Phantom Evil

Jackson nodded. “Jake—first thing in the morning, start up with your computer magic.”



“Yes, sir.”



“It’s the house—we’ve seen it. The answers are in the house,” Jackson repeated dully.



“We’ll find the truth,” Whitney said. “I know we’ll find it.”



Jackson slipped an arm around Angela’s shoulder. “We’re going to get some sleep,” he said. “We’re going to try to get some sleep, anyway.”



“Wait!” Whitney said. “What happened with the police search at the Church of Christ Arisen? What did the senator know—and not know?”



“They missed DuPre. No one knows where he is. The senator originally sent him in like I sent Jake in—for information. He did send Blake Conroy to the meeting of the Aryans, but didn’t send either Grable Haines or his secretary.”



“So he says,” Jake added.



“So he says,” Jackson agreed. “They have two council members from the Church of Christ Arisen at the station, and two of the young women who live at the church. They’re all playing dumb—they won’t even give their real names. I’m going to talk to them tomorrow, and if we don’t get something quickly, we’ll have to bring Gabby Taylor back, though she did sign statements about her time at the church. I don’t think DuPre can stay underground that long. He didn’t think he was caught, or in any trouble, and DuPre needs an income. If the church assets are frozen, he’ll be in a desperate situation. Anyway, Jake, see what you can find out about that piece of equipment, and we’ll call it a night. Oh, Whitney—how’s the camera on the house next door going?”



“It’s working fine. No one in, no one out,” Whitney reported.



“Keep an eye on it—the senator is in it tonight,” Jackson said. “And make sure this place is locked up tight once Will is back in. We still don’t know the truth—whether the senator is involved, or whether his mental state caused him to be totally unaware of what people around him were really doing. The thing is, he did send DuPre into the Church of Christ Arisen. So, did he send his own people to join the Aryans as well? It’s worse than ghosts—it’s the living, and we have to find exactly what is what.”



“Absolutely. And we’ll watch the house. I’m going to be on it until four in the morning… Will is going to take over then,” Whitney told him.



“Everyone stay vigilant,” Jackson said. “I have a feeling things are going to come crashing down.”



He caught Angela’s hand, forgetful of everyone around them. It didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t say a word, and he didn’t care what anyone thought.



“Good night, then,” he said.



“Night, all,” Angela told them.



“This is really quite sad,” Angela said, as they left the group and walked up to their rooms. “All we’ve learned is that Senator David Holloway’s entire life was a lie, and the main missing ingredient is just how much he knew about the lie he was living.”



“And we can’t solve anything else now,” Jackson said.



She smiled at him as they stood in the hallway on the second floor, eyes brilliantly blue, a half smile curved into her lips. “We can solve one thing,” she told him.



“Oh?”



“The fact that it was very lonely in that bed without you.”



He wondered if he should feel badly that her words were a bolt of lightning ripping through him; if it was wrong that he could take such raw and carnal pleasure in being with her when they were sitting on a bombshell. And yet, the very history of the house reminded him that relationships were the essence of life. Angela had become a part of his life so quickly, something that he had missed, he thought, maybe always. He had become so focused on solving every dilemma out there.



“No reply?” she queried softly.



He drew her into his arms and kissed her gently, heedless of the fact that they remained in the hallway. Then he led her inside. “I hope that was an appropriate reply?” he asked her.



“Excellent, right to the point,” she assured him.



He held her there for a moment, just looking down into the pool of her eyes, wanting to explain what he had never managed to get clear to himself. His hands were on her shoulders; his fingers delicately caressed, and he tried to form words, a sense of his feelings, the reality he knew, and why his skepticism meant so much to him.



“Jackson?”



