“And try not to worry.”

Sharon stared at him for a moment, then burst into tears. Her sister put an arm around her and soothed, glaring at Finn in a way that told him she blamed him and not her own words about a killer.

—

FINN SUGGESTED THEY all have dinner in one of the downtown restaurants, and since it was, after all, a Tuesday evening in a town increasingly worried and on edge, the place was far from crowded and they were able to have a rear corner entirely to themselves. And since this restaurant played soft, inoffensive music, they were able to talk in normal voices only slightly lowered without having to worry too much about people overhearing.

“Although,” DeMarco offered dryly, “if there are as many telepaths in Salem as we believe, we may not be hiding much from any of them.”

“Shielded,” Finn reminded him. “You say you’ve all felt that block.”

“That doesn’t mean they can’t sense us, at the very least. And human curiosity can and often does reach beyond shields,” DeMarco countered. “Until we know differently, I say we assume at least some of those around us are able to pick up information even through their own shields.”

“Plus everybody is just plain anxious and uneasy,” Hollis contributed. “Which could make them more than curious. And this weird-ass energy feels . . . stronger. Maybe.” Before Bishop could ask, she added, “It’s faint, but little bits of emotions keep getting through, as well as curiosity. But only people fairly near me, I think. Definitely worried.”

“Because they know there’s a threat?” Bishop asked.

She frowned slightly. “More because of us. I think. Partly because we’re here, and two months ago it wasn’t exactly a party to have the feds here, even if we were only cleaning up and trying not to disrupt the town any more than necessary. And because there’s a threat, but . . . it’s sort of like a game of telephone. Somebody, maybe one of the Blackwoods, told somebody else about their elder’s vision, and it’s been passed around and misheard and shared, anyway, until nobody’s sure what’s going on. Just that something is. And that it’s bad.”

“Maybe they’re better off not knowing what we know,” Nellie said. “Just worried enough to be careful.”

“We can hope,” Hollis said.

Nellie, encountered earlier in the town’s dog park because Finn had known where she was likely to be at that time, had joined them for dinner; Leo, who disliked being left behind, lay quietly on a comfortable dog bed in the corner behind Nellie’s chair.

“Apparently,” she’d told them in explanation of the bed and Leo’s welcome in the restaurant, “the health inspector is a Cavendish. And the owner of this restaurant married one. So the usual rules get overlooked from time to time.”

“Nice to have clout,” Quentin had said solemnly.

Nellie had smiled slightly but only shook her head.

Hollis looked at her with interest now, having already noted without comment the other woman’s whisper-thin leather gloves. “That’s some shield. I like it. I want Bishop to teach me how, but he says the timing could backfire on me. Or something like that.”