Jordan Swain, in addition to priding himself on his good looks, also prided himself on the fact that he was a good cop. He hadn't joined the sheriff's department just because it was better than a job selling insurance or real estate or something.
He genuinely wanted to help people.
Until now, he had cruised along his career path pretty much as planned.
Until now.
'The first halfway free day we get,' Teresa Miller was telling him grimly, 'Shorty and I are teaching all the rest of you how to collect latents and DNA evidence.'
'Teresa, I know it's asking a lot, but-'
'A lot? Christ, Jordan, you were the one tossing his cookies at the scene-what was it?-at least twice today.'
'I'm not ashamed of it,' he said with total honesty. 'If I'd wanted to look close-up at blood and guts, I would have gone into your end of police work. But
'Shit.'
'Today.'
'There's no day left in today Jordan. And why does it have to be now?'
'Because the sheriff said so. Because it should have been done already, when we got the missing-persons reports.'
'That's not SOP, not for every missing person.'
'It is now. Look, Teresa, I'm sorry. But I need you and Shorty to do this. You're both getting double overtime, if that helps.'
She sighed and for the first time looked simply weary. 'It doesn't help much. I don't know how I'm going to face either of those families, knowing I've probably been picking up pieces of their loved one half the afternoon.'
'Yeah. Yeah, I know.'
She squared her shoulders. 'Okay, I'll tell Shorty and we'll pick our teams. They can print family members for elimination while we collect all the latents we can find. And DNA, if we can find that.'
'Sheriff said to try not to alert the families we're looking for DNA,' Jordan reminded her.
'Yeah, I heard you the first time. But you can tell the sheriff from me that I think he'd better come clean with the families about what we found today-and soon. Because we both know they're going to hear about it.'
'We need a positive I.D., Teresa. Maybe we'll be able to spare at least one of the families the certainty that a daughter or a wife was hacked up and left in pieces.'
A hollow laugh escaped Teresa. 'You think we'll be able to do that?'
The question caught him off guard. 'If we get a positive I.D., we'll be able to eliminate-' He broke off, going cold inside, because Teresa was slowly shaking her head. 'What?'
' Jordan, I had some preliminary tests run on the early blood and tissue samples we took out there.'
'And?' All of a sudden he really wished he could take back that question. But it was too late.
'And I can tell you right now that we have blood and tissue from at least two victims. At least.'
If Marc hadn't known before being introduced to the two strangers waiting for him in Paris 's living room that Miranda Bishop was with the SCU, he would have pegged the wrong one as the fed.
John Garrett really looked the part.
He was a big man, broad-shouldered and athletic, with dark hair and the level gaze of someone accustomed to command, and the dark suit he wore only intensified that impression.
Miranda Bishop, on the other hand, was casual, in a silk blouse and jeans that did nothing to disguise her centerfold measurements, with her longish jet-black hair pulled back at the nape of her neck-and was the first woman Marc had ever met in the flesh who was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.
That was his first impression.
Shaking hands with her a moment later, he looked into electric-blue eyes and knew immediately that her stunning exterior was the least important aspect of her. He could easily see her as a federal agent handling herself in any dangerous situation that came along.
But even more-
'You're a telepath,' he said. 'And not just that. A seer. And you have one hell of a shield.'
'Told you,' Dani murmured.
Miranda released his hand, smiling faintly. 'And you,' she said pleasantly, 'are a rare bird in our universe. A non-psychic with the ability to recognize psychic abilities in others. Even shielded abilities.'
'It hasn't been much of a gift,' Marc told her, avoiding so much as a glance at Dani. 'Passive in the extreme.'
'But it could be helpful,' John Garrett said as the two men were introduced and shook hands. 'Under the right circumstances.'
'Maybe. Not circumstances I've encountered so far, however.'
Paris spoke up then to say dryly 'You just haven't been running with the right crowd, Marc. Have a seat.'
'I have a murder to investigate,' he said.
'You wouldn't have come this far if you hadn't been willing to listen. Have a seat.'
She was right. Dammit.
Marc sat down.
The room was spacious for a relatively small house, but not so spacious that there was much real distance between any of the five people in it. Except for two of them.
Dani was sitting in a chair not three feet away from the one Marc chose, but he thought she was nevertheless far away from him, despite the faint connection he could still feel. She seemed shut in herself, withdrawn, and he knew it was deliberate.
Even as a kid she had done that, isolating herself from those closest to her when something went wrong. Not because she didn't care, but because she felt things a lot more deeply than she ever wanted to show. Because she didn't want to see some of the things her ties to people allowed her to see. And it was probably the twin thing too, Marc had decided, the need to be her own person, apart from Paris.
Maybe that was why she had grown up resisting anybody getting too close, resisting attachments. Marc had wondered many times since if, in trying to hold on to her ten years ago, he had actually driven her away by grabbing and holding too tightly.
He caught a glance from Paris and realized that even Dani's twin was worried about her. Which was not a good sign. The question in Marc's mind was whether it was the situation that was affecting Dani-or the people involved.
Was she still trying to pull away from him, him in particular, especially in light of his impulsive words on a very public sidewalk today?
John Garrett said matter-of-factly, 'You know I'm not psychic.'
Marc didn't even have to concentrate, though he did have to shift his focus back to the matter at hand, and it was more difficult to do that than he had expected. 'I do know that. And yet you run an organization designed to make use of the psychic abilities of your people.'
'My wife is an empath, and my best friend a seer.' Garrett shrugged with a rueful smile. 'I'm the one with the business-oriented mind. Somehow it all made sense.'
'I can understand that. What I can't understand is what you're doing here. In Venture. You or Agent Bishop.'
A faint laugh escaped Miranda Bishop. 'Miranda, please. Most people call my husband by his surname alone, so there's really only one Bishop in the family. And in the unit.'
