by Kay Hooper
Not really arguing, Dante said, “Well, it’s unsettling.”
“I can imagine,” Jonah said, his expression saying he really, really couldn’t.
All right, this has to stop. Because it didn’t happen, not like this. I’m positive it didn’t happen like this. He’s trying to trick me, that’s what it is. Trying to . . . what is he trying to do? Pull me into a different time? A different . . . reality?
Is that even possible?
Does it have anything to do with losing time in the bubbles of energy?
If I concentrate really hard, I can stop this. Him. I can push back the darkness. I can. I know I can.
Robbie concentrated as hard as she could, putting everything she had into shoring up her shields. And even so, even with everything she had, there was an instant when the darkness around her swirled suddenly in iridescent flashes, shifted—
And she was standing on the sidewalk of downtown Serenity, in the shadows of a dark building. Now, or on a different, equally dark night. She wanted immediately to move, to get to the pool of light up ahead, the light from one of the old-fashioned streetlamps.
But she couldn’t move a muscle.
She could hear her heart beating again, hear her own gasping breaths—and then she realized that wasn’t her, she wasn’t hearing herself, she—
The woman staggered into the pool of light, both her hands at her throat. A strange gurgling sound came from behind her hands, and for a moment it seemed she would turn and stare at Robbie, something Robbie hoped desperately would not happen. Because she couldn’t look away, she could only stare at the woman as she sort of tilted, like her balance was affected by something.
And then she just dropped, the light hitting her in such a way that she was unrecognizable as anything but a heap of darkness in the vague shape of something human.
—
“WHAT?” ROBBIE BLINKED, looked around the room. The bright, becoming-familiar room of their makeshift command center.
She looked down to see a hand on her arm, and followed it up to focus on Dante’s concerned face.
“Hey,” he said. “Where did you go?”
She didn’t find the question strange—which was strange, or should have been.
“How long was I . . . away?” she asked.
Dante looked across the table, and she followed his gaze to see familiar faces and a puzzled Jonah-face that was becoming familiar.
Sam answered her question, saying simply, “About five minutes.”
“It seemed longer,” Robbie said, dimly astonished at her own calm voice. “It really seemed a lot longer than that.”
“You don’t have visions,” Dante said.
Robbie thought about it, nodded slowly. “Yeah. But that’s not what it was.”
“Then what was it?” Luke asked.
Robbie spared a moment to recognize that as hard as she’d tried for most of her life to not use the psychic abilities she’d been born with, it was immeasurably comforting to be among people who were utterly matter-of-fact about such abilities.
“I think . . . I think he’s psychic.”
“The unsub?” Sam asked.
“Yeah.”
“What?” If anything, Jonah looked horrified.
“He got into my head. Not all the way, just . . . far enough. He tried to trick me. Tried to convince me that things . . . didn’t happen the way I remember them happening. Us talking. About our abilities. And I knew that if I let him do that, let him convince me what he showed me was real, then he’d win.”
“What would he win?” Dante asked.
“Me.” Robbie nodded slowly. “Me. He was . . . it was a test. To see if he could control me. Like he controlled them.”
—
AMY GRIMES FELT as if she had been . . . sleepwalking. All her senses were deadened, dull, and her memories were awfully fuzzy. She remembered leaving town with Simon.
Starting to leave town.
And then . . . nothing.
Or at least nothing she could hold on to. Thoughts and scenes and sensations flitted through her mind, some bright, some dark, and she didn’t know which of them were real.
It took all her effort, everything she had, to force her eyes open, and when she did, the scared little girl who lived always in the back of her mind flinched, then whimpered.
It was dark.
Darker than dark. Darker than dark could ever be. The darkness had substance, weight. It smothered sound. It had power.
Power to hold her. Because she couldn’t move, no matter how hard she tried. She thought she was moving her eyes, darting them around, seeking even a sliver of light, but she wasn’t sure that was what she was doing because the darkness never changed.
There was no light.
There was no escape.
She didn’t even know if she was alone here. Wherever here was. She had no sense of anyone near, heard no sound—
Simon. Was he here? Was he close?
She wanted to call for him, to make some kind of sound, but she was still unable to move. Unable even to open her mouth. The whimper of that little girl in her mind was trapped in her head. And even that was growing fainter. Fainter.
Amy had the dim sense, suddenly, of someone else. Someone who, like that terrified little girl, was in her mind. Someone who had abruptly taken notice of her, as if he had been distracted for a time and only just realized she was aware.
Impossibly, the darkness got even darker, heavier, until Amy didn’t think she was even able to breathe. It was in her mind, and it covered over thoughts and questions and panic and fear. It covered over the whimpering little girl.
It covered over everything, black and powerful.
Until Amy wasn’t even aware of herself anymore.
Until she was . . . until she was . . .
Gone.
EIGHT
Jonah leaned forward at that, his expression shifting from horrified to questioning, intent. “Them? You mean my missing people?”
“I think so. I was trying to block him, trying to shore up my shields. And he was testing them, my shields. He tried to scare me. He tried to make me feel helpless. Then it was almost like . . . seduction. Promises. Like he thought he could tempt me.”
