Whisper of Evil

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Nell.

She wanted to ignore the summons. The pain wasn't so bad here where it was dark and peaceful and she wasn't worried about anything. Not about killers or her own evil bloodline, or even whether it was possible for her to walk away from Max this time. None of that bothered her. Everything was fine.

You have to wake up, Nell.

A stab of pain sliced through her mind like a burning knife, and Nell winced, tried to retreat further into the darkness. If that whisper would just go away and leave her alone…

There isn't much time left.

She could feel herself being pulled, drawn relentlessly from the peaceful darkness toward the cold uncertainty of consciousness, and she resisted as hard as she could.

You need —

Nell opened her eyes and sat up in the same motion. Her head throbbed immediately, but at least it was a dull ache, soreness rather than pain. Her entire body felt sore, now that she thought about it. The question was, why?

Rubbing her temples gingerly, Nell murmured, "What the hell happened?"

She was in her lamplit room, on her bed. Covered by a quilt, still dressed except for her shoes. When she managed to bring her watch into focus, it told her only that she had been out for at least an hour and possibly longer.

Probably longer.

Jeez, what had set her off this time? She had been downstairs talking to Max, hadn't she? Sitting drinking coffee. Or had they been standing? He'd insisted they talk about them, about their relationship, and her head had really been hurting then, and — and what?

Another of these weird and sudden blackouts, apparently. Either she was simply more tired than she had realized — or her brain was getting seriously fatigued from the too-frequent use of her abilities.

The latter possibility was more than a little frightening, but Nell shoved it grimly aside. There was nothing she could do about that now. Nothing.

Nothing?

The whisper was so soft she was almost certain she hadn't really heard it. Almost certain. Still, she listened intently for several moments, and all she heard now was, faintly, the murmur of voices downstairs, male voices. She didn't really have much extra energy to enhance her hearing, but what little she could use allowed her to be fairly sure that Max was talking to someone.

Galen.

"Oh, great." Not exactly the last two men in the world she'd want discussing the situation — and, undoubtedly, her — but close enough.

Nell pushed the quilt away and slid carefully from the bed. A shower, that's what she needed. A long, hot shower to wash away the cobwebs and soreness. Maybe then she could at least start to figure out what was wrong with her.

Then again, maybe she already knew.

"She's awake," Max said.

Galen nodded, then listened for a moment. "In the shower. You know her better than I do, but I'd say she won't be too happy to find us down here talking."

"She'll be prickly as hell," Max agreed. "But I think we both agree it's time to put at least some of our cards on the table. Especially if there's even the possibility that Nell's being influenced by someone else."

"That's the part she's going to hate."

"Yeah. I know." Max shook his head. "The question is, who's doing the influencing? Even with the profile… is it more or less likely that it could be Hailey rather than a stranger?"

"On the face of it, more likely. The kind of influence and control we're talking about is rare even among psychics, seldom possible except between mates or blood siblings."

"But?"

"But, aside from the fact that Nell's certain Hailey was never psychic, over the years we've encountered more than a few predators whose psychic abilities were seemingly enhanced by the sheer twisted evil of their minds. They were capable of some incredible things — including forms of mind control."

"It makes sense. And I guess the killer began trying to influence Nell because he became suspicious of her. But what would have given her away?"

"There's no way to be sure about that." Galen hesitated, then added, "But we've known almost from day one that the killer was watching Nell, or was at least once." He explained about the photo Shelby had taken and the consensus as to its probable meaning.

"Jesus." Incredulous, Max added, "You're telling me this maniac has been waltzing in and out of Nell's mind —"

"No, not in the sense of direct communication. Nell would have known if that happened. Watching her, at least from time to time, certainly. As for how he's been blocking her, maybe even influencing her, my guess is that he made contact while she was unconscious or asleep, while all her guards were down, then planted a kind of posthypnotic suggestion deep in her mind set to trigger the headaches, maybe even the blackouts, whenever she got too close to whatever he's trying to protect."

"I had no idea that was even possible."

