Chill of Fear

Le is ure , Te nne s s e e Tw e nty-five ye ars ago

The little girl huddled, shivering, in the back corner of the closet. She didn't like the darkness, and shut her eyes tightly so she wouldn't see it. She held her hands over her ears, pressing hard, to shut out the sound.
Tha-thum. Tha-thum. Tha-thum.

But she couldn't close it out, no matter how hard she tried, and had the frightened notion that it was inside herself. Sometimes, if she put her hand over her chest, she could feel her heart beating, and thought it would sound like that.
Tha-thum.

But this sound was in her head, thrumming, beating like tiny wings as though something tried desperately to escape.

"Go away," she whispered.

Tha-thum.

Look.

Tha-thum.

Listen.

She couldn't read very well, it had always been difficult for her, but she could see these words as though they were etched in her mind in bright, flowing script. They were always like that, the weird, shiny letters spelling words she understood.

Hurry. Look.

She couldn't not look. Had never been able to ignore or withstand those commands.

Hands still covering her ears, she reluctantly opened her eyes. The closet was dark, as she'd feared, but light seeped underneath the door. And even as she focused on that sliver of brightness, she felt the slow, heavy vibrations in the floor underneath her.

Hide.

"I am," she whispered, trembling. Her gaze was fixed on that sliver of light, and the dread inside her was swelling, huge, filling her.

It's coming.

Her breath caught on a silent sob as a bit of darkness crossed the sliver of light, and the vibrations beneath her ceased.

Then the bit of darkness swallowed the light, and she heard the closet door rattle.

Tha-thum!

Tha-thum!

Tha-thum!

Oh. No.

It's here.

Five years ago

"You're a hard man to find."

Without taking his eyes from the papers spread out on the table before him, Quentin Hayes said, "But not impossible, obviously. Who was looking for me?"

"Noah Bishop."

Quentin did look up then, his brows rising. "Of the Spooky Crimes Unit?"

Bishop smiled faintly. "I've heard the nickname."

"Telepathically? That is supposed to be your psychic ability, right?"

"It is. But I didn't need telepathy to pick up on the ridicule." He shrugged. "We'll probably always hear variations of that. But respect will come with success. Eventually."

Quentin studied the other man, noting the curiously light gray eyes and scarred but striking face that spoke of strength and danger, and undoubtedly prevented all but the bravest souls from expressing open ridicule. That, plus his extraordinarily high success rate as a profiler, had earned Noah Bishop quite a lot of respect within the Bureau, even if this new unit of his
was
earning just as much mockery.

Still, Quentin had earned his own considerable reputation as a solid investigator who preferred to work alone, and wasn't at all eager to join a team—or go public with abilities he had been at some pains to conceal.

"So why're you telling me?" he asked.

"Thought you might be interested."

"Oh, yeah? I can't imagine why."

"Of course you can." Bishop came into the room and sat down on the other side of the table, still wearing that faint, amused smile. "You saw me coming. Months ago? Years ago?"

Refusing to reply to those dry questions, Quentin said, "I'm not on the clock, in case nobody told you that."

"What I was told was that you've spent at least two previous vacations here in Tennessee. In this same small town. Probably sitting in this same seldom-used conference room of a police department that hasn't had to deal with much except traffic tickets, domestic disputes, and the odd bootlegger or meth lab in the last twenty years or so. Here you sit, going over the same old dusty files while the local cops shrug and keep the betting pool going."

"I hear the odds are tipping in my favor," Quentin said.

"They admire sheer persistence."

"Most cops do."

Bishop nodded. "And most cops dislike mysteries and unsolved cases. So, is that why you're here?"

"You mean you don't know?"

The mockery didn't appear to disturb Bishop in the least. Matter-of-factly, he said, "I'm not clairvoyant. Not a seer, like you. And I'm a touch-telepath, not an open one. Not that touching you would necessarily help me to read you; virtually every psychic I've known has developed a shield to guard themselves."

"Then you just assume I'm psychic, is that it?" Quentin had to ask, even though Bishop's specific reference to "seer" meant he was doing more than assuming.

"No. I know you're psychic. The same way you know I am, because we tend to recognize each other. Not always, but most of the time."

"So when do we exchange the secret handshake?"

"That would be just before I give you your decoder ring."

It surprised a laugh out of Quentin; he hadn't marked Bishop as a man with a sense of humor. "Sorry.

But you have to admit, an FBI unit made up of psychics is pretty off the wall. Almost comic book."

"It won't be one day."

"You really do believe that, don't you?"

"Science is understanding more every day about the human brain. Sooner or later, psychic abilities will be correctly classified as just another set of senses, like sight or hearing, just as normal and just as human."

"And you won't be head of the Spooky Crimes Unit anymore?"

"Let's just say that it's only a matter of time before the doubts and disbelief are proven wrong. We only have to be successful."

"Ah, gee, is that all?" Quentin shook his head. "The closed-case-to-open ratio in the FBI is running—

what?—about forty percent right now?"

"The SCU will do considerably better than that."

