“In most towns, that would be the reason. But not here.”
“Why not here?” Jonah asked warily.
Samantha spoke up, asking simply, “Were you aware you’re a latent psychic?”
“What? No. Me?”
Luke smiled faintly. “It’s not a fully functional ability, at least for now, but you’re definitely a latent. If I had to guess, probably an empath.”
Jonah had no idea what to do with that.
“You don’t sleep well, do you? I mean, you toss and turn even on a peaceful night when nothing disturbing has happened in your town. Even when you’re tired. Even when you need to sleep.”
“I’ve always been a restless sleeper,” Jonah muttered.
“But it got worse once you became chief of police, didn’t it?”
“Well . . . there was more to worry about once I did.”
Samantha said, “Don’t let it throw you, please. Right now, your latent ability is an asset. You deal well with other people, which is part of your job. You’re able to quickly judge the mood if the odd bit of trouble is getting started, and you know who to talk to and what to say to let the tensions ease.”
“I’m a trained cop, it is a part of my job.”
“Like the hunches you get that make you show up at a certain place at a certain time, just as trouble is about to start?”
Jonah frowned at her.
Luke let out a little laugh, rare for him. “Don’t be so worried about it. Latent means it isn’t a major part of your life. Right now it’s hunches and déjà vu and knowing how to talk to people. Chances are, that’s the way it’ll be for the rest of your life.”
“But?” Jonah asked with foreboding.
“But . . . cases like this one, with a powerful psychic playing games and using people as his pawns have a way of . . . ending badly.”
“You mean my missing people could all be dead?”
“That’s always been a possibility and you know it. But the point is, he took them. Your people are in his hands, stolen away by him, and that’s something that demands you use every bit of training and instinct you have in order to see them safe. Your latent abilities could be triggered, go active, for that reason alone.”
“Great,” Jonah said, hearing the uneasiness in his own voice.
Samantha said, “Our abilities tend to be triggered by trauma, remember? Depending on how you deal with this situation and whatever the outcome is, you could find yourself a functioning psychic when all is said and done.”
“But that isn’t definite,” Jonah said hopefully.
Luke shook his head. “No, not definite. Possible, though. Because even if they’re all alive, they’re in the hands of a monster. A monster you’ll probably have to face eventually. Sooner rather than later.”
“Yeah. So?”
“He has an enormous amount of negative energy, Jonah. So far as we know, he’s only used it to abduct six people and find a way into the mind and memories of Robbie. He probably tried with Sam, but she has good defenses, and he didn’t get in.”
Jonah looked at her. “Sure of that?”
“Reasonably. There aren’t really any absolutes in all this, but I tend to go out with no warning either because I’ve used my abilities longer than I should have—or I’m under some kind of psychic attack.”
“My life used to be so normal,” Jonah muttered.
“Kiss that good-bye,” Sam told him.
“She’s being dramatic,” Luke told him.
“Oh, yeah? Want to tell him about the time I was buried alive?”
“Not really,” her husband told her. “Besides, that bastard was out to punish me. Me, deliberately. With very few exceptions, that isn’t the kind of case we deal with.”
“Wait a minute,” Jonah said slowly. Then, almost immediately, “No, it couldn’t be that.”
“Couldn’t be what?” Luke asked politely.
Jonah ran the fingers of both hands through his hair, then rested his elbows on the conference table and stared straight again, frowning. “We’ve been looking for commonalities. One thing all six of these people have in common.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Have you thought of one?”
Jonah’s frowning gaze turned to the evidence boards. “But it’s ordinary. I mean, part of my job.”
“Want to clue us in?” Lucas asked.
Clearly reluctant, Jonah said, “I . . . saved them. Every person on that board is alive today because of me.”
—
NESSA HAD NEVER been so terrified in her life, and it was getting more and more difficult to keep that terror underneath the placid surface of her mind. One outstretched hand had already touched one person, whose clammy skin had made her stumble backward.
But the breathing, soft and even, remained the same.
All Nessa wanted to do was find a wall. It was weird but an exterminator had come to their house a few weeks back, just to spray for the summer bugs that would be coming. Nessa, ever curious, had asked him how he could be sure he sprayed his bug-off along every baseboard of the entire house.
“I just start following a wall,” he’d answered cheerfully. “Start in one direction and keep following a wall. And you end up back where you started.”
Nessa didn’t want to end up back where she started, but she knew if she could find a wall, then surely it would lead her, sooner or later, to a door.
So that was what she was doing. Hands outstretched, moving slowly, so slowly, so if she touched something or . . . someone . . . she’d be less likely to jerk away and maybe turn over something noisy.
At one point, she reached a section of wood, about up to her waist, and then she felt something that was familiar, but not. It took her several long seconds to realize that it was the lid of a toilet, fashioned from rough wood.
And once she acknowledged that to herself, she could smell the odors rising from a pit far below. This had to be where he dumped the pots or bowls or whatever he kept beneath his prisoners.
Nessa recoiled, only just stopping herself before she could collide with one of the silent, breathing prisoners around her.
She spared a moment to concentrate fiercely, to make the placid surface of her mind even calmer, undisturbed. But it was hard, and getting harder. There was a cry of terror swirling around beneath that placid surface, a scream she kept locked behind gritted teeth.
She had to get out of here. She had to.
No matter what their captor planned for them, he had already hurt them in ways Nessa could barely comprehend, ways she couldn’t even form words to describe, and she wanted out, wanted them all out, into the normal world again and safe from him.
So she stepped closer to the wooden box with its toilet lid, and reached carefully past it. Wall. It felt like dirt, but Nessa didn’t care, she kept one hand on the wall, just her fingertips trailing it, and the other out in front of her in case there were obstacles she still couldn’t see in the dark, dark place.
She walked slowly and carefully, vaguely aware that her bare feet were cold, but uncaring. Just keep walking, just one foot in front of the other, and don’t let go of the wall, never let go of the wall . . .
—
“IT’S MY JOB,” Jonah repeated. “I never thought anything about it before.”
“You literally saved these people from death?” Sam asked, her gaze intense. “Never mind modesty, we need the truth. Did you?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
“And you remember them all?” Luke asked.
“I don’t think you ever forget saving someone’s life,” Jonah retorted.
Sam got up and went over to the evidence board. She picked up a marker, and pointed. “Okay. Simon Church. How did you save his life?”
“Before the Jeep, he had a smaller car, a beater, pretty much. I was out patrolling one rainy night when he went past me like a bat out of hell. I called it in, then hit my lights and sirens and took off after him. I didn’t know the brakes had failed and he was trying desperately to stop the car. Just outside the town limits, there’s a mean curve with a solid drop. Straight down about four hundred feet and into an old granite quarry. There was no guardrail at the time.”