Текст книги "The First Prophet"

Автор книги: Kay Hooper

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It bothered Sarah. It bothered her a lot. If Tucker was right, that so-called accident had been meant for her, and Margo had simply gotten in the way. Sarah didn’t want her to get in the way again.

“I know, but…well, humor me.”

Straightening abruptly, Margo directed a sharp look at her friend. “Have you seen something else? About me?”

Sarah shook her head. “No. Not about you, I swear.”

“About you, then?” When Sarah remained silent and avoided her friend’s gaze, Margo bent once again to her packing but went on, “You and Tucker were talking pretty intently when I came out of the restroom and back to our table; you two are planning something, aren’t you?”

Vaguely, Sarah said, “Nothing unusual about dinner plans.”

“Is that all it was? Fancy that. When he dropped us off here, he said he wouldn’t be long, so I assumed you had plans for the evening. After you crate me back to Alexandria, that is.”

“Ship. You need to finish the buying trip, you know that.”

“Uh-huh. And what do you need to finish? And don’t say dinner, because I’m not buying it. The story, I mean.”

Sarah began to protest, but instead said, “Look, Margo, with everything that’s happened lately, I just don’t want to worry about a friend if I don’t have to. So, you go to Alexandria, and finish the buying trip. I’ll be fine. Tucker seems determined to…to hang around, and the police are going to find out who burned down my house—and I’m okay.”

Frowning, Margo said bluntly, “You look like a stiff breeze would blow you away.”

Sarah shrugged, but she wasn’t happy at being told she looked that fragile. “I admit, things have been a strain. The last six months have been a strain. Hey, maybe I’ll close the shop for a few days and get away, take that vacation you’ve been after me to take for years now. Maybe I’ll go house hunting and find another fixer-upper instead of rebuilding. But I’ll be okay, Margo.”

Margo was silent for several minutes while she finished packing and closed her suitcase, then straightened, still frowning. “I know you’ve seen something. Something bad.”

Steadily, Sarah said, “Whatever I’ve seen, today taught me something very…hopeful. It taught me that I’m not always right. That there’s…that there may be…room to change what I see.” She didn’t believe that, but for Margo’s sake she tried to sound convincing.

“That’s what you and Tucker are planning to do, isn’t it? Change some future disaster you’ve seen.”

“How could we do that?”

“You tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” As she had explained to Tucker earlier, telling Margo of the bleak fate she had seen for herself would accomplish nothing except to alarm her friend and quite probably convince Margo that she should stick close and watch over Sarah.

Neither Sarah nor Tucker thought that would be a good idea; if being mistaken for Sarah had put Margo in danger today, there was always a chance it could happen again.

“So you’re not going to tell me what’s going on?”

Sarah hesitated, then said, “I have to learn to live with this, Margo. With what I’ve become.”

“Don’t say what as if you’d turned into a monster.” Margo’s voice was irritated.

“Okay. But I do have to learn to live with the changes in my life. I don’t know—yet—how I can do that, but I have to figure out a way. Tucker thinks he can help me. I think I should let him try. And that’s all.”

Margo looked as though she wanted to continue pushing but finally swung her suitcase off the bed with a sound that in anyone less feminine would have been a snort of disgust. “All right, all right. But I think you’re both full of cold cuts.”

“Baloney. Full of baloney.” Surprising herself, Sarah began to laugh. It felt as good as her earlier anger had felt.

Margo stared balefully at her for a moment, then joined in.

They had sobered considerably by the time they stood outside Margo’s neatly landscaped Queen Anne–style house. She put her suitcase in the backseat of her ten-year-old sedan, then hugged Sarah hard and said, “I don’t want to hear about the next disaster on the news, pal. Call me if anything happens. Or even if it doesn’t.”

“I will. And don’t worry—I’ll lock up before we leave.”

“Just remember—don’t hesitate to stay here if you get tired of the shop’s apartment. Or for any other reason.”

“Thanks. Have a good trip.”

“I will. And you kiss Tucker for me.” Margo winked, then got in her car and backed it out of the driveway.

Sarah watched her friend drive out of sight, and it was only when the dark car was gone that she became aware of the chill of the late September afternoon. Feeling abruptly alone and too vulnerable, she quickly went back up the walkway to the house, conscious of her heart suddenly pounding. As if a door had opened to allow a chill breeze into her mind, she knew there were eyes on her. Watching.

