She hesitated again. “Clairvoyance. Instinct or whatever you want to call it. It hits at the weirdest times."
"But it's usually always correct.” Ronan turned around to grab the cameras off Steve. “So, if this is the same killer, why the ritual on the other two?"
"There are three killers, not one,” Cade answered, his gaze returning to the body. “The other murders were a lure to get me here. This looks more like need."
She handed Steve the crime scene tape, then crossed her arms, trying to warm the chill from her body as Ronan began taking shots of Denny's body. “While Candy and Lonny are definitely involved somewhere along the line, we can't say the same about Anni."
Cade glanced up at her again. “I wasn't talking about Anni. The third person is Nelle."
"Nelle hasn't yet been spotted. Not by you and not by me."
"She's here. I can feel it."
Ronan moved around the circle to get shots from the other side of the body. She followed carefully, scanning the ground as she walked, looking for prints or anything else that would lead them to their killer. Killers. “Nelle wasn't involved in the Rosehall murders."
"Why are you so sure that she wasn't?"
"Why are you so sure that she was?"
He raised an eyebrow as he rose and walked towards the body. The leaves covering the ground crunched softly with his every step, until it almost sounded like he was crushing bones. She shivered again and rubbed her arms.
"Because I always believed Jontee wasn't working alone.” He squatted beside Denny's body. “Think about it. If he wasn't clear-minded enough to run the day-to-day operations of Rosehall, how would he be able to run something as meticulously planned as the murders?"
She squatted beside him. “He couldn't,” she admitted. “So why convict him?"
"Because all the evidence pointed to him. Plus, I saw him standing over the last victim with the knife in his hand. The blood was still fresh and running down his arm. And we had his subsequent confession."
"So why did he do it?” That was the one thing she'd never understood. The Jontee she knew was sweet and caring—a powerful, magnetic soul who was almost childlike in some ways, and very adult in others. And she would have sworn either of his personalities wouldn't have hurt another person. And yet, there had been that darkness in him, a darkness that had seemed to be growing over the last few weeks at Rosehall. Certainly, he'd seemed a more frustrated and angry man during that time.
"He said the impure needed the blood to cleanse their souls."
"Impure?” She raised her eyebrows and looked at him. “What the hell does that mean?"
His navy gaze was shuttered, giving little away, and yet she sensed the anger in him as well. Or was it frustration at knowing that they'd caught one killer but had possibly let others go free to kill again?
"Jontee's harem was nearly all half-breeds.” His voice was flat. “Maybe they were the impure."
She snorted softly. “Jontee was a half-breed too, so that theory doesn't hold, given you said he didn't drink the blood himself.” She pointed at Denny's body. “Whoever killed our first two victims lapped at the blood. That hasn't happened here, and from what I've read and seen, it didn't happen at Rosehall, either."
He glanced at her sharply. “Seen?"
She hesitated, and then she grimaced. “Via clairvoyance, not actually seeing."
He shifted, his movements sharp and filled with anger. That anger swirled around her, thick and intense. “You never told me."
"You never asked. Besides, I never knew, until that night when you raided my mind, that what I was seeing was actually happening."
"So when did you have these visions?"
Again she hesitated. “When I with Jontee."
"For God's sake.” He thrust a hand through his hair. “Didn't it occur to you that what you were dreaming might not be clairvoyance, but real events you were picking up from Jontee's mind?"
"How the hell could I? I had no idea they were happening, for a start.” She thrust to her feet. “I was eighteen, damn it."
"That seems to be a very convenient excuse,” he retorted. “And it doesn't hold water in this particular argument. You could have told me once you knew why I was there."
"When did I have the time? You ran off straight away to catch your bad guy."