A real knife, not a metaphorical one.
On top of everything else, Bishop was always restless and uneasy whenever Miranda was out in the field without him. There was probably nobody in the world who respected Miranda's strengths and abilities more than Bishop did, but that didn't stop him from worrying about her.
Turning from the window, Tony raised a subject he hoped would occupy his boss's mind, at least for the moment. "Have you revised that profile of the killer in Silence? I mean, since we got the latest information?"
Special Agent Noah Bishop looked up from his study of photographs of bits and pieces of physical evidence and frowned slightly as he shook his head. "Nothing we've learned recently changes the profile."
"Still a cop?"
"Still probably a cop."
"How sure are you of that?"
Bishop leaned back in his chair and gazed around the sitting room of the hotel suite as if it might provide answers, his pale gray sentry eyes as sharp as always. His reply was slow. "Unofficially? Pretty damned sure. But there's always room for doubt, Tony, you know that."
"Yeah. But you tend to be awfully accurate, for all that. If you say you're pretty sure, then he's probably a cop. Tough for our people, having to keep their heads down, look for a killer, and police the police."
Bishop nodded, still frowning. The scar on his left cheek stood out more clearly than normal, as it always did when he was tense or upset. A useful and accurate barometer of his mood during those times when even another psychic found it difficult or impossible to read him any other way.
Not that this was one of those times.
Tony watched him. "You're still bothered by something else, aren't you? In Silence."
Since he had long ago learned the uselessness of denying thoughts or feelings another member of his team was picking up on, Bishop merely said, "There's an undercurrent I can't quite get a fix on."
"What kind of undercurrent? Emotional or psychological?"
"Both."
"With Nell? Or with the killer?"
Bishop grimaced. "Plenty of undercurrents with Nell, but we knew that going in. No, it's something about the killer I can't bring into focus. I think he has another reason for picking his victims. Not just because they have secrets he wants to expose. There's something else."
"His own history with them, maybe?"
Bishop shrugged. "Maybe. It almost feels as if… it's more personal for him. That maybe the sins he's punishing them for aren't just the ones exposed by their murders or the investigations. That there's something else there, if we could dig deeply enough to find it."
"So he tells himself he's killing them, punishing them, to get justice for the innocent people in their lives, but all the time it's revenge for himself?"
"At least partly for himself. But he still thinks of himself as a judge and jury. He still believes he's performing a service for society, he's convinced himself of that, by sentencing and executing these men for their secret sins."
"But also for injuring him."
Bishop ran restless fingers through his black hair, slightly disarranging the vivid white streak above the left temple. "I get the sense he despises them, all of them, and all for the same reason."
"Because they hurt him? Lied to him?"
"Maybe. Dammit, I need to be down there. I'd have a better shot at figuring this bastard out if I was there, on the scene."
Tony said, "Well, aside from the fact that your face was plastered all over the national papers a few months ago after we cracked that kidnapping case, which would make it a little hard for you to blend into the background down there, we also have this small matter of an active serial killer here in the Windy City."
"You don't have to remind me of that, Tony."
"No, I didn't think I did," Tony murmured. "Look, maybe we can wrap things up here quickly enough that we'll be able to get down to Silence and help out."
"Yeah."
Tony watched him a moment longer, then said, "I know what you're really worried about. But Miranda's okay, you know that."
"Yes. For the moment."
It wasn't the first time Tony had wondered whether the psychic bond between Bishop and his wife was a blessing or a curse. When they were working together, concentrating on the same investigation, it was undoubtedly a blessing; together they were far more powerful and accurate, both as psychics and investigators, than either was alone. But when they were separated by necessity, as they were now, each working on a different case, then the bond often proved to be something of a problem—or at the very least a distraction.
Bishop knew Miranda was currently safe and unhurt because, even though they had closed the "doors" connecting their minds in order to keep from distracting each other, they each maintained a constant sense of the other's physical and emotional state no matter what the distance was between them. Bishop knew Miranda was safe for the moment, just as she knew he was—and also knew he was worried about her.
Tony didn't pretend to understand it, but like the other members of the unit, he was more than a little awed by it. Even among psychics accustomed to various, often extraordinary paranormal abilities, some things were still remarkable.
What must it be like to be so bonded to another person that their thoughts and feelings flowed through you as easily as your own did? To be so connected that if one was cut, the other would also bleed?
It was Tony's opinion that such incredible intimacy would require both a great deal of trust in and understanding of one's partner and an equally great degree of security and honesty in oneself. He seriously doubted that any pair of psychics who were not mates or blood siblings could have formed such a bond.
But it wasn't all good, as this situation illustrated. Bishop and Miranda had been together long enough by now that they had learned to function extraordinarily well both as a team and when separated by circumstances, but their unusual closeness literally made each in many ways incomplete without the other.
Tony had absolutely no qualms about serving with either one of them alone; even when lacking their vital other half, both Bishop and Miranda were formidable psychics and investigators, skilled and tough cops, and more than a match for most situations in which they found themselves. But he would also be the first to admit that it was far more comfortable to serve with them both, the partnership intact and the two of them functioning smoothly as if with a single mind and heart.
A hell of a lot less tension that way.
With all of that very much in his thoughts, Tony spoke carefully. "We're spread pretty thin right now, with a half-dozen separate major investigations scattered across the country all going on at once. We have to use all our resources and all our aces. Every team in the field has to have a dominant member, that's your rule. A lead investigator with as much experience as possible who's also the most powerful psychic available."
Bishop said, "Something else you don't need to remind me of, Tony."
