It was a sudden sensation, a chill that crawled slowly over her body and raised the hair on the nape of her neck. What her mom had sometimes referred to as "somebody walking over my grave." It wasn't a commonplace feeling, and Jennifer had learned to pay attention and be wary, because she had come to realize that it invariably meant her subconscious had noted something important and/or dangerous that her conscious mind was as yet unaware of.
A cop's instincts, Scott called it.
So what was it? The scene she studied was perfectly normal, a few cops moving in or out of the building, a couple of civilians walking briskly past on the sidewalk, not much else. A slight wind stirred the nearby trees, their bare limbs scratching against one another while the last dead leaves clinging to them rattled dryly.
Jennifer shivered and zipped her jacket all the way. "You're getting jumpy, Seaton," she muttered to herself. As if she could possibly be in danger here in the parking lot of the police station. It was absurd. But she couldn't help looking back over her shoulder as she unlocked her car, and she was careful to check the backseat thoroughly before she got in.
There was nobody there, of course. But as she put the key into the ignition, Jennifer saw a folded piece of paper lying on the dashboard. Something that definitely hadn't been there when she had returned alone from lunch and locked the car up. She was wearing gloves, as usual this time of year, so didn't hesitate to carefully unfold it.
Block-printed on the paper in a faint and rather unsteady hand were two numbers. Dates?
1894
1934
Jennifer sat staring at the paper for a long time, her mind working. The 1934 date-always assuming it was a date, of course-corresponded with the date of the murders in their incomplete files, and that couldn't be a coincidence.
Could it?
Was the earlier date another year during which other similar crimes had taken place? Was their brutal rapist copying crimes from long ago, choosing his victims to closely match doomed women some other monster had attacked and left for dead, adding only his own personal touch of blinding them?
If he was, why? What twisted motivation compelled him to at least partially re-create old, unsolved crimes? Because they were unsolved? Because he believed he, too, could commit his crimes and walk away undiscovered?
Could it be so simple?
That possibility was unsettling enough; what really disturbed Jennifer was the certainty that someone had placed this note inside her locked car while it had been parked mere yards from the police station. Someone who seemingly knew a lot more about this series of brutal rapes than the police had yet discovered.
Who? And was this note an effort to help the police?
Or was it a direct and mocking challenge from an animal more hunter… than hunted?
"She's gone," John said as he rejoined Quentin in the chill, empty room at the top of the stairs.
"Told you she would be." Quentin moved slowly around the room, his flashlight pointed at the floor. Most of his attention seemed focused on what he was doing, but his voice was matter-of-fact. "Fight or flight. She couldn't fight, so she ran. I imagine she has a place she feels safe and reasonably secure. Home, probably. She'll be there. She'll need to be there, at least for a while."
John frowned as he watched his friend. The room still wasn't quite dark, and he could see Quentin fairly well. "Is that why you stopped me when I would have gone after her? Because she needed to get somewhere she felt safe?"
"And because I knew you'd push her."
"What are you talking about? Push her how?"
"Push her to tell you whatever information she might have gained in this room, information that could help us find answers. You're convinced she can help us find those answers, and your tendency will be to press forward without any loss of time, just the way you would in business. And I'm telling you that's the wrong tactic with Maggie. Like it or not, you're going to have to be very careful with her. She'll help us in her own time and her own fashion-and that's the way it's going to be."
"Why? Because she's gifted?"
"Pretty much, yeah. John, living with this sort of thing, most of us develop defense mechanisms to cope. If we have… understanding or at least sympathetic family and friends, the defenses tend to be simple ones. But if we feel too alone, too isolated and different from those around us, especially for most of a lifetime, then the defenses can be major and complex. I'd guess your Maggie belongs in the latter group."
"Isolated? She's surrounded by people who admire what she does," John objected. "Not one of the cops I talked to showed anything but respect and gratitude toward her. Hell, it was almost awe."
"I'm sure they are grateful. And I'm sure they respect her for her ability to help them catch bad guys. But that awe you were picking up on can be read another way. Fear. You can bet most of those cops don't understand how she does the things she does, and when there's no understanding there's often fear. Especially of something that looks like magic. You can also bet that Maggie knows exactly how they feel."
"It doesn't seem to bother her," John said. "At the station, she was very sure of herself, not at all hesitant."
"She would be-there. My guess is that while she's probably strongly empathic with people and able to bond with them fairly easily when she wants to, where she really connects is at a scene of violence. Like this one." Quentin hunkered down for a moment to more closely examine the area of floor where a mattress had lain.
"How is that possible?"
"Well, one theory is that thoughts and emotions contain an actual electrical signature, a form of energy that may linger in objects, in an area, especially if what was experienced in that area is particularly intense or violent. If you think about it, it'd explain a lot of the so-called ghostly sightings of things like battles and soldiers. Hell, there are places in Europe where some people swear ancient Roman soldiers still march."
"You don't believe in ghosts?"
"If you mean do I believe the dead have an existence beyond the flesh, yes, I do. But I'm also convinced that what most people believe are ghosts are actually those electrical signatures I'm talking about. Violent things happened in some places, and some of those places-for reasons we don't yet understand-retained that energy. It wouldn't be visible to most people, because people tend to use their senses in only the simplest and most limited way. But some people would be sensitive to it, able to feel and possibly interpret the energy. As a rough comparison, think about static buildup on a cold, dry day; it isn't apparent until you touch something and are able to discharge the energy."
"Are you saying Maggie's a conduit?"
"More or less. If electrical energy can permeate objects, then it's reasonable to assume the energy would remain for at least a while, until it could dissipate naturally or could be discharged through some kind of contact."
"You make it sound like a logical equation."
Quentin straightened and absently flexed cramped muscles. "In a way it is. Stop thinking of it as something magical or unnatural; take what you know is scientific and push it a little further, extend it to the next logical step. On the most basic level, our thoughts are nothing more than electrical energy interpreted by the brain. True?"
"True."
"Okay. Then it's perfectly reasonable to suppose that just as there are incredibly gifted musicians and scientists, people who seem born with amazing knowledge and abilities, some people could also be born with an unusual sensitivity to the kind of energy we're talking about. Just another talent or ability, perfectly human even if rare. Where you look at this room and see dirt and stains and peeling wallpaper, people especially sensitive to the electrical energy of thoughts and emotions might see a lot more."