Woden was looking at him. And suddenly, Logan was filled with a wave of emotion so powerful it almost pushed him off his chair. He was flooded with fear: there was nobody he could trust; everyone around him wished him harm; there was no rest, not even in sleep; and the voices would never leave him—those whispering voices that at times taunted him, at times warned him, at times commanded him. A psychological desolation, a kind of existential despair such as he’d never experienced, pierced Logan to the core. The voices grew louder, more insistent; as if from a great distance he saw an ax, became aware of its reassuring, comforting weight in his hands—there was sudden, involuntary action, a series of ragged screams, and then the voices swelled in jubilation before subsiding into silence. But all too quickly, they began their chanting murmur again—and the darkness once again rushed to embrace him….
For the first time he could remember, Logan snatched his hand away in the midst of an empathetic encounter. Unwillingly, he looked at Woden. The man was staring back. The alarm had left his eyes, and instead there was a strange, almost intimate look in them, as if they had passed on a secret; as if a part of Woden was now part of Logan, and would never leave him.
Shakily, Logan got to his feet. “Thank you,” he managed. “We’ll leave you now.”
He stumbled in the doorway, and Jessup helped him back into the truck, had him crouch once again until they had passed the state policeman. Then the ranger stopped the car, raised Logan into his seat, and strapped him in.
All the way back to Cloudwater, Jessup knew enough to say nothing, keeping quiet while Logan recovered and marshaled his thoughts. Just before the entrance to Cloudwater, he pulled the truck onto the shoulder and looked at his friend in mute inquiry.
Logan returned the look. “I’ll tell you what I experienced,” he said. “But only once. Please don’t ask me to talk of it again. It will be hard enough to forget as it is.”
Jessup nodded.
“I sensed overwhelming fear. I sensed a very sick mind. I sensed violence—savage violence. But that violence seemed…old to me. Still very much alive in his mind—but old.”
“Could Woden have committed these three murders?” Jessup asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t rule it out. As I said, I didn’t sense anything that felt recent—that he was killing in the present. But there was so much violence in his past there’s no way for me to be sure. He may well have been rehabilitated, as the state says. Clearly they believe he’s no longer capable of murder, or they wouldn’t have paroled him. But I believe he’s capable…and dangerous.”
Jessup nodded again. Then he sighed. “Thank you, Jeremy—for everything, but especially for this. If I’d known how much of an ordeal it would be, I’d never have asked. Maybe Krenshaw’s right, after all. In any case, that will be my assumption, going forward. Can I drive you in?”
“No, thanks. I’d rather walk, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Sure. I’ll call you in a few days. We’ll have you over for dinner again—and no shoptalk, I promise.”
“Okay.” And Logan got out of the truck, waited for it to disappear down the road, then began making his way down the lane to Cloudwater.
17
Logan walked slowly, trying to still the agitation and dismay that he felt. As a sensitive, he’d had numerous unpleasant encounters in the past—though few as disturbing as this one—and as he walked he employed a mental exercise: as calmly and rationally as he could, he went over the encounter one final time. And then, quite deliberately, he put it inside of a box, shut the box, and stored it away in a far corner of his mind where—hopefully—it would remain without troubling his dreams.
He turned in at the path to his cottage, glanced at his watch. To his surprise, it was almost a quarter to two. He felt utterly drained; there would be no work for him today. He passed the turnoff for the Albert Bierstadt cabin, the William Hart cabin, then took the final turn toward his own. As he did so, he stopped, frowning in surprise. Ahead, he could see that someone was sitting on his front steps. It was Pace, the technician he’d met the other day; the one who worked for Laura Feverbridge.
What on earth could he want? Logan wondered. Clearly, the man wasn’t aware of Cloudwater’s no-uninvited-visitors policy. This was the last thing he needed: his only desire at the moment was to go inside, pour himself a stiff drink despite the early hour, lie down on the couch, and close his eyes. But with an effort he put a spring into his step and approached the cabin. His lunch, he saw, had been left on its usual tray, beneath a pair of stainless-steel dish covers.
“Kevin Pace, right?” he said as the technician stood at his approach.
Pace nodded.
“Have you been waiting long?”
“About half an hour.” The man passed a hand through his rumpled, mouse-colored hair. “I’m sorry to bother you. I remembered your saying you were in the Thomas Cole cabin, and I wandered the grounds until I found it.” He seemed agitated, his eyes darting here and there even though the two of them were standing at the path’s end, invisible to anyone. “I’m sorry, but do you think I could speak to you for a minute?”
“Of course.” Careful to keep the puzzlement from his face, Logan unlocked the door, ushered the man in, then picked up the lunch tray and followed.
“Sit anywhere,” he said as he carried the tray to the kitchen, then came back out into the living room. Pace sat down on the wraparound couch and Logan chose a chair opposite him. The technician licked his lips, wiped his hands on his jeans. It did not take an empath to see that he was upset about something, perhaps even frightened.
“Why don’t you tell me what I can do for you,” Logan said, leaning forward, interlacing his fingers and resting them on his knees.
But even though he’d driven all the way from the research station, even though he’d waited on Logan’s step for thirty minutes, the technician seemed unwilling to talk—or, perhaps more likely, didn’t know how to begin. He cleared his throat, looked at Logan with his timid eyes, took a deep breath.
“It’s okay,” Logan said. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ve heard stranger.”
Pace took another deep breath. “How much did Dr. Feverbridge tell you about our work?”
“She said you’ve been studying the influence of the lunar effect on small mammals.”
Pace nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s been taking longer than expected—everything slowed down, of course, after her father died. Anyway, my own observations have dealt mainly with Peromyscus maniculatus and Blarina brevicauda.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh. Sorry.” And for the first time in Logan’s brief experience, Pace smiled. “The deer mouse and the northern short-tailed shrew. I was assigned the shrew specifically because of the morphological changes they go through during torpor—their teeth, skulls, even internal organs undergo significant shrinkage. Among other things, I’ve been tasked with determining if those changes can be stimulated in ways other than weather.”
“Go on,” Logan said.
“Well, as you might imagine, because I study the rodents—well, technically, a shrew isn’t a rodent—at various phases of the moon, my work involves observations both inside the laboratory and out, at night as well as day.”
Logan nodded. It was as if Pace was dancing around the issue, unwilling to get to the point.
“I do most of my nightly observations in ‘A Pen’—that’s a small blind we attached to the rear of the main lab. The fact is…well, I’ve started to hear things.”
“Things?”