by Кей Хупер
Alex had been more or less ordered not to come into the office on Sunday. He'd been working nearly three weeks without a break, and Miranda claimed the town council would have her head on a platter if she didn't see to it that he took time off whether he wanted to or not. Overtime was one thing, she said, but he was carrying it to extremes — even if they did have a serial killer to find.
He hated days off. He wasn't a sporting man, so hunting and fishing held no appeal for him. Neither did golf. Watching sports on television was an enjoyable pastime only during baseball season. He ran and worked out to keep in shape, but a man could hardly do that all day.
And then there was the house. It was too big and too damned empty. He should get rid of it, he knew. But Janet had loved the house, had decorated it with painstaking care, and in the year since her death he hadn't been able to face the thought of someone else living in Janet's house.
But living in the house alone had its own kind of pain, and though sleeping there was, finally, possible, Alex could seldom spend much time in it when he was awake.
Unfortunately, Sundays in Gladstone didn't offer a lot in the way of entertainment once church let out. And even less if one wasn't particularly interested in church.
He finally drove to town, resisting the urge to stop by the office and find out what was going on. Instead, he parked near Liz's bookstore and coffeeshop, forced to wait nearly forty-five minutes for Liz to unlock the doors at two o'clock.
"I heard about Lynet," she said.
"Yeah, poor kid." Alex sat at the counter rather than his usual booth, since Liz worked alone on Sundays.
"And I heard the FBI is in town."
"Well, three agents anyway." He smiled. "Your dark man with a mark on his face is one of them. And Randy knows him." Then Alex recalled what Liz had said about the fate of that man, and his smile faded. "You don't still think—"
Liz chewed on her bottom lip. "When I read the leaves again, it was more fuzzy, less definite, but I'm sure it was the same thing, Alex. Does — does Randy like him?"
Alex considered the question. "To be honest, the only thing I'm sure of is that she feels a lot about him. Whether it's like or dislike, positive or negative, I can't tell."
"Maybe I should talk to her about what I saw," Liz suggested hesitantly. "She's never scoffed. Never let me read the leaves for her, but—"
Alex shook his head. "Not right now, Liz. Randy has enough on her plate, I think, without having to worry about something that might not happen."
"I knew it would be a strange year, new millennium and all, but I really don't like all these bad omens, Alex."
"More dogs howling at night?"
Before she could answer, Justin Marsh stormed into the coffeeshop, his thin little wife, Selena, on his heels like a mute shadow.
"Elizabeth, I'm asking you again not to conduct business on the Sabbath!" he thundered as though from a pulpit.
Alex sighed. "Justin, why're you picking on Liz? Half the retail businesses and all the restaurants and cafes open up after church. Afternoon, Selena."
"Hello." She smiled timidly, holding her Bible with both hands as though she feared it would escape any minute. She might have been pretty once, but Selena had been married to Justin Marsh for nearly thirty years and the ordeal had worn her down. She was seldom seen in public without him, and Alex couldn't recall hearing her say much more than hello and goodbye, with an occasional Praise the Lord or Amen thrown in at appropriate pauses in Justin's oratory.
"As a matter of fact," Alex went on, "didn't you use to open up your car lot on Sundays before you retired and sold out?"
"I saw the error of my ways," Justin declared piously, his face reddening. "And now I'm commanded by the Lord to guide the others of his flock toward the light of salvation!"
Alex almost gave that one an Amen himself. He always appreciated a good dramatic performance.
Gravely, Liz said, "Can I get you two some coffee, Justin? Purely on the house, you understand — not a business transaction."
He leaned across the counter, eyes intent on her face.
"Elizabeth, I will place your feet upon a godly path. You must not be allowed to follow the evil way. A good woman such as you should have an honored place in the house of our Lord."
