As she stepped away to join him, Archer looked at the two feds. He had never shared the hostility toward federal cops that some of his peers so often felt and too openly displayed, but he had also never worked with feds on a case, so he looked at them a bit uncertainly. “I’m not sure what the procedure is from this point, Agents,” he told them. “Then again, I’m not sure of anything today.”
Hollis Templeton nodded, her expressive face showing rueful sympathy. “More often than not, we tend to play it by ear. The sort of cases we get invited to assist in tend to be of the very weird variety, Sheriff. Beyond horrible. Not something local or even state cops have much experience with. Sometimes the usual law enforcement training just doesn’t cover it.”
“My chief deputy said you belonged to some kind of special FBI unit, and I talked to your unit chief, but . . . I guess I never figured there were enough . . . weird crimes to call for that.”
“You’d be surprised,” she told him earnestly. “There’s a lot of strange and crazy in the world. The Special Crimes Unit teams tend to be pretty busy.” Her very bright eyes, their blue color definitely unusual, studied him for an instant as though looking for something.
Archer had no idea whether she found it.
“You’ve kept the scene intact?” Her voice was brisk again.
It wasn’t really a question, but Archer nodded. “Except for the removal of Leslie Gardner to the hospital, everything inside is . . . just as we found it.”
“She’s still out?”
He nodded. “I have a deputy staying with her, and so far the report is she’s sleeping. Just sleeping. Except that the doctors can’t wake her up.”
Reese DeMarco said thoughtfully, “It might be a good idea to ask the doctors that they not try any . . . extraordinary means to wake her up. Let it happen naturally if at all possible.”
“Why?” Archer asked blankly.
“Because we don’t yet know what we have here,” the big blond man—former military, Archer was willing to bet, just from the way he stood and the knife-sharpness of his blue eyes—said in the same quiet, pleasant voice.
His partner added, “Memory’s a tricky thing. If she’s forced awake before she’s ready to be, we may lose information we badly need to understand all this.”
“I hope somebody can understand it,” he muttered, then gestured slightly and led the way to the front porch of the home. “I have two deputies sitting in their cruiser across the street, but so far none of the neighbors have tried to get closer. Just standing out in their yards, most of ’em, staring.”
“Yeah, we noticed,” Templeton murmured.
“Should have put crime scene tape up, I know,” Archer said, trying not to sound defensive.
“Why didn’t you?” she asked, her tone interested rather than in any way critical.
“Honestly? Didn’t think of it right away. None of us did. Shock, I guess, as unprofessional as that is. Too many years living in a town where crimes that require tape just don’t happen. And when I did think of the tape, it seemed . . . to add more obscenity to this. This was a very quiet, very peaceful neighborhood. I just . . .” He shook his head, adding in a more certain voice, “I hope you both have strong stomachs.”
Matter-of-fact, DeMarco said, “We’ve seen the initial photos your chief deputy took, Sheriff. We know what to expect in there.”
Archer wondered if they did, photos or not, but simply nodded and led the way into the Gardner house. He stopped a foot or so outside the doorway to the living room. “I’ll stay in here, if you don’t mind,” he said. “They have a landline phone here in the front hall; I’ll use that to relay your request to the hospital about Leslie Gardner.”
Hollis Templeton gave him another very direct look, then said, “Radios and cell phones aren’t working?”
He grimaced slightly. “Not reliably. Been having trouble with both off and on for the last few days, maybe a week, and it’s been getting worse. Cell company says there’s some interference, and they’re working on the problem. My technical people are flat-out baffled about the radios. But they’re trying to figure out the problem with those, and we’re in contact with specialists—who seem just as confused as we are. In the meantime, only landline phones are dependable, and we’re lucky to have one here. Lots of people just rely on the cells nowadays.”
Having not looked into the living room once, he moved away from the feds toward the phone.
Hollis braced herself, something no one but her partner would have known since there was no betraying outward sign, and then the two of them moved just inside the living room.
There was, really, no way to brace the mind and senses against anything in that room, and it was emotionally devastating as well. Even for strangers who hadn’t known the family.
The photos, horrific though they were, had not really shown the truly shocking amount of blood and the utterly senseless, brutally twisted slaughter. The scene was literally an assault on more than the senses.
They both stood just inside the room, near the door but to one side, moving no closer to the bodies than necessary to see what they needed to see. Because they didn’t want to disturb the scene Jill and her assistant would minutely examine and photograph. And because neither of them needed to get any closer.
After a moment, quiet, Hollis said, “First time I’ve had to study the scene of a multiple homicide. Just realized that. Or kids.”
“Makes it worse that it’s a family with kids,” DeMarco said. “Not something you’ll ever get used to.” His voice was steady with the kind of control Hollis understood and shared.
“Not something I’d ever want to get used to.” She glanced back over her shoulder to make sure Archer was still using the phone, then lowered her voice. “Are you sensing anything?”
They were both shielding, but DeMarco was using only half his double shield, and Hollis’s shield was still a bit undependable.
“Just what we both felt from the time we reached the valley,” he replied just as quietly. “My skin’s crawling faintly and there’s a sense of pressure. It’s bearable right now, not really a distraction, but if the effect gets stronger or is cumulative . . .”
“You should probably use both shields,” she told him.
“I’d rather not just yet.”
She looked at him and managed a faint smile. “I’m fine. If it comes to that, you can extend your shield to cover me too. But in the meantime, one of us needs to use all the protection possible. This . . . isn’t sane. Whatever’s behind it. We need to make sure we have at least one sane and protected mind on our side. Just in case.”
“It’s the just in case that bothers me,” he told her. “If we’re right about at least part of what happened here, what’s continuing to happen, it’s also possible, maybe even probable, that neither one of us is immune, shields or not.”
“Reese, we need to know if the connection is still there even through both your shields. Just because it worked on the island doesn’t mean it’ll work here. Especially with all this damned energy, never mind the horror of all this.” She resisted an impulse to rub her arms. She wasn’t cold, but her skin was faintly tingling, crawling, just as DeMarco had described. It was a distinctly unpleasant sensation.
He nodded reluctantly, and a moment later she was more relieved than she wanted to admit to hear a familiar mind-voice.
Okay. Both shields. My skin isn’t crawling anymore. I’m aware of that faint pressure, but just barely. Normal senses seem to be working. And I can still feel our connection. It feels strong to me. How about you?
Yes. Thank God. Your other senses really are okay?
Seem to be.
Telepathy? I mean outside our connection?
Some static, but I can read Archer clearly enough.
Panic underneath the horror?
You’re getting that through me?
Yeah.
Better than I expected, then.
Same here.
Archer stepped back to the doorway, keeping his gaze on them rather than looking into the room. “The doctors have stopped trying to wake Leslie Gardner. They said it was probably best to wait and see anyway. They’re baffled as hell, that’s clear.”