Matt nodded.
"Okay. A couple of years ago Agent Bishop was called into a missing persons case in San Francisco. The missing woman's husband was quite wealthy and politically powerful, which was why the FBI was called in even though there was no evidence of a kidnapping. Days went by, then weeks, but neither the police nor Bishop and his people could find a trace of the lady.
"Her sister, in the meantime, contacted me. She had heard of me through mutual acquaintances, and believed I might be able to help find her sister. So I flew to San Francisco and went to the house where the missing woman had lived."
"And?" Matt prompted.
"And I knew she was dead." In a wry tone she added, "The police were, naturally, suspicious when I made that claim. But when they started looking for a body, they found one. Just where the husband had dumped it."
"He hasn't gone to trial yet," Bishop said.
"You know and I know he killed her."
"Maybe."
Cassie glanced at the agent, then returned her gaze to Matt. "At any rate, Agent Bishop asked me to allow myself to be tested. I refused, and went back to L.A."
"Why did you refuse?" Matt asked.
"Advice from my mother. It was her belief that until medical science learned a lot more about the brain, psychic ability would never be understood. What science cannot understand it tends to try its best to disprove. The whole process leads to a great deal of tension and pressure, both of which interfere with psychic ability."
Bishop made a skeptical sound.
Cassie didn't rise to the bait. "Anyway, as I said, I went home. A couple of months later I was asked to advise in a murder case. And Agent Bishop turned up – like a bad penny."
"I resent that," he murmured.
Cassie ignored him. "It was a difficult case complicated even more by the fact that I had the flu and should have refused to get involved. That's no excuse, but it is part of the reason I failed."
"How did you fail?" Matt asked.
"Misinterpreted something I saw. What I told them led the police to concentrate on the wrong suspect, and the real killer had time to kill again. Which he did." She looked steadily at the sheriff. "It wasn't the first time something like that happened, and it won't be the last, No psychic is a hundred percent right a hundred percent of the time."
Again Cassie gave a little shrug. "There were a few more cases after that, some I was able to help solve and some I wasn't. Bishop kept turning up, kept asking me to allow myself to be tested. So I finally did. And I flunked all the tests. As I said, I don't perform well in a laboratory setting. I always did choke at exams."
"You graduated college," Bishop pointed out. "Eventually you had to pass those exams."
"Putting myself through that earned me a degree. Putting myself through your tests again would earn me absolutely nothing."
"Except scientific validity and recognition."
"And then what? Go on the talk shows? Find myself getting tons of mail from poor lost souls who think I might be able to help them? Sit in more laboratories while more scientists devise more tests to measure and weigh and define my abilities? Why? Despite what you think, Bishop, I don't want to be recognized. I don't want to be validated. And I sure as hell don't want to be famous."
"Then," he said softly, gesturing around them, "why do this? Why involve yourself in police investigations?"
"Because I can help. Not all the time, but sometimes. Because I was raised to believe it's my responsibility. And because I can'tnot involve myself." She drew a breath and added quietly, "And I really couldn't care less whether or not my reasons satisfy you."
"They satisfy me," Matt said, surprising everyone.
"And me," Ben agreed, tired of feeling invisible in the room.
Cassie glanced at him for the first time, something he couldn't read flickering in her eyes. Then she looked at Matt. "In that case, I say we have more important things to talk about. Is there still no word on that poor girl?"
"No, nothing. Do you think you'd have any luck trying to connect with the killer again?"
Before Ben could object, Cassie said, "I've already tried a couple of times today, and – "
"What?" He stared at her. "When? And without a lifeline? Dammit, Cassie!"
She avoided his gaze once more. "Not long after I woke up this morning, and in the car coming here. There was no danger. It would have been a shallow contact – if I'd been able to get through. I wasn't able. He's keeping me out."
"Convenient," Bishop murmured. For someone who'd more or less been told to mind his own business, he didn't appear to be discouraged or disgruntled, merely calm and watchful.
Matt glanced at him, then said to Cassie, "How about trying to reach the girl? I still have the gloves she left in her brother's car yesterday."
Cassie nodded without hesitation. "I'll try."
The sheriff jerked his head toward the agent. "Want him gone?"
"No, he can stay." She smiled faintly. "One of the things that intrigues him about me – I do perform well outside laboratories."
Bishop made no comment.
Matt reached into his center desk drawer and drew out a plastic bag with a pair of delicate ladies' gloves inside. He pushed the bag across to Cassie. "I'm assuming you could reach her if she's still alive. What if she's already dead?"
"I may get nothing. Or I may know where she is." She had not yet reached for the bag.
"How?" Ben asked her. "If there's no mind there to tap into, how do you know?"
Cassie turned her head and looked at him with an odd little smile. "I have no idea. Sometimes I just know."
He watched as she reached for the bag, opened it, and drew out the pair of gloves. Head bent, she held them in her lap, fingers toying with them. Ben saw her eyes close.
He waited a minute or so, then said, "Cassie? What do you see?"
She didn't respond.
"Cassie?"
"Poor thing." Her voice was soft.
The sheriff muttered, "Shit."
Ben kept his voice steady. "Can you see her, Cassie? Where is she?"
"She's… in a building. A barn. It hasn't been used for a long time, I think. There used to be pasture all around it, but now everything's overgrown…."
