Kay Hooper - Stealing Shadows

Max whuffed softly and thumped his tail against the floor.

"The twelfth of February. Two weeks ago. What was I doing about two weeks – "

What she had been doing was coping with the sudden terrible knowledge that a killer was stalking his first victim in this sleepy little town.

With fingers that had turned numb, Cassie tore open the envelope and unfolded a single sheet of note-paper. The message sprawled across it was brief and to the point.

Cassie,

Whatever happens, stay away from Ben Ryan. He'll destroy you.

Alex

It should have been simple. Cassie had not seen or spoken to her aunt for more than twenty-five years; in fact, she barely remembered her. There had been no birthday or Christmas cards, and not even the notification of her sister's violent death had compelled Alex Melton to contact her niece.

Only after her own death, in the shape of her will and now this message, did Cassie hear from her aunt.

It should have been a simple decision to ignore this "warning."

But it wasn't.

As voices from the dead went, Alex Melton's was as eerie and as terrifying as anything Cassie could have imagined, and as badly as she wanted to, she could not ignore it.

He'll destroy you.

Alex Melton had been desperate that her niece receive this warning, her attorney said – and he was not a man to use such words lightly. She had been desperate enough to leave the warning with very specific instructions that it be delivered on a precise day. The very day that Ben Ryan's name had occurred to Cassie as a possible ally in her attempt to convince Sheriff Dunbar that a killer was about to strike.

If Cassie had received the warning then… what? She thought she probably would have reconsidered her idea of going to see him. She had been so wary of getting involved once again in a murder investigation, so reluctant to put herself through it all once again. It would not have taken much to make her withdraw into her quiet, peaceful isolation. Guilty conscience partly absolved because she had, after all, tried to warn the sheriff.

But now?

Two weeks had changed so many things. The killer had struck three times, and she knew he was about to strike again. The sheriff was willing to listen now, maybe even to believe in what she could tell him, and that might make a difference. And she was committed now, determined to try her best to help catch the killer. And there was Ben.

Ben, who wanted her. Ben, who made her feel things she had never felt before and wanted so badly to feel again. Ben, who could touch her without threatening her walls.

He'll destroy you.

Ben destroy her? How?

Someone unfamiliar with psychics and their abilities would have immediately thought of the killer terrorizing this town, and assumed that either Ben was the killer or that her involvement with him would somehow deliver her into the hands of the killer.

But Cassie knew Ben was not the killer. Even more, she knew that her aunt's choice of words was important; if Alex had seen her niece's death, she would have used that word. But she had not.

He'll destroy you.

Not kill her, or cause her to be killed. Destroy her. And in that word lay a wealth of frightening possibilities. Because there were fates worse than death. Much worse.

"I didn't see him," she murmured to Max. "When I saw my fate, I didn't see Ben. He won't be part of that, won't cause it to happen, surely."

What she had seen had been a jumble of images and emotions, leaving her with only the certainty that the abilities she had lived with since childhood would be her doom. That she would, in stealing the shadows of yet another dangerously insane mind, become lost herself in the terrible, hungry darkness of that lunatic consciousness. Lost forever.

Death would be simple – and preferable – by comparison.

He'll destroy you.

… destroy you.

… destroy…

For a long time Cassie sat staring at the note, her eyes skimming the words again and again, her brain trying to take in all the implications. She felt colder than she had that morning. She felt more alone than she had since she had first run to this place looking for peace.

Her aunt had certainly not feared that she would get her heart broken. Rejection by a lover, while destructive, seldom destroyed. And yet, somehow, in some way, Alex had been convinced that unless she stayed away from him, Ben would destroy her.

"Dammit, Alex, why didn't you explain?" she murmured. But even as the words left her lips, Cassie knew the answer. Predicting the future was a tricky business, and more often than not the worst thing a psychic could do was offer explicit details even if she was sure of them.

Precognitive visions tended to be shrouded in symbolism, with interpretation uncertain and conclusions risky. Alex could have known with absolute certainty that Ben Ryan had the ability or potential to destroy her niece without being at all sure how that could or would come about.

So the simplest and most direct warning was the safest. Stay away from him. He'll destroy you.

"Too late," Cassie said to her aunt and to herself. "Whatever is meant to happen… will happen."

Running three thousand miles hadn't changed that. This warning would not change that.

She turned her head and gazed at the box full of papers that had been sitting in a nearby chair for days now, waiting for her attention. She had avoided the task just as she had avoided reading her aunt's journals. She had kept herself distant from her aunt's personality whenever possible, preferring not to know about the woman who had quarreled so bitterly with her sister that they had never spoken again.

Alex Melton's silence upon being notified of her sister's murder had hurt Cassie deeply.

And yet despite her own unwillingness to remain ignorant of who Alexandra Melton had been, her aunt's personality had refused to remain a mystery, because she had left clues behind and because other people had spoken of her. Evidence such as all the unopened craft kits Alex had bought from Jill, the purchases obviously used as excuses for visits, indicated a surprising shyness. Her warning to Abby, reluctant and troubled, was clear evidence to Cassie both of her aunt's sense of responsibility and her reluctance to meddle in other lives.

There had been other indications of personality during the months Cassie had spent in her aunt's home. From the way she had decorated and the books she had read to her extensive collection of movies on videotape – a passion Cassie shared – Alex Melton's taste and preferences had gradually seeped into Cassie's awareness.

Yet she still had no idea why her mother and aunt had quarreled. She had no idea if Alex had left her this house and property only because she was the sole survivor of the family or if some other reason had prompted the bequest.

And she had no idea how to interpret a specific and yet enigmatic warning delivered from beyond the grave.

Gazing at the box filled with papers that might hold some vital clue in understanding her aunt's warning, Cassie wondered if her own reluctance to know Alex Melton might prove more costly than she could ever have imagined.

She got up from the sofa, went to the fireplace, and looked down at the note and envelope in her hand. Her hesitation was a brief one. She tossed them into the fire and watched them burn.

Then she got the box filled with her aunt's papers and began trying to understand a life.

"All right," Larry Ramsay said as he escorted the girls into the mall. "We're here." He adopted the long-suffering tone common to put-upon males who would much rather be somewhere else, preferably tinkering with?.n engine.