Whisper of Evil

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nell paused at the bottom of the stairs. Through the front screen door she could see that the sheriff's department cruiser was gone, and Max was nowhere to be seen. But he was nearby, she knew that.

She crossed the foyer to what was clearly Max's office or study and went into the room The desk lamp and a couple of other lights were on, as well as a PC running a martial-arts-theme screen saver, and a ledger was open on the blotter. She didn't have to use any of her extra senses to figure out that he had been working in here when the deputies arrived.

Probably waiting with all the patience he could scrape together for her to come out of the blackout and tell him what the hell was going on.

Nell hadn't let herself think very much about the trip from Randal Patterson's house, though she wasn't surprised that Max had brought her here rather than take her to a doctor or hospital. He had never under-stood her abilities or the blackouts, but she had convinced him they were normal for her, and she doubted he would have overreacted to her sudden unconsciousness.

Not Max.

Instead, knowing that she was an FBI agent undercover here and involved in a murder investigation would have made him even more disinclined than usual to trust anyone else, especially with her vulnerable self. As long as he believed she wasn't in any immediate danger medically from the blackout, Max's inclination would be to take her someplace safe and comfortable and wait for her to come out of it.

Nell knew what the blackouts looked like. Like she was asleep, basically. Normal pulse and respiration, no fever, pupil response normal.

Like she was just sleeping, and in no danger at all. And it was something he had seen before, more than once, even if it had been years ago. He would have known she was okay.

So Max had brought her here to his home, on horseback for God's sake, and she had a pretty strong hunch he'd managed to get her into the house without any of his ranch hands even knowing about it.

Shaking her head half-consciously, Nell wandered over to the tall bookcases flanking the fireplace in the room and began absently scanning the titles. But idle interest rapidly became something else as she slowly ran her finger along the spines of the books.

Psychology and parapsychology. Ghosts and hauntings. Telepathy. Precognition. Reincarnation. Telekinesis. Spiritualism. Healing. Astral projection. Remote viewing. Clairvoyance.

His library was wonderfully complete, with books covering everything from the prophecies of Nostradamus and the inexplicable long-ago psychic diagnoses and predictions of Edgar Cayce to the government's own experiments in remote viewing during the Cold War. And the books were obviously well read, most of them with numerous bookmarks or dog-eared pages to mark interesting passages.

Nell felt a pang, wondering how soon after she ran away he had first turned to these books in search of answers. Had it been soon after, when he had tried to open a door only to discover he wasn't able to? Had he learned to hate her then?

"I was out of my mind to come back here," Nell muttered.

"Let's hope not," Max said from the doorway. His voice changed when he added, "Are you all right?"

Nell turned to look at him, nodding slowly. "I'm fine. It was just a blackout, you know that."

"Was it? Just a blackout? You said yourself there was something different about it. Or don't you remember telling me that?"

"I remember." She wondered if he remained standing in the doorway to block her retreat; did he expect her to bolt from his house? Probably. Probably. "It was a little sudden, that's all. I usually get more warning."

"I remember. So what does it mean that this time you had no warning at all?"

She forced a smile. "Hell if I know. Like I told you, all this is pretty much theoretical at present. I guess… the stress is taking more of a toll than I'd realized."

"The blackout was a warning to stop."

"Maybe. Or slow down. Or maybe it was just a random event that held no meaning at all. I won't run away, Max, if that's why you're still blocking the doorway."

"You ran away once before," he reminded her, his voice suddenly rough again.

"That was different."

"Was it? I know you don't want to talk about this yet, but there's one thing I have to know, Nell. Was it something I did? Was it my fault?"

"Well?" Shelby demanded.

"He doesn't know anything about it," Justin replied, joining her in the car.

"Or says he doesn't."

Justin leaned back and eyed her thoughtfully. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't you known Ethan Cole for most of your life?"

"You're not wrong."

"But you suspect him of…what? Knowing more about this series of murders than he's willing to say?"

"At the very least," she replied promptly.

"Why?"

"I told you why."

"You told me why you came to me with the information about George Caldwell and those records he was looking into. Because I'm the most recent hire in the sheriff's department, a virtual stranger to this town and so pretty much off the suspect list, at least in your mind."

