"Let's get her out of here," Bishop said.
Quentin radioed the other search teams that Belinda had been safely found, and Bishop handled her slight weight easily as he carried her before him on his horse back down the mountain.
As relieved as he was that the child had been safely found, and impressed though he was with the way Bishop had been able to do that, what interested Quentin the most was Belinda's response to the other man. With those pale eyes and the angry scar down his left cheek, his didn't seem a face that would inspire confidence in a terrified little girl, yet from the moment he had touched her, she had seemed perfectly trusting and content in his arms.
"You're good with kids," Quentin noted as they rode the last half mile back to The Lodge. "Any of your own?"
Bishop glanced down at the dark-haired girl nestled against him, and Quentin saw a flicker of pain, quickly gone.
"No," Bishop replied, "none of my own."
"I guess some people just have the knack. I never did. I like kids okay and all, but they don't warm up to me quickly."
"She's been through a lot," Bishop said.
Quentin didn't bother to say that it wouldn't have made much difference in how she reacted to him. Instead, he glanced at Belinda's drowsy face and lowered his voice to say, "You heard her all the way up there; I assume you can hear her now. What happened to her?"
"She doesn't remember." Bishop's voice was low as well.
"What, nothing?"
"Nothing after waking up this morning. She doesn't remember the earlier ride with her father or the beginning of the picnic." Bishop paused, then added, "Not so uncommon after a head in-jury."
"No, but... how did she get that injury? And how the hell did she travel miles across a valley and up into the mountains in hardly more than a couple of hours?"
"I don't know."
"No hoofprints around that old shack, except for those our horses made. No tire tracks. Hell, no footprints that I saw — not even hers."
"Yeah, I noticed that."
Since they had nearly reached The Lodge, Quentin dropped the subject for the time being. But after Belinda had been safely returned to her overjoyed parents and all the questions and exclamations and thanks had been dealt with — with amazing discretion and creative evasiveness on Bishop's part — he brought it up again.
The two men sat at a fairly isolated table in a shady section of one of the verandas with a couple of cold beers — compliments of The Lodge.
"You noticed there were no footprints up there. I think we both believe she couldn't have gotten all that way on her own. So what do you think happened to Belinda?"
"I don't know. Without evidence of any kind, there's no way to know."
"I'm not asking what you know. I'm asking what you think. What you feel. I saw your face when we got to that old shack up there, and it didn't take a telepath to know you were picking up something you didn't like."
After a moment, Bishop said, "It was an old building, and like most old buildings it held a lot of... echoes. Unfortunately, there's no way I know of to separate layers of time, to distinguish the psychic echo of something that happened a century ago from something that happened yesterday. Or today. Or twenty years ago."
There was another pause as Quentin stared at him, and then he said quietly, "It didn't happen up there. What happened twenty years ago."
"I know."
"You know a hell of a lot, don't you." It wasn't really a question.
Bishop smiled. "You think I'd try to recruit a new team member without knowing everything I could about him first? There won't be many secrets in the SCU, Quentin, that goes without saying. We're a unit of psychics. And from the telepaths who can pick up thoughts to the empaths who can pick up pain, we're going to eventually know pretty much everything there is to know about each other."
"If that's your recruitment speech, it's likely to scare away more potentials than it entices," Quentin muttered.
"Is it scaring you away?"
"Answer something for me first," Quentin said. "What did you feel or sense at that shack?"
"The same thing I felt, for a split second, up in the observation tower. Something old, and dark, and cold. Something evil."
"What is it?"
"I don't know. Never felt anything like it before. But I can tell you that it's been here a long time. That we frustrated it today by finding Belinda when we did. And I can tell you that it's what touched your life twenty years ago."
"How could you possibly know that?" Quentin demanded roughly.
"You grabbed my arm in the tower, remember? I felt it then. That whatever's happening here is something you're connected to. It's why you keep coming back here, because you're tied, bound, to this place, and not just by your memories. By something else as well. And you'll come back again and again until you've found the answers you need."
"You can't offer those to me?"
Bishop shook his head. "No. And you won't find them this trip, I'm sure of that. It isn't yet time."
"You said you weren't a seer."
"I'm not. But one thing I've learned is that there's a kind of rhythm to most things. To the universe. A sequence of events, a pattern, a proper order. I feel that sometimes. And what I'm feeling here is that the time isn't right, that the darkness here will stay hidden a while longer."
With a stab at humor, Quentin said, "You're just saying that so I'll leave and join your unit."
"No. If I could help you settle with your past here and now, I would, believe me." Bishop's mouth twisted slightly. "I know what it is to spend too much time looking back instead of ahead. But that hasn't crippled me, and it won't cripple you."
"You sound very sure of that."
"I am sure. Just as I'm sure of what I said to you a few hours ago. You did see me coming, didn't you, Quentin? You knew I'd ask you to join the SCU."
Quentin laughed ruefully. "Oh, hell, I saw you coming years ago."
"It's why you joined the FBI."
"Yeah. I had a law degree I didn't know what to do with, and was actually thinking of becoming some kind of cop. And then one day I... knew the SCU was something that would happen. I knew I'd be part of it."
Dryly, Bishop said, "And still made me come to you."
"Well, a man wants to be valued."
"I think," Bishop said, "you undoubtedly earned your reputation for reckless independence."
"I think you're right. I also think we've wandered a bit from the subject. I'm not willing to give up here, Bishop."
"I wouldn't ask you to. I'm just asking you to look ahead rather than back. For a while. Your past will always be there, trust me on that."
"The girl in my past died," Quentin heard himself say.
"I know. And the girl — the woman in my past is out of my reach almost as surely as if she were dead. At least until the universe is ready to pick that thread back up again."
"And weave it back into the pattern?" Quentin shook his head. "What if it's a lost thread?"
"It isn't. She isn't. And neither is your Missy, Quentin."
It was the first time anybody had said that name to him in a long time, but Quentin felt himself flinch inside. "She's dead. All I can do for her now is find out why she died."
"I'll help all I can. You have my word on that."
"But not until the time is right?"
"Some things have to happen just the way they happen."
Quentin looked at him curiously. "Your mantra?"
"Something like that. Believing it keeps me sane."
"Then maybe you can convince me. In the meantime... what the hell. It seems we both knew this was inevitable." He held out his hand to the other man. "You've got yourself a seer, Bishop."
And as they shook hands, he almost told Bishop about the little voice in his head that was whispering, He'll find Miranda. But not yet. Not just yet.