by Kay Hooper
Until now.
“The first halfway free day we get,” Teresa Miller was telling him grimly, “Shorty and I are teaching all the rest of you how to collect latents and DNA evidence.”
“Teresa, I know it’s asking a lot, but—”
“A lot? Christ, Jordan, you were the one tossing his cookies at the scene—what was it?—at least twice today.”
“I’m not ashamed of it,” he said with total honesty. “If I’d wanted to look close-up at blood and guts, I would have gone into your end of police work. But you went into that end, Teresa. And until we get that halfway free day, I need you to lead one team and Shorty the other to collect prints and DNA from the Norvell and Huntley homes.”
“Shit.”
“Today.”
“There’s no day left in today, Jordan. And why does it have to be now?”
“Because the sheriff said so. Because it should have been done already, when we got the missing-persons reports.”
“That’s not SOP, not for every missing person.”
“It is now. Look, Teresa, I’m sorry. But I need you and Shorty to do this. You’re both getting double overtime, if that helps.”
She sighed and for the first time looked simply weary. “It doesn’t help much. I don’t know how I’m going to face either of those families, knowing I’ve probably been picking up pieces of their loved one half the afternoon.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
She squared her shoulders. “Okay, I’ll tell Shorty and we’ll pick our teams. They can print family members for elimination while we collect all the latents we can find. And DNA, if we can find that.”
“Sheriff said to try not to alert the families we’re looking for DNA,” Jordan reminded her.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time. But you can tell the sheriff from me that I think he’d better come clean with the families about what we found today—and soon. Because we both know they’re going to hear about it.”
“We need a positive I.D., Teresa. Maybe we’ll be able to spare at least one of the families the certainty that a daughter or a wife was hacked up and left in pieces.”
A hollow laugh escaped Teresa. “You think we’ll be able to do that?”
The question caught him off guard. “If we get a positive I.D., we’ll be able to eliminate—” He broke off, going cold inside, because Teresa was slowly shaking her head. “What?”
“Jordan, I had some preliminary tests run on the early blood and tissue samples we took out there.”
“And?” All of a sudden he really wished he could take back that question. But it was too late.
“And I can tell you right now that we have blood and tissue from at least two victims. At least.”
If Marc hadn’t known before being introduced to the two strangers waiting for him in Paris’s living room that Miranda Bishop was with the SCU, he would have pegged the wrong one as the fed.
John Garrett really looked the part.
He was a big man, broad-shouldered and athletic, with dark hair and the level gaze of someone accustomed to command, and the dark suit he wore only intensified that impression.
Miranda Bishop, on the other hand, was casual, in a silk blouse and jeans that did nothing to disguise her centerfold measurements, with her longish jet-black hair pulled back at the nape of her neck—and was the first woman Marc had ever met in the flesh who was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.
That was his first impression.
Shaking hands with her a moment later, he looked into electric-blue eyes and knew immediately that her stunning exterior was the least important aspect of her. He could easily see her as a federal agent handling herself in any dangerous situation that came along.
But even more—
“You’re a telepath,” he said. “And not just that. A seer. And you have one hell of a shield.”
“Told you,” Dani murmured.
Miranda released his hand, smiling faintly. “And you,” she said pleasantly, “are a rare bird in our universe. A nonpsychic with the ability to recognize psychic abilities in others. Even shielded abilities.”
“It hasn’t been much of a gift,” Marc told her, avoiding so much as a glance at Dani. “Passive in the extreme.”
“But it could be helpful,” John Garrett said as the two men were introduced and shook hands. “Under the right circumstances.”
“Maybe. Not circumstances I’ve encountered so far, however.”
Paris spoke up then to say dryly, “You just haven’t been running with the right crowd, Marc. Have a seat.”
“I have a murder to investigate,” he said.
“You wouldn’t have come this far if you hadn’t been willing to listen. Have a seat.”
She was right. Dammit.
Marc sat down.
The room was spacious for a relatively small house, but not so spacious that there was much real distance between any of the five people in it. Except for two of them.
Dani was sitting in a chair not three feet away from the one Marc chose, but he thought she was nevertheless far away from him, despite the faint connection he could still feel. She seemed shut in herself, withdrawn, and he knew it was deliberate.
Even as a kid she had done that, isolating herself from those closest to her when something went wrong. Not because she didn’t care, but because she felt things a lot more deeply than she ever wanted to show. Because she didn’t want to see some of the things her ties to people allowed her to see. And it was probably the twin thing, too, Marc had decided, the need to be her own person, apart from Paris.
Maybe that was why she had grown up resisting anybody getting too close, resisting attachments. Marc had wondered many times since if, in trying to hold on to her ten years ago, he had actually driven her away by grabbing and holding too tightly.
He caught a glance from Paris and realized that even Dani’s twin was worried about her. Which was not a good sign. The question in Marc’s mind was whether it was the situation that was affecting Dani—or the people involved.
Was she still trying to pull away from him, him in particular, especially in light of his impulsive words on a very public sidewalk today?
