By the time he joined her with the kit, she had the gauze unwound, revealing a long, thin slash across her palm that was bleeding sluggishly.

Cassie said, "Funny, I didn't notice before. The cut exactly follows my fate line. If I were superstitious, I'd probably worry about that."

"Do you tell fortunes too?" Ben asked lightly, removing what he needed from the first aid box.

"I've never been able to predict the future. I told you that when we met. But my mother could, and I was told Aunt Alex could."

"Really? I heard a couple of odd stories about her seeming to know things she shouldn't have known but just chalked it up to rumors. She was so seldom in town that few people knew her except to say hello."

Cassie shrugged. "I don't know the extent of her abilities. My mother refused to talk about her, and her own instances of precognition were few and far between."

"So her principal ability was like yours, the ability to tap into another mind?"

"Yes."

Judging that the time was right, Ben said, "Let's see that hand." And immediately added, "So, do you have a secondary ability?"

Cassie's hesitation was almost imperceptible. She placed her hand palm up in his and said steadily, "If I do, I haven't discovered it yet. But then, I haven't looked."

Ben held her cool hand in his and kept his gaze on it as he wiped fresh blood from the wound, but virtually all his attention was focused on her voice, his awareness filled with this first physical touch. "Why haven't you looked? Afraid of what you might find?"

"Let's just say that the primary ability is enough to deal with. I don't want another."

Ben nodded, then said, "I don't think this is deep enough to need stitches, you were right about that. I'll put on some antiseptic and a fresh bandage. You said you cut it on a broken glass?"

"Yes. A clean glass. So no fear of tetanus."

Ben opened a tube of antiseptic and began to apply the cream to her hand. Unwilling to allow a silence to grow between them, he said, "Earlier, you referred to your ability as 'the sight.' That's an ancient name for it, isn't it?"

"I suppose. It was always called that in my family."

He glanced up from her hand. "Always?" She was looking at him with an unusually steady gaze, her eyes impenetrable and her expression calm; he had no idea whether she was able to read him, and he didn't feel her gaze as he sometimes did. Was it because she was actually touching him?

Cassie nodded slowly. "It's like one of those stories you see in fiction. I'm not the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, but the sight has been in my family for generations, almost always handed down from mother to daughter."

"What about the sons?"

"There haven't been any in the last few generations of my mother's line. Further back, I'm not sure. According to the family stories, it was a female gift exclusively."

Ben smiled. "Maybe to level the playing field?"

"The boys got the muscle and the girls got the sight?" Cassie smiled as well. "Maybe."

He returned his attention to her hand, putting a clean gauze pad in place over the wound and then winding gauze around her hand to secure it. "So if you have a daughter, she's likely to be psychic."

"I suppose," Cassie said.

With more reluctance than he Wanted to show or admit to himself, Ben released her hand. "All done. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." He kept his voice light. "So, could you read me?"

Cassie didn't answer for a moment, gazing down at her hand as she flexed the fingers slowly. Then she looked up, a very faint frown between her brows. "No. No, I couldn't."

"Not at all?"

She shook her head. "Not at all. A very… closed book."

Ben was a little surprised at first, but then wondered if he should have been. "Like I said, you're probably too tired to read anybody tonight."

For an instant her eyes seemed to bore into his, and he felt that touch again, still cool but so firm this time that he almost glanced down to see if she had reached across the table and laid her hand on his chest.

Then Cassie was smiling just a little, and her voice was casual. "You're right. I am tired."

"I'll go, and let you get some rest."

Cassie didn't protest. She walked him to the front door. "It would probably be a good idea for me to see Miss Jameson's house tomorrow. I don't know if I'll be able to pick up anything, but I should try."

"I'll come get you – since you're without a car. Early afternoon all right?"

"Yes, fine."

"Good. Sleep late, okay? Get some rest."

"I will. Good night, Ben."

"See you tomorrow."

Cassie watched him until he reached his Jeep, then closed the door and locked it, and set the security system. She went back to the kitchen, put away the first aid kit, and rinsed out the used coffee cups, the actions automatic. She hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, but wasn't hungry now and definitely didn't want to bother fixing anything.

Her hand ached, but that was her own fault. It hadn't been hurting until she'd dug her nails into the gauze to reopen the wound just before calling Ben's attention to it.

For all the good it did.

She hadn't really suspected Ben of being the killer, but she'd seen too many outwardly decent men with black souls to discount anyone, at least until she was able to see inside their minds. Unfortunately she had not been able to read him – and she was afraid it was not because she was tired.

He had walls, solid and strong ones.

The kind of walls that few nonpsychics ever needed to build unless they had experienced some sort of emotional or psychic trauma.

Had Ben? Was there, in that seemingly open and honest man, some secret hurt or experience that had left him guarded and wary at the deepest levels of himself? Nothing in his background suggested that, but Cassie knew only too well how inadequate was the public information about a life lived.

It was the most likely explanation, that Ben's walls came from some injury or bitterly learned knowledge in his past. The only nonpsychic guarded minds she had encountered had owed their walls to trauma rather than to design.

He was not psychic.

He was also not the killer.

Cassie owed that certainty partly to her psychic ability. It had come to her as she had watched him gently examine her hand – the sudden memory of the killer who had stood over Jill Kirkwood, gloved hand raised to plunge the knife into her body.

His sleeve had fallen back, revealing his wrist, and on the inside had been a distinct scar.

Ben had no such scar.

It was a relief, but Cassie was not much cheered by it. She dreaded the coming days. Though Ben had shown some awareness of and sensitivity to the fact that this was and would be an ordeal for her, he couldn't really understand what it would cost her.

But he'd been right in telling her that if she remained in Ryan's Bluff, she had to help them. Not only because it was her responsibility to help, as her mother had drummed into her from childhood, but also because she was in line to become a target for this killer, and stopping him was the only way to save her own life.

She was tempted to run. More than tempted. But Ben had also been right in pointing out that there were monsters everywhere. Besides, she had found the first real peace of her life in this place, and gratitude also drove her to help.

If she could. If anyone could.

Cassie made herself a cup of hot tea and soaked for a while in a hot bath, not thinking very much about anything. Then she went to bed early, praying she wouldn't dream.

That particular prayer went unanswered.

Oh, Christ, he hated the dreams!

Why wouldn't they leave him alone?

And the voices.