Whisper of Evil (27 page)

"Thanks," Nell said.

Ethan grunted. "I should have known you'd call him. It was when you went back into the house, right?"

Nell hesitated for only an instant. "I didn't call him."

"Then how did he know we were here? Christ, don't tell me he's watching you that closely?"

She was spared having to answer when they heard the front door open, and a moment later Max came into the living room. Nell knew at once from his guarded but calm expression that Max had made up his mind to keep his temper under control and avoid any confrontation with Ethan, which eased her mind at least a bit.

The last thing she needed was these two at each other's throats.

In lieu of a greeting, she said to Max, "I thought I might be able to offer something useful to Ethan's murder investigation."

Ethan lifted a brow at her in silent appreciation but didn't comment on her version of who called whom for help.

And all Max said, with a brief nod to Ethan, was, "Anything so far?"

"We hadn't had time to get started. Ethan, you said he died upstairs?"

"In the master bedroom."

"Lead the way," Nell said.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Nell wasn't sure she would be able to tap into anything at all with both Ethan and Max so near, the tension between them unexpressed but obvious. And even without that, given her druthers she would have avoided trying to use her abilities again so soon after the trauma of this morning's vision. But she was more conscious than ever of time ticking away, and she knew she couldn't afford to wait.

"So how does this work?" Ethan asked when they had reached the airy, light-filled master bedroom.

Nell stood in the center near the foot of the bed, looking around, and answered absently, "I concentrate and try to tap into whatever energies and memories this room might hold."

"And we stand very still and don't bother you?" She looked at him and smiled. "Something like that." Max said, "Are you sure you're up to this, Nell?"

"I'm fine." She didn't give him a chance to question further or protest, but simply closed her eyes and be-gan to concentrate, forcing herself to drop her shields and open herself up, to begin to reach out.

Since Peter Lynch had died in this room more than eight months before, and since his death had been sudden and apparently without warning, Nell really didn't expect to pick up much from that event. She had discovered that she seldom saw anything of an actual death scene, a fact that both relieved and puzzled her.

But she often got something of the minutes before or after, depending on the violence or intensity of emotion involved, and since she was concentrating as specifically as she could on Peter Lynch and his death, she expected to see something of that.

Instead…

It was initially difficult to reach out, as if she had to push her way through something, and she was dimly aware of using more energy or energy of a different kind to do that. Finally, she felt that distinctive time-out-of-sync sensation, but veiled again, oddly distant, and she was uneasy about that even before she opened her eyes and found herself in a different room entirely, a living room.

A completely unfamiliar room.

Nell looked around, trying to figure out where she was as well as find something to mark time, something to tell her when this was. An open magazine lay facedown on the coffee table, and when she stepped closer, she saw that it was dated January of the previous year. Most people read magazines the month they arrived, didn't they?

She stood looking around, uneasy. Where was she? And why was she here? What she saw was definitely a vision: The edges were blurred, softened, her attention as always directed to the center. But there was something peculiar about it, about the sensations of it, so much so that Nell felt a chill of real fear. Her first instinct was to try and fight her way out of the vision, but both an innate curiosity and an even deeper need to understand the limits of her own abilities made her hesitate. And in that moment of hesitation, she saw Hailey stalk into the room, obviously upset.

Ethan was right behind her.

"What, I'm not supposed to be pissed about it?" he demanded, grabbing her arm and swinging her around to face him just as they came abreast of Nell.

"No, you're not. You have no right, Ethan, and we both know it."

"No right? I've been in your bed for two months— that doesn't give me the right to get just a mite upset when I find out you've also been sleeping with Peter Lynch?"

"I told you, it's none of your business. We don't have a relationship, Ethan, we fuck." She pronounced the harsh word with complete deliberation, even enjoyment. "Period. You have fun, I have fun, that's it. No strings, expectations, or obligations on either side."

Ethan didn't seem to be buying that; his face was tight, eyes grim. "Not even respect, huh?"

Hailey laughed, and the smile she gave him was incredulous. "Respect? What does respect have to do with anything we do together? If we did it outside in the dirt instead of in a bed, we wouldn't be the slightest bit different from two stray dogs meeting up when one of them's in heat."

"So which one of us was in heat?" he asked roughly. "Which one just had an itch that needed scratching?"

Hailey laughed and jerked her arm free of his grasp.

"Me, of course. I'm always in heat, didn't you know? Hadn't you heard? Jesus, Ethan, don't try to pretend you weren't convinced I was a whore long before you came on to me. And what about the scars left by a whip on my back? The cigarette burns? You never even asked about those, did you? Because it's just what you expected to find when you got my clothes off, isn't it?"

"Hailey—"

"Whores are always marked, aren't they, Ethan? Not with a scarlet A, maybe, but we're always marked. So men like you won't feel guilty kicking us out of your beds before dawn."

"Goddammit, I never asked you to leave. Never."

"You didn't have to ask. I knew what you wanted. I always know what men want." She began to turn away from him abruptly, obviously on the point of storming out of the apartment—but then froze.

Nell found herself staring into the widening eyes of her sister and had the sudden, terrifying knowledge that Hailey saw her. That she was actually, physically there, in the past.

No longer just a witness.

"Some detective I am," Justin muttered. "I don't even have a clue what I'm supposed to be looking for."

However reluctantly, Shelby had to agree with him, at least about their fruitless search. "Lots of births in this parish in the last forty years. Listen, are you sure there was nothing in George's desk at the bank to explain why he was so interested in these old records?"

Justin leaned forward to drop several pages of birth listings onto the stack on the coffee table, then stretched absently. "There was nothing I could see. Christ, look at the time. Didn't we just have breakfast?"

