Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

“No copycat as far as the actual murders go. The M.O. is different,” DeMarco pointed out. “No victims tied to Samuel’s church showed signs of the sort of torture and mangling found on Vaughan-Seymour’s body.”

Half under her breath, Hollis said, “No, they showed signs of an even creepier sort of torture.”

“The point,” DeMarco said, “is that the victims in this case were killed and tortured in ways completely unlike any previous SCU investigation I’m aware of.”

Quentin said, “Yeah, there was no victim at The Lodge killed or left the way the female victim here was. So Reese is right: no copycat, at least as far as killing the same way, leaving the bodies the same way.”

Hollis said, “But if we find out that every one of the victims does have some kind of tie to a past case, that has to be the way he’s selecting his targets. Right?”

“I’d say so. Which takes us to a whole new level of serial killer.” Miranda was shaking her head. “Because someone able to go to all the trouble of researching the SCU—in itself not an easy thing to do—is not your typical serial killer. To then kill people who can be tied in some way to cases or places where we investigated, choosing them for that reason only… That’s not about fulfilling his need to kill, the motive that drives virtually all serial killers. That’s personal. That’s a message. It’s about us.”

Grim, Quentin said, “We’re back to this enemy of Bishop’s?”

“Maybe. An enemy of the SCU.” Miranda shook her head again. “We’re getting way ahead of ourselves. These two victims make for a hell of a coincidence, I’ll grant you—but they could be just that. Until we check out the other six victims and see if there are any ties to past SCU investigations, we’re wasting our time speculating.”

“So,” Quentin said, “we go back into all the files.” She nodded. “There are five of us; we’ll each take a victim’s file and start digging, and we’ll hand off the files until each of us has the chance to study every one of them. All the information we have so far is in our own secure database; after we go through that, we start reaching out to the individual law-enforcement agencies and cops who worked on each of the murders. Maybe they know something that didn’t get shared at the time. Maybe there are other seemingly unimportant notes jotted down in every one of the files.”

Hollis had to ask. “And if that’s what we find?”

“Then,” Miranda said, “we have a completely different investigation on our hands.”

Haven

THE BOY WAS JUST BEGINNING to toss and turn in his bed, muffled little sobs escaping him, when Maggie Garrett got her hands on him. Almost at once, he stilled, quieted.

Sitting on the side of his bed, Maggie kept her hands on him. Her head was bowed, eyes closed.

Ruby Campbell watched silently from the doorway, her tiny poodle, Lexie, in her arms. It was a scene Ruby had witnessed many times since she and Cody had come here weeks before, but it still fascinated her to watch the shadows of emotions flit across Maggie’s face, the pain and fear and grief.

Because they weren’t Maggie’s emotions but Cody’s. She absorbed them, took into herself all the horrible memories and fears that tormented the little boy, and gave of her own healing energy to make him whole again. So he could sleep for the rest of tonight and maybe smile tomorrow.

Ruby knew this was helping Cody, because it was helping her. Helping her to accept that her father was gone and that her mother, back in Grace, at the church, was only the physical shell of the person she had once been. {see Blood Sins} A smiling, pleasant shell with no memory, as far as anyone could tell, that she had once loved a daughter named Ruby.

It was still very hard, accepting that. But Maggie helped. And Ruby was more grateful than she had words to express. Because it didn’t hurt quite so much now. Because she was with people who accepted and understood what she could do, people who cared about her. And because she felt safe here, safe in a way she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

Maggie took away Cody’s nightmare and soothed him back into a peaceful sleep as Ruby watched. And then she tucked the covers around him gently and got to her feet.

“Ruby, honey, what are you doing up?” Maggie spoke quietly as she came away from the bed.

“I knew Cody was having nightmares,” Ruby answered simply. “Even with the lamp on, he still has them.”

“I see.” With a gentle hand, Maggie guided Ruby back out into the hallway; with her other, she pulled Cody’s bedroom door almost closed. “Well, he’ll sleep now. And he won’t have another nightmare tonight.”

“I know. Because you took his nightmare away, let it scare you instead of him.” Ruby looked up into what she thought of as the sweetest face she’d ever seen, a pretty face surrounded by a cloud of dark red hair. Gentle golden eyes smiled down at her.

A real face, with nothing different underneath. Nothing bad. Nothing ever bad .

“Something like that.” Maggie turned her toward the bedroom just across the hall and added, “The sun’s not even up yet; go back to bed, honey. Does Lexie need to go out?”

“No, I took her out when she woke me up hours ago.”

“Okay, then. You two get some sleep, and we’ll see you at breakfast.”

“Good night, Maggie.”

“Good night, Ruby.” Maggie didn’t move from in front of the children’s bedroom doors for some time but stood there with her eyes closed, all her senses focused, until she was satisfied that neither of them was frightened or even uneasy. That Cody was sleeping peacefully and Ruby beginning to drift off as well.

Then she opened her eyes and, rubbing the back of her neck somewhat wearily, walked down the long corridor. She passed several closed bedroom doors before turning a corner into a shorter hallway that led to the lamplit master suite.

“Did he wake up this time?” John asked.

“No, I got to him before he could.” Maggie shrugged off her robe, then climbed into the big bed beside her husband. “Ruby was awake, though. Again. Said she knew Cody was having a nightmare. Those two definitely share a connection. If the genetic tests Bishop ordered hadn’t proven otherwise, I’d think they were siblings.”

John Garrett pulled her into his arms, her back against his front, so that they spooned, so that he could help warm her slightly chilled body—a physical consequence of the energy she drew on in order to connect empathically with someone else. He drew the covers up around her and then held her as he felt her begin to relax. He wasn’t the least bit psychic, but he knew how tired she was. He also knew from experience that it would require some time for her to relax enough to be able to sleep again and that talking quietly helped more than silence.

“This is taking a lot out of you,” he said.

“I’ll be fine. Besides, what’s the point of all this if I can’t help them? They’re just kids, John. They shouldn’t even have to remember everything they’ve been through, much less have to relive the pain and horror of it over and over again.”

“Except that our tragedies shape who we are every bit as much as our triumphs do,” he said. It was an old debate. “They need to remember, babe. They don’t need to hurt, I agree with you there. They don’t need to have nightmares. But they should remember what they’ve lost. What they’ve been through. It’s important.”

“Yeah, well, since I don’t have the ability to take away their memories, they’ll remember.”

“Would you, if you could? Really?”