A Deadly Web (3 page)

“He has as many political enemies as he does allies.”

“Arguable, I suppose.”

“Do we really want to catch the attention of either?”

“I don’t believe we will. Not through Bishop. No one else on his team, other than his wife, knows about us. He says he doesn’t plan on sharing with his team, unless and until we okay it, and I believe him.”

“Yeah, maybe, but isn’t his team largely made up of telepaths? I’m guessing it’s hard to keep a secret in that group. And even if he manages that, odds are that sooner
or later one of his people is going to have a close encounter with either one of our psychics or else with somebody on the other side, and if he or she is as powerful as Bishop’s people are supposed to be, then we’ve got even bigger trouble than we have now.”

She was thoughtful. “Maybe not. The one thing most of Bishop’s people have that ours tend to lack is consistent experience in using their abilities, and much stronger shielding to close out the minutiae of everyday life, the background chatter that tends to bombard most telepaths and clairvoyants. With only a few exceptions our psychics are rarely able to shield effectively and are understandably wary of exploring the limits of their abilities. And rightly so, since we know it draws all the wrong kind of attention to them. So even those who use their abilities do so defensively, not as weapons or even tools.

“But Bishop’s agents use their abilities as investigative tools, often openly and virtually always under the intense pressure of deadly conditions,
and
under law enforcement and media scrutiny.”

“Okay, but I don’t see how that helps us.”

“I don’t know that it will, except in the sense of keeping them too well known to be considered viable targets; having a team of powerful psychics beyond the reach of the other side could be an ace in our pocket. And maybe there’s a lot we can learn from Bishop in the meantime. As a good-faith gesture, he’s provided us with an extensive file containing information on several of their more complex investigations, cases where psychic abilities made the difference between success and failure.”

“Names redacted, I assume,” Brodie offered dryly.

“Of course. As well as some of the details on nonpsychic aspects of the cases. Which is understandable, given his position. I’d be less trusting if he seemed willing to share everything.”

“True enough. Is any of the info helpful?”

“Maybe. Some of his people have displayed some pretty remarkable abilities, which at the very least makes room for possibilities with our own psychics. Those willing might be able to learn how to make better use of their abilities and even shift the balance in this struggle. We have people going through the file.”

“Well, let me know what they find if there’s anything useful to us. I, for one, really am getting tired of mostly fighting a holding action. In the meantime, what I want to know is how Bishop found out about us. None of us approached him, right?”

“Certainly not officially, though as you said, it was bound to happen that he or one of his team would encounter one of us. That’s what happened, and why he asked for a meet.”

“Who did he cross paths with?”

She smiled.

Brodie sighed. “And you’re not going to tell me.”

“It isn’t necessary for you to know, not just now. All you need to know is that he was already aware there was a . . . situation. And that his awareness makes sense. He’s spent years searching for and tracking psychics, for the SCU and for that civilian investigative organization he co-founded, Haven. He’s apparently crossed paths with
a number of us at various times, and even interviewed a few psychics who weren’t suitable for law enforcement work but who later joined us. Since he’s far from being stupid, he realized—a long time ago, I think—that something was going on. He began to notice patterns, the same sort of patterns that alerted so many of us. Psychics he met there one day and gone the next. Too many convenient
accidents
involving psychics to be coincidence. Too many reported deaths with no bodies recovered, or bodies too damaged to be identified by more than dental records or DNA—both of which we know the other side can and does plant or fake.

“The other side has taken extreme forensic countermeasures, including spreading out their activities so that no one law enforcement agency would be able to connect even two events, given differing jurisdictions and the reluctance of most agencies to share information. There was no notice on a national scale or by any federal organization, no awareness that something was happening. Until Bishop saw it.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t launch an investigation,” Brodie said.

“I’m not. He was building his unit and forging as many potentially useful connections as he could find, both inside the FBI, other areas of law enforcement, and in the private sector, all the while working to make sure psychic abilities as investigative tools would be taken seriously
within
the FBI and other law enforcement. Everything grounded and reasonable, not fanciful or outlandish. Abilities based at least on scientific possibilities, nothing mystical or magical,
no mystery about it, nothing that isn’t entirely human and even remarkably commonplace. If he had gone out publicly or even within the FBI and declared there was a conspiracy to abduct or kill psychics, reasons unknown but mysterious, how long do you think he would have lasted, let alone his unit?”

“True,” Brodie admitted grudgingly. “He wouldn’t have been taken seriously at all, and that had to be the last thing he wanted. Bad for his purposes and work, but best for ours. It’s what’s kept our problems on a par with Bigfoot and alien abductions as far as the media is concerned. On the rare occasions when something is noticed, at best we’re conspiracy nuts and at worst deluded people imagining some faceless enemy around every corner. Not fun to be considered crazy, but we’d never be able to operate as quietly as we do otherwise.”

