Robbie was nodding slowly. “He abducted Nessa, touched Sam’s mind at least once and probably twice, messed with my memories, murdered someone . . . And if he’s keeping our missing people alive, he has to do whatever it takes to accomplish that. You’re right. He can’t keep up that kind of pace, not unless he’s a hell of a lot more powerful than any psychic I’ve ever met. He has to eat, to sleep.”
“So,” Jonah said, “maybe this is our chance to try to get ahead of the bastard.” He looked at his second. “Sarah, I hate to ask, but it would help if we could cross off one more supposedly spooky thing from our list of what he can do. We’re never going to figure out who he is unless we know what he isn’t.”
“Okay, okay.” Sarah drew a breath and let it out. “Just . . . don’t expect me to like it.”
Keeping her own voice brisk, Robbie said, “I’m not a touch-telepath, but probably best if we’re both sitting down when I try this.”
“When you try it?”
“Well, I know I can read you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I can read you right now. Control is one of the things we struggle with.” She looked suddenly at Dante, brows raised. “Maybe part of the unsub’s control issues?”
“Maybe. If those energy bubbles are what’s left over when he uses his abilities, it could be he doesn’t have as much control as he thinks he does, and is . . . spilling . . . the energy he can’t fully control.”
“That’s all we need. If Sam says his energy is negative, I believe her. Especially since we know now that he’s a killer. I hadn’t thought . . . but killing Officer Duncan could have added to that negative energy. I wonder if he even realizes.”
Sarah said, “Hate to interrupt, but can we please get this over with? Just because I’ve been comfortable with the idea of psychic abilities doesn’t mean I’m all that anxious to have my mind read. No offense,” she added to Robbie.
“None taken. I’m still not entirely comfortable with reading people, and I’ve been able to do it all my life.” She sat down at the table, while Sarah sat down immediately to her left.
“What do I do to help?” Sarah asked.
“Sounds trite, but close your eyes and think about that morning. When you found the car, and the teenagers gone. Just think about that, okay?”
“Got it.” Sarah drew another breath and let it out slowly, closed her eyes, and concentrated. It was a Saturday, early Saturday, and she was doing an easy patrol alone because she’d wanted to get out of the station for a while. Just an easy patrol on a peaceful morning—
—
WHAT THE HELL is the Church boy’s old Jeep doing out here? Honestly, I would have thought him too lazy to be up and about so early. Unless it’s late for him . . .
Huh. Why’re the doors open?
She pulled her cruiser off the road and far enough back not to disturb any evidence—just in case there was some. She even unsnapped her weapon holster once out of her cruiser, though that was, she told herself, just a precaution.
She felt . . . odd. The hair on the back of her neck was stirring, and she didn’t know why. She wanted to call out for the Church boy but knew she was close enough to wake Mildred Bates, and that was the last thing she wanted. Even though it was more likely than not the dratted woman would be up any time now.
She approached the Jeep warily.
Engine off, but key in the ignition. The back packed full of stuff, like somebody was moving. And in the front passenger seat, a girl’s colorful, bespangled purse.
Amy Grimes. She was very proud of her gaudy purse, carried it everywhere even though most girls her age had ditched purses in favor of little pouches just big enough for cell phones, driver’s licenses, and maybe a credit card or a few bucks.
Sarah pulled a pair of nonlatex gloves from the inner pocket of her lightweight jacket and put them on. Amy Grimes’s purse contained an equally bejeweled cell phone, the usual girly stuff—plus what looked like several thousand dollars in cash.
An elopement. Of course.
So . . . where were the soon-to-be-wed teenagers?
Sarah walked around to the driver’s side—and that was when she saw the tracks down the gentle slope of the embankment and to the flat below.
Footprints. A large pair and a smaller pair. Weirdly precise footprints that just . . . stopped.
Sarah stood looking around for a few moments, puzzled but also conscious of that uneasy sense of things being not right.
Amy wouldn’t have left her purse like that, especially with so much cash. Simon Church wouldn’t have left his Jeep just sitting on the side of the road, keys in the ignition as though inviting it to be jacked.
Not that carjacking was the sort of thing that went on in Serenity. Still.
She sat gingerly in the driver’s seat and started up the engine. Seemed to be working fine. Tank was full of gas, according to the gauge. Nothing in the car said there was anything wrong. Except for the absence of the teenagers.
Sarah turned off the Jeep and got out, and after a slight hesitation she walked farther down the grassy verge so that when she went down the sloping embankment, it was not close to the footprints. She walked around the area carefully, noting that last night’s rain had left everything soaked, the dirt now mud that clung to her shoes.
She was careful. She circled widely, looking for any sign that the kids had gone beyond the point where the eerily precise footprints had stopped.
No signs they had. No signs of anyone else, at least since the rain. Absolutely no sign to tell her what had happened here.
Except that two teenagers appeared to be missing.
It wasn’t a conclusion Sarah jumped to. Simon Church was inordinately proud of his old Jeep and had a habit of twirling the keys around one index fing er.
The keys were in the ignition.
Amy Grimes was inordinately proud of . . . well, herself. Her possessions. And she was a girl who liked to make plans.
Sarah doubted that any plan of Amy’s would include leaving her prized purse and a wad of money behind.
It would have been easy, of course, to call the Church and Grimes families and ask if their kids were home, safe and sound and, if so, could they please tell Simon he’d left his car inexplicably here and Amy had left a purse full of cash . . .
Sarah returned to her cruiser, sighed, and made the call that would undoubtedly wake up Jonah. And then—
“Skip ahead, Sarah. Jonah arrives, you both check out the scene, and he asks you to take photographs and call for the police tow truck. Isn’t that the way it happened?”
An odd voice, Sarah thought. Soothing and yet . . . an order. So she skipped ahead.
Yes, that was the way it happened. Jonah left in his Jeep, and Sarah was making adjustments to the camera before taking the pictures—
No. When Jonah left, she was already down the embankment and on the flat, placing a ruler beside the footprints before photographing them. Wasn’t she? She thought she had been doing that. But here she was, near the hood of her cruiser, making adjustments to the camera, just fiddling, really.