Tony looked from one to the other of them, then said with forced lightness, "I guess this is where I demonstrate my ability to obey orders and follow the rules, huh?"
"I'm afraid so," Bishop said.
"Okay. Well, then, if you two don't mind, I think I'll go see how Sharon is coming with that autopsy." He didn't wait for approval but left the conference room briskly.
Bishop said, "You know he's rattled when he voluntarily observes an autopsy. He hates them."
"Yeah. This isn't going to be easy for him." Miranda hesitated. "Are we right to keep him away?"
Bishop sighed explosively. "Hell, I don't know. You saw the same thing I did. That whole situation's so damned precarious, one player too many turns it into a bloodbath. Quentin and Kendra are involved now, there's nothing we can do to change that. Pull them out, and we could make things immeasurably worse. Go in ourselves and the same thing could happen. And, like you said-this one's about fate. We'll have to leave them all to find their destiny."
They'll make it, Miranda said through the telepathic link they shared.
I hope so. But I've found fate to be a… brutal master. Even if they do make it, they'll never be the same again.
Her hand reached across the table, and their fingers twined together in a gesture neither of them had to comment on. No matter how intimately minds touched, sometimes the only real comfort to be found was in the warmth of flesh touching flesh.
Maggie turned off her cell phone and returned it to her pocket. "Andy said he'd have the forensics team go over the game room again, just to be sure. Apparently they didn't find much the first time, but he said they were figuring she was grabbed in the kitchen or front hall."
"So he believed you when you told him Samantha Mitchell was attacked in that room?"
"Yes, he believed me. Experience has taught him to trust my… instincts."
They were sitting in John's car, still parked in the drive of the Mitchell house, and he made no move to start the engine. Instead, turned slightly in the driver's seat, he watched her intently. "You haven't shown him what you've shown me, have you? Why not?"
Maggie was trying very hard not to shiver visibly, but the cold weariness she felt was getting harder and harder to ignore. She just wanted to go home and soak in a hot tub, maybe listen to some peaceful music and simply try to forget for a while.
"Why not?" John repeated.
"Because it wasn't necessary," she answered, almost too tired to think. "All Andy ever needed from me was sketches, and he could believe what I gave him without questioning where it came from, because I'd proven he could believe it."
"So I need more from you?"
For a moment, Maggie was tempted to tell him what a loaded question that really was. Instead, she abruptly opened her sketch pad and turned to a certain page and stood the pad up on her lap so he could see the sketch.
John caught his breath.
It was a sketch of Christina as she'd been before the attack that had ruined her face and destroyed her life. This face he stared at was, John realized dimly, more than simple pencil lines on ivory paper. Much more. The pale brown hair, straight and cut casually mid-length, surrounded a delicate oval face that was unusually pretty, with large sparkling eyes and a beautiful smile with a deep dimple on one side…
It was his sister as he remembered her, so vividly alive he expected her to laugh suddenly or cut her eyes sideways at him the way she always had when she found him amusing or he tried her considerable patience when he was, as she put it, "being big brother."
"Jesus," he murmured.
Maggie tore the sketch neatly from the pad and handed it to him. "If this was all you needed from me, you wouldn't have to believe anything beyond what you understand. I knew your sister, I drew her likeness-there it is. I'm an artist, it's what artists do. Nothing paranormal about it."
"I'm not so sure," John said, handling the sketch carefully. "But thank you for this."
"You're welcome. Do you mind if we leave now? I know you wanted me to go with you to talk to your friend Quentin at this command post you guys have set up, but I need to be home for a while first. I'm a little tired."
John looked at her for a moment, then nodded.
"Quentin said you probably needed to spend time at home alone whenever one of these… events… tired you."
"Quentin was right."
He got his briefcase from the backseat and secured the sketch carefully inside before starting the car. It was several miles before he spoke again, and then it was to ask a slow question.
"So what more do I need from you?"
She didn't hesitate. "Answers."
"About Christina?"
"About all of it. You want to know why she killed herself, but more than that. You want to find the man who destroyed her life. And…"
He frowned. "And?"
Maggie stared out through the windshield. Was Beau right about this man? He was usually right. And if he was right-she had to be very, very careful.
"Maggie?"
"And… you want him to pay for what he did. You may not fully believe there's anything paranormal about my work, but you do believe I can help you find this rapist."
After a moment, he said slowly, "Why do I think that isn't what you were originally going to say?"
She was silent.
"Okay, then tell me this. How is it you're so sure Samantha Mitchell was abducted by the serial rapist? Abducted I'll buy, but how can you know it was him?"
Maggie hesitated, then said deliberately "Because it felt like him."
"You… don't mean felt emotionally, do you?"
"No. It physically felt like him. When he grabbed her from behind, the feel of his arms around her, his chest against her back, the way he… rubbed himself against her as she struggled, were all just the same as with the other attacks."
"You felt that because they did?"
"Yes."
"When you interviewed them? When they relived those memories?"
She nodded.
"Did you go to the places the other women had been abducted from?"
"Only one of them. Laura Hughes was abducted from her high-security apartment building, so I was able to do a walk-through there. But the others were grabbed either in very public places or places where there had been far too many people around later. It would have… muddied the impressions."
"Impressions?"
Dryly, she said, "What do you expect me to call them-psychic vibes?"
"You flatly denied being psychic just the other day."
"Yeah, well, that's always the safe thing to do-at least until I get to know whoever's asking."
He shot her a quick look. "Is that why you're finally being honest with me?"
"Well, I thought it might avoid a game of twenty questions. Obviously, I was wrong."
That surprised a laugh out of him. "Okay, point taken. It's just that I really do want to understand, Maggie."
"And believe?"
He barely hesitated. "And believe. It's just so far outside my experience that I know virtually nothing about it."
"You don't like not knowing, do you?"
"No, I don't. So I ask questions."
Maggie waited until he turned the car into the police lot where she'd left her own to say, "I really don't mind questions, John. But my brain isn't working too clearly at the moment, and I'd rather postpone them, if it's all the same to you."
He pulled into the slot beside her car. "Will you come to the hotel later? I still think we should sit down and go over everything with Quentin and his partner, come up with some kind of game plan from here on out."
"Partner?"
John swore under his breath, wondering if Maggie's apparent psychic abilities included being able to make him say things he had no intention of saying. "Yes, his partner."
"He's a cop, isn't he?" Maggie had one hand on the door handle but was waiting, brows slightly raised. "Quentin's a cop."
"He's here unofficially, Maggie."
"Uh-huh. What kind of cop?"
"Federal," John answered reluctantly. "FBI."