Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

"Max —"

"It really is that simple, you know. All the rest is just a question of discussion and practice."

She had to laugh, albeit unsteadily. "Our future, boiled down to two sentences?"

"Well, we'll build on it."

Nell instinctively shifted to move toward him and winced as her shoulder throbbed a protest. "Maybe I'd better postpone any rash decisions until I have the use of both arms again."

Max lifted an eyebrow at her. "You're stalling."

"No, I'm not."

"That's what it looks like from where I'm standing."

Nell laughed again, this time with more amusement. She was grateful that Max was backing off a bit, because despite his confident words she knew there was a lot for both of them to think about. "Maybe you should change positions," she suggested.

Max's fingers tightened around hers and he began to move toward her, but then Ethan walked into the room, looking very tired and rather interesting with a square bandage over one temple.

"So you're awake," he said to Nell. "Good. The doctors were about to sedate Max."

"Funny," Max said.

Nell smiled at Ethan. "You don't look bad, all things considered."

"I feel like a fool," he said frankly. "Trotting off cheerfully with the killer. Oh, yeah, some cop I am."

"Where were you supposed to be going with him?"

"I'd asked him to ride with me out to Matt Thorton's place. I had found something that bugged me in those birth records and wanted to ask him about it. I thought I was being smart in not going alone. Picked the wrong goddamned deputy to ride shotgun."

"You thought Thorton might be the killer?"

"I just wanted to know why he'd told me when he was a kid that his real mother had died, when she hadn't."

"And why had he?"

Ethan grimaced. "He was pissed at her. She wouldn't let him go on some stupid field trip, so he decided she wasn't his real mother at all. Which would have been fine, except that he had to tell me his fantasy."

Nell frowned. "Okay, but — what set off Kyle? I mean, why did he decide to kill you last night?"

"I made the second mistake of telling him that I was going through the birth records. Looking for whatever got George Caldwell killed."

"Notice I'm saying nothing," Max said.

"You're saying it loudly."

"Boys." Nell shook her head. "So, did he happen to mention what did get Caldwell killed?"

"He didn't, but 1 intend to find whatever it was. Eventually."

"In the meantime," Nell said, "where are the others?"

"Back at the office," Ethan answered. "Now that everybody's out in the open, so to speak, working together to do all the reports and collect evidence seemed best."

"And," Max said, "you might as well use FBI agents while you've got them, right?"

"Right."

"What about Hailey?" Nell asked. "She wasn't one of the storm troopers out at your place last night, was she, Ethan? Because I know she couldn't shoot, and she always punched like a girl."

He moved around to the other side of her bed and frowned down at her. "No, Hailey wasn't there. What made you think she would be?"

"She's the one who told me Kyle had you and was going to kill you. After she slapped me out of that sleepwalking stupor he'd put me in." Nell frowned at him, then at Max. "She went for help. Didn't she find you guys?"

An odd expression on his face, Max said, "Nell, Hailey wasn't there last night. She couldn't have been."

"What do you mean? I saw her, Max. I talked to her. She was there."

"Nell," Ethan said, after exchanging a glance with Max, "your boss got in touch a couple of hours ago. The… remains you uncovered out at your grandmother's place? The FBI lab was able to use dental records to make a match, a positive I.D. But it wasn't your mother."

"It's Hailey," Max finished slowly. "Their estimate is that she's been dead ever since she supposedly left Silence. Almost a year."

MONDAY, MARCH 27

Max was hardly a two-finger typist, but it wasn't his best skill and getting his rather lengthy statement on paper was taking longer than he'd planned.

"Why am I typing this?" he asked Ethan. "Isn't one of your bright boys or girls supposed to do it?"

"They're busy," Ethan told him.

"Busy? Two-thirds of them are off-duty."

"After using up my overtime budget for the entire year, everybody's going to be taking vacation and sick days for a while. It's a statement, Max, you know how to write one up."

"Well, stop hovering, then."

"I'm not hovering. I just thought you might be interested in knowing that Nell's boss is here."

Max stopped typing. "Bishop?"

"Yep."

"What's he doing here?"

"Apparently just finished up another investigation in Chicago."

"So what's he doing here?"

Ethan grinned. "I'm trying to make out whether you consider him a rival or just somebody who's going to spirit Nell back to Virginia."

Max refused to give him the satisfaction, and said only, "Answer my question. What's he doing here?"

"Tying up a few loose ends. Supplying some necessary paperwork, like that original FBI profile. Lending his expertise while we try to find answers for the few remaining questions. Gathering up his people."

"Where's Nell?"

"Talking to him in the conference room."

Max pushed his chair back and got up.

"Statement finished?" Ethan asked politely.

"Do not make me tell you what to do with your statement. I'll finish it later."

Ethan laughed, but didn't protest when Max left the office he'd been using and made his way through the mostly deserted sheriff's department to the conference room.

Despite Ethan's goading, Max didn't really consider Bishop a threat to his relationship with Nell, but he was intensely curious to meet the man. He paused in the doorway, noting that Galen was there — very relaxed with his feet propped up as he thumbed through the town newspaper. Justin and Shelby were also there, sitting at the far end of the conference table.

Two other people were in the room. Nell was casual in jeans and a sweater, only the sling holding her left arm immobile a sign of the bullet wound in her shoulder. Yesterday's shock over discovering that Hailey was dead — and had, apparently, appeared with amazing corporeality to help Nell — had not lingered very long; Nell was far more sanguine about such things than most people would have been.

Her only wry comment had been that she should have known Hailey would try to control things to her liking even from beyond the grave.

Now, composed as always, she was talking intently to the man half sitting on the conference table as they faced each other.

He was a big man, probably somewhere in his late thirties, dressed as casually as the others, in dark pants and a black leather jacket. Obviously powerful, he had an athletic build and a way of holding himself that said he was very comfortable in his own skin.

He was also good-looking in the dark, hawklike way that women seemed to love. Jet-black hair. The kind of tan that hadn't come from a sunlamp. Movie-star good-looking, Max thought, eyeing that perfect profile with unease. Then Bishop turned his head suddenly, and Max felt a shock.

The scar marking his left cheek was more distinctive than disfiguring and, added to the dramatic widow's peak and the narrow streak of pure white hair just above his left temple, lent him an appearance as striking as it was unusual.

This was one FBI agent, Max thought, who would rarely find it possible to work undercover.

Max moved into the room to be introduced to Noah Bishop, and as they shook hands he noted that the handsome face was still and that the steady eyes probably seemed chilly due to their pale silvery color.

Or maybe not.