“Yes.”

“Why would anyone want to destroy the town? Because it would.”

“I know it would. And—I don’t know why anyone would want that. But the possibility is certainly there, and something we should take what steps we can to guard against.”

“How far ahead did Aylia see?”

“Not very, she thinks.”

“So,” Nellie said slowly, “we should probably just assume we are being, or are soon going to be, stalked by a killer.”

“Probably,” Finn agreed.

“You sent Robert back to school early,” she said.

Finn was surprised. “How did you—”

“He came by earlier this morning. To say good-bye to Leo.” Finn’s nephew, taking a semester off from college, had formed a very strong empathic attachment to Nellie’s dog during the events of weeks past, and had since then dropped by her office here at the bank just about daily to offer to take Leo for a walk or to the dog park just down Main Street, which made for pleasant outings for them both.

Nellie had been grateful, especially since taking charge of the extensive Cavendish affairs here and still being remotely in charge of a financial business in another part of the state kept her at her desk for long hours.

“His shield is nearly as solid as yours,” Nellie went on, “but it wouldn’t have taken a telepath or an empath to know he wasn’t happy about leaving.”

“I wasn’t about to tell him why. He would have stayed.”

Nellie started to say something, but her office phone rang just then and she picked it up. After a brief moment, she held out the receiver to Finn. “For you. Still having problems with cell phones?”

He nodded with a frown and took the receiver, wondering if he would find his cell battery completely dead. Again. It was happening way too often these days. “Yeah?”

“Finn, it’s Garett,” his lead deputy said, tension in his normally lazy voice. “We have a missing person.”

—

PERHAPS TO LESSEN the impact of so many strangers descending on Salem at one time, Bishop sent the two technical specialists in both IT hardware and software and law enforcement software into town late morning on Tuesday. Sandra Convers and Mike Langtry arrived without fanfare in a light-colored Jeep, going directly to the new law enforcement center and meeting Finn Deverell there as arranged. They didn’t introduce themselves as agents, and neither was openly armed.

The rest of the team came in two inevitably black and hulking SUVs, with Bishop and Miranda arriving about an hour ahead of the other four around midafternoon and going straight to Hales B and B to get everyone checked in.

“How long has Cole Ainsworth been missing?” Bishop asked Finn as he set up a rather unusual-looking laptop at one end of the large dining table in their suite. The laptop was both larger and bulkier than the current norm, with what looked like a section of extra keys whose function Finn couldn’t begin to guess at since they showed neither letters nor numbers but enigmatic symbols.