Dr. Dean Brady was not one of the Five, but he had married Belle Deverell more than twenty years before and they had two teenagers at home, so he very much felt a vested interest in any threat against the families.

“I’ve treated people in Salem for twenty-five years,” he told Bishop when the agent had arrived at the hospital with Jill, Sam, and the remains of the unidentified victim they had carefully collected. “If this poor soul was one of my patients, I may be able to identify him.”

“It’s possible it’s Cole Ainsworth,” Bishop told him.

Brady’s rugged face paled slightly. “He’s one of my patients,” he said.

Bishop exchanged a quick glance with Jill, then told the other doctor bluntly, “There isn’t much left intact.”

“I won’t say it’s something I’m used to.” Brady’s voice was calm. “But I did a stint in a major trauma center a few years ago. I can handle what I have to.”

Bishop merely nodded. “Then I’ll leave you to it. Jill, we’re set up at Hales rather than the law enforcement center, as I told you, whenever you have anything new to report. If we don’t hear from you before, someone will come by tomorrow.”

“Right.”

“In the meantime, I’ll have my sat phone, and Finn has one as well.”

Jill Easton, who was petite and blond and didn’t look nearly as tough and experienced as she was, said again, “Right. We’ll do what we can with the unidentified victim first since the ID on Megan Hales is all but certain.”

“Thanks.” Bishop left them to it. He had already determined from Jill that she’d had no better luck here in Salem using her clairvoyance than any of his agents—less, in fact—saying only that she hadn’t picked up anything except a faint headache and planned to keep her shields up for the duration.

There was a Jeep from Finn’s motor pool waiting for Bishop outside the hospital, along with a deputy, whom he dropped off at the law enforcement center on his way to Hales.

He sat for a moment outside the center after the deputy had gone in, his gaze fixed on a freestanding sign near the entrance. Perched on the sign were two crows.

Bishop opened his mind as he studied them, but this time all he got was the odd white noise, a kind of static interference. It was getting stronger. And it was becoming almost as painful as any attempt to use the spider senses.

One of the crows stretched its head out and bobbed slightly, bright black eyes fixed on the nearby human. It was . . . watching. Waiting.

Bishop glanced around and saw several more crows close by, perched on signs, on the bare limb of a tree, on a bench. He hadn’t been conscious of them up on the mountain once Tia had led them to Megan Hales’s grave, but now he felt as well as saw them.

Definitely not a telepathic sense. More like . . . something fluttering at the edge of his awareness.