Waiting.

Sarah…

She hurried inside and turned to close the front door, and caught a glimpse of a tall man in a black leather jacket moving away between two houses across the street. Just a glimpse, and then he was gone.

Colder than before, Sarah closed and locked the door. But she didn’t feel safe. She didn’t feel safe at all.

“You want what?” Marc Westbrook’s black brows rose, and his gray eyes were suddenly uncomfortably searching.

“I’d like to borrow your gun. That forty-five you got from your father.” Tucker kept his voice casual and did his best to meet the level gaze of his childhood friend with total innocence.

Apparently, innocent wasn’t his best face.

“What’re you up to, Tucker?”

“Look, you know I won’t shoot myself in the foot; I can handle guns as well as you, if not better. I learned when I wrote the one where the mystery hinged on a marksman—”

“I know you can handle guns.” Marc leaned back in the leather chair behind his big, cluttered desk, his frown deepening. “I also know you make a damned good living and can easily afford to buy a gun if you want—or need—one. So why borrow mine?”

“I don’t need a gun to keep, just to…use for a while. To have for a while. A few days, maybe a couple of weeks. You know I don’t approve of guns in the house, so—”

“So why do you need one, even temporarily? Last I heard, you had a dandy security system and a damn big dog.”

“The security system is fine. The dog belonged to my sister and she came and claimed him when she got back from England.”

“Tucker, why a gun?”

“Hey, do I ask you nosy questions?”

“Frequently.” Marc smiled, but it was fleeting and left him looking unusually serious. “Out with it. Why do you need a gun? And why do I have this uneasy feeling that you came to me simply because you’re in a hurry and don’t want to sit out the waiting period?”

Tucker would have liked to confide in his friend. He thought a great deal of Marc. They had played cops and robbers as boys, had competed for and fought over girls as teenagers, and still managed to get together once a week or so even though both had demanding careers and Marc was now happily married and about to become a father. But Marc was a solidly—not to say rigidly—law-abiding man, and Tucker had no doubt that, once told of the situation, he would strongly disagree with the plan forming in his friend’s fertile and not always cautious mind.

It was a potentially dangerous situation, he would say, and he would be right. From that point of agreement, they would immediately diverge. Marc thought the police should handle dangerous situations, that most cops were good cops and could be trusted. Tucker was beginning to have his doubts, especially after today’s interview with Sergeant Lewis.

Slowly, Tucker said, “I’m asking for a favor, Marc. I need to borrow your gun for a little while. No questions asked.”

“That’s a fine thing to say to a criminal lawyer.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m saying it. You still keep the gun here, don’t you? In your desk?”

Marc nodded.

“Well, then?”

“You aren’t going to rob a bank, right?”

“Very funny.”

“Well, how the hell should I know what you’ve got in mind? When you were writing the one about a terrorist group, you damn near ended up with a working bomb, and that one set on a runaway train got you blacklisted by Amtrak. I shudder to think what’s next.”

Tucker had no qualms in allowing his friend to believe he needed the gun for some reason associated with his latest novel. Lightly, he said, “You’ll find out when you read all about it. The gun?”

Marc hesitated, but they had been friends a long time, and so he unlocked a lower drawer of his desk and produced the holstered gun. Handing it across, he said, “I just cleaned it the other day. The clip’s full, chamber’s empty.”

“Gotcha. Thanks, Marc. I really appreciate this.”

When Tucker stood up to leave, Marc said only, “I don’t know what’s going on, Tucker, but watch yourself.”

“You bet. Say hello to Josie for me.”

“I will.”

They didn’t shake hands, though later Tucker wished they had.

He continued with his meal even after he felt more than heard someone slide into the booth behind him. He heard the waitress come and brightly recommend this week’s chicken dish, heard a low voice order the chicken with a slight indifference that seemed to miff the waitress. Either that, or she was upset that her charms had no effect on this particular customer.

Save it, sweetheart. He’s made of ice.

When she’d gone away, he leaned back, making a show of sipping his coffee and looking around casually, a satisfied diner relaxing after his meal. He spoke in a low voice without turning. “It’s no good. Mackenzie’s suspicious. He won’t buy another accident, especially if Gallagher disappears.”

“You’re sure?” The answering voice was also low.

“Absolutely. And she’s looking to him for help, that’s clear, so he’s going to be with her. I don’t know what he’ll do next, but if I were in his place…I’d get her out of Richmond. Fast.”

