Whisper of Evil

CHAPTER TEN

It was a little before three o'clock when Max approached the Gallagher house, this time much more quietly than he had hours before. He didn't want to admit to himself that he hoped to catch Nell's partner lurking about, but that would have been at least partially true.

The rest of the truth was simply that he was feeling more than a little unsettled, worried about what Nell was risking by being here and doing what she was doing, and angry with himself for the earlier leave-taking that had demonstrated another truth all too clearly.

If he really had gotten over her, he wouldn't have felt the need to convince her that he had.

He never had been able to pretend disinterest with Nell. From that first summer, his awareness of her had been immediate and absolute, an intense tangle of complex needs and emotions that had bordered on obsession. He had been able to hide his feelings from others, if only because she had been so insistent that their growing closeness remain as private as possible. But between the two of them, there had been no uncertainty, no hesitation.

They had belonged together, and both of them knew it as surely as though that truth had been stamped in the very molecules of their bodies.

Max had no way of really knowing what Nell's life might have been like since she left Silence and him, and he didn't know why she had run away all those years ago without so much as a note left behind to explain her reasons. But he knew what he still felt, and even trying to pretend he didn't feel it was going to be next to impossible.

So, naturally, he was mad as hell about it.

He dismounted and tied the horses at the edge of the woods, then walked across the small backyard to the kitchen door. It was open, only the flimsy screen door providing any kind of barrier against whoever or whatever might want in, and he swore under his breath as he stepped into the tiny mudroom directly off the kitchen.

He could see her through the doorway, sitting at the kitchen table talking on a cell phone, and she watched, unsurprised, as he stepped into the room.

"Yeah, I know that," she was saying in her half of the phone conversation. "Maybe it'll be a wild-goose chase. Probably will, as a matter of fact. But we should at least get started and see if anything turns up."

She fell silent, and even though he couldn't make out the words, Max could hear the distinctive rumble of a strong male voice on the other end of the connection. It was something he had noticed with some cell phones and some voices.

"No, we're going to check out the Patterson house next," she said. "Yeah. I will." A frown crossed her face as the man on the other end spoke at length, and then she said, "Well, we knew he would sooner or later, right? I'll just have to be careful what I tell him. So when — if — he shows up, I guess I'll play it by ear. Right."

She broke the connection and then slid the little phone into the pocket of the jacket hanging over the back of her chair.

Immediately Max said, "Precautions, huh? The door's standing wide open, Nell."

"I just opened it a few minutes ago," she said. "I knew you were coming. The coffee's still hot, if you want some."

Since she was obviously not going to refer to anything he had said earlier in the day, he was more than willing to follow suit. At least for now. He nodded and went to fix himself a cup of coffee, saying, "Was that your boss?"

"Yeah."

"What might be a wild-goose chase?"

"Looking for Hailey. Bishop will have somebody back at Quantico try to track her down."

A bit surprised, he said, "Because she was involved with Luke Ferrier?"

"Reason enough to try to find her. Ask what she knows."

"You really haven't been in touch with her at all?"

Nell shook her head. "Keever said my father had received some kind of message from her a week or so after she left, saying she was never coming back and telling him not to bother looking for her. That's when he wrote her out of the will, so maybe it said something else that made him even madder, I don't know. I

didn't even know she was gone until I talked to Keever after my father died."

"How did he know where you were?"

"He didn't. I called him."

"Why?"

Nell drew a short breath and said softly, "I knew my father was dead. I felt it. Can we change the subject now, please?"

Max was feeling too rawly exposed himself to be able to back away when he knew damned well how important this was, and so said persistently, "You said you hated him, so why did you care he was dead?"

"I didn't say I cared. I said I felt it."

"Felt what? Felt him die?"

"Felt… the absence of him. Max —"

"You sound as if you'd been connected to him all these years."

"In a way, I was. Blood ties, Max. No matter what, we can't escape them."

"What about your grandmother? Did you feel the absence of her too?"

"No," she replied with obvious reluctance.

"Just your father?"

"Just him."

"Then it was more than blood ties. You said he didn't share the Gallagher curse, that he wasn't psychic."

"He wasn't."

"But you felt it when he died?"