He drew a breath. "You haven't told me why any of this concerns you, why you believe anyone in the sheriff's department would be on the suspect list in the first place, and you haven't told me why Sheriff Cole seems to be at the top of that list."

"I guess I should answer the first question first."

"I wish you would."

Shelby half shrugged. "It concerns me because this is my town and because I can't not be concerned. It concerns me because I have an inquisitive nature — as anyone will tell you. And it concerns me because I really, really don't like murder."

"Okay," he said slowly. "And the rest?"

Shelby hesitated for just long enough to make her seeming reluctance look real. "I think someone in the sheriff's department might be involved because of a few things I've seen and heard. Nothing I could explain to somebody else, more of a feeling than a fact."

"That's pretty thin, Shelby."

"Yeah. But am I wrong?"

Instead of replying to that, he said, "What you still haven't explained is why you believe Sheriff Cole is at the top of your suspect list."

"Because I know him. And I know he's not… behaving the way he usually does when he wants to get to the bottom of something."

"And from that you think he's hiding something?"

"That's what got me interested, Justin. It's what made me watch him. And when I did, I went back and checked through all the pictures I'd taken around town in the past year."

"And?"

Shelby reached into her big canvas tote bag and pulled out a manila envelope. "And this is what I found."

Justin opened the envelope and slowly examined each of the photos. "It's hardly conclusive," he said finally.

"No. But it is… interesting, isn't it, Justin? It's very, very interesting."

While Nell was still trying to make up her mind how to answer Max, he said abruptly, "Look, it's after six, and I know damned well you haven't eaten since lunchtime — if then. My housekeeper always leaves supper in the oven for me. Why don't we talk while we eat?" In a dry tone, he added, "It'll give you more time to decide how much to tell me."

Nell didn't protest, partly because she knew food would provide her with badly needed fuel; she was inexplicably tired, a disturbing feeling since the blackouts usually left her feeling rested. So all she said was, "I guess a busy rancher needs a housekeeper."

"He does if he hates housework and can't cook," Max responded frankly. "Come on."

Half an hour later, they were sharing a delicious and definitely man-sized chicken pie and salad, sitting opposite each other at a small oak table in a breakfast nook surrounded by windows that probably, in daytime, looked out over his rolling ranch land. The windows were dark now, of course, and since they were curtained only by valances across the tops, the expanse of reflective black glass gave Nell the creepy feeling she was being watched.

At least, she told herself that was the cause of the feeling.

Max kept the conversation low-key and casual while they ate, an abeyance of at least one kind of tension that Nell appreciated, even if she was still conscious of his unanswered question hanging over her like a sword.

What did Max really want to know?

The truth? Which truth? How much of the truth?

And if she was able to offer him the truth he needed, what then? What would change? How would he feel after what he learned, about the past… about her?

He poured coffee for them and cleared the table, allowing her even more time to brood, and when he finally returned to the table, he asked her again the question he obviously most wanted the answer to.

"Was it my fault that you left?"

"How could it have been? I didn't even see you that day."

"Was it my fault?" he repeated steadily.

"No."

After a moment, Max settled more firmly into his chair, folding his arms over his chest in an attitude that was so clearly the picture of a man courteously and with inhuman patience waiting for explanations that she had to smile.

"You're about as subtle as neon, Max, you know that?"

"Something that hasn't changed. I don't believe in hiding things, remember?"

She did remember. It had been part of what attracted her to him in the very beginning, that tendency of his to show his feelings openly and without apology, to proclaim with every word and gesture and even the posture of his body exactly what kind of man he was.

Nothing hidden. Nothing deceptive. Nothing secret.

She wondered, not for the first time, if it had been a case of opposites attracting, at least in the beginning. Because in that way she had certainly been as different from him as night was different from day, so much of her hidden beneath the surface or disguised as something else. So much of her unrevealed, contained in silence.

The only friction that had ever occurred between them had been over her absolute insistence that their growing closeness remain private. And secret.

Hoping for at least a slight delay, she said, "One thing seems to be different, at least according to the books in your library. You didn't believe in the paranormal once upon a time."

