Blood Ties
What happened to you? Who did this to you?
    Unlike Hollis, Diana tended not to see the recently dead. The spirits she saw—most of them what she called guides—were usually messengers of a sort, connecting with her so she could pass on information, so they could show her something she needed to see or in some other way help an uneasy spirit find rest and peace in whatever lay beyond this life.
    So she wasn’t worried about being confronted by the spirit of this poor woman. And she was glad about that.
    The physical remains were bad enough. Horrible. Her stomach lurched a bit, but the queasy sensation remained a low-grade awareness that she could, if not suppress, at least cope with. For the moment. That, she supposed, was professional progress of a sort. At least she hadn’t disgraced herself by losing her lunch.
    Attempting to keep up the professional façade as long as possible, she returned her attention to Hollis and said, “So the shooter was aiming at you? Why were you a target?”
    “Beats the hell out of me. But Reese says it could have been either of us.”
    “Okay. Why would either of you be a target? I mean, did this guy shoot at two SCU agents specifically? Or one of you specifically?”
    “Could be either,” Quentin said. “We’ve made enemies over the years, individually and as a unit. We do try, and mostly succeed, to keep our pictures out of the news, so if you two were recognized as SCU agents I’d be surprised. None of us is wearing an FBI jacket, so that isn’t obvious. We are carrying weapons, though—handguns, and they mark us as likely cops.”
    “Yeah,” Hollis said, “but right before you guys got here, we’d pretty much established that the shooter probably wasn’t expecting anybody to be here, because he wouldn’t have expected this victim to be found.”
    “You’re assuming the shooter was the murderer,” Diana said.
    “I don’t want to assume anything else,” Hollis confessed. “Because we really don’t need some random maniac with a high-powered rifle running around in this mountain wilderness shooting at us while we’re trying to investigate—” She broke off, frowning.
    “A less random maniac?” DeMarco murmured.
    “You know what I mean. One killer in an area this remote I can just about buy. But not two of them.”
    “Unless it’s a tag team,” Quentin offered. “I still say it’s unlikely, but the possibility has to be considered.”
    “It’s a possibility I’d rather not think about,” Hollis told him. “Besides, from all I’ve read and heard, that would be seriously unlikely.”
    “True. So, what would the killer gain by shooting?”
    Diana said, “Maybe he wanted us to know he’s been watching.”
    Hollis frowned at her. “But he couldn’t have known we’d be here, that’s the point.”
    “Not only here,” Diana told her. She realized she was being stared at and raised her eyebrows at DeMarco. “You think he is—or was—somewhere across the valley, right? And higher up than we are now?”
    “Probably. I’m guessing at the trajectory of the shots, but it seems more likely than not.”
    “Well, then.”
    Quentin shook his head. “Sorry, Diana, but whatever’s so obvious to you, the rest of us seem to be missing.”
    “Don’t you guys know where we are?”
    “In relation to what? Other than being on the side of one of these mountains, I don’t really—” Quentin frowned suddenly.
    Diana was nodding. “If he was across the valley and higher up, then he had a bird’s-eye view of the dump site where the other victim was discovered. We’re not that far away, and the other site faces south, just like this one does. With the shooter across the valley, facing north, he could easily cover both sites. He’s probably been watching all day.”
    New York City
    F BI Director Micah Hughes stared rather sourly at a famous painting of nymphs frolicking, barely conscious of other visitors to the museum wandering in and out of this room. He

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