The Sheriff of Silverhill

She met Mrs. Thompson at the kitchen door and took the saucer from her unsteady hand. “Why don’t you sit down, Mrs. Thompson? Sheriff McClintock left a piece of paper on the table for you to jot down Holly’s male friends.”

She helped Mrs. Thompson take a seat, placing her glass of liquid comfort on the table in front of her. Balancing her cup and saucer, Dana settled next to Rafe again. She inhaled the fragrant tea before taking a sip. Mrs. Thompson must have gotten the tea from Auntie Mary because it tasted and smelled like her own special blend.

Rafe asked, “Did your daughter seem worried about anything the past few weeks? Did she complain about anyone following or harassing her?”

“My Holly never worried about a thing. She was a high-spirited girl who liked to have fun.” Mrs. Thompson sniffled and took another gulp of bourbon.

“Did she keep a diary? Have a computer? Send e-mails to friends?”

“She spent a lot of time on the computer. Would you like to see it? It’s in her room.”

They followed Mrs. Thompson as she weaved down the short hallway, the cat threading between her ankles. She threw open the door to a small room, crowded with furniture and plastered with posters of tattooed singers and grungy-looking bands.

Dana stepped into the room. The heavy perfume of the wilting roses by the window saturated the air, and Dana massaged her temple against a sudden pain. She hoped her allergy to cats wasn’t kicking in.

Photos lined the edge of the dresser mirror, and she bent forward to study the smiling faces. Holly had a lot of friends, and a lot of those friends included men. If they planned to track down all of these guys, they had a huge task in front of them. But they could start with Brice.

Mrs. Thompson backed out of the room. “You two can look around. I’ll start working on that list.”

Dana noticed her empty glass and figured Mrs. Thompson probably needed a refill, or maybe she just couldn’t face her daughter’s bedroom.

“Are you surprised that Brice was seeing Holly?”

“Not really, but I’m surprised he didn’t mention it. I’ll be having a conversation with Brice about his relationship with Holly and about police protocol.”

Rafe straddled the chair in front of the computer and brought up Holly’s e-mail. “It’ll take a while to go through these. I suppose Mrs. Thompson will let us take the computer with us, or we’ll get a court order to confiscate it.”

“I’m sure she’ll let us have it without a court order.” Dana flipped up the lid of a small pink box on the dresser and a tiny ballerina sprang to life, spinning to Tchaikovsky. A warm flush spread across Dana’s skin, and she lifted the back of her hair and fanned herself. Where’d that cat go?

Rafe tapped a few keys on the keyboard and said, “I wonder if she has one of those My Space pages. Your cyber crimes unit could probably get us a password.”

“Mmm.” Dana smoothed her palm along Holly’s bedspread, and her hand tingled. Must be a little static electricity in the room .

She sat on the edge of the bed and rummaged through the nightstand. Didn’t look like Holly kept a diary, but she did have a variety of sex toys and a few condoms. Dana picked up a decorative hairbrush with strands of long, dark hair clinging to the bristles.

Running her fingers across the bristles, she closed her eyes. Her breathing deepened, and Rafe’s voice sounded as if it were coming from miles away.

An unseen force jolted her body and her hand curled around the carved handle of the brush as an explosion of lights flared behind her closed eyelids. The roaring in her ears blocked out all her other senses. Her body went rigid and then floated, weightless, timeless.

Then the vision took control of her mind.

Chapter Four

“All these password-protected files are beyond my computer skills, but I’m sure your guys can get in.” Rafe clicked the mouse a few times to shut down Holly’s computer. He pulled open a desk drawer and grabbed a handful of loose papers and photos. “At least there’s no shortage of pictures to study. I don’t see any of Brice.”

A soft moan brushed the back of his neck, making the hair there stand on end. He jerked his head around and drew his brows over his nose. “What are you doing? Taking a nap?”

Reclining on Holly’s jungle-print bedspread, Dana clutched a hairbrush to her chest, her wide eyes staring at the ceiling. Her lips moved as if repeating a phrase over and over, but Rafe couldn’t hear any sound.

“Dana!” His voice exploded in the room, but Dana didn’t move a muscle except for her mouth forming silent words. Rafe charged to his feet, Holly’s papers and memorabilia scattering on the hardwood floor.

He reached the edge of the bed in two steps and clasped Dana’s arm, crossed over her chest. Alarm raced through every cell in his body as his fingers tripped across her rigid, cold flesh. Her eyes, directed toward the ceiling, held a vacant look, but they flickered back and forth as if she followed some action only she could see.

A vise gripped Rafe’s chest. Was Dana having some kind of seizure? Should he try to move her? Rubbing his hands along her stiff arms, he murmured her name over and over. Her breath, deep and steady, reassured him.

But only for a moment.

She choked and her eyes bulged from their sockets. As Rafe scrambled for his cell phone to call 911, Dana snatched her hands from his, bringing them to her throat. With a wrenching cry, she sat up straight, coughing and sputtering.

Rafe dropped the phone and gripped her shoulders. “Are you all right? What happened? Should I call an ambulance?”

Her gaze cleared and focused on his face. The color ebbed back into her cheeks and she shook her head. “I—I’m fine.”

“You were not fine one minute ago.” His hand slipped to her back where he rubbed it in little circles. “Did you have an asthma attack or something?”

Although her strange posture and skittering gaze didn’t resemble any asthma attack he’d ever seen.

“You were choking. Can you breathe okay?” He skimmed the back of his hand across her cool, dry forehead.

She raised a hand to her slender throat and encircled it with her fingers, a frown marring her smooth skin. “I can breathe just fine.”

Dana may be breathing just fine, but his galloping heart had his breath coming out in short spurts. Hunching over, Rafe retrieved his cell phone from the floor. “I’m calling 911.”

Her hand shot out and she captured his wrist in a strong grip. “Don’t.”

He narrowed his eyes while he tapped the phone against his palm. “If you can’t tell me what just happened in here, I’m calling you an ambulance. Your body was as stiff as a block of wood, and you were completely unresponsive.”

“I’m not exactly sure what happened, Rafe.” She closed her eyes and massaged her temples. “I blacked out for a moment.”

“Blacked out?” He swallowed hard and slid up his cell. “That’s it. I’m calling 911.”

Her eyelids flew open. “I blacked out and then I had a vision.”

“A vision?” His jaw dropped as an avalanche of questions, thoughts and fears buried him. Feeling like the village idiot, he snapped his mouth shut and shook his head as if to clear it.

Dana nodded slowly, the points of her hair skimming her collarbone. “I had a vision, courtesy of the Redbird family. I’ve only ever had visions a few times, mostly when I was a child. Before I learned how to suppress them.”

She’d just given him the worst possible news. He didn’t much relish the idea of Dana Croft traipsing around dead bodies as an FBI agent. He sure as hell didn’t want her involved with a serial killer on this level.

He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots, welcoming the pain. “I thought you said the gift passed you by?”

“I lied.” She shrugged and rolled off the bed.

Rafe zeroed in on the hairbrush on the middle of Holly’s colorful bedspread. He didn’t believe in UFOs or Bigfoot, but he’d spent enough time with the Ute tribe and its traditions to have a healthy respect for its culture.

“Did that trigger the vision?” He pointed a surprisingly steady finger at the brush on the bed.

“It was Holly’s hair that did it.” Dana tucked her own hair behind her ears. “That contact with a part of her opened a gateway for the vision.”