Kay Hooper - Hunting Fear

Wyatt frowned briefly. "I forgot. You've seen a lot of this sort of thing, haven't you? Death. Grief."

"Yeah."

"How do you get through it? How do you keep doing it?"

Lucas had heard the questions before, and answered Wyatt as he had answered others.

"I get through it by focusing on what I can affect, what I can possibly control. Finding someone who's lost or taken, if that's at all possible. If it isn't, if I'm too late, then I try to find what's left, the body. And if I can, I try to find the killer. Put him behind bars, in a cage where he belongs. That's what I can do. That's all I can do, to help the living and the dead."

The sheriff's face seemed to quiver for an instant, and he said, "Just tell me one thing. Why Lindsay? Why did the bastard take her?"

"You know why. To make it personal. To give the victim a very familiar face. And as a taunt, a challenge. She was taken virtually from beneath our noses while we were watching someone else."

"Someone your Madam Zarina told us to watch."

Lucas shook his head. "Wyatt, don't go there. I know you want to blame someone, but don't blame Sam. She may have her faults, but when it comes to her visions she's the most truthful person I've ever known. I'm absolutely positive that she saw what she told us she saw."

"And even gifted psychics make mistakes, huh?"

"Yes, they do." Lucas frowned and, almost to himself, said, Though Sam's visions were always highly reliable. So maybe the question is-why did she see a different victim?"

Unwillingly, Wyatt said, "Maybe Carrie Vaughn is next on this bastard's hit parade. Maybe Zarina just skipped one."

"She saw Thursday's newspaper, said it was exactly the same is in the photograph you were sent."

"Then she lied."

"No. She'd never lie about something like that."

"Are you sure? Can you be?"

"Wyatt-"

"You're a cop and can't smell a setup? She comes in voluntarily for questioning. Warns us there's going to be another kidnapping and says she'll stay here to prove her innocence. But the supposed victim we're so busy watching is safe and sound while one of our own is snatched, all because little miss innocent made a mistake."

"She didn't kidnap or kill Lindsay, Wyatt. You know she didn't."

"Maybe not with her own hands, but who's to say we're only dealing with one kidnapper here? If your so-called profile was more accurate, you would have found him by now. So? What if you guys got it wrong all the way around? Suppose, just suppose, that Samantha Burke had help, Luke. A partner. Or, at the very least, a friend she's covering for. Suppose one of her carnie pals is behind all this?"

"You've checked them out," Lucas reminded him.

"For past criminal records, sure. But you and I both know there are criminals who never get caught. And it'd be a nice little racket, wouldn't it? A traveling carnival, never in one place for very long. Kidnap a local and make a few bucks, then move on to the next little town."

Lucas shook his head. "No. We've tracked this bastard for eighteen months, and the carnival was never in the towns where victims disappeared. I would have known."

Wyatt got to his feet and leaned over the table, hands braced, as he stared at Lucas. "You sat right here in this room and heard her say that all along their route they had heard about the kidnappings."

"Kidnappings make the news. So what?"

"So maybe the carnival was a lot closer to those kidnapped victims than you knew. Not in the same towns, but maybe nearby. Within driving distance. Near their regular yearly route, a path they know very well. Maybe even well enough to target victims along the way. Victims whose habits and haunts they had ample time to observe."

Lucas returned the sheriff's stare, saying merely, "You're wrong."

"Am I?" Wyatt straightened. "Let's find out. I'm going to go put my people on checking out the yearly schedule of the Carnival After Dark. I want to know about every town they visited, every fairground and parking lot where they set up shop. I want to know where they were in relation to every kidnapping you've been tracking. I'm going to find out exactly where they've been every day of the last eighteen months."

Lucas didn't try to stop him.

He was, after all, a man who understood obsession.

"Do you like having your abilities?" Caitlin Graham asked as she sipped her coffee.

Samantha wrapped both cold hands around her own mug of hot tea and smiled wryly. "That's a loaded question. Sometimes. Sometimes not."

"Not when you see bad things?"

"Bad, unsettling, frightening. It can feel like I'm trapped in a horror movie, only without the popcorn-or the ability to get up and leave the theater."

"You don't have any control?"

With a shrug, Samantha said, "Again, it depends. At a time like this, with emotions running so high, the visions tend to be very… intense."

"As in, so cold they burn your hands?"

"That was a first. I usually just come out of them so tired I want:o sleep for a few days."

"But you saw Lindsay. When she was being held."

Samantha nodded. She knew Caitlin needed to talk about this, so she did, matter-of-factly. "Like most good cops, she was working the problem. Trying to find an angle, a weakness she could use to her advantage."

Caitlin chewed her bottom lip, then said, "You're so sure there's something after death. Is it because you've-you've contacted somebody from the other side?"

Without commenting on the terminology, Samantha merely said, "I'm not a medium."

"Oh. So-you don't do that?"

"No. Technically, I'm what they call a seer. In carnival language, I see what is and what will be."

Caitlin smiled slightly at the other woman's deliberately theatrical tone. "Just like on the sign outside your booth."

"Exactly. As I understand it, my primary ability is precogni-tion, seeing the future. When I'm seeing the present but something going on beyond my own sight or hearing, that's a kind of clairvoyance. But unlike most clairvoyants, who tend to pick up information all around them, randomly, what I see is very focused, tuned in to a specific event."

"Like seeing Lindsay."

Samantha nodded again. "It's a secondary ability, much less common to me. I've also been told that I'm a 'touch seer' rather than an 'open seer.' The difference, I gather, is that I have to touch an object to pick up anything."

"Always?"

Samantha thought of her dream, but nodded and said firmly, "Always. Happily, though, I don't go through life picking up visions every time I pick up a can of tuna or a hairbrush."

Very intent, Caitlin asked, "Then what triggers the visions? Why one object and not another, I mean."

Samantha sipped her cooling tea, giving herself a moment, then said slowly, "People with more scientific knowledge than I have said it's all a matter of energy. Emotions and actions have energy. The more intense the feelings or events, or the longer they last, the more likely they are to… leave some of their energy on an area or an object. Sort of imprinting a memory on it. Since my brain is apparently hardwired to tune in to that kind of energy, when I touch the right thing, I do."

"That doesn't really explain Lindsay's ring. She hadn't worn it for years, and she never came close to drowning as a child."

"If it was easy to explain, it wouldn't seem like magic, now, would it?" Samantha smiled, but also shrugged. "Maybe every individual has his or her own energy signature, as unique as a fingerprint. I've heard that; maybe it's true. They leave their own energy on an object, I touch the object, and-sometimes-my brain homes in on that energy signature. Picks up what's happening or will happen with that person, especially if strong emotions are involved."

"So you picked up her future when you touched her ring because… because she wore it so much in her past. Her childhood."