Blood Sins (16 page)

"You can let me look around. Alone." Sawyer had made virtually the same request every time and fully expected the same polite refusal.

DeMarco looked at him for an unblinking moment. Then he said dryly, "It seems to be the day for it. Reverend Samuel is meditating, and most of the children are at their lessons. The residential floors of the church are, of course, private, as are the cottages; I would ask that you respect those limitations."

Too startled to hide it, Sawyer said, "No problem."

"Fine. Then look around to your heart's content, Chief." DeMarco half-turned away, then paused to add even more dryly, "Say hello to Mrs. Gray for me."

"She's here?" There were several cars parked around the Square; he hadn't noticed hers.

"Like you, she wanted to . . . wander around. Get a feeling for the place. Ruth didn't see the harm."

And you were too late to stop her without being obvious about it?

"I don't suppose you'd know where Mrs. Gray is now?" Sawyer fully supposed he did.

DeMarco almost smiled. "I actually don't, Chief. Though Ruth did say she believed Mrs. Gray wanted to see what we call the 'natural church,' where Reverend Samuel preaches when the weather is . . . just right. It's up on the hill behind the Compound. Follow the path through the old pasture. You'll have no trouble recognizing the place."

"Thank you," Sawyer said warily.

"You don't play poker, do you, Chief." It wasn't a question.

With deliberation, Sawyer replied, "No. Chess is my game."

"You'll have to give me a match sometime. Enjoy your wanderings. I'll be in my office."

Sawyer gazed after the other man until DeMarco disappeared into the church, then set off on a direct path past the church and toward the pasture that lay behind the cottages on the north side of the Compound.

He was under no illusions; escort or no escort, neither he nor Tessa Gray would be unobserved anywhere within the Compound.

He wondered if she knew that.

It took him no more than five minutes to reach the pasture gate, closed despite the lack of stock. Since he'd been raised in a rural area where livestock was plentiful, Sawyer passed through but left the gate as he'd found it, securely fastened.

The path up the hill was faint but visible, and he followed it, forcing himself to stroll rather than walk briskly, to pause and look around, not quite idly. At least twice he paused to look back down the hill, studying the layout of the Compound.

It would be expected.

Not that there was anything unusual to see, at least as far as he could tell. The Compound was quiet, peaceful. No kids in the playground, but it was not yet lunchtime and they would be, as DeMarco had said, inside their homes at their lessons.

He had wondered briefly why the church didn't just build its own school as part of the Compound but had decided it was a simple matter of wanting to avoid the red tape and regulations that even a private school had to contend with. Better to have the children of the church home-schooled by a parent; as long as the children passed the necessary state-mandated periodic tests, no one was going to interfere in the matter.

"Bad day?"

He hadn't realized he was scowling. Even more, he hadn't realized until she spoke that he had reached the "natural church" just barely over the top of the hill.

It resembled a natural amphitheater, with a wide, solid granite ledge just to his right that would no doubt make an excellent stage--or pulpit. On the gentle downward slope below, curving terraces looked to Sawyer as though they'd been cut into the hillside, artificially set with scattered, mostly chair-sized boulders supplemented by numerous rustic benches.

Natural church my ass.

Unlike a true amphitheater, the shape was inverted, so that rather than gazing downward, all his followers would have to look up at Samuel while he preached.

Wonder if he does the loaves-and-fishes bit. And where the hell is the microphone?

"Chief?"

She was sitting on one of the larger boulders on the third terrace down. Casual in jeans and a sweater, her cheeks a bit rosy from the morning chill and big gray eyes solemn, she looked even more fragile than he remembered. The sight of her made something inside his chest tighten.

Don't be an idiot. She's your dead childhood friend's widow
--
and a recent widow at that.

"Bad week," Sawyer replied finally. He made his way down to her but hesitated rather than join her on the wide boulder. "I imagine services here would be impressive," he said.

"Probably. And I imagine it cost them a pretty penny to make all this look so . . . natural. Rather than man-made." Her voice was quiet, thoughtful.

He was a little surprised, but pleasantly so.