"Like I said, we've come across some seriously disturbed psychics. If we've learned anything, it's that where the will of the human mind is concerned, nothing is impossible."

"How the hell is she supposed to protect herself against that kind of thing?"

"She can't," Galen answered matter-of-factly. "Oh, she could throw up a shield around her mind, but she's not a telepath, so it's never been anything she had to learn in order to protect herself. Odds are, it wouldn't be a solid enough shield to shut out someone as powerful as this guy seems to be, especially given the fact that Nell's resources aren't exactly at their peak right now. Blocking a link is one thing; keeping out a determined psychopath who doesn't give a shit about kicking a door in is something else entirely."

"You said there was another agent here, a telepath —"

"Yeah, but helping Nell shore up her mental shields isn't something just any telepath can do. Psychics are oddly isolated in their abilities, unable to link up to help each other or increase their strength. There's only one exception I know of."

"Which is?"

"Mates. It seems to demand a very special sort of trust, and a lot more intimacy than most of us could stand, to allow two psychics to bond deeply enough to share their abilities."

After a moment, Max said, "And if one of the… mates isn't psychic? What kind of bond can there be then?"

"You'd know that better than I would." Galen waited until Max met his gaze, then added, "But from what I've been told, the bond between lovers when only one is psychic is different from couple to couple. It depends on how strong the psychic is. And how strong the physical and emotional connections between the lovers are. Sometimes there's an actual telepathic or empathic link, sometimes not."

"Not an area that's been intensively researched, I guess."

"Not even by us. Like I said, it's difficult to keep secrets among a group of psychics, but even so, some things are more private than others."

"Yeah." Max almost visibly pushed the subject aside, at least for the moment. "Listen, before Nell gets down here, there's one more thing." He turned to the mantel and picked up a framed photograph, handing it to Galen.

Studying it, Galen saw an old family photo that appeared to be professionally done. It had been taken from the front of the house, with Adam Gallagher, his young wife, and his mother standing on the steps, and two other women in the background near the front door. Grace Gallagher looked both unhappy and several months pregnant, and the two women in the background appeared, from their aprons and position in the photo, to be family servants.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?" Galen asked.

"Just before she blacked out, Nell was fiddling with this picture. Sort of looking at it, but not really." Max shrugged. "We were — let's just say the discussion was a bit tense."

"Okay. And so?"

"And so, all of a sudden, she frowned at the picture, started to ask who someone was — and went out like a light. I checked the back of the photo, and from the date I'd say it was taken a few months before Hailey was born."

"Nell would know her parents, of course. Her grandmother. So it must have been one of these other women who caught her attention."

"That's what I thought. As I recall, there were times when Adam Gallagher did well enough with his investments that the family had quite a bit of household help, especially in those early years. Not live-in servants, but certainly a housekeeper and cook who came in daily."

Galen nodded. "Wasn't this something Nell knew? I mean, even if this was taken before she was born, wouldn't she just assume these other women were employees? It's fairly obvious from the pose and their clothing that they are. Weird that they'd be included in a family photo, but —"

"Not weird if you knew Adam Gallagher. He liked to see himself as the benevolent patriarch and lord of all he surveyed; having the household help visible in a family photo just enhanced his image of himself."

Galen lifted an eyebrow, but said only, "Then I'd think Nell's natural assumption would be that these women were servants. So why her interest in one or both of them?"

"What bothered me was that she wasn't even able to finish the question. It was like… like as soon as she paid attention to the photo, she was put out of commission."

"Because she maybe got too close to whatever our psychic killer is trying to protect. Or… the timing could be completely coincidental."

Max nodded. "Or it could be coincidental. Problem is, the only way I can think of to test that theory is to have Nell look at the photo again."

"And maybe be put out of commission for a couple of hours again — or something more permanent."

"Exactly. Not a risk I want to take. So I was thinking maybe you could look into it. Tap some of those FBI sources and see if you can put names to the faces. Look, it's probably nothing. But maybe there's a reason Nell isn't supposed to ask questions about one or both of those women."

