Whisper of Evil

EPILOGUE

MONDAY, MARCH 27

Max was hardly a two-finger typist, but it wasn't his best skill and getting his rather lengthy statement on paper was taking longer than he'd planned.

"Why am I typing this?" he asked Ethan. "Isn't one of your bright boys or girls supposed to do it?"

"They're busy," Ethan told him.

"Busy? Two-thirds of them are off-duty."

"After using up my overtime budget for the entire year, everybody's going to be taking vacation and sick days for a while. It's a statement, Max, you know how to write one up."

"Well, stop hovering, then."

"I'm not hovering. I just thought you might be interested in knowing that Nell's boss is here."

Max stopped typing. "Bishop?"

"Yep."

"What's he doing here?"

"Apparently just finished up another investigation in Chicago."

"So what's he doing here?"

Ethan grinned. "I'm trying to make out whether you consider him a rival or just somebody who's going to spirit Nell back to Virginia."

Max refused to give him the satisfaction, and said only, "Answer my question. What's he doing here?"

"Tying up a few loose ends. Supplying some necessary paperwork, like that original FBI profile. Lending his expertise while we try to find answers for the few remaining questions. Gathering up his people."

"Where's Nell?"

"Talking to him in the conference room."

Max pushed his chair back and got up.

"Statement finished?" Ethan asked politely.

"Do not make me tell you what to do with your statement. I'll finish it later."

Ethan laughed, but didn't protest when Max left the office he'd been using and made his way through the mostly deserted sheriff's department to the conference room.

Despite Ethan's goading, Max didn't really consider Bishop a threat to his relationship with Nell, but he was intensely curious to meet the man. He paused in the doorway, noting that Galen was there — very relaxed with his feet propped up as he thumbed through the town newspaper. Justin and Shelby were also there, sitting at the far end of the conference table.

Two other people were in the room. Nell was casual in jeans and a sweater, only the sling holding her left arm immobile a sign of the bullet wound in her shoulder. Yesterday's shock over discovering that Hailey was dead — and had, apparently, appeared with amazing corporeality to help Nell — had not lingered very long; Nell was far more sanguine about such things than most people would have been.

Her only wry comment had been that she should have known Hailey would try to control things to her liking even from beyond the grave.

Now, composed as always, she was talking intently to the man half sitting on the conference table as they faced each other.

He was a big man, probably somewhere in his late thirties, dressed as casually as the others, in dark pants and a black leather jacket. Obviously powerful, he had an athletic build and a way of holding himself that said he was very comfortable in his own skin.

He was also good-looking in the dark, hawklike way that women seemed to love. Jet-black hair. The kind of tan that hadn't come from a sunlamp. Movie-star good-looking, Max thought, eyeing that perfect profile with unease. Then Bishop turned his head suddenly, and Max felt a shock.

The scar marking his left cheek was more distinctive than disfiguring and, added to the dramatic widow's peak and the narrow streak of pure white hair just above his left temple, lent him an appearance as striking as it was unusual.

This was one FBI agent, Max thought, who would rarely find it possible to work undercover.

Max moved into the room to be introduced to Noah Bishop, and as they shook hands he noted that the handsome face was still and that the steady eyes probably seemed chilly due to their pale silvery color.

Or maybe not.

"Glad to finally meet you," Bishop said, his voice deep and not quite as cool as those eyes.

Max decided not to question that statement, merely saying, "An interesting unit you've put together, Agent Bishop. Nell told me you're a telepath? A touch telepath, I think she said."

Hard mouth curving slightly, Bishop said, "That's right."

"Which means… what? That you can read someone's mind when you touch them?" He tried not to feel wary over the fact that he had just shaken hands with the man.

Bishop shrugged, still smiling faintly. "About sixty to seventy percent of the time, yeah."

Shelby said, "Who would have thunk it? Psychic FBI agents."

"What will they think of next," Justin murmured.

Max, who was determined not to ask if he fell into the percentage of people Bishop could read, met Nell's steady, amused gaze and wondered suddenly if he was so transparent that a blind man could have read him, never mind a psychic.

Galen spoke up then to say, "Not all of us are psychic, you know."

Bishop looked at him, brows lifting. "Well, technically you are."

"Only by your definition. And you'll never make me believe that you didn't add a footnote to the SCU manual just to make sure I'd have the qualifications for the job."

