Tha-thum!

Tha-thum!

Tha-thum!

Oh. No.

It's here.

Five years ago

"You're a hard man to find."

Without taking his eyes from the papers spread out on the table before him, Quentin Hayes said, "But not impossible, obviously. Who was looking for me?"

"Noah Bishop."

Quentin did look up then, his brows rising. "Of the Spooky Crimes Unit?"

Bishop smiled faintly. "I've heard the nickname."

"Telepathically? That is supposed to be your psychic ability, right?"

"It is. But I didn't need telepathy to pick up on the ridicule." He shrugged. "We'll probably always hear variations of that. But respect will come with success. Eventually."

Quentin studied the other man, noting the curiously light gray eyes and scarred but striking face that spoke of strength and danger, and undoubtedly prevented all but the bravest souls from expressing open ridicule. That, plus his extraordinarily high success rate as a profiler, had earned Noah Bishop quite a lot of respect within the Bureau, even if this new unit of his was earning just as much mockery.

Still, Quentin had earned his own considerable reputation as a solid investigator who preferred to work alone, and wasn't at all eager to join a team — or go public with abilities he had been at some pains to conceal.

"So why're you telling me?" he asked.

"Thought you might be interested."

"Oh, yeah? I can't imagine why."

"Of course you can." Bishop came into the room and sat down on the other side of the table, still wearing that faint, amused smile. "You saw me coming. Months ago? Years ago?"

Refusing to reply to those dry questions, Quentin said, "I'm not on the clock, in case nobody told you that."

"What I was told was that you've spent at least two previous vacations here in Tennessee. In this same small town. Probably sitting in this same seldom-used conference room of a police department that hasn't had to deal with much except traffic tickets, domestic disputes, and the odd bootlegger or meth lab in the last twenty years or so. Here you sit, going over the same old dusty files while the local cops shrug and keep the betting pool going."