"Hey, Justin. Remember me?"
He cleared his throat. "Hey, Shelby. What's up?"
"Funny you should ask."
CHAPTER TEN
It was a little before three o'clock when Max approached the Gallagher house, this time much more quietly than he had hours before. He didn't want to admit to himself that he hoped to catch Nell's partner lurking about, but that would have been at least partially true.
The rest of the truth was simply that he was feeling more than a little unsettled, worried about what Nell was risking by being here and doing what she was doing, and angry with himself for the earlier leave-taking that had demonstrated another truth all too clearly.
If he really had gotten over her, he wouldn't have felt the need to convince her that he had.
He never had been able to pretend disinterest with Nell. From that first summer, his awareness of her had been immediate and absolute, an intense tangle of complex needs and emotions that had bordered on obsession. He had been able to hide his feelings from others, if only because she had been so insistent that their growing closeness remain as private as possible. But between the two of them, there had been no uncertainty, no hesitation.
They had belonged together, and both of them knew it as surely as though that truth had been stamped in the very molecules of their bodies.
Max had no way of really knowing what Nell's life might have been like since she left Silence and him, and he didn't know why she had run away all those years ago without so much as a note left behind to explain her reasons. But he knew what he still felt, and even trying to pretend he didn't feel it was going to be next to impossible.
So, naturally, he was mad as hell about it.
He dismounted and tied the horses at the edge of the woods, then walked across the small backyard to the kitchen door. It was open, only the flimsy screen door providing any kind of barrier against whoever or whatever might want in, and he swore under his breath as he stepped into the tiny mudroom directly off the kitchen.
He could see her through the doorway, sitting at the kitchen table talking on a cell phone, and she watched, unsurprised, as he stepped into the room.
"Yeah, I know that," she was saying in her half of the phone conversation. "Maybe it'll be a wild-goose chase. Probably will, as a matter of fact. But we should at least get started and see if anything turns up."
She fell silent, and even though he couldn't make out the words, Max could hear the distinctive rumble of a strong male voice on the other end of the connection. It was something he had noticed with some cell phones and some voices.
"No, we're going to check out the Patterson house next," she said. "Yeah. I will." A frown crossed her face as the man on the other end spoke at length, and then she said, "Well, we knew he would sooner or later, right? I'll just have to be careful what I tell him. So when—if—he shows up, I guess I'll play it by ear. Right."
She broke the connection and then slid the little phone into the pocket of the jacket hanging over the back of her chair.
Immediately Max said, "Precautions, huh? The door's standing wide open, Nell."
"I just opened it a few minutes ago," she said. "I knew you were coming. The coffee's still hot, if you want some."
Since she was obviously not going to refer to anything he had said earlier in the day, he was more than willing to follow suit. At least for now. He nodded and went to fix himself a cup of coffee, saying, "Was that your boss?"
"Yeah."
"What might be a wild-goose chase?"
"Looking for Hailey. Bishop will have somebody back at Quantico try to track her down."
A bit surprised, he said, "Because she was involved with Luke Ferrier?"
"Reason enough to try to find her. Ask what she knows."
"You really haven't been in touch with her at all?"
Nell shook her head. "Keever said my father had received some kind of message from her a week or so after she left, saying she was never coming back and telling him not to bother looking for her. That's when he wrote her out of the will, so maybe it said something else that made him even madder, I don't know. I
didn't even know she was gone until I talked to Keever after my father died."
"How did he know where you were?"
"He didn't. I called him."
"Why?"
Nell drew a short breath and said softly, "I knew my father was dead. I felt it. Can we change the subject now, please?"
Max was feeling too rawly exposed himself to be able to back away when he knew damned well how important this was, and so said persistently, "You said you hated him, so why did you care he was dead?"
"I didn't say I cared. I said I felt it."
"Felt what? Felt him die?"
"Felt… the absence of him. Max—"
"You sound as if you'd been connected to him all these years."
"In a way, I was. Blood ties, Max. No matter what, we can't escape them."
"What about your grandmother? Did you feel the absence of her too?"
"No," she replied with obvious reluctance.
"Just your father?"
"Just him."
"Then it was more than blood ties. You said he didn't share the Gallagher curse, that he wasn't psychic."
"He wasn't."
"But you felt it when he died?"
After a pause, as if to very deliberately stop the forceful rhythm of his questions, she said, "We're not going to do this, Max. Not now. I came back here to do a job, and that's what I have to concentrate on, because people's lives are at stake. If you want to help me, fine. If not, get the hell out of my house, and stay out of my way."
Her resistance didn't do much to soothe Max's temper, and his voice showed the strain of his effort to sound calm about it. "I see. Well, tell me one thing at least, will you, Nell?"
"I'll have to hear it first."
"Tell me we will do this before you run away again. That you'll be willing to answer a few reasonable questions. I think you owe me that much."
"I think I owe you… an explanation, yes. And you'll get it, Max. Before I leave Silence. Good enough?"
"I guess it'll have to be."
Nell didn't question the grudging acceptance, merely nodded.
Max drew a breath and tried again to keep his voice calm. "So who're you expecting to show up?"
"Ethan."
"Ethan? Why?"
"The Gallagher curse." She smiled wryly as he finally joined her at the table. "Ethan doesn't believe in it, but we always knew he might get desperate enough to come to me for help. Always assuming he's not the killer. If he is… coming to me could still be a good idea. To find out what I know."
"So what makes your boss think he'll show up?"
"It's a logical assumption."
Max had a feeling it was more than that, but he decided not to question.
Nell said, "I haven't asked you before, but do you think Ethan would be capable of killing?"