So they haven't quite got their hooks into her yet. At least not completely.

Still, he kept his tone if not his words neutral when he said, "Keep the audience entertained and they'll be back."

Tessa smiled faintly. "I was just thinking something along those lines. Have a seat, Chief."

"Sawyer."

"Have a seat, Sawyer. Please."

He joined her on the cold and not-very-comfortable boulder, turning just a bit so he could look at her as they talked. The slight breeze brought him a very pleasant herbal scent that he realized must have been her. Her hair, he guessed. He wanted to lean toward her, and fought the urge. "I was surprised when DeMarco said you were up here."

"Did he tell you?" She frowned briefly. "I suppose Ruth had to report to him. They all seem to, don't they?"

"He does run things for Reverend Samuel," Sawyer replied, still cautiously feeling his way with her. "Security, at least."

Tessa nodded. "She didn't exactly say so, but I think Ruth was reluctant to let me explore on my own. Without his permission, I mean."

"Yeah, well. I got his permission. Which is unusual."

She turned her head and regarded him, those big eyes still solemn. "Maybe he wants to put your suspicions to rest. Let you wander around on your own, and if--when--you don't find anything, you'd have no reason to come back here."

"Do you believe that would discourage me?" he asked, curious.

"No. I think you're convinced the church is connected to the deaths of those two poor women found in the river."

Sawyer wasn't surprised she had noted his suspicion; he had certainly not tried to hide it. Nevertheless, he heard the defensiveness in his tone when he said, "You think I'm wrong to keep pushing?"

"I think," Tessa Gray said, "you should push harder."

"T
hey're just sitting there talking." Brian Seymour gestured toward the main monitor in the security room. "She said something, he said he was having a bad week--and then he moved away from the microphone, and that's all we got. They're just far enough away that we can't pick up their voices."

"Convenient," DeMarco said.

"Well, the microphone was placed just so we could record Father's sermons," Brian reminded him. "It wasn't intended as part of the security system."

"Yes. I know."

They were alone in the security room for the time being, so Brian didn't hesitate to be frank. "I know you want to keep a close eye on the chief, but Mrs. Gray as well? She walked through the scanner when she came into the church with Ruth, and nothing showed up. No weapon, no electronics. Not that I'd expect her to be carrying anything like that, anyway."

"No," DeMarco said. "Neither would I. But as long as she's with the chief and within range of any of the cameras, watch her."

"Copy that. I'll tell the guys as soon as they get back from their break. Should we record if any of the microphones pick them up again?"

DeMarco considered, then shook his head. "As amusing as it might be to listen to the chief try his hand at courting, I believe we'll leave them their privacy. That much of it, at least. As you say, audio isn't part of our security system out there, so we might as well save the tape. Turn the microphones off for the time being, Brian."

Brian grinned a little as he obeyed. "Courting? Way I hear it, Chief Cavenaugh's slippery as an eel; the matchmaking biddies in town have been trying to hook him up permanent for years without any luck."

"It remains to be seen whether he needs their help," DeMarco said dryly.

"Maybe his taste just runs to wealthy widows, and this is the first real shot he's had. They aren't all that common in Grace. Especially young and very good-looking ones."

"True."

Sobering, Brian said, "It could cause problems for us, though, couldn't it? I mean, if Mrs. Gray decided to remarry--and especially the chief?"

"You're jumping the gun just a bit, Brian, don't you think?"

"Well, yeah, sure. But--"

"I doubt the chief is ready to ask for a date, let alone propose." Without waiting for a response, DeMarco added, "I'll be in my office. Make sure I'm called if necessary, but otherwise I don't want to be disturbed."

"Yes, sir." Brian turned back to the monitor, not entirely relaxing until he heard the door close behind DeMarco. Then he leaned back in his chair and checked the other monitors before returning his idle gaze to the silent discussion going on just over the hill and supposedly out of sight of anyone in the Compound.

"P
ush harder?" Surprised yet again, Sawyer frowned at Tessa. "Why? Have you seen something?"

