city.
She smiled slightly as she watched Quentin contemplate with satisfaction the oil painting hanging over the desk, but said mildly, "With your taste for luxury, I don't know why on earth you ever joined the Bureau."
"I don't have a taste for luxury, I just enjoy being in a room that isn't a carbon copy of every other room in the place."
Pretending as always that she hadn't noticed him neatly evade the implied question about his past, Kendra said, "Well, while you're enjoying that, could you please hand me the forensics file? Once I get the last of that fed into our personal-investigation database here, we'll have everything the police say they have."
"You're as paranoid as John is," he told her, taking a file from the stack on the desk and handing it across the conference table to her.
"I resent that," John said, coming out of Quentin's bedroom, closing up his cell phone. His leather jacket was hanging over a chair in the sitting room, and he slid the phone into a pocket before joining them at the conference table.
"You should never resent the truth," Quentin said. "Did you get hold of Maggie?"
"I got her voicemail. Asked her to drop by here in the next couple of hours if possible or to meet me at the station at four." John gave Quentin a wry look. "I was very polite and low-key. No pressure, no demands, just a pleasant request."
Seriously, Quentin said, "There will come a time for demands, John, believe me."
"What do you mean?"
It was Kendra who answered, her gaze remaining on the files whose information she was feeding into the laptop's database; her fingers flew even as she spoke. "In this sort of investigation, the emotions of everyone involved tend to grow more powerful and erratic as time goes on. Naturally. Not just for the victims, but for the investigators as well. It'll be hard on all of us, but particularly on an empath. At some point, Maggie's natural instincts for self-preservation will demand that she distance herself from all the pain around her."
"And that's when we make demands?" John asked, watching Kendra in unconscious fascination. It was his first encounter with Quentin's usual partner, and so far he wasn't having much luck in figuring her out. A quiet, contained woman with rich brown hair and soft brown eyes, she was pretty without being in any way extraordinary—except that she obviously was.
"That's when we'll have to. Always assuming she's a help in the investigation and not a drawback."
"Why would she be a drawback?"
"Powerful emotions tend to cloud the mind and affect judgment, among other things. Worse for an em-path, naturally. Maybe she's learned to handle that, or maybe not. If not, feeling her own and everyone else's pain could drive her to do things she wouldn't ordinarily do."
"For instance?"
"She could get careless with her actions or incautious in sharing information. Get obsessed with a particular line of investigation to the exclusion of all else or, conversely, have increasing difficulty in even remembering things from one day to the next. She could strike out at those around her."
Quentin murmured, "That would be us."
Kendra nodded, but added, "She could also feel driven to resolve the situation as quickly as possible, whatever the cost to herself."
"You said her instincts for self-preservation would protect her," John objected.
"Eventually, yes. But from all we've been able to find out, Maggie's been doing this for some years, which means she has to be strongly motivated to see it through. But this is quite probably the worst investigation she's been involved in, given the depth and scale of the sheer human suffering. Rape is bad enough for any woman to just have to imagine; feeling that physical and emotional trauma even at second hand has got to be sheer hell. When you hurt badly enough, you'll do almost anything to stop the pain as quickly as possible."
"She could do that by walking away."
"Could she?" Kendra glanced up, her fingers pausing only an instant,
She smiled slightly as she watched Quentin contemplate with satisfaction the oil painting hanging over the desk, but said mildly, "With your taste for luxury, I don't know why on earth you ever joined the Bureau."
"I don't have a taste for luxury, I just enjoy being in a room that isn't a carbon copy of every other room in the place."
Pretending as always that she hadn't noticed him neatly evade the implied question about his past, Kendra said, "Well, while you're enjoying that, could you please hand me the forensics file? Once I get the last of that fed into our personal-investigation database here, we'll have everything the police say they have."
"You're as paranoid as John is," he told her, taking a file from the stack on the desk and handing it across the conference table to her.
"I resent that," John said, coming out of Quentin's bedroom, closing up his cell phone. His leather jacket was hanging over a chair in the sitting room, and he slid the phone into a pocket before joining them at the conference table.
"You should never resent the truth," Quentin said. "Did you get hold of Maggie?"
"I got her voicemail. Asked her to drop by here in the next couple of hours if possible or to meet me at the station at four." John gave Quentin a wry look. "I was very polite and low-key. No pressure, no demands, just a pleasant request."
Seriously, Quentin said, "There will come a time for demands, John, believe me."
"What do you mean?"
It was Kendra who answered, her gaze remaining on the files whose information she was feeding into the laptop's database; her fingers flew even as she spoke. "In this sort of investigation, the emotions of everyone involved tend to grow more powerful and erratic as time goes on. Naturally. Not just for the victims, but for the investigators as well. It'll be hard on all of us, but particularly on an empath. At some point, Maggie's natural instincts for self-preservation will demand that she distance herself from all the pain around her."
"And that's when we make demands?" John asked, watching Kendra in unconscious fascination. It was his first encounter with Quentin's usual partner, and so far he wasn't having much luck in figuring her out. A quiet, contained woman with rich brown hair and soft brown eyes, she was pretty without being in any way extraordinary—except that she obviously was.
"That's when we'll have to. Always assuming she's a help in the investigation and not a drawback."
"Why would she be a drawback?"
"Powerful emotions tend to cloud the mind and affect judgment, among other things. Worse for an em-path, naturally. Maybe she's learned to handle that, or maybe not. If not, feeling her own and everyone else's pain could drive her to do things she wouldn't ordinarily do."
"For instance?"
"She could get careless with her actions or incautious in sharing information. Get obsessed with a particular line of investigation to the exclusion of all else or, conversely, have increasing difficulty in even remembering things from one day to the next. She could strike out at those around her."
Quentin murmured, "That would be us."
Kendra nodded, but added, "She could also feel driven to resolve the situation as quickly as possible, whatever the cost to herself."
"You said her instincts for self-preservation would protect her," John objected.
"Eventually, yes. But from all we've been able to find out, Maggie's been doing this for some years, which means she has to be strongly motivated to see it through. But this is quite probably the worst investigation she's been involved in, given the depth and scale of the sheer human suffering. Rape is bad enough for any woman to just have to imagine; feeling that physical and emotional trauma even at second hand has got to be sheer hell. When you hurt badly enough, you'll do almost anything to stop the pain as quickly as possible."
"She could do that by walking away."
"Could she?" Kendra glanced up, her fingers pausing only an instant,
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