“And go where?”

“I don’t know.”

“We need better information.”

“I’m aware of that.” He heard his voice stiffen and strove to make it once more calm and casual. There were some men it just didn’t pay to get angry at, and this man headed the list. “Mackenzie’s been all over the country in the last ten years, researching and promoting his novels. Believes in immersing himself in a subject if he needs it for one of his books—and some of those subjects have been fairly esoteric.”

“For example?”

“Explosives—the kind you can put together from ingredients in most kitchens. Computer hacking. Survival training. Weapons. Defensive driving. He’s taken courses through the FBI on topics ranging from antiterrorism to psychological profiling. He has a degree in electronics, and a measured IQ of over one-eighty, which puts him solidly in the genius range. And he was a fucking Boy Scout. Probably thinks he’s MacGyver. Oh, and one last thing. From what I’ve been able to gather, he’s always been interested in the paranormal. You should see all the books on his shelves.”

The ice man’s voice was grim. “In other words, the perfect person to keep Sarah Gallagher safe.”

“I’d feel safe in his keeping, and I don’t like the bastard.”

“Why wasn’t I told of this before?”

“I didn’t know before.” He forced the irritation from his voice. “Even with my resources and all the social networking out there, it takes a good twenty-four hours to search deep background on somebody unless that person is a criminal. Mackenzie isn’t. And despite being famous in his field, he has a surprisingly small online presence, and that’s almost entirely about his books.” He fell silent as the waitress returned and served the chicken dish to the ice man. Once again she tried flirting, and once again her customer was indifferent.

Wave your boobs in my face, sweetheart, and we’ll talk. Hell, we’ll do a lot more than talk. But she wouldn’t, of course. They never did.

When she’d flounced away, he spoke again. “If Mackenzie didn’t have a certain amount of celebrity, I wouldn’t have been able to find out as much as I did this quickly.”

But you won’t thank me, will you, you icy son of a bitch. Oh no.

“What else do you know?”

Oh no, no trouble at all. Don’t mention it, really.

“Tax records, voting record, credit report, school records—”

“What do you know about him that will help us?”

He was silent for a minute or two, pushing aside his dangerous anger as he considered all the varied information about Tucker Mackenzie that had been dumped into his retentive brain. When he spoke, it was slowly. “He’s a puzzle solver. Creative, of course. Intuitive. Stubborn. Highly loyal to friends. Athletic; hiking, climbing, and swimming are some of the ways he keeps in shape. He knows how to get information. He knows how to work alone. He knows how to think ahead. Plays a mean game of chess. Grand master.”

“What are his weaknesses?”

“He might not take Gallagher’s predictions as seriously as she does.”

“Why not?” Interest quickened in that low voice.

“It’s just a hunch, but I don’t think he believes. He’s debunked a few psychics in the past, and I hear he’s so good at it he might have made a career out of it. In fact, I’m surprised you don’t know more about him than I do.”

“We can’t be everywhere.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he muttered.

Ignoring that, the ice man asked, “What else? Weaknesses?”

“Hell, I don’t know. He could be reckless. Cocky maybe, at least until he figures out what he’s up against. He’ll underestimate you in the beginning, I’d bet money on that. I’d say he likes to believe himself in control of any given situation; the kind of guy who never loses his temper if he’s losing a game, and smiles while he’s already planning how to kick your ass next time. And—I don’t know if he could kill someone up close and personal. I don’t know if he’s got that in him.”

“Maybe he doesn’t. But she does.”

He was tempted to glance back over his shoulder but didn’t. Instead, he lit a cigarette despite the NO SMOKING signs posted and blew a lazy smoke ring. “Whatever you say.” Quite deliberately, he didn’t ask what he was supposed to do next. He hated that shit, he really did.

Not that the ice man waited for him to ask.

“All right, maintain the surveillance until you hear from me.”

“If he’s going to move, he’ll move quickly.”

“I know. So be ready.”

“Me? What comes next is up to you people. I’m just here to watch, report—and clean up the mess.”

“You’re here to do whatever we need you to do.” The ice man’s voice was silky.

“I’m not your fucking hired thug.”

“You’re my dog if that’s what I need you to be. Shall I order you to sit up and bark?”

