"I had to ask a favor of one of the fire inspectors. One of the kids at the hospital is going to be released this week to his grandmother, and the nurse at the hospital wasn't sure he hadn't been abused. I needed to buy some time until DFACS could investigate."

"The little boy, Josh."

She smiled bitterly. "Why am I surprised you knew that? You even included him in the little fairy tale you made for me." She gestured impatiently as he started to speak. "Have you made our travel arrangements?"

"Would I dare do anything else?" He pulled away from the curb. "A private plane is waiting at Hartsfield. I assumed you'd want your pup in the cabin with you."

She nodded. "He doesn't like crates. I think it reminds him of the pound."

"I can tell he's a sensitive soul." Silver glanced at the dog. "Well, happy is sometimes as good as smart."

"He's smart . . . sometimes. Usually when food is concerned." She took out her phone. "I have to tell my boss I'm taking a few weeks off." She made a face. "He's not going to like it after I spent so much time with Edna and the kids."

"I've already had Travis call Washington and ask them to exert a little muscle to smooth the path for you." He glanced at her. "How are your brother and his wife?"

"As good as could be expected. While you're pulling strings, can you find a decent place for Jason to take Laura when the hospital releases her?"

"No problem. I thought that a full-service hotel would be best for the first week or so, and then we'll move them to a rental property. Okay?"

She nodded. "You've thought it all through."

"I have to make sure you're free of worry." He added, "I'm sure you'd be skeptical if I also said I wanted them to be as happy and comfortable as possible." He smiled sardonically. "After all, I'm an abomination."

"Did that sting?"

"Perhaps." He thought about it. "I think it did. I'm used to it, but sometimes a word or a particularly vicious attack gets past my guard."

She was silent a moment. "You can't blame anyone for hating you for messing around in their minds. There couldn't be an uglier intrusion."

"I don't blame anyone. I'd hate it too," he said wearily. "Do you think it's fun for me? You have no idea what ugliness people hide from the world. Some people's minds are cesspools."

"Then stay out of mine."

He smiled. "Your mind is remarkably clean. Oh, a few sexual repressions and fantasies, but on the whole it's clean and honest and bright. Most of the time it was a pleasure monitoring you. The only problems I had were the nightmares and the barriers you hid behind whenever you thought about your mother's death. That was a cross between riding a tornado and being locked in a coffin." He glanced at her. "I can imagine what it's like for you. You should have let Travis help you to control it."

"I'm not interested in your opinion and I'm not looking for a crutch."

"A little leaning until you learn how to stand on your feet isn't a weakness."

"Are you speaking from experience?"

He grimaced. "Caught. No, I was too mixed up and stubborn to let anyone help me. But you should do what I say and not what I do. It's much healthier. Life would have been a lot simpler for me if I'd had a Michael Travis during those early days."

"He told me you weren't actually part of his group."

He shook his head. "The only thing I had in common with Travis or his friends was that the talent came to me in the same way. I was injured in an automobile accident when I was thirteen and in a coma for almost a year. When I came out of it, everyone thought I was normal for a long while. Everyone but me. I knew I was screwed up, but I had no intention of letting anyone else know I believed I was being sucked into other people's minds. I thought I was going crazy, and I intended to live every minute of my life to the fullest before they shut me in the booby hatch. My parents were too busy pushing my brother Cam's political career to pay much attention, so they let me go my own way. And my way was to indulge in every excess under the sun and invent what I couldn't find available." He shook his head. "Talk about black sheep."

"Michael said that you and your brother were close. I'm surprised he didn't step in."

"He tried. He always tried, but I wasn't having any of it. I finally exhausted myself sowing wild oats locally and took off and started wandering the world. I finally hit bottom in Tangiers and was considering going home and committing myself into the local loony bin."

"What stopped you?"

"Ego. I decided that anyone who was as normal as me in every other way couldn't be nuts just because I was sucked into people's brains. So I gave myself six months to experiment and see if I was really nuts or if it was a true psychic ability. It was an interesting six months. I was lucky I wasn't psychotic after it was over. You'd be surprised how many nasty, twisted minds there are out there, and I dipped into some choice specimens. Sometimes the only way I could survive was to turn their reality into fantasy and alter it so that I could break free."

"Like you did with me."

He nodded. "Only their fantasies needed to be much filthier and more complex. I never knew that was part of my talent, but I got to be an expert from sheer necessity."

