by Кей Хупер
He wondered if she had any idea just how extraordinary.
It was ... an unanticipated complication. He was confident of getting through her shields by touch; after all, his spider-sense had, as she had noted, functioned normally despite them. And he did have an advantage over most other people when it came to her. But her strength had surprised him. It told him Miranda would give up nothing against her will.
If he forced his way past her shields, he doubted either of them would emerge from the battle without untold damage.
Bishop allowed himself a moment of grimly amused self-mockery. For eight years, he had focused on the simple need to find her, deluding himself that the wounds he had inflicted could be healed quickly once he was able to face her again, to talk to her. He had imagined that her pain and bitterness had faded with time, making it even easier for him.
But it was not going to be easy to earn Miranda's forgiveness. If it would even be possible.
"Hurting me was the least of it."
She was wrong about that, as far as he was concerned. What he had done could not be undone; the dead could not be brought back to life. For that, he expected no forgiveness, because he would never forgive himself. But he meant to make things right between him and Miranda.
Whatever it cost him.
Miranda broke the news to her sister and Mrs. Task when she got home, but she kept it brief. Lynet Grainger's body had been found, that's all they needed to know. For now, at least.
Bonnie wasn't surprised; Miranda had told her before she'd gone to the lake that she was certain they would find another body.
The housekeeper was horrified; she'd been saying over and over "that Grainger girl" had just run away, most likely, and would probably come home any day now.
Whistling in the graveyard.
Like everyone in town, she didn't want to believe that a monster lurked nearby. A monster that looked human.
"Poor Teresa," Mrs. Task murmured as she put on her coat. "You told her?"
"Yes, before I came home," Miranda said. "And called her sister to come stay with her."
"She wasn't drinking?"
"Not as far as I could tell. In fact, I think she's been cold sober since she woke up to find Lynet gone. It's just a pity she didn't wake up sooner."
"I'll take something over tomorrow." Like many of her generation, Mrs. Task believed life's hurts and death's shocks could be eased with food.
"I'm sure she'd appreciate that," Miranda murmured, sure only that lots of neighbors would bring lots
of food to try to fill the terrible void left by the death of a child.
Mrs. Task shook her head as she picked up her purse. "Poor thing. To lose a child ..."
Bonnie waited until after the housekeeper had left, then said, "One of Mrs. Task's friends called and told her the FBI agents had come. Had they?"
Miranda nodded.
"Well? Is it him?"
"Three agents. Naturally, he's the one in charge."
Bonnie looked at her anxiously. "Did you talk to him?"
"About the investigation." Miranda shrugged. "He was entirely professional. So was I."
"But he remembered you."
"Oh, yes. He remembered." Too damned well.
"Did he ask why you'd changed your name?"
"He didn't have to ask."
"Did you tell him what you saw?"
"No. No, of course not. He doesn't need to know about that. Not now. Not yet."
After a moment, Bonnie said, "Why don't you shower and get ready for bed while I heat up supper?"
"I'm not very hungry."
"You have to eat, Randy."
Miranda was too tired to argue. She went upstairs and took a long, hot shower, trying to soothe weary muscles and wash away tension and the stink of death. She did feel better afterward, at least physically. When she returned to the kitchen in robe and slippers she felt a twinge of appetite as she smelled stew.
Automatically, Miranda reached for a coffee cup, but found herself holding a glass of milk instead.
"The last thing you need tonight," Bonnie said, "is more caffeine."
Again, Miranda didn't argue. She drank her milk and ate the stew without tasting it, wondering how long she could delay the conversation her sister undoubtedly wanted to have.
"Has Bishop changed much?"
Not long at all.
"He's older. We're all older."
"Does he look different?"
"Not that I noticed."
"Is he married?"
The question startled Miranda. "No," she said quickly, then added, "I don't know. He isn't wearing a ring."
"And you didn't talk about personal things."
I never meant to hurt you.
"No," Miranda said steadily. "We didn't talk about personal things."
"Because you're all closed up?"
"Because there's no reason for us to discuss personal things, Bonnie. He's here to do a job, and that's all."
"Can he still..."
"What?"
"Can he still get in even when you're all closed up?"
Miranda stared down at her empty milk glass. "I don't know."
"But—"
"We didn't touch."
"Not at all?"
"No."
Bonnie frowned. "You have to find out, Randy. If he can't get in, he won't be able to help you when the time comes."
"I know."
Bonnie hesitated, then said gently, "If he can't get in, you'll have to let him in."
"I know that too."
"Can you do it?"
"You said it. I'll have to."
Bonnie bit her lip. "I know you said leaving wouldn't change anything, but—"
"Even if we could, it's too late." Because Bishop was here now. Because events had been set in motion and there was no stopping them, not until they reached their inevitable conclusion.
Not until it was finally over..
FOUR
Sunday, January 9
The Cox County Sheriff's Department was housed in a building less than twenty years old. And back when it was designed, the city fathers had envisioned continued economic growth along the happy lines of what the town had then been experiencing. Unfortunately, they'd been wrong, but at least their optimism had led to a building with numerous offices and a spacious conference room, which was used mostly for storage.