After a pause, as if to very deliberately stop the forceful rhythm of his questions, she said, "We're not going to do this, Max. Not now. I came back here to do a job, and that's what I have to concentrate on, because people's lives are at stake. If you want to help me, fine. If not, get the hell out of my house, and stay out of my way."

Her resistance didn't do much to soothe Max's temper, and his voice showed the strain of his effort to sound calm about it. "I see. Well, tell me one thing at least, will you, Nell?"

"I'll have to hear it first."

"Tell me we will do this before you run away again. That you'll be willing to answer a few reasonable questions. I think you owe me that much."

"I think I owe you… an explanation, yes. And you'll get it, Max. Before I leave Silence. Good enough?"

"I guess it'll have to be."

Nell didn't question the grudging acceptance, merely nodded.

Max drew a breath and tried again to keep his voice calm. "So who're you expecting to show up?"

"Ethan."

"Ethan? Why?"

"The Gallagher curse." She smiled wryly as he finally joined her at the table. "Ethan doesn't believe in it, but we always knew he might get desperate enough to come to me for help. Always assuming he's not the killer. If he is… coming to me could still be a good idea. To find out what I know."

"So what makes your boss think he'll show up?"

"It's a logical assumption."

Max had a feeling it was more than that, but he decided not to question.

Nell said, "I haven't asked you before, but do you think Ethan would be capable of killing?"

"Killing — yes. These murders — no," Max answered.

"Why not?"

"To be honest, I think Ethan lacks the imagination for something like this. He's very straightforward and pretty obvious in his likes and dislikes — as I know better than anyone. Subtlety is not one of his strong suits. Plus, if you and your boss are right about some long-buried secret being at the heart of this, I'd be very surprised to find one in Ethan's past."

"Assuming it isn't him," Nell said, "do you think he realizes it might be a cop?"

"I don't know. But there is one thing I'm pretty sure of. When it comes to digging for the truth, he doesn't stop until he finds it. No matter who gets in his way."

Bishop frowned at the scanned photograph that had just come out of their color printer, and said softly, "Shit."

Tony came to peer over his shoulder at the shot of Nell walking down the steps of what appeared to be a courthouse, with a man in the background watching her, and in the foreground… "That isn't a ghost, is it?"

"No."

"Then what the hell is it?"

Bishop handed him the photo, his face grim. "Evil."

Tony went around to the other side of the conference table and sat down, staring at the photo with a slight frown. "Really? In what sense? A force? A presence?"

"Probably both."

"Was Nell aware of it?"

"No. And that really worries me."

"Who took the picture?"

"A friend of hers. A friend who thought it unusual enough to take it to Nell."

"A psychic friend?"

"Nell says not. So the camera captured something that was physically there, even if not visible to the naked eye."

Tony put the photograph on the table and leaned back, frowning more heavily now. "Nell's sensitive to events, taps into the energy signature left in rooms and other places by extreme emotions, right?"

"Right."

"How about the spider sense?"

Bishop nodded. "She can enhance her other senses by concentrating. So it's difficult for anything or anyone to sneak up on her, if that's what you're asking."

"Yeah. But this… presence… snuck up on her. Is looming over her, as a matter of fact, and not in what I'd call a friendly manner." Tony tapped the photo with a finger. "Is that how you knew it wasn't a ghost?"

"Partly. Disembodied spirits in the traditional sense, those without a physical self, have a distinct emotional signature, and it's likely Nell would pick up on that."

Tony frowned. "So she'd know if there was a ghost around, even though she isn't a medium?"

"Probably, Her ability is unique as far as we can tell, but we have developed a few theories — most of them untested as yet. The chances are pretty good that the energy signature of ghosts and other disembodied spirits is close enough to what her mind naturally taps into that she'd at least be sensitive to it. Unable to communicate with a spirit the way a medium can, but definitely aware of a presence."

"But she didn't sense this presence. Because it didn't have the right energy signature?"

"Because it wasn't a ghost or a spirit, and because its physical self existed elsewhere. Astral projection, Tony. Out-of-body."

"You mean this is the spiritual energy of somebody who's alive and well and right there in Silence?"

Bishop nodded. "Alive at least. Well is arguable."

Tony considered that a few moments, then said, "You believe it's also a force. What makes you think so?"