Normally Alex was patient with Justin's excesses, but with the memory of poor little Lynet's battered body vivid in his mind, he snapped. "Justin, if you want to seek out evil, you might begin with whoever killed our teenagers. I'd think that would be a damned sight more important to any god than whether Liz should sell coffee and books on Sunday!"
Justin made a choked sound, then turned away. Selena, out of long practice, skipped nimbly aside, then shadowed him faithfully as he stalked out of the store.
"I don't like that man," Alex said.
"But you shouldn't have said that, Alex. You know he'll go straight to the mayor."
"Oh, don't worry about it. Right now, even the mayor has more to worry about than Justin Marsh's ruffled feathers."
Sharon Edwards stripped off her rubber gloves and looked across the table at Peter Shepherd. "No question about it."
Shepherd grunted. "I don't get it," he said. "What would be the point?"
"We'll add that to our list of questions to ask this lunatic when we catch him. In the meantime, if you'll box up all the slides and tissue samples, I'll get started on the report for the sheriff."
"Six and a half years ago," Miranda repeated numbly. "But. . . there was nothing about it on the news."
"Not the national news, no. Coincidentally, a far more famous killer was captured that week — a mass murderer out in Texas — and he got all the national media attention."
"I checked NCIC," Miranda protested. "As soon as I joined the Sheriff's Department here and had access, I checked every month to see if he'd been caught."
"I'm sorry," Bishop said. "Some inside the Bureau were convinced Harrison had a partner, that one man couldn't have done everything he'd confessed to doing. The decision was made to keep the case file open, to list him as at large to make certain any similar crimes would send up a flag."
"But how could they do that unless — " She sat back down in her chair. "He's dead?"
Bishop nodded.
"You?"
"Yes."
She was, on some level, surprised to feel so little about the death of Lewis Harrison. For so long, he had been a part of her life, a continual threat, the monster hiding in the closet ready to spring out when darkness came.
She doubted there had been a single night in the last eight years that she had not thought of him in the instant before she turned off her bedside lamp. As for Bonnie, the poor kid still had nightmares, horrible ones. Not so often now, but it was clear she had forgotten nothing of terror.
Miranda couldn't help but wonder how her life might have been different if she'd known Lewis Harrison could never take anything away from her ever again.
What would have changed?
"I wanted to tell you, Miranda. I tried to find you."
"I didn't want to be found," she murmured.
"That became obvious sooner rather than later. Not even FBI resources can locate an angry psychic if she doesn't want to be found."
Miranda didn't explain the methods she had used to start her life over again, though she knew he was curious. Even with the threat of Harrison gone, she was wary enough to want to protect secrets she might need again someday.
Always assuming she survived the next few weeks.
She looked across the table at Bishop and suddenly a dark, chilling doubt twisted inside her. He was ruthless, always had been. When it came to doing his job, he believed the end justified the means, and he was perfectly capable of doing whatever it took to accomplish his objectives.
God, how well she knew that.
So what were his objectives now? To persuade her to drop her guard, her shields, so he could use her abilities to track down a vicious killer? To convince her there was no threat to
her and Bonnie, no reason for her to protect herself and her sister?
Would he lie to convince her?
Even though he certainly couldn't read her thoughts, Miranda saw a change in his face, as if he realized what she was thinking.
"I am not lying," he said evenly.
She conjured a brittle smile. "You'll have to forgive me if I don't take your word for that."
Bishop moved slightly, an unconscious shifting of his weight in protest or denial, but all he said, in that same level voice, was, "I'll make sure you're allowed access to the sealed records concerning Harrison."
"You do that," Miranda said.
FIVE
It was after noon when Tony Harte stuck his head cautiously into the conference room. He found Bishop alone, still sitting on the table, still staring at the blackboard. He appeared perfectly calm, but the scar on his face stood out whitely from the tanned flesh surrounding it and Harte took due note of a warning sign he had learned to be wary of.
"Um . . . the sheriff left a few minutes ago," Harte offered.
"I know."
"I mean, she left the building."