His broad shoulders lifted and fell in a faint shrug. "Like I said, once you're touched by the paranormal, a lot of things change. A lot of…possibilities open up. Or not, as the case may be. I've had plenty of time to think, Nell. Twelve years."

She wanted to apologize for that, or for some of it, but couldn't. Faced with the same situation, she knew she would act in exactly the same way.

All she regretted was the necessity.

Carefully, she said, "Neither of us can go back and alter the past, Max."

"I know that."

"Then why does it matter?"

His mouth tightened. "It matters. What was bothering you so much that week, Nell? If it wasn't me or anything I'd done, then what?"

Nell had made up her mind to tell him, but when it came to the point, she shied away yet again from talking about it. Even from facing it.

Still, she wasn't changing the subject as thoroughly as he might have believed when she said evasively, "Aren't you going to ask me about what I saw in Randal Patterson's basement?"

Max drew a breath and let it out slowly, that neon-obvious attitude of patience still clinging to him. "Okay. What did you see in Randal's basement?"

Nell wrapped both hands around her coffee cup and gazed down at it, frowning. She hadn't been unduly embarrassed by what they'd found in that basement, but the unpleasant details of what she'd seen in her vision were something she had no intention of describing to him. "I saw Hailey again," she replied simply.

"You mean she was… involved… with Randal?"

With a slight grimace she couldn't help, Nell finally met his gaze. "Completely involved. Intimately involved. And it… looked to me as though they were very… familiar with each other. I think Hailey was, for at least a while, his regular Saturday night date."

Max leaned back in his chair, staring at her with a frown. "Jesus. I guess you never really know people, do you?"

"I guess not."

"Then why do I get the feeling that although you were shocked by what you saw, you weren't really surprised? You expected to see her there, didn't you?"

Nell barely hesitated. "Yes."

"Why? Because of her connection to Luke Ferrier?"

This time she did hesitate, but only for a moment. "When Bishop was so sure there was something more he was sensing, some elusive fact we didn't yet know tying the murder victims together, I wondered if he was picking something up from me, if it was a kind of…secondhand connection, and that was why he couldn't get a fix on it."

"So part of his profile was developed by psychic means?"

"Well, not his official profile. There may be psychic aspects to some of his profiles, but more usually they're based on pure police work, investigative experience, and the psychology of the criminal mind. But he sensed something about this killer right from the beginning, even before he sent anyone down here, and I can't think of any other way he could have done that unless he was picking it up through someone connected to this town."

"Which would have had to be you?"

"I think so."

"Why not the mayor? She talked to him before he sent anyone down here."

Nell shook her head. "Even the best telepath can only read a percentage of people he or she encounters. Bishop couldn't read Casey."

"But he can read you?"

"Partly. It's difficult to explain, but some psychics have a kind of natural shield just below the level of their conscious thoughts, especially those of us sensitive to some types of electrical energy. If he touches me, Bishop usually knows what I'm thinking, but he wouldn't necessarily be able to sense anything deeper than my own conscious thoughts. I didn't think about Hailey being a possible connection between the men, not then, but maybe something inside me deeper than thought wondered, and maybe that's what Bishop could sense but couldn't quite bring into focus."

"If he touches you."

"He's a touch telepath; physical contact is required for him to read most other people." Nell shrugged. "Like I said, he couldn't read Casey. So whatever he was picking up had to be through me. It was when I was on my way down here that I wondered if it might have anything to do with Hailey."

For a moment, it seemed as though Max would continue to focus the conversation on her absent boss, but then he shook his head just barely as if in a silent negation to himself, and said, "So you believe we'll find Hailey somehow connected to the other two men as well?"

"I think it's beginning to look like more of a probability than a possibility."

"You're not saying she killed any of them herself? Your boss says he's sure the killer is a male cop."

"Even the best profiler — and psychic — is wrong from time to time. Especially if he doesn't have all the information he needs or if…emotions cloud things. Maybe Bishop is wrong this time. Maybe we're all wrong. Maybe the killer isn't a man, isn't a cop. None of the murders required unusual strength, after all, so a woman could have committed them. It would even explain why Luke Ferrier was drugged before his car was driven into that bayou: because most women could never have overpowered him if he'd been conscious and able to struggle."