He smoked furiously, hating the bastard. And hating himself. He glared at the waitress, who had started toward him the instant he lit his cigarette but now decided instead to clear off a couple of tables.

“Be ready. Understand?”

“Yes.”

A moment later, he was alone in the back of the restaurant. He didn’t see the ice man leave. Hell, he didn’t even hear him leave. And he should have. He really should have.

A few moments later, the flirty waitress came back to the ice man’s table, bewildered by his absence but clearly pleased by the size of the tip left on the table. Even so, she glanced at the man in the next booth and said rather mildly, “Sir, there’s no smoking inside.”

He pulled his ID from his pocket and laid it on the table, open long enough for her to see the badge.

She left without another word.

When Sergeant Lewis lifted his cigarette to his lips, he saw that his hand was shaking.

FIVE

Sarah drew a breath of relief when Tucker returned to Margo’s house, not realizing until that moment how tense she had been while waiting for him. As for Tucker, he too seemed on edge and a bit preoccupied, and she wondered whether he was having second thoughts about even temporarily hitching his fate to hers.

Not that she blamed him for that. No man in his right mind would want to be saddled with her.

“Every light in the house is on,” he said mildly as he came in.

She blinked and looked around, surprised to find it true. She had been restless, and she had wandered from room to room, her skin crawling with that now-familiar creepy sense of being watched. Her subconscious had obviously felt at least a bit safer with lots of light.

She had very carefully not thought about the voice in her head.

“He was outside,” she said.

Tucker stood in the small entrance hall, ignoring her automatic gesture indicating they could go into the living room. He didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. “When did you see him?”

“Right after Margo left. Across the street, moving between two houses. I didn’t see him again after that, even though I looked.” But he’s still there. Still watching. Still waiting.

“I didn’t see him when I pulled up, but it’s getting dark.” Tucker frowned.

She tried to think of something reassuring. “Maybe he’s just watching. Maybe he didn’t have anything to do with the fire. Or with the wardrobe falling.”

“I hope you’re wrong about that.”

“Why?”

“Bad enough to be looking back over our shoulders for a guy in a black leather jacket; if he isn’t the only one watching you—if he isn’t the only threat—then we have no idea what the other threat looks like.”

Sarah half-consciously wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to ward off the chill.

Tucker reached out and touched her shoulder lightly, but said only, “I’m going to go turn off some of these lights, okay?”

She nodded and wandered into the living room to wait for him. The plan, agreed upon earlier in a hasty discussion in the restaurant after Margo had excused herself, was to return to the apartment over the shop tonight—and to leave Richmond in the morning.

Sarah wasn’t sure how she felt about that. There was a small, almost distant part of her that was alarmed by the hurried decision and bewildered by her willingness to just up and leave everything she had known, yet a larger part of her consciousness was convinced it was the right thing to do.

Yes. Walk away from your friends, your business, and the ashes of your home, because you’re afraid. Put your trust in a man you met yesterday because he says he thinks you can change fate…even though he doesn’t believe you can see the future…

As wrong as it sounded, it felt right. This was what she was supposed to do. This was her fate. A fate Tucker was somehow part of; she knew that too. And that was what frightened her the most, because she knew it meant she was already walking the path that led to her destiny.

Toward the death she had seen.

“I already checked all the doors and windows,” she told him when he joined her in the living room. “That is what you were doing, isn’t it?”

He didn’t try to deny it. “All locked. Drapes are drawn.” He paused, then added, “There were automatic timers on a couple of the upstairs lamps.”

“Yes, Margo always sets them when she goes out of town. The living room lamps have timers as well.”

Tucker didn’t say why the subject interested him, but he seemed even more preoccupied after they locked up Margo’s house and drove back to the apartment over the shop.

“Why don’t you go ahead and pack tonight,” he suggested, almost as soon as they arrived. “We might decide to leave pretty early.”

Sarah might have asked him why, but she was actually relieved to have something to do. It was very quiet in the apartment, neither she nor Tucker seemed inclined toward conversation, and her nerves were very much on edge. Something was going to happen. Soon. And she didn’t want to think about what it might be. So she packed.

It didn’t take long. Both she and Margo kept a few extra things in the apartment, including a packed overnight bag in case either had to go out of town for an unexpected estate auction or something like that, so it was a simple matter to take the bag from the closet and add in the rest of the clothing she had here. All the clothing she had left, as a matter of fact.

All the anything she had left.

