Stealing Shadows

by Kay Hooper

  Ben gazed at Cassie’s face and ached inside. Monsters. Dear God, how many stories just as horrible as that one were stored in her mind? And how incredible was it that she had still been able to walk into his office and volunteer her help in trying to stop yet another monster from terrorizing his town?

  “Ben? Can I get you anything?”

  “No. No, thanks, Matt.”

  “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” Ben sat there for several minutes in the silence of the room, then got up and went to close the door. He returned to Cassie’s bedside and his chair.

  For a long time he thought about monsters invited resolutely into a tired and gentle mind, again and again despite fear. And then he thought about the walls a man built around himself as some kind of protection from a past that had been difficult but without real monsters. Walls that kept out the pain of memories but just as thoroughly kept out the healing spirit of the woman he loved.

  Then he took Cassie’s cool hand in his, bent his head over it, and began tearing down his walls.

  EPILOGUE

  MARCH 12, 1999

  “I should have realized,” Cassie said, shaking her head. “It was making me uneasy that the killer seemed to be blowing hot and cold, varying his methods and the way he left his victims. I should have remembered that was Vasek’s M.O.”

  Standing at the foot of her bed, Matt said, “Three thousand miles and months away, how could you? Besides, if he was telling Ben the truth, the bastard made damned sure you wouldn’t think it was him.”

  “In other words,” Ben said, “you are not and have never been to blame for Conrad Vasek’s crimes.” Let it go, he added silently, and when she turned her head to smile at him, he felt the warmth like a physical touch, and the bright shimmer of her amusement in his mind.

  Bossy.

  Never.

  Admit it. You like bossing me around.

  I love having you around. Big difference.

  Cassie reached out a hand, and his fingers twined with hers. Aware of the sheriff’s gaze, Ben didn’t kiss her, but he thought about it, and Cassie’s smile widened.

  Oblivious of the mind-play, Matt said, “With Vasek dead, Mike Shaw has pretty much gone to pieces, and even his hotshot lawyer has admitted the only question is whether he gets the gas chamber or locked in a rubber room for the rest of his life. If my vote counts, I say I’d rather my tax dollars weren’t spent on keeping him alive.”

  “You’ll be in the majority,” Ben said. “But I’m betting he won’t be judged fit to stand trial.”

  Matt shook his head. “Then we’d better ship his ass someplace far away from Salem County. There’s a lot of confusion about Vasek’s role in all this, but everybody knows Mike was caught with his hands around Abby’s throat.” His face darkened with the memory.

  Ben said, “Since we don’t have a jail or hospital capable of dealing with him, I imagine he will be shipped away.”

  “What about Lucy?” Cassie asked Matt.

  “She’s finally getting the help she’s needed for years. Faced with what his son has done, Russell had to finally admit it wasn’t smart to keep some things in the family. He’s lived all his life with the knowledge that the Shaws have had a strain of mental instability that apparently goes back several generations. He thought he could handle it, keep his mother safe and Mike from getting worse. And he might have managed it. If Vasek hadn’t come looking for a tool.”

  Which is not your fault, Ben reminded Cassie fiercely.

  I know. I know.

  “Anyway, it’s over now,” Matt said. “Things are finally getting back to normal. And you’ll be out of the hospital tomorrow. Which reminds me—Ben said you came out of this with all your psychic abilities fried.”

  “That,” Ben said, “is not exactly how I put it.”

  “Well, close enough. So it’s true, Cassie? You can’t read me anymore?”

  “I can’t read anybody, apparently. Except Ben.”

  The sheriff grinned at his friend. “So how does it feel to be an open book?”

  Ben smiled at Cassie. “Actually, it feels pretty great.” And deeply, unexpectedly satisfying.

  Matt shook his head. “Better you than me. Is it permanent?”