"All I'm saying is that Miranda being the lead might make all the difference in her case, and you know it. Just like you being the lead here and Quentin being the lead out in California, and Isabel running the show in Boston. Besides, Miranda took care of herself for a good many years before you tracked her down and reappeared in her life."
"I know that."
"She's a black belt and a crack shot, besides being able to read at least two-thirds of the people she encounters. All of which gives her quite an edge in the survival department."
"I know that too."
"I know you know that. All of that. I also know none of it makes a damned bit of difference at the moment because you've spent way too many sleepless nights alone in bed. It's starting to show, boss."
"Look who's talking."
Tony started slightly and felt his face get warm. Damned inconvenient sometimes, he thought, working with a telepath. Especially one as powerful as Bishop. "Never mind me."
Remorselessly, Bishop said, "Nothing like getting the scare of your life to advance a relationship to the next step."
"Shit. How long have you known?"
"About you and Kendra?" Bishop smiled slightly. "Longer than you have, Tony. Long before she was shot."
Tony considered that, then shook his head. "I knew Quentin was on to us but figured that was mostly because he's usually Kendra's partner in the field. And because he so often knows things he shouldn't, damn his eyes."
Mildly curious, Bishop said, "Why even bother trying to keep it quiet?"
"I don't know. Yeah—I do know. You've said yourself there are few secrets in a unit full of psychics; sometimes it's fun to have a secret. Even if you're only fooling yourself that's what it is."
"I get that where you're concerned. It's just the sort of thing you'd like. But Kendra? She's awfully levelheaded to enjoy a secret romance."
Tony grinned. "Are you kidding? It's the levelheaded ones that go off the deep end, believe me."
"I'll take your word for it."
"Do that. I'm not nearly sure enough of her to risk having everybody openly watching us to see what happens next."
"Remember who you're talking to. In this unit, we don't have to openly watch to know what's going on."
"Yeah, but at least that way we won't feel quite so much like bugs under a microscope."
Deadpan, Bishop said, "So we should be subtle while we gleefully observe?"
"I'd appreciate it if you would," Tony responded earnestly.
Bishop lifted a brow at him. "It occurs to me that you're having a shot at that sort of subtlety now. Tony, are you trying to distract me?"
"I was working on it, yeah."
"Why?"
"You know damned well why. The tension in here. That's something you couldn't be subtle about if you tried. And you never try."
With only a mild attempt to defend himself, Bishop said, "I'm always tense during an investigation."
"No, that's a different kind of tension."
"And you'd know."
"Well, yeah."
Bishop grimaced slightly. "Okay, okay. I will do my best to stop worrying about things I can't control. In the meantime, would you care to come away from that window and do something useful? Like work?"
"I thought you'd never ask," Tony responded cheerfully, joining his boss at the conference table. But before he picked up a photograph to study, he added in a musing tone, "Getting back to Silence for just a minute—what do you think about this connection Nell has? Think it'll make things easier for her?"
"No," Bishop replied soberly. "I think it'll make things harder for her. Much harder."
Tony sighed. "And there's nothing we can do to help?"
"Some things have to happen—"
"—just the way they happen," Tony finished. "Yeah, I was afraid you were going to say that. And in some cases, boss, it really sucks."
"Tell me about it," Bishop said.
CHAPTER SIX
"I don't know if I'll ever get used to these… episodes of yours," Max said, releasing her shoulders only because she moved away.
Nell nearly reminded him that he wouldn't have to since she didn't intend to remain in Silence for long, but instead heard herself say, "They're unnerving, 1 know. Especially for someone else. Sorry about that."
He shook his head. "Never mind. Just explain a few things, will you, please? I'm getting really tired of groping through this fog of confusion." Even though the words were flippant, his tone was anything but. "And before I try to figure out what the hell you mean by saying your father was murdered too, can you start with the basics?"
"It's getting late," she hedged, wondering if she was only talking about the lateness of the hour on this particular night or something a lot more important. She had a hunch it was the latter, and it bothered her more than she wanted to admit even to herself.
"I know. But I doubt either one of us is going to be able to sleep anytime soon. I need to understand, Nell. And I think you owe me that much."
She didn't protest, all too aware that she owed him a lot more than that. What was the going price for leaving a man in limbo? High. Maybe too high to pay. She set her coffee cup on the scarred old butcher-block table in the center of the kitchen and sat down in one of the ladder-back chairs. She waited until he sat down across from her, then spoke slowly. "Explain the visions, you mean?"
"Can you explain them?"
Nell shrugged. "I understand them a bit better than I did while I was growing up—even though what I felt instinctively way back then turned out to be pretty accurate."
"For instance?"
"What it is I actually tap into during a vision. A sociologist would say I had just experienced what they call an apparitional event. That I had seen—or at least claimed I had seen—the ghost of my father walk through this room. But that's not what I saw."
She smiled faintly. "In the very broadest sense, it was the memory of the house."
"No. I'm saying the house remembers."
"You said something like that before, years ago," Max noted. "That some places remember. But I don't understand what you mean. How can a house have a memory?"
"Any object—a house, a place—can have a memory.
Life has energy, Max. Life is energy. Broken down into their most basic form, emotions and thoughts are energy: electrical impulses produced by the brain."
"Okay. And so?"
"And so energy can be absorbed and retained by an object or a place. By walls and a floor, by trees, even by the ground itself. Maybe certain places are more likely than others to retain energy because of factors we don't yet understand, because their physical composition lends itself to storing energy, or there are magnetic fields—or even that the energy itself is particularly powerful at a given moment and we ourselves stamp that into a place with our own strength and intensity.