“So not too difficult to hack,” Robbie noted.
“Not difficult at all. Now, the Tyler house, that would have been a lot harder. That would have taken some skill. Sounds almost impossible. Until you remember that security systems are designed to keep people out. Not in.”
Dante was rubbing his jaw absently. “Yeah, okay, but it still would have taken some skill to orchestrate the garage and outside cameras so the images remained frozen long enough for Nessa to get out and away, and yet keep the time stamp going.”
Jonah nodded toward the evidence board, where the shadow of a man’s outline represented their unsub—with no information beneath it. “So now we know three things about him. Can’t really prove he’s psychic, not in a courtroom. But now we know he’s good with computers and understands security systems. I can name off the top of my head a couple dozen men who barely know how to use their cell phones.”
“It’s a good start to the profile,” Robbie said. “Now we’re beginning to understand this guy.”
“Wait a minute,” Sarah said. “Luna looked hypnotized. And we didn’t see anyone around her.”
Robbie sighed. “He wasn’t within sight of me when he was messing with my memories. But that didn’t stop him from doing a pretty fair job, despite my shields. I seriously doubt Mrs. Lang had any shields at all. So . . .”
“She would have been easy,” Jonah said. “Nessa certainly would have. The only one of the others I would have called strong-minded is the judge.”
“Contrary to popular opinion,” Robbie said, “the more intelligent someone is, the easier they are to hypnotize. I’m guessing our psychic unsub would have been able to handle the judge too. At least long enough to get him away from his fishing site and maybe trussed up in the trunk of a car.”
“Which tells us something else about him,” Dante said.
Sarah looked at him, brows raised in question.
“Control is an issue with this unsub. He’s turned people into his puppets, mindlessly doing his bidding. I’m guessing he has little to no control over any of the people in his normal life. And that there’s probably someone he’d love to control but hasn’t yet gotten the nerve to try.”
Clearly uneasy, Sarah said, “How far would he take that when it comes to our missing people? I mean, okay, let’s say he used a little bit of psychic control and some decent computer skills to abduct these people. And then—what?”
None of them wanted to consider worst-case scenarios, but it was Robbie who finally said, “Since we don’t yet know why these people were taken, what their connection to him—and to each other—is, why these particular people were his targets, we can’t even speculate about what he did after he abducted them.”
“No,” Jonah agreed. “We can’t. All we can really know is that none of their bodies have turned up. Yet.”
—
HE HADN’T REALIZED how tired he was until he was showered and had to force himself to eat something. Had to eat. Had to keep his energy up.
But he realized just how tired he was when he heard faint sounds coming from his Collection, and had to concentrate hard for several moments until they were still and silent again.
He had been able to keep them still and silent even while he slept, but that was a different thing. He supposed, having done some reading on the subject, that what he used then was a kind of posthypnotic suggestion, planted deeply in their minds.
Maybe too deeply. The girl was, as far as he could tell, the only one who never stirred.
Maybe he had gone too deep with her.
He thought about it, but not really with any anxiety. After all, it was his Collection. It didn’t matter what they wanted or needed. They belonged to him. He only fed them because it pleased him to keep them alive.
For now, at least.
—
SARAH WAS FROWNING again. “Wait a minute. The first abduction. The teenagers. Simon Church’s old Jeep isn’t exactly crammed with electronics, unless you count those god-awful loudspeakers he jerry-rigged in the back. Nobody could hack into that thing except with an axe.”
“True,” Jonah conceded. He half sat on the conference table after finding a small space free of file folders. “But there’s still the mind-control thing. Or whatever it is. Hate to say it, but neither one of those kids could come close to winning an academic scholarship, and they were both very self-centered.”
“Easy targets,” Dante noted.
Sarah hadn’t stopped frowning. “Say you’re right about that. We are still left with two very large elephants in the room,” she said. “The first is those photographs I took that didn’t show the open car doors or the footprints both Jonah and I saw. And the second is those energy bubbles.”
Robbie shook her head. “I still think those energy bubbles have something to do with him and his abilities. I don’t know why it’s only outside and not inside, or how it monkeys with time like that. But I’m certain he’s the cause.”
“And the photographs?” Sarah’s voice was a bit tense.
Dante murmured, “The more intelligent the person . . .”
“You think he played one of his little mind games on me?” She didn’t quite snap the question.
“Don’t shoot the messenger,” he said, holding up a placating hand. “But at least until he killed Officer Duncan, this unsub was apparently a two-trick pony. Computers. And some kind of psychic mind control. We really haven’t seen anything else from him in the way of skills.”
It’s not difficult at all to cut someone’s throat.
Nobody said that. Out loud, at any rate.
Jonah said, “Sarah, we know there was time for him to take those kids wherever he took them and still get back to the car before you found it.”
“Okay. But you saw the open doors and footprints too, Jonah. And there was not a lot of time between you leaving and Tim getting there with the tow truck.”
Nobody said anything, until finally she swore and said it herself. “Him too, huh?”
Jonah spoke carefully. “It was just before that cloudburst. You took the photos quickly, and Tim got the car hooked up to his tow truck quickly. If the unsub did have to . . . mess with your memories, both of you, it wouldn’t have been for long.”
“All he really had to do,” Robbie said, “was stall you two long enough to close the car doors and rake away the footprints—but leave the memory of that in your mind and Tim’s.”
Sarah remained stubbornly silent.
Robbie tried again. “I doubt he can create images on film, not that specific, at least. The energy he leaves is too . . . uncontrolled.” A thoughtful expression crossed her face briefly, but then she shook her head slightly and finished, “You took photos of the scene as it actually was; you only remember the way it looked when you found it, and showed it to Jonah.”
Grim, Sarah said, “Any way you can prove that?”
“In court? No.” Robbie sighed. “But I can probably prove it to you. Telepathically.”
“So you can read more than surface thoughts,” Jonah said.
“Memories sometimes. Especially if the person I’m reading has been . . . fretting about something. And I can usually project those memories back to whoever I’m reading. Look, Sarah, it’s up to you. I can keep my focus very narrow, and look only for those memories.”
Not exactly protesting, Sarah said, “Is it dangerous for you to try reading me with the unsub around somewhere?”
“I’m not so sure he’s near enough to matter,” Jonah said. “It’s not dawn yet, barely twenty-four hours since he abducted Nessa Tyler. And it’s been a very busy twenty-four hours for him. He has to be feeling the strain. Seeing Samantha go out the way she did is all the proof I need that psychic abilities take, sometimes, more energy than a psychic has to give.”