Kay Hooper - Sense Of Evil

“Good. It’d be nice to know we aren’t looking for another body. Yet.”

“I’ll say. How’s it going there?”

“I’ll fill you in when I get back.”

“That bad, huh?”

“ Tense is the word I’d use. Talk to you later.”

“Is who going to press charges?” Rafe asked as Isabel ended the call.

“Tell you later.”

He frowned at her. “I am not tense.”

Isabel lifted both brows at Paige.

“He’s tense,” Paige said.

Rafe, sitting on one of the two rather unsteady chairs near the front window, rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the two women warily. “I’m still trying to deal with you being a fed,” he told Paige. “And the fact that you’ve been here longer than Isabel.”

Isabel shook her head. She was sitting in the other rickety chair, both of which faced Paige, who sat on the bed. “I’m still pissed at Bishop for that part of it. All the time I was arguing with him about sending me down here, and he already had an agent in place-and had sent her here right after the first murder, even before you asked for a profile.”

“Not much gets past him,” Paige reminded Isabel. “Neither of them has said, but I get the feeling he and Miranda keep an eye on any investigations that might even possibly involve any of the killers in our cold-case files. Hell, Kendra probably wrote a program for them purely to do that-scan all the police and law-enforcement databases looking for specific details or keywords.”

“He might have told me,” Isabel said.

“And he might have told Hollis why she was supposed to make sure Rafe knew you understood Latin. Of course, if he had, then she might have been self-conscious about what she was doing, and Rafe might have picked up on the wrong part of the conversation, and you might never have had to bring him to me to find out if he’s psychic because he’d be dead.”

“If my vote counts,” Rafe said, “I vote we let Bishop continue to do things his own way.”

“Okay, point taken. But Hollis is right: one of these days, one of us is going to have to sit down and have a long talk with Bishop and Miranda about the philosophical and actual consequences of playing God.”

“Later,” Rafe said. “Can we please do what we came here to do and find out what’s going on inside my head? How do we find out, by the way? And does it involve something unspeakable like… chicken entrails?”

“What have you been reading?” Paige demanded.

“Well, since nobody offered me a copy of the psychic newsletter…”

Isabel frowned and looked at Paige. “Isn’t that a joke Maggie uses sometimes?”

Paige nodded, her gaze thoughtfully fixed on Rafe. “Yeah. He’s very plugged-in. Aside from Beau, I’ve never met anybody else who could do that. He’s sort of picked up the rhythm of the way you talk too.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“Ladies, please.” Rafe was beginning to look profoundly uneasy.

“Oh, you’re psychic,” Paige said matter-of-factly.

Rafe had braced himself to be told that, but the abruptness and utter calm of the disclosure threw him more than a little. “You don’t have to touch me to make sure?”

“No. I’m not a touch telepath, I’m an open telepath. All I have to do is focus on someone and concentrate. If I can read them at all, I know right away. I can read you, and you’re psychic.”

“I am?”

“You are.” Paige looked at Isabel. “I was pretty sure he was, at that news conference before you showed up on Thursday. When you walked into the room, I was positive.”

“That’s when everything changed,” Rafe murmured. “I felt it.”

“I’m not surprised,” Paige said frankly. “The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. It was like an electrical current was let loose in the room.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Isabel demanded. “Then would have been nice, but when I called you today-”

“I reported in to Bishop on Thursday, and he told me to wait. That you and I shouldn’t have any contact at all until you called me. On Sunday.”

“He knew I’d call today.”

“Apparently, yes.”

“At least tell me he didn’t give you a whole list of things to say to one or both of us.”

Paige grinned. “No. He just said you’d call, and it would be safe for us to meet, that I should follow my training and instincts. So that’s what I’m doing.”

Isabel was looking thoughtful, her irritation with Bishop a fleeting thing. “Wait a minute. Rafe was already a functional psychic before I came into the room?”

“Yeah, but not consciously.”

“Then the original trigger was-”

“Dunno. It had to be recent, and probably some kind of emotional or psychological shock.”

Slowly, Rafe said, “I don’t recall anything like that happening. My life was very ordinary until all this started. Having a serial killer loose in my town was a shock, I admit, but nothing I’m not trained to deal with.”

“Could have been some kind of subconscious shock, I suppose, though that’s really rare. We’re usually completely aware of the jolts we get through life. Whatever it was, I can’t get at it; it’s behind his shield.”

Isabel rubbed her forehead briefly. “Okay, let’s try something a little easier. What happened when I came into the room that day?”

Readily, Paige said, “As near as I can tell, you were the catalyst. Or it was a combination of the two of you in close proximity for the first time. On a purely electromagnetic level, it was like energy going to energy. I felt it come through the room between you. Jeez, I could almost see it.”

“And what did that do to Rafe’s abilities?”

“Same thing it did to yours. Started to change them.”

“Wait a minute,” Rafe said. “Change them from what? And into what?”

“Here’s where we get into educated guesswork,” Paige told them. “From what I was getting before Isabel walked into the room, I think your natural ability would have been precognition.”

“Seeing the future?”

“Like your grandmother,” Isabel said. “She had the sight.”

Rafe leaned forward, elbows on knees, and frowned at Paige. “But I’m not precognitive now?”

“No, not actively. When Isabel walked in, everything changed. Her energy added to yours closed that door and opened another one.”

“I’m afraid to ask,” Rafe said.

“I’m not,” Isabel said. “What’s behind door number two?”

“Clairvoyance.”

Startled, Rafe said, “Like Isabel?”

“Yeah, except that as we all know you have a shield. Dandy one, as a matter of fact. So dandy you’ve got it wrapped around both of you.”

“How is that possible?” Isabel demanded. “He’s not consciously controlling any of this.”

“That’s how it’s possible.” Paige eyed Rafe thoughtfully. “In case you don’t know this, your conscious mind is always second-guessing your hunches and instincts. For most of your life, I gather.”

He nodded without comment.

“Well, your instincts are fighting back. Once your abilities became functional, your subconscious took them over. With a vengeance.”

Isabel frowned. “Wait a minute. If this shield of his is so powerful it can even enclose my mind-”

“Then how am I able to read him? It’s because he’s doing all this at a subconscious level. Just beneath his conscious mind is a solid wall.” Paige lifted her brows at Isabel. “Same one that’s just beneath your conscious mind. It’s really no wonder you can’t hear the voices anymore.”

With a sigh, Isabel said, “You know, Bishop was right-as usual, damn him-to send Hollis with me. She’s been pretty much on the mark about all of this.”