Sense of Evil

by Kay Hooper

  “Don't tell me, let me guess. Your old man took you to a cathouse for your first sexual experience.”

  “He did not.” Travis sighed. “My brother did.”

  Ally slid off the hood of his car, laughing. “You should send her flowers on every anniversary, pal. She done you proud.”

  “Thank you. I think.” He pulled her close for a long kiss, then said, “Dammit, Ally, it really bothers me that you're wandering around town alone, never mind after dark, especially since Cheryl Bayne disappeared. It's been nearly a week since the last murder; we know we're running out of time. Every other woman in town is jumpy as hell, and you're breezing around like nothing can touch you.”

  “I'm not blond.”

  “We don't know he's just after blondes. Cheryl Bayne wasn't—isn't—blond. Besides, the other times, he went after brunettes and redheads.”

  “Other times?”

  He grimaced. “You didn't hear me say that.”

  “Look, I promise I won't report a word until you say it's okay. Scout's honor.”

  He stared at the fingers she held up. “That's a peace sign, Ally.”

  “Well, I was never a scout. But that doesn't mean you can't trust me to keep quiet—until I get the word it's okay to report.”

  He took her arm and escorted her around to the passenger side of his car. “I say we pick up a bag of tacos and head for my place.”

  “Tacos at this hour? God, you have a cast-iron stomach, don't you? Besides, didn't I see a pizza delivery to the station a couple of hours ago? The poor guy was staggering under the weight of those pizza boxes.”

  “One of the feds offered to buy,” Travis said. “Naturally, we took her up on the offer.”

  “And you're still hungry?”

  “Well, that was a couple of hours ago.”

  “But tacos? On top of pizza?”

  “It's Sunday night in Hastings, Ally; we don't have a lot of choices here.”

  She sighed and got into his car, waiting until he was behind the wheel to say, “Okay, but only on the condition that you fill me in on the investigation so far.”

  “Ally—”

  “Look, either you trust me by now or you don't. If you don't, please be kind enough to drop me off at the inn.”

  “So that's it? I talk or it's over?”

  “Come on, Travis, give me a break. We're not lovers, we just roll around in the sheets together and have a good time. It's fun and we both enjoy it, but I haven't heard a suggestion that we start picking out china patterns. You're not going to take me home to Mama, and we both know as soon as this maniac is captured or killed, I'm outta here. Right?”

  “Right,” he said grudgingly.

  “So don't get all indignant with me now. I'm having a good time with you, and that's cool, but I also have a job to do. Either I get what I need from you, or I start looking someplace else.”

  “At least you're up front about it,” he muttered.

  “I am nothing if not totally honest,” she said, lying without a blink.

  He eyed her for a moment and then started the car. “Ally, I swear, if you air one single word—or even tell your producer—before I give the okay, I'll figure out a way to throw your ass in jail. Got it?”

  “Got it. No problem. So who's Jane Doe, and how did she die?”

  “Hope Tessneer, and she was strangled. She lived in another town about thirty miles away.”

  “And turned up dead here because . . . ?”

  “Beats me. I think the chief and the feds know more than they're saying, but they ain't sharing. At least, not with me.”

  Accurately reading the tone of his voice, she said, “They've brought somebody else into the investigation?”

  “Into the inner circle, anyway.” He shrugged, trying hard for indifference. “Ginny McBrayer seems to be in their confidence, or at least of the two agents. Figures. You females always stick together.”

  “Please don't make me call you a sexist pig,” Ally requested dryly.

  “I'm not. And that's not what I mean. Women talk to each other in ways men just don't. That's all.”

  Ally looked at him with faint respect. “We do, actually. I'm surprised you noticed.”

  “I keep telling you I'm not an idiot.” He sent her a glance, smiling oddly. “You really should pay attention, Ally.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I guess I really should at that. Where're we going, Travis?”

  “The taco place. If I'm going to spill my guts, I'm going to need sustenance first.”