That realization, late in coming but devastating, made her sit on the bed and cry. Gone. It was all gone. All her things, from the furniture she had lovingly collected over the years to the strand of pearls that had been all she had left of her mother. The few family pictures she had. The pictures of David. The few gifts he’d given her. Gone.

And the work, all that hard work to restore the house, it was all gone. The hours spent covered in sawdust and plaster dust and paint spatters, wasted. The bruised knuckles and fingers sore from using unfamiliar tools, wasted. The shopping for just the right moldings, the right wallpaper, the right curtains and rugs and fixtures, wasted.

Her life wasted.

She didn’t make a sound, unable even in that moment of intense grief to forget the man waiting for her in the next room. She didn’t want him to hear her and come in here. Whether he offered comfort or bracing common sense (losing a house wasn’t so much when compared to one’s life, after all), she didn’t think she’d be able to accept either. And she didn’t want him to see her crumpled on the bed, red-eyed and weepy, because…

She just didn’t want him to see her like that.

It wasn’t a very satisfying bout of tears and left her weary rather than relieved, but it did seem to take the edge off her nerves at least.

And it seemed to leave her mind clearer than it had been in days. She sat there on the bed and stared at the packed bag and suddenly couldn’t believe what she was doing. What was she doing? Running off to God knew where with a man she didn’t know, abandoning her business and just bolting without a word to her partner and best friend, when what she ought to be doing was locking her doors and pulling up the drawbridge, guarding her own life as she had always done…

She started to rise, bent on going out into the other room and telling Tucker she couldn’t go with him—and that was when it happened.

The room around her vanished. There was nothing but darkness, so black and impenetrable it was a solid mass around her. She couldn’t feel her legs beneath her. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t hear anything. And all she knew was cold fear.

Out of the black silence, gradually, the sound and sensation of air rushing past filled her senses. She was moving, she knew that, moving through space…and time. Moving into the future. She didn’t want to go, struggled against it, but she was given no choice. She had to go.

Had to see.

At first, the vivid images exploded out of the darkness with such bright intensity that she was blinded and couldn’t see them, in a confusion of sound so loud and garbled it hurt her ears. But slowly, her eyes and ears or her mind adjusted until what she saw and heard began to make sense. Or at least, as much sense as a waking nightmare ever made.

There was a low hum, the sound of many voices murmuring, like a carrier wave permeating everything. And then a male voice, one she suddenly remembered from that other waking nightmare, said calmly above the hum, “Even if you run, we’ll find you. We’ll always find you.”

She tried desperately to see his face, but all she could see was his silhouette, like a featureless shadow on a wall. Then he was gone.

It was getting colder.

The antiques shop. It was late, very late, and dark. Two cars crept up to the curb, their lights out. Men got out of the cars in an eerie silence and moved toward the shop. She couldn’t see who they were. But they carried things, things she knew were deadly. Not just guns but…other things, things that made her skin crawl. She wanted to scream out a warning, to alert the neighborhood and signal those inside the shop that danger approached. Then she realized that the men were going to the apartment above the shop, and she knew whom they were after.

“They’re after you, Sarah.”

“No.” She didn’t want to listen to this voice, the insistent one she’d heard in her head before.

“They’ll get you. You have to leave. You have to run.”

“But where? Where should I go?”

The background hum of many voices whispering grew louder, drowning out the voice the way electrical interference drowned out a radio signal, and Sarah wasn’t even sure she heard, “…north…”

“Who are you?” she asked desperately. “What are you?”

This time, there was no answer at all, just the now quieter whispers she couldn’t quite make out.

It was getting colder.

Blackness swept over her abruptly, and lasted what seemed to Sarah to be forever. And the background rustle of those wordless whispers became louder and louder until she wanted to clap her hands over her ears to shut out the awful noise that made her head ache.

It was so cold.

So cold…

Sarah blinked dazedly and looked around her. She was sitting on the floor by the bed, her arms wrapped tightly around her upraised knees. Shivering. According to the clock on the nightstand, no more than a minute or two had elapsed.

It felt like a lifetime.

She sat there for several more minutes, until the shivering gradually stopped as her body temperature began to return to normal. She didn’t know why it always dropped when the waking nightmares came, but it always did, leaving her chilled for a long time afterward. Even her skin was cold to the touch, and she rubbed her hands together slowly to try to warm them. Her body obeyed when she tried to get up, but it was stiff and sore, as if she had endured some kind of physical trial.

