Out of the Shadows tbscus-3 Read online

  "It won't make your life any easier," she warned bluntly.

  "So what else is new?" He smiled faintly.

  "Okay, then." Miranda drew a deep breath and told him the truth.

  Almost all of it.

  Liz had decided to keep the store open past regular hours — until eleven or until it began to snow, whichever came first. Business was fairly brisk, both in books and in coffee, not to mention gossip, and she was hardly eager to go home and spend too many hours petting her cat and wishing for things she just couldn't have.

  But she was also unwilling to provide a forum where some of the more hotheaded people in town could plan to do something stupid. So when Justin Marsh came in — ostensibly for a cup of coffee, but really to sound out his fellow citizens on the depth of their fear and fury — she did her best to head him off, before he could do any serious damage.

  "Where's Selena, Justin?"

  "Home," he replied.

  "Here, have some coffee."

  "Thank you, Elizabeth, but—"

  "I hear it's getting really cold out there, so I'm sure you could stand something warm inside, right?" From the corner of her eye, she was amused to see a couple of her regular customers sidle out the door, clearly intent on avoiding one of Justin's tirades.

  Justin caught her wrist even though she had made no move to walk away. "Listen to me, Elizabeth. Something must be done — there's an evil in our midst!"

  "I don't think you'd get an argument about that, Justin. But it's not really our job to hunt down that evil, not with the sheriff and these FBI agents working so hard at it."

  His fingers tightened around her wrist, and his pale eyes took on a more-than-usually fanatical gleam. "They are lost souls wandering aimlessly," he said, lowering his voice as though to bestow a confidence. "They can't recognize the evil they seek. But I can. I know the face of the evil."

  Liz was tempted to ask him to draw the face for her, but overcame the impulse. "We all have our theories, I'm sure. But accusing anybody without cause is just going to get trouble started, you know that. Listen, we all know there's a storm on the way, and right now everybody is pretty worried about that. So why don't you drink your coffee and then go home to Selena, okay, Justin?"

  He released her but shook his head, scowling. "Like lambs to the slaughter. They don't know. They don't know. ..."

  Liz went back to the counter, hoping he was in one of his brooding periods and no longer inclined to share his ideas and his wisdom with those around him — for the moment, at least.

  John MacBride pushed his cup across the counter for a refill, murmuring, "Do you think if I sit very still, he might not see me?"

  She smiled ruefully at the mayor. "It's worth a shot."

  He sighed. "I should go, though. We're all set for the storm, but the voters don't seem to like to see their mayor just sitting around drinking coffee in the middle of a crisis."

  "Half the town council is in here too," she pointed out. "Some looking for books, but a few just drinking coffee like you. And deputies have been in and out the last couple of hours."

  "Have you seen the sheriff?"

  "Not today. Between the storm and finding another body, I imagine she's pretty busy."

  MacBride frowned down at his cup. "Yeah. I've gone by there a few times these last days, but she's always busy. And those FBI agents always seem to be around."

  Liz knew the mayor had wholeheartedly welcomed the arrival of the FBI, and she knew why. But it didn't take The Sight to tell her he was a bit disgruntled by the continued presence of at least one of those agents, and by Randy's preoccupation with the investigation.

  She felt a certain amount of sympathy, having herself waited with what patience she could muster for the man she loved to realize he hadn't been buried along with his dead wife. But all she said was, "I guess the harder they work now, the more likely they are to catch this killer quickly. We all want that."

  "Of course we all want that." He must have realized how petulant he sounded, because he flushed and added quickly and with more positive emphasis, "Of course we do. It's Randy's job to make the streets safe for our citizens, and she's very good at her job. Devoted to her job. Of course."

  "Mayor MacBride, I'd like to speak to you," Justin said force fully from just behind his left shoulder.

  MacBride's comical grimace of dismay almost upset Liz's composure, but she stopped herself from laughing. She left him to cope with Justin, which, to his credit, he usually did very well, and went on serving her customers.

