Hollis had suggested that her team members eat breakfast at the hotel, just as she’d suggested they eat supper there the night before. She knew only too well that gossip had certainly already started about them, at least about her and Reese since they’d arrived in the unmistakable Fedmobile, but she’d told the others that keeping a low profile would be best. For as long as they could.
Staying out of restaurants and attempting to be unobtrusive was at least something, she had told Reese privately. If this energy was being directed toward specific targets, not calling undue attention to themselves might prevent them from becoming victims. Or at least delay that threat.
So they all met up at the sheriff’s department a bit after eight thirty on Thursday morning. There were more deputies in the bullpen than there had been the evening before, and they all looked very tense, though Hollis didn’t sense any hostility aimed at them as she and Reese walked back to the conference room.
All the murders made them tense and anxious, no question about that. Some were still shocked and horrified, others just baffled. But their strongest emotions, Hollis knew, were focused on Deputy Lonnagan.
One of their own had nearly killed his wife the night before, and was even now in a cell in the back, sedated.
Hollis had called in first thing to check, unsurprised but concerned when Katie had told her that Weston was even more of a smiling blank this morning, and that Lonnagan’s terror and anxiety had returned as soon as he’d awakened from his Victoria-induced nap. So the doctor Hollis had suggested had put him back out, chemically this time.
It was a short-term solution.
And she wasn’t at all sure that even finding and fighting the energy would repair the damage already done to those living victims. They might well remain on the destroyed side of the ledger.
The cost of this battle could be very, very high.
They found the others already seated in the conference room, which was different today only in that a large map of the valley had been tacked up onto one of the boards. Her team had obviously been talking to Katie, and the chief deputy immediately pushed a closed folder toward Hollis and DeMarco as they sat down.
“You might want to take a look. Jill’s report on the first death yesterday morning. Or at least the first one we were called to. Sam Bowers.”
“Let me guess,” Hollis said without opening the folder. “Probable suicide, with nothing to indicate the involvement of anyone else.”
“Yep. No forensic evidence anyone else was involved. Only his prints on the gun and on the gun cabinet. She said there was no sign of drugs or alcohol, though she sent blood and tissue samples to the state medical examiner’s office in Chapel Hill to have that verified. Protocol.” She paused, then added, “Jack and I are going to talk to Stacey this morning. She should be calmer now; she’s the sort who will always try to be strong for her kids. Maybe she can tell us something useful.”
Hollis glanced out the open door of the conference room to see the closed door of the sheriff’s office but didn’t ask if he was in yet. Instead, she said, “I know you know this, but try to find out if Mrs. Bowers noticed anything unusual in her husband’s behavior in the week or so before. If he seemed unusually tense or preoccupied. If he said anything that seemed weird to her, out of character. If he complained of headaches or pressure in his head. We need to know if there were any warning signs. I doubt if he was convinced to kill himself over a single night, especially since he clearly struggled against the urges to do more.”
“Just me, not them,” Katie murmured.
Hollis nodded, then looked at them one by one, noting that none of them looked more tense than they had the previous day. But not exactly more relaxed either. “How are you guys holding up?” she asked generally.
“I didn’t sleep much,” Katie confessed. “Probably more because of Jim than anything else. He came out of his nap while I was still here last night, so . . . that’s the memory I went home with. It was not a pleasant memory.”
“I slept okay,” Victoria said. “Never cared much for hotels, but my room was comfortable. Room service was good too.”
“Same here,” Logan said, though a slight frown lingered.
Hollis studied him a moment, then turned her gaze to Galen, who merely said, “I’m fine.”
She was pretty sure Galen would say he was fine no matter how he actually was, but since he was still buttoned up very tightly, she got no sense of his emotions. And since he was in that relatively small percentage of people Reese couldn’t read, she had no idea what he was thinking. He was an experienced agent, and she had to respect his judgment of his own condition. At least unless she saw anything to worry her.
And she really hoped she wouldn’t do that.
Hollis returned her attention to Logan. “Still no spirits?”
“No spirits.” He hesitated, then added, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s beginning to bug me.” He actually looked a bit embarrassed, which, given his protestations in the past, made perfect sense.
She totally understood. There had been a few times in her SCU career when spirits had, for one reason or another, stopped popping in for a while, and it had bugged her.
“It does feel weird,” she agreed with him calmly. “Once you get used to having spirits around, no matter how much they affect your life, the absence of them just doesn’t feel . . . natural. Like a kind of warning flag from the universe that everything’s out of balance. Probably stronger with you, since you’re a born medium.”
“But I wanted them gone.”
“Yeah,” Hollis said, “but them being gone right now has nothing to do with you getting rid of them.”
His frown deepened as he considered that, and then he sighed. “I guess. A lesson from the universe? Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it?”
“Probably,” Hollis agreed. Then she said briskly, “The others will be arriving later this morning, and the plan is to meet up with them at the hotel around noon. Until then, I think we should be out searching this valley.”
“For what?” Logan asked. “I mean—specifically. Victoria and I can’t see the energy the way you can.”
It was Hollis’s turn to frown. “When Reno told us about her vision, didn’t she say she was warned that the very earth here in Prosperity was about to . . . heave itself open and spill out evil?”
“Yeah. That wasn’t symbolic?”
Victoria spoke up to answer that. “Reno doesn’t have symbolic visions.”
“She doesn’t?”
“No. Always literal. Often . . . exaggerated, she says, but always literal.”
“I hope that one was exaggerated,” Logan muttered. “A lot.”
Hollis nodded a wry agreement, saying, “But we take it literally. Which means we need to be looking for . . . disturbed ground. And that could be anything from a plowed field to an old well, a cave, or any other type of opening in the earth. Especially if it seems recent or just doesn’t look right. Listen to your instincts.”
She turned her chair to face the board and the map hanging there. “I asked Katie to mark the locations of the multiple homicide, the suicide, the Lonnagan house, and the house Weston was showing prospective buyers. Notice anything?”
It was Galen, who had driven all over Prosperity the day before, who answered. “Every location is on the outskirts of town. All outlying neighborhoods.”
“Yeah. And if you draw a line from where the killings began, starting with the Gardner house—since both the sheriff and Katie believe Leslie Gardner killed at least one of her children before Sam Bowers killed himself—you can see that each location is a little closer to town.”
“Oh, man,” Victoria said. “I hope that isn’t as bad as I think it is.”
“This whole damned thing is bad,” Logan reminded her.
“Yeah, but that . . . makes me feel hunted.”
“You should feel that way. Just in case we’re being hunted. Fear sharpens the instincts.” Hollis turned back to face them. “The point is, it doesn’t look as random as we all thought it might be. In spite of how large the total energy field is, whatever is picking targets in Prosperity could have its source outside the town, at the other end of the valley.”