"Think he really is after Luke?" Judy asked the room at large.
Edgerton said, "Maybe. My sources tell me Bishop's putting together a special unit of investigators, but I can't find out what's special about it."
"Jesus, you don't think he's rounding up phony psychics?" Woods demanded incredulously.
"No," Edgerton replied with a last glance after the federal agent. "I don't think he's interested in anything phony."
Bishop assumed there was speculation behind him as he left the conference room, but beyond making a mental note to add Pete Edgerton to his growing list of cops likely to be receptive to his Special Crimes Unit in the future, he thought no more about it. He went in search of Lucas Jordan, finding him, as expected, in the small, windowless office that had been grudgingly allotted to him.
"I told you I wasn't interested," Lucas said as soon as Bishop appeared in the doorway.
Leaning against the jamb, Bishop watched as the other man packed up his copies of the myriad paperwork involved in a missing-persons investigation. "Do you enjoy going it solo that much?" he asked mildly. "Operating alone has its drawbacks. We can offer the sort of support and resources you're not likely to find anywhere else."
"Probably. But I hate bureaucracy and red tape," Lucas replied. "Both of which the FBI has in abundance."
"I told you, my unit is different."
"You still report to the Director, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Then it's not that different."
"I intend to make sure it is."
Lucas paused, looking at Bishop with a slight frown, more curious than disbelieving. "Yeah? How do you plan to do that?"
"My agents won't have to deal with the Bureau politics; that'll be my job. I've spent years building my reputation, collecting and calling in favors, and twisting arms to make certain we'll have as much autonomy as possible in running our investigations."
Somewhat mockingly, Lucas said, "What, no rules?"
"You know better than that. But reasonable rules, if only to placate the powers that be and convince them we aren't running a sideshow act. We'll have to be cautious in the beginning, low-key, at least until we can point to a solid record of successful case resolutions."
"And you're so sure there will be successes?"
"I wouldn't be doing this otherwise."
"Yeah, well." Lucas closed his briefcase with a snap. "I wish you luck, Bishop, I really do. But I work best alone."
"How can you be so sure of that if you've never done it any other way?"
"I know myself."
"What about your ability?"
"What about it?"
Bishop smiled slightly. "How well do you know it? Do you understand what it is, how it works?"
"I understand it well enough to use it."
Deliberately, Bishop said, "Then why can't you find Meredith Gilbert?"
Lucas didn't rise to the bait, though his expression tightened just a bit. "It isn't that simple, and you know it."
"Maybe it should be that simple. Maybe all it really takes is the right sort of training and practice for a psychic to be able to control and use his or her abilities more effectively as investigative tools."
"And maybe you're full of shit."
"Prove me wrong."
"Listen, I don't have time for this. I have an abduction victim to find."
"Fair enough." Bishop barely hesitated before adding, "It's the fear."
"What?"
"It's the fear you pick up on, home in on. The specific electromagnetic-energy signature of fear. The victims' fear. That's what your brain is hardwired to sense, telepathically or empathically."
Lucas was silent.
"Which is it-their thoughts or their emotions?"
Grudgingly, Lucas said, "Both."
"So you feel their fear and know their thoughts."
"The fear is stronger. More certain. If I get them at all, the thoughts are just whispers. Words, phrases. Mental static."
"Like a radio station moving in and out of range."
"Yeah. Like that."
"But it's the fear that first connects you to them."
Lucas nodded.
"The stronger the fear, the more intense the connection."
"Generally. People handle their fear in different ways. Some of them bury it, or hold it so tightly reined none of it can get out. Those I have trouble sensing."
"Is it the fear of being… lost?"
Meeting the federal agent's steady gaze, Lucas shrugged finally and said, "The fear of being alone. Of being caught, trapped. Helpless. Doomed. The fear of dying."
"And when they stop feeling that?"
Lucas didn't respond.
"It's because they're dead."
"Sometimes."
"Be honest."
"All right. Usually. Usually I stop sensing them because there's no fear to sense. No thoughts. No life." Just saying it made Lucas angry, and he didn't try to hide that.
"The way it is now. With Meredith Gilbert."
"I will find her."
"Will you?"
"Yes."
"In time?"
The question hung there in the air between the two men for a long, still moment, and then Lucas picked up his briefcase and took the two steps necessary to get to the door.
Bishop stepped aside, silent.
Lucas walked past him but turned back before he reached the top of the stairs. Abruptly, he said, "I'm sorry. I can't find her for you."
"For me? Meredith Gilbert is-"
"Not her. Miranda. I can't find Miranda for you."
Bishop's expression didn't change, but the scar twisting down his left cheek whitened so that it was more visible. "I didn't ask," he said after a momentary pause.
"You didn't have to. I pick up on fear, remember?"
Bishop didn't say another word. He just stood there and looked after the other man until Lucas was gone.
"I almost didn't call you," Pete Edgerton said as Bishop joined him on the highway above the ravine. "To be honest, I'm surprised you're still around. It's been three weeks since we closed the investigation."
Without commenting on that, Bishop merely said, "Is he down there?"
"Yeah, with her. Not that there's a whole lot left." Edgerton eyed the federal agent. "I have no idea how he found her. Those special gifts of his, I guess."
"Cause of death?"
"That's for the ME to say. Like I said, there isn't a whole lot left. And what is left has been exposed to the elements and predators. I have no idea what killed her, or what she went through before she died."
"You're not even sure she was abducted, are you?"
Edgerton shook his head. "From the little we found down there, she could have been walking along the edge of the road here, slipped and fell, maybe hit her head or broke something, couldn't get back up. Lot of traffic here, but nobody stops; she could have been lying there all this time."
"You think the ME will be able to determine cause of death?"
"I'd be surprised. From bones, a few shreds of skin, and some hair? We wouldn't have been able to I.D. her so fast-if at all-if it hadn't been for the fact that her backpack was still mostly intact and there was plenty of stuff inside with Meredith Gilbert's name on it. Plus that odd pewter bracelet of hers was found among the bones. The DNA tests will confirm it's her remains, I'm sure of that."
"So she wasn't robbed and her killer didn't take a trophy."
"If there was a killer, doesn 't look like he took any of her belongings, no."
Bishop nodded, then headed toward the wide gap in the guardrail that should have been repaired long before.
"You'll mess up your nice suit," Edgerton warned.
Without responding to that, Bishop merely picked his way down the steep slope and deep into the ravine. He passed a few crime-scene investigators but didn't pause until he joined Lucas Jordan in a boulder-strewn area in the shade of a twisted little tree.