  At nine o'clock, the first flakes of snow began to drift lazily downward.

  Bishop eyed Miranda's closed office door as he passed, but the murmur of voices inside told him she wasn't alone, so he continued on to the conference room. He found Tony there sitting at one of the desks scowling at the screen of his laptop.

  "There are," Tony said by way of greeting, "a hell of a lot of places selling tires in these parts."

  "Any leads?"

  "Not so you'd notice. Still trying to narrow the list to something remotely manageable. Anything new from the autopsy?"

  "Sharon was right about the boy being injected with an anticoagulant — unfortunately, a fairly common one. It requires a doctor's prescription, of course, but we both know how easy it is to fake that sort of thing."

  "Way too easy. There are places that never double-check the letterhead on a faxed request and never follow up on phone calls, so any prescription that looked legit was probably filled without a second thought." Tony shrugged. "I already checked with the Internet Crimes unit back at the office, and according to them it'll be virtually impossible to track the sale if he went that route. Backtrack if and when we find out who he is, possibly, but we won't find him working the other end. We can check local doctors and pharmacies, of course. Maybe we'll get lucky. Anything else?"

  "Pictures on the way," Bishop said. "Everything in vivid color."

  Tony grimaced, sensing the emotion rather than hearing anything in Bishop's calm voice. "Not a lot of fun, huh? I hate autopsies. Did you expect to learn anything by being at this one?"

  "You mean spot something Sharon missed? Not hardly." Bishop poured a cup of coffee. "I don't know what I hoped to gain. If anything."

  "Maybe you wanted to look at pure science for a while and avoid anything less . . . tangible."

  "If I did, it didn't get me anywhere."

  "Nothing at all unexpected about the body?"

  "Nothing we didn't already know."

  Tony fell silent for a moment. "I'm curious about something. Being a touch telepath, what happens when you touch a dead body?"

  "Usually, nothing." Bishop sat down at his own laptop. "A couple of times, I've gotten a flash of images."

  "A bright light?" Tony asked hopefully. "Anything that might possibly resemble the face of God?"

  "That would be too easy, wouldn't it? The ultimate answer." Bishop smiled faintly. "Sorry, Tony."

  "Yeah, well, it was a chance. Just something I wondered about now and then. You'd think with these so-called paranormal abilities of ours, we'd get a leg up on the rest of humankind once in a while. But no. We stumble around in the dark just like everybody else."

  "No kidding."

  Tony sat back in his chair and rubbed his face briefly with both hands. "Is Sharon done with the autopsy?"

  "Except for a few lab tests."

  "She's still at the hospital?"

  "I left her there with Dr. Shepherd. She said she'd head back to the Lodge before the snow started, but I think he was leading up to a late dinner invitation, so maybe not."

  "They're hitting it off, huh?"

  "Looks like."

  Tony grinned. "I guess she doesn't come across too many guys who could work up much of an appetite across an autopsy table."

  "How many do you know?" Bishop challenged.

  "None, to be honest. It's always struck me as gruesome work."

  "And tracking down serial murderers and rapists isn't?"

/>   "Well, I seldom have to touch them," Tony answered.

  Bishop smiled, but said, "I'm not all that anxious to touch this one, but we definitely have to find him. And since we don't know what kinds of delays the weather might cause, I say we work while we can. Are you game?"

  "Always," Tony said..

  THIRTEEN

  "So, can you read me?" Alex asked.

  Miranda shook her head. "No. I can read less than half the people I meet, generally speaking. Think of it like radio waves from the brain, information transmitted by electromagnetic energy. I have a receiver, but I can only pick up the AM stations, not the FM."

  "No way to switch, huh?"

  "If there is, I haven't found it." Miranda shrugged. "For me, it's a normal thing, Alex. One theory is that people with psychic abilities are throwbacks to a more primitive age when the senses needed to be extremely sharp for survival."

