Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

"Was it my fault?" he repeated steadily.

"No."

After a moment, Max settled more firmly into his chair, folding his arms over his chest in an attitude that was so clearly the picture of a man courteously and with inhuman patience waiting for explanations that she had to smile.

"You're about as subtle as neon, Max, you know that?"

"Something that hasn't changed. I don't believe in hiding things, remember?"

She did remember. It had been part of what attracted her to him in the very beginning, that tendency of his to show his feelings openly and without apology, to proclaim with every word and gesture and even the posture of his body exactly what kind of man he was.

Nothing hidden. Nothing deceptive. Nothing secret.

She wondered, not for the first time, if it had been a case of opposites attracting, at least in the beginning. Because in that way she had certainly been as different from him as night was different from day, so much of her hidden beneath the surface or disguised as something else. So much of her unrevealed, contained in silence.

The only friction that had ever occurred between them had been over her absolute insistence that their growing closeness remain private. And secret.

Hoping for at least a slight delay, she said, "One thing seems to be different, at least according to the books in your library. You didn't believe in the paranormal once upon a time."

His broad shoulders lifted and fell in a faint shrug. "Like I said, once you're touched by the paranormal, a lot of things change. A lot of…possibilities open up. Or not, as the case may be. I've had plenty of time to think, Nell. Twelve years."

She wanted to apologize for that, or for some of it, but couldn't. Faced with the same situation, she knew she would act in exactly the same way.

All she regretted was the necessity.

Carefully, she said, "Neither of us can go back and alter the past, Max."

"I know that."

"Then why does it matter?"

His mouth tightened. "It matters. What was bothering you so much that week, Nell? If it wasn't me or anything I'd done, then what?"

Nell had made up her mind to tell him, but when it came to the point, she shied away yet again from talking about it. Even from facing it.

Still, she wasn't changing the subject as thoroughly as he might have believed when she said evasively, "Aren't you going to ask me about what I saw in Randal Patterson's basement?"

Max drew a breath and let it out slowly, that neon-obvious attitude of patience still clinging to him. "Okay. What did you see in Randal's basement?"

Nell wrapped both hands around her coffee cup and gazed down at it, frowning. She hadn't been unduly embarrassed by what they'd found in that basement, but the unpleasant details of what she'd seen in her vision were something she had no intention of describing to him. "I saw Hailey again," she replied simply.

"You mean she was… involved… with Randal?"

With a slight grimace she couldn't help, Nell finally met his gaze. "Completely involved. Intimately involved. And it… looked to me as though they were very… familiar with each other. I think Hailey was, for at least a while, his regular Saturday night date."

Max leaned back in his chair, staring at her with a frown. "Jesus. I guess you never really know people, do you?"

"I guess not."

"Then why do I get the feeling that although you were shocked by what you saw, you weren't really surprised? You expected to see her there, didn't you?"

Nell barely hesitated. "Yes."

"Why? Because of her connection to Luke Ferrier?"

This time she did hesitate, but only for a moment. "When Bishop was so sure there was something more he was sensing, some elusive fact we didn't yet know tying the murder victims together, I wondered if he was picking something up from me, if it was a kind of…secondhand connection, and that was why he couldn't get a fix on it."

"So part of his profile was developed by psychic means?"

"Well, not his official profile. There may be psychic aspects to some of his profiles, but more usually they're based on pure police work, investigative experience, and the psychology of the criminal mind. But he sensed something about this killer right from the beginning, even before he sent anyone down here, and I can't think of any other way he could have done that unless he was picking it up through someone connected to this town."

"Which would have had to be you?"

"I think so."

"Why not the mayor? She talked to him before he sent anyone down here."

Nell shook her head. "Even the best telepath can only read a percentage of people he or she encounters. Bishop couldn't read Casey."

"But he can read you?"

"Partly. It's difficult to explain, but some psychics have a kind of natural shield just below the level of their conscious thoughts, especially those of us sensitive to some types of electrical energy. If he touches me, Bishop usually knows what I'm thinking, but he wouldn't necessarily be able to sense anything deeper than my own conscious thoughts. I didn't think about Hailey being a possible connection between the men, not then, but maybe something inside me deeper than thought wondered, and maybe that's what Bishop could sense but couldn't quite bring into focus."

"If he touches you."

"He's a touch telepath; physical contact is required for him to read most other people." Nell shrugged. "Like I said, he couldn't read Casey. So whatever he was picking up had to be through me. It was when I was on my way down here that I wondered if it might have anything to do with Hailey."

For a moment, it seemed as though Max would continue to focus the conversation on her absent boss, but then he shook his head just barely as if in a silent negation to himself, and said, "So you believe we'll find Hailey somehow connected to the other two men as well?"

"I think it's beginning to look like more of a probability than a possibility."

"You're not saying she killed any of them herself? Your boss says he's sure the killer is a male cop."

"Even the best profiler — and psychic — is wrong from time to time. Especially if he doesn't have all the information he needs or if…emotions cloud things. Maybe Bishop is wrong this time. Maybe we're all wrong. Maybe the killer isn't a man, isn't a cop. None of the murders required unusual strength, after all, so a woman could have committed them. It would even explain why Luke Ferrier was drugged before his car was driven into that bayou: because most women could never have overpowered him if he'd been conscious and able to struggle."

"Answer the first question, Nell. You're not saying that Hailey killed any of them herself, are you?"

Nell dropped her gaze to her coffee cup once again and frowned. "No, I'm not saying that. Not that. But I do believe she would be capable of killing — even four men — if she had a good enough reason."

"And your father? Could she have killed him — with a good enough reason?"

She watched her fingers tighten around the cup and tried consciously to relax them.

The truth.

"Nell?"

Trying to sound matter-of-fact as though it were nothing important, she said, "Yes. With a good enough reason, Hailey could have killed him too."

"Did she have it? Did she have a good enough reason?"

The truth.

"Yes," Nell replied finally. "She had a good enough reason."

"I've already searched this place twice myself," Justin said as he and Shelby went into George Caldwell's apartment. It was a fairly typical second-floor apartment, conventionally and professionally decorated, the only anomaly being a conspicuously missing armchair and rug across from the television in the living room.

It was something Shelby noticed. "Is that where… ?"