Bishop looked at him briefly. "Yes. I know."
"She seemed to be in an awful hurry. Couldn't wait to get out of here, was my take."
Bishop kept his gaze on the blackboard.
Harte came in and got a fresh pot of coffee brewing. He debated with himself silently, then sighed and ventured where many before him hadn't dared to tread.
"Back when I joined up, the word was you didn't get official approval for the new unit until you threatened to quit. Even after all the stuff you did unofficially, the years of planning and testing and building the program, after all the fieldwork and a growing list of closed cases, the Bureau still didn't want to openly sanction — or appear to sanction — highly unorthodox investigative methods. Even after you gave them results they couldn't deny. But they didn't want to lose one of their top profilers, so they finally gave the unit their official seal of approval — even if it did make them queasy to do it."
"If you get anywhere near a point, Tony, make it."
Harte didn't let that warning voice dissuade him. "I was just thinking that Sheriff Knight probably has no idea that because of her there are a lot of monsters in cages where they belong."
Bishop didn't respond.
"And I was thinking maybe you should tell her."
"If you think it would even the score," Bishop said, "you're wrong."
"Maybe. But she might feel better knowing something positive came out of tragedy."
"You mean she might hate me a little less?" Bishop's smile was hardly worthy of the name. "Don't count on it."
"If you'll excuse me for saying so, boss, letting things go on the way they are between you is just going to slow us down. If we're going to catch this bastard, we'll need every ace we can pull out of our sleeves — and that includes an incredibly gifted psychic with singular abilities who right now is very much shut inside herself."
"She couldn't sense him before we got here," Bishop argued.
"Probably because of her shield. Because she's had to hide what she can do, had to be careful. And . . . because she was hiding here herself. Hiding her sister." Harte paused. "I gather she knows she doesn't have to do that anymore."
"She knows what I've told her. Whether she believes I told her the truth is something else entirely."
"You can prove it's the truth." Then Harte shook his head. "Except that official records have the bastard still alive and at large. You'll have to get her access to the sealed records."
"I know."
Harte eyed him, wondering if Bishop wanted Sheriff Knight to believe him without proof. Definitely a proud man, was Bishop. But not a stupid man. He had to know that his past actions made Miranda Knight nothing but suspicious.
Harte tentatively sensed the emotions in the room, much as a trained hunting dog would sniff the air for telltale scent, and was startled by the turmoil he detected in his normally composed boss. The feelings went deep and sharp, a confusion of anger and guilt, hunger and regret, pain and need and shame.
Slowly, Harte said, "Proof or no, it'll take her some time to get used to the idea, I imagine. But once she gets past that, once she realizes she can open up ... then there's you."
"Then there's me. Keeping her closed." Bishop sighed and stared at his subordinate with grim eyes. "Sometimes I hate working with psychics."
"Ninety-eight-percent success rate," Harte reminded him.
"Yeah, yeah. Just stay the hell out of my head, will you, please?"
"Hey, boss, I can't get into your head. That's not my forte, remember? I just pick things up from the air. Not my fault if you're tossing 'em out there."
"I'll try to watch that," Bishop said dryly.
"Yeah, you might want to," Harte murmured, fixing his attention on a small and unnecessary adjustment to the coffeemaker.
A tinge of hot color stole into Bishop's cheeks. "Any idea where she went?"
"Nope. But it is lunchtime, more or less; maybe she has a usual haunt. Being the sheriff, I'd assume she has to always leave word where she'll be. Or wear a pager, I suppose, though I didn't notice one earlier. I saw her speak to the receptionist — what's her name, Grace? — before she went out."
Bishop didn't bother to invent an excuse for leaving the conference room; there really were precious few secrets among a team of psychics, and if it disturbed him to have his thoughts and emotions plucked out of hiding, at least it also made prevarication useless and explanation unnecessary.
Grace hesitated when he stopped at her desk to ask, but the sheriff had, after all, instructed that the task force be given any assistance requested.