"Answer the first question, Nell. You're not saying that Hailey killed any of them herself, are you?"

Nell dropped her gaze to her coffee cup once again and frowned. "No, I'm not saying that. Not that. But I do believe she would be capable of killing — even four men — if she had a good enough reason."

"And your father? Could she have killed him — with a good enough reason?"

She watched her fingers tighten around the cup and tried consciously to relax them.

The truth.

"Nell?"

Trying to sound matter-of-fact as though it were nothing important, she said, "Yes. With a good enough reason, Hailey could have killed him too."

"Did she have it? Did she have a good enough reason?"

The truth.

"Yes," Nell replied finally. "She had a good enough reason."

"I've already searched this place twice myself," Justin said as he and Shelby went into George Caldwell's apartment. It was a fairly typical second-floor apartment, conventionally and professionally decorated, the only anomaly being a conspicuously missing armchair and rug across from the television in the living room.

It was something Shelby noticed. "Is that where… ?"

"We have the chair and rug in the evidence room. They were both — well, they were evidence."

Shelby grimaced. "Oh."

"You did want to do this," he reminded her.

"I know, I know. Look, didn't you say you concentrated mostly on some secret hiding place? Because of the blackmail thing?"

"It seemed most likely."

"And didn't find anything. So let's suppose there is no secret hiding place because there aren't any secrets. Given that, there has to be something here — probably in plain sight — to prove George wasn't a blackmailer."

"You seem very sure of that."

"I am. George was not a blackmailer."

Justin was still astonished at himself that he had confided in Shelby about the little black notebook, but since her reaction had been instant and definite it had at least served to underline his own increasing doubts. Still, he said, "We have the copies of birth records from the courthouse to go through; maybe they'll tell us something."

"I imagine they will," Shelby said absently as she stood gazing around the apartment with a frown. "There are some people who thought George was just nosy, but he was not a man to waste his time. If he was looking through those records with the intensity Ne — I believe I saw, then it was because he was after something definite."

Justin's eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn't comment on what had sounded like a near slip of the tongue. Instead, he said, "You can take it from me there's nothing even remotely helpful in the bedroom. Unless you find old issues of Playboy suspicious."

"How about in here? What's in the desk?" Not a large desk, it was the sort of piece some people used in the more public areas of their homes to contain the seemingly endless paperwork necessary in maintaining a household.

"Mostly private financial information. Checkbook, bank statements, that sort of thing. The serious records he kept at the bank, but there's an investment ledger in the name of his ten-year-old son — Caldwell was building up a college fund, according to his widow — and paperwork concerning a few other personal financial deals. Nothing jumped out."

"Maybe it'll jump out at me," Shelby said, sitting down at the desk and opening a drawer.

Justin watched her for a moment. "This is just an excuse to snoop, right?"

She smiled without looking at him. "Don't be ridiculous. There's a little box of receipts and stuff here; did you go through it?"

"I think Matt Thorton went through that one." He recalled Kelly's warning and felt suddenly uneasy. "But that was early on, so I probably should go through it now just to make sure there's nothing helpful in it."

Shelby handed over the small cardboard box, and Justin carried it to the couch and sat down. What he found when he opened it was, as she had noted, mostly odds and ends. There were several movie and raffle ticket stubs, a few coupons for free car washes and lunch specials, and numerous receipts for the current year that he might have been considering as possible tax deductions.

There was also one small piece of paper obviously torn from a pocket notebook. A handwritten I.O.U. for a hundred dollars — signed by Luke Ferrier.

Had Matt Thorton missed it by accident? Missed the significance of it?

"Shelby?"

"Yeah?" She was frowning down at the ledger open before her on the desk.

"Did Caldwell play poker?"

"Dunno. I'm sure I could find out. Why?"

"If he did, would he have played with Luke Ferrier?"

She looked at him, still frowning. "Well, remember that none of us knew Ferrier had a gambling problem. So I wouldn't be surprised. I doubt George would have made a habit of playing, though; he wasn't much into risking his money."