“To go to him?” Luke asked.
“To give way to him. To let him control me.” Robbie drew a breath and let it out slowly, really beginning to understand. “Another SCU agent told me that during a few cases over the years, there had been some . . . He said Bishop called them minor skirmishes. Of mind control. But that they’d only seen it between two psychics who were either deeply bonded or related by blood. And even then it was always an uncertain thing, impossibly difficult to control.”
Luke was nodding. “Bishop’s never been completely convinced it’s even true mind control. He thinks it’s like hypnosis. We can’t be hypnotized, but another psychic, with the right abilities, could . . . manipulate our reality. In theory.”
Robbie jabbed her index finger in his general direction. “Yes. It was like that. I saw and heard myself, and you guys, having a conversation I know we never had, at least not like that. But it was so real. And I was fighting so hard to push him out, using all my strength, that when I finally did—it was like a rubber band snapping. I wasn’t in that reality he created, and I wasn’t here . . .”
She turned her head and looked toward the big window whose new blinds protected them from the curious gazes of passersby. “I was . . . out there. Like I overshot, somehow. I was on Main Street, just around the corner, in the shadows of a dark building. But I could see ahead of me the light from a streetlamp.”
“Robbie?” Dante’s voice held concern. “You’ve gone pale.”
She tried to get a hold on herself. “Yeah. Um . . . I saw something, and I’m honestly not sure if it was real or—or someth
ing he threw at me in that last minute.”
“What did you see?” Jonah asked, still intent.
I like him better here in my reality, where he’s not freaked out by what I can do.
She tried to ignore that realization. “I saw a woman. She sort of staggered out of the darkness between two buildings and into the circle of light on the sidewalk.”
“Who was she?”
“I wasn’t close enough to see. Or maybe it was the dark, and the light falling the wrong way. I don’t know. She had her hands up to her throat, and I heard a sound coming from her. An awful sound. She seemed to lose her balance. And then she just dropped like a stone.”
“Robbie—”
“I don’t know who she was, but I know she was dead. I know he killed her. I just don’t know if it was real.” She hesitated, then said, “I think . . . I think she’s dead because she was in the way. He had to be close to try to manipulate my mind. He had to be close, and she almost caught him. Maybe she did catch him. Maybe that’s why he killed her. She caught him, and he didn’t have time to do anything else. Didn’t have time to control her. So he had to kill her.”
Jonah was beginning to look uneasy. Very uneasy. “I think maybe we’d better walk out to Main Street.”
“I think you’re right,” Luke said, getting to his feet.
Rather desperately, Robbie said, “It might not have been real. It might have just been another trick. And even if it wasn’t, I can’t swear that it was even here, in Serenity.”
Sam said, “You’re a telepath; have you ever found yourself, even in spirit, somewhere else?”
“No,” Robbie said slowly. “No, this is the first time anything like that ever happened.”
“Then,” Luke said, “odds are, it was our unsub. And if it was, we need to understand as much as we can about his abilities pronto. But first, we need to find out if what you saw is real.”
Samantha and Dante were also getting to their feet, all of them adjusting or just touching the guns they wore in a kind of automatic reassurance.
“We need to be sure, Robbie,” Sam said.
Robbie pushed her chair back and stood, vaguely surprised that her own hand reached to touch her gun; she hadn’t thought about her training, about the familiarity created by hours and hours of practice at the gun range. She hadn’t wanted to carry a gun, but now she was very glad she did.
And that she knew how to use it.
—
JONAH GOT TO her first, while the others, guns drawn, scanned the area all around the streetlight. The downtown area was still quiet and still, and for now at least all the light came from the streetlights and the flashlights all of them carried.
Robbie stepped closer to Jonah, who was kneeling beside the woman. Her body was positioned so that it had required the light from his flashlight to show them she was indeed dead, her throat slashed from ear to ear and a pool of blood all around her upper body.
“Who is it, Jonah?” Robbie couldn’t see her face, mostly because she hadn’t been able to look too closely.
“Annie Duncan.” Jonah sat back on his heels, the streetlight’s glow making his face look gaunt. Or maybe it wasn’t the streetlight. And it was as if all the feeling had been squeezed out of his voice. “She was one of my officers.”
Lucas seemed to flow out of the shadows to join them. “Sam and Dante are checking the other side of the alley, but so far the only thing visible is some blood.” He paused, holstering his weapon, then added unemotionally, “Arterial spray on the wall, looks like. The unsub must have cut her throat in the alley, then let her go. She couldn’t have walked more than a few steps. In fact, I’m surprised she made it this far.”
“Why was she here at all?” Robbie asked. “She isn’t in uniform, but I don’t remember her being one of your plainclothes cops.”
He didn’t really have those, Jonah reflected, glad for something to occupy his mind. Unless he or Sarah decided to work out of uniform, which was the norm for him and an occasional thing for her. Otherwise, other than Jean at reception, and a couple of other non-cop administration people who only worked part-time, all Jonah’s people wore uniforms.
