Текст книги "The First Prophet"
Автор книги: Kay Hooper
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
PRAISE FOR KAY HOOPER’S
BISHOP/SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT NOVELS
“Seethes and sizzles. A fast-paced, atmospheric tale that vibrates with tension, passion, and mystery. Readers will devour it.”
—Jayne Ann Krentz
“Kay Hooper…provide[s] a welcome chill on a hot summer’s day.”
—Orlando Sentinel
“A stirring and evocative thriller.”
–Palo Alto Daily News
“Filled with page-turning suspense.”
–The Sunday Oklahoman
“A well-told, scary story.”
–Toronto Sun
“It passed the ‘stay up late to finish it in one night’ test.”
–The Denver Post
“Harrowing good fun…[Readers] will shiver and shudder.”
–Publishers Weekly
“Fans will be captivated—at every turn…[Hooper’s]
creative blend of the paranormal and suspense are truly
distinctive.”
–Suspense Magazine
“You won’t want to turn the lights out after reading this book!”
–RT Book Reviews
“Hooper’s unerring story sense and ability to keep the pages flying can’t be denied.”
–Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
“Enjoyable…thought-provoking entertainment.”
–Calgary Herald
“A full-force, page-turning, suspense-driven read…It had this reader anxiously gripping the pages.”
–The Mystery Reader
TITLES BY KAY HOOPER
Haven
The First Prophet
THE
FIRST
PROPHET
KAY HOOPER
JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL,
England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin
Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community
Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive,
Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books,
Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa • Penguin China,
B7 Jaiming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over
and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
THE FIRST PROPHET
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Jove premium edition / December 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Kay Hooper.
Cover photograph copyright © Andy and Michelle Kerry / Trevillion Images.
Cover design by Rita Frangie.
Text design by Laura K. Corless.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or
electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of
copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-61336-8
JOVE®
Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
JOVE® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “J” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is
stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the
author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
THE
FIRST
PROPHET
The Bishop Files
Report
September 22
To Whom It May Concern:
I address this report as I have done because you and I agreed it would be best that your name not appear in any written form, for obvious reasons. Future reports will be submitted in the same format and manner, as requested.
As a brief preface, I will say that in my routine monitoring of various psychics in this country and elsewhere, active and latent, whom I considered candidates for either the Special Crimes Unit or Haven, I found myself becoming suspicious of certain events. I cannot say it was a situation I immediately understood; my understanding, as these reports will make clear, is ongoing as I—and others—slowly piece together the disparate bits of information and actions that are clearly a part of what is going on.
I will also repeat, as I told you when we met, that I intend to take no one else into my confidence unless and until it becomes necessary. Until then, only you and Miranda will be privy to the information I am able to collect.
I cannot say just why I believe something sinister is going on within and around the largely underground psychic community; it is not a certainty I can attribute to either my or my wife’s precognitive abilities. Psychically, we are both…blocked…whenever we turn our attention toward certain events and actions—and people. That alone would have drawn my attention, but there was more. Much more.
I therefore submit the following narrative, assembled from among those involved in the situation that transpired, and from my own firsthand observations and senses as events unfolded. I have no doubt we are a long way from learning the complete story, but herein, I believe, is a good place to begin these reports, detailing a situation that occurred several months ago, and which I believe may prove to be the catalyst that will begin to unlock at least some of the secrecy surrounding these events.
Respectfully submitted,
Noah Bishop, Unit Chief
Special Crimes Unit, FBI
PROLOGUE
They moved with the kind of stealth that came of long experience and grim purpose, and they didn’t waste a motion or make a sound. They numbered no more than half a dozen, not counting the man who stood back from the isolated cabin they had encircled and watched them. He had extremely well-developed night vision.
Through his unobtrusive, almost invisible headset, a whisper reached him.
“She’s not alone. Brodie’s with her.”
He barely hesitated before speaking softly into the microphone. “How long have they been here?”
“The vehicle is cold.”
“Then he’s had time to call in reinforcements.”
“Maybe. But we have lookouts posted, and no one’s reported any movement toward this position. We may have hours yet.”
