by Kay Hooper
And after that, soon after that, the end would come with little warning. The images showed him what Miranda had seen from her perspective, a hazy background but Bonnie in clear danger, a hand pointing a gun at Miranda. And as she reached for her own gun, a shot echoing hollowly, the brutal shock of pain—and the utter certainty of death. Then, nothing.
Permeating all the rest, infusing every event throughout the vision, was another absolute certainty, a conviction so powerful there was simply no room for doubt. Bishop would save Bonnie. Without him, she would die as well. Miranda knew that, had known it all along. It was why she had contacted the FBI for help, knowing he would come.
“No,” Bishop said again. He realized his eyes were closed, and opened them to find her watching him gravely. For the first time, he wished violently that their connection didn't allow him to see everything she had seen.
“You said once you'd take care of Bonnie if anything happened to me. I'm depending on you for that.”
He didn't remember putting his arms around her, but now they held her tighter. “Nothing is going to happen to you. You are not going to die, Miranda. Not here, not now. Not for a long, long time.”
As if she hadn't heard him, she said, “Bonnie's too young to go on by herself. She'll need someone. You'll be there for her, won't you, Bishop?”
He was unable to ignore that appeal. “You don't have to worry about Bonnie. I swear to you, I'll take care of her. But this bastard is not going to kill you, Miranda.”
She didn't reply to that but kissed him instead, and despite every other emotion crowded inside him, Bishop felt desire escalate so sharply that it threatened to push aside everything else. It had always been that way between them. The hunger was instant and total, and very little short of his fear for her could have kept him from responding wholeheartedly.
You're trying to distract me.
Would I do that?
He groaned and pulled back just far enough to make her look at him. “I'm not going to lose you again. Do you hear me? If I have to lock you in your own jail to keep you safe, then that's what I'll do.”
Miranda smiled faintly. “No, you won't. Because you believe what I believe. The best way to deal with a vision is to make the logical decisions and choices as they come up, to stay where you are and go on with your life, and keep an eye out for warning signs. Do something drastic to change fate, and you always end up with a worse outcome than the one you originally saw.”
“Worse than you being dead? I'll take that chance.”
“But I won't.” She stroked his cheek with a surprisingly gentle touch.
“Listen to me, and stop being such a goddamned fatalist. You told me years ago that your visions didn't always come true, didn't always happen the way you saw them.”
“Yes. But so far this one has. There's no reason to expect the end to be different.”
“There's a very good reason. Me. Where the hell was I in that scene? Because if you think I'll let you out of my sight until this is over, think again.”
With a little chuckle, she said, “I wouldn't expect anything else. But you do realize, I hope, that we can't sleep together again in the meantime?”
Belatedly, he did realize that. “We can't take the chance of being without our abilities just when they're needed.”
“It probably wouldn't be wise. We had an excuse last night, but not now. It may well be that the only edge we have is the psychic one.”
Bishop eyed the white hurricane still going strong outside the window and wasn't all that surprised that he'd been completely unconscious of it for the last little while. “Nothing's likely to happen while it's storming,” he pointed out, not really arguing.
“Not likely. Not impossible.” She linked her fingers together behind his neck. “Better to be safe than sorry, especially with a killer on the loose.”
As badly as he wanted her, Bishop wasn't about to do anything that might put Miranda at greater risk; whether or not she had seen the actual future in that chilling scene, it was a foregone conclusion that both she and Bonnie were at risk, and he wanted all his senses at full strength. No matter what it cost him.
He kissed her, forcing himself to keep it brief. “This is going to be something we'll have to deal with in the future, you know. Maybe we'd better talk about it now and decide how we want to handle it. I mean, I have no intention of putting our love life on hold indefinitely just because we're both likely to be chasing after killers and other criminals most of the time. There is such a thing as sacrificing a little too much for king and country, so to speak.”
Her smile wavered for just an instant, but her voice was calm when she said, “Why don't we talk about that later?”
“There will be a later, Miranda.”
She nodded. “I'll try to stop being such a fatalist and think positively, okay?”
“That's all I ask. Well—that and one more thing. Stop calling me Bishop.”
“I've always called you Bishop.”
“I know.”
“When we first met, you told me that everybody did. Except for your best friend from college, not a soul alive called you Noah. At least, not more than once.”
He grimaced. “That was real subtle of me, wasn't it?”
“Let's just say I got the point. Would you like me to profile you now? Explain how being known only by your surname was one of the ways you used to keep people at a distance? Even lovers?”
“All right, all right. But the point is, I'm very different now and I don't want you at a distance. In any way, but especially emotionally and telepathically.”
“You do recall there's a price to pay for that sort of closeness? If I should have another vision—”
“I'll have it too. Yeah, I know. They hurt, as I recall.”
“That's still the same, I'm afraid, Like a blinding migraine, though thankfully lasting only a minute or so.”
“Now that you're no longer working so hard to shut me out, is another vision likely? You told Tony right after we arrived that you'd more or less burned out on the precognition.”
“I lied.”
Bishop winced. “And even years ago, once we were linked, you said the visions were more … intense.”