  "Liz said something like that."

  "And it may be true. On the other hand, there's also a theory that humans are evolving toward psychic ability, and that those of us who already have it are just. . . anticipating the rest of you. There are lots of theories. A normally dormant gene activated for some reason. An accident or illness in childhood that causes the electromagnetic field of the brain to be altered in some way. I've even heard it said that if we were all tested genetically, we'd find we share a common ancestor. Who really knows?"

  "And who cares?"

  "Well, I don't, to be honest. I was never interested in verifying it scientifically. I mean, what's the point? Present science knows pathetically little about the brain even when it functions according to accepted norms. Step outside those norms, and scientific understanding begins to break down in a hurry."

  Alex looked at her curiously. "I gather growing up psychic wasn't much fun."

  "Not much, no." Miranda resisted an urge to rub her temples. Confession might be good for the soul, but it hadn't helped her aching head. "Think about it. By the time you're seven years old, you've pretty much figured out that grownups get really nervous when you tell them about the pictures in your head. Especially when you've told them about something that hasn't happened yet — but does happen. So you stop telling them. Most of them anyway. My parents were understanding, otherwise it would have been unbearable."

  "Your parents weren't..."

  "Psychic? No, but both were highly intuitive, and both came from families filled with tales of paranormal things. They didn't automatically believe something wasn't real just because they didn't understand how it worked."

  Alex had a sudden realization. "Bonnie — and that Ouija board. Jesus, you mean she really did get the information from a spirit?"

  "When Bonnie was four," Miranda said, "she had an imaginary friend — or so we thought. A little girl named Sarah. She used to tell us all about Sarah, entertain us at the dinner table with stories about Sarah and her parents and her older brother and her dog. Then one day Bonnie casually told us that Sarah had been killed when her house fell on her. We were all startled, and Dad was curious. So he did a bit of research."

  "And found Sarah?"

  "Turns out our house had been built on a site where a previous house had been destroyed by an earthquake. And in that house lived a couple with a son — and a daughter named Sarah. She was the only one in the house to die in that quake."

  "So how long did she hang around?"

  "Bonnie never mentioned her again. Knowing what I know now about sudden deaths, I believe little Sarah just wanted to come to terms with what had happened to her. And Bonnie was the only one listening. Once the story was told, Sarah could pass on to wherever she was meant to go."

  Alex shied away from questioning her on that last point, but did say, "What do you know about sudden deaths?"

  "Most people who die suddenly aren't prepared to leave — especially if the death was violent. Some of them are mad as hell to find their lives cut short, and all of them want more time. Somehow, they're often able to get more time, at least in a sense."

  "By haunting the living?"

  "Only those who know how to look and listen."

  "People like Bonnie."

  Miranda nodded.

  Alex thought about that. "Were there other ghosts?"

  "Oh, sure, for several years. Then Kara and I were able to teach her how to shield her mind a bit, so that she only saw them when she was looking for them."

  "And that was better?" Alex asked wryly.

  "It's always better to be in control of this if you can. Especially for Bonnie and others like her. Like I said, Alex — people who die suddenly can be angry. And negative emotions can be very destructive."

  Hardly believing he was saying it, Alex said, "I guess that's why we won't be asking Bonnie to try and contact any of these dead teenagers."

  Matter-of-fact, Miranda said, "With teenage victims of violent death, you not only get the anger of a life cut short but the caldron of emotions we all have at that age. When Bonnie's older, she may be able to handle it, but right now, with her own emotions so chaotic and her empathy so strong, she'd be in very real danger."

  "What kind of danger? A ghost can't hurt you. Can it?"

  Miranda hesitated, unsure how much he could accept. "They want to live, Alex. They want the life they were cheated out of. So if they see an open door ... or an open mind .. . some of them come in never intending to leave."

  Tony was pinning Steve Penman's autopsy photographs to the bulletin board, half-listening as Bishop talked on his cell phone to the agent leading a second team from the special unit, a team currently working on an investigation in Texas.