Cassie lifted her head and opened her eyes. She was pale but calm. She slid the gloves back into the plastic bag and pushed it across the desk to the sheriff. "I can show you the way," she told him.
Ben wanted to protest, but he knew it would be almost impossible for Cassie to pinpoint the location on any map; there were far too many abandoned barns in far too many overgrown pastures in the area.
Ben and Cassie went in his Jeep, with the sheriff and Bishop following in Mart's cruiser. Ben and Matt agreed that the fewer people who knew they were searching for a body, the better. At least until it was found.
As they headed north out of town at Cassie's direction, Ben said, "I'm surprised Matt's letting Bishop tag along. In fact, I'm surprised he's giving him the time of day."
"If I know Bishop, he probably implied that the Bureau would be very interested in these murders – if they knew about them. The other newspapers in the state too. Although, of course, if he's busy following the investigation, he won't have time to report in or call anybody."
"You seem to know him very well."
Cassie glanced at him. "I can't read him, if that's what you're asking."
"Even when you touch him?"
"I've never touched him."
Ben digested that. "So he has walls too, huh?"
"Big, thick ones." Cassie paused. "Turn up here to the left. Beside that fence."
He did so. "What's he after, Cassie?"
"I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say proof. On the other hand, I've always had the idea he's looking for something he really doesn't expect to find in a lab or on a score sheet."
"For instance?"
"I don't know. As I said, it's just an idea. Wait – slow down a bit. See that dirt road up ahead? Turn onto it."
From the gathering tension in her voice, Ben knew they were getting close, so he fell silent and concentrated on following her directions. Several miles and a few more turns later, he stopped the Jeep on a fairly narrow dirt road. Cassie pointed, and he could see through the trees a ramshackle building that had probably once been a barn.
Uncertainly she said, "I don't think the killer came from this direction, but – "
"In case he did, we'll stop here to avoid screwing up any tracks."
Matt's cruiser pulled in behind them, and the sheriff and FBI agent got out and approached the Jeep, both on Ben's side.
"Is this it?" Matt asked.
Ben pointed and related what Cassie thought about the killer's approach.
"Okay. You two wait here."
"Matt?" Cassie leaned forward a bit so she could see him. "This time he arranged the body for… for maximum shock effect. Brace yourself."
He nodded. He and Bishop disappeared into the trees.
Ben looked at Cassie. "Were you right? About what he intended to do to her?"
Cassie drew a breath and let it out slowly. "Not entirely. He had a few more plans I didn't know about."
"What do you mean?"
She turned her head and looked at him with haunted eyes. "He cut her up, Ben. She's in pieces."
SIXTEEN
The news that the horribly mutilated body of fifteen-year-old Deanna Ramsay had been found spread through Ryan's Bluff like wildfire. By the time Cassie and Ben got back to the Sheriff's Department less than an hour after the body was found, a small crowd was already gathering; by the time the black van belonging to a local undertaker passed through town a few minutes later escorted by a couple of deputies, the crowd had doubled.
With the sheriff still at the crime scene, Ben went out to talk to them. Cassie remained inside and didn't hear what he said, but she watched from the window in Mart's office, and she wasn't surprised when the visibly agitated group calmed somewhat and eventually began to disperse.
"The man has a golden tongue."
Cassie turned from the window to find a female deputy standing in the doorway. Her name tag read sharon watkins.
"But how long will they listen to him?" Cassie asked.
Sharon smiled. "They're listening today. That's really all we can hope for." She hesitated. "We have some pretty good coffee out here, if you'd like a cup."
Cassie appreciated the offer, especially since she knew most of the deputies viewed her with uneasiness if not outright suspicion. "Thank you."
"I'll get the judge some too. I figure he'll stay here at least until the sheriff gets back."
"I think that's the plan." Ben had already made numerous phone calls in a concerted effort to keep the lid on the growing panic and anger of the town.
"He'll have to talk to the mayor again." Sharon sighed as she turned away. "He's already called twice in the last five minutes. The man needs a hobby."
Or a town where no killers lurked, Cassie thought. She hadn't met Mayor Ruppe, but from what she had heard she got the feeling the first-term mayor had a great deal of charm and very little common sense. Which was undoubtedly why he leaned heavily on the advice and help of other leaders of the town, particularly Ben and Matt.
Cassie returned her gaze to the window to watch Ben speak to the few lingering members of the crowd, then went back to her seat on the leather sofa. She would have preferred to be home, but Ben had asked her to stay with him, and she had agreed more because she hoped she might be of some help than because it was a comfortable or safe place to be.
She knew he was worried about her, that he didn't want her alone in her isolated house – even with a protective dog and a good security system. Her most recent contact with the killer had unsettled him as much as it had her, she thought. He was also very obviously feeling decidedly edgy about Bishop.
She couldn't help him there. The agent made her feel edgy herself, and always had.
Cassie leaned her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes – then just as quickly opened them again. The trouble with closing her eyes was that she kept seeing the remains of that poor girl scattered all over that barn. Even with her experience of horrible sights and her hard-won ability to detach herself somewhat, this one was so brutal and dehumanizing that it was branded on her mind's eye in a way she would never entirely escape. But when her eyes were open she could look consciously at something else.
Anything else. The map behind Matt's desk made a good focus. Salem County. One of the larger counties in the state, and shaped vaguely like a triangle…