Sense of Evil - Kay Hooper [52]
“I don't doubt that. What I doubt is that she'll stop before those limits are reached.”
“She's dedicated” was Hollis's only response.
“Yeah, I get that.”
“You face risks in your job. Why keep doing it?”
Rafe didn't answer, just shook his head and said, “T.J. and Dustin will be a while, and there's really nothing more you and Isabel can do here. Is there?”
It was Hollis's turn to avoid the direct question. “We can go back to the station, work there while you guys finish up here. Get the information on the two previous series of murders posted on the boards.”
“Good idea,” Rafe said.
Hollis took the first chance she got to call in, which turned out to be about an hour later, when Isabel left the conference room to make copies of a stack of paperwork.
The number was still a bit unfamiliar, but her cell phone's address book had been carefully programmed, so it was easy to find the number and make the call.
As soon as he answered, Hollis said, “I didn't like doing that. Isabel's business is her own. She wouldn't talk about me behind my back, not that sort of personal stuff.”
“He needed to know,” Bishop said.
“Then Isabel should have been the one to tell him.”
“Yes, but she wouldn't. Or, at least, wouldn't tell him right now. He needs to know now.”
“And why is that, O wise Yoda?”
Bishop chuckled. “I'm guessing ‘Because I say so' is not going to be a satisfactory answer for you.”
“I didn't accept that even from my father; it definitely won't work for you.”
“Okay. Then I'll tell you the truth.”
“I appreciate that. The truth being?”
“The truth being that certain things have to happen in a certain order if we're to avert a catastrophe.”
Hollis blinked. “And we know that catastrophe lies ahead because . . . ?”
“Because some of us occasionally catch a glimpse of the future.” Bishop sighed. “Hollis, we can't fix everything. We can't make the future all bright and shiny just because we know before they happen that there are troubles and tragedies waiting there for us. The best we can do sometimes, the absolute best, is to chart a careful path somewhere between bad and worse.”
“And that path requires that I spill part of Isabel's story to Rafe.”
“Yes. It does. This time. Next time, you may be asked to do something else. And you'll do it. Not because I say so, but because you can trust in the fact that Miranda and I would never do anything to injure or betray any member of the team—even to save the future.”
Hollis sighed. “I wish that sounded melodramatic, but since I know the stories and I've seen a few things myself, I'm afraid it's the literal truth. The saving-the-future business, I mean.”
“We have to do what we can. It's seldom enough, but sometimes the right word or the right information at the right moment can change things just a bit. Shift the balance more toward our favor. When we can even do that much. Sometimes we can't interfere at all.”
“Going to tell me how you know that this is one of the times you can interfere?”
“Miranda sees the future and takes me along for the ride. Sometimes we see alternate futures; that's when we know we can change things. Sometimes we see only one future. We see what's inevitable.”
“That's when you know you can't.”
“Yes.”
“And the future I just changed by telling Rafe some of Isabel's past?”
“Was a future in which he died.”
“So why hasn't her cameraman reported her missing?” Isabel asked Dana Earley.
“I think he's ashamed of himself. Apparently, she told him to wait in the van while she went to check something out. He claims he doesn't know what. Anyway, she hadn't been gone