Kay Hooper - Sense Of Evil

“He’s going to broadcast that?”

“On today’s six o’clock news, he says.”

“Shit.”

Rafe shrugged. “At this point, I don’t think he’ll report anything the killer doesn’t already know. That’s what worries me. If I were him, the killer, I’d go after Isabel, and I wouldn’t wait a week to do it. I’m assuming he’s thinking the same way.”

Mallory sighed and said, “Safe assumption, probably. Plus, if Isabel’s right and he really did kill Emily because she knew something rather than because she was one of his blondes, then he could have been-for want of a better word-unsatisfied by the murder.”

Rafe muttered a curse under his breath and increased the Jeep’s speed. He didn’t say anything else until they reached the informal rest area and pulled off the highway. Ignoring the questions called out to him by several members of the media still braving the hot day hoping for a photo or a news bite, he headed toward the clearing, relaxing visibly when he saw Isabel and Hollis.

“The phone call?” Isabel asked as the two cops reached the agents.

“No joy,” Mallory reported. “Pay phone.”

“And there won’t be prints,” Isabel said with a sigh. “He’s using gloves. Not latex, I think, which is odd.”

“What do you mean?” Rafe asked.

“Well, latex gloves leave you with a much more tactile sense of what you’re touching, you know that. And since they’re form-fitting, they don’t get in the way.”

“No, I mean how do you know he isn’t using latex gloves? We haven’t found a sign either way at any of the crime scenes.”

“I touched them,” Isabel said slowly, surprised that she only now remembered that.

“Excuse me?” Mallory’s voice was very polite.

Isabel realized she was being stared at, and shook her head. “Sorry. I forgot none of you had seen it here. Or even knew, I guess. I wonder why I forgot that part?”

“What part?” Rafe asked with visible patience.

“I told you that sometimes, rarely, my abilities manifest themselves physically in a vision. During one of those, I am the victim. I feel what he or she feels, and I usually come out of it covered in blood. Blood that fades away completely after a few minutes.”

“I’d call that creepy,” Mallory said.

“Yeah, it’s not much fun.” Isabel shrugged. “Anyway, what really brought me to Hastings is that I had a vision while Tricia Kane was being killed. I felt what she felt. And when he drove that knife into her chest for the last time before she died, her hands reached up to touch the knife-and touched his hands. He was wearing gloves. Not latex gloves, but thick leather gloves, like working gloves. His hands were big, or at least that was the sense I got.”

“And you’re just now telling us this?”

“I’m just now remembering.” Isabel frowned. “I guess the voices crowded it out. Maybe that’s one in the plus column for your shield.”

Thunder rumbled just then, and they all glanced upward at the threatening sky.

Half under her breath, Hollis muttered, “Oh, God, I hate storms.”

“We’re about to have our crime scene washed away,” Rafe noted. “Weather’s calling for heavy rain today and tonight, with and without thunderstorms.”

Isabel hesitated, looking at him. “I’ve tried,” she said. “I’ve tried all morning to pick up something, and I can’t. I can’t break through the shield.”

“Stop trying to break through it.” He held out a hand to her. “Work with me, not against me.”

“Rafe-”

“We don’t have the luxury of time, not that we ever did. We can’t afford to wait any longer. Like it or not, this is it.”

“Should we leave?” Hollis asked, indicating herself and Mallory.

“No,” Isabel said, then hesitated, recalling what had happened with Paige, and added, “But you might want to step back a little bit.”

Both women did, watching the other two warily.

Slowly, Isabel reached out her own hand and felt the spark, felt his fingers closing around hers.

“I wish we had more time,” Rafe told her. “I wish we had the luxury of dinners and movies, and hours of talking to each other about what matters to us. But the truth is, we don’t have that time. We need every possible tool we can get our hands on-or our minds wrapped around-and we need it now.”

“Yes. I know.”

“You’re next on his list. You know that too.”

Isabel hesitated again, then nodded.

“Paige said we’d have to work together. That it would take both of us to figure out how to use this shield.”

“Yes.” Isabel looked at their hands for a moment, suddenly realizing something. “You’re right-handed; I’m left-handed.” Those were the hands clasping.

“Like closing a circuit,” Rafe said slowly. “Or maybe… opening one. All this started when I held your wrists. Both of them.”

“Alan, why on earth would I trust you?” Dana Earley demanded.

“Because you want a good story, you want to find out what happened to Cheryl Bayne, and you don’t want to be the next blonde on the menu.” He paused. “Probably in that order.”

Dana didn’t bother to be indignant. “So you found out that I have police sources in Alabama you want me to tap, and in exchange you’ll share information you got from your own sources in Florida.”

“Yes. Look, you’re TV and I’m newspaper; if we work this right we can both be heroes.”

“Or one of us could be dead. Like me. Alan, if Cheryl is dead it has to be because she got too close. I’m not so sure I want to get too close to this guy, story or no story.”

“Which,” Alan said, “is why we have to move fast.”

“Jesus. I know I’m going to regret this.”

Isabel turned slightly so that they were facing each other, glanced down at the bloody ground where the horribly mutilated body of a young woman she had both liked and felt sorry for had so recently lain, and her mouth firmed. “We should be somewhere else,” she said.

“No.”

She looked at Rafe.

“We should be here. We need to be here, Isabel.”

“Why?”

“Because two women died here. Because evil did what it wanted to do, needed to do, here.”

The sound of thunder grew louder, more ominous.

“It’s disrespectful. Let the rain wash away her blood.”

“That isn’t the investigator talking,” he said.

Isabel smiled wryly. “No. It isn’t. I liked her, you know. She felt isolated and misunderstood-and I could relate. I’m sorry she’s dead.”

“I know. So am I. But the only thing we can do for her now is stop her killer before he does that to someone else.”

Before he does it to you.

Isabel could almost hear his words in her head. Or maybe she did hear them. Whichever it was, she knew he was right. “Yes,” she said.

“The universe put us here. And it put us here, and now, for a reason. Remember what you told me? We leave footprints when we pass. Skin cells, stray hairs. And energy. He left his energy here, and recently. He left his hate, and his anger, and the stamp of his evil.”

There was a flash in the distance, and Isabel said, almost to herself and with a touch of fear in her voice, “I can smell it. But it’s lightning, not brimstone.”

His fingers tightened around hers. “Is it? You said you had to face it this time. Confront it this time. That ugly face evil always hides behind something else. You have to face it. But, Isabel, you won’t do it alone. Not this time. Not ever again.”

She drew a breath and let it out slowly. “I didn’t expect that. I’m not quite sure how to deal with that.”

“The same way you deal with everything else,” he said, smiling faintly. “Head-on.”