  Cassie said, “After reading through Aunt Alex’s journals today, I have to say it probably is. At least, to all intents and purposes. She got back some of her ability eventually, but it took nearly twenty years and she was never as strong as she had been before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before she was almost trapped in the mind of a madman. She didn’t offer many details, but I gather that just before she quarreled with my mother, she was asked to help find a lost child. The kidnapper was totally insane, and she was adrift for a time in his mind.”

  “Creepy,” Matt noted.

  “Yes.” Cassie didn’t reveal to him that she had already faced and was dealing with the knowledge that Conrad Vasek had found his way into her mind uncounted times without her awareness. “Aunt Alex came out of it changed. Emotionally. Mentally. And physically.” Her free hand strayed up to briefly touch the white streak at her left temple.

  “How about you? Any regrets?”

  “None at all.”

  Matt studied her. “I have to say, you look much more peaceful. I guess silence is golden, huh? I mean, except for Ben.”

  Cassie smiled at him. “You have no idea.”

  “So if I should need a little special insight in any future investigation—”

  “Try tea leaves. Or a crystal ball.”

  “Anything but you?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Umm. But you are sticking around, right?”

  “Yes,” Ben said. “She is.”

  Bossy.

  Never.

  “Glad to hear it,” Matt said seriously. He eyed them a moment, then added, “I think it’s time I was leaving.”

  “We wouldn’t want to rush you,” Ben said mildly.

  Matt grinned. “Okay, I’m going. But before you lock the door behind me, I should warn you that Bishop said he’d probably stop by sometime today to say good-bye.”

  Ben waited until his friend said his own good-byes and left to tell Cassie, “Good-bye, hell. Bishop will be very lucky if I don’t deck him.”

  “He told you that you could get me back,” Cassie reminded him, smiling.

  “Yeah, but the bastard left me to figure out how by myself. If he’d told me, and right from the beginning, you wouldn’t have spent a week in a coma and I wouldn’t have nearly gone out of my mind worrying about you.”

  Cassie looked thoughtful. “Maybe we both needed that time. Me to… drift in limbo, where there was nothing to do but think about things, and you to find the willingness to open yourself up and reach out to me.”

  He lifted her hand to rub it against his cheek. “God knows why it took me so long, why I wasn’t willing to admit even to myself that I loved you. The best thing that ever happened to me, and I was afraid to accept it. So afraid I almost lost you.”

  “You didn’t lose me.” Her voice was serene, like her smile. “Things happen for a reason, Ben. Aunt Alex knew that if I became involved in the search for a killer here, Abby would be saved—but she also knew what would happen to me, that I’d be trapped by the death of the killer and, she thought, destroyed. So she tried to avoid both fates. She warned Abby, hoping she’d be able to change her own destiny. And she left a warning for me to avoid you, hoping it would keep me safe. Her warning to me should have been delivered on time, but a fluke series of events delayed it. Which gave me the opportunity to meet you and fall in love with you—the only person who really could save me. It all had to happen just as it did.”

  “If you say so,” Ben murmured. But the terror of nearly losing her was still strong in him, and he leaned over to kiss her because he had to.

  “I can come back later,” Bishop said from the doorway.

  Ben made a rude noise, but Cassie sent t
he agent a welcoming smile. “No, come in.”

  “If you’re here to say good-bye,” Ben said.

  Bishop didn’t appear distressed by this eagerness to see the last of him. “I am,” he said calmly.

  Cassie gave Ben a look, and he relented. “Thanks for your help,” he said to the agent.

  “And damn me for not offering it sooner. I’ll take it as read, Judge.”

  “It’s always nice to be understood.”

  Giving up, Cassie said to Bishop, “So you’re leaving us. Another so-called psychic to debunk?”

  “No, nothing so interesting, I’m afraid. I’m called back to the office on far more mundane matters.”

  “Well, I would say it’s been a pleasure, but we both know I’d be lying. It has been interesting though. As usual.”

  “For me as well.” Bishop eyed Ben for a moment, then told Cassie, “Be sure and invite me to the christening. In the meantime, have a nice life.”

  “You too.” Cassie waited until he’d nearly reached the door, then said, “Bishop?”