“Well, I give Bishop credit for not only noticing, but finding the time and energy to put enough disparate pieces together to realize something was going on. Not his line, not serial killers or other murderous psychopaths, not crimes the FBI could or would legitimately investigate. But something involving psychics, and if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that he knows and values psychics.”

“True he’s one himself?”

“A touch-telepath, very powerful. He also has an ability to focus his normal senses in a hyperacute way his team informally refers to as spider senses.”

“Comic book terms?”

“Well, informally. But it’s something that allows him—
and some members of his team—to see and hear things normally beyond the limits of those senses.”

Brodie eyed her. “He’s seen them?”

“I’m not sure it’s that definite. All I can tell you is that he knows about the shadows. Calls them that, a term he was not given by any of us. And says they’re something he’s never sensed even in the worst cases the SCU has investigated.”

“Comforting,” Brodie said sardonically. “I’m assuming he’d have to touch one to know for sure?”

“I assume the same thing. Though even if he did touch one of them, there’s at least a twenty-five to thirty percent chance he wouldn’t read anything from them, assuming they
can
be read. Bishop says his solid range tends to be about seventy-five percent of the people he meets; those he can read. Others are apparently not on his . . . frequency.”

“What happens if he touches somebody like me, somebody on our side without much of a shield who knows maybe too many of our secrets? Do I shake hands with the man and give up more information than I want?”

“Brodie, he’s perfectly aware of his own abilities, and despite having his shields raised—which he promised to do—I’m betting he’ll take care not to touch you at all. He wants to help and protect psychics, and that means he wants our trust. Being suddenly in possession of too many of our secrets without our permission wouldn’t exactly be a good first step.”

“Okay. But, so far, I’m not seeing much benefit for us in taking him into our confidence.”

“John, he can get us access to the kind of information we could never get on our own even with all the sources we do have, and he can do it quickly.”

“Without attracting official notice?”

“If anyone can, it’s Bishop. Plus, I’m betting he knows the whereabouts of a lot more psychics than we do, and the word I got was that he monitors those he’s met—and a few he hasn’t. He keeps eyes on them, or has a different way to monitor them, but however he does it, he knows what’s going on with them. Maybe even in time to save some of them. And from a purely practical point of view, just because he knows they aren’t suitable for the FBI or investigative work when he encounters them doesn’t mean he believes that’s always going to be true, or isn’t aware they might someday need his help or protection.”

After a moment, Brodie shook his head. “Mine not to reason why, I guess.”

“You know better than that. And you also know that if you aren’t convinced Bishop can be trusted and can help us once you’ve met him, that’s it. He won’t be brought into any of the cells or used as a resource.”

“But he’ll still be aware of us, boss.”

“We can’t stop that. Also can’t stop him trying to put the puzzle pieces together on his own, something I doubt very much we want to happen.” She paused, then added, “He kept an eye on the situation with Sarah and Tucker. In fact, I’m reasonably sure he was present more than once while they were trying to get to safety, remaining in the background observing unobtrusively.”

Brodie opened his mouth and then closed it, frowning.

She nodded. “Yeah, there was no way he could step in to help, not when he wasn’t sure what was going on. He likely would have made bad worse, and I give him credit for recognizing that.”

“Okay, that makes a certain amount of sense. Anything else I should know about him?”

“He shares his wife’s precognitive abilities. Extremely powerful precognitive abilities.”

Brodie frowned. “Have they seen a future in this?”

“If so, Bishop didn’t say. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Maybe I will. Because if he has that answer . . .”

“Then he could be a lot more to us than merely another useful resource, another ace in the hole. He could be a game changer.”

Moving had seemed like a very good idea.

Tasha Solomon had, around six months before, sold the Atlanta house her parents had left her and bought a condo in the downtown area of Charleston. It had cost her a pang to give up the house, but since her parents had shared a nomadic nature as well as jobs that allowed them to settle in different parts of the country for a few years at a time, they had lived in the house for less than a decade before their deaths in a car accident.

And since Tasha had been in college for part of that time, she really didn’t have all that many family memories associated with the house. But it was the last place she had shared with her parents, and clearing it out to put it on the market, boxing up memories to put into storage, had been unexpectedly painful.

She might have kept the house, except that the vague uneasiness that had plagued her since shortly after her parents’ death had grown stronger in the year afterward.

She did not like being alone.

There was something . . . vulnerable about it.

It hadn’t helped that the house was a solid one with good locks on the doors and windows and a dandy security system she’d updated herself. It hadn’t helped that neighbors were friendly and helpful, and that the house was, really, in a very good, historically safe neighborhood where little was really required for security except a deadbolt.

