Кей Хупер - Out of the Shadows

"I don't like that man," Alex said.

"But you shouldn't have said that, Alex. You know he'll go straight to the mayor."

"Oh, don't worry about it. Right now, even the mayor has more to worry about than Justin Marsh's ruffled feathers."

Sharon Edwards stripped off her rubber gloves and looked across the table at Peter Shepherd. "No question about it."

Shepherd grunted. "I don't get it," he said. "What would be the point?"

"We'll add that to our list of questions to ask this lunatic when we catch him. In the meantime, if you'll box up all the slides and tissue samples, I'll get started on the report for the sheriff."

"Six and a half years ago," Miranda repeated numbly. "But. . . there was nothing about it on the news."

"Not the national news, no. Coincidentally, a far more famous killer was captured that week — a mass murderer out in Texas — and he got all the national media attention."

"I checked NCIC," Miranda protested. "As soon as I joined the Sheriff's Department here and had access, I checked every month to see if he'd been caught."

"I'm sorry," Bishop said. "Some inside the Bureau were convinced Harrison had a partner, that one man couldn't have done everything he'd confessed to doing. The decision was made to keep the case file open, to list him as at large to make certain any similar crimes would send up a flag."

"But how could they do that unless — " She sat back down in her chair. "He's dead?"

Bishop nodded.

"You?"

"Yes."

She was, on some level, surprised to feel so little about the death of Lewis Harrison. For so long, he had been a part of her life, a continual threat, the monster hiding in the closet ready to spring out when darkness came.

She doubted there had been a single night in the last eight years that she had not thought of him in the instant before she turned off her bedside lamp. As for Bonnie, the poor kid still had nightmares, horrible ones. Not so often now, but it was clear she had forgotten nothing of terror.

Miranda couldn't help but wonder how her life might have been different if she'd known Lewis Harrison could never take anything away from her ever again.

What would have changed?

"I wanted to tell you, Miranda. I tried to find you."

"I didn't want to be found," she murmured.

"That became obvious sooner rather than later. Not even FBI resources can locate an angry psychic if she doesn't want to be found."

Miranda didn't explain the methods she had used to start her life over again, though she knew he was curious. Even with the threat of Harrison gone, she was wary enough to want to protect secrets she might need again someday.

Always assuming she survived the next few weeks.

She looked across the table at Bishop and suddenly a dark, chilling doubt twisted inside her. He was ruthless, always had been. When it came to doing his job, he believed the end justified the means, and he was perfectly capable of doing whatever it took to accomplish his objectives.

God, how well she knew that.

So what were his objectives now? To persuade her to drop her guard, her shields, so he could use her abilities to track down a vicious killer? To convince her there was no threat to her and Bonnie, no reason for her to protect herself and her sister?

Would he lie to convince her?

Even though he certainly couldn't read her thoughts, Miranda saw a change in his face, as if he realized what she was thinking.

"I am not lying," he said evenly.

She conjured a brittle smile. "You'll have to forgive me if I don't take your word for that."

Bishop moved slightly, an unconscious shifting of his weight in protest or denial, but all he said, in that same level voice, was, "I'll make sure you're allowed access to the sealed records concerning Harrison."

"You do that," Miranda said.

It was after noon when Tony Harte stuck his head cautiously into the conference room. He found Bishop alone, still sitting on the table, still staring at the blackboard. He appeared perfectly calm, but the scar on his face stood out whitely from the tanned flesh surrounding it and Harte took due note of a warning sign he had learned to be wary of.

"Um . . . the sheriff left a few minutes ago," Harte offered.

"I know."

"I mean, she left the building."

Bishop looked at him briefly. "Yes. I know."

"She seemed to be in an awful hurry. Couldn't wait to get out of here, was my take."

Bishop kept his gaze on the blackboard.

Harte came in and got a fresh pot of coffee brewing. He debated with himself silently, then sighed and ventured where many before him hadn't dared to tread.

"Back when I joined up, the word was you didn't get official approval for the new unit until you threatened to quit. Even after all the stuff you did unofficially, the years of planning and testing and building the program, after all the fieldwork and a growing list of closed cases, the Bureau still didn't want to openly sanction — or appear to sanction — highly unorthodox investigative methods. Even after you gave them results they couldn't deny. But they didn't want to lose one of their top profilers, so they finally gave the unit their official seal of approval — even if it did make them queasy to do it."

"If you get anywhere near a point, Tony, make it."

Harte didn't let that warning voice dissuade him. "I was just thinking that Sheriff Knight probably has no idea that because of her there are a lot of monsters in cages where they belong."

Bishop didn't respond.

"And I was thinking maybe you should tell her."

"If you think it would even the score," Bishop said, "you're wrong."

"Maybe. But she might feel better knowing something positive came out of tragedy."

"You mean she might hate me a little less?" Bishop's smile was hardly worthy of the name. "Don't count on it."

"If you'll excuse me for saying so, boss, letting things go on the way they are between you is just going to slow us down. If we're going to catch this bastard, we'll need every ace we can pull out of our sleeves — and that includes an incredibly gifted psychic with singular abilities who right now is very much shut inside herself."

"She couldn't sense him before we got here," Bishop argued.

"Probably because of her shield. Because she's had to hide what she can do, had to be careful. And . . . because she was hiding here herself. Hiding her sister." Harte paused. "I gather she knows she doesn't have to do that anymore."

"She knows what I've told her. Whether she believes I told her the truth is something else entirely."

"You can prove it's the truth." Then Harte shook his head. "Except that official records have the bastard still alive and at large. You'll have to get her access to the sealed records."

"I know."

Harte eyed him, wondering if Bishop wanted Sheriff Knight to believe him without proof. Definitely a proud man, was Bishop. But not a stupid man. He had to know that his past actions made Miranda Knight nothing but suspicious.

Harte tentatively sensed the emotions in the room, much as a trained hunting dog would sniff the air for telltale scent, and was startled by the turmoil he detected in his normally composed boss. The feelings went deep and sharp, a confusion of anger and guilt, hunger and regret, pain and need and shame.

Slowly, Harte said, "Proof or no, it'll take her some time to get used to the idea, I imagine. But once she gets past that, once she realizes she can open up ... then there's you."

"Then there's me. Keeping her closed." Bishop sighed and stared at his subordinate with grim eyes. "Sometimes I hate working with psychics."

"Ninety-eight-percent success rate," Harte reminded him.

"Yeah, yeah. Just stay the hell out of my head, will you, please?"