He ignored that. "I don't suppose you have an alibi for last night?"

"The same one you have. I was home in bed. Of course, I was alone."

Matt stiffened. "Meaning?"

"Meaning you weren't."

Ben was surprised but kept his mouth shut.

"Nice guess, Miss Neill," Matt said.

"It wasn't a guess. I don't even have to try very hard to read you, Sheriff. You're an open book. The lady has red hair. I believe her name is… Abby. Abby Montgomery."

Ben said, "For God's sake, Matt – if Gary finds out, he'll come after you with a gun. She's still his wife."

"They're separated," Matt snapped.

"Not in his mind."

Matt stared at Cassie. "You probably saw us together."

"You've been very circumspect, both of you," she said. "Nothing in public. As Judge Ryan said, her husband hasn't accepted the separation. He has a bad temper. It's why their marriage broke up." She frowned suddenly. "Be careful, Sheriff. Be very careful."

"Or?"

"Or you'll never be able to take her to Paris next summer the way you want to."

"Shit," Matt said, obviously shaken. "You couldn't have known that. I haven't even told Abby. Nobody knows."

"Yowknow."

There was a long, tense silence, and then Cassie shook her head. "I don't usually do that. Invade someone's privacy. I'm sorry. But you made it easy for me, Sheriff."

It was Ben who said "Because he was acting like an ass?"

Cassie smiled slightly but didn't look at him. "No. That just made it easy for me to try to read him. You're simple, Sheriff. You think loudly."

Ben had to laugh, and after a moment even Matt smiled.

"Well, stop listening, will you?"

"I didn't listen very closely," she promised him. "And I'll try not to do it again. You just made me mad."

Matt nodded slowly. "Okay, I admit that little parlor trick was fairly convincing. And if those references of yours pan out, it's another point in your favor. But I'm still not a believer, Miss Neill."

"All I ask is that you keep an open mind." She glanced at Ben, then added, "And give me a chance. Maybe I can help. Maybe I can't. But I will try if you want me to."

"Can you tap into this guy directly? You said it required a connection, which obviously already exists."

"If he were sitting right in front of me, I probably could. But for me to reach out over distance and try to tap into his mind when I don't know who he is or where he is… that's difficult. I'd need something of his, something he touched. Something I could touch physically."

"What about… something Becky was wearing? He touched her."

Ben thought Cassie's face tightened. But her voice remained calm.

"We found out… that's dangerous for me. To touch the belongings of a murder victim, especially the clothing worn during… during the crime. I connect with the strongest, most recent emotions permeating that clothing. The moment of greatest terror. Usually that's the moment of death."

"What happened when you tried it?" Ben asked.

Matter-of-factly she answered, "It was like falling into a deep black well. I didn't have the strength to pull myself out. If someone hadn't been there to break the physical connection, I don't think I would have made it. As it was, I was in a coma for a week. And afterward… it was like all the psychic pathways in my mind had been cut or burned out. It was six months before I got my abilities back." She paused, then added almost wistfully, "It was so quiet. It was the first time I could understand how normal people sense things."

After a moment of silence Matt said, "So you need something belonging to the killer. Something he touched that wouldn't have been… affected by her death."

She nodded. "The coin might work."

Matt stiffened and shot a look at Ben, who spoke immediately.

"I didn't tell her."

Cassie said, "I broke the connection before she died, but it came back faintly a little while later, when he put her in the woods. When he posed her like that. It's how I knew where you'd find her. And I saw him put the coin into her hand."

"What do you think it means?" Ben asked her. "The coin?"

"I think it has something to do with her worth in his eyes. It was a silver dollar, wasn't it?"

"It was," Matt said. "No prints."

"Yes, he was very careful about not leaving traceable evidence, so the coin itself probably won't lead you to him." Cassie frowned as she looked at Ben. "Her worth in his eyes. How he posed her, the coin, the way he taunted her before he killed her. He thought she was a whore."

"She wasn't," Matt objected immediately. "She was just a kid."

Cassie's eyes fixed on the sheriff, and she spoke gently. "What she actually was didn't matter to him. In his mind she was a whore. If you want to find him, you have to figure out how his mind works."

"Yeah, I know." Matt sighed heavily. "But I don't have to like it."

"Not much fun trying to think like a madman, is it?"

Matt looked at her. "You've made your point."

Cassie didn't push it. "Do you have the coin?"

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," Ben said. "Today, I mean. Cassie, you said you were awake most of the night – you must be tired." He didn't add that she was visibly exhausted.

"I'd like to try, Judge."

"I wish you'd call me Ben."

She glanced at him and nodded but spoke to the sheriff. "I'd like to try. If you have the coin."

Matt opened the center drawer of his desk and brought out a small, clear plastic bag labeled evidence. He pushed it across the desk to Cassie.

She didn't touch it immediately, but instead sent Ben another quick glance. "I'll need a lifeline."

"A what?"

"A lifeline. Somebody to… talk me through. Keep me focused. Keep me from going too deep."

"What happens if you go too deep?"

Cassie smiled faintly. "I don't come back."

Ben looked at Matt, who lifted an eyebrow silently, then back at her. "Okay. What do I do?"

Cassie reached for the bag. "Just keep talking to me. If I make a connection, don't let go."

Her trust disturbed him, but Ben nodded.

Either seeing or sensing his uneasiness, she said reassuringly, "I'll make the connection as shallow as I can this time, just to find out if there's anything there. If this coin didn't belong to him or wasn't in his possession for a while, there may not be much I can get."

Ben watched as she opened the bag and slid the coin out onto her palm.

Her head bent and her eyes closed as she began turning the coin in her fingers. It was what someone would do when she was trying to identify something by touch alone, probing the shape and texture of a thing.

"Cassie?" Ben said when he thought the silence had lasted too long.

Her face turned a little toward him in a clear and instant response to his voice. She was even more pale than she had been before, so much so that it startled Ben.

But her voice was steady when she slowly said, "This was his. It was part of a… collection. And he has more. Laid out in a row. There was a place for the dollar, but now that's empty. There was… a set. He still has a fifty-cent piece, a quarter, a dime, a nickel, and a penny."

"Does he mean to use them all?" Ben asked.

"I don't know." She winced. "It's difficult to touch his mind. He's tired, drained. He's looking at the coins, but I don't know what he's thinking or feeling."

Matt spoke then, his voice low and filled with the fascinated suspicion of a man unwillingly impressed by the show but still searching for the wizard behind the curtain. "Can she see what's around him?"

"Cassie? Can you see what's around him? Can you describe where he is?"

"Not really. It's dark. He likes the dark. His head doesn't hurt so much in the dark."

"Is it a room?"