Sense of Evil (16 page)

Rafe left her to it, admitting silently that he was relieved when the lights came back on. He’d seen Luminol used before, and it always struck him as chilling. Invisible to the eye until the chemicals in the Luminol reacted with it, the blood was a silent, ghostly accusation.

He joined Hollis, saying, “Would I be out of line in suggesting that Isabel go back to the inn and call it a day?”

“Arguable point, I suppose, but she won’t go, so it hardly matters.”

He sighed. “You people are a very stubborn lot.”

Hollis didn’t ask whether he meant FBI agents or psychics; she knew the answer to that one. Instead, she said, “There are only a handful of team leaders in the SCU, agents Bishop trusts to head up investigations. Isabel is one of them, and has been from the beginning.”

“You said it was a miracle she hadn’t gone insane.” Rafe kept his voice low.

“Yes. But she didn’t go insane, that’s the point. She is an exceptionally strong lady. She lives her life and she does her job, whatever the effort or the cost. What you saw happen in here is a rare thing, but similar things have happened before. It hasn’t stopped her in the past, and this won’t stop her now. If anything, the strong connection will probably make her even more determined to put all the puzzle pieces in place and get this killer.”

“He’s gotten away from her twice before,” Rafe said, more to himself than to Hollis.

But she nodded. “Yeah, it’s personal. How could it not be? It was her best friend he killed ten years ago, in case you didn’t know that. She and Julie King grew up together, practically sisters. Isabel was only twenty-one when it happened, in college, trying to decide what to do with her life. Taking the most amazing variety of subjects, like classical Latin, and computer science, and botany. Nerdy stuff.”

Hollis shrugged. “She was drifting, mostly. Getting by with good grades because of a good mind, not effort. Sort of . . . shut in herself, detached, uninvolved. From all I’ve been told, Julie’s murder changed her completely.”

“That isn’t what . . . triggered her psychic ability?” It wasn’t really a question.

“No. That had already happened.” Hollis didn’t offer to elaborate.

Rafe wasn’t surprised. “But her friend’s murder more or less started her life as a cop.”

“I’d say so. In the beginning, she just wanted to find out who had killed Julie. That’s what motivated her, what began to shape her life and future. By the time he surfaced again in Alabama five years later, she had a degree in criminology under her belt and worked for the Florida State Police. She apparently did routine searches of law-enforcement databases on her own time, waiting for the killer to strike again. Just after he killed the second victim in Alabama, Isabel took a leave of absence and turned up there. That was when she met Bishop.”

“And turned in her state badge for a federal one.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Rafe drew a breath and let it out slowly. “So now she uses her knowledge, training, and psychic abilities to try and ferret out killers. Especially this one. Tell me something, Hollis. How many more times can she go through what she did in here before it breaks her?”

“At least one more time.” Hollis grimaced at his expression. “I know it sounds harsh. But it’s also the truth; we take this stuff one . . . experience . . . at a time, and none of us can be sure when the end will come. Or how.”

“Wait a minute. You’re telling me you guys
know
this stuff you do is going to kill you one day?”

“I’d call that a radical interpretation of the text,” she murmured.

“Hollis.”

“We’re not the only stubborn ones, I see.”

“Answer my question.”

“I can’t.” She shrugged, more than a little impatient now. “Rafe, we don’t know. Nobody really knows. We’re all checked out medically after assignments, and the doctors have noted some changes in some agents. They don’t know what that means,
we
don’t know what it means. Maybe nothing.”

“Or maybe something. Something fatal.”

“Look, all I can tell you is that for some agents, there’s a price for using their abilities. Some, like Isabel, live with pain most of the time, usually headaches. Some finish up assignments so exhausted it takes them weeks to fully recover. I know one agent who eats constantly during a case, and I mean constantly; it’s like her abilities cause her metabolism to shoot into high gear and she has to fuel her body continually in order to do her job. But there are other agents who never seem affected physically by what they do. It varies. So, no, I can’t tell you using our abilities is going to kill us one day. Because we just don’t know.”

“But it’s possible.”