  “I really wish you'd used a different phrase,” Ally said. “Really.”

  16

  ISABEL STUDIED THE NOTE and then nodded, passing it on to Hollis and Mallory. “It looks like a sketch of handcuffs to me. Sort of stylized, the way an artist would maybe do it, which could be one reason we missed it. Nice catch, Ginny.”

  “I should have caught that,” Hollis said, more to herself than to the others, and in a tone that struck her own ears as wistful.

  “You're just all a little preoccupied,” Ginny murmured.

  “Good thing you aren't,” Isabel told her. “Okay, a paralegal might have doodled handcuffs, I suppose, but having them on this particular note has got to mean something more than absentmindedness. It's one more indication Tricia Kane was involved, or looking to get involved, with Jamie Brower.”

  Hollis said, “Any chance Jamie might have trusted Tricia with that box we so badly want to see?”

  Isabel started to reply, then looked at Rafe. “What do you think?”

  “I'm not the profiler.”

  “Off the top of your head. What do you think?”

  “No,” he heard himself reply, and frowned as he went on slowly. “Jamie wouldn't have trusted that box with anyone else—unless it was the partner who saw her unmasked.”

  “Very good,” Isabel said. “And my feeling as well. That box is either stored somewhere Jamie considered safe, or kept by someone she really, really trusted. And we know by now that she didn't trust many people.”

  Hollis produced the Eyes Only file and opened it to study the photographs. It didn't take long for her to reach a conclusion and close the folder. “This isn't Tricia Kane. For one thing, she had a couple of moles on one arm that would have shown up in the photos. For another, unless the photos were taken months ago, there wouldn't have been time for her hair to grow out.”

  “But you can't see her hair in the photos because of that hood,” Ginny objected. Then she blinked. And blushed. “Oh. That hair.”

  Isabel smiled at her. “Why don't you go make a few copies of Tricia's note so we can bag the original. And then I really do think we all need to call it a day. Start fresh in the morning.”

  As soon as Ginny was out of the room, Isabel said to Rafe, “I'm going to go talk to her. Be right back.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did I miss something?” Mallory wondered when Isabel had gone.

  “We'll be arresting Hank McBrayer,” Rafe told her. “Assault charges filed by his daughter.”

  Mallory looked blank for a moment, then scowled. “Son of a bitch. I'd heard talk, but Ginny never said anything.”

  “Most victims of abuse don't,” Hollis said. To Rafe, she asked, “Is Isabel going to try to convince her to stay in a hotel tonight?”

  “She's going to try to convince her to let you two and a couple of officers go back to her house with a warrant for her father's arrest and get him out of there tonight.”

  “Can we do that?” Mallory asked.

  “Yes. I called the judge from the car. The paperwork's almost ready.”

  Mallory was still frowning. “Why Isabel and Hollis? I mean, why not just send a couple of our officers? I'll volunteer. Since I hate bullies just on principle, I'd love to accidentally break McBrayer's arm while he's resisting arrest.”

  “So would I,” Rafe said. “But it was Isabel and Hollis who realized what was going on and talked to Ginny about it, and Isabel and I both feel Ginny will be
more comfortable if they're along for the arrest.” He hesitated, then said, “Plus, I think Isabel has something else in mind.”

  Hollis looked at him. “Do you, now? Like what?”

  “Assuming he's sober enough to listen, I think she intends to take him down a peg or two. Without laying a finger on him.”

  “If anybody can,” Hollis said, “it's Isabel. Guys look at that beautiful face and centerfold body, all that blond hair, big green eyes all wide and innocent, and think they know exactly what she is. Boy, do they get a surprise.”

  “I certainly did,” Rafe murmured.

  “Speaking of which,” Hollis said. “Are you?”

  He didn't have to ask what she meant. “Apparently.”

  Hollis whistled. “Dunno whether to say congratulations or sorry about that.”

  “I'll let you know when I figure out how I feel about it.”

  Mallory said, “Hello? What's going on? Are you what?”

