“Which,” Alan said, “is why we have to move fast.”
“Jesus. I know I’m going to regret this.”
Isabel turned slightly so that they were facing each other, glanced down at the bloody ground where the horribly mutilated body of a young woman she had both liked and felt sorry for had so recently lain, and her mouth firmed. “We should be somewhere else,” she said.
“No.”
She looked at Rafe.
“We should be here. We need to be here, Isabel.”
“Why?”
“Because two women died here. Because evil did what it wanted to do, needed to do, here.”
The sound of thunder grew louder, more ominous.
“It’s disrespectful. Let the rain wash away her blood.”
“That isn’t the investigator talking,” he said.
Isabel smiled wryly. “No. It isn’t. I liked her, you know. She felt isolated and misunderstood-and I could relate. I’m sorry she’s dead.”
“I know. So am I. But the only thing we can do for her now is stop her killer before he does that to someone else.”
Before he does it to you.
Isabel could almost hear his words in her head. Or maybe she did hear them. Whichever it was, she knew he was right. “Yes,” she said.
“The universe put us here. And it put us here, and now, for a reason. Remember what you told me? We leave footprints when we pass. Skin cells, stray hairs. And energy. He left his energy here, and recently. He left his hate, and his anger, and the stamp of his evil.”
There was a flash in the distance, and Isabel said, almost to herself and with a touch of fear in her voice, “I can smell it. But it’s lightning, not brimstone.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “Is it? You said you had to face it this time. Confront it this time. That ugly face evil always hides behind something else. You have to face it. But, Isabel, you won’t do it alone. Not this time. Not ever again.”
She drew a breath and let it out slowly. “I didn’t expect that. I’m not quite sure how to deal with that.”
“The same way you deal with everything else,” he said, smiling faintly. “Head-on.”
“Before the storm gets here.”
He nodded. “Before the storm. Before the rain washes away the blood, and the lightning changes the energy here. The energy in this place-his and ours, even anything left of hers-is what we need to help us take the next step. There’s nothing disrespectful about that. It’s doing our job. It’s fighting evil the only way we can.”
“How do you know so much?”
“I’ve been paying attention.”
Isabel hesitated only another instant, then held out her right hand. “Okay. Let’s see where the next step takes us.”
He put his left hand into her right one.
Hollis said, at the time and long afterward, that there should have been something, some outward sign, to indicate what turned out to be a most astonishing event. But, outwardly at least, there was nothing. Just two people facing each other, holding hands, their faces calm but eyes curiously intent.
Mallory took a step closer to Hollis, murmuring, “I get the feeling I’ve missed something important.”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Hollis told her. “I mean, I know it has to do with this shield of Rafe’s, but I have no idea what they’re trying to do about it.”
“Get rid of it, maybe?”
“No, from what Isabel told me, that would probably not be such a good idea.”
“Why not? I mean, if it’s blocking her voices?”
“I don’t know. She said something about their combined energy being too strong, especially now when it’s new and not under their control. That bad things could happen if they just… let go of it.”
Mallory sighed. “I long for the days when all we had to deal with was trace evidence, footprints, the occasional half-blind or very stoned eyewitness…”
“Yeah, I imagine that was easier. Or simpler, at least.”
“I’ll say.”
After several minutes of silence except for the growing intensity of the thunder rumbling overhead, Hollis ventured a step closer to Isabel and Rafe. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Isabel asked in perfect calm without turning her head.
“What’s happening?”
“Good question.”
Hollis looked at Mallory, then back at the other two. “Guys, come on. People are beginning to stare. Pablo and Bobby look real nervous. Or real embarrassed, I’m not sure which. What’s happening?”
After a moment, Isabel turned her head to look at Hollis. “I don’t want to sound like a country song, but I can feel his heart beating.”
“I know she didn’t eat breakfast,” Rafe said, also looking at Hollis.
“And he’s uneasy because-” Isabel turned her head abruptly to stare at Rafe. “Jesus, why didn’t you tell me?”
“You know damned well why I didn’t tell you,” he replied, meeting her gaze.
“It was your abilities manifesting themselves physically. Which, remember, is a rare thing but not unheard of. In your case, probably caused by guilt because you believed you should have stopped him after the first murder. The blood of the innocent, literally on your hands.”
“I realize that. Now. Before we talked yesterday, the possibilities were a lot more creepy.”
“So that’s why you were blocking me. That was the part of you I couldn’t get at?”
“I’m guessing yes. Isabel, I was waking up with blood on my hands every morning and had no idea where it had come from. Women were dead. Other women were missing. You were offering me theories of a serial killer who could be walking around most of the time not knowing he was a murderer. So I was afraid I was blacking out.”
“And killing blondes? I could have told you there wasn’t a chance in hell of you doing that.”
“Well, I was… afraid to ask.”
“Guys,” Hollis’s voice was just this side of strident.
Isabel looked at her partner, frowned slightly, and then let go of Rafe’s hands. “Oh. Sorry. We were… somewhere else.”
“I noticed. Where were you?”
“In a galaxy far, far away,” Rafe murmured.
“You really are beginning to talk like me,” Isabel told him.
“I know. Spooky, isn’t it?” He took her arm and guided her toward the yellow crime-scene tape on the highway side of the clearing. “I say we head back to the station before the heavens open up.”
Hollis and Mallory went with them, wearing almost identical expressions of baffled interest.
“Blood on your hands?” Mallory said to Rafe. “You were waking up with blood on your hands?”
“Yeah, for the past few weeks.”
Hollis muttered, “Man, have you got a great poker face.” And waited until they were outside the crime scene to add, “If somebody doesn’t tell me, right now, what’s going on-”
“I’m not so sure I can.” Isabel shook her head. “All I really know is that everything’s different.”
“Different how?”
“The voices are back. But… very, very quiet. Distant.”
“What about Rafe’s shield?”
“It’s still there. Here. I think we punched a couple of holes in it, though. I told you I wasn’t sure I could explain.”
“And I should have listened,” Hollis said.
Addressing his patrolmen, Rafe said, “You two can take your lunch break and then head back to the station; unless you hear otherwise, follow your assignments on the board for the rest of the day.”
“Right, Chief.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No watchdogs?” Isabel asked.
“I’m your watchdog,” he replied. “Mallory, if you’ll ride back with Hollis?”
“Sure.”
By the time they reached the parked vehicles, they saw that the media had vanished, along with any curious passersby.
Isabel said, “Did the weather happen to mention that the storms today and tonight could be mean ones? The sort to keep golfers off courses and reporters with electronic equipment indoors?”
Rafe nodded. “We’re not in the Southeast’s tornado alley, but close enough.”