Yeah. You were right."

"Fate."

"Fate. See you later, Beau."

For a long time after she left, Beau sat there staring into space. Then, so reluctant that every movement was slow and careful, he got up and went to the big painting leaning against the wall, covered with a piece of heavy material so that Maggie hadn't even noticed it.

Beau propped the still-covered painting on a secondary easel and stepped away for a moment, trying to prepare himself. Then he drew a deep breath and flipped back the material.

A detached part of his mind noted the technique and skill displayed, seeing and accepting the unsettling fact that this was arguably the best work of his life. But that wasn't all he saw. He saw the vague yet identifiable faces and forms of what he recognized as tormented women trapped in a dark hell of suffering, their arms reaching out desperately for help, most of them with empty eye sockets wide, open mouths pleading.

He saw the hands that had destroyed the women, hands clenched into fists, hands wielding knives and holding ropes, and hands reaching out for the women, as though to pull them back down into hell.

For a long, long time, Beau didn't move. He stared at the painting, absorbing every brush stroke, every nuance. Ignoring the nausea churning in his gut, he stared until he was certain every dreadful detail was burned into his mind.

Then he went and got a tool designed to cut canvas and very methodically shredded the best work he'd ever done.

"Not this time," he muttered into the silence of the studio. "Goddammit, not this time."

"I always end up working in boring police conference rooms," Quentin said somewhat sadly to the room at large. "And with a great hotel this time too."

"It'll keep you humble," Kendra told him.

"Yeah, right."

John came in then and immediately asked, "Anybody heard from Maggie?"

"Not since you have," Quentin told him. "She was going to interview Ellen Randall and then stop off at the hospital to see Hollis Templeton, right?"

"So she said."

"Hasn't had time to do both, I'd say. And where have you been?"

"Letting Drummond vent some of his spleen."

Quentin grimaced. "Yeah, I thought when he was so painfully polite to us this morning that he was itching to explode."

John shrugged. "I thought it'd be better for all of us if he got it out of his system."

"We appreciate that," Jennifer said dryly.

"I won't say it was a pleasure-but you're welcome." Obviously restless, John looked at his watch, then sat down at the conference table. "Andy's still trying to hurry the medical examiner, but it'll probably be late this afternoon before we have the results of the postmortem on Samantha Mitchell."

"I'm not surprised," Quentin said absently, prowling back and forth in front of the bulletin boards. "According to the police scanner we were listening to yesterday, there were a couple of really bad fires in the city, with fatalities. The M.E.'s probably got more than he can handle."

"Still," John said.

"Still," Quentin agreed. He prowled a while longer, but when Kendra gave him a very direct look, he finally sat down across from John. Half under his breath, he said, "For somebody with a uniquely flexible mind, she gets very irritated by the smallest things."

"Even I was getting irritated," John told him dryly.

Jennifer added, "Me too, but I wasn't going to mention it."

"Then why did you?" Quentin demanded.

"Everybody else did."

Quentin sighed. "All right, all right. Can I help it if I'm restless? I hate this part of the job. Basically just sitting around going through papers and scratching our heads while we wait for the bastard to make another move." He watched John look at his watch again and added, "And I'm not the only one who hates it."

Ignoring that, John said, "Scott's out talking to Tara Jameson's coworkers, right?"

Quentin nodded. "Kendra's been running background checks on every name we've got, but so far everyone in her life looks clean. The fiance definitely is, with a strong alibi to boot. No family here in the city. Andy has a couple of detectives canvassing the building again, and I just spent the past two hours going over the security videotapes."

"And found nothing, I gather?"

"Nada. I have a hunch the tapes don't show anything because he monkeyed with the cameras, but I'm no expert."

"Then we need to send them to someone who is."

"That's my thinking."

Jennifer said, "The security company will raise hell, most likely. They swear their cameras have not been altered in any way, that it would have been impossible for any unauthorized person to do that. Of course, they also can't explain how Tara Jameson vanished from her supposedly secure building. The egg on their faces isn't pretty."

"Has Andy made an official request for the cameras?" John asked.

She nodded. "He's doing that as we speak. And we have technicians standing by to take the things apart as soon as we get our hands on them."

"So we wait," Quentin said with a sigh. "I hate waiting." He stared at the bulletin board. "Kendra, any luck from the databases on that 1894 date?"

She shook her head without a glance at the humming laptop before her. "Not so far. Hardly surprising, considering we're going back more than a hundred years. Most records that old haven't been digitized yet.

