Hidden Salem

by Kay Hooper

  At the moment, however, Grayson was simply wishing he was the telepath of the pair. He’d always been lucky to catch a fleeting sense of her emotions even with his walls down, and then only when—he suspected—she allowed it. But she had reached out and touched his mind more than once when his walls had been up, and all too easily, from his point of view.

  So maybe she wasn’t in trouble. Surely, he thought, she’d reach out if she was in trouble. Even to him.

  Except . . . she was stubborn as hell. And inclined to believe she could get herself out of a jam. No matter what that jam might be.

  The problem—one of the problems—was that she’d been here two weeks longer than he had, and except for one very brief report early on to Bishop from a landline phone thirty miles outside Salem basically saying she didn’t trust any kind of communication from inside the valley and to therefore not expect regular reports from her, Grayson didn’t have a clue what or even whether she’d discovered something dangerous.

  Worse, Bishop didn’t have a clue, or at least said as much. He tended to have a sense of where at least some of his agents were and whether they were in trouble or danger, and Geneva was one of those. But here, in Salem, that connection had been . . . interrupted.

  The “static” Bishop had referred to might be acting as a psychic barrier, at least between him and his agents. Grayson knew without even trying that the sense he himself usually had of Bishop—not thoughts but a sense of contact—was absent here and now, lost about the time he had started down off the Trail toward Salem.

  What he didn’t know, what Bishop didn’t know, and maybe Geneva didn’t know even after two weeks here, was exactly what the static was, where it originated, and why it could block the usually easy contact with their unit chief without also interfering with their individual psychic abilities.

  So far, at least.

  Something natural to the area itself? Wouldn’t be the first time. Something unnatural, paranormal, perhaps the psychic spillover of energies? Also wouldn’t be the first time. But either way, it was, as Bishop had noted, not a good thing.

  Not trusting normal routes of communication . . . that was just Geneva, or at least had been in the past, so not really a clue that something might be wrong. She was, if possible, more suspicious than Grayson was by nature. And, though he wasn’t at all sure if Bishop knew it, she was perfectly capable of using any handy excuse to avoid making regular reports.

  They also had that in common.

  Grayson pretended to read the paper and considered the situation uneasily. His first instinct was to go out looking for Geneva, but he knew better than to just start walking around town and asking questions. Or even just walking around town trying to act like he wasn’t looking for someone. For one thing, they weren’t connected in any way as far as Salem was concerned, and Geneva might well have discovered it would be best to leave it that way. So blundering into a situation without knowing much, far less anything she might have discovered in the past two weeks, was an invitation to disaster, especially since three missing people who had disappeared here had been the reason both Geneva and he had been sent in.

  He was busy silently cursing Geneva’s mania for secrecy when his absently wandering gaze landed suddenly on a classified ad on the newspaper’s page. He was surprised, first, that hard copies of newspapers still bothered with “personals” columns, what with all the myriad ways people could sell or trade items so much faster via various platforms on the Internet now.

  But in a small town with what he’d already discovered was an uncertain Wi-Fi connection, he supposed sticking to at least some of the old ways was probably smart. There were two pages of ads, a few large and most smaller, some of them from local businesses but quite a few from people looking to buy or sell some item. There was also one marriage proposal, a request for a date to a high school dance, someone looking for a lost cat, two ads from persons looking to sell used cars—and a message from Geneva.

  GS, if you’re looking for me so you can apologize, you must know I’m still mad at you. I’m not a little girl gone missing, you are not the boss of me, and you don’t tell me what to do or where to go. Or who to see. I can take care of myself and I don’t need you. I’m careful. Stay away from me. Red

  * * *

  —

  HE KNOWS WHO I really am. But what does that mean? Something? Nothing? And what did he mean, welcome back to Salem? I’ve never been here before.

  To give herself a moment to think, Nellie fed her half-eaten turkey sandwich to Leo, who was pleased to take it, and then brushed her gloved hands off, tossed her napkin on the table, and pushed her bowl and plate to one side.

  Practice, which she’d had a lot of one way or another, kept her expression calm.

  Finally, after a sip of her coffee, she said, “Survive Salem. And what—or who—in Salem is going to try to kill me?”

  “So your father didn’t tell you.” It wasn’t a question.

  Nellie stared at him. “As you noted, my father’s been dead for more than ten years. And I was told he left Salem at least twenty years before that. You can’t be much older than I am. Want to tell me just how it is you claim to know him?”

  “I never claimed to know him.”

  “Just to have been in contact with him long enough to learn what he did or didn’t tell me.”

  “Yes. Just that. Some of it, at least. Some other things through my own father, who knew your father very well. Thomas told you that you could trust me. That I was the only man in Salem you should trust.”

  The only man. Now, why did that part of what he said make something in the back of her mind abruptly sit up and pay even closer attention?