But for the first time, she came out of it with a sudden, bitter self-awareness. Waking nightmares. Bullshit. Why did she keep calling them that? Who was she trying to deceive? Herself. They were visions, and what was the use of calling them something else? A different definition didn’t make them any less real. Any less frightening.

Visions. I have visions. And let’s not forget the voices in my head, at least two different ones.

Visions urging her, driving her through fear. One voice insisting she couldn’t escape even as another one insisted that she run. And over it all, permeating everything, was her numbing certainty that no matter what she did, no matter where she went, that yawning grave was waiting for her at journey’s end.

She left the packed bag on the bed and went out into the living room, where Tucker was watching a news program. He immediately turned off the set and got up when she came in, his eyes narrowing as they searched her face intently.

Probably look like I’ve seen a ghost. Ha-ha.

“Sarah? Are you all right?”

“Not really, no.”

“Has something happened?”

He didn’t want to ask her whether she’d had a vision, but it was obvious that was what he meant. Sarah realized she was still rubbing her hands together when he briefly looked at them, and she started to tell him it was because she was still so cold. But that would take too long to explain, so instead, she said simply, “We should leave now.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ll come tonight. Come for me.”

“How do you know that? Did you see it? In one of your waking nightmares?”

He was good, she thought dimly. His voice hardly gave away his disbelief. Hardly at all.

“I had a vision,” she said starkly. “Just now. They will come tonight, Tucker. And if we’re here…”

In an abrupt gesture, he nodded. “Then we’d better leave.”

But in the end, he had another idea.

The security system guarding Mackenzie’s house was a good one. It took Murphy almost three minutes to bypass the alarm and get inside. She didn’t turn on any lights, depending on the narrow beam of her pencil flashlight to find her way around. She didn’t waste any time, moving from room to room in a quick, methodical search.

Within ten minutes, she was in his office and had the wall safe behind his desk open. She ignored some stock certificates, leafed uninterestedly through a couple of contracts with his publisher, and swore softly when the safe offered nothing else.

She kept searching, paying close attention to what she found on the cluttered desk. A folded map held her interest the longest; she spent several minutes bent over the desk studying it, and when she straightened at last, she slipped it into the leather pouch at her side.

“Not quite as smart as you think you are,” she murmured.

Her cell phone vibrated, and she pulled it out of the leather pouch with a scowl. “Yeah, what?”

“Find anything?” His voice was, as always, almost preternaturally composed.

“If I do,” she responded with equal calm, “I’ll report. As agreed.”

“We’re running out of time, Murphy.”

“You don’t have to tell me that.”

There was a brief silence, and then he said somewhat dryly, “You might at least reassure me that we have the same goal in mind.”

“I might.” She smiled in the darkness of Tucker Mackenzie’s office and did not add the requested assurances.

He knew her too well to push, though the almost inaudible sound of a sigh reached her intently listening ears. His voice was carefully matter-of-fact when he said, “I need information, Murphy.”

“Yes, I know. Give me a chance to do my job.”

“Very well. I’ll wait for your report.”

“Do that.” She turned off the phone decisively without waiting for him to sign off first. She was willing to bet she was one of very few who would dare to hang up on him. She liked that. The cell was a burner, intended to be used only once and then discarded; she’d toss it into the nearest Dumpster before moving on; it was too easy to track cell phones these days. She’d have another burner in an hour, and he’d have to wait for her to call him next time. She liked that too.

She stood there in the dark and silent office for several more minutes, thoughtfully fingering the folded map in her leather pouch. Finally, she left the office and made her way from the house, pausing only long enough to lock up behind herself and put the security system back online.

The neighborhood was dark and quiet in the hours past midnight, and Murphy went on her way without attracting any notice, not even disturbing the few sleeping watchdogs with her softly whistled rendition of “Stormy Weather.”

In perfect pitch.

“But why?” Sarah asked much later.

“We know they– We know somebody is watching you.” Tucker’s voice was patient. “What we don’t know is whether the guy in the black jacket is all we have to worry about. I want to know that, Sarah. I think we need to know that. Before we leave.”

His car was parked near the shop as before, but in the dense shadows of a spreading oak tree. There was, he’d explained to Sarah, a clear path of retreat here, with little chance of the car’s being hemmed in by other cars.