Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

"And your fellow agents understand that?"

"My fellow agents tend to have baggage of their own. Our sort of abilities often come with… side effects. Sometimes difficult ones. We've all learned to adapt, to work within our limitations." Nell kept her voice even, casual.

"Have you?"

"Yes." The word was barely out of her mouth when the scene around her changed with stunning abruptness. It was still the kitchen, still night, but Max was no longer standing there looking at her with brooding dark eyes.

Instead, she saw her father stride in through the back door, his dark hair damp, his face like a thundercloud. She wanted to draw back, to run.

To escape.

But she could only stand there and watch numbly, listen when a dead man muttered something under his breath as he stalked through the kitchen.

"She should have told me. Goddammit, she should have told me…"

He vanished through the doorway leading to the rest of the house, and Nell stared after him. As always, she was completely aware of having a vision, conscious of that peculiar time-out-of-sync sensation that always accompanied them.

What she saw always meant something, always. What did this mean?

She turned her head to look toward the wall across from the back door, where a calendar had always hung. It was there, showing her a date of May, the previous year.

The month Adam Gallagher had died.

"Nell!"

With a start, she was back in the here and now, the dizzying out-of-sync sensation gone as abruptly as a soap bubble popping. She looked up at Max. She was only vaguely aware of his hands gripping her shoulders, but something in his face made her voice her thoughts aloud.

"He was killed too. My father was murdered."

It was raining in Chicago.

Special Agent Tony Harte stood at the window gazing out at the dreary night, sipping his coffee. He hated rainy nights as a rule. And most especially in the middle of a difficult case with nothing going right. And he wasn't the only one. The tension in the room behind him was just about thick enough to cut with a knife.

A real knife, not a metaphorical one.

On top of everything else, Bishop was always restless and uneasy whenever Miranda was out in the field without him. There was probably nobody in the world who respected Miranda's strengths and abilities more than Bishop did, but that didn't stop him from worrying about her.

Turning from the window, Tony raised a subject he hoped would occupy his boss's mind, at least for the moment. "Have you revised that profile of the killer in Silence? I mean, since we got the latest information?"

Special Agent Noah Bishop looked up from his study of photographs of bits and pieces of physical evidence and frowned slightly as he shook his head. "Nothing we've learned recently changes the profile."

"Still a cop?"

"Still probably a cop."

"How sure are you of that?"

Bishop leaned back in his chair and gazed around the sitting room of the hotel suite as if it might provide answers, his pale gray sentry eyes as sharp as always. His reply was slow. "Unofficially? Pretty damned sure. But there's always room for doubt, Tony, you know that."

"Yeah. But you tend to be awfully accurate, for all that. If you say you're pretty sure, then he's probably a cop. Tough for our people, having to keep their heads down, look for a killer, and police the police."

Bishop nodded, still frowning. The scar on his left cheek stood out more clearly than normal, as it always did when he was tense or upset. A useful and accurate barometer of his mood during those times when even another psychic found it difficult or impossible to read him any other way.

Not that this was one of those times.

Tony watched him. "You're still bothered by something else, aren't you? In Silence."

Since he had long ago learned the uselessness of denying thoughts or feelings another member of his team was picking up on, Bishop merely said, "There's an undercurrent I can't quite get a fix on."

"What kind of undercurrent? Emotional or psychological?"

"Both."

"With Nell? Or with the killer?"

Bishop grimaced. "Plenty of undercurrents with Nell, but we knew that going in. No, it's something about the killer I can't bring into focus. I think he has another reason for picking his victims. Not just because they have secrets he wants to expose. There's something else."

"His own history with them, maybe?"

Bishop shrugged. "Maybe. It almost feels as if… it's more personal for him. That maybe the sins he's punishing them for aren't just the ones exposed by their murders or the investigations. That there's something else there, if we could dig deeply enough to find it."

"So he tells himself he's killing them, punishing them, to get justice for the innocent people in their lives, but all the time it's revenge for himself?"

"At least partly for himself. But he still thinks of himself as a judge and jury. He still believes he's performing a service for society, he's convinced himself of that, by sentencing and executing these men for their secret sins."

"But also for injuring him."

Bishop ran restless fingers through his black hair, slightly disarranging the vivid white streak above the left temple. "I get the sense he despises them, all of them, and all for the same reason."

"Because they hurt him? Lied to him?"

"Maybe. Dammit, I need to be down there. I'd have a better shot at figuring this bastard out if I was there, on the scene."

Tony said, "Well, aside from the fact that your face was plastered all over the national papers a few months ago after we cracked that kidnapping case, which would make it a little hard for you to blend into the background down there, we also have this small matter of an active serial killer here in the Windy City."

"You don't have to remind me of that, Tony."

"No, I didn't think I did," Tony murmured. "Look, maybe we can wrap things up here quickly enough that we'll be able to get down to Silence and help out."

"Yeah."

Tony watched him a moment longer, then said, "I know what you're really worried about. But Miranda's okay, you know that."

"Yes. For the moment."

It wasn't the first time Tony had wondered whether the psychic bond between Bishop and his wife was a blessing or a curse. When they were working together, concentrating on the same investigation, it was undoubtedly a blessing; together they were far more powerful and accurate, both as psychics and investigators, than either was alone. But when they were separated by necessity, as they were now, each working on a different case, then the bond often proved to be something of a problem — or at the very least a distraction.

Bishop knew Miranda was currently safe and unhurt because, even though they had closed the "doors" connecting their minds in order to keep from distracting each other, they each maintained a constant sense of the other's physical and emotional state no matter what the distance was between them. Bishop knew Miranda was safe for the moment, just as she knew he was — and also knew he was worried about her.

Tony didn't pretend to understand it, but like the other members of the unit, he was more than a little awed by it. Even among psychics accustomed to various, often extraordinary paranormal abilities, some things were still remarkable.

What must it be like to be so bonded to another person that their thoughts and feelings flowed through you as easily as your own did? To be so connected that if one was cut, the other would also bleed?

It was Tony's opinion that such incredible intimacy would require both a great deal of trust in and understanding of one's partner and an equally great degree of security and honesty in oneself. He seriously doubted that any pair of psychics who were not mates or blood siblings could have formed such a bond.