Sense of Evil - Kay Hooper [96]
“Later,” Rafe said. “Can we please do what we came here to do and find out what's going on inside my head? How do we find out, by the way? And does it involve something unspeakable like . . . chicken entrails?”
“What have you been reading?” Paige demanded.
“Well, since nobody offered me a copy of the psychic newsletter . . .”
Isabel frowned and looked at Paige. “Isn't that a joke Maggie uses sometimes?”
Paige nodded, her gaze thoughtfully fixed on Rafe. “Yeah. He's very plugged-in. Aside from Beau, I've never met anybody else who could do that. He's sort of picked up the rhythm of the way you talk too.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
“Ladies, please.” Rafe was beginning to look profoundly uneasy.
“Oh, you're psychic,” Paige said matter-of-factly.
Rafe had braced himself to be told that, but the abruptness and utter calm of the disclosure threw him more than a little. “You don't have to touch me to make sure?”
“No. I'm not a touch telepath, I'm an open telepath. All I have to do is focus on someone and concentrate. If I can read them at all, I know right away. I can read you, and you're psychic.”
“I am?”
“You are.” Paige looked at Isabel. “I was pretty sure he was, at that news conference before you showed up on Thursday. When you walked into the room, I was positive.”
“That's when everything changed,” Rafe murmured. “I felt it.”
“I'm not surprised,” Paige said frankly. “The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. It was like an electrical current was let loose in the room.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” Isabel demanded. “Then would have been nice, but when I called you today—”
“I reported in to Bishop on Thursday, and he told me to wait. That you and I shouldn't have any contact at all until you called me. On Sunday.”
“He knew I'd call today.”
“Apparently, yes.”
“At least tell me he didn't give you a whole list of things to say to one or both of us.”
Paige grinned. “No. He just said you'd call, and it would be safe for us to meet, that I should follow my training and instincts. So that's what I'm doing.”
Isabel was looking thoughtful, her irritation with Bishop a fleeting thing. “Wait a minute. Rafe was already a functional psychic before I came into the room?”
“Yeah, but not consciously.”
“Then the original trigger was—”
“Dunno. It had to be recent, and probably some kind of emotional or psychological shock.”
Slowly, Rafe said, “I don't recall anything like that happening. My life was very ordinary until all this started. Having a serial killer loose in my town was a shock, I admit, but nothing I'm not trained to deal with.”
“Could have been some kind of subconscious shock, I suppose, though that's really rare. We're usually completely aware of the jolts we get through life. Whatever it was, I can't get at it; it's behind his shield.”
Isabel rubbed her forehead briefly. “Okay, let's try something a little easier. What happened when I came into the room that day?”
Readily, Paige said, “As near as I can tell, you were the catalyst. Or it was a combination of the two of you in close proximity for the first time. On a purely electromagnetic level, it was like energy going to energy. I felt it come through the room between you. Jeez, I could almost see it.”
“And what did that do to Rafe's abilities?”
“Same thing it did to yours. Started to change them.”
“Wait a minute,” Rafe said. “Change them from what? And into what?”
“Here's where we get into educated guesswork,” Paige told them. “From what I was getting before Isabel walked into the room, I think your natural ability would have been precognition.”
“Seeing the future?”
“Like your grandmother,” Isabel said. “She had the sight.”
Rafe leaned forward, elbows on knees, and frowned at Paige. “But I'm not precognitive now?”
“No, not actively. When Isabel walked in, everything changed. Her energy added to yours closed that door and opened another one.”
“I'm afraid to ask,” Rafe said.
“I'm