Kay Hooper - Sense Of Evil

“Yeah, the rookies often are. Sometimes knowing just the basics can offer you more room to speculate and the imagination to do it,” Paige said. “The rest of us tend to get tripped up by our own assumptions.”

“I’m still trying to figure out the basics,” Rafe told them. To Paige, he said, “So I’m not stripped naked to you, just down to my underwear.”

“Pretty good analogy.” She smiled. “And accurate, as far as it goes. I’m not picking up thoughts from you-I mean clear thoughts like sentences. It doesn’t work that way for me. You could be calling me rude names in your head or worrying about some deep dark secret you don’t want anybody to know, and I wouldn’t necessarily read either.”

“Because you specialize in reading psychic ability in other minds?” he guessed.

Paige nodded. “Exactly. My own energy seems to be tuned for that, picking up on that particular frequency. So I usually know if somebody else is psychic, how they’re psychic, and what’s going on in that area of their minds. But the human brain is vast, mostly unmapped terrain, and the larger part of it is as alien to me as it is to most everybody else.”

Rafe shook his head as he sat back in his chair, but said, “Okay, how do I control this?”

“Simple. Get your conscious mind in control.”

“And you’re going to tell me how to do that?”

“Wish I could. Sorry. This is the sort of thing almost every psychic has to figure out more or less alone. The only advice I have to offer is that you two work together on it. Clearly, you’re meant to.”

It was Isabel who said, “So tell us why.”

Paige didn’t hesitate. “Do me a favor and hold hands for a minute.”

Rafe looked at Isabel, then held out his hand. With only a slight hesitation, she put hers in it.

At the spark, Paige’s eyes widened. “I’d heard about it but not seen it. Interesting, to say the least.” She frowned, obviously concentrating.

But then something really weird happened.

While Isabel and Rafe watched in fascination, Paige’s shoulder-length dark hair began to lift and stir as though a breeze had wafted through the room. There was a soft popping and crackling, and a low hum began to fill the silence.

HOLLIS LOOKED UP as Ginny stuck her head in the conference room to say, “Caleb Powell is here to see you. Should I show him in here, or to one of the offices?”

“In here, I guess. Thanks, Ginny.” Hollis went to cover the bulletin boards, then returned to a chair on the far side of the table. She was more than a little surprised that he wanted to see her at all; to seek her out here at the police station, and on a Sunday, definitely made her wonder.

Especially after their last meeting.

“Hi,” Caleb said as he came in. He didn’t shut the door behind him, and Hollis didn’t suggest that he do so.

“Hi yourself. What’s up?” With a gesture, she invited him to sit down on the opposite side of the table.

He hesitated, then sat down. “I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?”

“You know. I acted like a jerk when you told me about your eyes.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “You didn’t act like a jerk, you were just a little unnerved. I can hardly blame you for that, since I am too. And I’ve had months to get used to them.”

“Still, it was a lousy way for me to act. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.”

Caleb moved half-consciously in his chair. “Then why do I get the feeling I’ve damaged… something… beyond repair?”

Having watched Isabel and Rafe circling each other like a couple of wary cats, Hollis was in no mood to play games. “Caleb, you seem like a nice guy, with a nice, satisfying life here in Hastings. And I hope that after we’ve done our job and gone away, you get your nice little town back again. I hope we can offer you some sense of closure in Tricia’s death by finding the animal who killed her.”

“But?”

“But nothing. There isn’t anything else. There never was, really.”

“There might have been.”

Still being honest, she said, “I sort of doubt it. Not because of anything you said or did, but just the timing.”

“And there’s no use even trying?”

“I think… that right now my life and your life are so different we could never even find a bit of common ground to stand on. Honestly. You don’t know me, Caleb. The little bit you do know is just the tip of a pretty dark and unsettling iceberg.”

He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Yeah, I was afraid you’d say something like that.”

“Admit it. You’re relieved.”

“No. No, not relieved. In fact, I have the distinct feeling I’m missing out on something I’ll regret one day.”

“Nice of you to say so.”

He smiled a bit ruefully. “Look, there’s something else I came here to tell you. Show you. Something that could possibly be related to Tricia’s murder.”

Hollis had no problem in shifting from the personal to the professional-which told her a lot. “What is it?”

“I found something in the desk. My desk, not hers. It was in a drawer I never use because it’s in an awkward position in the desk layout, and apparently she’d been using it to store work-related things she no longer used. Mostly old notebooks. I went through all of them, and they were all the shorthand notes she’d taken. Dictation, notes about schedules and appointments, that sort of thing.”

“What was unusual about that?”

“Nothing. But when I was going through the last notebook-which was actually the one that had been on top, by the way-a slip of paper fell out. I’m guessing it was something she wrote down during a phone call, and the date puts it just before the murders began.” He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket, adding, “My prints are all over it, but I figured it didn’t really matter. It’s clearly a private note, since it doesn’t match anything in my schedule, and I doubt it has any value as evidence-except to maybe point the investigation in a different direction.” He placed the small piece of paper on the conference table and pushed it across to her.

Out of habit, Hollis nevertheless used the eraser of the pencil she was holding to draw the paper closer so she could study it. “Looks like her handwriting,” she said.

“I’m no expert, but I’ve seen a lot of her handwriting over the years. She wrote that. Plus, that’s the sort of doodling she tended to do when her mind was on something else.”

The “doodles” were clear enough. A little cat face; a couple of hearts with arrows through them; stairs leading to nowhere; a sun setting off the edge of the paper with its rays beaming; a female eye, with long lashes and carefully detailed iris; and two circles connected by a series of smaller circles.

The paper was clearly from a notepad; it was a neon green, and across the top was printed: It works in practice, but not in theory.

“There were other notepads like this one in her desk,” Hollis remembered. “The kind with preprinted cartoons or funny sayings on them.”

“Yeah. She said they lightened up the serious tone of a lawyer’s office, but she only used them for personal or throwaway notes.”

Hollis nodded, and studied what Tricia had written in the center of the notepad.

J.B.

Old Hwy

7:00 5/16

It was followed by two large question marks.

“Did Tricia know Jamie Brower?” Hollis asked.

“She never mentioned it, if she did.”

“How did she react when Jamie was murdered?”

“Shocked and horrified, just like the rest of us.” Caleb frowned. “She did take a few vacation days unexpectedly, now that I think about it.”