She found herself being rather warily regarded by a tall blond man with humorous blue eyes, absently identifying him as Finn Deverell even before Bishop made the introductions.

Given to firm handshakes, she shook his, told him it was nice to finally meet him, then muttered, “Damn,” under her breath and made for her chair.

“Want to share?” Bishop asked as DeMarco also shook hands with Finn and then took his place in a chair near hers.

“No,” she said briefly, and gave the unit chief a look. “Not . . . germane.” Then she shrugged and by the tone of her voice quite deliberately changed the subject when she said, “The back of my neck’s sort of crawling, Bishop.”

“I’m not surprised. The level of energy in the valley is high. How are you reading it?”

She thought about it. “I’m not sure about that. Doesn’t feel negative. Exactly. Or positive. Exactly. It feels . . .” She narrowed her eyes, appearing to look through the unit chief rather than at him. “I dunno. Maybe it’s just all the shields if everybody’s feeling unusually threatened. Which I would be.”

“Can you get a source?”

“Not so far,” she answered immediately. “Not even a direction. Just sort of all around.”

Bishop nodded and glanced at the others. “How about the rest of you?”

Diana said, “Same crawly feeling on the back of my neck. The urge to look over my shoulder.” She frowned. “It’s not so bad in here, but outside everything I hear seems a little . . . muffled.”

“New for you?”

She nodded. “I’ve been affected by the energy of a storm, like most of us are, but not like this.”

“And there’s no storm forecast,” Quentin said. “Some winter weather headed this way, but not a storm.” He paused, then added, “We all know I’m not especially sensitive to other kinds of energy, but I feel a bit jittery.”

“Reese?”

DeMarco shook his head.

“Both shields,” Hollis said.

Bishop nodded but said to DeMarco, “Let me know if that changes.”

“Right.”

Then Bishop told them all about the missing man, Cole Ainsworth.

Quentin frowned. “Missing since Saturday?”

Finn nodded. “It appears so. He didn’t take his car, and there’s no other sign he might have left the valley. Past behavior would indicate he’s still in town or out in the valley. We’re still checking with friends and family.”

DeMarco said, “So we didn’t get much of a heads-up after all.”

Hollis half nodded. “I don’t know why we expected anything else,” she said, then frowned and changed the subject. “Is Nellie Cavendish going to be here today? Because I’d like to meet her.”

“She’s at the bank and will be until closing or after unless we need her,” Finn said, continuing to look at Hollis rather warily. “Still lives here at Hales, at least for the time being. Says she’s been too busy to look for a more permanent place. Since she won’t set foot in Duncan’s place or where her parents lived, I’ve been trying to talk her into taking one of the downtown condos.”