Galen nodded and turned the frame over so he could open the back and get the photo out. "I can use

Nell's laptop, scan this in, and modem it to Quantico. But unless one of these women has a criminal record or has come up missing or murdered, we aren't likely to find them in FBI files. This is a professional shot, probably taken by what is — or was — a local photographer; that's not really the kind of thing you tend to find in federal computer databases. You know anybody local who could check it out discreetly?"

Max hesitated, then said, "Maybe."

Galen smiled faintly. "You could always get Justin Byers to do it. After all — he is your man in Silence. Isn't he?"

"I just don't know why you didn't tell me sooner."

"Because I wasn't supposed to." Shelby frowned at Justin. "Nell told me not to say anything unless and until there was another murder." Her frown deepened. "Come to think of it, she said when, not if. I think she was expecting this. Poor Nate."

"If she's an FBI agent, of course she was expecting it. You say they developed a profile, so they knew damned well there was likely to be another murder." Justin sounded more than a little put upon.

"I think it was more than that." Shelby shook her head. "Never mind. The point is that Nell asked me to… um… suggest this line of investigation to you. The birth records. It wasn't something she could openly do herself and still be undercover, and she knew you could be trusted."

Justin eyed her somewhat grimly. "And she knew this how?"

"She just knew. Seemed completely sure. Hey, she's psychic. I figured she'd know if anybody would. Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"No. Thank you. I just stopped by to ask if you knew anything useful about Nate McCurry. And to tell you Sheriff Cole wants to go over the birth records himself."

"Don't know much about Nate, at least not anything likely to help solve his murder. As for Ethan, you don't seem too bothered by his interest in those records." She smiled suddenly. "You got word you could trust him, right?"

Justin silently counted to ten, but even so his voice was somewhat tight when he said, "And how long have you known that?"

"Um… a while."

"Something else you weren't supposed to tell me?"

Shelby grimaced slightly in apology. "I'm sorry, Justin, but I promised Nell I'd do exactly what she told me to. It was almost like she… knew things had to happen in a certain order, that it was important they did. Or maybe it's less a psychic thing and more FBI investigative techniques. Either way, 1 promised I'd follow her instructions to the letter."

"Uh-huh. So how long did it take you to find those photographs that seemingly implicated Cole?"

"Not all that long," Shelby responded brightly. "He does talk to just about everybody, you know, and I have pictures of him going back years, so it wasn't hard. Of course, I did have to fudge the dates a little bit to make it look like he'd talked to the murdered men just before they were killed, but —"

"Jesus, Shelby."

"Well, you wouldn't have let me tag along if I hadn't given you good reason to distrust Ethan even more than you did. And the profile did indicate the killer could be a cop, so Nell didn't want to take the chance you might confide in the wrong coworker. Much better for you to talk to me, especially since I had to not only find out what you knew and suspected but also nudge you toward those birth records."

"Jesus," he repeated.

She looked him straight in the eye, smiling just a little. "Was I the only one lying?"

"I could charge you with obstruction of justice, do you realize that?" he snapped, unprepared to give in just yet.

"I imagine you could. And what could you be charged with? I mean, is there something a licensed private investigator could be charged with when he goes undercover and gets a job with the local police? Or would that not be illegal but just something your fellow officers would be really, really pissed about?"

Justin leaned forward on Shelby's sofa, put his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his face slowly with both hands. "Christ," he muttered. "Secrets really don't stay secret for long in this town."

"A more-or-less established fact. Whoever named this town had a wonderful sense of irony."

"You're telling me Nell knew all along that I've been working for Max?"

"Apparently so. I guess she didn't tell him she knew, huh? Maybe because he wasn't honest about it himself."

Justin drew a breath and let it out slowly as he sat up straight again. "Oh what a tangled web we weave. I knew somebody was going to get tripped up by it."

"Mixing your metaphors. I think. Look, if it makes you feel any better, Nell really is good at this stuff,

Justin. And she was always secretive even before she got that federal badge. Plus, they were pretty sure the killer was a cop, so everybody had to be undercover and had to be careful who told who what, so —"

"Everybody?"

