They both heard a slight sound and looked to their right, where a crow had alighted on the still-bare lower limb of a tree. It cocked its head, shiny black eyes observing them.

“Nothing,” Miranda murmured after a moment.

Bishop shook his head. “Must be more empathic than telepathic, which makes sense. Gray said it was like that, concepts, ideas, and emotions translated by his struggling mind into something like thoughts he could understand. The same with Nellie’s dog. Said it hurt his brain.”

“I can imagine. Well, no, I’m not sure I can. Callie’s worked with Cesar since he was a puppy and says even through clear thoughts she sometimes gets no more than a concept for something he doesn’t know the word for and tries to describe to her.” Callie Davis was, currently, the only SCU member with a canine partner, though she and a Haven operative were working with several other dogs experimentally.

Miranda studied the bird. “He seems to be waiting for something. But what? No one commands them now. Finn said Nellie was adamant about that, just as she was to you.”

“Maybe . . .”

Miranda felt a flicker in her mind that was husband rather than bird, no longer surprised that Bishop was able to open up a seemingly new or at least previously unused part of his senses, since he was a bit like Hollis in that, and she wasn’t at all surprised when he said suddenly, “That’s why the waiting. For us to realize, to understand.”

The crow uttered a soft, curiously un-crow-like sound, flapped its wings briefly, then flew away.

She might not be able to communicate with birds, but Miranda certainly could communicate with Bishop, and at a depth below thought, where no other telepath could have reached and no external energy could affect, and she was nodding even as he looked at her. What he could sense he shared, always, with her.

“If Nellie will do it,” she said.

“Their idea,” he reminded her.

“If we’re right about that. Just guessing, really. We could have misinterpreted the concept.”

“I don’t think so.” Bishop took her hand and began leading them both back down the mountain slope. “We need them. And unlike most other birds, crows remember people, faces. They can help us search. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, after Duncan, they can’t spot someone evil more quickly than we could.”

That was a thought. And Miranda honestly wasn’t sure if it was a reassuring one or a troubling one.

—

SHARON AINSWORTH SHOOK off her sister’s comforting hand and glared at Finn, her blue eyes wide and turbulent. “I know he didn’t leave me,” she said. “Not for good. He’d never do that. It was just a fight, a little argument, that’s all.” She was a very pretty woman in her mid-twenties, but strain was marking new lines in her face and her voice was thin and high.

“I believe you,” Finn said soothingly. “But we haven’t been able to find him, and there has to be a reason.”