“Uh-huh. And you're much stronger now than you were then as a telepath. So with your energy added to mine, we'll probably blow the top off that scale you guys developed at Quantico to measure these things.”
He knew that was quite likely true. There had been so much going on the summer they had first become lovers, both around them and between them, that exploring the limits of what was psychically possible with their connection had not been uppermost in their minds. But what they had discovered in due course was that they shared each other's abilities even when apart, and that when they were in physical contact, the energy of each enhanced the energy and abilities of the other.
They had found out quite by accident that if they were holding hands or otherwise in physical contact and either of them touched someone whom neither had been able to read alone, they were sometimes able to read that person. Not always—but often enough to, as Miranda had put it, shift their combined range well over into the FM scale.
It made them, quite simply, more than twice as powerful together than either was alone.
Following his thoughts easily, Miranda said, “We're an odd pair, there's no question about that.”
“I choose to think of us as unique, not odd.” He drew her a bit closer, smiling. “And you never said you'd stop calling me Bishop.”
“I didn't, did I?”
“Miranda.”
She chuckled. “Well, it'll take some getting used to. You've always been Bishop.” Even in my mind. Her mouth brushed his, then lingered. “But I'll work on it… Noah.”
For a while, Bishop forgot everything except the aching pleasure of being physically close to her. Holding her and touching her, their mouths hungry, bodies straining to be closer despite the clothing and the necessity keeping them apart.
“Wow,” Miranda murmured at last, her eyes darkened, heavy lidded, and sensual.
Bishop's arms tightened for just a moment, then he eased her away from him. In a hoarse voice he said, “Much more of this and I won't have any wits left to focus on trying to catch our killer. Jesus, Miranda.”
“They say self-denial is good for the soul.”
“Yeah, and I'll bet the ones saying it didn't have anything they hated giving up.”
Miranda smiled, but said, “Maybe we'd better concentrate on work for a while. Storm or no storm.”
“Maybe we'd better,” he agreed. “We can try one more time to put the pieces of the puzzle together.”
Monday, January 17
Amy Fowler opened her eyes and gazed blearily at the ceiling. Same ceiling. Same stupid, dull ceiling, industrial gray squares pockmarked with tiny black specks. She was really, really tired of looking at that ceiling.
At least the wind had stopped howling like something trapped alive, and sleet no longer pelted the windowpanes in that unceasing, unsettling rattle. The storm was finally over.
The sedatives had blurred time somewhat for Amy, but she thought it was probably Monday morning; the light coming from the single window in the room was very bright, sunshine reflecting off lots and lots of snow.
Two days. They'd found Steve's body just two days ago.
Under the covers, her hands crept down to cover her lower abdomen, and tears welled up in her eyes. Steve was gone. Steve was gone, and a baby was coming, and Amy was so scared. She wanted to just go back to sleep, not to think about it anymore, but Dr. Daniels had told her gravely last night that there wouldn't be any more drugs, that she had to face things.
Face things. Face her mom and dad. Face the pity of her friends at school, while her belly got big and she went every Sunday to put flowers on Steve's grave.
Oh, God.
“Amy?” Bonnie came into the room, her expression wavering between worry and hope. “Dr. Daniels says you should eat something. One of the nurses is going to bring you a tray in a few minutes.”
“I don't care,” Amy murmured, honestly indifferent. She found the bed's controls and pressed the button to raise the head several inches.
Bonnie sat in the chair beside the bed. “A snowplow went past a little while ago, so the roads are being cleared. I think … your mom wants to come take you home now that the storm is over.”
“I guess there's no school,” Amy said.
“No. Probably not tomorrow either.”
Amy pleated the sheet between her fingers. “But sooner or later. And everybody'll know.”
Reasonably but not without sympathy, Bonnie said, “It isn't something you can hide for long. But you have choices, options. And you aren't alone, don't forget that.”
“My dad's going to kill me.”
“You know he won't.”
Amy looked at her best friend and felt a little resentful. “I don't know that. All I know is that Steve is dead and he left me with a baby.”
Bonnie didn't argue or point out that Amy had also helped create that baby. She merely said, “I'm sure if he'd been given a choice, he'd be here with you now.”
“So I should be happy he would have chosen fatherhood over death? Great, that's just great.”
“Amy, that isn't what I meant. I'm just saying that you can't blame Steve for not being here.”
“You want to bet?” Amy laughed, vaguely aware that there was a shrill edge to the sound. “He couldn't leave well enough alone, that's what the problem was. That's what got him killed. He was always pushing, always going just that inch farther than he should have.”
“What are you talking about?” Bonnie was frowning.
“I'm talking about Steve and his stupid, stupid plots and plans. You think he wanted to work in the paper mill all his life? Oh, no, not Steve Penman. He wanted something bigger, something better. The problem was, he didn't want to earn it or work for it—he just wanted it. And he always had some kind of plan, some scheme for taking the best shortcut to get just what he wanted.”
“Amy, are you talking about something specific? Do you have some idea who might have killed Steve?”
“I know he had some idea who it was that killed Adam Ramsay—and why.”
“What? How long have you known that?”
