Hollis’s frown deepened. “Storms. Every clairvoyant I’ve ever talked to is bugged by storms on some level.”

“As you are.”

“Yeah, but that isn’t a new thing.”

“Isn’t it?”

She stared at him. “Worse now, maybe. I remember being nervous about storms when I was a kid.”

“And a latent.”

Hollis allowed herself to be distracted from horrors. “Are you saying all these abilities were latent in me all my life, and are being triggered one by one, taking their own sweet time to make themselves known?”

“Why not?”

“Not even Bishop ever suggested that.”

“I’ll bet he’s suspected it, though.”

Hollis considered that for a moment, then shrugged it off to return to more important things. The horrors. “Anyway. If Megan was this monster’s very first victim, he could have waited months afterward, just like she said. To make sure he wasn’t suspected, wasn’t caught. That she wasn’t found. That’s common enough when a serial first kills. And then there was the thing in January. Megan said he was quiet, he laid low during all that. The whole town and half these mountains crawling with feds and other cops for weeks. Even more of a risk she might be found. But she wasn’t found. And now we’re here, and he’s killing again. Do you suppose he waited for us?”

“How could he know? The Blackwood elder’s farseeing, yeah, that probably got around, the gist of it, at least. But to know it would draw us . . . it’s a leap.”

Something flickered in the back of Hollis’s mind, but it was gone before she could grasp it.

Knowing from experience that it would come back to her only if she didn’t force it, she shook the uneasiness of that elusive thought away.

“Maybe he knew Finn would call us. Because from the reports of what happened, it’s obvious, had to be obvious then, that Finn knew Bishop before. That Nellie did. They didn’t try to hide that, not really. People would have seen, even without any extra senses. And Bishop is . . . memorable. He tries to keep out of the spotlight, but he’s good media, and these last few years he’s led so many pretty damned public task forces around the country.”

“And it’s one small step from Bishop to the SCU.”

“Not even a step. We’re not a guilty secret anymore—there’s information out there on us. Stuff even a civilian could find if they knew how to look. Hell, if they know how to Google they could find us eventually. The basics, at least. What’s fit for the public in the eyes of the FBI, the stories and articles that made it to print. And hackers are everywhere, maybe even here. They could have gotten into law enforcement databases. We can’t assume they didn’t do that. Even with all the Bureau’s precautions, Bishop’s precautions, we can’t assume.”

DeMarco had kept his hands on her shoulders after she turned to face him, a quick glance showing him that her hands were nearly healed. She had cut them up badly in dragging heavily thorned underbrush away from the luggage. He knew she hadn’t even felt the pain. He also knew the scratches on his own hands were gone now.