"What happened after those six months?"

He didn't answer immediately. "You're very interested. Are you trying to find a gallows to hang me on?"

"I'm trying to find a way to protect myself. I don't want to punish you. It's not worth my while. Besides, I may need you to find Trask."

"I'm relieved." He pulled into the airport parking lot. "I don't mind baring my past if it makes you feel safer. What do you want to know? Oh, yes, you asked about what I did after my six months of learning my craft."

"Craft?"

"Craft, skill, talent. Whatever you want to call it. I decided that I had to develop control and harness the craziness or I'd eventually slip down the path to insanity. I started looking for psychic groups and university projects that could teach me something. It was a very delicate operation to investigate without letting anyone know I was there on the outside looking in. While I was searching I ran across Michael and Melissa Travis. They weren't charlatans and seemed honest, but as far as I could tell there wasn't anyone connected with them with my particular talent, so they'd be no help. I had hopes for the Russian government project, but that didn't pan out either. I couldn't find any group or study that did have anyone like me."

"I can believe that," she said dryly.

"So I decided that I was going to be forced to develop it on my own. I joined a psychic think tank at Georgetown University that seemed to be doing some interesting things and I found my niche."

"What kind of niche?"

He smiled. "Everything from espionage and helping with Homeland Security to doing my bit at local mental-health facilities."

She raised her brows. "My, don't you sound heroic and charitable."

"Heaven forbid. I was just learning and expanding my talent so that I ran it instead of it running me. I never wanted to feel as helpless as I did during those first months after I came out of that coma." He met her gaze. "I think you can identify with that feeling."

She could identify, but she didn't want to admit to any bond with him. "I didn't know what was happening, but I never thought I was going crazy. I just thought I needed to get a handle on what was going on in my head."

"Well, our talents are a bit different. Yours came and went erratically. I couldn't get away from mine. Every day I had to face it. Before I developed control there was no telling whose mind I was going to be sucked into."

She tried to imagine what that would be like and shuddered at the thought. My God, she'd had only a small taste of what he must have gone through with Trask, and it was the seed of which nightmares were born. "Yes, it would be different." Christ, she was actually feeling sorry for him, and that was a megamistake. No one was less deserving of sympathy than Brad Silver. He had faced his problems and found a way to solve them, but that didn't excuse him for invading her privacy. "But I didn't suck you into anything."

"True." He parked the car and opened the door. "You're the victim and I'm the bad guy. I don't expect you to forgive me."

"That's good." She jumped out of the car and let Sam out of the backseat. "Because I've no intention of letting you off the hook." She started for the terminal. "Come on, Sam."

"I just had a thought. How good a flier is Sam?"

"I've no idea. He's never been on an airplane." She gave him a malicious glance. "But he does occasionally get carsick."

This is your house?" Kerry gazed at the white-columned mansion with the same amazement she'd experienced moments ago when they drove through the iron gates that enclosed the Oakbrook estate. "I'm surprised. It doesn't look like you."

"How can you say that?" He opened the door and helped her out of the car. "Don't I impress you as the Rhett Butler type?"

"No."

"You're right. I inherited Oakbrook from Cam. He fit like a glove into the Old South scenario. But then, there weren't many places he didn't fit. He was one of those men who-" He stopped and cleared his throat. "He was a great guy."

And Silver had obviously loved him very much. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too." He climbed the steps. "He always tried to mold me into his image. He thought it was safer for me." He smiled bitterly. "But it wasn't safer, was it?"

"No, I guess it wasn't."

"He was going to ask me to help in finding Trask. He tried several times to get me to see him, but I kept putting him off. I was too busy. When I finally did come, it was the night Trask decided to burn Cam into a cinder."

"But you didn't know he was in danger. It wasn't your fault."

"I'm not playing the martyr. I just wish- Hello, George," he said to the tall, dapper man who opened the front door. "How have you been?"

"Bored, sir." The butler gave Silver a resigned look. "Do you have luggage?"

"Yep." Silver handed him the car keys. "This is George Tarwick, Kerry. Ms. Murphy, George. George worked for Cam, and I'm a great disappointment to him."

"Not a disappointment." George gave him a faint smile. "More of a challenge. When you give me the opportunity. How do you do, Ms. Murphy? I'm delighted you've come to stay with us." He moved past them down the steps toward the car. "If you'll take Ms. Murphy into the library, I'll be right in to serve refreshments."