"Yeah, well, I think there are others. Don't know for sure, because Nell wouldn't say, but I don't think she's down here alone."

"Does Sheriff Cole know this?"

"He does now, I expect. Nell was planning to tell him today. She left a message on my voice mail, and I got it when you brought me back here after lunch."

"That would have been before we got the call about Nate McCurry."

"That she told Ethan? Yeah, I think so. Why?"

"Another fluent liar," Justin said with a sigh. "He admitted that he had talked to Nell but made out that it was just to get her psychic take on the investigation."

"Probably true enough, at least as to his motives before she told him who she really was."

Justin frowned. "If she told him who and what she was, then she must have told him the FBI profile pointed to a cop being the killer."

"That was the plan."

"He didn't act like he suspected me. Because he's a good actor, or because Nell told him about me?"

"I wouldn't have said he's a good actor, but he's always been capable of keeping his thoughts to himself. Want me to call Nell and ask?"

"No. Not right now, anyway. I talked to Max about an hour ago, and he said Nell was sleeping."

"Sleeping? This early?"

"A blackout."

"Nell has blackouts? Why?"

With faint mockery, Justin said, "You mean there's actually something you don't know?"

"Just explain about the blackouts, will you, please?"

He did, keeping it brief, then added, "She's been under a lot of strain, obviously. Coming home after so many years and being undercover here. And, apparently, using her abilities takes a lot out of her just on a normal day. Which she probably hasn't had since she got here. Max is worried about her."

"I'm worried about her," Shelby admitted. "When I was out at her place yesterday morning, she looked awfully tired. And worried. And if the killer suspects her —"

"Hold on." Justin stared at her. "I know Max has been concerned about that too, but you make it sound like more of a certainty than a possibility. Why would the killer suspect Nell? I don't mean to brag, but if I didn't guess she was a federal cop, I doubt anyone else has."

Shelby explained about the photograph she had taken and what it was likely to mean.

"Shit. You mean we not only have a killer who's probably a cop but is also psychic?"

"That seems to be the prevailing opinion, yeah."

"Can this get any more complicated?"

"I'm just wondering if it can get any more creepy." Shelby sighed. "That picture shook Nell, and I don't blame her for being spooked. If you'll pardon the pun. It must be awful to know some evil killer could be hanging around in the ether watching you. Invisibly, yet. How can she possibly know when he's watching and when he isn't?"

Justin leaned back and frowned. "He. After what was done to Nate McCurry, I was at least half convinced we should be looking for a woman."

"A female cop? There are only half a dozen or so in Silence, aren't there?"

"About that."

"Any likely suspects?"

Justin thought fleetingly of Kelly Rankin and her sober warning to him to watch his back. Just one good cop warning another, or something more? "I don't know any of them well enough to even guess. But this latest murder… leaving McCurry like that…"

"A spiteful gesture?"

"Or a furious one."

"Or," Shelby suggested, "meant to look that way. You know, if I was a male killer trying to throw off the police, I might try something like that."

"To throw us off track?"

"Well, think about it. The first three murders, everything goes exactly as he plans. The men die, their nasty secrets come spilling out, and ail you cops are very focused on that aspect of the crimes. Just the way he wants you to be. Then George Caldwell apparently pokes his nose into things and becomes a victim, and because the killer can't make him fit the pattern as well, suddenly that murder stands out from the rest. You're looking at it differently, more closely. Now the killer's got a potential problem. You're not looking at what he wants you to, so there's a greater chance of you finding out things he doesn't want you to know. So he kills again, much more quickly than before, and at this murder scene he leaves a big, bold clue for you to find."

With a rueful smile, she added, "Five will get you ten you find out that scarf belonged to a particular woman."

"And we get led down another garden path," Justin said.

They stared at each other for a moment, then Shelby said, "You know, I think maybe you should call Max, and I should call Nell. I think it's time we pooled all our information."

"Past time," Justin said, and reached for his cell phone.

Ethan was on the phone with the mayor when Justin came by his office sometime after six to drop off the copies of the birth records, so all he did was cover the receiver with his hand and say briefly, "Thanks. Isn't this supposed to be your weekend off? Go home and get some sleep. You look like hell."