  He turned, lifting one brow questioningly.

  “Good luck. I hope you find her.”

  That hard, scarred face was perfectly still, perfectly enigmatic. Then he nodded, more in acknowledgment than acceptance, and left.

  “Find who?” Ben asked.

  Cassie smiled. “Who he’s looking for.”

  “And that is?”

  “Not my story.”

  Ben thought about that for a moment, then blinked. “Christening?”

  “I don’t know why he thinks there’ll be a christening,” Cassie said almost absently. “He knows I’m not religious.”

  “Christening?”

  Cassie slid her arms around his neck as Ben leaned over her, and her laugh was soft and warm. “Well, I distinctly remember as I was coming out of the coma hearing you say you were definitely ready for a long-term commitment. As a matter of fact, you were quite fierce about it.”

  “Yes, but—You’re sure? So soon?”

  “Positive. Do you mind?”

  My darling…

  I love you, Ben.

  Cassie… my Cassie… I love you so much.

  It was a long time later when Ben lifted his head. “A connection that is literally of the flesh. That’s what he said when you were still in the coma. I thought he meant because we were lovers, but that wasn’t what he meant at all. And just now he asked to be invited to the christening. He knew. Dammit, Bishop knew. How?”

  Cassie said serenely, “I suppose he must have seen it in the tea leaves, darling. Does it matter?”

  With her warm gray eyes smiling up at him, her slender body in his arms, and the astonishing intimacy of her presence glowing inside him somewhere deeper than thought, Ben decided that nothing else mattered.

  Nothing at all.

  In Stealing Shadows, Kay Hooper

  introduces FBI agent Noah Bishop,

  whose rare gift for seeing what others do not

  helps him solve the most puzzling cases.

  Now, Bishop’s electrifying adventures

  continue in two stand-alone tales

  of psychic suspense….

  HIDING IN THE SHADOWS

  OUT OF THE SHADOWS

  Turn the page for sneak previews.

  PROLOGUE

  The voices wouldn’t leave him alone.

  Neither would the nightmares.

  He threw back the covers and stumbled from the bed. A full moon beamed enough light into the house for him to find his way to the sink in the bathroom.

  He carefully avoided looking into the mirror, but was highly conscious of his shadowy reflection as he fumbled for a drinking cup and turned on the tap. He drank three cups of water, vaguely surprised that he was so thirsty and yet… not.

  He was usually thirsty these days.

  It was part of the change.

  He splashed his face with the cold water again and again, not caring about the mess he was making. By the third splash, he realized he was crying.

  Wimp. Spineless coward.

  “I’m not,” he muttered, sending the next handful of water to wet his aching head.

  You’re afraid. Pissing-in-your-pants afraid.

  Half-consciously, he pressed his thighs together. “I’m not. I can do it. I told you I could do it.”

  Then do it now.

  He froze, bent over the sink, water dribbling from his cupped hands. “Now?”

  Now.

  “But… it’s not ready yet. If I do it now—”

  Coward. I should have known you couldn’t go through with it. I should have known you’d fail me.

  He straightened slowly, this time looking deliberately into the dim mirror. Even with the moonlight, all he could make out was the shadowy shape of his head, dark blurs of features, faint gleam of eyes. The murky outline of a stranger.

  What choice did he have?

  Just look at yourself. Wimp. Spineless coward. You’ll never be a real man, will you?

  He could feel water dripping off his chin. Or maybe it was the last of the tears. He sucked in air, so deep his chest hurt, then let it out slowly.

  Maybe you can buy a backbone—

  “I’m ready,” he said. “I’m ready to do it.”

  I don’t believe you.

  He turned off the taps and walked out of the bathroom. Went back to his bedroom, where the moonlight spilled through the big window to spotlight the old steamer trunk set against the wall beneath it. He knelt down and carefully opened it.

