Free Fear the Dark by Kay Hooper Page A

looked back at his wife.
    â€œWhat are you sensing, Sam?”
    She looked up at him, blinked, and then her eyes closed and she went completely limp, only Luke’s quick catch keeping her from hitting the ground.
    â€”
    â€œWELL, I KNEW you all had some kind of abilities, psychic abilities, but I didn’t expect them to knock any of you out.”
    â€œThey don’t, as a rule—though we do have a couple of agents who suffer from blackouts. But Sam can be exceptionally powerful, and unlike most clairvoyants or seers, if what she senses is unusually strong, sometimes she . . . goes somewhere else.”
    â€œSomewhere else? Like where?”
    â€œA galaxy far, far away,” Samantha murmured as she opened her eyes, blinking several times with a frown. She was in an unfamiliar vehicle—she assumed Jonah’s Jeep, since it had been closer—mostly sitting up in the backseat.
    The door was open and Luke was standing there beside her. She looked at his hand holding both of hers in her lap, then turned her head enough so she could see his face. He didn’t look quite as grim as he might have, which told Sam she must not have been out long, and he wasn’t showing any external sign of strain.
    â€œA galaxy far, far away?” he said to her, dryly.
    â€œWhen I was coming out of it, I could hear you and Jonah talking,” she said. “And I couldn’t resist.”
    â€œSo where were you?” Jonah asked in the tone of a man who wanted answers. “The future, or now?”
    â€œIt wasn’t a vision. Nothing from the future.”
    â€œThen the here and now. What was it?”
    â€œI have a question first.” Samantha looked at her fellow agents one by one. “Anybody else feel anything unusual up there?”
    Rather surprising everyone, including herself, Robbie immediately said, “Some kind of energy. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stirring. And really faint, there was sort of an uncomfortable crawly sensation in my skin.”
    â€œAny idea what kind of energy?” Luke asked her.
    Robbie shook her head. “I haven’t really learned to differentiate. “But . . .” She drew a quick breath. “For just a few seconds, I could hear whispers.”
    â€œSaying what?” Sam asked.
    â€œI don’t know. I was caught off guard. It happened too fast, and they were too faint.”
    â€œSam?” Luke was watching her steadily. “What did you sense?”
    â€œSomething dark,” she replied slowly. “Something really, really dark. And really, reallyhungry.”

FIVE
    Jonah didn’t quite understand when Luke told him that they would need to wait until the following day to again approach the site where Simon Church’s abandoned car had been found.
    â€œSam might get something from the car, though,” he added. “After she’s rested a bit.”
    â€œI don’t need to rest,” she protested, getting herself out of the Jeep under her own steam and rather relieved when her legs remained steady. “And even if trying again here is useless for the time being, we still have four other sites where people disappeared. One of us could pick up something at any of them. The judge was next, right?”
    â€œRight,” Jonah said.
    Telling herself she was only reading the frustration on his face, Robbie said, “It’s like static electricity.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhen psychics pick up on an energy signature. If it’s a place, thentapping into that energy once is like—walking across carpet in your socks and touching something metal. You get shocked the first time. But then the static has to build back up for the same thing to shock you again.”
    â€œOkay,” he said slowly. “I get that. I think.”
    â€œWe’re happy to answer questions as we go,” Luke told him. “But when we get to the areas where people