Hollis murmured, “And once they escaped that, they fought to hold on to what had made them outcasts.”

Finn nodded. “In whatever way they could, yeah. Could have gone the other way, of course, but . . . Pride or just stubbornness made them want to be who and what they were. The population numbers here were naturally even fewer then, interaction with people outside the valley almost nil. Some inbreeding was inevitable, no matter what, far too much in the early years for all those reasons. And there were quite definitely health issues that began cropping up. Too many to ignore, many of them serious. There were a lot of miscarriages, fatal birth defects. People started whispering that the families had brought a curse with them into the new land. So inbreeding was discouraged across all five families. For generations now, that’s been the rule, something everyone understands, and which most everyone obeys. And like so much else in Salem, a practice based on a perfectly good reason simply became custom no one thought much about.”

Quentin said, “Unless and until it was flouted.”

“Why Paul really caught hell from his family, because of the cousin.” Finn nodded but said, “Megan was a good kid and deserved better treatment from Paul, far better; they’d been engaged for at least a couple of years, and high school sweethearts almost from the beginning. When he jilted her after all that, I thought the same as others, that she’d left Salem and probably found herself better off. She was a trained accountant and working in the family real estate business keeping the books; it would have been easy for her to find that sort of job in another place. And she had the strength and spirit to start over and build a new life for herself. That’s what I thought.”

“You couldn’t have known that didn’t happen,” Miranda reminded him. “She told Hollis that had been her intention, that she’d packed up to leave. Her killer took advantage of that.”

Hollis wondered suddenly if, assuming they found what was left of Megan Hales’s mortal remains, they would also find a girlish suitcase or two crammed with whatever she had thought necessary for a life outside Salem, and felt depressed.

Under the table, DeMarco’s hand grasped one of hers. If you didn’t have such a strong sense of humor to balance the compassion, you’d end up gloomy as hell.

Hollis smiled despite herself. I’ve gotten too used to being a team leader; that’s the problem. That keeps me focused on business. With Bishop on-site and in charge, it leaves me too free to feel instead of think.

Don’t kid yourself. You never stop feeling.

He squeezed her hand and then let it go, and Hollis glanced around, wondering idly if anyone else had picked up on the silent conversation. It wasn’t likely; physical contact made the mind talk within their connection deeper, way below the surface thoughts most telepaths normally picked up on. Still, two of the strongest telepaths in the unit were here, and there was never any telling just how strong Bishop and Miranda were at any given time.