  The raised lid blocked off some of the moonlight, but he didn’t need light for this. He reached inside, let his fingers search gingerly until they felt the cold steel. He lifted the knife and held it in the light, turning it this way and that, fascinated by the gleam of the razor-sharp serrated edge.

  “I’m ready,” he murmured. “I’m ready to kill her.”

  * * *

  The voices wouldn’t leave her alone.

  Neither would the nightmares.

  She had drawn the drapes before going to bed in an effort to close out the moonlight, but even though the room was dark, she was very conscious of that huge moon painting everything on the other side of her window with the stark, eerie light that made her feel so uneasy.

  She hated full moons.

  The clock on her nightstand told her it was nearly three in the morning. The hot, sandpapery feel of her eyelids told her she really needed to try to go back to sleep. But the whisper of the voices in her head told her that even trying would be useless, at least for a while.

  She pushed back the covers and slid from her bed. She didn’t need light to show her the way to the kitchen, but once there turned on the light over the stove so she wouldn’t burn herself. Hot chocolate, that was the ticket.

  And if that didn’t work, there was an emergency bottle of whiskey in the back of the pantry for just such a night as this. It was probably two-thirds empty by now.

  There had been a few nights like this, especially in the last year or so.

  She got what she needed and heated the pan of milk slowly, stirring the liquid so it wouldn’t stick. Adding in chocolate syrup while the milk heated, because that was the way she liked to make her hot chocolate. In the silence of the house, with no other sounds to distract her, it was difficult to keep her own mind quiet. She didn’t want to listen to the whispering there, but it was like catching a word or two of an overheard conversation and knowing you needed to listen more closely because they were talking about you.

  But she was tired. It got harder and harder, as time went on, to bounce back. Harder for her body to recover. Harder for her mind to heal.

  Given her druthers, she would put off tuning in to the voices until tomorrow. Or the next day, maybe.

  The hot chocolate was ready. She turned off the burner and poured the steaming milk into a mug. She put the pan in the sink, then picked up her mug and carried it toward the little round table in the breakfast nook.

  Almost
there, she was stopped in her tracks by a wave of red-hot pain that washed over her body with the suddenness of a blow. Her mug crashed to the floor, landing unbroken but spattering her bare legs with hot chocolate.

  She barely felt that pain.

  Eyes closed, sucked into the red and screaming maelstrom of someone else’s agony, she tried to keep breathing despite the repeated blows that splintered bones and shredded lungs. She could taste blood, feel it bubbling up in her mouth. She could feel the wet heat of it soaking her blouse and running down her arms as she lifted her hands in a pitiful attempt to ward off the attack.

  I know what you did. I know. I know. You bitch, I know what you did—

  She jerked and cried out as a more powerful thrust than all the rest drove the serrated knife into her chest, penetrating her heart with such force, she knew the only thing that stopped it going deeper still was the hilt. Her hands fumbled, touching what felt like blood-wet gloved hands, large and strong, that retreated immediately to leave her weakly holding the-handle of the knife impaling her heart. She felt a single agonized throb of her heart that forced more blood to bubble, hot and thick, into her mouth, and then it was over.

  Almost over.

  She opened her eyes and found herself bending over the table, her hands flat on the pale, polished surface. Both hands were covered with blood, and between them, scrawled in her own handwriting across the table, was a single bloody word.

  HASTINGS

  She straightened slowly, her entire body aching, and held her hands out in front of her, watching as the blood slowly faded, until it was gone. Her hands were clean and unmarked. When she looked at the table again, there was no sign of a word written there in blood.

  “Hastings,” she murmured. “Well, shit.”

  Read on for a peek at

  ONCE A THIEF

  Kay Hooper’s newest page-turner featuring

  a dangerously charismatic master jewel thief, available from

  BANTAM BOOKS

  Museum exhibit director Morgan West is days away from unveiling the much-anticipated Mysteries Past show—a priceless jewel collection on loan from millionaire Max Bannister. But when Morgan discovers that a criminal mastermind is waiting and watching for just the right time to strike, the stage is set for a complex game of cat-and-mouse…