"Look at its shape, how elongated and distorted it is. It's barely recognizable as anything even remotely human. A normal astral projection that's visible at all assumes the perceptible shape of the body it knows best, the physical body it normally occupies. In other words, what you saw would look like the person it represented."

"This," Tony murmured, "looks like a monster."

"Exactly. That is the physical manifestation of a very disturbed mind. But, even more, look at the size of it, the threatening posture. The sheer mental energy required to project something of that magnitude over any distance at all indicates an extremely powerful, extremely dark intellect."

"And it wouldn't be something innate to or trapped in this area, this building, right?"

"Right."

"Then… it was following Nell. Watching her."

"That's what it looks like."

"And we didn't know about it."

"We," Bishop said grimly, "didn't know about it."

Tony winced. "Shit. I guess we can assume the likelihood that this is also the killer they're trying to find down there?"

"We can assume there's a damned good possibility it is. I love a good coincidence, but I seriously doubt there are two separate evils at work in Silence at the same time and that the one we aren't after would be focused on Nell."

"Yeah." Tony drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "And I guess it's unrealistic to think this… thing was following her around just because she looks good in jeans."

"Probably. So the question is — why was it following her? Has her cover been blown, at least where the killer is concerned? Or is… it… interested in her for some other reason?"

"Is there any way for her to find out? Safely, I mean, without giving away to the killer what she's doing."

Bishop shook his head. "I can't think of a way. She can stay alert and try to keep her senses wide open, but that's dangerous as hell. Even without being a true medium, if she taps directly into something this dark it could leave her vulnerable to attack — psychic and physical. At the very least, he'd know who and what she really is and that she's looking for him."

"And at worst?"

"At worst… if he's as powerful psychically as I believe he is and Nell opens up her mind to him… if this photo is evidence of true, controlled astral projection and not just a one-time, nightmarish event… if Nell has become a focus for his attention, for whatever reason… then she's in danger. And not the kind of danger that can be held at bay with bullets or a badge."

"Lots of ifs," Tony noted after a moment.

"I know. Problem is, I think they could all be the truth of what's happening down there."

"So we've got a very dark and twisted killer who's a cop and who is also psychic. Am I being paranoid, or does the universe seem to delight in stacking the deck against us these days?"

"You're being paranoid. But that doesn't mean you aren't also right." Bishop ran restless fingers through his hair and frowned. "You know, by its very definition, evil is something beyond normal, or at least what most people consider normal. Maybe we should just expect the bastards we hunt to be psychic in some sense until proved otherwise."

"It'd probably save time," Tony agreed wryly.

"Yeah. And in the meantime… there's what's happening in Silence. I'm about a breath away from pulling Nell out."

"Given that she now believes this killer may have started his nasty little habits last year by murdering her father, do you really think she'd be willing to be pulled out?"

"No. Dammit."

"And she's already there and involved, connected to what's happening. If she's meant to be a part of it —"

"I'll make the situation immeasurably worse by pulling her out of there. By pulling any of them out of there. Yeah, I know. I know."

"Nell is aware of what this… thing… could be, right? Knows to be on her guard?"

"For all the good it'll do her, yes. But it's going to be difficult if not impossible for her to protect herself in any meaningful sense when she can't be sure why this bastard is paying this kind of attention to her."

Tony thought about it, then said, "Can anybody else shield her? Psychically?"

Bishop shook his head. "Remember what happens with Miranda when she shields her own mind? When I do? All the extra senses get muffled, even cut off, and we end up psychically blind. We can protect ourselves, or we can use our abilities to reach out and probe — but not both at the same time. Nell needs the advantage of her psychic abilities to get to the bottom of what's happening in Silence, so she can't afford to mute them in any way. She can try to focus and concentrate on specific places at specific times, but that's the only control she has."

"That isn't much protection," Tony noted.

"That isn't any protection."

After a moment, Tony said, "She chose to do this, boss. You didn't order her to. You never order any of us to."

"Do you think that matters, Tony?" Bishop's voice was very quiet.

He started to reply, but in the end Tony realized there was nothing he could say. Nothing that would help.

Nothing at all.

The house where Randal Patterson had lived was somewhat large for a single person, though certainly not a mansion. And given his apparent personal habits, Nell wasn't surprised to find it also rather isolated from the other houses around it. There was nothing so defined as a neighborhood in this rural area, merely houses scattered along country roads; the Patterson house sat squarely in the middle of at least eighty acres and back from the road so that it wasn't visible to passersby.

