Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

And there were others, apparatuses whose purpose was obvious in their shape, and those more enigmatic in design and function. But there were also tools and "toys" on shelves beside the pegboard that were easily recognizable, from multicolored dildos graphically shaped like penises of varying sizes and coiled leather whips with braided handles to wide leather paddles and black silk blindfolds.

All too conscious of his shaken exclamation, Max didn't dare look at Nell.

"Well," she said rather dryly, "at least he didn't do it in the street and frighten the horses."

A laugh was surprised out of Max. "So that's your attitude? Live and let live?" He looked at her finally to see a faint, wry smile curving her mouth.

"Why not?" she answered. "I've hunted too many rabid animals who destroyed other lives for their own sick reasons to worry much about what consenting adults do in private."

"And if they weren't all consenting?"

"That would be different." Nell looked around, her smile fading. "But I don't believe anything was done down here that the participants didn't want done."

"You don't believe? Don't tell me there's no energy signature in a place like this to tap into."

She hesitated and sent him a quick glance before answering. "I don't know yet. I've been practicing a kind of shield as one more way of trying to control the abilities."

"So you won't get blindsided."

"Exactly." She stepped away from the foot of the stairs until she stood upon the edge of the rug placed in the center of the basement. "However…"

Max took a couple of steps himself so that he could see her face as she closed her eyes and concentrated. He was becoming a little more familiar by now with her visions, so he wasn't surprised to see when she opened her eyes that they wore that fixed, glazed look of peering into some dark distance he could never himself perceive.

As always, he had a strong urge to touch her, hold her somehow, driven by the uneasy feeling that she could drift away from him without an anchor. It was so overwhelming a belief that he actually took another step toward her and began to reach out his hand to grasp her arm.

He hesitated only because she turned her head then, looking through him rather than at him, a disconcerting experience made even more so because her eyes were so dark it was like gazing into the seemingly bottomless depths of a shaded mountain lake. Seconds passed. Her expression was puzzled at first, uncertain, as though she was looking for something she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to find.

She turned her head again, scanning the room, more seconds passing, then gasped suddenly, her cheeks flooding with color that quickly receded to leave her even more pale than she had been before. Whatever she saw, it was clearly a distinct and unwelcome shock.

Max's fingers closed on her arm. "Nell?"

Like that first time in the woods, she didn't immediately respond to him. She was unnaturally still, and her unblinking eyes seemed to grow even darker and more distant.

A minute passed.

Two.

"Nell?" He caught her other arm and turned her fully toward him. She allowed herself to be moved as though she were a puppet, boneless and unprotesting, with an obliviousness to any possible danger. It scared the hell out of him.

"Goddammit, Nell —" He shook her.

She blinked, looked up at him in bewilderment as her eyes slowly lightened and resumed their normal green color. But she looked confused, and her face remained pale. Too pale. "Max? What —"

"Are you all right?"

"Of course I'm all right —" The words were barely out of her mouth when she winced and gasped, clearly in pain. She reached for her left temple, fingers massaging in an automatic motion. "No," she half whispered.

"Nell, what's wrong?"

"It doesn't happen like this, it's not supposed to happen like this —"

"Nell —"

"Not without warning," she murmured. She looked at him with the strangest mixture of anger and helplessness, then closed her eyes, gave a little sigh, and went totally limp in his arms.

Nate McCurry wasn't at all sure he had done the right thing, but he didn't see that he had much choice. He had to protect himself, didn't he? And what else could he do?

It hadn't taken him long at all to decide that he couldn't take what he knew to the sheriff. If Nate's suspicions in that quarter were right, Ethan Cole knew just as much as he did and was keeping quiet about it because he was scared too.

Which was sobering on several counts, but mostly because it was well known Ethan wasn't scared of much.

So Nate had carefully considered the remaining members of the sheriff's department and arranged a quiet meeting with the one cop he thought he could trust, the boyhood pal with whom he'd sneaked cigarettes under the bleachers in the gym during pep rallies and committed Halloween pranks that had very nearly gotten them both arrested.

That had been a long time ago, but they had remained casual acquaintances in the years since, and Nate thought if there was anybody who'd understand his fright and not condemn him for it, it was an old pal who had puked on his shoes when they'd both inadvertently witnessed, to their fascinated horror, two of their teachers passionately making out in a coat closet at school.

Nate had been about twelve at the time.

He still had nightmares about that one, and was half convinced that the sight of old Mr. Hensen's pale, freckled hands groping beneath the rucked-up skirt of Mrs. Gamble and pawing her exposed, fleshy breasts had made his own sex life as an adult something of a problem.

Not that he mentioned that, of course, even to his childhood friend.

"I know what I'm talking about," he said insistently, trying not to glance nervously around even though they were alone here in the alley behind the drugstore. "I've thought and thought, and it's the only thing we all have in common. I mean, I'm not sure about George, but the other three for damned sure. And me."

"You're wrong, Nate. You have to be. She left a long time ago."

"Did she? Or did she just leave Silence but stay close by to have her revenge on us? Peter Lynch died last summer, remember? Not so long after she supposedly left, and he'd treated her like shit, she told me so. Luke Ferrier had too, and as for Randal Patterson, she said he went way over the line, really hurt her when all she expected were a few games."

"So what'd she expect from you, Nate?"

Nate grimaced. "A good time, far as I could tell. But she was just weird, you know? Intense one minute and laughing like a hyena the next. Really something between the sheets, I'll give her that, but… She was more than I could handle, and I don't mind admitting it."

"So you dumped her."

"It wasn't like that. I just told her she wanted more than I could give her. And she laughed when I told her that. Laughed and tossed her head and said I'd be sorry. She said that, actually said I'd be sorry."

"And I guess you are, Nate."

"Oh, Christ, am I ever. And it makes sense, right? That it's her? That she came back to get even and now she's after all of us?"

"Nate —"

"Don't give me that pitying look, goddammit. I know it's her, and one of you cops should know it too. I know everybody says this is about punishing men for their secrets and sins, and I'm saying it's the sin of being with her and then treating her like dirt that we're all supposed to pay for. She's making damned sure we do."

"Do you have any proof of that, Nate, or is this just you being paranoid?"

"It's your job to find proof, isn't it? And you can do that now that I've told you where to look. You can find proof, and you can find her, and the whole damned sheriff's department will throw you a big fucking party. Especially Ethan Cole. Hell, he'll probably throw you a fucking parade ."