“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Dante muttered.

“Seen any spirits yet?” she asked him.

It was Robbie who said, “He has his shields up. Full strength. Can’t you feel it?”

Miranda smiled faintly again. “I can. Don’t push, Robbie.”

“I’m not sure I even know how,” Robbie confessed.

“You need to be aware,” Miranda told her. “Your instincts are to reach out, even through your own shields. Born psychics tend to do that without thought or intent. It’s a sense that’s natural to you; your mind, at least at the unconscious level, doesn’t operate with the same constraints most of us consciously impose on ourselves.”

“Hey, were you trying to read me?” Dante was frowning at his partner.

“No. Not trying. I just knew your shields were up, that’s all.”

Matter-of-factly, Miranda said, “Dante has the stronger shield between the two of you. He also has a tendency to keep it up as much as possible.”

It was Robbie’s turn to frown at her relatively new partner. “You can’t keep that up all the time. It takes too much energy, for one thing. And for another, with shields in the way, how will you communicate with spirits?”

“I’m really hoping there won’t be any,” he said with some feeling. “Spirits would mean our victims are dead.”

Robbie looked back at Miranda. “Are you going to tell him or shall I?”

“Tell me what?”

Miranda said, “Serenity is an old town, Dante. Generations have lived—and died—there.”

“So,” Robbie finished, “the place is probably teeming with spirits, no matter what happened or didn’t happen to our missings. Are you having fun yet?”

“With six missing people including a kid, no,” he retorted. Then, to Miranda, he added, “I don’t have spirit guides. A whisper here, a glimpse there; that’s about it for me. I’ve never even had a helpful spirit point me in the right direction. Why send me?”

“You and Robbie need time to work together as a team,” she answered readily. “And it’s our practice to put a new team with a more experienced team when we can. We don’t have many teams as experienced as Luke and Samantha.”

“They could do this without us,” he objected. “Samantha is scary powerful as a clairvoyant, and Luke’s whole thing is finding people who are lost.”

“We like to cover all our bases,” Miranda said. “Luke’s ability usually hinges on whether those who are missing are frightened or in pain; if they aren’t, that sense is fairly useless to him. Sam is powerful, but there have been cases where her clairvoyance wasn’t helpful. That happens, to all of us. As for you two . . . You may encounter a helpful spirit or spirits this time. And Robbie’s an exceptionally strong telepath; that’s not only one of the most reliable of psychic abilities, it’s virtually always a good ace to have whenever gathering information by talking to people.”

“It’s cheating,” Robbie muttered.

Miranda was unsurprised by the comment. Being one of those psychics born with her abilities, she had learned at a very young age to keep them hidden. Even though other telepaths here at the Special Crimes Unit at Quantico had worked with her for months now, she still struggled with the discomfort of “invading someone else’s mind,” as she called it.

“It’s cheating,” she repeated. “If they don’t know. If I don’t ask permission. It’s an intrusion.”

Deliberately, Miranda said, “Six missing people. Two of them teenagers. A judge. A young wife and mother. A young man with a frightened girlfriend. And a ten-year-old child.”

After a moment, Robbie finally looked up and met her gaze. “The end justifies the means?”

“That’s not what this is about. Your abilities are just tools, like the investigative and profiling techniques you’ve been taught. Like marksmanship, and interview techniques, and how to pick a lock if you have to.”

Robbie smiled wryly at that.

Miranda nodded, more to herself than to the younger woman. “We never really know what tools will come in handy during an investigation. Or which psychic abilities decide to go AWOL just when they’re needed. You may not need to even try to pick up someone else’s thoughts, with or without permission. Because it isn’t necessary—or because you tap into your abilities without even trying. That happens too. To the best of us.”

Dante said, “Does this Chief Riggs know anything about our abilities?”

“Well, he was up here about a year ago, taking some of the courses we offer law enforcement officers around the country. He seems the type to make friends easily, and he talked to quite a few agents here. None of ours, I think, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t find out about the SCU. In fact, we’re reasonably sure he did.”

“Why?” Dante asked.

“Because he asked for us. Not a first-response team, not the BAU, not even the child abduction unit. Us. The SCU. And he was adamant about it. He called Noah directly.” She paused, then added, “Noah and I both believe there’s more to this than what’s in Chief Riggs’s reports. He struck us both as being shaken, and he’s just not the type to easily shake. People disappear, it happens. Especially in the mountains. These disappearances seem odd, certainly, but what we’ve been told so far could easily indicate that these people, at least except for the little girl, just decided to leave and managed to do so without being seen.”

“All within the same month?” Robbie said skeptically. “All in a little town that probably hasn’t seen an unexplained disappearance in most if not all of its history? And all leaving when they were apparently in the middle of very ordinary, routine activities?”

“That does stick out,” Dante agreed.

Miranda nodded. “We agree. Something very strange has happened—and may be still happening—in Serenity. Something the typical law enforcement officer isn’t trained to understand or cope with. It’s clear Chief Riggs knows that. How much he knows about the SCU . . . Well, you’ll all find out soon enough. Grab your go bags. The jet’s standing by.”

FOUR

Jonah got word that the feds had landed on a semiprivate airstrip about thirty miles from town, and not half an hour later, a black SUV pulled into a parking slot in front of the police station, which was just off Main Street.

He stepped out onto the sidewalk to meet them, and to say he was curious would have grossly understated the matter. Four people were getting out of the vehicle, two men and two women, all casually dressed but all also wearing guns on their hips.

The driver was a tall, well-built blond man with unusually intense—and just plain unusual—green eyes. He moved quickly, with the springy step of a man in excellent shape and with energy to spare. And he was the first to reach Jonah.

“Chief Riggs? I’m Lucas Jordan. Luke.”

“Jonah.”

They shook hands, and then a very fair-skinned woman of medium height with a slight build, short black hair, eyes the closest to black Jonah had ever seen, and a sulky mouth that turned her almost beautiful when she smiled joined them on the sidewalk.

“My partner and wife,” Luke said. “Samantha.”

“You always introduce me as your partner first,” Samantha said, observation rather than complaint.

“We were partners first,” he said simply.

“Ah.” She nodded, then extended her hand to Jonah. “Sam,” she said.

Jonah shook hands and was just thinking how these two were unlike any federal agents he’d met before when the other two joined them on the sidewalk, equally . . . unusual.

The man Luke introduced as Dante Swann was slightly above medium height, with dark brown hair and very pale brown eyes that were almost gold—and seemed almost to glow, which was more than a little disconcerting.

“Dante?” Jonah managed.