But this… this was major-league creepy. He'd wondered more than once if it was really his own mind, his own skills, guiding his hands when he painted this way. Considering the finished products, that was a scary thought. But even scarier was the possibility he wasn't in control in any sense, that someone else was "speaking" through his skills, using them to get a message out.

Out of hell, he sometimes thought.

"Am I the only one you know who can do this?" he demanded. "Is that why you come to me?"

"You're the best I've found. Artistic expertise matched by psychic ability. But in this case, it wasn't either skill that brought me here, you know that."

"Then why ask me to do this?"

"I use every tool I can get my hands on, you also know that."

"And to hell with the cost to me, huh?"

"You can pay the bill."

"You're a bastard, Galen-do you know that?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

Beau was silent for several minutes, then said, "Maggie's just beginning to find out what she can do."

"Yes. I saw the painting."

"So you've been breaking into her house too, huh?"

"You should both invest in a little security."

"Obviously." Beau painted for several more minutes before the brush finally wavered and his hand fell. He turned his back to the easel before opening his eyes and walking to the worktable where Galen leaned to clean the brush and his palette.

"It's almost over, Beau."

"If you're trying to make me feel better, that won't do it."

"Sorry. Best I can do."

"Yeah, right." Beau cleaned his hands on a rag, paying close attention to the task, then said, "I'm going to put the coffee on."

"Late for caffeine."

"Well, if you think I want to sleep tonight, you're crazy. Cover that thing when you're done looking at it, all right?" Without waiting for a response, and without so much as a glance at the painting, Beau left the studio.

Galen looked after him for a moment, then straightened and approached the easel almost warily. He stood back some distance from it, powerful arms crossed over his chest as he studied a painting so complex and skillfully done it was almost impossible to believe the artist's eyes had been closed the entire time.

Almost impossible to believe.

Far from Beau's usual and rather famous impressionist work, this painting didn't shimmer with light but rather with darkness. Bold strokes of black, deep shades of maroon and slate gray and brown made up an indistinct yet oddly unnerving background lightened only by the amorphous flesh-toned faces and forms in the foreground.

Galen considered one face in particular, one of the few that was clearly recognizable. It wore a twisted expression of pain, wide eyes already going empty as life left them. His own rather hard mouth twisted.

"Shit," he said very softly.

Maggie had never been a nervous woman, but by the time John dropped her off at her home very early in the morning, it took all her resolution not to ask him to come inside with her. She told herself it was lack of sleep, but that didn't help much except to remind her he needed rest as well-and did not need to be worrying about her safety.

Worrying never did any good, she knew that.

Besides, if he knew the truth, he'd want to be with her every moment, watching over her-she knew that too. And as comforting as his presence was, she had to be able to spend at least some time alone and without the distraction he presented, recharging her energies while she tried to think this thing through.

At least that was what she told herself when she went into her silent house and cautiously checked all the doors and windows before taking a long, hot shower and trying to get some sleep. But sleep didn't come easily. She dozed, waking several times with a start to find herself tense, listening for some alien sound. But there was nothing, of course.

Of course.

After only a few hours, she finally got up and got dressed, not much rested. She ate only because she knew she should, then checked her garage and car as warily as she had checked her house hours before. Even when she was in the car and moving, doors locked, she didn't relax.

She wondered if she ever would again.

When she walked into Beau's studio a few minutes later, she was a little surprised to find him lounged back with his feet up on the table rather than working. The commissioned portrait of a Seattle businessman's wife that he'd been working on for days reposed on his easel, but from all appearances he hadn't picked up brush or palette today.

"I'm taking the day off," he announced before she could ask him. "Have some coffee-it's a fresh pot."

Maggie fixed herself a cup and sat down across from him, studying his angelic face with a frown. "Not that it really shows, but I could swear you'd been up all night too."

"I didn't sleep," he admitted. "Called your house pretty late and figured you were at the station."

"I was. We had a sort of war council just before midnight and ended up staying there until dawn." Briskly, she filled him in on everything that had happened since they had last talked, as usual not sure just how much he knew without being told, and finished up, "I went home a few hours ago for a nap and a shower, like most of the others."

"Most?"

"Andy's up for the duration, I think. And Quentin and Kendra seemed wide-eyed and energetic when I left."

Beau, who knew most of the detectives Maggie worked with at least by name, since she talked about them, nodded and said, "From what you've said about Andy, that isn't surprising. As for the two feds, unusual endurance is probably the rule rather than the exception for that unit."

Eyeing him thoughtfully, Maggie said, "You never really told me why you turned Bishop down when he asked you to join up a couple of years ago."

"Didn't I?"

"No. And don't try to sidestep now. Quentin and Kendra haven't said anything, but I'm willing to bet they've known about the connection between you and me for days. You said yourself Bishop more or less told you that the plan was for him and his agents to keep track of the psychics they're aware of outside the unit, just in case of need."

"That's what he said."

"So they've probably known about you since they got here." She shook her head. "I'll give them full marks for discretion; far as I can tell, they haven't said a word to anybody, even John."

"Knowing Bishop, he'd see discretion as necessary. One of his goals was always to build the unit and earn a solid success record long before the public found out anything."

Maggie nodded. "Makes sense. So-why did you decide not to join up?"

"I don't have a law degree."

"Which wouldn't be necessary, if you went on the books as technical support for the field agents. That was another of Bishop's goals, wasn't it, to build a support team made up of people with psychic abilities and other talents that could prove useful in investigations? I'd say an artist might come in handy, especially one with a name so well known it would provide excellent cover for any federal snooping he was doing."

"You've been around cops too much. You're beginning to think like them."

"Don't try to distract me. Why'd you say no? It's certainly the kind of thing you'd enjoy doing."

Beau shrugged. "Let's just say the timing wasn't right."

Maggie frowned at him. "It wasn't because of me, was it?"

Honest as always-at least when pressed-Beau said, "Not entirely. Anyway, you're the one Bishop would have loved to have on his team. An empathic sketch artist already accustomed to working with the police? Perfect. But I knew you had a pretty big job to finish here, and because I knew, so did he."

"He must be a powerful telepath."

"Oh, he is. Even more so these days, I hear, since he teamed up with and married another equally powerful psychic."