  “Psychic.”

  She blinked. “You're psychic?”

  “So I'm told.”

  “How could you be and not know?”

  “The short answer,” Hollis said, “is that he always was, but it was an inactive ability, so he wasn't aware of it. I think we talked about latents when we first got here. Rafe, as it turns out, was a latent. Something happened to activate his abilities.”

  “What?”

  Hollis lifted her brows at Rafe.

  “Damned if I know. She—I was told it could have been some kind of subconscious shock, which I suppose it had to be since I don't recall any consciously shocking or traumatic events in my life recently. Other than this killer.”

  “No bump on the head?” Hollis asked. “Concussion?”

  “No,” he said. “Never, in fact.”

  Mallory eyed him somewhat warily. “So what can you do?”

  “Not a whole hell of a lot. Yet, anyway. The consensus seems to be I am—or will be—clairvoyant.”

  “Like Isabel? Just knowing stuff?”

  “More or less.”

  “And that doesn't scare the shit out of you?”

  “Did you hear me say it didn't?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then.”

  Mallory leaned back in her chair, tipped her head back, and addressed the ceiling—and whatever lay beyond. “A few weeks ago, I led a perfectly ordinary existence. No killers. No spooky psychic abilities. Nothing on my mind more weighty than which kind of takeout I wanted for my supper. Those were the days. I'm sorry now I didn't appreciate them.” She sighed and looked at the others. “I must be paying off karma for a really, really bad decision in a former life.”

  “You must be?” Rafe shook his head.

  Isabel returned to the room before the discussion could continue, saying, “We have a slight change of plan. Hollis, we're going to swing by Ginny's on the way back to the inn and pick up her mother; both of them will be staying there tonight.”

  “Hank's out on the town?” Rafe guessed.

  “Yeah. Seems he often spends Sunday afternoons and evenings drinking in an undisclosed location with others of . . . like temperament.”

  Rafe sighed. “Yeah, we have a few basement bars in the county. Unlicensed, unregulated, and highly mobile. They tend to change location more often than they wash the glasses.”

  “Well, apparently Mr. McBrayer has a semiregular habit of drinking all evening and passing out somewhere between the bar and home. Or at the bar, sometimes. In any case, he seldom makes it home on Sunday nights. But on the off chance that tonight would be one of those nights, I've persuaded Ginny to get her mother and come stay at the inn.”

  “I'll have all the patrols keep an eye out for him tonight,” Rafe said. “If they don't spot him, we'll catch up with him tomorrow.”

  “Good, thanks.” Isabel frowned slightly.

  “I've also arranged to have all single female officers escorted home and their places checked out before they lock up for the night,” Rafe said. “And each is under orders to wait for two male officers to meet them tomorrow morning, if they're on duty, to be escorted back here.”

  “You're reaching through again,” Isabel said.

  “I am?”

  “I was just thinking about Mallory's report that some of the female officers feel they've been watched or followed and wondering what we should do to help protect those most likely to be at risk if it's our killer—the single ones in the right age range. Don't tell me you read that on my face. I may not be subtle, but I'm not a damned billboard.”

  Mallory looked at Hollis, who shrugged.

  “They've got me, too, this time.”

  Rafe hesitated, then shrugged. “You looked worried; I wondered why; I knew.”

  Isabel frowned again. “Okay. Now I'm worried about something else.”

  Peculiarly enough, Rafe found this answer coming as easily as the one before had, just knowledge in his mind. “Sorry. Since neither one of us knows who the killer is, I don't have a solution for your worry.”

  “It was,” Isabel said, “more fun being the clairvoyant one.”

  “Yeah, I can see how it would have been.”

  “You're enjoying this.”

  “Not all of it. Just . . . some of it.”

  “I know gloating when I see it. I don't need extra senses for that.”

  “Good thing too. Since yours are all boxed up, I mean.”

  Straightening her shoulders, Isabel said, “I'm leaving now. We're going to borrow a patrol to go with us just in case Hank McBrayer shows up unexpectedly while Ginny and her mother are packing overnight bags. If that's okay with you, of course.”