"I guess privacy was an issue," Max said wryly as they left their horses to the rear of the Mediterranean-style house and approached across a neatly manicured backyard.

"I guess. Nobody to hear the screams coming from the basement. Are you sure nobody lives here? The place is awfully spiffy."

"Randal contracted the yard work by the season, and he'd already paid for this year." Max shrugged when Nell looked at him inquiringly. "Same crew does the yard work at the ranch, and they told me. As for the house, it's still pretty much as it was when Randal died, since he owned it outright. The only relative is a cousin living out on the West Coast, and word has it he's interested only in whatever money is left when the estate is settled."

Nell paused on the very nice flagstone veranda to say wryly, "What's really amazing about all this is that someone actually found a few secrets to get angry about. For the most part, secrets don't seem to stay secret very long in Silence."

"What can I say? Wade Keever was Randal's lawyer."

"Of course he was." Nell produced her small tool case and got to work on the door.

Watching her, Max said, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Why not? If the breaking and entering bugs you, wait out here."

"That isn't what I mean. It didn't seem to bother you out at the bayou, but Randal died in this house, and only a couple of months ago. Plus, there are all the painful little games he apparently played in the basement. If you tap into that —"

"I'm not an empath, Max. I don't feel other people's pain — or the leftover impressions of it. For me, having a vision is like watching scenes from a movie. I'm just an observer."

"You said you sensed what your father was feeling when you saw him."

"Sensed, yes. But it's a knowledge — awareness and understanding without sharing the feelings."

That relieved Max, but not entirely. "Still, the visions take a lot out of you."

"It takes concentration and focus, just like any other physical or mental effort."

A slight edge to her voice made Max decide to change the subject. "When it comes to scene-of-the-crime access, this is as far as I can take you — at least via horseback and unobserved. Peter Lynch's wife still lives in the house where he died, and George Caldwell had an apartment in town; we couldn't get near either place without being observed or falling over a cop."

"Well, if the sheriff does ask for my help, I'll suggest we start with those two places."

Max waited until she unlocked the door and straightened, then said, "You say if but you mean when, don't you? You know he'll come to you for help."

"I didn't know it when I got here."

"Which is at least part of the reason why you asked me for help. Yeah, I figured that out. And now that you know Ethan will show up?"

Nell kept her gaze on him as she pushed open the door. "He can get me access to the other crime scenes. He may even share details of the investigation, details that could help me find the killer sooner."

Her measured words more or less took the teeth out of any argument he might have made against the idea, and Max was sure it had been deliberate. Just as deliberate as it was when she added a quiet statement.

"Whatever your differences with Ethan Cole, the fact remains that he is the sheriff here, and he can help me do the job I came to do."

"You mean if he isn't the killer."

"Changed your mind about that?"

Max hesitated. "I don't believe — can't believe — he's killed four men. Five if we're counting your father. But that doesn't mean he isn't a dangerous man, Nell."

"I'll try to remember that." She walked into Randal Patterson's house.

Max followed, all too aware that he had no right to question her or protest any action she intended to take, whether it be using her psychic abilities to hunt a murderer or walk down Main Street on the arm of Ethan Cole. Max had his own ideas as to why she was so determinedly aloof, convinced it was only partly due to a desire to keep him at a distance so that whatever was between them wouldn't interfere with her job here.

The problem was, she had made it very clear she was not yet ready to discuss the past, and until she was, there was little Max could do to close that distance, let alone hope to have any influence at all over any of her decisions. If he pushed too often or too hard, she was very capable of, at the very least, calling her boss or her invisible partner and having Max put on ice somewhere while she went on working.

The girl twelve years ago couldn't have done that, but this woman certainly could. And would.

When they stood in the foyer of what was obviously a professionally decorated house, Nell said, "I want to check the master bedroom and bath first, since that's where he died. Not that I really expect to get anything of value."

"Why not?" Max asked as they walked down the hallway of the bedroom wing of the house.

"Because he was electrocuted. Any unusual surge of electricity in an area tends to disrupt whatever other energy signatures there might have been."