It hadn’t even helped that she was well trained in self-defense and perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

She had still felt too . . . isolated. Too vulnerable. Not safe even behind locked doors.

And she had been aware of the strong urge to leave Atlanta, perhaps having inherited more of her parents’ nomadic natures than she had realized before then.

Perhaps.

Besides, change was inevitable, wasn’t it? And she had options. As painful as it had been, the deaths of her parents had provided her with not only life insurance bequests, but also a healthy investment portfolio and a very nice house that had sold at well above market value even in a depressed economy.

The third-floor corner condo she had found and purchased was small by comparison but very nice and more than adequate for her needs and comfort, the complex very secure even to the point of having manned twenty-four-hour security/concierge desks in the lobby, monitored
cameras on all the entrances and exits
and
the hallways, and individual security in each unit, and it was virtually new.

The view she saw out her windows was hardly desolate or lonely; her main windows looked out on the bustling area of Charleston filled with galleries, stores, markets, and restaurants, everything conveniently within walking distance and well lit all night long. The area had a relaxed vibe despite the usual crowds, an area filled with art and music and wonderful cuisine.

There were virtually always people near, people around her, and from her first night in the condo, that had given her comfort.

There was alone—and then there was
alone
.

The inheritance had also allowed Tasha to quit her unsatisfying job as a paralegal and take some time to decide what she really wanted to do with her life. She had rather idly attended a few classes on various subjects and attended the occasional interesting-sounding seminar, but so far nothing had really drawn her toward a particular field.

She had found a great deal of satisfaction in volunteering with the Charleston Animal Society two or three days each week, and had made friends in the world of animal rescue as well as among some of her neighbors, but . . .

She was still alone, reluctant to get too close to anyone for reasons she couldn’t always explain even to herself. And still hesitant about plotting some specific direction for her life. Not so much because she felt a tendency to drift with the tide, so to speak, or even because she lacked interests to choose among from which to plan a future.

No, it was . . .

It was the wrong time. The wrong time to plan a future. There were things she had to do first. Things that needed to happen first. She didn’t know what those things were, but every instinct told her that until she found her way through this very odd and unsettled part of her life, the future wasn’t something she should be thinking very much about.

Something wasn’t . . . right. Something around her, close to her, was . . . unnatural somehow.

And a threat.

Even here, even feeling safer and less alone in the condo, in Charleston, she was still aware of a niggling unease, a sense that she needed to look over her shoulder.

Often.

Most of the time.

A sense that, sometimes, she was being watched.

Most of the time. Now.

And that whoever or whatever was watching her wasn’t friendly.

Whatever?

Now why had that very unsettling word entered her mind? How could a
thing
be watching her? A camera, maybe? Was somebody taking pictures of her, even filming her, for reasons unknown?

A stalker?

Oddly enough, that was almost reassuring. Not that she wanted a stalker, of course, but at least that was something . . . normal. Well, not normal, but at least not . . .

She didn’t finish that. Even in her head.

Tasha left the café and headed home, stopping at the fenced yard of one of her neighbors, to the delight of the big mixed-breed dog who came bounding over to greet her with a bark and then sit politely, waiting for the treat he knew was coming.

“You’re spoiling him,” her elderly neighbor called from the other side of the yard, where he was pulling summer weeds from his flower beds—a leisurely task that seemed to occupy him for most of what passed for winter in Charleston.

And gave him an excuse to spend time in his small, neat front yard and interact with his friendly neighbors.

“As long as you don’t mind,” Tasha called back cheerfully.

“Nah, he’s a good boy. Besides, you never give him junk that could make him sick.”

Tasha wasn’t at all sure Max the dog was even capable of eating anything that disagreed with him as far as people food went, but since she had fed him this exact food before, she didn’t worry about it. Instead, she leaned over the fairly low wrought-iron fence Max could have jumped any time he felt like it and fed him the leftovers from her lunch. As always, he took the food gently and politely, and when the last French fry was consumed, he offered a paw in thanks.

“Tell me you taught him that, Mr. Arnold,” Tasha asked with a laugh as she shook the offered paw.

“Nope, all his own idea.” The elderly Arnold was clearly proud of his dog, the only family Tasha had ever seen about the place.

“Then he’s a very good boy indeed.” She straightened back up, waved a casual good-bye, and continued on toward her condo, dropping the take-out box into a trash container as she passed.

Very clean place, this part of Charleston.

The pause to feed the dog and chat briefly with her neighbor had occupied her attention, but now that that was past, Tasha found the almost-constant uneasiness returning. She really wanted to look back over her shoulder—but when she did, nothing unusual was there.

She felt a bit better as she neared her condo complex and the sidewalk strollers and shoppers became more of a crowd. She felt . . . safer.