He was quiet for a minute, and then, at last, he spoke. “I have Native American blood,” he said. “And I have done a dream quest, and seen amazing things, but that’s not what touched me, made me wonder what was real, and what wasn’t. Once, when I was in my early teens, with my mom’s family, in northern Scotland, I was racing on horseback with friends. They thought that I had beat the hell out of them—I’m a good rider, and I had a damn good horse—but I hadn’t beaten them, I’d been thrown. I wasn’t ahead of them. I was lying there with a concussion, a rib broken as well, barely able to breathe. A kilted man had come along on a black horse that looked like some kind of mixed-breed warhorse and picked me up. I barely understood the man, his accent was so heavy and his speech was so strange. I was going in and out of consciousness. When I woke up, I found that I had been deposited on the steps of my mom’s ancestral home in the Highlands. And then…well, later I saw the man again. I saw him on the wall in the grand hall of my mom’s family estate. The painting was of Ewan McKeough, head of the clan in the late 1500s. He was the…he was the man who rescued me. Now, mind you, half the area of Scotland was McKeough. I tried to tell myself that he had to have been a relative. But I’ve questioned the truth of it ever since—being a skeptic, because so many people are willing to believe anything.”



“You’ve known,” Angela said quietly. “And you’ve known that you’ve had the ability to see beyond what most people see.”



“My real ability is to bring out the strongest reactions in gifted people like you,” he told her.



“And you can bring out abilities in me?”



“All kinds of abilities!”



She smiled and he closed the door firmly, turning to her. “Tonight, I’m thinking that I’ll bring out a few of your other abilities. Hmm…somehow, I just feel I’ll help you along without the benefits of a strip club. I mean, if you don’t mind. And, then again, feel free to strip….”



CHAPTER SIXTEEN



Warmth enwrapped Jackson as Angela lay in his arms. Hours of night had passed when they had been engrossed in one another, in sensation, in need, whispers and laughter, tenderness and volatility, and he had dozed and woken, and been pleased just to lie beside her. He breathed in the sweet clean scent of her hair, and felt the softness of her flesh beneath his fingers. There was even a time when he wondered at what he felt; she had known what it had been like to really become involved with another person, to lie comfortable and sated, happy to share time and space, wake together, share the simple pleasures of being together. He had spent his life restless and ever ready to move on, the world on his mind the second hunger was spent. He didn’t know why; something had happened to him those years ago on the Scottish cliffs, and he had become obsessed with the mind, with what was real, and what was illusion in the thoughts of man. And from there he had come into the Behavioral Science Unit, and the criminal mind had become his passion. There was always another case, and those working with him seemed a little bit hard and jaded as well, all fighting demons in their own minds. Work had been good; there had been times of escape, and he had always thought of himself as a decent man, a decent human being, but he might have been wrong. He hadn’t known the pain she had known. And he had never known the simple pleasure of sleeping beside someone, waking beside them and wanting them again.



Angela had her own demons—so many tragic deaths in her past. But she had learned to control the emotions that coiled around them. He didn’t think he was emotionless, but he had never let feelings slip beneath the surface. He knew damn well that he couldn’t solve the world’s problems, but the demons in him kept wanting him to do so. The loss of his teammates might have been part of it, he knew. They were ghosts that now lived in his heart. He’d never imagined that a woman could bring so much to his soul without even knowing the full damage that dwelled there now.



He wanted suddenly just to go somewhere with her and enjoy music or art, or a horseback ride through a beautiful forest, and not wonder about anything except the beauty around him and the wonder of his companion.



Then he started as there was a pounding at the door, and it burst open.



“Sorry, sorry!” Will said. “But there’s someone prowling around the house next door.”



Angela had been sleeping so soundly she was barely aware of the pounding of the door. She finally forced her eyes open to find that Jackson was already in his jeans, just sliding into his shoes. “What’s going on?” she asked him. He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “Will was just here.”



“Here? Damn—I heard some kind of pounding, but I didn’t see Will.”



“They’ve picked up something on the cameras. It’s not clear, but there’s someone next door, slinking around the house. Will is staying here; he’s downstairs watching the screens with Whitney. Jake is coming with me—we’re going over. Jenna tried to get the senator on his cell phone… He isn’t answering.”



She nodded. “All right. You go ahead, I’ll hurry.”



“We’ve got wires. Will is going to know where we are and what’s going on. It might be nothing.”



“Someone slinking around a yard is nothing?” she asked dryly.



“No, it might be another excuse. Like it’s the bodyguard, and the senator called him. Everyone seems to have an answer for everything around here,” Jackson said.