  Nellie smiled and knew it was one of her corporate board smiles, the kind she’d been told was a little scary. “I don’t trust easily, Mr. Deverell. And I certainly never knew my father well enough to trust anything he told me. I make up my own mind. You’re a stranger, and so far you haven’t offered me a single concrete reason why I should be afraid of anything or anyone in Salem. When you’re ready to do that, let me know. In the meantime, I’m going to pay for my lunch, and then Leo and I are going to continue our walk.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d let me pay for your lunch,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

  “I don’t suppose I would.” She pulled the worn billfold from her bag and placed a few bills under her coffee cup, more than enough to cover the meal, Leo’s broth, and even her unwelcome companion’s coffee. Plus a generous tip.

  Then she returned the billfold to her bag and rose, holding the bag on one shoulder and picking up the end of Leo’s leash with the other hand. “I would say it was nice meeting you,” she said pleasantly, “but that’s something else I’ll make up my mind about.”

  He had climbed to his feet when she did, but he didn’t follow her as she left the outdoor café and continued down the sidewalk with her dog. And neither one of them said good-bye.

  He just stood there looking after her. She could feel it.

  Nellie’s thoughts were chasing themselves in circles. He knows who I really am. How? Is it important? Does he really know I should be afraid for my life here? How does he know? And why should I be afraid? Afraid of what? Who? What the hell is going on here?

  And why don’t I just pack up and get out now?

  Nellie really didn’t have an answer for that last question, any more than she had answers for the others. Whatever inexplicable urge had driven her here was now holding her here. Whoever or whatever Finn Deverell was, her father had connected him to . . . the thing she needed to do here in Salem.

  Whatever the hell that was.

  Logic told her that, sooner or later, she would have to talk to Finn about all of it. Unless she discovered the answers for herself, on her own, which was unlikely when she didn’t even know where to start looking because she didn’t have a clue what it was all a
bout.

  In the distance, she heard the faint rumbles of thunder and noticed one or two surprised glances upward from others moving along the sidewalk, probably because the forecast had been for clear skies and no bad weather.

  Damn. She was upset, so of course it was going to storm. And considering just how upset she was, unless she could calm herself down, it would be a doozy.

  Luckily, she had a lot of experience at calming herself down.

  Although the several crows sitting on lampposts and watching with bright eyes as she passed didn’t help.

  Nellie debated her next move as she strolled along, looking at the buildings they passed with the somewhat detached curiosity of a tourist. Ignoring the crows. She didn’t pause at the entranceway to Cavendish Savings and Loan, though she noted it was doing brisk business on this Friday afternoon.

  Not so surprising, as the only bank in town.

  But there was a crow perched on each of the old-fashioned light brackets on either side of the bank’s name.

  She tried to keep her mind calm and quiet, used every trick she had learned over most of a lifetime and a few tricks learned more recently to not let anxiety and panic get the best of her. It only half worked, but half was enough to quiet the distant rumbles of thunder. For now, at least.

  Not for the first time, she wondered with her forced calm what would happen if the “perfect storm” once theorized to her actually happened. A powerful electrical storm right overhead—and her feeling too angry or afraid or just otherwise upset to be able to control herself. Or the storm.

  “I could hurt somebody, that’s what you’re saying.”

  “What I’m saying is that you could control a great deal of pure energy. Or not control it.”

  “It would be destructive.”

  “Very likely. With control, you could at least . . . aim at or away from a target.”

  “I won’t be a weapon. For anyone or anything.”

  “That’s the last thing I want. You must know that by now.”

  “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

  “None of us do. Aside from the emotional, moral, and legal consequences, the last thing we need is for the nonpsychic population to get the idea we’re something to be afraid of. I mean seriously afraid of. And some would be afraid. Others would try to use what we can do to aid their own agendas.”

  “As weapons. That’s more likely than—than something positive, isn’t it?”

  “Probably.”

  “No. I don’t want to be a weapon.”

  “I know that. So wear the gloves. Practice the meditation techniques, the tricks to distract your mind, whenever you can. And try not to bottle up your emotions. Enough internal pressure can destroy even the . . . most durable container.”

  “That’s all I am now? A container?”

  “You’re a human being with a rare ability. Learn how to live with it or allow it to destroy you.”

  “You’re a comforting bastard, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve seen it happen both ways, Nellie. I’ve seen it destroy, and I’ve seen it produce remarkably strong people who accomplish many positive things. I’m betting you’ll be one of the latter.”

  Nellie was no more sure he’d been right about that now than she had been then, some years before. But the alternative was something she didn’t like to think about. At all.

  Except . . . she was here. And if her father had been right, if Finn Deverell was right, then there was a threat to her here. A threat to her very life.

  So what if she found herself face-to-face with that threat with no help at all? What if it came right down to survival? How would her “rare” ability manifest itself?

  And would she be able to control it?

  * * *

  —

  GRAYSON STARED AT the ad for longer than he wanted to admit, baffled by several things. For one, she had used the nickname he sometimes used with her, Red. Which she hated, she’d said, because it was no part of her name the way Gray was part of his.