Miranda had left orders, and by the time she and two of the three FBI agents met there early the following morning, the conference room had been cleared of boxes of old files and supplies, and provided a decent base of operations for the task force. Extra phone lines were already in place, as were fixed blackboards and bulletin boards, and the three large partner desks contained all the usual supplies. There was a conference table big enough to seat six, several pieces of antiquated audiovisual equipment, and one five-year-old desktop computer hastily shifted from one of the outer offices.
The coffeemaker, at least, was new.
Miranda didn't bother to apologize for the inadequacies of her department; since Dr. Edwards had brought her own equipment along, and both Bishop and Harte arrived this morning with the latest thing in laptop computers, she figured they'd expected small-town deficiencies from the get-go.
And if they didn't like it, tough.
She got them settled in the room with all the files on the investigation, assigned a regrettably awed and nervous young deputy to fetch and carry for them, and retreated to her office to handle the morning's duties.
She called the morgue first and was told by Dr. Edwards that the postmortem on Lynet Grainger was well under way.
"By the way, I've studied Dr. Shepherd's report on the post he performed on Kerry Ingram, and I don't believe there'll be any need to exhume the body."
Kerry was the only victim whose body had been released to the family for burial, and Miranda was intensely grateful that she probably wouldn't have to return to those grieving relatives and ask to dig up their little girl for another ses
sion on the autopsy table.
"Dr. Shepherd was quite thorough," Edwards said cheerfully, "and careful in preserving the slides and tissue samples, so there should be no trouble in verifying his findings."
In the background, Peter Shepherd could be heard to say that he appreciated that.
Miranda was relieved yet again by that little aside. Not that she'd expected trouble from him since calling in a more experienced forensics expert had been his suggestion — but you just never knew about professionals, especially doctors. So jealous of their authority.
"Thank you, Doctor," she said to Edwards. "If there's anything you need, please call me here at the office."
"I will, Sheriff, thanks. I should have a written report for you by the end of the day."
Miranda hung up, then turned to the stack of messages that had come in already this morning. She spent considerable time returning calls and soothing, as best she could, the fears and worries of the people who had voted her into office.
Not that there was much she could really say to reassure anyone.
She did try, though, listening patiently to suggestions ranging from a dusk-to-dawn curfew of everyone in town under the age of eighteen to the calling in of the National Guard, and offering her own brand of calm confidence.
They would catch the killer, she was certain of it.
She told no one what else she was certain of — that more teenagers would have to die first. Unless she found a way to frustrate fate.
That was possible. She had done it once before, after all.
By eleven o'clock, Miranda couldn't listen to one more anxious voice, so she went back to the conference room to escape the ceaseless ringing of her telephone.
At least, that's what she told herself.
Bishop and Harte had been busy. Files were lying open or stacked neatly on the conference table, alongside legal pads covered with notes. Their laptops and the old desktop were humming, and an even older printer was laboring in the corner to produce a hard copy of somebody's request.
The big bulletin board on the wall had been divided into three sections, one for each victim, and all the photos of the bodies at the crime scenes were tacked up, along with autopsy reports. Agent Harte was writing a time line on the blackboard, printing in block letters the names and ages of the victims, when and where they'd disappeared, and when and where the bodies had been found.
Bishop, who was half sitting on one end of the conference table and watching Harte, greeted Miranda by saying, "You saw the time pattern, of course."
Miranda wasn't especially flattered that he expected her to see the obvious. "You mean that the disappearances were almost exactly two months apart? Of course. Any ideas as to why that particular amount of time?"
"I wouldn't want to hazard an opinion until we find all the commonalities between the victims and start developing a reasonable profile of the killer."
That made sense and was what Miranda had expected. Still, she had to make a comment. "He does seem to be killing them quicker each time."
Bishop consulted the legal pad beside him. "Your M.E. estimates the Ramsay boy was killed as much as six weeks after he disappeared, the Ingram girl less than four weeks. And since Lynet Grainger disappeared only a few days ago, we know she was killed in a matter of hours."
Tony Harte stepped back to view his work. "So we have several possibilities. He might have drastically stepped up his timetable for some reason important to him and his ritual. He might have discovered soon after he grabbed her that the Grainger girl didn't fit his requirements as he'd expected, and therefore killed her in rage. Killing her quickly might have been part of his ritual, a new step. Or there was something different about Grainger, something that made him treat her unlike the other victims."
Miranda thought those were pretty good possibilities.
"So we don't know if we have two months before he grabs another kid."
Harte shook his head soberly. "Ask me, he could grab another one today or tomorrow. Then again, he could also wait two months or six — or move to a new hunting ground. We don't know enough yet."
Since she was alone with the agents, she said pointblank, "Did any of you pick up anything last night after I left?" She looked at Harte but it was Bishop who answered.
"Tony thinks the killer knew the girl, probably quite well. He got a strong sense of regret, even sadness."
