Kay Hooper - Sense Of Evil

She watched him leave the room and continued to gaze at the open doorway until Hollis appeared just a minute or two later.

“Isabel?”

“The thing that actually scares me,” Isabel said as though they were continuing a conversation begun sometime before, “is that I have this uneasy feeling he’s at least three steps ahead of me. And I don’t understand how he’s doing that.”

“The killer?”

“No. Rafe.”

Hollis closed the door behind her, then came in and sat down at the conference table. “He’s still surprising you, huh?”

“In spades. He just never reacts to things the way I think he’s going to.”

Mildly, Hollis said, “Then maybe you’re thinking too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“Stop trying to anticipate, Isabel. Instead of thinking about everything, why not try listening to your instincts and feelings?”

“You sound like Bishop.”

Hollis was a little surprised. “I do?”

“Yes. He says I only get blindsided when I forget what my senses are for. That I have to accept and understand that what I feel is at least as important as what I think.”

“More important,” Hollis said. “For you. Especially now, I imagine.”

“Why now?”

“Rafe.”

Isabel frowned and looked away.

“He reached out to you, Isabel. You wanted him to. You let him. But you couldn’t reach back. You weren’t quite ready to take that chance.”

“I’ve known the man a grand total of about four days.”

“So? We both know time has nothing to do with it. You and Rafe connected in those first few hours. You were wide open because you always are-or were. He was definitely attracted and unusually willing to open himself emotionally, or so it seemed to me. Jesus Christ, Isabel, you two strike sparks when you touch. Literally. Are you telling me you can’t see a sign from the universe that clear?”

“We’re going over old ground here,” Isabel said tightly.

“Yes, but you keep missing the point.”

“And what is that?”

“Those control issues of yours. You can be flip about them if you want, but we both know they’re at the heart of this entire situation.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You came into this as confident as always, sure of yourself and your abilities. In control. I don’t know, maybe you were a little more vulnerable than usual because it’s this particular killer, this old enemy, that you were after. Or maybe that had nothing to do with it. Maybe it was just a case of right place, right person-and really lousy timing.”

“I’ll agree with that much, anyway,” Isabel muttered.

“Doesn’t really matter. The fact is, you found yourself losing control, and not just of your own emotions. Your abilities were suddenly different. You were so wide open you didn’t have a hope in hell of being able to even filter all the stuff coming at you. You could do that before, I’m told. Filter what came through, exert a kind of control over it even if you couldn’t block it out. But once you got to Hastings, once you connected with Rafe, you didn’t even have that.”

“What happened here was nothing that hadn’t happened before, as far as my abilities go.”

“No, but the scale of it was different. You’ve already admitted that much yourself.”

Reluctantly, Isabel nodded.

“And there he was, so close. Too close. All of a sudden, you got very spooked. So you opened the door to your chamber of horrors, thinking that would drive him away and things could get back to normal. But it did just the opposite. It brought him even closer, and it strengthened the connection between you two. So much so that he was somehow able to use it himself, even if only unconsciously.”

Hollis shook her head slowly. “I guess it was easier for you to just let him be the one in control for a while. Let him do what he wanted to do, needed to do. Protect you, shut out all the pain. Even if it meant shutting off your abilities and blinding you to the evil you know is almost close enough to touch.”

THE POUNDING IN HIS HEAD was almost as rhythmic as his heartbeat, as though his very brain pulsed inside his skull.

The imagery pleased him briefly.

The pain made him reach for yet another handful of painkillers. He’d considered going to a doctor and getting the stronger prescription stuff but was wary of doing anything that might call attention to himself.

That bitch agent, it might occur to her that the change kept him in pain most of the time, and she might start calling doctors, checking for just that.

No, he couldn’t take the chance.

But he had a hunch that all the painkillers on top of not being able to eat much these days might be causing other problems. There was a new pain, deep in his gut, a burning. It got better when he was able to eat something, and he knew what that meant. An ulcer, probably.

Was that part of the change? Was it intended that his own digestive acids-helped along by handfuls of painkillers-would eat through the lining of his stomach?

He didn’t see how that would help him become what he had to be, but-

It’s punishment, wimp.

“I haven’t done anything wrong.” He kept his voice low, so nobody else would hear.

You’re dragging your feet. You haven’t done that agent. You haven’t done the reporter. Or the other one. What’re you waiting for?

“The right time. I have to be careful. They’re watching me.”

I knew I wouldn’t be able to count on you to keep it together. You’re paranoid now.

“No-”

You are. All you should be thinking about is what those women have done to you. Those bitches. You know what they’ve done. You know.

“Yes. I know.”

Then there’s nothing else to think about, is there? Nothing else to worry about.

“I just have to kill them. All six of them. Just like I did before.”

Yes. You just have to kill them.

“I’m not that self-destructive,” Isabel said.

“You’re that scared.”

“And you know that because of your degree in psychology?”

“I know it because I was brutalized too.”

After a long moment, much of the tension drained visibly from Isabel and she said, “Yeah. We belong to a very select club, you and I. Survivors of evil.”

“It doesn’t have to be a lifetime membership, Isabel.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“No. And if you let it be, then you let him win. You let evil win.”

Isabel managed a faint smile. “If this is what Maggie Barnes did for you, then I wish I’d had her around fourteen years ago.”

“What Maggie did for me,” Hollis said, “was put me in the same place you’re in now. As if years have gone by. The memories are still there, the pain is only an echo-and the scars are fear. I can be more objective than you because I’m not the one falling in love.”

“And if you were?” It was a tacit admission.

“I’d be scared to death.”

“I’ll remind you that you said that.”

It was Hollis’s turn to smile faintly. “Believe me, I’m counting on you to help me through, if it ever happens.”

“The blind leading the blind.”

“You’ll have figured things out by then. You’ll have to. As our esteemed leader says, the universe puts us where we need to be. You obviously need to be here, now. With Rafe.”

“And a killer.”

Hollis nodded. “And a killer. Which is why I think you can’t try to ignore or deny your own feelings. Not now, not this time. You don’t have that luxury, not with a killer in the equation. You need your abilities at full strength, plus whatever Rafe brings to the relationship.”