Kay Hooper - Hunting Fear

Could that quiet, intense, steely-eyed federal agent really feel someone else's emotions, their fear?

His first reaction was a deep embarrassment that another man might feel the sick terror crawling inside him, might know that about him.

Wyatt didn't want to believe that Luke-or anyone-could do that. Everything in him shied away from the mere possibility. But… he had to admit that Samantha Burke had been right when she'd told them Lindsay would drown. She had warned Glen Champion about his defective clothes dryer, which very well could have caused a fire. And as hard as he'd tried, Wyatt hadn't been able to connect the carnival seer in any viable way to this kidnapping murderer and his schemes.

And Champion had described to him, in halting, wondering tones, what Luke had done. How he'd been able to find Lindsay, and how eerie and shocking had been his apparent mental or emotional connection with her in the final tormented minutes of her life.

If he was genuine… If Samantha was genuine…

If psychic ability was possible, was real…

Staring into the darkness, facing his own probable death, Wyatt Metcalf wished he had more time. Because if the world did indeed hold such possibilities, then it was far more interesting than he had believed.

Abruptly, he saw a light flicker on, illuminating the face of a digital clock. It was placed in such a way that it was not only visible to him but was almost inescapable. And it wasn't, he realized immediately, showing the time.

It was counting down.

He had less than eight hours to live.

He turned his head back so that he was staring up at that gleaming blade. He focused on it. And grimly began working his hands in an effort to loosen the straps tying him down.

"Why does he have to do this your way?"

Samantha looked across the table at Jaylene. "We both know that Luke's biggest flaw at a time like this is his tendency to shut everybody out. Everybody. His concentration is so fixed, so absolute, that he can barely relate to anything or anyone except the victim he's trying to find."

"He relates to you."

With a wry smile, Samantha said, "Not really, except on a very basic level. If this were his usual type of case, by the end he'd see me only as a warm body in a bed."

"You mean, last time…"

"Yeah, pretty much. He was so shut in himself, so focused on the job in those last days, he barely spoke to me. You remember that much."

Jaylene nodded, reluctant. "I remember. But we were all focused on the job, on finding that child."

"Of course we were. But for Luke… it's like his own ability to focus consumes everything else in him. I know you called it tunnel vision then, I guess trying to warn me."

"For all the good it did."

"Yeah, I suppose I could have been more understanding. But it's not easy to find yourself falling for a man who doesn't even seem to see you half the time. Most of the time, by the end."

"Sam, his focus-that flaw-is also his strength."

"Is it?" Samantha shook her head. "I'm no psychologist, but it seems to me that mental focus and concentration that intense can do a dandy job of holding emotion at bay, or even shutting it down entirely. The very emotion Luke needs to feel."

"Maybe," Jaylene said slowly.

"Haven't you ever wondered, Jay, why he almost always has trouble sensing a victim until he's worked himself to the point of exhaustion?" Samantha asked. "Until he's skipped too many meals and too much sleep and tapped so many of his reserves that here's almost nothing left? It's only when he's literally too tired to think that he finally allows himself to feel. His emotions-and theirs."

"When his guards come crashing down," Jaylene murmured, thoughtful.

"Exactly."

"But when the guards do come down, and he feels what they feel, the sheer strength of their terror virtually incapacitates him. He can barely move or speak."

"And maybe that's one reason he resists feeling that for so long. But if he could open himself up sooner, before a victim's fear has grown so intense and before his own exhaustion was so overwhelming, then maybe he could function. Maybe he could even function with some semblance of normality."

"Maybe."

Samantha looked toward the open doorway as though expecting someone to appear, but added, "It isn't a conscious thing-it can't be. No matter what it costs him, he wants to find these victims so desperately that he'd do anything he could. Consciously. Even incapacitate himself, if that's what it took. So it has to be something buried deep, a barrier of some kind. A wall created at some point in his life when it was necessary to protect a part of him."

"You're talking about some kind of injury or trauma."

"Probably. A lot of our strengths come from some hurt." Samantha frowned again. "You don't know what it is? What might have happened to him?"

Jaylene replied, "No-and I've been his partner for nearly four years. I probably know him as well as anybody, and I know almost nothing of his background. From the point that Bishop found him working as a private consultant on criminal abduction cases five years ago until now, yes. Before that, nothing. Don't even know where he was born or where he went to school. Hell, I don't even know if he's a born psychic. How about you?"

"No. It all happened so fast before. There was so much intensity. The investigation, the media blitz, us. Then the tension of knowing his mind was someplace else even when his body was lying beside mine in bed. We couldn't talk, not then.

"And then it all just stopped, the way those strangely vivid, aberrant periods in our lives tend to end. The investigation was over. And so were we. I… woke up in an empty bed. With Bishop waiting outside the motel to tell me why I couldn't be a member of his Special Crimes Unit. That purple turban. Credibility."

Jaylene hesitated only an instant. "I had no idea it ended quite that abruptly."

Samantha hunched her shoulders more than shrugged. "Bishop said he'd sent you two off on another case, that it was vital you leave immediately and he hadn't given you a choice in the matter. I imagine that was true. Also true that he felt moving Luke on to the next case as soon as possible would be best for him, after the way he blamed himself for that child's death. And… I suppose eaving so abruptly gave Luke a good-enough excuse not to wake ne even long enough to say good-bye."

With a wince, Jaylene said, "I almost wish you hadn't told me that."

Seriously, Samantha said, "Don't let your respect for him be affected by what happened between us. Thinking about it now, I don't think he had much control over how he reacted to me-or how he left me. I think it's all tangled up with that barrier inside him, that refusal to let himself feel until he has absolutely no other choice."

"Those sorts of psychological barriers," Jaylene said, "tend to be real monsters, Sam. The kind that claw us up inside."

"Yeah. I know."

"But it's what you're looking for in Luke. What you're digging or."

Her jaw firmed. "What I have to dig for. What I have to find."

Jaylene studied her for a long moment in silence, then said, "I wish you felt you could tell me what this is all about. I get the feeing it's pretty lonely where you are right now."

"At least you see that. To Luke, I'm being stubborn at best and wantonly obstructive at worst."

"But you understand why that's his reaction. Did you understand that three years ago?"

"No."

"So when he started giving you the third degree the morning after you'd first slept together…"

Samantha replied frankly, "It hurt, like I said."

"I think it hurts a little now too. Even though you know where it's coming from this time."

"Knowing something intellectually is one thing." Samantha's smile twisted. "Feelings are something else again. Anyway, I'm not asking him to love me, I just need him to trust me."