Кей Хупер - Out of the Shadows

Tony said, "Unless he's stupidly out there now leaving tracks in the snow, or even more stupidly went out in the middle of the storm, he had to have acted fairly early last night, right? Just hours after we found Penman's body. Would he have felt threatened enough to move against her so quickly?"

"Believing it was possible she had a pipeline to his victims?" Bishop barely hesitated. "I'd say yes."

Miranda nodded. "Then we have to go out there, before the storm gets wound up again. Where's Alex?"

"The lounge," Tony answered. "When everything was so quiet a few hours ago, he decided to get a little sleep. Want me to wake him?"

"No. If we're very lucky, there won't be any reason to disturb his sleep now or later." She drew a breath. "In fact, I don't want to tell any of the deputies unless it's necessary. Liz is ... very well liked. We'll keep it just between us, for now. Tony, if something has happened, first impressions could be very useful to us."

"Well, sure, but I'm not especially strong," he reminded her.

She gave Bishop a wry look, and he said, "At the moment, you have both of us beat."

Tony blinked. "Ah. I wondered why the transmitter was so silent that I was reduced to trying to read your stone face."

"Temporarily out of order."

"How temporarily?"

"A few hours, if we're lucky. A few days, if we're not."

"Receivers busted too?"

"Afraid so."

Tony looked from one to the other, having little luck reading two very calm faces. "I see. I don't, actually, but since it's obvious I'm not going to get an explanation, never mind. The timing could be better, guys."

"No kidding." Miranda put down the clipboard. "There's some snow gear in one of the storage lockers. You'll both need boots, at least." She was already wearing hers.

"I'll get them," Tony said.

"Don't say anything to the others," Miranda told him.

"Gotcha."

When they were alone in the conference room, Bishop said, "Assuming we're right about this, none of us could have anticipated that he'd move so fast."

"I know, I know." But she was frowning.

And Bishop didn't like something he saw in her face, a tension or strain that hadn't been there just a few minutes ago. "Miranda, none of this is your fault."

She looked at him steadily. "But Tony's right about our rotten timing. We could hardly have picked a worse moment to have our abilities muted."

"We didn't pick the moment, it picked us." Bishop's voice was deliberate. "And I'm not sorry it did. The rate we were going, we were never going to get there without a nudge."

"It was more of a shove," she said.

It wasn't like her to be flippant at such a moment, and it told Bishop probably more than she would have liked about her state of mind. He crossed the space between them and lifted a hand to touch her face. "Are you all right?"

"There is," she said with a touch of grimness, "such a thing as being known too well."

"What's wrong, Miranda?"

"Me. I'm wrong."

"In what way?"

Miranda drew a breath and let it out slowly. "I thought I could change things. I thought I could . . . exert some kind of control over fate, even if only a little. And I thought I had. But if Liz is dead ... if she died last night before you came to me ... then it's all happening just the way I saw it happen, in spite of what I tried to do to change it. I can't change it. Apparently there's not a goddamned thing I can do to stop any of it."

Bishop felt a little chill that came from instinct rather than knowledge. "What is it? What did you see?"

Whether Miranda would have answered became moot when Tony returned to the conference room with the snow boots. She turned away from Bishop, becoming once again the brisk and efficient sheriff, and the moment for confidences passed.

Miranda made that even more clear when she decided they should take two vehicles — just in case one of them got stuck in the snow. It was a reasonable precaution, but it was also an obvious desire to be alone for a while since she rather pointedly suggested that Bishop and Tony take their rental SUV.

All the way out to Liz Hallowell's house, even as he concentrated on navigating in the deep snow, Bishop was trying to sort through the images crammed in his mind, all the emotions and events of Miranda's life during the past eight years. He felt frustrated, knowing that the answer was within his grasp if he could only identify it. But it was like searching for a single snapshot in a box filled with them when he wasn't sure what the picture was supposed to look like.

"Boss?"

Slowing cautiously to follow Miranda's Jeep around a corner, Bishop said, "Yeah?"

"If Liz Hallowell is dead ., . do we let the killer believe he succeeded in silencing our medium?"

"If it'll protect Bonnie, I say we damned well try. And you'll notice Miranda didn't send any of her deputies to the clinic; doing anything to draw attention to Bonnie before we know for sure what's happened could be a bad mistake."

"So could waiting," Tony offered soberly.

"I know. And so does Miranda."

Tony was silent for half a block; then, as he drew his weapon and checked it absently, he said, "Either the transmitter's beginning to recover, or you're worried as hell, because I can feel it."

Bishop tried experimentally to focus his spider-sense. "No, I'm still pretty much blind at the moment."

"And worried?"

"Let's just say I don't like the way things are shaping up."

"Can't say that I blame you about that."

Nothing more was said, and minutes later they reached Liz Hallowell's house. Bishop parked his vehicle behind Miranda's, and they joined her outside.

She was studying the smooth expanse of pristine snow covering the ground, Liz's parked car, and the small house. "Nobody's gone in or out of the house this way for hours at least," she said.

"I'll check the back." Tony headed off to make a wide circuit of the house. Minutes later, he returned. "Nope, no sign anyone's come or gone since the storm got serious last night."

"Feel anything?" Bishop asked.

"I don't feel anybody alive in there," Tony said reluctantly.

Miranda sighed, her breath misting the air. "Shit." The curse was too weary to hold any other emotion. "Anything else?"

Tony was silent for a minute, his attention and senses focused on the house, then frowned at the other two. "You know, for a murderous maniac, this guy has some peculiar emotions. What I feel most of all is intense regret. I mean, bordering on actual grief. He did not want to do ... whatever it is he did."

Grim, Miranda said, "Let's go find out what he did."

They trusted Tony's sense of the place, but nevertheless drew their weapons automatically as they cautiously approached the house. They found the front door unlocked and went inside swiftly and silently, protecting one another and alert to possible danger.

Bishop didn't need his spider-sense to know there was no longer anything dangerous here, but he moved carefully, like the others, as he began searching the house. The big and open kitchen/dining/family-room area was easy to look over, and all that met their eyes was a placid cream-colored cat with chocolate points sitting on the back of the sofa; the cat didn't seem the slightest bit disturbed by strangers and was busily engaged in washing one brown forepaw.

They split up to check the other rooms. Bishop and Tony found nothing, and were just coming back up the hallway when Miranda emerged from the master bedroom. She leaned against the doorjamb, slowly returning her pistol to the hip holster she was wearing today.

Bishop felt an odd ripple in their connection, a flutter of emotions that marked the beginning of the return of his abilities. It told him much more clearly than her utterly remote expression that Miranda was badly shaken. It also told him why.