Still, even with the relaxed crowd all around her, the uneasiness never entirely left her. And she was bothered by the fact that even after she greeted the pleasant security guard in her very safe building and headed up to her very safe condo, she was still tense.

Even inside, door locked and security system activated, she was tense. Hell, she even checked out her closets and under her bed, peering into corners, looking behind draperies.

Nothing.

She was alone.

So why didn’t it feel that way?

—

“She’s getting jumpy, boss,” Murphy reported, using a disposable cell as was her habit.

“How do you know?”

“Usual. Glancing back over her shoulder, tense, preoccupied. In that state, I get the sense of all defenses up and ready. I also get the sense that sometimes, very cautiously, she reaches out, or at least opens herself up. Seemed to almost go into a trance in the café, but passed it off to the waitress as meditation.”

“Maybe she’s picking up on you.”

“I’m closed up tight as a drum. If she can feel me around her she’s more than psychic.” Murphy was one of the very few psychics on their side who could shield, could hide her abilities from every other psychic they knew she had encountered. And one of even fewer trusted to be actively involved in virtually every aspect of their struggle, out and about most of the time on her own, gathering information as well as serving other functions.

“Do you think she senses them?”

“Could be. Do we have anyone close enough to scan her?”

“On the way. But if she knows how to block, you know we won’t get much. And since she’s lived with this all her life, it’s a safe bet she knows how to block.”

“Ah, shit,” Murphy muttered. “It means I get to play conduit, right?”

“Well, it increases the chance of successful contact, using two psychics when one of them has your unique ability to link with a third. Besides, the psychic capable of scanning her can’t get too close or take the chance of being seen by any of Duran’s goons.”

Murphy knew exactly whom they were talking about then, but all she said was, “Tell her to take it easy, will you? Last time I thought my head was going to explode.”

“Copy that.”

“And make sure somebody tells me if we find out Solomon can identify any of these bastards. I mean before they arrange a neat little
accident
and disappear her.”

“You think they may be planning one?”

“Hard to say. I’ve spotted a couple of their watchers in the last week or so, but they’re hanging back pretty far, not
quite
being their usual creepy hovering selves.”

“Any idea why?”

“Maybe because she caught them off guard when she moved here and began taking care never to be alone except in her condo. Her very secure condo. I’d think twice about trying to get in there myself. She’s on the third floor, and on the corner, with main windows very visible, and in an area of the city that really doesn’t sleep.”

“So any move they made against her there would have to be a very public one.”

“Yeah, unless they managed to pay off the security and concierge staff. I did some checking, and my bet is that isn’t likely. They’re well paid with great benefits, plenty of manpower, and many in security are ex-cops or retired military with very good records who got in their twenty and retired to a nice city and a very good job to supplement the pension and other benefits. A job they appear to enjoy, with no signs of restlessness or boredom. Not the sort of people Duran could hope to bribe unless he can offer something one or more of them
really
wants. Not the sort to have dirt in their pasts to invite blackmail—and I looked. Very clean records, and not the sort to bow to pressure. Just not in their natures, at least as far as I can tell.”

“And the concierge staff?”

“Pretty much the same. Well paid with outstanding benefits, highly trained, more than enough manpower so nobody’s overworked and the job gives them good time off in a wonderful city.” Murphy paused, then added, “The people who built Solomon’s condo complex knew what they were doing. It ain’t cheap, but most working professionals could easily afford to live there. They provided a safe, service-oriented set of homes for busy people living in a lively city, and they didn’t cut corners doing it. They even built well above code for hurricane safety.”

“You think she was consciously looking for safety?”

“I think she had a lot of choices, especially given her sizable inheritance, and chose a place where security, especially for singles, was at the top of the list of selling points.”

“Has she made friends?”

“Selectively. Through volunteer work with an organization here helping animals, a neighbor or three outside the complex but nearby, a few casual acquaintances met through school, a couple of other single women in the complex she occasionally meets for dinner, maybe one or two in the gym she goes to. She doesn’t lack for acquaintances, just doesn’t seem especially close to anyone. I get that’s an intentional choice, not a cold nature.”

“She’s a beautiful woman. Dates?”

“Not that I’ve seen. She’s worked with a few men in the volunteer organization, and of course some attended the same classes she was taking or auditing, but when I audited some of the classes myself, it looked to me like she rebuffed a few tentative passes. Politely and pleasantly, but not really
leaving any room for a second try. If I had to guess, I’d say she was a bit wary of men, though I’m not sure if it’s because of what she senses or some past experience.”

“Nothing stands out in her past, certainly no trouble with men or any man, at least that anyone noticed. Good family, no abuse suspected or reported, she did well in school, even kept her nose clean in college, as far as we can tell. Not known for partying and got top grades in every class. Casual dates, more often with groups, but she did see a few men during her college years and nothing unusual was noticed or reported.”