Кей Хупер - Out of the Shadows

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A picture-perfect Tennessee town has just become a monster's hunting ground. Two bodies are found tortured to death. A third person goes missing. What little evidence is left behind defies all explanation. Is the terror just beginning? Or have the good citizens of Gladstone harbored a dark secret for a long time?
Sheriff Miranda Knight is determined to make her small town safe once more. And she does what she swore she would never do: involve FBI profiler Noah Bishop. He's the one man who knows about her unique abilities, and that knowledge almost destroyed her and her sister years ago. Now, as Bishop arrives with his team of agents, Miranda must learn to trust him and use her abilities once more. For they're about to go on the hunt for a killer whose madness has no bounds, a killer who knows exactly how to destroy Miranda: by preying on her sister.

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She looked at the cup in her hand as if it were something alien to her understanding, then frowned and set it on the window ledge. "I always said you were a bright guy."

As badly as he wanted to, Bishop didn't move toward her. "You know something is going to happen, don't you? To one of us. It's what you saw in the beginning, the vision you've managed to hide from me. That's why you closed the link." He forced himself to let go of the edge of the desk, absently flexing his stiff fingers. "But which one of us are you trying to protect, Miranda? You? Or me?"

"A very bright guy," she murmured. Her face was still, those startling blue eyes fixed on him unwaveringly.

"What did you see? Tell me."

"You tell me something, Bishop. When you finally caught up with Lewis Harrison, was it the vision we both saw?"

He nodded. "A few minor details were different, but otherwise yes."

"Yeah, I thought so. No matter what we do or try to do, no matter how we try to change the outcome, it almost never works."

"What do you mean?"

"Our own actions create the future, even if we're given a glimpse ahead of time. You saw yourself catching up to Harrison, and you made it happen. I saw us become lovers again, and in trying to shut you out to stop it from happening, I created the very situation I was trying to avoid."

"You risked your life to try to shut me out." He had to say it.

"No. I told you I could handle the energy buildup."

"We both know it wasn't as simple as that. You could have destroyed yourself, Miranda. If that desperate spirit hadn't taken the decision out of your hands by attacking you, how long would you have let it go on? The pain, shutting off your extra senses, losing all your defenses. Sooner or later it could have killed you — or caused you to be killed."

Miranda shook her head slightly, more in resistance than disagreement, but she didn't protest aloud.

"Was it worth that to you?" It was something else he had to say, to ask. "Would you have rather died than let me get close again?"

"When it started ... I thought so."

Bishop thought he probably deserved the jolt of pain he felt, but that didn't make it any easier to take. "I see."

Her smile was rueful. "I was angry, Bishop, even after all those years. Not because of what happened with my family. Bonnie was right, I never really blamed you for that. You were doing your job, doing everything in your power to stop a vicious killer. But I did blame you for ... leaving me alone to cope with the aftermath."

"Miranda — "

"Oh, I know. I was the one who left in a physical sense. But I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't already drawn away."

"I felt guilty as hell, first about going behind your back to Kara and then about what happened to her and your parents."

"And you didn't want to feel my pain and guilt added to your own. I knew that. But it didn't help. You closed yourself off from me just when I needed you most."

Bishop wanted to tell her he was sorry. But what words were there to apologize for turning away from the woman he loved and allowing her to suffer alone and rebuild her life without his help or comfort? What possible words could he offer now?

Miranda didn't appear to expect any, and went on in a matter-of-fact tone. "So, yes, I would have done just about anything to shut you out when you came back into my life. Even though I knew it was inevitable we'd be lovers again."

She drew a breath and let it out slowly. "I saw a series of events culminating in something else I wanted to avoid, but it's all happening. Every action I take, every choice and decision I make, just brings me closer to that future I saw. It's unavoidable."

"What future, Miranda? What did you see?"

"What's the use of knowing? You can't change it."

"Goddammit, tell me."

She left the window finally, crossing the space between them to stand almost between his knees. She lifted her hands and touched him, and with that contact the door that had shut him out quietly opened. "I die," Miranda said steadily. "I'm the killer's final victim."

As it turned out, the roaring storm made the little girls too jittery to be much interested in games, so Bonnie and Seth made a quick trip to the clinic's video library and returned with several tapes. It took only a few minutes to get the girls settled with snacks and the video they had chosen.

Under his breath, Seth murmured, "We don't have to sit and watch this, do we? I hate it when Bambi's mother — "

Bonnie made a hasty gesture to silence him, then drew him away from the two absorbed girls to the small seating area near the door. "I'd rather not leave them alone with the storm so wild," she said, "but we don't have to watch the movie."

"In that case, I'm glad we got the games. What do you feel like?" He bent down to sort through the boxes stacked on the coffee table. "Trivial Pursuit? Clue? I don't think we want Candyland, but what about Mah-Jongg? Or here's one with chess and checkers and — Hey. I must have grabbed this one by mistake when I went in to put it back on the shelf."

Bonnie stared at the Ouija board in his hand. "Did you?"

"I guess so."

"Seth ... do you mind taking it back to the storage room?"

He looked at her gravely. "I wasn't going to suggest—"

"I know. I'd just feel more . . . comfortable if that board was somewhere else."

"But—"

"It's a doorway, Seth. I just don't want to be even unconsciously tempted to open it again, that's all."

"Would you be? Tempted, I mean."

"Yes. Because if that was Lynet we reached before, she might be able to tell us who her killer was. That answer would be worth opening the door — if I was sure I could control it afterward. But I'm not sure. I don't have enough experience to be sure."

"You opened it once before," Seth said, slowly enough to make his own doubts about the reality of that obvious.

"Yes. But Randy reminded me of just how dangerous it is to do that, and I promised her I wouldn't try again."

Seth opened his mouth, then closed it, hesitated, and shrugged. "Sure, I'll put it back."

"Thanks."

"Don't go anywhere while I'm gone."

Bonnie smiled. "No, I won't. I'll set up one of the other games so we can play."

"Good enough." Seth didn't exactly hurry as he left the room, but he didn't dawdle either. He strode down the hall to the storage room, and was careful to put the Ouija board on the highest shelf and shove it far back, so that no part of it hung out over the edge.

He came out and shut the door, absently jiggling the knob to be sure it was firmly closed. It was only when he took a step away that he heard it again.

The whispering.

Seth eased back to the door and pressed his ear against it, listening. He could hear it clearly, a muffled rustling sound that was like a voice or voices whispering rapidly, almost rhythmically.

It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Seth hesitated, then reached for the knob and turned it slowly. The whispering continued. He jerked the door open.

Silence.

And a perfectly ordinary storage room, the Ouija board high on its shelf just as Seth had left it.

He waited a moment, heard nothing but the muted sounds of the storm, and closed the door. Still nothing. Whatever had made the whispering noise was silent now.

"Daniels, you're really losing it," he told himself out loud. But when he went back to Bonnie, he hurried..

EIGHTEEN

"No," Bishop said.

But he saw it now, the vision she had seen months ago, a rushing kaleidoscope of images and emotions and certainties. He saw the bodies discovered one by one, unable to see who they were but knowing what was missing from each: the blood, the organs. He knew as she had known that there would be five victims, the fifth one different from the others — and that after the fifth murder but not before, he and Miranda would become lovers and would restore the intense psychic connection they had once shared.

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