"There's a manual?" Shelby looked from one to the other with brightly interested eyes.

Max, who was more curious to know just how Galen fit into the SCU, opened his mouth to ask, but then forgot to when he saw Bishop look toward the door suddenly, his face changing rather dramatically.

The agent began smiling — a real smile this time — and those chilly eyes wanned up about forty degrees, transforming him from a cool professional to a man who was very happy and didn't give a damn who knew it. He moved past Max toward the doorway, and Max turned just in time to see the gorgeous, smiling Lauren Champagne come into the room and get lifted off her feet in a welcoming hug.

Somewhat blankly, Justin said, "I take it they know each other."

"You could say that." Nell grinned. "You could also say they're married."

Max stared at her. "You never mentioned Bishop was married."

"No. I didn't, did I?"

Galen chuckled and said, "It's hell when she knows where all your buttons are, isn't it?"

"Quit stirring up trouble," Nell told her partner.

"Who, me?"

"You thrive on it. Look, why don't we all sit down?"

"Is your shoulder bothering you?" Max asked her.

"Buttons, buttons everywhere," Galen murmured.

Nell sent him a threatening look and said to Max, "No, I'm fine. But since we're all trying to finish up reports and statements today, there are probably some things we need to talk about."

"I wouldn't say there were many questions left," Galen said somewhat lazily.

"A few loose ends," Bishop said as he and his wife joined the others at the conference table.

Justin, noting that Lauren Champagne's formerly dark eyes were now an electric blue, said slowly, "Contact lenses."

She smiled at him. "It's amazing how just a couple of simple things can make you look different. Brown contact lenses, a bottle tan, a slightly different accent. I'm Miranda, by the way."

"Why use a false name?" Max wondered.

"It isn't a false name, it just isn't mine." She shrugged. "Sometimes it's quicker and easier to borrow the name and background of a real person — which is why we've built and maintain a list of cops and other useful people around the country who're willing to give up their identities temporarily. The real Lauren Champagne is a cop who wanted to take a few months off from her job in Virginia and drive across the country."

"Every investigation we get involved in is different," Bishop said. "In this case, we had Nell, who had a perfect cover because she had a legitimate reason for coming to Silence. But we needed someone inside the sheriff's department as well, someone who could move among and observe the other cops, check the files and other paperwork, that sort of thing."

"It took time," Miranda continued. "So I came down here first and settled in, a couple of months before we knew Adam Gallagher's estate would be through probate and Nell could be expected to arrive."

"By the time I got here," Nell continued, "Miranda had eliminated most of the cops from suspicion, but there were several we couldn't be sure about. And then there was you, Justin." She smiled faintly. "We were sure Max had brought you in because Ethan was making noises about arresting him for the murders and he knew he needed someone solidly on his side involved in the investigation. But even if we'd been wrong about that, you were eliminated from suspicion because you hadn't been in Silence long enough."

"You knew I could be trusted. Which is why you aimed Shelby at me."

Shelby started laughing.

Nell grinned. "Well, yeah. I knew the answer to why George Caldwell had been killed lay in those birth records, and I couldn't really check into them myself."

"What was in those records?" Shelby demanded. "Nobody ever told me."

"Kyle had done what he called some 'discreet' checking to find out if he could inherit my father's — our father's estate," Nell said. "He wasn't about to go to Wade Keever, given his reputation for indiscretion and the fact that he was the lawyer for the Gallagher family, so Kyle went to another lawyer in Silence, one who wouldn't ask too many questions."

Nell sighed. "That lawyer's golfing partner happened to be George Caldwell, to whom he casually mentioned Kyle's questions. Curious, Caldwell started digging. The irony from our point of view is that there was nothing there to find. Nothing at all in Kyle's birth record that was in the least bit suspicious."

"All those hours reading birth records," Shelby moaned.

"I know. Sorry about that. What actually happened, as far as we can tell, is that when he couldn't find anything in the records, Caldwell just casually asked Kyle if he was related to the Gallaghers. By then, word was spreading — thanks to Wade Keever — that I was coming home. Kyle was afraid Caldwell would ask me the same question, and since he wanted the timing of introducing himself to me as my brother to be his rather than someone else's, he decided to get Caldwell out of the way. Another murder didn't mean anything to him, after all. It was just like swatting a troublesome fly. Putting together the blackmail scheme was just a fun bonus."

"What about the other lawyer?" Justin asked. "Didn't he pose a bigger threat to Kyle?"

