It covered over everything, black and powerful.
Until Amy wasn’t even aware of herself anymore.
Until she was . . . until she was . . .
Gone.
EIGHT
Jonah leaned forward at that, his expression shifting from horrified to questioning, intent. “Them? You mean my missing people?”
“I think so. I was trying to block him, trying to shore up my shields. And he was testing them, my shields. He tried to scare me. He tried to make me feel helpless. Then it was almost like . . . seduction. Promises. Like he thought he could tempt me.”
“To go to him?” Luke asked.
“To give way to him. To let him control me.” Robbie drew a breath and let it out slowly, really beginning to understand. “Another SCU agent told me that during a few cases over the years, there had been some . . . He said Bishop called them minor skirmishes. Of mind control. But that they’d only seen it between two psychics who were either deeply bonded or related by blood. And even then it was always an uncertain thing, impossibly difficult to control.”
Luke was nodding. “Bishop’s never been completely convinced it’s even true mind control. He thinks it’s like hypnosis. We can’t be hypnotized, but another psychic, with the right abilities, could . . . manipulate our reality. In theory.”
Robbie jabbed her index finger in his general direction. “Yes. It was like that. I saw and heard myself, and you guys, having a conversation I know we never had, at least not like that. But it was so real. And I was fighting so hard to push him out, using all my strength, that when I finally did—it was like a rubber band snapping. I wasn’t in that reality he created, and I wasn’t here . . .”
She turned her head and looked toward the big window whose new blinds protected them from the curious gazes of passersby. “I was . . . out there. Like I overshot, somehow. I was on Main Street, just around the corner, in the shadows of a dark building. But I could see ahead of me the light from a streetlamp.”
“Robbie?” Dante’s voice held concern. “You’ve gone pale.”
She tried to get a hold on herself. “Yeah. Um . . . I saw something, and I’m honestly not sure if it was real or—or something he threw at me in that last minute.”
“What did you see?” Jonah asked, still intent.
I like him better here in my reality, where he’s not freaked out by what I can do.
She tried to ignore that realization. “I saw a woman. She sort of staggered out of the darkness between two buildings and into the circle of light on the sidewalk.”
“Who was she?”
“I wasn’t close enough to see. Or maybe it was the dark, and the light falling the wrong way. I don’t know. She had her hands up to her throat, and I heard a sound coming from her. An awful sound. She seemed to lose her balance. And then she just dropped like a stone.”
“Robbie—”
“I don’t know who she was, but I know she was dead. I know he killed her. I just don’t know if it was real.” She hesitated, then said, “I think . . . I think she’s dead because she was in the way. He had to be close to try to manipulate my mind. He had to be close, and she almost caught him. Maybe she did catch him. Maybe that’s why he killed her. She caught him, and he didn’t have time to do anything else. Didn’t have time to control her. So he had to kill her.”
Jonah was beginning to look uneasy. Very uneasy. “I think maybe we’d better walk out to Main Street.”
“I think you’re right,” Luke said, getting to his feet.
Rather desperately, Robbie said, “It might not have been real. It might have just been another trick. And even if it wasn’t, I can’t swear that it was even here, in Serenity.”
Sam said, “You’re a telepath; have you ever found yourself, even in spirit, somewhere else?”
“No,” Robbie said slowly. “No, this is the first time anything like that ever happened.”
“Then,” Luke said, “odds are, it was our unsub. And if it was, we need to understand as much as we can about his abilities pronto. But first, we need to find out if what you saw is real.”
Samantha and Dante were also getting to their feet, all of them adjusting or just touching the guns they wore in a kind of automatic reassurance.
“We need to be sure, Robbie,” Sam said.
Robbie pushed her chair back and stood, vaguely surprised that her own hand reached to touch her gun; she hadn’t thought about her training, about the familiarity created by hours and hours of practice at the gun range. She hadn’t wanted to carry a gun, but now she was very glad she did.
And that she knew how to use it.
—
JONAH GOT TO her first, while the others, guns drawn, scanned the area all around the streetlight. The downtown area was still quiet and still, and for now at least all the light came from the streetlights and the flashlights all of them carried.
Robbie stepped closer to Jonah, who was kneeling beside the woman. Her body was positioned so that it had required the light from his flashlight to show them she was indeed dead, her throat slashed from ear to ear and a pool of blood all around her upper body.
“Who is it, Jonah?” Robbie couldn’t see her face, mostly because she hadn’t been able to look too closely.
“Annie Duncan.” Jonah sat back on his heels, the streetlight’s glow making his face look gaunt. Or maybe it wasn’t the streetlight. And it was as if all the feeling had been squeezed out of his voice. “She was one of my officers.”
Lucas seemed to flow out of the shadows to join them. “Sam and Dante are checking the other side of the alley, but so far the only thing visible is some blood.” He paused, holstering his weapon, then added unemotionally, “Arterial spray on the wall, looks like. The unsub must have cut her throat in the alley, then let her go. She couldn’t have walked more than a few steps. In fact, I’m surprised she made it this far.”
“Why was she here at all?” Robbie asked. “She isn’t in uniform, but I don’t remember her being one of your plainclothes cops.”
He didn’t really have those, Jonah reflected, glad for something to occupy his mind. Unless he or Sarah decided to work out of uniform, which was the norm for him and an occasional thing for her. Otherwise, other than Jean at reception, and a couple of other non-cop administration people who only worked part-time, all Jonah’s people wore uniforms.
“She shouldn’t be here,” he said finally, without looking up at Robbie or Lucas. “She was one of a handful who’d been working the phones since dark and on duty since the first shift. I’d told her and a couple of others to go home and get some sleep.”
“When was that?” Luke asked.
“When I checked in at the station on my way to get our takeout. I double-checked on the way back, and they’d all gone home. Or, at least, weren’t at the station.”
“That was a bit after seven,” Luke said. “It’s nearly ten o’clock now. She should have gotten home.”
“I sent them in pairs,” Jonah said automatically. “If one of them lived alone, the other officer was to go in with them and check out the place, just to be sure. Annie lived alone.”
“Who took her home?”
“Adam Sheffey. He’s married with a couple of toddlers—and had one hell of a security system installed barely a week ago. Also has a very protective family dog.” Jonah shook his head slightly. “He’s a good cop. He would have checked out Annie’s place thoroughly before leaving her alone there.”
“She’s out of uniform,” Robbie repeated. “She must have gotten home safely, Jonah. Had time to change. Maybe she came back out to get something to eat.”
He was shaking his head. “She enjoyed cooking. When the rest of her shift would send out for a pizza or some other takeout, she’d always have something homemade in the break room fridge. Usually somebody tried to wheedle her into swapping takeout for her food, because she was such a good cook.”