  It was part of her appearance, he had retorted, eyeing the very red hair that was only one of the attributes that made her so memorable.

  Still, she hated the nickname and always called him on it. Usually in blistering terms. So why use it now?

  But then he remembered who had left this ad directed, clearly, to him. Geneva. She was slippery and could be twisty as a barrelful of snakes, but she was a pro. She would have avoided using her own initials. She’d known he was coming, knew it was his habit to pick up a local newspaper as soon as he arrived and go through it front to back as part of familiarizing himself with the area and its people, and she’d known he would have arrived with virtually no information she may or may not have uncovered in her two weeks here.

  He doubted she had expected trouble when she had last left the B and B—except that Geneva always expected trouble. And she had, obviously, already been focused on something she considered troublesome or worrying. So she’d placed this ad probably only the day before, or whatever day she’d left the B and B, knowing she would go out that night—last night or the night before—and scheduled it to run for several days around his expected arrival date. Just in case. Just in case she wasn’t here to fill him in or even to point him in a direction he needed to start exploring.

  Just in case.

  Trying not to let his unfortunately educated and experienced imagination consider all the reasons why she probably hadn’t returned to the B and B last night or today and may have been gone for two or three days for all he knew, he studied the ad more carefully.

  This is Geneva. You know how she thinks. Professionally, at least. You know that. If she thought there was a chance she might not be able to tell you anything in person—for whatever reason—she wouldn’t leave a note in her room or mail you a letter or any shit like that. But she’d leave a message where she knew you were likely to find it, and in that message she’d at least try to point you in the right direction.

  Which meant that within this ad, which read rather like a teenage girl in a snit at her boyfriend, was a very specific message, likely only a few words.

  It would have been easier to go to his room and find a pen and paper, and frown over the message in earnest and in private, but a nagging uneasiness kept him in his chair, focused on the ad but trying not to frown.

  A message. So. Throw out the extraneous stuff, the stuff he knew or she’d expect him to know, the stuff she knew he wouldn’t . . . think of her. Things he’d know she wouldn’t have said, at least not in this way.

  He stared at the ad, and though he’d never tried to use the spider senses quite like this before, he focused hard, pushed, thinking about a message Geneva would leave just for him.

  For a moment, maybe two, the paper got fuzzy and the words blurred. A throb in his head told him he’d pay for this later, but he kept his gaze focused on the newspaper, on the ad.

  And pushed. Maybe harder than he’d ever pushed before.

  What are you trying to tell me, Red?

  Nothing at first, just the message, an ad like all the others—

  And then something changed. Words suddenly darkened, went bold, leaping out at him from the rest of the ad.

  GS, if you’re looking for me so you can apologize, you must know I’m still mad at you. I’m not a little girl gone missing, you are not the boss of me, and you don’t tell me what to do or where to go. Or who to see. I can take care of myself and I don’t need you. I’m careful. Stay away from me. Red

  That was it. Her message.

  He closed his eyes for a minute, one hand lifting to rub them and then the ache between them, trying to think. Wondering briefly if Bishop had any idea the spider senses could work like that. If not, he’d certainly want to know, to find out if they could work the same way for other agents.

  Then Grayson concentrated on the message.


  GS, you’re looking for a little girl gone missing. Take care. Stay away from me. Red

  She didn’t want him looking for her—that was what the last part meant. Either because she didn’t want the two of them to have any connection in the minds of the folks of Salem, or because . . . because she’d at least considered the possibility or probability that by the time he arrived she could be hip-deep in trouble.

  She wanted him to start looking for a missing little girl, not one who had been abducted or otherwise obviously stolen, Amber Alerts issued, but simply one who was not where she was supposed to be—and never mind whatever was going on with Geneva.

  Dammit.

  “Headache?”

  He looked up, startled, to see the innkeeper, Carol Payton, gazing at him with professional sympathy.

  With hardly a pause, he said, “Borderline migraines, I’m afraid, that sometimes cross the border. One reason I came down off the Trail to take a break. They seem to be worse in winter. Something about the barometric pressure, I think the doc said.”

  “Probably the elevation too,” she said, brisk but still with that professional note of sympathy in her voice. “Not that I want to lose a paying customer, but maybe you should spend your winters closer to sea level.”

  He managed a smile. “I hate the beach. Love the mountains. So . . . I suffer. A masochist, I guess. Anyway, I’m about to call my doc and ask him to send a prescription to a pharmacy here in Salem. He’s done it before when I’ve been traveling. That and a few hours’ sleep should knock it out.”

  “At least for today?”

  “At least for today,” he agreed ruefully. The fact that he really did actually suffer from annoyingly full-blown migraines that were almost always badly timed, never mind the “borderline” spider-sense-induced sort, lent his voice a sincerity he never had to fake.

  “Well, good luck,” she said. “We only have one pharmacy, by the way. Smith’s Drugstore.”