John Garrett said matter-of-factly, “You know I’m not psychic.”
Marc didn’t even have to concentrate, though he did have to shift his focus back to the matter at hand, and it was more difficult to do that than he had expected. “I do know that. And yet you run an organization designed to make use of the psychic abilities of your people.”
“My wife is an empath, and my best friend a seer.” Garrett shrugged with a rueful smile. “I’m the one with the business-oriented mind. Somehow it all made sense.”
“I can understand that. What I can’t understand is what you’re doing here. In Venture. You or Agent Bishop.”
A faint laugh escaped Miranda Bishop. “Miranda, please. Most people call my husband by his surname alone, so there’s really only one Bishop in the family. And in the unit.”
“Okay, Miranda it is. I’m Marc.”
She nodded, exchanged glances with Garrett, then said, “We’re here because of the predator hunting in Venture. You found the partial remains of one or more of his victims today.”
“One or more?” It wasn’t as much of a surprise as Marc wished it was; the leaden feeling in his gut had been telling him for some time that both the missing women were already dead.
“There are probably two victims so far,” Miranda said. “At least.”
“Am I supposed to assume you know all this because you’re a seer?”
“If you’re wondering whether I knew in advance that he’d strike here, the answer is no. We’d been tracking him from his last hunting field, using a network of agents and John’s people.”
“A network?”
Garrett said, “Bishop had the idea, the goal, of building a network of psychics, who could be activated at a moment’s notice in any given area to aid police in especially difficult investigations. He started with his unit—wit
h federal agents—of course, and built on that base. There are other law-enforcement officers he’s reached out to, people scattered across the country, working their own cases but available and willing to help us if we need them. And I’ve been building the civilian branches of the network. Haven. We aren’t cops, but all of our active investigators are trained and licensed P.I.s.”
Marc looked at Dani. “You’re a private investigator?”
She looked at him directly for the first time since they’d entered the house, if only fleetingly. “No. I’m not an active investigator.”
“Dani’s abilities,” Garrett said, “are specialized, as you know.”
“Passive,” she said, with another glance at Marc. “Even psychics can have totally passive abilities.”
Marc saw both Paris and Miranda frown slightly, but neither of them challenged Dani’s statement. Instead, the federal agent got them back on topic.
“Between the SCU, others in law enforcement, and Haven, our network of available psychics has grown even more quickly than we anticipated. Recently, we’ve been…experimenting somewhat.”
“By tracking killers?” Marc asked.
“More or less.”
“Successfully?”
“Results have been spotty,” she admitted readily. “Probably not surprising, given the varying strengths and abilities of our people.”
“But you feel confident that you know who butchered at least one young woman here in Venture sometime in the last twenty-four hours?”
“Who—yes. But not in the helpful sense of knowing his name or even what he looks like.”
“So what you know is that he’s a serial you’ve tracked from a prior hunting ground.” He didn’t make it a question, because he had no doubt that was the answer.
Miranda nodded. “Afraid so.”
“And you’re absolutely sure?”
“Marc, I’m not absolutely sure the sun will rise tomorrow. Pretty sure, mind you, but not absolutely sure.” She shrugged. “Could I testify under oath in a courtroom? Not with facts. But feelings? Psychic certainty? Am I sure in my own mind who this bastard is? Yes.”
“Because you had a vision?”
“No. Because another of our psychics got a hit. And she’s very accurate. It’s the same killer.”
“You haven’t even studied the scene,” Marc said, knowing the objection was purely a matter of form.
“Yes,” Miranda said. “I have. I just wasn’t there at the time.”
6
THE FACT THAT JORDAN chose, in the end, to accompany Teresa and her team out to the Norvell home had less to do with any urge to learn how to collect forensic evidence and more to do with his feeling that while he might not be strong in science, he understood people. And he had learned early as a cop that there were few things more helpful in any investigation than gathering information from people rather than from paperwork.
But this was his first experience with a missing and probably dead victim—and a distraught husband.
A distraught husband he’d gone to school with.
“You’re sure there’s no word about Karen?” Bob Norvell waved the forensics team toward the bedrooms at the rear of the small, well-kept house but kept his gaze fixed on Jordan.
“We’re doing everything we can to find her, Bob, you know that.” Jordan was a lot more uncomfortable than he’d expected and had to concentrate to keep his expression professional—and impassive.
“She wouldn’t have left me, Jordan. You know that, right? That she wouldn’t have left me?”
“Yeah, Bob, I know that. Everybody says you guys were—are—happy together.”
If Norvell noticed the slip, he ignored it. “She wouldn’t have left me, and there was no reason anybody would want to hurt her. Not Karen. Karen’s a sweetheart, she really is. Everybody likes her.”
“Bob, why don’t we sit down? It may take a few minutes for the team to do its work, so…”
“Yeah, sure, I’m sorry.” Norvell led the way into the living room, adding, “Can I get you anything? Coffee or something?”