Shelby heard her stomach rumble and grinned at him. "My stomach says the donuts were hours ago. Why don't we really give the gossips something to talk about and go to the cafe for lunch?"

"Aren't you tired? We've been poring over these damned records for more hours than I want to think about."

"I'm a natural night owl, and it's not so unusual for me to skip a night's sleep if I get involved in something." She shrugged. "Anyway, since tomorrow's Sunday, we can both sleep as late as we want, so what the hell. You did say this is your weekend off, right?"

"Officially. Sheriff Cole has us all working overtime, but he's insisted everybody gets at least one weekend a month off the clock, and this one's mine. So unless another body turns up, nobody'll expect to see me at the office."

"Do you want to go home and crash? Or lunch at the cafe? Maybe we can figure out a way to find some clue as to what George was looking for in these birth records."

Justin had his doubts, but he was also enjoying Shelby's company and was far too wired to even think about sleep, so agreed that lunch sounded like a good idea.

It was fairly busy in town on this Saturday afternoon, but the lunch crowd at the cafe was already thinning out and they had no difficulty getting a somewhat secluded booth near the back.

Shelby, perfectly aware of several covert glances, managed not to laugh, but did say to Justin when the waitress had left with their order, "Life in a fishbowl, that's Silence."

Casual, Justin said, "Is it the fact that you're with me they're interested in, or the fact that I'm with you?"

"Both, I'd guess. You're a very visible part of the investigation, so everybody's naturally interested in what you do. As for me, well, let's just say I seldom have lunch with handsome men."

"That's a surprise. And thank you."

She laughed half under her breath. "Since I'm usually wandering around town with my cameras and probably see a lot of stuff I wouldn't otherwise see, I know most of the men in Silence very well. Too well, I guess. Makes it difficult for me to think of any of them as boyfriends or bed partners."

"Because your candid camera caught them being themselves?" Justin guessed shrewdly.

"Something like that. It's amazing how many people seem to imagine themselves in a bubble of privacy even when they're out in public."

Justin didn't ask for any of the details of what she'd seen, but he did wonder if even one of the hopeful suitors Shelby had undoubtedly turned away had the slightest idea why she found them unacceptable. But before he could say anything, she was cheerfully supplying some of the details he would just as soon not have had.

"I mean, it's hard to blame anybody for scratching an itch even in public, or dealing with a wedgie—because you really have to, after all—but nose-picking and cleaning out one's ears really crosses the line, you know? And I actually watched one guy clipping his nose hairs with one of those little battery-powered clippers. I found it extremely unsettling. And not at all attractive."

Justin laughed. "Obviously you're going to have to lower your standards."

"Or put away my cameras," she agreed ruefully. "Not that I'm prepared to do either. Which makes it a good thing that I don't at all mind being alone most of the time."

"Well, for God's sake, tell me if I do anything disgusting, okay?"

Shelby grinned at him. "I don't think you will."

He eyed her uncertainly for a moment while Emily poured coffee for them, and when the waitress had gone again he said, "You have pictures of me, don't you? Candid shots?"

"Just a few."

"Jesus." He tried to remember if he had done anything that he, if not she, would consider embarrassing, but found it all but impossible to recall movements or gestures that probably were unconscious anyway.

In a more serious tone, Shelby said, "One of the reasons I decided to approach you about the investigation was that I had watched you on and off these last weeks. It's obvious you're committed to your job and that you do it well. You've always been very intent, very focused on what you're doing at any given moment, and yet you always pay attention to the people around you."

"I didn't see you and your cameras," he pointed out wryly.

"That's because I didn't want you to see me. Not that I was spying on you or anything like that, it's just that I've developed the knack of watching people without their awareness."

"The way you watched Sheriff Cole," Justin said, deciding to turn the conversation in a less personal direction.

Shelby followed agreeably. "Exactly. Remember, I've been watching Ethan Cole for years, so when I paid closer attention to him after the first murder, I could see he was behaving differently. For a long time, there was nothing I could put my ringer on, but when I grouped all the photographs of him together, that's when I found what I showed you. These."

In her enthusiasm, Shelby reached into the big canvas tote bag she always carried and pulled out the manila envelope she had showed Justin the day before.

"These pictures mean something, Justin, and we both know it."

Alarmed, he glanced quickly around the cafe and found, as he expected to, that several people had noted Shelby's actions. To make matters worse, before he could stop her she opened the envelope and drew out the photos, handing them across the table to him.

"Take another look at them," she invited him.

Justin knew that making a big fuss would only draw more attention to them, but as he bent his head and looked at the pictures, he said under his breath, "I really wish you hadn't pulled these out, Shelby. Not here and now."

"Why not? Everybody in this town has seen me showing off my pictures, so there's nothing odd about it. They'll probably assume I'm just showing you pictures I took of you."

"Yeah, but if the wrong person is watching—or even hears about it—it could make him suspicious. Might make him think your candid camera caught him doing something he really, really doesn't want the law to know about."

After a moment, Shelby said, "Okay, dumb of me. But the damage, if there is any, is done, so you might as well look at them."

Unwilling to betray any undue interest to those watching eyes, Justin leafed through the photos quickly and then handed them back to her with a faint smile for the benefit of the observers. "I agree they could be important. But the sheriff talks to lots of people in this town every day; odds are he would have talked to each of the murdered men as well."

Shelby put the photographs away once again in her bag and tried to keep her expression neutral. She wasn't really afraid, but Nell had warned her to be very, very careful, and she was pretty sure Justin was right about this being a mistake. Still, since it was done, there was nothing to do but push on. "Yeah, but if you'd checked out the back of each of the photos, you would have found a date penciled in. I pulled all the negatives and checked each shot."