  “Fine,” Rafe said, his tone as polite as hers.

  “Great. We'll see you guys bright and early in the morning. Hollis?”

  Her partner rose obediently and followed her from the room. As she passed Rafe, Hollis murmured, “You're a lot smarter than you look.”

  “Christ, I hope so,” he responded, equally low.

  When the two agents had gone, Mallory looked at Rafe. “Do you know what I'm worried about?”

  He frowned at her. “No. Not a clue.”

  “So it only works with Isabel?”

  “Apparently. So far, anyway.”

  “Um, then I'm worried about two things.”

  “What's the other thing?”

  “We've now got an awful lot of people watching an awful lot of women while we try to anticipate this killer's next move; what worries me is that he may have changed the rules.”

  It was nearly midnight when Emily Brower's bedside phone rang, and she was more than half asleep when she fumbled hastily to answer it before it could wake her parents.

  “Yeah. Hello?” She listened for several minutes, then said sleepily, “Okay, but—now? Why now? Yeah, I understand that, but— Right. Right, okay. Give me ten minutes.”

  She cradled the receiver, then pushed back her covers and sat up, muttering, “Shit, shit, shit.”

  It didn't take her more than a couple of minutes to exchange her sleep shirt for jeans and a T-shirt and slide her feet into a worn and comfortable pair of clogs.

  Her parents slept like the dead, especially these days with the aid of various sedatives, so she didn't hesitate to leave her bedroom and walk down the lamplit hall, down the stairs, and out the front door, snagging her car keys from the foyer table.

  She wasn't surprised not to see the customary patrol car parked across the street, since she'd heard it fire up its sirens and speed away sometime before her phone had rung. An accident somewhere, she assumed.

  And, anyway, the reporters always left by dark or shortly after, so there was no good reason for the patrol car to stay out there all night. She'd meant to call the police station and ask the chief or one of the agents about it but kept forgetting.

  Shrugging off the question, Emily got in her car and backed it out of the driveway. She knew the way, of course, and hadn't thought much about it until she was almost there. But by the time s
he parked her car off the side of the road and got out, she was beginning to feel more than a little uneasy.

  She got a flashlight from the glove box and carried it to light her way, feeling a surge of relief when she reached the clearing and the light turned the shadowy outline of a person into someone she knew.

  “I don't understand what I can show you out here,” she said immediately. “And this is creepy, in case you hadn't realized it. We might not have been close, but still—this is where my sister was murdered.”

  “I know, Emily. She was quite a woman. Very intelligent. It's a pity you aren't.”

  “What?” Emily moved her hand, the flashlight's beam cutting through the hot, humid night. And that was when she saw the knife.

  She tried to scream, but only her killer heard the bloody gurgle that emerged as she was nearly decapitated.

  Monday, June 16, 7:00 AM

  When the phone rang, he rolled over in bed and had the cordless receiver in his hand even before his eyes opened.

  And even before his eyes opened, he smelled it.

  “Yeah?”

  “We've got another one, Chief.” It was Mallory, her voice bleak.

  Still holding the receiver to his ear with his left hand, he held out the right one and stared at it in the early-morning light streaming into his bedroom.

  His hand was stained with blood.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “Isabel was right when she said he'd probably start taunting us. He used the same place. As far as I can tell from the report that came in, the victim is exactly where Jamie Brower died. I'm on my way there now.”

  “Who is it? Who's the victim?”

  “It's Emily. Jamie's sister.”

  “Goddammit, where was the patrol watching her?” Rafe demanded, sitting up in bed.

  “They were pulled away from her house last night at about eleven-thirty and were only away a couple of hours. A traffic accident with fatalities.”

  Rafe drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Which takes precedence over watchdog duty.”

  “Yeah. As per standing orders.”

  He shoved the covers away and got out of bed, heading for the bathroom. “Have you called Isabel?”