Quentin wasn't sure what he would have replied to the other man's optimism, but an interruption presented itself when a member of the Leisure Police Department appeared in the doorway.

"Quentin, I know you're supposed to be on vacation," Lieutenant Nathan McDaniel said with only a glance toward Bishop, "but I thought you might be interested in this—and the chief okayed telling you."

"What's up, Nate?"

"We just got a call. A little girl's gone missing."

Quentin was on his feet immediately. "At The Lodge?"

"At The Lodge."

When the sprawling hotel had been built back around the turn of the twentieth century, it had been christened with some grand-sounding name, now long forgotten. For more years than anybody remembered, it had been called simply The Lodge, and somewhere along the way the owners had given up and accepted that name. It had been a favored vacation spot of the rich and reclusive fairly consistently throughout its history, for both its grandeur and its isolation; far from any major city and reached only by a single winding, two-lane blacktop ascending miles from the small town of Leisure, it was about as far from civilization as one could get, especially in these modern days of instant or near-instant communication.

But for all its isolation, The Lodge had more than its fair share of amenities to tempt guests to make the journey to its doors. Its large main building and numerous cottages all boasted spectacular views of the surrounding mountains, and among its other attractions were miles of winding trails for hiking or horseback riding, beautiful gardens, a huge clubhouse holding both an Olympic-size swimming pool and indoor tennis courts, and a very nice eighteen-hole golf course.

Add to all that a highly trained and discreet staff ready to pander to a guest's every whim, lovely rooms and cottages with luxurious beds and bedding that guests had been known to purchase after a visit, and first-rate spa facilities, and you had a hotel that had put Leisure, Tennessee, on the map. Or at least on the map of deluxe vacation spots.

"The only problem," Quentin told Bishop as they got out of Quentin's rental in the circular driveway in front of the main building, "is that the place has a nasty habit of losing people—and they're almost always children."

"I don't imagine they include that in the brochures," Bishop said.

"No." Quentin shook his head. "To be fair, there isn't really a pattern to the thing unless you have the sort of suspicious mind I have. And from what I've been able to piece together over the years, the dead and missing, though usually connected to the hotel in some way, are almost never guests. Kids of people who work here, or in the general area, mostly. Locals. And people in this part of the country don't open up to outsiders, or want anyone meddling in their business."

"Even when that business is missing children?" "They're the self-reliant sort, believe me. They get their dogs and their shotguns and go looking for themselves. In the old days, nobody even bothered to report any kind of problem to the police, and as far as I've been able to make out, it's just as often true in recent years."

"What sort of time frame are you talking about?" "I've gone back twenty years, at least. And found half a dozen suspicious accidents or illnesses, as well as one unquestionable murder. Not statistically significant for a hotel with as many people passing through as The Lodge can claim, according to the books. But I'm not buying it. And—"

Bishop waited a moment, then prompted, "And?" "And there have been at least five unsolved disappearances connected with this place, most but not all kids."

It didn't take psychic ability to know that Quentin had changed his mind about what he'd been about to say, but Bishop didn't press him. He merely said, "I think if I were a parent, I'd hesitate to bring my child here."

"Yeah. Me too." Quentin was frowning as he watched Nate McDaniel and another of the local cops speaking to a clearly distraught man near the hotel's front steps.

"And you keep coming back here to find out why this place seems to be... cursed?"

Quentin didn't argue with the terminology. "As you said—most cops dislike mysteries."

"Especially the ones that touch them personally."

Quentin's frown became a scowl, but he didn't reply to that since McDaniel turned and moved toward them, indicating with a jerk of his head that they should join him.

"According to the girl's father," he told them, "she's not the type to wander off. The mother was having a day at the spa, so he and his daughter were spending the day together. Horseback riding this morning, then a picnic lunch out in the rose garden. But the hamper The Lodge provided didn't have the girl's favorite drink, so he went in to get it. Says he wasn't gone five minutes, though it was probably closer to ten. When he got back to their blanket on the grass, she was gone."

McDaniel sighed. "Half the staff's out looking for her, but they didn't call us for at least an hour."

Bishop said, "They've covered the grounds nearest the buildings, then?"

"So they tell me." McDaniel eyed him. "I know why Quentin turns up here every so often, but what about you, Bishop? The chief said you were here to talk to Quentin, but might be willing to help us out with this."

"I'm always willing to help search for a child," Bishop said. "Did anybody see her after the father left her in the garden?"

"Nobody we've talked to so far. And there were other picnics going on in other parts of the garden; it's a Lodge tradition, especially in summer, like now. But all the others were couples, and my guess is they were too wrapped up in each other to pay attention if a child wandered by."

"What about if she was dragged or carried past?" Quentin demanded.

Bishop glanced at him. "People notice what's out of the ordinary. If the child had been resisting or protesting, someone would have taken note. Assuming she was seen at all."

McDaniel said, "And there's no sign of a struggle of any kind, Quentin. We won't find footprints in a garden that's mostly grass and flagstone paths, though we are checking the planting beds. The only thing the girl left behind was the sweater she was wearing earlier. I've called in one of the local search-and-rescue canine teams; they should be here within the next half hour."