“She shouldn’t be here,” he said finally, without looking up at Robbie or Lucas. “She was one of a handful who’d been working the phones since dark and on duty since the first shift. I’d told her and a couple of others to go home and get some sleep.”
“When was that?” Luke asked.
“When I checked in at the station on my way to get our takeout. I double-checked on the way back, and they’d all gone home. Or, at least, weren’t at the station.”
“That was a bit after seven,” Luke said. “It’s nearly ten o’clock now. She should have gotten home.”
“I sent them in pairs,” Jonah said automatically. “If one of them lived alone, the other officer was to go in with them and check out the place, just to be sure. Annie lived alone.”
“Who took her home?”
“Adam Sheffey. He’s married with a couple of toddlers—and had one hell of a security system installed barely a week ago. Also has a very protective family dog.” Jonah shook his head slightly. “He’s a good cop. He would have checked out Annie’s place thoroughly before leaving her alone there.”
“She’s out of uniform,” Robbie repeated. “She must have gotten home safely, Jonah. Had time to change. Maybe she came back out to get something to eat.”
He was shaking his head. “She enjoyed cooking. When the rest of her shift would send out for a pizza or some other takeout, she’d always have something homemade in the break room fridge. Usually somebody tried to wheedle her into swapping takeout for her food, because she was such a good cook.”
“What other reason would she have to come back here?” Robbie asked. “Far as I can see, she isn’t even carrying her sidearm.”
“I can’t think of a reason. She’s been a cop ten years; she’d know better than to come out, alone and unarmed, at a time like this.”
Dante and Samantha rejoined them then, both holstering their weapons.
“Nothing,” Dante reported to Lucas. “It’s all pavement or gravel, and other than what was in the alley, there’s no sign of blood. No footprints either, bloody or otherwise.”
“I can get Sully out with his dogs,” Jonah said, more or less automatically.
“There might be a faster way,” Samantha said.
—
HE WATCHED THEM from his vantage point, unsurprised that they moved as easily as any well-practiced team. They didn’t stop to gather any of Chief Riggs’s people, which gave him pause. He would have expected the telepath among them to be weakened by his attack.
Uncertain, at the very least. Bothered. Unwilling to trust her own instincts and thoughts and urges.
But she seemed very focused and very certain, leading them cautiously but steadily along Main Street until they reached the circle of light from a streetlamp.
And the crumpled body of a woman on the cold concrete sidewalk.
He wanted to linger, to watch them work the scene. He wanted to know if they used standard police work or their extra senses. He really wanted to get a better idea of what those other senses consisted of. Besides the telepath. But her steadiness made him feel just a bit uneasy about remaining so close to her.
She was strong. Stronger than he had expected.
And he wasn’t quite certain what that would mean.
But for now, for this night, he knew that if he wanted his work to continue, he needed to fade back into the night. And possibly reconsider his options.
Because he had connected with the telepath’s mind. He wasn’t sure if she knew what that meant.
But he knew.
—
“NO WAY IN hell,” Lucas said with some force.
Samantha’s tone was calm and reasonable. �
�It’s the quickest way, and you know it. Maybe I’ll get a sense of the unsub and maybe not, but at least we can find out why Annie was out here when she should have been safely locked in at home.”
“It’s too dangerous, Sam. She’s dead. Last time you tried something like this, it nearly killed you.”
“That was different.”
“Was it?”
“Luke, we don’t have time to argue. With every moment that passes, the energy in her brain dissipates more. If I wait too long her memories will be out of reach forever.”
Robbie was looking at Dante. “You don’t get a sense of the recently dead, do you?”
He shook his head. “Not so far.” He didn’t look too eager to try this time.
“It’s safer if I try.” Samantha was still looking at her partner and husband. “I’ve been at this a lot longer. I have more control.”
Not entirely sure what was going on, Jonah said, “You aren’t a medium too, are you?”
“No. But a clairvoyant can often pick up energy from a crime scene. Or a death scene. Even a dying brain has energy. Maybe especially a dying brain. Our brains have energy, electrical impulses, and they don’t just stop the way a heart stops. It takes a few minutes for that energy to dissipate. Luke, I have to try and you know it.”
Robbie said to Lucas, “You know the signs if she gets in too deep. If that happens, pull her out. But we need to know, Luke. Even a rookie agent can be sure of that.”
Their team leader hesitated, then swore under his breath. “I’ll be close,” he told Samantha. “I see anything that looks like you might be in trouble, I’ll yank you out. Got it?”
“Got it.” She knelt down on the other side of the body from Jonah, and looked at him steadily. “You up for this?”
“I have no idea,” he said frankly. A dying brain? Christ. “Just tell me what not to do so I don’t screw up whatever it is you’re trying to do.”
“Lean back, and don’t touch her.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” Samantha barely waited for the chief to lean back and for Lucas to kneel at her side. She drew a breath and let it out slowly, then leaned forward and, without any sign of squeamishness, placed one hand across Annie Duncan’s forehead and the other over the bloodstained sweatshirt just above her heart. Then Sam closed her eyes and bowed her head, almost as if praying.
