Kay Hooper - Blood Sins

Sawyer didn't bother to turn his head to look at the camera thirty yards away from them but kept his gaze on her face. "And you know all this because?"

"Because I'm psychic too. And one of the things I'm really good at is sensing another psychic and knowing what abilities they have."

" One of the things?"

"I'm also clairvoyant, though not like you; I tend to pick up bits of information, emotions, snippets of thoughts. I have an unusual shield that hides my abilities from every other psychic I've ever encountered, and I'm mildly telepathic both ways."

"Both ways?"

Yes. Both ways.

"Shit. Was that"

"Me, yeah. Sorry. It is, to say the least, intrusive to shove thoughts into other people's minds without so much as a by-your-leave, and I generally ask permission first." Her shoulders lifted and fell in a little shrug. "The ability only seems to work with other psychics. And even then I'm limited to very short phrases and sentences."

Sawyer thought about the sarcastic inner voice that had been nagging at him and had to ask. "You haven't beenyou haven't done that before? Put thoughts in my head?"

Her eyebrows went up a bit. "No, that was the first time. Why? Has there been an alien voice in your head?"

"I assume you mean alien as in unfamiliar."

"Well, I'm not a big believer in visitations from little green men, so, yeah, that's what I mean."

"How could I have an unfamiliar voice in my head?"

Her mouth twisted slightly. "Around here? Pretty easily, I'd say. There's a weird sort of energy in this place, here in the Compound and even in Grace, and you can't tell me you don't feel it."

"Lots of places have weird energy. That doesn't translate to somebody else's thoughts in your head."

"It might here. I can't be absolutely sure of the number, but I can tell you there are quite a few psychics inside this Compound."

"I can't believe I'm having this conversation," he muttered.

"It gets worse," she told him.

"JESUS.How does it get worse?'"

"We believe Samuel is one of the strongest and most unusual psychics we've ever encountered. Extremely powerful and extremely dangerous. And probably at least one of the people closest to him is an unusually strong psychic as well. Maybe DeMarco." She shook her head. "I couldn't get a read on him, and that's rare for me."

Sawyer took a moment to sort through the questions rattling around in his mind and focused on one. "We believe. Who is we ?"

Tessa answered readily, having clearly expected the question. "I work for a civilian investigative organization called Haven. We're called into cases that present difficulties for cops and federal agents, for whatever reason. Most of us are licensed P.I.s, but we obviously don't have quite as many rules and regulations to worry about during an investigation."

"You break the law?"

"Personally, no. Well, not so far, though I have to admit I've never been faced with that particular choice. And it isn't company policy, believe me; we also work with cops and federal agents, both of whom would be more than a little uncooperative if we didn't mostly play by the rules."

"Mostly."

She ignored the muttered word to add, "This time out, we're part of a federal investigation of the Church of the Everlasting Sin. And of Samuel."

"First I've heard of it." He tried to keep the suspicion out of his voice and undoubtedly failed, judging by her faint smile. Or, hell, maybe she's just reading your mind .

"You'll have to forgive us for that. We had reason to believe that Samuel could have people inside local law enforcement. Church members, perhaps. So we couldn't be sure who to trust. Until we had someone here who could"

"Read me?"

Tessa nodded. "We had to be sure. We couldn't take the chance of confiding in the wrong person, not with so many lives potentially at stake. I'm sure you know enough about cults to know that if and when the cult leader is threatened, or even just feels threatened, the consequences can be devastating."

"Koresh," Sawyer said grimly. "Jim Jones."

She nodded again. "Probably something you've been worried about yourself, especially in recent weeks. You pulled those bodies out of the river. I'm betting you know there have been other victims as well. Victims someone else had to pull out of the river at some point downstream. Victims who died in unnatural ways."

"Are you telling me that Samuel killed them? You know he killed them?"

"If we knew absolutely, if we could prove it, then you and I wouldn't be having this conversation. We're sure he's responsible. We just don't have courtroom proof. Yet."

"Sowhat? You're here to get that proof? By allowing them to recruit you, take you into the fold?" Before she could answer, he sat up straighter and said, "Wait a minute. If this is your job, then you aren't really Jared's widow. It's all a cover."

She cleared her throat and looked, for the first time, a bit uncomfortable. "Jared Gray is alive and well. Sailing somewhere off Bermuda, last I heard. I'm sorry, Sawyer, for the deception. That part of it, at least. He saidwell, he didn't think there'd be anybody back here to grieve for him, especially since he left right after high school. He was in Florida trying to untangle his parents' estate months after they'd died in a car crash, hadn't even started thinking about what he'd do with the part of it here in Grace."

"You asked him to play dead."

"Not me personally. But, yes, that's what he was asked to do. And he was willing to disappear for a few months. More than willing; I think he was sick of dealing with legal matters and just wanted to get away. A sailing 'accident' was easy enough to arrange."

"And a wedding before that?"

"All the paperwork to indicate there had been a wedding, yes. An actual ceremony wasn't necessary."

"Just a lot of lying."

Grave now, she said, "I hate that part of the job. And if I didn't believe I was helping, doing something positive with my abilities, I couldn't pretend to be someone else."

Sawyer drew a breath and let it out slowly, honestly not sure if he was relieved or pissed. "So what's your real name?"

"Actually, my real name is Gray. Tessa Gray. One of the hardest things about going undercover is remembering a whole new name, so we try to avoid that as much as possible, keep at least our Christian names the same. This time it just happened to work out that I was able to keep both."

"Quite a coincidence."

"My boss says there are no coincidences. Just the universe arranging things."

Hollis Templeton would have been the first to admit that inactivity drove her nuts, so she considered it a cosmic joke that fate had placed her in the small town of Grace and in the Gray family home where she was virtually a prisoner.

She couldn't even go into town.

"You broadcast," Bishop told her frankly. "Especially since you began to see auras. We can't take the chance that Samuel or his people might see or sense you. It's enough of a risk just to have you in the house with Tessa when church members visit her."

"I know, I know. I wouldn't even be here if Ellen Hodges hadn't told me I needed to be. I just wish she'd told me why I needed to be here."

"You'll find out eventually. But until you have some sense of why, you have to keep a low profile."

"I don't have to like it."

"No, I wouldn't expect you to. But sit tight for the time being."

Hiding her abilities had never been an issue until recently, and since they were still evolvingseeing auras was a very new aspectshe had spent her time learning to cope with what was rather than worry about shielding it from other psychics.