"She's at Tim's. Karate school. Main Street, downtown, you can't miss it." Grace Russell had worked with cops for too many years to be easily intimidated, but this federal agent made her feel uneasy. Maybe it was his pale eyes, looking right through a body the way they did. Or maybe it was the wicked scar that twisted down the left side of his face and suggested an odd duality about the man — one side of him perfect, the other side marred, by mischance or failure. From a purely female perspective, she thought it was a real pity; without that scar, he would have been drop-dead gorgeous, and not many men could carry that off while still being uncompromisingly masculine.
At the same time, the scar lent him a dangerous air that was also immensely fascinating. Grace had seen the female deputies eyeing him unobtrusively, and the interest in their faces had little to do with professional wariness of a federal cop in their midst.
"A karate school? Open on Sunday?" Bishop's voice was perfectly courteous, his expression entirely unreadable, but Grace had the uncomfortable idea that he knew exactly what she was thinking.
"Not officially open, no, but a few of Tim's students work out there in the afternoons, even sometimes on Sunday. Sheriff Knight usually takes part of her lunch hour." Not that he could help the scar, she supposed, though cosmetic surgery could do wonders these days, and why such a good-looking man would choose to wear his one physical flaw right on his face for all to see baffled her.
"Thank you, Mrs. Russell." Perfectly aware of her thoughts even without touching her, Bishop left her to speculate as to when and how he had gotten the scar. The speculation didn't bother him any more than her wariness did; he had grown accustomed to both over the years.
She was right in saying that he couldn't miss the karate school; the line of trophies and ribbons in the front window would have made it obvious even without the sign proclaiming the Tim Skinner School of Karate. Bishop contemplated the name for a moment, then shrugged and went inside.
He found himself in a huge classroom where six students ranging in age from eight to sixteen worked out in pairs under the watchful eye of an instructor. No one noticed him as he walked to the half-open door and looked into the other, smaller classroom.
Only two people were there, each barefoot and wearing a white gi so associated with kara
te. One of them was a man of perhaps forty-five who moved with such expertise, it was hard to imagine that anyone could offer him a decent challenge.
Miranda clearly could.
Balance exceptional and concentration absolute, she compensated for less muscle with speed and agility that were mesmerizing to watch and kept her opponent on his toes.
Bishop wasn't surprised by her skill or the black belt she wore, though he knew she must have begun studying karate only in the past eight years. He watched her through the door, not calling attention to his presence — and saw the change in her the instant she sensed him there.
Her shoulders tensed and her head turned just a bit toward him. Then her workout partner moved in with a flying kick, and all her attention was taken up by the necessity of defending herself.
It bothered Bishop that Miranda could sense him even through her shields — and yet he could not sense her. Once, he had been able to. Once, he had known whenever she was anywhere near him. When she had been hurt or upset, he had felt it instantly.
Once.
Now she might as well be a stranger. He was aware of her only if he saw or heard her. If she walked silently into a room behind him, he would be completely oblivious of her arrival.
That was a cold realization.
It didn't help to remind himself that she was a far more experienced telepath and that her version of a spider-sense had always been more defensive than his own. On top of which, she had been hunted by a deadly predator. Living for years in fear for her life had, without doubt, sharpened her immediate awareness of any threat.
He was a threat.
Bishop turned around and walked back to the front door. He went outside and stood on the sidewalk, his back to the school, and his gaze fixed on nothing.
Miranda had been closed before his arrival, but her intuition and spider-sense had functioned; even her pre-cognitive abilities had allowed her to "see" Lynet Grainger being found in water near the lake. She had been closed just enough to protect herself and her sister.
But now Miranda was willfully making herself blind and deaf in a psychic sense, cutting off the extra abilities that made her who she was. It was a drastic, desperate act, and it told Bishop more clearly than words ever could that he had done much more than simply hurt her eight years before.