"I've seen what you've seen. Less, really, since this is only my second visit here."

"But you believe there's something here to see?"

It was her turn to frown, and she looked away to gaze up the hill toward the "natural" pulpit. Her eyes seemed unfocused for a moment, almost dreamy. "I'm not a cop," she said absently. "I'm not so sure I'd recognize anything unusual."

"Then why do you--"

"Except for the Stepford bit. They're all very . . . perfect, aren't they? Scrubbed and polite and smiling. Content." Her gaze returned to his face, the gray eyes sharp now. "I hear some people get that from their religion, but up here it seems a little excessive."

"Just a little?" he said almost involuntarily.

Tessa smiled. "Okay, more than a little. A nosy question, but are you religious, Sawyer?"

"Not really. Raised with it, of course. Hard not to be here in the South."

"But it didn't . . . speak to you?"

"The preachers yelled quite a bit, but, no, I didn't much care for the fire and brimstone."

"Me either. Do you think that's why what Samuel offers his flock is so seductive? Because he doesn't yell? Because he promises reward instead of punishment?"

Sawyer studied her for a moment, conscious of the very odd but strong impulse to tell her that they should both leave. Now. But he had no idea why, specifically, he felt a threat directed at them both.

"Sawyer?"

He actually turned his head and looked all around them, wary, realizing that the hairs on the back of his neck were stirring in warning, and not because of the damn camera.

"We should leave," he said.

"They turned the microphone off."

He looked quickly back at her. "Tessa, what are you talking about?"

"There's a microphone hidden up there just behind the pulpit. Didn't you feel it? Can't you feel it now?"

Carefully, he said, "How could I
feel
a microphone?"

She studied him, a tiny smile playing about her mouth. "That's your thing, isn't it? Electronics? So you always know when there's a camera around, when there's surveillance? I bet watches die on you within weeks or even days and cell phones lose their charge much faster than they're supposed to. And I'll bet you short out lamps and screw up computers from time to time. Unless you've learned more than basic control, at least."

Sawyer was rarely speechless, but at that moment he couldn't think of a damn thing to say. The sense of a threat was still there, hovering, but he honestly wasn't certain if it was the camera--or something else.

"Sorry. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have said anything," Tessa continued. "It's your ability, after all, and your decision who to tell about it. I know from experience that keeping quiet is . . . usually the better way. People tend to fear what they don't understand, and--But we don't have a lot of time, so I have to be blunt."

"Blunt in saying what?" He wasn't giving in without a fight.

"That you're psychic. Probably since you were a kid, but you may not have been aware of it until you hit your teens."

"Tessa--"

"Most of us move from latent to active in our teens, unless there's some kind of traumatic event earlier than that. Or sometimes much later in life. We're the lucky ones. Our abilities aren't born in pain and suffering."

Again, Sawyer didn't know what to say.

Tessa smiled, this time a bit wry. "Technically, you have a heightened sensitivity to electrical and magnetic fields. We don't really have a name for that, other than a kind of clairvoyance. I don't know if you're able to manipulate the fields, but you do affect them, they affect you, and you could probably feel that microphone about the time you topped the hill." She nodded slightly to indicate something off to his right. "Just like you can feel the camera trained on us from that tree over there."

Sawyer didn't bother to turn his head to look at the camera thirty yards away from them but kept his gaze on her face. "And you know all this because . . . ?"

"Because I'm psychic too. And one of the things I'm really good at is sensing another psychic and knowing what abilities they have."

"
One
of the things?"

"I'm also clairvoyant, though not like you; I tend to pick up bits of information, emotions, snippets of thoughts. I have an unusual shield that hides my abilities from every other psychic I've ever encountered, and I'm mildly telepathic both ways."

"Both ways?"

Yes. Both ways.

"Shit. Was that--"

"Me, yeah. Sorry. It is, to say the least, intrusive to shove thoughts into other people's minds without so much as a by-your-leave, and I generally ask permission first." Her shoulders lifted and fell in a little shrug. "The ability only seems to work with other psychics. And even then I'm limited to very short phrases and sentences."