“And we may not.” Duran glanced back over his shoulder at what daylight would have shown was a cliff edge no more than a few feet behind him, and a sheer drop to a boulder-littered canyon below. “Brodie chose well; this is an easily defensible position. For him. I don’t propose to be trapped here, and dawn is minutes away. I assume Brodie is armed.”
An unamused chuckle came from the headset. “He usually is. To the teeth. And he’ll go down fighting to protect this one.”
“I know.” Duran wondered absently whether his lieutenant had reached this conclusion because he knew the fragile young psychic inside the cabin very much resembled another young woman Brodie had nearly died trying to protect years before, but the next words he heard through his headset answered that question for him.
“She’d be as valuable to him as to us. If we’re right about her potential, she’s worth ten times her weight in gold.”
“Yes. I need to know what’s going on inside that cabin. Move closer. Carefully.”
Not being psychic himself had its drawbacks, Brodie knew. Like now. How the hell could he tell her she was wrong when he wasn’t sure?
“I have to try,” she insisted, her face too gaunt for a young woman and her eyes far too strained.
“You can’t.” He kept his voice matter-of-fact, having learned at least that psychics as a rule loved a challenge—and young women could rarely resist one. “You’re exhausted. You haven’t slept for two days or eaten since yesterday. Besides that, it’s new to you, not yet under control—”
Her soft laugh was hardly a sound. “If I don’t at least try, it’ll be under their control. They’re here, Brodie. They’re all around us. I can feel them.”
Brodie didn’t let her see the chill he felt crawling up and down his spine. “I can hold them off until our people get here. The sun’ll be up in less than an hour, and the bastards aren’t invisible. Until then, even if they could they wouldn’t bust in with guns blazing, not with you here.”
She was shaking her head, and her voice shook as well. “No, they want me badly. He wants me badly. They might take the risk of wounding me. I think they might. And they’d kill you for sure, you know that.”
“Listen to me.” He held his voice steady, held both her hands tightly, and tried his best to hold her gaze despite the way it darted around in building panic. “The windows are shuttered and, like the door, are made of steel-sheathed solid oak with iron hinges and locks. The walls are two feet thick. There’s no chimney. This cabin is a fortress. They’d have to take it apart to get to us. That’s one of the reasons I picked it.”
She wasn’t listening, wasn’t hearing. “I have to…try. I have to stop them. What they’ll do…You don’t understand, Brodie, what they’ll do to me. You can’t understand.”
“Jill, don’t. Don’t let them panic you into doing something that could destroy you.”
She snatched her hands from his grasp and backed away from him. “I’m afraid of them, don’t you know that? Terrified. I know what they’ll do if they get me. I know. My dreams have shown me. Over and over again. They’ll hurt me. They’ll hurt me in ways you couldn’t imagine in your worst nightmares.”
“I won’t let them hurt you—”
“You can’t stop them. But I can. I know I can.”
Brodie saw her eyes begin to darken and lose focus, saw her entire body tense as she called on all the energies she had left in a desperate attempt to form some kind of weapon that her panic demanded she try to use to save herself.
And even with only five senses to call his own, Brodie had a terrible premonition. “No! Jill, don’t—”
Duran’s headset crackled softly in his ear, and he pulled it off and stared at it. He was granted only that warning, and only scant seconds to understand what it portended. For him, it was enough.
Without putting the headset back on, he snapped into the microphone, “Remove the headsets. Now.” And dropped his to the ground.
Before it had quite touched the pine needles underfoot, the elegant little electronic device emitted an earsplitting shriek and burst into flames.
Duran looked toward the cabin and his men and saw immediately that two of them had not been quick enough in obeying orders. One lay about thirty feet from the cabin, stretched out on his back as though napping. But from the neck up was little more than a lump of blackened, smoldering flesh.
The other who had hesitated just that instant too long was Duran’s lieutenant. He had, clearly, managed to get the headset off quickly enough to prevent the worst from happening, since it burned a foot or so away from him, but not soon enough to save himself completely. He didn’t make a sound but held his head with both hands and rolled around on the ground in a way that told Duran that at the very least his eardrums had certainly been destroyed.