"No, because Caldwell never got the chance to tell Kyle what it was that had made him curious. But we were afraid Wade Keever might pose a threat, not because we were sure he knew anything to threaten the killer, but because we were certain if he did know anything he certainly wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut about it." Nell frowned suddenly and looked at Miranda. "I guess we can let him come home now."

"I've already called the safe house and ordered his release." Miranda chuckled. "He'd stopped threatening a lawsuit and was playing poker with the agent watching him. So now he really does have some information worth sharing."

"You mean you kidnapped Wade Keever?" Shelby exclaimed, grinning.

"Not at all," Miranda said. "I just suggested he might want to relocate until we identified the killer."

"Suggested at gunpoint," Bishop murmured. "At night, underneath a streetlight."

"Like you wouldn't have done the same thing."

Bishop started to deny it, then paused, considered, and suddenly smiled. "You're right. I would have."

"Not finished yet?" Nell asked, coming into the small office where Max was typing his statement.

"Almost. I think Ethan gave me that list of questions just to keep me here all day."

"Now, would he do that?" Nell asked, perching on a corner of the desk Max was using.

"I won't even dignify that with an answer."

"Good to see you two playing nice again."

"Is that what you'd call it?"

Nell grinned. "Well, yeah. For you two."

Max sighed. "We'll see. Listen, I meant to ask sooner if you'd decided to keep looking for where Adam buried your mother."

"Ethan says his people will. Now that we know Hailey's was the murder I saw in my vision and that Kyle was the one who killed her, finding my mother's remains is really the only thing left to do. For closure, I mean."

"Do you think Kyle deliberately buried her locket with Hailey to throw you off in case you ever came back?"

"Maybe. Or maybe he was just getting rid of all he had of his other sister — me. We'll never know now, I guess."

"Unless Hailey comes back again?"

Nell smiled. "I don't think she will. She took care of her unfinished business in one night."

"And now she's at peace?"

"I hope so. Bishop says that sort of visitation only happens when a spirit is ready to move on."

Max pushed his chair back from the desk a bit and eyed her somewhat hesitantly. "Didn't Bishop also say the plan was for the team to leave first tiling tomorrow?"

"Yeah, but he and Miranda have already gone." Nell smiled. "Considering how long she had to be down here and the fact that they were barely able to see each other the whole time, I think they intend a little R and R on their way back to Quantico."

"I don't know where he's spent the past weeks, but I'd say she's certainly earned some time off."

Nell nodded. "They work together as much as possible, but sometimes they have to be on different cases. It's tough on them, I think."

Max braced himself. "I imagine it's easier because they love each other. Or harder."

"It's something they've had to deal with."

"Which they've clearly done. Dealt with the problems and figured out a way to make it work."

Nell drew a breath and let it out slowly. "Speaking of which."

"Yeah." Max wondered if he looked as tense as he felt. "I've tried not to push, Nell. Tried to give you time to think things over."

"I know you have. Thank you."

She was so grave that Max felt a chill of real fear, "You aren't — You won't leave in the morning. Will you?"

"Max, are you sure? Really sure?"

It was his turn to draw in a breath and let it out. "If you have any doubts, open that goddamned door. I love you, Nell. I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Still grave, she said, "Even if it would mean my traveling sometimes for my job? Bishop says there's no reason why the SCU can't base agents in other areas of the country, especially since we travel so much anyway. I could work out of the Baton Rouge field office. Could you deal with that?"

"Yes. Happily."

"My work is dangerous sometimes, you know that. And I can't afford to be distracted at the wrong moment. So if the door stays open, we'll both have to learn how to handle it."

"We will."

"Are you sure?"

"Open the door, Nell."

She looked at him for a long, steady moment, then opened the door. His thoughts flowed into hers, his emotions. His utter certainty. She caught her breath, stared into his dark eyes.

"I love you," he said. "We've always been forever, Nell. Didn't you know?"

"I know now," she said.

Careful not to jar her wounded shoulder, Max reached up and pulled her into his arms, and again Nell had that sense of coming home. But this time, there was no fear, no reluctance, nothing inside her insisting she hide any part of herself from him.

This time, it didn't take a physical act to drive Nell to open her mind and heart to him. And this time, not even she had the ability to close that door. Not any longer.

"I love you, Max."

"It's about damned time," he said, and kissed her.