"Right." Silver took Kerry's arm. "Come on, Kerry. We've been given our orders. Mustn't upset George. He has his way of getting his own back."

"Absolutely," George murmured.

Kerry glanced back at the butler as she reached the door. George Tarwick was moving down the steps with an athletic grace and vitality that was at odds with his august manner. At first glance Kerry had thought he was perhaps in his forties, but that stride and suppressed energy was that of a younger man. Thirties? His temples had just the hint of gray and his brown eyes were sparkling with intelligence and humor. "He's not exactly Mr. Jeeves, is he?"

"No way. Before he decided on his present career, he worked for two years with the Secret Service. He's a black belt, was once a commando, and is an expert marksman."

"What?"

"There are all kinds of discreet organizations that furnish butlers who serve as bodyguards. Four years ago I persuaded Cam to hire one. I thought it wouldn't hurt him to have a little protection. He was in the public eye and there are all kinds of nuts around." He smiled crookedly. "But George couldn't stop Trask. Neither of us could. We stood there and let Cam burn to death before our eyes."

"How did it happen?"

"Trask rigged the limo. It automatically locked so Cam and his wife couldn't get out, and then he turned loose a little Firestorm on them. So damn hot . . . They burned to death before we could get the car door open."

"Christ."

"So George and I have grown very close in the past months. We share a bond. Failure. And it bugs the hell out of us."

"Did you find any evidence that Trask was here when it happened?"

He shook his head. "The grounds were being watched by the Secret Service at the time. Cam wasn't the first victim, and the President didn't want any more 'incidents.' But there was no sign of him."

"I'd bet he was there. Maybe not close, but he likes what he does too much to set a trap and then walk away." She absently stroked Sam's head as she thought about it. "And your brother was a difficult target. Trask would have wanted to see his child take him out."

"His child." Silver grimaced in distaste. "Every time you say that it makes me want to throw up. It's . . . obscene."

"Yes, but then, you must be familiar with a lot of concepts that are obscene."

"But they didn't touch someone I cared about." He opened the door of the library. "It gets beyond all the barriers I've learned to put up. I guess maybe I'm not as tough as I thought I was."

He was tough enough, she thought. And she didn't want to think about this streak of vulnerability. "No trace of Trask at the other crime sites?"

He shook his head. "You say he was a block away from your brother's house?"

"Yes, but he was having trouble controlling the fire. Do you know the range of Firestorm?"

"Theoretically, with a small transmitter it can be controlled from a distance of a thousand yards. A larger transmitter permits access of a mile or two. Unless he's modified it."

"Which is possible." She shrugged. "But I still think that he's going to want to watch. It's the one thing I believe he has in common with other pyromaniacs I've dealt with. There's nothing like watching, smelling." She moistened her lips. "And if he's there, I think I'll be able to know it."

"I'm banking on it."

"That's right. You've spent so many months monitoring me. It would be a great disappointment to you if I let you down."

"You're damn tooting." He paused. "But I don't think you will. You've come through with flying colors so far. I wasn't sure you'd even make contact for the first few encounters."

"This concerned people I care about. It could be an isolated incident."

"But you don't think so." His eyes narrowed on her face. "You think that you reached him-and that you can do it again. Exactly how does your talent work? Do you ever have contact before the act?"

She shook her head. "Once or twice I've seen it when it was going on. Other times I get a flash when I'm examining the crime scene." She paused. "But this was the first time I felt . . . inside. It was as if I was Trask."

"Welcome to the club."

She shivered. "I hope I never feel like that again."

"So do I. I wouldn't wish that feeling on my worst enemy." He grimaced. "Yes, I would. I'd wish it on Trask."

"Tea," George said from the doorway as he brought in the silver tray. "And sandwiches. Ladies like tea."

"Do they?" Silver turned to Kerry. "Do you like tea?"

"Yes."

"I didn't see any tea bags in your kitchen."

"And I didn't see your crystal ball." She smiled at George. "I like the ceremony more than the beverage itself."

"I told you so," George said to Silver. "Ladies have an innate appreciation for the delicacy and orderliness of tea. I've put your bags in the guest room at the top of the stairs, Ms. Murphy."

"Kerry."

He flinched. "I don't wish to be impolite, but it would violate my sense of what is proper. Suppose we accept your democratic good feelings and let it go at that." He glanced at Sam. "May I take that animal out and give it some water?"