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“Do you ever get used to it?”
His jaw was tight. “I hope not. Murder should always appall us.”
“He and Pollack have drug histories, and it’s all but certain that they’d met before. But to be honest, the scene at the beach didn’t feel like Thorne. He didn’t just happen to run into Pollack in that isolated area.”
“He could have driven by and seen his car.” Hayes reached up to the visor and unclipped the sunglasses he’d left there yesterday. Unfolded them and slipped them on. “Or he arranged to meet Pollack there.” Like her, he seemed ready to believe the victim would be ID’d as the guy he’d confronted in the alley yesterday. “Maybe he climbed down to get high and had an argument with someone over drugs. A woman. Money. I’m no blood spatter expert, but it’s doubtful the murder weapon was a gun. It looked like medium-velocity spatter, which would indicate blunt force trauma.”
Her skin prickled. “Did they find the weapon?” There had been evidence markers scattered over the area, but she’d stayed too far away to identify what they signified.
“Not yet. Perhaps they’ll find it in the pit under the body. Or the killer tossed it in the ocean. Unless he—or she—carried it in a backpack down, odds are they didn’t take it with them.”
“Torture and violence are an essential part of the gratification he seeks,” Reese murmured. The scene in the cellar typified the chaos of the man’s mind—a deafening cacophony of noise. Blood spraying as if from a crazed artist’s palette. Whether using his fists or blades, he displayed a ferocious savagery. “He likes to take his time.” The basement floor had been slick with Trainer’s blood. If he hadn’t been interrupted by Hayes’s team, hers would have added to the gore.
His tone was measured. “Burning the victims or the site afterward makes any conclusions about what went on at most of the scenes speculative, except when the ME was able to detect breaks and fractures. Thorne declined to provide many details about his methods in our interviews.”
“He used a blade on his stepfather and Trainer.” Her voice hitched a little. “Brutality is a key part of his ritual.”
“Are you relying on facts in evidence or from your forays into his mind?”
Everything inside her froze. It shouldn’t be surprising that Raiker had shared her confession with Hayes, but that didn’t prevent the stab of betrayal. She certainly hadn’t discussed it with the therapist her aunt had strongarmed her into seeing. Reese had known that would result in the same judgment likely lurking behind Hayes’s carefully blank expression.
“For some people, intuition can be so strong it seems like telepathy.”
Irritation flickered. Reese didn’t need his armchair analysis of an ability she’d lived with all her life. “It doesn’t matter.” She turned her face to study the landscape zipping by her window. “It’s gone now.”
“Or just masked by the trauma you went through.” Shocked, she jerked to meet his gaze. “PTSD can raise one’s inner guard. As your mind heals from the assault you endured, you might find your…instincts returning.”
God, she hoped not. “If I hadn’t developed a strong inner defense, I would have been in sensory overload, bombarded by more confessions than an order of priests.” She heard a chopper overhead and craned her head to read the logo on its door. A local news channel headed in the direction they’d left. She wondered if word of the murder had leaked. There wouldn’t be a notification of the homicide until they had a positive ID on the victim. But an aerial news team could capture Pollack’s car in their coverage, setting off a chain reaction if a family member happened to see it.
“Because it’s guilt that triggers your ability.”
She slouched in her seat and damned Raiker to hell. Although, from what she’d heard, that might be redundant. “Like I said, not anymore.”
He was silent long enough to make her think he’d finally dropped the subject. Several minutes passed before he said, “Did you ever wonder how we happened to be close enough to mount that rescue op in Mississippi?”
Rescue op. Reese winced inwardly. With only one survivor. Autry’s image flashed across her brain. “I had a source. I knew you were working with the MBI’s Major Crimes Unit on the TK investigation.”
“We were headed to Goodness. Not because of Thorne. We didn’t have a suspect on our radar. We were trailing you.”
The world tilted. Belatedly aware that her mouth hung open, Reese snapped her jaw shut. “You thought I had inside knowledge of the crimes?” She didn’t bother to disguise her outrage. Whatever sparked her initial suspicions, she made damn sure she dealt in nothing but facts for her stories. The same facts he would have had access to.
“We didn’t think you were colluding with the TK, if that’s what you mean. We kept up with media coverage of the Trifecta Killer. Raiker thought your work showed rare insight. We kepta tight lid on what the police released after the Tupelo and Vicksburg murders. But you connected the dots when no one else in the press did. Adam discovered you were in Mississippi and in fact, hadn’t left the state after the earlier homicides. He wanted to pick your brain.”
“He conveniently left that out of our conversations,” she said bitterly. But had he? Reese had been battered, heart-sick, and traumatized when they’d first spoken. He hadn’t dismissed her explanation out of hand, which she’d fully expected. Hadn’t tried to explain her ability to her, as if she hadn’t lived with it for decades.
“I consulted with a well-known parapsychologist. He suggested that you may be a claircognizant intuitive empath. They have a strong sense of knowing, like whether someone is lying or determining the best action to take in a situation.”
“You consulted with.” Suddenly cold, Reese folded her knees up and leaned back against the headrest. “One of Raiker’s contacts?”
Hayes swung over to the right lane and slowed for flashing red lights behind him. The CHP car sped by and he resumed speed again. “He’s married to one of Adam’s agents. Devlin Stryker. Ever heard of him?”
Bemused, Reese shook her head. When she’d been a teen, she’d researched to try to find a description for what she lived with. She’d poked into psychic phenomena, but logic had made her reject it. Reese had always felt like a freak, but something in her shied away from actually labeling just what kind of freak she was. Some questions were better left unanswered.
“If you ask me, Raiker’s the one with a talent for knowing when someone is withholding the truth.”
Grinning, Hayes passed the highway patrolman, out of his car and approaching the red convertible he’d pulled over. “Uncomfortable, isn’t it?”
“That’s one way to put it,” she muttered. “I don’t do that. I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell if someone was lying.” Her ability would have been a lot more helpful in her youth if she could have. Or if the knowing included when she was in danger. But all she’d had was an invisible cloak of wariness that hadn’t always equated to self-protection. “Empaths absorb people’s emotions.”