“Sure, it’s possible, I guess. It’s also possible—more than possible, really—that we’ll be killed in the line of duty by a regular old bullet or knife or explosion of some kind. The risk comes with the job. We all know the potential hazards, believe me. Bishop is very careful to make certain we understand what we might be risking, even if it’s only a theoretical possibility. Anyway, Isabel made the decision that was hers to make, to use her abilities this way. She’s been doing it for years, and she knows her limits.”

“I don’t doubt that. What I doubt is that she’ll stop before those limits are reached.”

“She’s dedicated” was Hollis’s only response.

“Yeah, I get that.”

“You face risks in your job. Why keep doing it?”

Rafe didn’t answer, just shook his head and said, “T.J. and Dustin will be a while, and there’s really nothing more you and Isabel can do here. Is there?”

It was Hollis’s turn to avoid the direct question. “We can go back to the station, work there while you guys finish up here. Get the information on the two previous series of murders posted on the boards.”

“Good idea,” Rafe said.

Hollis took the first chance she got to call in, which turned out to be about an hour later, when Isabel left the conference room to make copies of a stack of paperwork.

The number was still a bit unfamiliar, but her cell phone’s address book had been carefully programmed, so it was easy to find the number and make the call.

As soon as he answered, Hollis said, “I didn’t like doing that. Isabel’s business is her own. She wouldn’t talk about me behind my back, not that sort of personal stuff.”

“He needed to know,” Bishop said.

“Then Isabel should have been the one to tell him.”

“Yes, but she wouldn’t. Or, at least, wouldn’t tell him right now. He needs to know now.”

“And why is that, O wise Yoda?”

Bishop chuckled. “I’m guessing ‘Because I say so’ is not going to be a satisfactory answer for you.”

“I didn’t accept that even from my father; it definitely won’t work for you.”

“Okay. Then I’ll tell you the truth.”

“I appreciate that. The truth being?”

“The truth being that certain things have to happen in a certain order if we’re to avert a catastrophe.”

Hollis blinked. “And we know that catastrophe lies ahead because . . . ?”

“Because some of us occasionally catch a glimpse of the future.” Bishop sighed. “Hollis, we can’t fix everything. We can’t make the future all bright and shiny just because we know before they happen that there are troubles and tragedies waiting there for us. The best we can do sometimes, the absolute best, is to chart a careful path somewhere between bad and worse.”

“And that path requires that I spill part of Isabel’s story to Rafe.”

“Yes. It does. This time. Next time, you may be asked to do something else. And you’ll do it. Not because I say so, but because you can trust in the fact that Miranda and I would never do anything to injure or betray any member of the team—even to save the future.”

Hollis sighed. “I wish that sounded melodramatic, but since I know the stories and I’ve seen a few things myself, I’m afraid it’s the literal truth. The saving-the-future business, I mean.”

“We have to do what we can. It’s seldom enough, but sometimes the right word or the right information at the right moment can change things just a bit. Shift the balance more toward our favor. When we can even do that much. Sometimes we can’t interfere at all.”

“Going to tell me how you know that this is one of the times you can interfere?”

“Miranda sees the future and takes me along for the ride. Sometimes we see alternate futures; that’s when we know we can change things. Sometimes we see only one future. We see what’s inevitable.”

“That’s when you know you can’t.”

“Yes.”

“And the future I just changed by telling Rafe some of Isabel’s past?”

“Was a future in which he died.”

“So why hasn’t her cameraman reported her missing?” Isabel asked Dana Earley.

“I think he’s ashamed of himself. Apparently, she told him to wait in the van while she went to check something out. He claims he doesn’t know what. Anyway, she hadn’t been gone ten minutes before he was asleep. And he didn’t wake up until Joey and I banged on the side of the van about half an hour ago.”

“That’s a long nap.”

“He says he’s been running short on sleep for days. Probably true; a lot of our technical people get fascinated with their toys and keep the weirdest hours you can imagine.”

Isabel frowned. “You’ve checked with her station, with the other media people across the street?”

Dana nodded. “Oh, yeah. The last anybody saw of Cheryl was just before dark last night. Dammit, I warned her to watch her back, brunette or not.”

