the impression she was shivering, or trying hard not to. Even though she was on the opposite side of the car from him, he felt a thoroughly ridiculous urge to put his arms around her and warm her. Anything to get her to stop.
“Nah, look, it’s not that,” he said, trying to smile when what he felt like doing was grinding his teeth. “It’s just—look, thanks for the heads-up, okay? You said whoever it was is gone now, right?” She nodded, and he was relieved that her eyes were vivid and focused again. Although he had a feeling the image of those eyes would be staying with him for a while.
“Let me know if he comes back,” he said, and he got in his car and headed back downtown.
Pride made him wait until he’d turned the corner before he checked his rearview mirror. Well, hell. He was involved in a murder investigation, after all, and it was a long way from being his first. Not too much of a stretch to think somebody could take a notion to come looking for him with revenge on his mind.
It wasn’t much of a stretch, either, for a so-called psychic looking for a way to convince a skeptic to think of that, too.
* * *
Tierney watched the detective’s car until it had disappeared around the corner at the end of the block, absently rubbing her arms even though the chill that always followed an impression had already faded. She turned and went back into the gallery, frowning uneasily and wondering whether she’d done the wrong thing, telling Detective Callahan about the entity she already thought of as The Watcher. He was already teetering on the edge of disbelief, and passing along an impression so vague and meaningless was bound to only increase his skepticism. Especially since she hadn’t gotten any sense that The Watcher meant any harm.
The Watcher. From the objectivity of ten minutes removed from the experience, she replayed that extrasensory bombardment over again in her mind, searching for any signs of malevolence or danger. She couldn’t recall anything negative in it at all—quite the opposite, in fact. She kept getting that overwhelming sense of success achieved after great effort. Triumph. Intense glee. Profound relief. Joy.
What it reminded her of, she realized, was an image from a television miniseries she’d seen years ago, about a black American man searching for his roots in Africa. She’d never forgotten the look on the man’s face—an actor, of course, but no less emotionally intense, at least for her—when he heard at last the old griot, the verbal historian, recount the familiar story of how his ancestor had been taken by slavers. The man’s incredible, overwhelming joy as he cried out, “I’ve found you, you old African! I’ve found you!”
Yes. It was that kind of feeling. So vivid it shook her, brought tears to her eyes and goose bumps to her skin even now.
Laughing at herself, she dashed the tears from her eyes, rubbed away the goose bumps and went back into the gallery. She walked slowly among the paintings, soaking in their sunlit freshness and tranquility one last time before climbing the stairs to her apartment…and the darkness that was Jeannette.
Ed Francks was on the phone when Wade walked into the squad room. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and muttered, “See the boss,” as he jerked his head in the general direction of the hallway that dog-legged off the main squad room.
Wade nodded, tossed his jacket over the back of his chair and tucked in his shirttails as he headed for the office of the homicide division chief. It was more automatic than necessary; the current chief wasn’t a stickler for spit and polish. The only thing that impressed Nola Hoffman was closing cases.
Nola, being five-ten and a little bit—six feet in the high-heeled pumps she always wore—and carrying more weight than she probably wanted to, was more than impressive enough to fit her title. It didn’t hurt, either, that she had skin the exact color of Hershey’s milk chocolate, a neck about a foot long topped off with a perfectly shaped head that was covered with maybe half an inch of fuzz the color of vanilla ice cream and the face of an Egyptian pharaoh. She was referred to as “Boss” to distinguish her from the head of Special Cases, Allan Styles, who was just about Nola’s direct opposite in every way. Styles was known as “The Chief” to his face; what most of Wade’s fellow homicide cops called him behind his back was considerably less respectful and a whole lot more colorful. Dwight Cutter, Chief of Police of the City of Portland, was never called anything but “Chief Cutter,” both to his face and behind his back.
Under the circumstances, Wade wasn’t surprised to find all three of those individuals gathered in the Homicide Division chief’s office, their faces turned expectantly toward him as he entered. The only wonder to him was that his honor the mayor hadn’t chosen to join them, as well.
“Chief Cutter… Chief Styles… Boss…” Wade said as handshakes and nods were exchanged and appropriate titles acknowledged all around. He then assumed parade-rest stance, since all available chairs in the office had been taken, and arranged his features in an expression he hoped would appear both alert and somber.
“I’ve just been telling Chief Cutter and Chief Styles about our task force,” Nola said, leaning forward to place both forearms on her desk, the center part of which had, in their honor, been swept clean of papers clear down to the blotter. “Detective, can you fill us in on the latest developments?”
Wade managed to get his throat cleared, but Chief Cutter beat him to the actual forming of words. “Understand we had another torture murder last night. What’s this make now, five?”
“Five with roughly the same M.O., yes, sir. Assuming they’re all connected. We haven’t established that they are, not for certain.”
Styles, who’d never been Wade’s biggest fan, said with a superior smirk, “Come on, Callahan, all five victims have been—”
But Cutter’s blunt “Why not?” overrode it.
Wade chose to respond to the chief of police. “There’s no connection between the victims, for one thing. Except gender—all were female. Age-wise, we have a college student, a retiree, a city bus driver and a middle-aged housewife. Now this new one—she’s a widow, three grown kids. All were tortured in approximately the same way. None was sexually assaulted, although they were left naked and hanging by their wrists, and no clothes or IDs have been found.”
“But you have positive IDs on the victims?”
“Yes, sir—missing persons matchups and next-of-kin verification on the first four. The most recent—our widowed mom—had fingerprints on file. Seems she was a docent at the art museum.”
“No suspects, I take it.”
“No, sir. So far, there’s been no physical evidence left at the crime scenes by the killer or killers. None of the victims had any enemies, owed anybody money, took drugs or fooled around with anyone’s husband, girl or boyfriend. Model citizens, all.”
“Hell, sounds like we got ourselves a serial killer to me.” Chief Cutter snorted, fixing his jowly features in a Churchillian scowl. “Looks like I get the honor of breaking the news to the mayor. Just what this city needs—another serial killer. We got the Rose Festival coming up in a couple weeks, the eyes of the country on us—in a good way, for a change. How long’s it been since the last time we had a serial killer? Fifteen years? Back in the nineties, wasn’t it?”
“It’s spring,” Styles said. “Warm weather always brings out the weirdos.”
“Weirdos we got plenty of—always have. Wouldn’t be Portland without