"That scarf we found with McCurry —"

"We're trying to run it down, but Saturday isn't the best time to get anything like that done fast. If we make any progress, I'll call you. Go home."

Justin hesitated, then nodded and left the office.

Ethan took his hand away from the receiver. "Casey, I'm not pissed you called them in. Well, not very pissed. But how you could have even imagined it might be me —"

"I just couldn't take the chance, Ethan, you know that. We had to have a completely impartial investigation by people unconnected to your office, and it had to be done fast and quietly. I didn't want to bring in the state police, so the FBI was the best answer. Meeting Nell seemed providential."

"I wonder if she'd agree," Ethan murmured.

Mayor Lattimore sighed. "I know it's been rough on her, coming back here. But at least maybe she'll get some sense of closure out of it."

"Yeah. Maybe. Look, Casey, I have a new murder on my plate and a desk piled with work. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"All right. And I'll do my best to keep the town council from doing anything rash."

"Like firing me? I appreciate that."

"They're scared, Ethan."

"Yeah, I know. We'll talk tomorrow, Casey. Bye."

"Good night, Ethan."

He hung up the phone and for several minutes stared broodingly at the far wall of his office. Nate McCurry. Jesus Christ. Nobody else knew yet — or at least he didn't think anyone did — but Nate was yet another of Hailey's onetime lovers.

Ethan wouldn't have known about it except that Nate had seen him and Hailey leaving a motel out on the highway and had later warned Ethan that Hailey was "nothing but trouble."

Ethan hadn't taken too kindly to the warning.

Still, he'd managed to convince Nate to mind his own business and keep his mouth shut about the business of others, and he hadn't thought much about the other man since.

Until today.

He hadn't yet seen the crime-scene photos, but Justin had reported what he and the photographer uncovered — so to speak. That scarf tied in a way that seemed an obvious intent to mock and humiliate the dead man.

It sounded like something a woman would do.

It sounded like something Hailey would do.

He hadn't intended to fall in love with her. Hadn't wanted to. When it started between them, he had believed what she obviously believed, that it was just sex, just a good time between a couple of people who had known each other for most of their lives and were comfortable together.

His marriage had broken up by then, and Hailey had seemed just what he needed — an undemanding bed partner uninterested in anything else. A bed partner, moreover, who was so skilled and uninhibited that she gave him quite a few heated, mind-blowing memories he knew he'd have for the rest of his life.

Then, somehow, as the weeks passed, he realized he was bothered by her insistence on secrecy. Bothered by the faded scars on her otherwise beautiful body. Bothered by her refusal to talk about her life outside the bed they shared for a few hours every week. Bothered by the look in her eyes whenever he had tried, awkwardly, to ask for more from her than sex.

What bothered him now was the certainty that it had been Hailey who had precipitated that final argument. He had been pushing, trying to get closer to her, and even though the sex had continued to be explosive and she had seemed to at least need that, she had chosen to walk away rather than allow him to deepen the relationship.

It wasn't her style to end a relationship quietly; she preferred or needed drama, needed to be able to control the breakup, as she controlled everything else in her life. Needed to be able to pretend it didn't matter to her.

Ethan wondered if he wasn't pretending himself when he believed it had mattered to her. That he had mattered to her. But he'd been angry and baffled, and it had seemed best then not to protest when she said it was over. Time, he'd thought, they just needed time, she needed time. Time to herself, time without him pushing and prodding. So he'd waited a few weeks.

The scene Nell had "seen" had actually taken place in early February; Ethan hadn't tried to approach Hailey again until nearly the end of March. He had found her chilly and elusive and had told himself he had to be patient.

But only a few weeks later, with nothing settled between them, Hailey had shocked the town by running off with Glen Sabella, a married father of two.

As far as Ethan knew, no one in Silence had seen her since. Except, possibly, five murdered men.

"Is it you, Hailey?" he murmured. "Are you doing this? And if you are… why haven't you come after me?"