"Makes sense, I guess." He stood just inside the door-way and watched her move around the very elegant but peculiarly impersonal bedroom. Despite her dismissal of the likelihood she'd tap into anything in this room, he was alert to the slightest change in her face and spoke up immediately when a faint frown came and went. "What?"

To herself more than to him, Nell said, "That weird feeling again. Like everything's at a distance."

"Again? It isn't because of the electricity?"

She looked at him and frowned once more as she headed for the doorway of the master bath. "Not unless there was some kind of electricity out at the bayou where Ferrier drowned. I felt it there too."

Max didn't have to completely understand her abilities to be wary of anything Nell considered out of the ordinary, and he came farther into the room so he could watch her while she went into the bathroom. "Then what could be causing it?"

"I don't know." Nell looked at the neat vanity, the designer towels hung just so, and candles and several decorative jars and bottles placed around the sunken tub. She picked up one jar, studying the sea-salt crystals within for a moment, then put it down and went to open the linen cabinet. "Patterson wasn't married, right?" she asked after a moment.

From the doorway, Max replied, "Right. He had been, once, years ago, but the divorce was final back when I was in college, and she moved out of town right after. Why?"

"Did he date? Openly, I mean."

"His public socializing was limited to church events," Max said. "One of the reasons why his little game room in the basement was such a shock to people."

Nell reached into the linen cabinet and withdrew a half-empty bottle of lavender bath salts. "I don't suppose you noticed if he ever smelled like lavender?"

Lifting one eyebrow, Max answered, "Sorry, no."

If she was amused by the response, Nell didn't let it show. Her voice was grave when she said, "It isn't what you'd call a traditional fragrance for a man."

"I wouldn't have thought so. But given what was found in the basement, it seems obvious he had women in the house from time to time."

Still frowning slightly, Nell returned the bath salts to the cabinet and shut it. "Yeah. It is obvious, isn't it?"

Max backed into the bedroom as she came out to join him, saying, "But nobody knows who they were, is that what's bothering you?"

"He was killed back in January, Max. And this is a small town. If Randal Patterson had a string of willing partners over the years, surely at least one of them would have been identified by now."

"I don't know, Nell. Even in these supposedly modern times, there are some things people would do their best to keep private, and I'd think sadomasochistic games would rank high on the list. Maybe the women are too embarrassed or too scared of the consequences to come forward."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Or maybe there was only one woman, Randal's regular Saturday night date for years. Relationships have lasted longer with less than a common sexual need binding two people together. And a single partner would sure as hell be less likely to be noticed and a lot harder to find."

Nell nodded. "It makes sense."

Max heard himself add, "I mean, Jesus, how many women in Silence could there be who're into that sort of thing?"

"You tell me."

He shook his head, wishing he could convince himself she was implying a purely personal interest. "I have no idea, not being into it myself. But I'd be very surprised if there were many."

"So would I. But we're making an assumption, you know."

"What assumption?"

"That his playmate was a woman."

After a moment Max said, "I guess it is an assumption."

"Yeah; which way is the basement?"

"Since I've never been here before, I don't have a clue." He knew he sounded disgruntled and made a mental note to try harder to rein in his emotions. Or at least stop making them so damned obvious.

Nell sent him a glance he couldn't interpret to save his life, then led the way from the bedroom, saying, "There's usually a stairway somewhere near the kitchen, I think."

She found it very easily, in a small hallway off the laundry room, and indicated with a silent gesture the keyed dead bolt that promised whatever lay beyond the door would remain private even within a private house.

"Is it locked?"

"Shouldn't be, since the police have been here." It wasn't, and Nell didn't hesitate to open the door, flip the light switch, and head down the stairs.

This was not something Max had looked forward to, for a variety of reasons but mostly because of the sexual nature of what he knew they'd find in the basement. He was not a man who was easily embarrassed, nor was he in any sense a prude, but he was far too conscious of Nell and what they had once had together to be able to stand beside her and view with impersonal detachment the carnal playroom of another man.

Especially when it reeked of sex.

That was the first thing he noticed, the strong yet faintly musty odors of sweat and other secretions mixed with the sharp smells of leather and rubber. Even before they reached the bottom of the stairs, he was trying to brace himself to face what they would find.

But bracing himself didn't help at all.