“Why?”

“Because I think the spotlight on a small town like Hastings can get pretty uncomfortable, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this maniac targeted a journalist just to get us to back off.”

Isabel rested a hip on the corner of an unoccupied desk, where the conversation was taking place. “That’s not a bad theory, assuming he isn’t too far gone to think logically. Off the record.”

Dana nodded again, this time somewhat impatiently. “And I’m no profiler, but I’d expect him to target somebody who doesn’t fit his clear preferences so far, just to make a statement.”

“You’re not the one I want, but you’re in my way. Nobody’s safe,” Isabel murmured. “Go away.”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Thanks for filing the report, Ms. Earley.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help look for that kid—”

“The best way you can help her and us is not to get yourself added to our missing-persons list. Don’t go anywhere alone. I mean anywhere, unless it’s into a locked room you know damned well is safe. Pass the word to the other journalists, will you?”

“Will do.”

“Male and female journalists,” Isabel added.

Dana nodded wryly and left.

Isabel remained where she was for several minutes, frowning at nothing. She was tired. Very tired. And worried.

If this bastard
had
grabbed a brunette journalist,
had
been angry enough to stray so far from his preferences, then why hadn’t Isabel felt it?

“What’s wrong with me?” she murmured.

There was no answer, except for the feeling she had of something crouching in the darkness. Watching.

Waiting.

When Rafe walked into the conference room just before four that afternoon, he wasn’t especially happy to find Alan Moore there with Isabel.

“Hollis and Mallory are out running down a couple of leads,” she told him, without going into detail. She seemed none the worse for what had happened in Jamie Brower’s secret playroom, though something about her eyes told him she was still suffering a pounding headache.

Rafe nodded without commenting on either her info or his own hunch, and said to Alan, “Please tell me you have a reason other than idle curiosity for being here.”

“My curiosity is never idle.”

“I should have warned you about him, Isabel. You can only believe about half of what he says. On a good day.”

“See, this is what happens when you grow up with a guy who becomes a cop,” Alan said. “He turns into a suspicious bastard right before your eyes.”

“Not without reason,” Rafe retorted. “You’ve been a pain in my ass since I was appointed.”

“I’ve been doing my job.”

Isabel intervened before they could begin rehashing past offenses, saying, “Alan received something a bit unexpected in yesterday’s mail.”

Rafe stared at Alan. “And you’re just now bringing it in?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Alan, one of these days you’re going to go too far. Consider this a warning.”

Despite the calm tone, Alan was perfectly aware that his boyhood friend was deadly serious. He nodded, not really having to fake the sheepish expression. “Noted.”

Without commenting on the byplay between the men, Isabel handed Rafe a single sheet of paper in a clear plastic evidence bag. “I’ve already checked it. No prints, except his.”

The note, block-printed yet virtually scrawled in a bold, dark hand on the unlined paper, was brief.

MR. MOORE, THE COPS HAVE GOT IT
ALL WRONG. HE ISN’T KILLING THEM BECAUSE THEY’RE BLONDES.
HE’S KILLING THEM BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT

“Not blondes?” Rafe said, looking at Isabel.

“Yeah, but they were,” she said. “At least, Jamie and Tricia were natural blondes; Allison Carroll used hair color.”

“But she—” He stopped himself.

Isabel finished the comment for him. “She matched top and bottom. But the lab results are in, and they say she used hair color. It’s not all that uncommon for a woman to dye her pubic hair, especially when the change is so drastic and she’s at a stage in her life when looking good naked is a major goal. In any case, Allison’s natural hair color was very dark.”

Rafe met Alan’s interested gaze, and said, “This is off the record, you realize that?”

“Yeah, Isabel’s already warned me. Giant red federal warning, accompanied by flags, stamps, sealing wax, oaths of secrecy, and appropriate threats of being transported to Area 51 and turned into a lab rat.”

Isabel smiled but said nothing.

“Just as a point of interest,” Alan commented, “Cheryl Bayne is a brunette.”

“Cheryl Bayne,” Isabel said, “is missing. As are others on an unfortunately lengthy list. We don’t know that anything has happened to any of them.”