Amy shrugged. “Just after they found Adam's bones, I guess. Steve hinted that he knew why somebody would have killed Adam. He wasn't going to tell me anything more at first. It makes … made him feel more important to know things other people didn't know. Me, anyway.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He said Adam had a real talent for finding out things he shouldn't have, that he was always sticking his nose into the wrong places. He said he'd bet that's what happened, that Adam got too close to something dangerous. And he said he thought he knew how he could find out what it was that Adam had stumbled onto.”
Slowly, Bonnie said, “Amy, why didn't you tell us any of this before?”
Amy went back to pleating the sheet between her fingers. “I don't know. I was so upset when he disappeared … and I don't really know anything else. I warned Steve not to go looking for whatever had gotten Adam killed, but he just laughed at me. He said he'd be careful.” Her eyes filled with tears suddenly. “He said he'd be … but I guess he wasn't, was he? He wasn't careful enough.”
“No,” Bonnie said. “He wasn't careful enough.”
“When are the deputies due back with Marsh?” Tony asked.
Bishop checked his watch. “Maybe half an hour or so, depending on the roads.” Sitting on the conference table as usual, he returned to brooding over the bulletin board.
“Something bothering you?”
“Just trying to figure the bastard out. I keep coming back to the way he killed Lynet.”
“Because he drugged her?”
“Because he drugged her and then beat her that way. If you look at what he did to the others—say, Kerry Ingram, for instance—what he did was deliberately torture someone who was acutely aware of what he was doing. It wasn't just physical torture but emotional and psychological as well.”
Miranda came into the room in time to hear, and said, “But with Lynet, the torture was physical—and she was entirely un aware of it.”
Bishop nodded. “So why did he bother? I mean, kill her, sure—once he grabbed her, even if it was a mistake, he had to follow through. But why beat her to death?”
“Because he's a perverted son of a bitch?” Tony offered.
“Because he was angry,” Bishop said. “Not angry at her, or he would have made sure she felt it.”
“At himself?” Miranda guessed.
“Maybe. Or his situation. Maybe he realized that Lynet was the beginning of the end, literally. Maybe she was the one who proved to him that he wouldn't be able to go on much longer if he had to kill kids he knew.”
Tony shook his head with a snort. “So he's pissed at his poor victim because she's somebody he knows, and because he's pissed he beats her to death—but he drugs her first because he doesn't want her to know he's hurting her? Jesus.”
“You're missing the point, Tony.”
“What point?”
Bishop looked at him. “That uncontrolled rage. It's a change in him, in his behavior. If you look at the Ramsay boy and Kerry Ingram, what he was doing to his victims could almost be termed … clinical. Emotionless. He strangled Kerry again and again to the point of unconsciousness, then waited for her to revive and did it again. As if he was … studying her responses somehow. And even though we only have the Ramsay boy's bones, it's obvious from them that his killer came up with more than one creative method of torture. If it was torture.”
Tony said, “What are you driving at?”
Bishop returned his gaze to the bulletin board. “Maybe I've been looking at this the wrong way.
Maybe his goal isn't to torture as much as it is … to learn.”
With a grimace, Tony said, “
The way the doctors at Auschwitz wanted to learn?”
“Could be. It might explain how he's choosing his victims. How he rationalizes it, I mean. He may view teenagers as disposable somehow, as less valuable than adults. That could be how he justifies this to himself. Teenagers are … emotional, combative, driven by their hormones. They flout authority, assert their independence, cause trouble for their parents and society at large.”
“So he's using them as lab rats?” Tony shook his head. “But to what end? If he's convinced himself he's doing something noble and worthwhile for mankind, then what's the ultimate goal? Or am I being too logical?”
“No, he'd have a goal,” Bishop said. “An ultimate aim or at least an avenue of pursuit.”
“Just tell me he's not building a creature,” Tony begged.
“No,” Bishop said slowly. “No, I don't think he's doing that.”
When he saw the Ouija box atop the stack of games on the coffee table, Seth thought that Bonnie must have changed her mind about using it. But then he remembered her voice and the expression on her face when she'd talked about how dangerous it was to be even unconsciously tempted to use it, and about promising Miranda she wouldn't try it again. And he knew it wasn't Bonnie who had brought the game back into the ward. He stood there just inside the room, holding the juice he'd fetched for the two young patients. Across the room, Bonnie was reading them a story. No one had yet noticed his return. He'd been gone barely ten minutes.
What bothered Seth was a very simple question. If Bonnie hadn't brought the game, if he hadn't, and if neither of the little girls—confined to their beds—had done so … then who had? Who would have?
He looked at the stack of games again, and this time a feathery chill brushed up his spine.
The Ouija board was now out of its box, the planchette centered on the board and ready.
Christ, it even tempted him. To put his fingers on the planchette and see if it moved, see if the dead really could speak by spelling things out on a board …
With an effort, Seth snapped himself out of it.
He wanted to tell himself again that this was just a dream, a figment of his strained and anxious imagination. But he was standing there, wide awake, and a game that hadn't even been in the room ten minutes before had in the space of a few seconds arranged itself so as to be ready to be … played.