Miranda regarded the agent with genuine interest. "So that's your other specialty, huh? You pick up emotional vibes?"
He laughed softly. "That's as good a definition as any, I guess."
Miranda sat in a chair at the opposite end of the conference table from Bishop. "What about Dr. Edwards? What's her non-medical specialty?"
"Similar to mine. Only she picks up bits of information rather than feelings, hard facts. Tunes in to the physical vibes, I guess you'd say. We lump both abilities under the heading of 'adept.' "
"I see. And did she pick up any physical vibes out at the well last night?"
"None to speak of. She thinks he lingered only long enough to dump the body. I agree." It was his turn to look at her with interest. "And I must say, it's a nice change to deal with local law enforcement without having to find alternate explanations for how we gather some of our information."
"If you use unconventional methods," Miranda said, "you've got to expect that sort of suspicion and disbelief."
"But not from you."
"No. Not from me." She smiled faintly. "And don't try to tell me you don't know why."
"Because you're pretty good at picking up vibes yourself?"
"Picking up vibes isn't really my strong suit. It's what Bishop used to call an ancillary ability," she said, keeping her gaze fixed on Harte. "Like his spider-sense, only not nearly so focused."
"Ah. One of the rare psychics possessing more than a single skill. And your primary ability?"
"Once upon a time, it was precognition. But I burned that one out pretty thoroughly years ago. The . . . visions ... are few and far between these days."
Harte's spaniel-brown eyes widened, and he looked at Bishop with something like wonder.
"My God," he said softly. "Three separate abilities?"
"Four," Bishop said. "Aside from being adept, pre-cognitive, and able to project a shield, she's also a pretty fair touch telepath. On our scale . . . probably eighth degree."
"Wow," Harte said, again very softly.
Miranda wasn't entirely sure she liked Bishop's frankness, but knew only too well that she herself had opened the door. It just felt odd to be discussing it so openly after so many years of careful silence.
She didn't want to admit even to herself that it also felt sort of nice to talk to people who understood and accepted.
But curiosity drove her to ask, "Eighth degree? What the hell kind of scale are we talking about?" Since Harte still appeared a bit stunned, she had no choice but to look, finally, at Bishop.
He gazed at her steadily, his pale eyes unreadable. "A scale we developed at Quantico while putting the program together the last few years."
"Being anal feds," she said dryly, "you just had to weigh, measure, and evaluate even the paranormal, huh?"
"Something like that."
She realized he wasn't going to tell her unless she asked, and it annoyed her. "Okay, I'll bite. So how high does this scale of yours go?"
"To twelve."
"Which, I suppose, is your degree?"
Bishop shook his head. "We have yet to encounter a psychic with any kind of twelfth-degree ability. I rank at a little above ten telepathically."
"How about the spider-sense? What does that rank?"
"Maybe six. On a good day."
"To put things into perspective," Harte murmured, "Sharon and I both come in around three on the scale as adepts. Most of the other members of the unit, in fact, don't go above five. And only one other agent besides Bishop has even an ancillary ability, far less a fullblown secondary ability. This is the first time I've ever me
t anybody with more than two. In fact, it's the first time I've even heard of it."
"Yeah, well. I come from a long line of overachievers." Miranda wasn't as impressed with herself as Harte was. Familiarity had not bred contempt, but it had bred acceptance; to Miranda, the paranormal was just a part of life.
"Why in hell are you stuck way out here in the boonies instead of playing on our team?" Harte exclaimed, then winced and sent an apologetic look to Bishop. "Yikes. Sorry, boss."
"Tony," Bishop said mildly, "I think the coffeepot is empty. Why don't you go fill it?"
"Hey, you don't have to drop a house on me to get me to go away. I'm psychic — I can take a more subtle hint than that." He grabbed the coffeepot and beat a hasty retreat, closing the door gently behind him.
Miranda didn't know which emotion was stronger, furious embarrassment that her past was not, apparently, as private as she had supposed, or furious pain that Bishop had evidently discussed her with at least one member of his team.
"I'm sorry, Miranda."
She forced herself not to look away, and called on all her self-control to present an indifferent front. "About what? Discussing me with your agents? Should I have expected anything else?"
"I hope so. It isn't what you obviously think."
"Isn't it?"
"Miranda, they're psychics. And even though my walls are fairly solid, I can't project an impenetrable shield the way you can — even around my own mind."
She was glad her shield was firmly in place just then, glad he had no idea of her thoughts and emotions. But all she said was, "So whose idea was this new unit of yours? It doesn't sound at all typical of the Bureau."
For a moment, she thought he would fight her, but finally he answered.
"It isn't. There was a great deal of resistance at first, until it was proved that unconventional methods and abilities could produce tangible results."
"And who proved that? You?"
"Eventually."
"Really? How?"
He drew a breath. "I tracked down the Rosemont Butcher."
Miranda rose to her feet slowly, staring at him. "What?" she whispered.
"Lewis Harrison. I got him, Miranda. Six and a half years ago."
