Haven by Kay Hooper Read Free Book Online Page A

there.
    “So we’ve got another killer? Who’ve we got checking it out?”
    “There’s no evidence of a crime, Tony. Jessie saw a spirit. No name, no good description, no idea when the woman died. Even the most open-minded of small-town police officials are going to have a hard time justifying an investigation into something like that.”
    “But we’re not doing nothing.” It wasn’t a question; Tony knew his boss very well.
    Bishop’s shoulders lifted and fell in a faint shrug. “Haven doesn’t have to wait for an invitation, so Maggie’s sending in Nathan Navarro, with a solid cover story.”
    With a frown, Tony said, “Now, that’s a name I know. He’s a bit like Lucas, isn’t he?” Lucas Jordan, another SCU team member, specialized in locating missing persons. 2 And Haven operatives tended to “mirror” SCU agents when it came to their abilities. With a few extras and oddities thrown in, of course.
    “A bit like him. Except that Navarro’s unique ability is to find the dead.”
    “But he isn’t a medium.”
    “No, not as we define mediums. He doesn’t see the dead, but he’s able to locate their remains. He says he feels pulled in the right direction. Starts with a map or a logical place to search and just…follows his instincts. His secondary ability is clairvoyance, also useful butnowhere near under his control yet. He came out of Naval Intelligence with considerable investigative skills as well.”
    “Another ex-military operative.”
    Bishop nodded. “They do seem to find us. Or vice versa. In any case, military training means additional survival skills that are likely to come in handy. Especially in this case, since Navarro is in a small town surrounded by the closest thing we have to wilderness.”
    “Something else that sounds familiar. I know we often work in cities—such as now—but we do seem to end up in nice little towns surrounded by wilderness and inhabited by a human monster or two an awful lot more often than chance would dictate.”
    “True enough.”
    Tony brooded for a few moments while his boss returned to studying the evidence board for their current case. Finally, Tony said, “If Maggie sent in Navarro, she must be pretty sure whatever Jessie saw is just the beginning.”
    “I’d say so.”
    “But the beginning of what? New murders—or the uncovering of old ones?”
    “That,” Bishop said, “is what Navarro is there to find out.”
    Baron Hollow
    “I think I want to go to church today. Do you go to church?” Jessie asked suddenly at breakfast.
    “Sometimes. Not every Sunday.”
    “Still the First Baptist?”
    “Yeah, like half the town.”
    “Good,” Jessie said. “Want to come along today?”
    “Why not?”
    “Then let’s get ready. If that clock over there is right, preaching starts in about an hour.”
    Emma might not know her sister very well as an adult, but it didn’t take sisterly knowledge to look at the closed, almost secretive expression on Jessie’s face and know that she was going to church for a good reason, and it had nothing to do with prayer or singing hymns.
    Emma just wished she knew what that reason was.
    She was no wiser nearly an hour later, except in her realization that Jessie intended to visibly
be
at church. Not only was she wearing a dress, which had been rare for her back in the day; she was wearing a red dress.
    A very red dress.
    Emma wasn’t embarrassed or otherwise bothered by the display, just curious. She was even more curious when Jessie led the way to the front of the church, to the “family” pew, and took a seat there. As if she wanted every person in the packed church to know that Jessie Rayburn was back home.
    And afterward, during the customary socializing out in the church’s front yard, Jessie asked Emma to reintroduce her to people she had known, or who had known the family when she was a teenager.
    Which meant just about everybody, or at least those who lingered to talk.
    Emma didn’t know what her