The others were rushing to their fallen comrades. Duran didn’t move. Instead, he stared at the cabin that was now more visible in the breaking dawn, and very quietly, he murmured, “You shouldn’t have done that, Jill.”
Her body was limp when Brodie picked her up and placed her gently on the couch. She was breathing. Her eyes were open. When he checked, her pulse was steady.
But Jill Harrison was gone.
And she was never coming back.
Brodie had been warned this could happen, but he’d never seen it. And hadn’t believed it possible. Until he knelt there beside the couch in that quiet, quiet cabin and looked into eyes so empty it was like looking into the glassy black eyes of a doll.
Still kneeling at her side, he took out his handkerchief and carefully wiped away the trickles of blood from her nose and ears. He folded her hands in a peaceful pose over her stomach. Absently, he brushed a strand of her hair back from the wide, unlined brow. He closed her eyes.
Jill Harrison. Not dead, but gone.
She had been twenty-two.
After a long, long time, Brodie got to his feet. He felt stiff, and so tired it was beyond exhaustion. He felt old.
“God damn them,” he said quietly.
Duran was the last to leave, remaining there until his dead and wounded men had been taken away by the others. He was about to get into his car when he heard the cabin door open.
Brodie stood in the doorway.
Across the sixty or so feet separating them, through the morning chill, they stared at each other in silence.
Though he knew the other man couldn’t hear him, Duran said softly, “This time, we both lost.”
Then he got into his car and drove away, leaving behind him a young woman damaged beyond repair and a man who was his mortal enemy.
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Epilogue
ONE
It had once been an excellent example of an updated Victorian, but now it was only a smoking ruin swarming with fire department personnel. As Tucker Mackenzie got out of his car, he heard the hissing and crackling of embers as they were soaked by the fire hoses, and the pounding of axes as smoldering wood was broken up, and he heard the brisk voices of the men working to make certain the fire would not flare up again. He also heard the whispers of the neighbors who were standing around in clumps, watching her while pretending their attention was focused on what was left of the house.
She stood alone. She looked alone. Her pretty dress was a bit too thin for the hint of cold that was creeping into late September, and she stood almost hugging herself, arms crossed beneath her breasts, hands rubbing up and down above her elbows as though to warm chilled flesh. Her dark, reddish hair was blowing in the fitful breeze that also snatched at the long skirt of her dress, and she appeared to notice that no more than she noticed she was standing in a muddy puddle left by the fire hoses.
Tucker hesitated, then walked over to her side. Before he could speak, she did.
“Are you the one who’s been watching me?” she asked in a curiously remote voice.
“What?” He had no idea what she meant.
“Never mind,” she said, as if it didn’t really matter. She turned her head to look at him, scanning him upward from his black western boots to his windblown blond hair. Her pale brown eyes rested on his face, wide and startled. More than startled. She looked briefly shocked, even afraid, Tucker thought. But it was a fleeting expression, vanishing completely and leaving behind nothing except her earlier numb detachment. She returned her gaze to what had been her home.
“Someone’s been watching you?” When she didn’t reply or react in any way, he said, “I’m sorry about your home, Miss Gallagher. What started the fire?”
She glanced at the fire marshal, who was standing some distance away scowling at the ruin. “He thinks it’s arson,” she said.
“Is that what he told you?”
“No. He didn’t have to tell me.” She sent Tucker another brief look, this one mildly curious. “Haven’t you heard about the local witch? That’s me.”
“I had heard that you were reputed to have psychic abilities,” he confessed. “I wanted to talk to you—”
“Let me guess.” Her voice went flat, something ground beneath a ruthless heel. “Someone you love has died, recently or a long time ago, and you want to communicate with them. Or you’ve lost something you need to find. You’re suffering unrequited love and want a magic potion to solve that problem. You or someone you know has a horrible disease and you’re searching for a cure. Your life has gone off track, and you don’t know how to right it. Or you want to make a million bucks and need me to pick your lottery numbers…”
When her voice trailed into silence, Tucker said evenly, “No, it’s nothing like that.”
