She needed to escape the snake and look for the other one, the master behind the puppets. All powerful killers, tied to strings. He pulled--they danced. The masculine whisper grew stronger. She found the thread, faint but there. The master. She had him now. She was an elite tracker and he wouldn't escape no matter how subtle he was. She blocked out the surge of oily sludge that was Snake spilling around her and kept on track. This was what--or who--had been eluding her. Elation filled her as she targeted the thread.
A hint of satisfied amusement. No one would ever know. Genius surrounded him. Psychics, all of them, but they didn't suspect, didn't have a clue. It was his orchestra, his play, and he was the maestro conducting his performers to play their instruments with such flair. He fed the egos and raked in the cash. Millions, with millions more to be made. Untraceable millions and all for him.
Tansy struggled to stay on the thread. It was so faint, so subtle alongside Snake's violent need for pain. The victims grew louder, as they always did, demanding she recognize them. See them. Give them justice. She shook her head in an attempt to dislodge the wailing. The accusations. The oily muck swirled with enjoyment, building to a crescendo. Ah, just give me all night with these three. Not as strong as the ones in the tunnel, but I don't have as long. He would let the rats feast and he'd come back later to see his handiwork and enjoy the entertainment. Screams. Pleading. Begging. Tansy shook her head again, stretching for that subtle thread. The master didn't kill, so the violence edged him out, but he was there, imprinted in the ivory. Seeing it. Part of it. That subtle weave of influence feeding the killers at each site. She just had to keep pulling at the thread to unravel the mystery.
She knew him now, knew she'd seen this trail before, so light she'd missed it in the first two murder scenes, but he'd been there. How was it that he was with each one? Had he been on the West Coast too? Was he present? Was he . . .
She felt Kadan's sudden alertness, his warning system roaring in full-blown alarm. Icy fingers of fear crept down her spine. Something moved--something alive in the midst of all the blood, in the midst of all the victims. Something that was bloated and shadowy like a giant spider at the center of a web. She drew back as the shadow turned, and she knew it was as aware of her as she was of it. Terror poured into her as it--he--blinked his eyes and looked at her. For one instant there was a flicker of astonishment followed by grudging respect, almost camaraderie. He wasn't afraid. She got the impression of smug amusement.
Hello, beautiful. Who do we have here?
Everything in her froze. She couldn't move or speak, paralyzed by the knowledge that she was leaving just as many tracks as he was. The puppet master. And he could stalk her just as she pursued him.
You're a dead man. Kadan's voice was low, a whip of menace, startling both Tansy and the puppet master.
Tansy felt Kadan's hand on hers, prying her fingers open, ripping the ivory snake from them and flooding her mind with his ownership, his strength and his resolve. Kadan, the killer, icy cold and without mercy, delivering a fact, not a warning, even as he shielded her.
She felt the startled fear of the carver of the ivory figures, quickly masked. And then all awareness was gone. The puppet master had snapped the thread and was gone from her mind.
Kadan dug his fingers into Tansy's upper arms. She still had that faraway opaque look. She was pale, icy cold, her body trembling. Fear rolled off her in waves.
"It's all right, baby. I'm right here. You're safe."
She shook her head. "I'm not. He saw me."
Kadan drew her into his body, his arms tight around her. "We saw him. We can find him, Tansy. No one even knew he existed. Hell, if I hadn't been there with you, I might not have believed it."
He spoke aloud in a cool, calm voice, mostly to bring her wholly back to him.
"I've never run into anyone who can do what I do. He's a tracker."
Kadan was already aware of that and the ramifications of it. Whoever had realized she was on his trail was going to have to go on the offensive and hunt her. Kadan had felt the man's shock and then the sudden interest in Tansy. The puppet master had recognized female and a bright shining light. She didn't have violent energy, but she was a magnet for it. Kadan didn't want her to know how disturbed he was over finding the puppet master, as Tansy had dubbed him.
"Yes, he appears to be a tracker." He hadn't known they existed until he'd found Tansy and realized exactly what she could do. He kept his tone mild, realizing she was really afraid.
"Not just a tracker, Kadan," she corrected. "An elite tracker. I left footprints all over those scenes. If he accesses them, he'll find me there."
"It will be a faint trail, probably thinner than the one he left behind. In any case, he won't be able to identify you any more than we can him."
The puppet master had been all too curious about her, all too aware of her as being his equal. That would arouse his fascination, and that was the last thing Kadan wanted.
"Come on, baby, let this go for this evening. We have to plan a rescue." He needed to divert her attention to give himself time to think about the best way to protect her.
She shook her head. "I have to give you details before I'm all the way back."
Her response unraveled the knots in his belly. It hadn't been as bad this time. The short times she was slipping her exercises in, even a few minutes at a time, seemed to be helping. Their connection grew stronger with each time he shared her mind, and she was turning to him more and more without realizing it, allowing him to strengthen her barriers while she worked. It offered her a little more protection to lessen the adverse affects of both the killer and the victims on her unprotected brain.
Tansy took a deep breath and pushed down the fear that threatened to choke her. She would never forget that chilling moment when the puppet turned his head and looked right into her mind. Kadan had no concept of what an elite tracker could do. She wasn't at the top of her game. She'd burned out, fried her abilities, but the voices of the killers amused the puppet master. He ignored the victims. They were nothing to him, nuisances only.
"Tansy?" Kadan prompted. "You've done enough ton
ight. All the detectives working on these cases, the FBI task force--no one has found a link to this man. This is a huge break."
"We know he exists, but we have no idea of his identity or how he fits in yet. Let me go over everything. The snake enjoys inflicting pain. He's been in Vietnam, but not during the war. I got the impression of tunnels in a cane field." She shuddered. "He did terrible things to the farmers. A man and his son. He remembered the details very vividly."
"Don't," Kadan said. The details were in her mind, just as vivid. Every cut, every sadistic torture the bastard snake had conceived of--Tansy had it in her mind now. Kadan was already trying to push the memories behind the door for her, trying to protect her from the stubborn streak that kept her pursuing evil killers when it cost her so much.
Tansy visibly made an effort to stay focused on him, to keep the voices from scraping her mind raw. "The camera is really important to him, but he worries it will be found. He's a long way from it and has to go back to retrieve it." Her brows drew together as she tried to bring the details into sharper images. "Have your team look up, a good distance away. He camouflaged the camera so it looks like an old piece of machinery and could easily be overlooked. He worked on it a long time, and he made the metal to wrap it in. If you find it, I should get some very good impressions of him, maybe even somewhat of a description."
His fingers tightened. "That's good, baby. Now let it go so we can combat the headache before it starts." It was already swelling in her head, rolling through her like a wave. She'd used her talent too often and too close together and her mind was raw. Now she was just scraping over old wounds. Even he could hear the whispers of the victims, when the previous times he had only heard the killers.
She shook her head and he gritted his teeth, shoving down the urge to shake her hard and force her out of the half-hypnotic trance.
"The other one is the important one--the puppet master. I see him surrounded by paper. And a desk. He doesn't want anyone to notice him. He prides himself on blending into the background. He's very nondescript and strives to keep it that way, although he has a bit of a problem hiding his . . ." She touched her eyes. "He wears tinted contacts to keep people from seeing."