Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“Huh. I heard online that it was for Psy who can sense stuff through touch.”
“I’m no psychometric.”
“Must be weird to be one,” Whitten said as Hendricks shrugged and got back to buttering a thick slice of toast. “Like imagine touching the tire tracks at the scene of the shooting and getting snapshots of the shooter. No idea if that’s how it works, but maybe Enforcement should think about recruiting psychometrics. They can go around zapping crime scenes and just telling us what happened.”
Eleri had met a few Ps-Psy through her work, and it didn’t quite work like that, but she let it go because the two deputies seemed fascinated by the idea.
“What would be the fun in our work if they could just give us the answers?” Hendricks made a face after swallowing his bite of toast. “No actual investigating. Nah, I say leave the psychometric people to do whatever they’re doing now.”
He tapped the side of his head. “Now, telepathy, that I could get onboard with. It’d be straight-up ice being able to talk to another cop without the criminals ever figuring it out. Imagine how you could use it to stymie them in an interrogation.”
Whitten snorted. “Calm down, John. You work in Raintree. We interrogate teenagers and drunks, hardly criminal masterminds.”
Instead of being offended, Hendricks grinned. “Just you watch. I’m going to pass my detective exams and get myself a shiny new badge in a big-city station.”
“You know I’ll be there with bells on to celebrate the day. So will your falcon gym buddies.”
Hendricks’s smile faded. “Jacques is a good guy,” he said. “I don’t know him real well, but I’ve run into him a few times when he dropped by to use a few of the machines they don’t have up in the Canyon.
“And WindHaven’s helped us out with a ton of searches,” he added, to Whitten’s solemn nod, “finding people who got lost in the desert. We don’t need to hunt down jet-choppers or search planes because the falcons have our back and act as air support.”
Eleri thought of seeing those wings in flight, of the ease with which Adam rode the air currents, and wondered what it was like to be so free. “That’s a stroke of luck in this remote region.”
“Yeah, but even they can’t help us with this.” Whitten pushed her waffles around her plate, having only taken a few bites. “No one knows anything.”
“What about other crimes in town?” Eleri was certain the Sandman hadn’t hunted on his home ground, but compulsions were strange things and could’ve driven him to other criminal acts. “Anything else disturbing?”
“Last ‘big’ crime”—Hendricks hooked his fingers in air quotes—“was when Dexter Camp’s little group of budding criminals took the high school principal’s SUV for a joyride and left it stuck in the desert.”
Whitten rolled her eyes. “The kids were never in danger of getting away with it. They’d blabbed to their other mates before they were even back in town—and we were waiting for them.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing beyond drunkenness and the odd break-in.” Whitten drank a bit of orange juice. “Whoever’s breaking in doesn’t even take anything except for stupid stuff—like one time, it was clear they’d spent time in the kitchen cutting up and eating big chunks of leftover birthday cake; they exited by the back door just as the couple who lived there returned—couple heard the door close.”
Hendricks grinned. “My favorite was the one where the owners came home and their puppy was sleeping surrounded by toys they’d put up in a box for later in the day. The burglar had spent time playing with the pup, tired it out, then had a shower. Homeowners say the bathroom was full of steam when they got back.”
“It’s bored kids.” Whitten added more syrup to her waffles. “We’ve done fingerprints for all the break-ins, but no luck so far. Some group of kids probably has a bet going on about how long they can keep it up.”
Eleri wasn’t so sure it was anything that petty. Her antennae had quivered to attention at the first mention of a burglary that wasn’t a burglary…and of an intruder who timed his crimes to just miss the people whose home he’d violated. That was an escalation that could turn deadly, because she was sure this person or pair—unlikely a group as the deputies believed—had begun with entries that hadn’t been detected, before moving on to more risky actions.
Stage three would be an intrusion while the people inside were present but asleep. Then would come the intrusions while the residents were awake. And worst-case scenario would be a full home invasion, with the residents terrorized and murdered.
“Since we have no new data on Jacques,” Eleri said, “and I haven’t picked up anything in Raintree on my case, I can have a look at the files to do with the break-ins, see if I notice anything.”