“You’re searching for something. They’re always searching for something.”
“They?”
Her shoulders lifted and fell in a tired shrug. “The ones who come and knock on my door. The ones who call and write and stop me on the streets.” Again, she turned her head to look at him, but this time it was a direct stare. “There are only two kinds of people, you know. Those who run toward a psychic, hands outstretched and pleading—and those who run away as fast as they can, frightened.”
“I’m neither,” he told her. “I’m just a man who wants to talk to you.”
The breeze picked up, blowing a curtain of reddish hair across her cheek and veiling her mouth briefly. “Who are you?” she asked, again mildly curious.
“My name’s Tucker Mackenzie. I’m a writer.”
Her gaze was unblinking. “I’ve heard of you. What are you doing here?”
“As I said, I wanted to talk to you. I’ve been trying to call you for more than a week but couldn’t get an answer. So I decided to take a chance and just come over here. Obviously, I—didn’t know about the fire.”
“You’re a novelist. Is it research you’re after?”
“Not…specifically.”
“Then what? Specifically.”
Tucker hadn’t come prepared to deal with this. He had discovered very early in his career that people liked to talk about themselves, particularly to a novelist. Under the nebulous heading of “research” he had asked and listened to the eager answers to an astonishing variety of questions both professional and personal. It was obvious, however, that this taut woman would not accept vague explanations for his curiosity and his questions.
Problem was, he had no specifics to offer her. None he was willing to voice, at any rate. I’m after answers. I need to know if you really can predict the future. I need to know if I can believe in you.
Before Tucker could figure out something close enough to specifics to satisfy her, a plainclothes detective who had been talking to the fire marshal picked his way through the puddles to stand before Sarah Gallagher. He was tall and thin and looked to have dressed by guess in the dark, since his purplish tie definitely clashed with a shirt the color of putty, and the khaki pants hardly matched a jacket with the suggestion of a pinstripe. But for all his sartorial chaos, there was something in his dark eyes that warned the contents made a lot more sense than the package.
“I’m sorry, Miss Gallagher.” His voice was deep and abrupt. “The house is a total loss. And since your car was in the garage, it’s gone too.”
“I can pretty much see that for myself, Sergeant Lewis.” Her smile was hardly worth the effort.
He nodded. “There’ll have to be an investigation, you realize that. Before you can put in an insurance claim. The fire marshal thinks—that is, evidence suggests this might not have been an accident.”
It was her turn to nod. “I gathered that.”
The detective seemed uncomfortable beneath her direct stare and shifted just a bit as though to escape it. “Yes. Well, I just wanted you to know that we’ll be keeping an eye on the place. And since there’s nothing you can do here, maybe it’d be best if you went to a hotel for the night. You’ve been standing out here for hours, and anybody can see the weather’s taking a turn for the worse. I’m sure you could use a hot meal and—privacy. Time to collect your thoughts and make a few decisions. I’d be glad to drive you, explain things to the manager so there’s no trouble while you wait until the banks open tomorrow and you can make arrangements…”
“I won’t need to stay at a hotel. There’s a small apartment above the shop. I can stay there for a few days at least.”
He produced a notebook and consulted notes made earlier. “That’d be the antiques shop? Two-oh-four Emerson?”
“Yes.”
“You said your partner—Margo James—is out of town?”
“On a buying trip, yes.”
He frowned slightly as he returned the notebook to his pocket. “Miss Gallagher, can you think of anyone who might…wish you harm?”
“No.”
Lewis seemed dissatisfied with the terse response, and Tucker was surprised; why didn’t she say something to the cop about being watched? If that was true, if someone was watching her, then surely she must have realized that whoever it was might wish her harm. But she didn’t mention that, just continued to look at Lewis without much expression.
The cop said, “Several of your neighbors saw a strange man hanging around here not more than a few minutes before the flames were spotted. Does that surprise you?”
“That my neighbors watch my house? No.”
This time, Lewis scowled. “The man, Miss Gallagher. Did you see anyone hanging around here today?”
