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“What other reason would she have to come back here?” Robbie asked. “Far as I can see, she isn’t even carrying her sidearm.”

“I can’t think of a reason. She’s been a cop ten years; she’d know better than to come out, alone and unarmed, at a time like this.”

Dante and Samantha rejoined them then, both holstering their weapons.

“Nothing,” Dante reported to Lucas. “It’s all pavement or gravel, and other than what was in the alley, there’s no sign of blood. No footprints either, bloody or otherwise.”

“I can get Sully out with his dogs,” Jonah said, more or less automatically.

“There might be a faster way,” Samantha said.

HE WATCHED THEM from his vantage point, unsurprised that they moved as easily as any well-practiced team. They didn’t stop to gather any of Chief Riggs’s people, which gave him pause. He would have expected the telepath among them to be weakened by his attack.

Uncertain, at the very least. Bothered. Unwilling to trust her own instincts and thoughts and urges.

But she seemed very focused and very certain, leading them cautiously but steadily along Main Street until they reached the circle of light from a streetlamp.

And the crumpled body of a woman on the cold concrete sidewalk.

He wanted to linger, to watch them work the scene. He wanted to know if they used standard police work or their extra senses. He really wanted to get a better idea of what those other senses consisted of. Besides the telepath. But her steadiness made him feel just a bit uneasy about remaining so close to her.

She was strong. Stronger than he had expected.

And he wasn’t quite certain what that would mean.

But for now, for this night, he knew that if he wanted his work to continue, he needed to fade back into the night. And possibly reconsider his options.

Because he had connected with the telepath’s mind. He wasn’t sure if she knew what that meant.

But he knew.

“NO WAY IN hell,” Lucas said with some force.

Samantha’s tone was calm and reasonable. “It’s the quickest way, and you know it. Maybe I’ll get a sense of the unsub and maybe not, but at least we can find out why Annie was out here when she should have been safely locked in at home.”

“It’s too dangerous, Sam. She’s dead. Last time you tried something like this, it nearly killed you.”

“That was different.”

“Was it?”

“Luke, we don’t have time to argue. With every moment that passes, the energy in her brain dissipates more. If I wait too long her memories will be out of reach forever.”

Robbie was looking at Dante. “You don’t get a sense of the recently dead, do you?”

He shook his head. “Not so far.” He didn’t look too eager to try this time.

“It’s safer if I try.” Samantha was still looking at her partner and husband. “I’ve been at this a lot longer. I have more control.”

Not entirely sure what was going on, Jonah said, “You aren’t a medium too, are you?”

“No. But a clairvoyant can often pick up energy from a crime scene. Or a death scene. Even a dying brain has energy. Maybe especially a dying brain. Our brains have energy, electrical impulses, and they don’t just stop the way a heart stops. It takes a few minutes for that energy to dissipate. Luke, I have to try and you know it.”

Robbie said to Lucas, “You know the signs if she gets in too deep. If that happens, pull her out. But we need to know, Luke. Even a rookie agent can be sure of that.”

Their team leader hesitated, then swore under his breath. “I’ll be close,” he told Samantha. “I see anything that looks like you might be in trouble, I’ll yank you out. Got it?”

“Got it.” She knelt down on the other side of the body from Jonah, and looked at him steadily. “You up for this?”

“I have no idea,” he said frankly. A dying brain? Christ. “Just tell me what not to do so I don’t screw up whatever it is you’re trying to do.”

“Lean back, and don’t touch her.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Samantha barely waited for the chief to lean back and for Lucas to kneel at her side. She drew a breath and let it out slowly, then leaned forward and, without any sign of squeamishness, placed one hand across Annie Duncan’s forehead and the other over the bloodstained sweatshirt just above her heart. Then Sam closed her eyes and bowed her head, almost as if praying.

Jonah hadn’t been told not to talk during this . . . procedure . . . but the silent attention of the others was a good indication to him that he should keep his mouth shut. And all he could think about for several minutes was how on earth he was going to tell Annie Duncan’s parents she’d been brutally murdered.

How could a parent ever recover from that?

And what about Nessa Tyler’s parents? The Grimes and Church families? Judge Carson’s many friends and the far-flung family he seldom mentioned? Sean Messina’s family and girlfriend? Luna Lang’s husband and infant child?

He told himself that his missing people weren’t dead, couldn’t be, that this group of very matter-of-fact FBI agents with their odd abilities was going to help him find his people alive.

All of them.

Because he was pretty sure he couldn’t live with any other outcome.

Even as that realization surfaced, Samantha sucked in a hard breath, and even in the poor light of the streetlamp, he was certain he saw her normal pallor increase.

A glance at Luke’s face told him only that the other man was grimly watchful, but not yet ready to pull his partner and wife from . . . wherever or whenever she was.

In Annie Duncan’s dying moments? What kind of hell must that be? How could anyone still breathing get that close to a violent death . . . and return to tell the tale?

SAMANTHA NEVER HAD any preconceived notions whenever she focused on an object used in violence—or a person whose life had been brutally destroyed. Not anymore. She had discovered the uselessness of that peering into a crystal ball as a carnival seer. No matter what she expected back then, using abilities still raw and mostly untried, reality was always something else.

Lesson learned.

She didn’t think about what she might see or hear because it was always different. Always unique.

And sometimes horribly painful.

Annie Duncan died in agony and darkness. Not just pain, and not just night. In her final moments of consciousness, she could feel him behind her, flesh and bone like her. Except not like her. Dark. Something once human coated in darkness, like a sludge of . . . evil. And strong. So strong. And cold. And inescapable.

You shouldn’t have been watching, little girl.

Wait. Who?

For a strange and dizzying instant, Samantha knew that their psychic unsub had abruptly become aware of her. It didn’t make sense, because she was in Annie’s mind, in Annie’s memories of what had happened, so how—

Annie tried to force words past the forearm pressed against her throat, but couldn’t. Wanted to tell him she hadn’t seen anything, anything at all. Too tired to cook but hungry, she had taken a shortcut from her condo to the favored local pizza place, walking instead of driving because she’d thought the walk would do her good, clear her head, so preoccupied with her thoughts it hadn’t even occurred to her to bring her gun. Something had been nagging at her, and she just couldn’t make it come clear in her mind. Something she had read in a report or a statement, something someone had said to her or something she’d said to herself—

She didn’t really feel the knife, not immediately. Just his forearm removed, and before she could say anything at all, there was something else preventing her from speaking. She put her hands up and felt the horrendous opening of her throat, felt the hot blood flowing over her hands, and her legs went weak.