  "You know you can't hypnotize her, Quentin," Bishop was saying. "You'll have to get at her memories another way. There's a form of conscious regression you can try, if you can find someone qualified to do it. It isn't always successful, but it might work in this case. Have Kendra check the data files. Yeah. No, we're not close to a resolution here as far as I can see." He frowned slightly. "Yes, the local authorities are being cooperative. Why?"

  Tony glanced back over his shoulder, met Bishop's gaze, and was afraid he looked guilty.

  Still speaking into the cell phone, Bishop said, "I'd appreciate it if you kept me advised on your progress, Quentin. Right. We'll be here. Talk to you in a day or two." He ended the connection and absently returned the phone to the pocket of his jacket. "Tony?"

  "Yeah, boss?"

  "Is there something you want to tell me?"

  "Not really, no." Tony let the silence lengthen, then glanced over his shoulder again to find Bishop waiting with a patience he recognized only too well. "It's like you said, boss. Sometimes it's the pits working with people who can read your mind. Everybody was in the office when the request came in from Miranda."

  "I wasn't even sure it was her," Bishop objected.

  "Oh yes you were. I don't know how, since she'd changed her name, but you knew. How did you know, by the way?"

  "I was . . . warned a couple of months ago. That I'd come back to Tennessee, and — Christ, Tony, everybody knows?"

  "Well,'you weren't being real subtle, if you want the truth." Tony went to the conference table and sat down. "I think you even asked how fast they could warm up the jet."

  Bishop winced. "I don't remember that."

  "I'm not surprised. Anyway, I wasn't sure what was going on since all I was picking up were emotions." He doodled on a legal pad and studiously avoided eye contact with Bishop. "But some of the others apparently got it loud and clear. And it's not like the story is a secret, you know, at least at the Bureau. So it's a sure bet the others are wild with curiosity by now. Wondering how you and Miranda are getting along. I guess Quentin couldn't resist asking — as casually as he could."

  There was a long silence, and then Bishop said very carefully, "So I have ... no secrets at all from the team, that's what you're telling me?"

  "Really a bitch working with psychics," Tony murmured. "I told you before, boss. Being such a strong receiver app
arently makes you an equally strong transmitter. If you and Miranda ever come

  to an understanding, you ought to ask her to teach you how to develop one of those shields. Hers works just dandy."

  "I need a drink," Bishop said.

  Tony tried hard not to smile. "If it makes you feel any better, we're all pretty exposed to each other. I mean, jeez, one of us gets a hangnail, somebody else is bound to know about it."

  "It doesn't make me feel better. And if you tell me you knew that, I swear to God, Tony, I'll shoot you."

  "It never crossed my mind. Or my radar, as the case may be."

  "Just shut up," Bishop said.

  Alex stared at Miranda. "Wait a minute. Are you telling me that a ghost can — can possess a living person?"

  "If its spirit is stronger than the living person's, its will to live greater, it can overwhelm, control. I guess you could say possess."

  "Is this just an assumption, or—"

  "Oh, it's happened. The problem is that medical science can't recognize it for what it is. So if a medium cracks up, well. . . they were crazy to begin with, weren't they? Psychotic maybe or schizophrenic. Or just plain nuts."

  "But how can you be so sure that isn't the truth?"

  "Because I'm a touch telepath." She drew a breath. "When I was about twenty-one, I was dating a psych student. He knew I was psychic and considered it just another sense, a tool I could use. And he could use. He was working in a psychiatric hospital, and he'd become fascinated by three of the patients there. Two of them were long-term, one was recent, but all had been diagnosed as dangerously schizophrenic — so dangerously that medication couldn't touch it. And all had a history of reporting clairvoyant and mediumistic experiences. It was the only other thing they had in common. He had a theory that the experiences were tied in with the schizophrenia, even dreamed that he might have discovered I the cause of the condition."