"If it comes to that," Jennifer said, "we aren't even sure the 1894 date is part of this. Even if it was on the note, it doesn't have to mean anything. Maybe our mysterious tipster just wants to make us waste time looking."

Quentin looked at her for a long moment, then said matter-of-factly, "You wrote the note, Jenn."

She stared at him. "What? No, I didn't."

"Look in your notebook." His voice remained steady, even gentle. "You'll find a page torn out. The page you found in your car will match it."

At first it seemed she wouldn't do it, but finally she opened her small black notebook on the table and slowly flipped through the pages covered by her neat shorthand notes. They all saw her pause. And they all saw her rub her finger gently across the ragged remains of a torn-out page.

By the time Maggie left Ellen Randall's house just after noon, she felt drained. She drove only as far as the nearest recreation area and stopped there, carefully parking her car in an open space where she could see anyone approach her, and warily leaving the engine running even as she double-checked to make certain all the doors were locked.

For several minutes, she sat there studying her surroundings, senses probing. Nothing. The place was virtually deserted on this dreary weekday. Still, Maggie couldn't quite relax and kept glancing up from time to time even as she opened her sketchbook and looked at the still-incomplete sketch of the rapist/killer.

Ellen hadn't been able to add anything to what Maggie already knew, and her continuing pain and anguish were still so intense it was difficult for Maggie to feel anything else right now, but she tried to concentrate.

Longish hair. Roughly oval face-maybe. Difficult to be sure, since he always seemed to wear a plastic mask of some kind. Eyes? Who knew what shape or color. Who knew if his nose was straight, or his mouth thin-lipped or full. Who knew if his ears were set high or low.

None of the women had seen him. Not so much as a glance. They had only felt what he did to them. Felt his body against theirs, felt his hands touching them.

His hands.

Hardly aware of what she was doing, Maggie turned to a fresh page and began slowly, tentatively drawing.

Her eyes were half closed, remembered voices soft in her mind while remembered suffering made her ache.

… felt his hands holding my wrists…

… he pushed my chin up, as if he wanted to look at my throat, and then he touched it…

… he was holding my legs apart…

… strong, so strong. The grip of his fingers was so strong, his nails bit into my skin even through the gloves I know he was wearing, dug into my very bones…

… he cupped my cheek with this obscene gentleness, and then I felt his teeth…

… he was squeezing my breasts and I could hear him breathing, panting…

… his nails dug into me…

… he slapped me, and I felt-

– the ring he wore tore her flesh, laid it open along her jawline. She could feel the warm wetness of her own blood trickling down over her throat, feel him hanging over her like some monstrous creature out of her nightmares. Part of her was glad he'd wrapped the nightgown around her head in a blindfold, because she was terrified to see his face, to see the animal he'd become. But she was even more terrified of what he was going to do to her now that he had her helpless. She felt his hands roughly tying her wrist to the bedpost just as he'd tied the other one, and a low moan of protest and anguish throbbed in her bruised throat.

Bobby… don't, please… Bobby, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-

Maggie came out of it with a start, hearing an odd little whimper that at first she didn't even recognize as coming from her own throat. With shaking hands, she wiped at the tears on her face, looking around her to make certain there was no one near as well as to ground herself once more in the here and now.

A peaceful scene. A park mostly deserted on this Wednesday afternoon in November, a bit damp and chilly, but unthreatening. Quiet.

Safe? Probably not, but for the moment she was safe, surely. For the moment.

But it was nevertheless several long and unsettling minutes before the overwhelming terror and strange sense of guilt finally left her, before her breathing steadied and the hot pressure of tears eased.

Before she could nerve herself to look down at what she'd drawn.

Hands. A man's hands reaching out for something or someone, raw-boned in their brutal strength. Awful in their sick, grasping hunger. Large, sinewy, ugly. With sparse black hairs sprinkled across the backs and even onto the fingers. Nails that were surprisingly long but ragged because he bit them.

Because he bit them…

The fleeting memory, wispy as smoke, drifted away, and Maggie was left staring down at the hands she'd drawn. So unique she knew she'd recognize them instantly if she saw them in the flesh. But otherwise there was nothing to identify them-except the rings.

On the right hand was a big gold ring, inset with some kind of stone.

On the left hand was a wedding band.

Maggie stared down at the sketch for a long time, her gaze locked on the hands that had tortured and maimed and murdered so many women.

"Bobby," she whispered.