“No. As I told you before, I was reading in the front room and didn’t see or hear anything until I smelled smoke. None of the smoke alarms had gone off, so I had no warning. By the time I smelled smoke, the fire was so bad I barely had time to call 911 and get out. I couldn’t even get to my car keys so I could move the car out of the garage.” She drew a little breath to steady a voice that had begun to wobble just a bit, and finished evenly, “I wasn’t cooking anything. I didn’t have any candles burning. No fire in the fireplace. And all the wiring was inspected just ten months ago when I completed the renovation. It was no accident that my house burned. But I don’t know of anyone who would want to hurt me by starting that fire.”
“All right.” Lewis lifted a hand as if he would have touched her, then let it awkwardly fall. It was obvious that he was wary of touching her, and equally obvious that Sarah Gallagher knew it.
How much of that sort of thing had she been forced to put up with? How many times had she seen people draw back in fear, or look at her as though they believed she wasn’t normal? Mysterious watching strangers notwithstanding, Tucker couldn’t help wondering whether one of her wary neighbors had decided to burn out the local witch.
Avoiding her steady gaze, the cop turned his own to Tucker and scowled. “Who’re you?”
Rather surprised he hadn’t been asked before now, Tucker gave his name and no further information, surprised again when Sarah Gallagher added a cool explanation.
“He’s a friend, Sergeant. If you’ve finished with me, he’s going to drive me to the shop.”
“I’m finished—for now. But I might have more questions for you tomorrow, Miss Gallagher.” Lewis sent Tucker another glowering look, then turned away.
“Do you mind?” Sarah was watching Lewis stalk toward the fire marshal; her voice was distant.
“Of course not. I’ll be glad to drive you to your shop.” Deliberately, Tucker reached out and took her arm in a light grip. “Why don’t we go now, before it gets any colder. You must be frozen.”
She looked down at his hand on her arm, then raised her gaze to his face. For a moment, her expression was…peculiar. To Tucker, she seemed both disturbed and resigned, as though she had no choice but to accept something she knew would bring only trouble. Bad trouble. He didn’t like it.
“You can trust me,” he said.
Matter-of-factly, she said, “It has nothing to do with trust.”
He didn’t know how to respond, either to that or to her oddly fatalistic smile. Opting to let it go for now, Tucker led her to his car and saw her in the passenger side, then went around and got in himself. As soon as he started the engine, he turned the heater on high, not because she was shivering but because she should have been.
“The shop’s on Emerson?”
She nodded. “It’s called Old Things.”
“I think I know where it is.” Tucker put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb, and as he did so he caught a glimpse of a tall man in a black leather jacket slipping around behind a wooden fence two houses down from the smoking remains of Sarah’s house. His foot touched the brake, and Tucker tensed. He didn’t know why, but every sense was instantly alert; he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stirring. When he looked quickly at Sarah, he found her looking after the man, her face still.
“Did you see him?”
She nodded. “Probably just a curious neighbor embarrassed at being caught gawking.”
The car was barely moving now, and Tucker hesitated either to stop completely or go on. “You don’t really believe that.”
“It’s what the police would say.” She shrugged.
She was probably right, he thought, especially since the man had seemingly vanished; when the car drew abreast of the wooden fence, there was no sign of him. Tucker took his foot off the brake and continued down the quiet residential street. But the hairs on his nape were still quivering a warning. “You asked me earlier if I was the one who’d been watching you. What makes you think somebody has been?”
“I know somebody has. For a week, maybe a little longer. I’ve caught a glimpse of him several times.”
“That man back there? The one in the black jacket?”
“Maybe. I’ve never been close enough to get a good look at him. There could be more than one, for all I know. But always at least one.”
“Why didn’t you mention that to Lewis when he asked if you knew of anyone who might want to hurt you?”
Sarah shrugged again. “He never made a threatening move. Never came close. He just watched me.”
“Stalkers just watch, Sarah, at least in the beginning.”
“He isn’t a stalker.” She didn’t react at all to Tucker’s use of her first name. “He isn’t obsessed. There’s something very…businesslike about him. Something coldly methodical.”
