Cassie swallowed hard and forced herself to remain calm. "It started… more than four years ago. The L.A. police called me in on a series of murders. It was unusual because the killer hit all age groups, from little girls to elderly women, and all races. The victims had nothing in common except that they were female. He killed them in different ways, tortured some but not others, hid some bodies while leaving others out in the open so they could be easily found. It seemed to be almost a game to him to keep everybody guessing. The FBI profiler they called in was tearing his hair out."
"So the police called you in," Matt said. "And?" "He always left a paper rose on his victim's body, and I used that to connect with him. I tapped into him pretty easily just as he was stalking his next victim. The police were able to save the girl, but the killer slipped away in the confusions And vanished." "You mean he stopped killing?" Cassie nodded. "For a while, at least that's what the police believe. It was more than six months later when three more bodies turned up, each left with one of his trademark paper roses. Again I was able to tap into his mind, and again he managed to slip away. For the next couple of years he'd suddenly go active, kill two or three times, then vanish before anybody could get close. Including me. There was no pattern we could fix on, no way we could anticipate when and where he'd begin killing again. Then…" "Then?"
It was Bishop who took up the story, his voice cool. "Then he killed a series of children in rapid succession, and the entire city was going crazy. Finally, and for the first time, the killer left behind more than a rose. He left a fingerprint. The police were able to identify him as one Conrad Vasek, an escaped mental patient with the distinction of having terrified every doctor forced to try treating him in the twenty years since he was committed at the age of twelve."
Matt said, "And they had no luck finding him even though they knew who he was."
"None. The man was acknowledged as a twisted genius, psychopathic since birth but brilliant. And he loved games." Bishop's gaze shifted to Cassie. "Especially new ones."
"You weren't there," Cassie murmured, staring down at the rose.
"I heard about it afterward," Bishop said. He looked at Matt. "Just about the time Vasek killed an elderly woman and then a teenager, word leaked out to the press that the L.A. police were trying to track him using a psychic. Vasek must have seen it as a challenge. He grabbed a little girl but didn't kill her right away. Instead, when Cassie connected to him, he led the police a long and merry chase and then was somehow able to distract Cassie just long enough."
"I misinterpreted what I saw," Cassie said. "Sent the police the wrong way. When they found the little girl, her body was still warm."
"And you got the blame?" Matt demanded incredulously.
"I blamed myself. And it was… just too much. I couldn't handle it anymore. That's when I left L.A. and came here."
Softly Bishop said, "I wonder how long it took Vasek to find you."
Cassie stared at him, with dawning understanding. "Of course," she whispered. "That's why the light was falling from two different directions when I tried to reach Mike Shaw. That's how Mike was able to push me out with such strength, to block me for so long even though he isn't telepathic. Because it wasn't him. Somehow Vasek was linked to Mike's mind, controlling him. Vasek was controlling him all along."
"Inside her head." Ben spoke slowly.
"She didn't know I was there, of course. She thought we were in contact only whenever she was helping the police try to catch me. But I've been able to slip into her mind virtually at will for a long time now. Into her thoughts. Her dreams."
"Her nightmares." Until that moment Ben had never been able to truly see the substance, the reality, of Cassie's monsters. But then he saw. Finally he understood. And it wasn't the chill of the room that sank deeper into his bones and left shards of ice so cold they burned. Dear God, Cassie…
The monster calling himself Bob continued to smile. "Her nightmares? Oh, I don't think so. All I did was… encourage her… to use her natural gifts. Remind her who she really was. That's why I followed her here. She thought she could run away from who she was, but I couldn't let her. We were meant to be together, Cassie and I, and I had to show her that. I had to show her that our minds were already joined."
"By killing more women?"
"By making certain she used her natural gifts."
Ben swallowed the bile rising up in his throat and forced himself to say calmly, "So you came here and looked for a tool you could use to attract her attention. To impress her with your own abilities. You needed someone with a weak mind you could control, someone with the instincts – if not the expertise – of a natural killer. Mike Shaw."
"You must admit, Michael was perfect. And I was quite lucky to find him in this pissant little town of yours. A sociopath more than ready for his first real kill. All he needed was a little guidance, and that was simple enough."
"How did it feel," Ben asked, "to kill by remote control?"
Bob seemed gratified by the question, clearly happy to explain. "Interesting, actually. And more satisfying than I had expected. He's totally primitive, of course, driven by rage and imagined slights, and with absolutely no finesse. I'm sure your experts will find he's clinically insane. Not too bright either, I'm afraid. But he made excellent clay I could mold to fit my needs."
"And your need was to impress Cassie."
"I wanted her to understand," Bob said reasonably. "That we were two halves of a whole, that we belonged together. I knew that from the first time she touched my mind. But she didn't seem to understand the glory of the kill, and how… liberating it is. So I had to show her."
"Then why use a tool?" Ben asked. If he could keep him talking, let him reveal more and more of himself, then maybe, just maybe a weakness would become apparent. Something Ben could work on, as he worked on witnesses in a courtroom to get what he needed from them.
"Why, to show Cassie how powerful I am, of course." Bob was thoughtful. "And I am, you know. Quite powerful. I had to maintain the connection with Michael most of the time in order to keep him under control, while also hiding my presence from Cassie."
"How were you able to do that?"
"The connection to Michael was simple to establish, and not terribly difficult to maintain. He just needed to be in constant physical contact with an item that belonged to me. As for hiding my presence from Cassie, I'd been practicing that for nearly three years."
"Why hide from her at all? I mean, if you were intent on impressing her, why not reveal yourself from the first?"
"To surprise her, of course." Bob's smile faded at last, and his ordinary-colored eyes took on an odd shine. "That was before I realized you were going to confuse her."
"Is that what I did?"
"We both know it is. She was completely untouched, innocent, and you ruined that. You preyed on her weak female body to scramble her instincts and senses, used your experience to teach her a passion of the flesh." For just an instant he seemed faintly distracted, as though hearing a distant sound, but then he shook his head. "You corrupted her."
"Then I'm surprised you still want her."
"I'll have to purify her, naturally. She can never return to her untouched state, but she can be made more worthy of my love."
Ben wasn't about to ask how. Instead, he said coolly, "Well, I didn't butcher other women for her, but I'm willing to bet Cassie prefers my ideas of romance to yours."
"You confused her. She was completely focused on me and what I could do when she was in California, and she would have regained that focus. If not for you." His smile was thin and particularly unpleasant. "You told her you loved her, didn't you, Judge?"
"Don't you know?" Ben taunted softly. "Weren't you in her mind when I was in her bed?"
The odd shine in those ordinary eyes intensified, but a fragment of Bob's smile remained. "You know, I sat in court one day and watched you, Judge. You're very good. Quite skilled at… going for the jugular. But there's something you've forgotten, I'm afraid."