Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

"Jesus, Shelby."

"Well, you wouldn't have let me tag along if I hadn't given you good reason to distrust Ethan even more than you did. And the profile did indicate the killer could be a cop, so Nell didn't want to take the chance you might confide in the wrong coworker. Much better for you to talk to me, especially since I had to not only find out what you knew and suspected but also nudge you toward those birth records."

"Jesus," he repeated.

She looked him straight in the eye, smiling just a little. "Was I the only one lying?"

"I could charge you with obstruction of justice, do you realize that?" he snapped, unprepared to give in just yet.

"I imagine you could. And what could you be charged with? I mean, is there something a licensed private investigator could be charged with when he goes undercover and gets a job with the local police? Or would that not be illegal but just something your fellow officers would be really, really pissed about?"

Justin leaned forward on Shelby's sofa, put his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his face slowly with both hands. "Christ," he muttered. "Secrets really don't stay secret for long in this town."

"A more-or-less established fact. Whoever named this town had a wonderful sense of irony."

"You're telling me Nell knew all along that I've been working for Max?"

"Apparently so. I guess she didn't tell him she knew, huh? Maybe because he wasn't honest about it himself."

Justin drew a breath and let it out slowly as he sat up straight again. "Oh what a tangled web we weave. I knew somebody was going to get tripped up by it."

"Mixing your metaphors. I think. Look, if it makes you feel any better, Nell really is good at this stuff,

Justin. And she was always secretive even before she got that federal badge. Plus, they were pretty sure the killer was a cop, so everybody had to be undercover and had to be careful who told who what, so —"

"Everybody?"

"Yeah, well, I think there are others. Don't know for sure, because Nell wouldn't say, but I don't think she's down here alone."

"Does Sheriff Cole know this?"

"He does now, I expect. Nell was planning to tell him today. She left a message on my voice mail, and I got it when you brought me back here after lunch."

"That would have been before we got the call about Nate McCurry."

"That she told Ethan? Yeah, I think so. Why?"

"Another fluent liar," Justin said with a sigh. "He admitted that he had talked to Nell but made out that it was just to get her psychic take on the investigation."

"Probably true enough, at least as to his motives before she told him who she really was."

Justin frowned. "If she told him who and what she was, then she must have told him the FBI profile pointed to a cop being the killer."

"That was the plan."

"He didn't act like he suspected me. Because he's a good actor, or because Nell told him about me?"

"I wouldn't have said he's a good actor, but he's always been capable of keeping his thoughts to himself. Want me to call Nell and ask?"

"No. Not right now, anyway. I talked to Max about an hour ago, and he said Nell was sleeping."

"Sleeping? This early?"

"A blackout."

"Nell has blackouts? Why?"

With faint mockery, Justin said, "You mean there's actually something you don't know?"

"Just explain about the blackouts, will you, please?"

He did, keeping it brief, then added, "She's been under a lot of strain, obviously. Coming home after so many years and being undercover here. And, apparently, using her abilities takes a lot out of her just on a normal day. Which she probably hasn't had since she got here. Max is worried about her."

"I'm worried about her," Shelby admitted. "When I was out at her place yesterday morning, she looked awfully tired. And worried. And if the killer suspects her —"

"Hold on." Justin stared at her. "I know Max has been concerned about that too, but you make it sound like more of a certainty than a possibility. Why would the killer suspect Nell? I don't mean to brag, but if I didn't guess she was a federal cop, I doubt anyone else has."

Shelby explained about the photograph she had taken and what it was likely to mean.

"Shit. You mean we not only have a killer who's probably a cop but is also psychic?"

"That seems to be the prevailing opinion, yeah."

"Can this get any more complicated?"

"I'm just wondering if it can get any more creepy." Shelby sighed. "That picture shook Nell, and I don't blame her for being spooked. If you'll pardon the pun. It must be awful to know some evil killer could be hanging around in the ether watching you. Invisibly, yet. How can she possibly know when he's watching and when he isn't?"

Justin leaned back and frowned. "He. After what was done to Nate McCurry, I was at least half convinced we should be looking for a woman."

"A female cop? There are only half a dozen or so in Silence, aren't there?"

"About that."

"Any likely suspects?"

Justin thought fleetingly of Kelly Rankin and her sober warning to him to watch his back. Just one good cop warning another, or something more? "I don't know any of them well enough to even guess. But this latest murder… leaving McCurry like that…"

"A spiteful gesture?"

"Or a furious one."

"Or," Shelby suggested, "meant to look that way. You know, if I was a male killer trying to throw off the police, I might try something like that."

"To throw us off track?"

"Well, think about it. The first three murders, everything goes exactly as he plans. The men die, their nasty secrets come spilling out, and ail you cops are very focused on that aspect of the crimes. Just the way he wants you to be. Then George Caldwell apparently pokes his nose into things and becomes a victim, and because the killer can't make him fit the pattern as well, suddenly that murder stands out from the rest. You're looking at it differently, more closely. Now the killer's got a potential problem. You're not looking at what he wants you to, so there's a greater chance of you finding out things he doesn't want you to know. So he kills again, much more quickly than before, and at this murder scene he leaves a big, bold clue for you to find."

With a rueful smile, she added, "Five will get you ten you find out that scarf belonged to a particular woman."

"And we get led down another garden path," Justin said.

They stared at each other for a moment, then Shelby said, "You know, I think maybe you should call Max, and I should call Nell. I think it's time we pooled all our information."

"Past time," Justin said, and reached for his cell phone.

Ethan was on the phone with the mayor when Justin came by his office sometime after six to drop off the copies of the birth records, so all he did was cover the receiver with his hand and say briefly, "Thanks. Isn't this supposed to be your weekend off? Go home and get some sleep. You look like hell."

"That scarf we found with McCurry —"

"We're trying to run it down, but Saturday isn't the best time to get anything like that done fast. If we make any progress, I'll call you. Go home."

Justin hesitated, then nodded and left the office.

Ethan took his hand away from the receiver. "Casey, I'm not pissed you called them in. Well, not very pissed. But how you could have even imagined it might be me —"

"I just couldn't take the chance, Ethan, you know that. We had to have a completely impartial investigation by people unconnected to your office, and it had to be done fast and quietly. I didn't want to bring in the state police, so the FBI was the best answer. Meeting Nell seemed providential."

"I wonder if she'd agree," Ethan murmured.

Mayor Lattimore sighed. "I know it's been rough on her, coming back here. But at least maybe she'll get some sense of closure out of it."