Hollis's hand turned suddenly and gripped Maggie's. "If I'd known that, I never would have talked to you. Never would have forced you to feel so much of what I felt."
"I know. That's why I didn't tell you."
"I'm sorry, Maggie."
"Don't be. You didn't force me to feel anything. It's what I do, Hollis. What I'm… meant to do."
"Suffer?"
"Understand suffering." Maggie sighed. "It's all right, really. Right now I'm more interested in Annie and what she said to you. Is that why I'm here?"
"Yes. There are… things she wants me to tell you. She was the one who told me to ask for you in the first place. She didn't say why, just that I needed to talk to you."
"I had wondered how you knew my name. The police usually keep that quiet."
"Annie told me. And a few hours ago she… she pleaded with me to help her."
"Help her do what? Contact me?"
"Bring you here. Tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"Tell you about the next victim."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
John waited for Maggie where he had before, at the doorway of the waiting room on the floor where Hollis Templeton's room was. The area was as quiet as it always seemed to be, and no one disturbed his thoughts.
He almost wished someone would.
It should have been a relief to be told that his sister had not killed herself after all, that he'd been right about that much. It had been one thing he'd been determined to prove. But he still couldn't prove it. And even if he believed Maggie-
Did he believe Maggie?
It all seemed so… incredible. And yet he had seen with his own eyes her intense physical and emotional reaction to places where violence had occurred. Had seen how she suffered right along with the victims she tried to help.
And he had seen a painting of a brutally murdered woman, a woman he was certain was Tara Jameson. Yet the missing woman had not yet been abducted when Maggie had painted her horribly mutilated image while in the grip of some frightening virtually unconscious nightmare state that chilled him to even imagine.
Maggie had not been pretending or performing, he was certain of that. Even if there had been a reason for her to feign such an incredible ability-and he couldn't think of a single one-why would anyone go to the extremes Maggie so obviously suffered just to maintain an inexplicable pretense?
No, he was sure Maggie and her abilities were genuine. With every minute he spent with her, he was more and more convinced of her basic honesty and apparently karmic need to help people. And if she was telling the truth about everything else, why would she lie about Christina's death?
He realized, after considering it carefully, that he believed she was telling the truth about that as well. Something in her voice, in her face, even in her reluctance to tell him all this time what she felt, what she knew, had convinced him. He believed she had on some level shared, even felt, the moment of his sister's death.
And because he believed that, believed in Maggie's abilities, he had to also finally admit to himself that he believed several other distinctly disturbing… facts:
Someone else, possibly the man who had attacked her, was responsible for Christina's death and had, in fact, murdered her in cold blood.
Quentin really could "see" the future.
And this bastard they all wanted caught and caged, this man who preyed on women out of some obscene need no sane mind could understand, this evil beast with a human face-had lived before. And killed before.
Christ… what could a man do with that kind of knowledge?
His entire life, John had believed only in what he could see or touch or feel with his hands, what he absolutely knew to be real. Never a religious man, he had viewed faith as superstition and the so-called paranormal as nothing more than mysticism dressed up by wishful thinking and pseudoscience to look rational.
But faced with this-all this-he was beginning to appreciate just how little he genuinely understood the very nature of reality. Because if the world he lived in could produce seers and empaths and human monsters reborn to torment victims in life after life only because someone had failed to stop them when fate decreed, then all the certainties of his own life had been built upon shifting sands.
It was a sobering realization and yet… surprisingly exhilarating as well. He honestly hadn't thought there were any mysteries left to be explored, not for him. With his business empire virtually running itself these days, his goals and ambitions long ago reached and even surpassed, his life had taken on a predictable and unexciting routine he had not quite defined as boring. But boring it undoubtedly was.
He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so alive, so caught up in a unique and challenging situation.
He also understood for the first time why Quentin had joined the FBI when he had. Not because he considered himself a traditional cop, a notion John had always found unbelievable given his friend's brash, thoroughly independent, and often reckless nature-to say nothing of his occasionally cockeyed sense of humor. And not because he had a law degree he didn't quite know what to do with.
No, he had joined because Noah Bishop had been quietly recruiting qualified people with paranormal abilities for a very specialized unit of investigators, and that had appealed both to Quentin's innate curiosity and sense of justice and his need to make use of a unique talent the rest of the world found incomprehensible-and even frightening. If they believed in it at all.
"Some friend I've been," John muttered beneath his breath.
It said a lot for Quentin's nature that he had remained a loyal friend, both humorous and unoffended all these years despite John's patent disbelief. John wasn't so sure what it said about his own nature. That he was incredibly stubborn, perhaps?
Perhaps.
"John."
He straightened away from the doorjamb, surprised that he'd been so preoccupied he hadn't heard Maggie approach. As soon as he saw her face, he took a quick step toward her almost instinctively.
"What is it? What's happened?"
She tucked her sketch pad under one arm and reached for her phone, her smile a little strained. "Hollis thought she might have remembered something, but it's nothing we didn't already know." The lie came easily to her lips, but she went on immediately just in case John's acute perception where she was concerned told him more than she wanted him to know. "I'm worried about her, though. She and Ellen Randall are the only surviving victims so far; Ellen's still blind and no threat to this animal, but Hollis might be able to see again, and I'm afraid that would disturb him enough that he might try to come after her again. Even though the surgeon and the staff here have agreed not to publicize the operation, the news is bound to get out sooner rather than later. I think she should be guarded, just in case he finds out about it."
"Sounds like a good idea."
"Yeah. Andy? It's Maggie. Are you guys making a night of it? I know, I'd just as soon work as try to sleep too. Listen, do you have somebody you can post here at the hospital, outside Hollis's room? I don't want to scare her, but I think she should be protected. No, but if this bastard finds out she might be able to see again-yeah, she could be a threat to him. Clear it with the hospital, okay? Thanks."
She listened for a moment, then closed her eyes briefly, and they were bleak when she opened them again. "I see. So he's not giving them even a chance to survive now. And not wasting much time between victims. He must have grabbed Tara Jameson within hours of killing Samantha Mitchell. Yeah… a whole new ball game. No, John's still with me, so we'll come together. Right."
She listened a moment longer, then frowned and said, "Is that Luke I hear?" Her face tightened, and she said in a voice John remembered from their first meeting, "Do me a favor, and tell him I'd appreciate it if he hung around until I got there. I want to talk to him. Yeah. Thanks, Andy."