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"Sophie" A quiet demand

She shook her head "There’s not much left inside me, Max" Sometimes, all she heard were echoes "I don’t kno to play the ga with you"

Max sucked in a breath, blindsided by Sophia’s stark honesty It stripped away the sophisticated rituals of the dance betweenno room for illusions and half-truths He could’ve pulled back, but he’d e, powerful attraction through to the end "No gaaze "Not between us"

She took a long breath "I’m Psy, Max" Not a rejectiona re away, he dropped his Windbreaker on the back of a nearby sofa before crouching to exalass cabinet below the coht be soloves to ensure every inch of her skin was covered before she extended her hand to accept the crystals Reading the tense line of her body, the desolate si in his head, he dropped the physical contact "Not likely to be entertaine?"

She bent to place the crystals on the small beveled coffee table in the center of the room "He may have kept business documents within easy reach"--the words were cool, Psy, but he’d seen the s that weren’t sensitive They were probably left behind to help the psychologists create a full estured down the corridor "He took his life in the bedroo, Max walked to the room where Kenneth Vale had spent his lastto death "You should look at this," he said to Sophia, "the i to stand beside Max in the doorway, confident that for all his relentless will, he wouldn’t touch her without invitation, Sophia looked up and to the glea "The fact that he went to the trouble of screwing it into the ceiling was tabled as evidence of his disturbed state" Her thoughts flashed to another crirotesquely swollen He’d evacuated his bowels, his expensive wool trousers stained with death

"I didn’t have a chance to read the full report on the plane," Max said, his gaze still on the brutal shine of the ators explain the fact that there were scratches around his neck?"

"That he realized the irreversible nature of his actions when it was too late" Death was forever She’d learned that truth young and had never been given a chance to forget

"He was a fairly decent telepath, right?" At her nod, tiny lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes "Then someone must’ve heard him cry out for help"

"They identified Jax in his bloodstreaeneral consensus is that he was disoriented by a drug haze, couldn’t find the door out of his own mind"

"You’re my Psy expert--tell me if that’s possible"

"Yes, it is" Mental pathways could twist, could turn, could shatterespecially if you were a hunted child, terrified and screa use--and it seee, he would’ve sients"

Making a h sound low in his throat, Max went to the naked white of the floor belohere Vale had taken his life, the carpet having been cut away "Plus, it just doesn’t fit the profile PsyMed had of hi in one corner of the rooht it to that barren patch of floor "The fact that everyone was so ready to believe the suicide verdict in spite of all that tells me the Psy are in more trouble than anyone knows"

She watched hi the doorjamb at the sudden transposition of his body with Vale’s "Max?" His nairl inside of her scared, so scared He was too close to the evil What if it touched him, this man with his unexpected sed on the hook, his biceps defined as he placed his weight on the ugly object "Strong, but it had to be--he was hanging here for at least an hour or two before he was found, wasn’t he?"

She forced herself to think "Tiests that" Years of experience sparked her neurons to life, notwithstanding the chill of terror "However, he wasn’t seen for two days beforehand"

Max’s eyes irl"

Disconcerted by theoutside of any psychic connection, she vocalized her conclusions "You believe so the time it took to install the hook"

"Maybe not the whole ti off the chair, he returned it to its previous position "The whole thing smells like a setup--theater for the public"