“No, thanks.” Jordan regretted that almost immediately, realizing that giving Norvell something to do probably would have been a good idea, at least to the extent of giving the deputy a break from that anxious gaze.
Coward! Do your job, for Christ’s sake!
As they sat down, Jordan made a determined effort to be professional. “I’ve read the report, of course, Bob, but I wanted to ask if there was anything else you could tell me, anything you might have thought of in the last few days.”
“Like what?”
“Before she disappeared, was Karen different in any way? Did she seem nervous or worried?”
Norvell shook his head. “No, she was just the same as always. I kissed her good-bye and went to work—she had a day off from the bank, but I didn’t—and when I got home she wasn’t here.” His face crumpled suddenly. “I should have got her that dog. She wanted a little dog to keep her company when I wasn’t here, especially when I was gone overnight for business. I really should have got her that dog.”
Wary of the emotional storm he could see looming, Jordan said quickly, “Had you noticed anything different yourself? I mean, had you seen anybody hanging around in the neighborhood, a stranger or just somebody who made the hair on the back of your neck stand up for no reason you could be sure of?”
“Around here? No.”
“And Karen didn’t mention anything? She hadn’t seen anything or anyone that made her uneasy?”
Norvell frowned suddenly. “Wait a minute. She did say the girls at the bank teased her about somebody taking pictures of her, that she had a secret admirer. She laughed it off, said she thought they were pulling her leg, because she never saw anybody.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, hell, Jordan, it was back in the summer. I remember because she hadn’t mentioned it to me until we were at the beach on vacation. To be honest, it sort of did make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, if just for a second or two. You remember how it was back in the summer; you couldn’t turn on the news without hearing about this killer or that stalker, like the whole country was full of psychos, so I was worried. But she laughed it off. And by the time we got home…”
By the time they returned home, both suspicion and uneasiness had been forgotten. Understandably.
“I’ll talk to the girls at the bank,” Jordan said briskly, “and see if they remember anything that might help us. It’s probably nothing, Bob, but it won’t hurt to check.”
“You’ll let me know if you find out anything?”
“Of course. Of course I will.” Jordan felt like a bastard, a part of him wanting to warn Bob Norvell to start his grieving now. But the cop, of course, kept the man silent.
“I should have got her that dog,” Norvell mumbled.
You can go the formal route, of course,” Miranda Bishop told Marc. “Contact the FBI, report the crime and your suspicion that you could have a serial operating here in Venture.”
“And?”
“And the Bureau, following procedure, would have Behavioral Science study all the crime-scene information, possibly contact and interview some of your people, and formulate a profile of the unknown subject. Your killer.”
Nobody had ever accused Marc of being slow on the uptake. “Bureaucratic red tape. Which would take how long?”
“You might get a preliminary profile in a week, more likely two or three weeks given the Bureau’s current workload. And it would of course be based only on what’s happened here, treating this killer and this hunting ground as unique.”
Marc leaned forward, elbows on knees, and kept his gaze on Miranda, despite his growing awareness of Dani and her utter stillness only a few feet away. Why was she so damn silent? He wasn’t vain enough to believe it was all about him, so what was it?
Staring at the agent, he asked, “Is that why you’re here? To warn me that the FBI is not going to be much help to me in this
investigation?”
“No, I’m here to warn you that for political and bureaucratic reasons too numerous to go into, the FBI is having internal issues of its own, and those unfortunately affect the SCU. Ideally, an SCU team would be sent here immediately, especially given the viciousness of the crime, to aid you and your people in every way possible.”
“But that won’t happen this time. Officially.”
Miranda nodded. “Noah is very good at playing the political game when he has to, and right now he has to if the SCU is going to survive. So the unit’s top agents, including him, have to remain in Boston, working with a task force set up this summer to investigate a series of murders in that city. I’m sure you remember.”
It was his turn to nod, slowly. “Murdered a senator’s daughter, the final victim of a dozen, and then just stopped.”
Miranda looked at him steadily.
“Ah, shit. He’s here? It’s the same killer? The hunting ground you tracked him from was Boston?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“So why the hell isn’t the task force breathing down my neck?” He held up a hand before she could begin to answer. “Don’t tell me. Because no matter what you know or believe you know, there’s not a shred of evidence either of us could take to court.”
“Or even to the Director of the FBI. This Director, at least. And by the time there is…Well, let’s just say that the one thing Noah and I are sure of about this killer is that he’s fast. He killed a dozen women in Boston in less than a month. If he is here, as we believe he is, then he’ll strike quickly and viciously—and then probably move on to his next hunting ground.”
John Garrett said, “This is exactly the sort of situation Bishop anticipated, and one of the reasons Haven was formed. To…circumvent any political or practical situation that might hamstring the SCU. We have a very short chain of command and no bureaucratic red tape.”
“You also don’t have badges,” Marc pointed out.
“No, but we do have friends in very high places.”
Marc was already nodding. “Senator Abe LeMott.”
“He’s the latest high-ranking supporter to come on board, yes. He believes very strongly in what the SCU and Haven can accomplish, working together or independently of each other.”