"How sure are you of that?"

"Pretty sure."

"And if Ferrier had owed him a hundred bucks from some kind of gambling debt?"

Shelby lifted an eyebrow. "You mean would George have tried to get his money back if Ferrier welshed? No, probably not. A hundred bucks wouldn't have meant much to George. But it would have convinced him not to take any more of Ferrier's markers, or probably just not play with him again. He was a fool-me-twice-shame-on-me kind of guy."

It made sense to Justin. He stared at the little piece of paper in his hand, brooding.

So Caldwell had, in all probability, played poker or otherwise gambled with Luke Ferrier at least once; both Peter Lynch and Randal Patterson had been clients at his bank. It wasn't enough of a connection between the four men, Justin thought, to explain the three earner murders — but what if it explained, at least in part, George Caldwell's murder?

What if the man everyone called too inquisitive for his own good had gotten curious about the three murders, and through his own associations with the dead men either knew or suspected something else that had connected them? And what if his search for the information or verification of his suspicions was what had really gotten him killed?

Lots of what-ifs. And no way for Justin to know if he was even on the right track, dammit.

"Hey," Shelby said.

"What?"

"That unexplained income of George's. What were the dates of the deposits?"

Justin got out the little black notebook he'd been carrying with him and read off the dates of the supposed blackmail payoffs listed there.

"Matches," Shelby said. "Every one of them."

"In the ledger? So how're they recorded?"

"Wait a minute, he's got some kind of private code here___" Shelby frowned and rechecked several pages, then nodded. "Oh, I see. It looks like he had transferred some rental property into his son's name about three years ago, and ever since then he was depositing the income into that account as part of the college fund he was putting together."

"Perfectly innocent," Justin said. "Told you. George was no blackmailer." Quietly, Justin said, "So why did he have to die?" Shelby leaned back in the desk chair and looked at him steadily. "If he wasn't a blackmailer, if he didn't have some other deep, dark secret — then he must have been a threat to the murderer. Knew something, maybe. So he had to die. That's the only possibility that makes sense."

"And the murderer would then have been left with a killing he badly needed to connect to the others so we wouldn't start looking for a motive specific to that crime."

Her voice as steady as her eyes, Shelby said, "By fabricating so-called evidence of blackmail. Which is a good argument for a cop being involved. It would have been fairly easy for a cop with at least some access to Caldwell's bank accounts to spot the regular deposits and put together that notebook to make Caldwell's murder fit the pattern."

"Easy enough," Justin agreed. "And if you couldn't find information on others he might have blackmailed, it wouldn't be all that surprising. Most of the other cops probably wouldn't even have looked very hard to find evidence that George really was a blackmailer. I mean, after all, we're beginning to expect dark secrets to surface after one of these murders. That made it easier for the murderer."

"Which brings us back to the big question," Justin said. "Why did George Caldwell have to die?"

Nate McCurry felt increasingly uneasy as the day wore on, and he wasn't entirely sure why. He had the nagging idea that at some point during the long day he had seen or heard something he hadn't paid enough attention to at the time, something important.

By the time darkness fell, he was literally pacing the floor, checking the security system on his doors and windows repeatedly, and wishing he didn't live alone. And when the phone rang, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

He looked at the instrument for a moment as though it were a viper ready to strike him, then laughed shakily and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"You'll pay."

It was a low voice, a whisper really, without identifying characteristics; there was even no sense that told him if he was speaking to a man or a woman.

Nate felt a chill track up his spine with icy claws. "What? Who the hell is this?" he demanded, his voice so shaky it practically wobbled.

"You'll pay."

He drew a breath and tried not to sound terrified out of his mind. "Look, whoever you are — I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't hurt anyone. I swear."

There was an odd, choked laugh, still without identity or gender but with something in it strangely both incredulous and horrified, and then the whisper again. "You'll pay."

The connection was broken with a soft click, and the dial tone buzzed in Nate's ears.

He hung up the receiver slowly and stared at it without seeing or feeling anything but his terror.

"Oh, Jesus," he murmured.