“As if watching you is his job? A private investigator, maybe?”
“Maybe. But I don’t know who would have hired him, or why.”
“You said you’d been getting a lot of unwanted attention lately. People who came to you for help.”
“Yes. So?”
“So maybe you gave somebody the wrong advice and somehow made an enemy. An investigator could have been hired to look for something that could be used against you in court.”
“Like what? That I use imported tea leaves instead of domestic?” Without waiting for a response to that dry question, she went on in the same tone. “I don’t offer advice. I don’t give readings. I don’t take money from anybody unless they’re buying a Regency table or a Colonial chair. I’ve never owned a crystal ball or a deck of tarot cards. I don’t claim to be able to solve problems, or I would have started with my own. So I don’t see how anyone could claim I’d wronged them.”
“All right. But if you’re being watched, and if he’s a pro, then somebody had to hire him. There must be a reason.”
“I suppose.”
As he stopped the car to wait at a traffic light, Tucker turned his head and looked at her. “Any trouble with an ex-husband or lover?”
She seemed almost to flinch, but her answer was steady enough. “No.”
“You’re sure?” he probed.
Sarah looked at him. “I’ve never been married. As for lovers, since you ask, I’ve had only two in my life. One was back in college; we broke up amicably and still send each other Christmas and birthday cards. The other decided back in April, a few weeks after I got out of the hospital, that he didn’t want to live with a woman who freaked out every time he got near a railroad crossing. So he requested a transfer to the West Coast.”
“And?” Tucker kept his gaze on her face, his attention caught by the thread of pain in her otherwise expressionless voice.
“And he was killed two weeks later. At a railroad crossing.” She turned her head to look forward, adding, “The light’s green.”
Tucker tried to pay attention to his driving, but it wasn’t easy. He got the car rolling forward and fixed his gaze on the car ahead of him. “Let me make sure I understand this. You told your lover that railroad crossings were dangerous to him, that he’d be killed at one? Because you’d seen it in his future?”
Softly, she said, “I hadn’t yet learned that warnings were useless, that what I saw would happen no matter what. I thought I could save him. But I couldn’t, of course. I couldn’t change his destiny.”
“Don’t you believe in free will?”
“Not anymore.”
Tucker digested that for several blocks in silence. “According to what I’ve read, even the best psychics don’t claim to get a hundred percent right; haven’t you ever been wrong?”
“No.”
He sent her a quick look. “So what makes you so special?”
“I don’t know.” She took the question seriously, obviously thinking about it. “Maybe it’s because I never go looking for the future. What I see comes to me without any desire on my part.”
“You can’t control it?”
“No.”
“Can’t block it out?”
“No.”
“And you truly believe that what you see is the absolute truth, actual events that haven’t yet taken place. You truly believe that you can see the future before it happens.”
She was silent for a moment, then replied simply, “I truly believe that.”
Tucker made two turns without comment, but then curiosity made him say, “But that isn’t all, is it? I mean, you knew the fire marshal suspected arson. Did his face give away his thoughts, or can you also—pick up information from the people around you?”
He didn’t think she was going to answer at first, but finally she did.
“Sometimes I know things. I look at a person’s face…and I know things.”
“Oh? Do you know anything about me?” He didn’t mean to sound so challenging, but knew he did even as the words emerged. He started to take back the question, knowing from experience that nobody liked being backed into a corner and ordered to perform, particularly a self-proclaimed psychic. But she surprised him.
She really surprised him.
Without looking at him, and in a tone that was almost idle, she said quietly, “I know why you came to see me today, if that’s what you mean. It was for the same reason you’ve spent your adult life chasing after anyone who claimed to have psychic abilities. Shall I tell you why, Tucker?”
“No.” The refusal emerged harshly before he thought about it, but given a couple of minutes of silence to consider it, he wasn’t tempted to change his response. If she did know the truth, there was time enough to find out later; if she was only guessing, there was time enough to find that out as well. Either way, he wasn’t quite ready to put it—or her—to the test just yet.