"Killing—yes. These murders—no," Max answered.
"Why not?"
"To be honest, I think Ethan lacks the imagination for something like this. He's very straightforward and pretty obvious in his likes and dislikes—as I know better than anyone. Subtlety is not one of his strong suits. Plus, if you and your boss are right about some long-buried secret being at the heart of this, I'd be very surprised to find one in Ethan's past."
"Assuming it isn't him," Nell said, "do you think he realizes it might be a cop?"
"I don't know. But there is one thing I'm pretty sure of. When it comes to digging for the truth, he doesn't stop until he finds it. No matter who gets in his way."
Bishop frowned at the scanned photograph that had just come out of their color printer, and said softly, "Shit."
Tony came to peer over his shoulder at the shot of Nell walking down the steps of what appeared to be a courthouse, with a man in the background watching her, and in the foreground… "That isn't a ghost, is it?"
"No."
"Then what the hell is it?"
Bishop handed him the photo, his face grim. "Evil."
Tony went around to the other side of the conference table and sat down, staring at the photo with a slight frown. "Really? In what sense? A force? A presence?"
"Probably both."
"Was Nell aware of it?"
"No. And that really worries me."
"Who took the picture?"
"A friend of hers. A friend who thought it unusual enough to take it to Nell."
"A psychic friend?"
"Nell says not. So the camera captured something that was physically there, even if not visible to the naked eye."
Tony put the photograph on the table and leaned back, frowning more heavily now. "Nell's sensitive to events, taps into the energy signature left in rooms and other places by extreme emotions, right?"
"Right."
"How about the spider sense?"
Bishop nodded. "She can enhance her other senses by concentrating. So it's difficult for anything or anyone to sneak up on her, if that's what you're asking."
"Yeah. But this… presence… snuck up on her. Is looming over her, as a matter of fact, and not in what I'd call a friendly manner." Tony tapped the photo with a finger. "Is that how you knew it wasn't a ghost?"
"Partly. Disembodied spirits in the traditional sense, those without a physical self, have a distinct emotional signature, and it's likely Nell would pick up on that."
Tony frowned. "So she'd know if there was a ghost around, even though she isn't a medium?"
"Probably, Her ability is unique as far as we can tell, but we have developed a few theories—most of them untested as yet. The chances are pretty good that the energy signature of ghosts and other disembodied spirits is close enough to what her mind naturally taps into that she'd at least be sensitive to it. Unable to communicate with a spirit the way a medium can, but definitely aware of a presence."
"But she didn't sense this presence. Because it didn't have the right energy signature?"
"Because it wasn't a ghost or a spirit, and because its physical self existed elsewhere. Astral projection, Tony. Out-of-body."
"You mean this is the spiritual energy of somebody who's alive and well and right there in Silence?"
Bishop nodded. "Alive at least. Well is arguable."
Tony considered that a few moments, then said, "You believe it's also a force. What makes you think so?"
"Look at its shape, how elongated and distorted it is. It's barely recognizable as anything even remotely human. A normal astral projection that's visible at all assumes the perceptible shape of the body it knows best, the physical body it normally occupies. In other words, what you saw would look like the person it represented."
"This," Tony murmured, "looks like a monster."
"Exactly. That is the physical manifestation of a very disturbed mind. But, even more, look at the size of it, the threatening posture. The sheer mental energy required to project something of that magnitude over any distance at all indicates an extremely powerful, extremely dark intellect."
"And it wouldn't be something innate to or trapped in this area, this building, right?"
"Right."
"Then… it was following Nell. Watching her."
"That's what it looks like."
"And we didn't know about it."
"We," Bishop said grimly, "didn't know about it."
Tony winced. "Shit. I guess we can assume the likelihood that this is also the killer they're trying to find down there?"
"We can assume there's a damned good possibility it is. I love a good coincidence, but I seriously doubt there are two separate evils at work in Silence at the same time and that the one we aren't after would be focused on Nell."
"Yeah." Tony drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "And I guess it's unrealistic to think this… thing was following her around just because she looks good in jeans."
"Probably. So the question is—why was it following her? Has her cover been blown, at least where the killer is concerned? Or is… it… interested in her for some other reason?"
"Is there any way for her to find out? Safely, I mean, without giving away to the killer what she's doing."
Bishop shook his head. "I can't think of a way. She can stay alert and try to keep her senses wide open, but that's dangerous as hell. Even without being a true medium, if she taps directly into something this dark it could leave her vulnerable to attack—psychic and physical. At the very least, he'd know who and what she really is and that she's looking for him."
"And at worst?"
"At worst… if he's as powerful psychically as I believe he is and Nell opens up her mind to him… if this photo is evidence of true, controlled astral projection and not just a one-time, nightmarish event… if Nell has become a focus for his attention, for whatever reason… then she's in danger. And not the kind of danger that can be held at bay with bullets or a badge."
"Lots of ifs," Tony noted after a moment.
"I know. Problem is, I think they could all be the truth of what's happening down there."
"So we've got a very dark and twisted killer who's a cop and who is also psychic. Am I being paranoid, or does the universe seem to delight in stacking the deck against us these days?"
"You're being paranoid. But that doesn't mean you aren't also right." Bishop ran restless fingers through his hair and frowned. "You know, by its very definition, evil is something beyond normal, or at least what most people consider normal. Maybe we should just expect the bastards we hunt to be psychic in some sense until proved otherwise."
"It'd probably save time," Tony agreed wryly.
"Yeah. And in the meantime… there's what's happening in Silence. I'm about a breath away from pulling Nell out."