Текст книги "The First Prophet"
Автор книги: Kay Hooper
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He gazed into pale brown eyes that were distant and wary and very sure, and sighed. “Okay. But it still doesn’t mean your life will end the way the vision did. That is not going to happen.”
Slowly, she said, “Switching cars like this…it’ll give us a head start maybe. A few days’ grace, if we’re lucky. But they will find us eventually. They want me too badly to just give up.”
“We’re going to use the time we have,” Tucker told her. “I’ll disable the GPS in the Jeep so nobody can track us that way. Hopefully they’ll believe the trail ends here, at least for a while. In the meantime, while we’re heading north toward whatever it is you feel is so important, we’ll use the computer every chance we get and keep gathering information until the pieces start to come together.”
“Couldn’t they trace that? If we connect to the Internet even wirelessly?”
“Don’t worry; I’ll run it through so many proxy servers they’ll never be able to trace us. Sarah, we’ll make sense out of this. And then we’ll find a way to deal with these people.”
“You’re so sure we can deal with them.” She shook her head a little. “How? How can you deal with people willing to kill a cop? How can you deal with people who bug cars? Who abduct children? Who kill people only because they’re…different? How are we going to deal with people like that, Tucker?”
He didn’t have a ready answer, and admitted that reluctantly. “I don’t know. But we’ll find a way.”
Still looking at him, she nodded slowly, but her voice was remote when she said, “Don’t underestimate them, Tucker. Whatever you do…don’t do that.”
“No, I won’t. Not again.” He hesitated, and then, needing to regain the sense of control her questions had shaken, said, “I’ve been thinking. It’ll probably be smarter to avoid staying any place where either of us has stayed before. Even at the places I have no traceable tie to, I probably used credit cards in local stores, or talked to people who might remember. We have to assume somebody asking the right questions could find out about those places. And find us.”
“So we stick to anonymous hotels and motels?”
“I think it’ll be safer, and not just because it’ll be harder to find us. If we’re surrounded by other people and not isolated, it won’t be easy for them to move against us.”
Sarah nodded again, but said, “Unless they have another Sergeant Lewis on the payroll. People usually don’t interfere with the police.”
“That’s a cheerful thought.” He managed a smile. “Look, everything they’ve done so far has either been designed to look accidental or scheduled for the dead of night with no witnesses. Lewis didn’t come to ‘arrest’ us openly, and I’m betting no other cop will. They don’t want to be that visible, Sarah. What they’re doing is secret, and they want to keep it that way. That’s our ace.”
“Our only ace.”
Deliberately, he said, “No. You’re our ace too. One vision warned us to move. You could have others.”
“Don’t count on me, Tucker.” Her pale eyes were completely unreadable, her voice matter-of-fact. “I can’t control what I see. Or when I see it. Don’t forget—I never saw them coming to the lake.”
He frowned slightly. “But somebody did. Somebody knew, and warned us.”
“Using technology in a way you said was impossible.”
“Next to impossible, given the safeguards in my system and the fact that I wasn’t even connected to the Internet at the time. I know what you mean, though. If they can manipulate technology with that kind of expertise, then maybe we have some nameless friends who do know how to deal with our enemy.”
“So how do we ask for help?”
“We don’t. Not until they surface, at any rate.”
Sarah nodded, and said, “So we’re still on our own. And we can’t count on another warning—either from our nameless friends or from me.”
“True. But I think the enemy will be more cautious now; they didn’t catch us off guard when they expected to, and that has to give them pause. They can’t know how much you see. I think that’s one reason they move at night.”
A flicker of interest narrowed her eyes. “Because I’m presumably asleep?”
“Yeah. It’s just a hunch, but…Sarah, the day we met, the day your house burned, I watched Lewis when he talked to you. I noticed that he started to touch you—and then drew back.”
“A lot of people are that way about psychics.” She shrugged. “Or so-called witches. They’re afraid their darkest secrets will be revealed to me if I come into contact with them. I’ve noticed quite a few friends and acquaintances doing the same thing.”
She looked briefly at the careful foot of space between them and added, “It surprised me when you touched me so calmly that day.”
Tucker refused to let himself get sidetracked. “But Lewis wanted to touch you, I could see that. He didn’t stop because he was afraid. It was more like he…remembered something he wasn’t supposed to do. Sarah, what if they know their darkest secrets will be revealed to you if you touch them? What if that’s the reason they keep their distance except at night when you should be sleeping? Because if they get too close or linger too long when you’re awake and aware, you’ll recognize them for what they are.”
“Lewis was close, even if I didn’t touch him.”
“Yeah, but he was also a cop. You had no reason to be wary of him, you thought. Trust dulled your sense of self-preservation—and all your other senses as well. Plus, he may not be one of them in the strictest sense, but rather a tool they use when necessary.”
Sarah thought about that, her gaze returning to the cross on the other side of the street. “You are good with puzzles, aren’t you,” she murmured at last. “That makes sense.”
“It makes sense, but it’s still only a guess. Plus, even if I’m right, this is still new to you, so I can’t see how we can use the theory, make it work for your protection. As you said yourself, it’s something you haven’t yet learned to control; they may very well be wary of you but we don’t yet know how to use that.”
“So…half an ace?” She offered him a faintly twisted smile.
“Better than nothing.”
Her smile faded, and Sarah said, “If only there were others like me I could talk to. Psychics with more experience than me. People who know how to control this, how to use it.”
“Maybe there are.”
“Still alive?”
“It’s possible. According to the research, there have been psychics in the news recently for reasons other than death or disappearance. Names we’ve ignored because they didn’t fit our search criteria.”
“Psychics who aren’t targets? But why isn’t the…the other side interested in them? If they’ve killed and taken so many, if they’re after me now, why ignore others?”
Tucker frowned. “Maybe there’s some common denominator among some psychics that makes them less valuable, or less of a threat. That has to be it. A particular kind of ability, maybe, or the strength of their abilities. Hell, maybe it’s something so subtle we could be looking right at it, something as simple as eye color or background, something like that. The only way we’re going to find out is to get more information, and then…”
“And then…approach another psychic?”
“It’s a possibility. Another psychic, one more experienced, could probably help you, Sarah. Help you learn to use your abilities.”
“Have you considered that it’s also possible those psychics aren’t targets because they already belong to the other side?” she asked steadily.
Tucker had not considered that, and the possibility chilled him.
Down to the bone.
NINE
It was fairly late when they got to Cleveland, nearly nine o’clock that evening. They found a hotel with rooms available, and Tucker got them a small suite on the tenth floor.
“I think we should stay together,” he told Sarah. “But at least in these suites, there’s a separate bedroom to give you a little privacy.”
Sarah didn’t argue. She was slightly surprised that he wanted them to be together now when, presumably, they had a bit of breathing room; when things had been a lot more tense en route to Chicago, he had gotten them separate rooms. Keeping a careful distance, she’d assumed. She didn’t know what his reasoning was now and was too tired to think much about it.
The hotel had an underground garage, which was one reason Tucker had chosen it; their Jeep would have a bit more security than if it were parked out in the open, and it would certainly be less visible to passersby. It was also a fairly busy hotel, with people coming and going; it was hosting some kind of business convention, and that made it a virtual certainty that there would be people about at all hours.
The suite turned out to be a nice one, with a spacious sitting room that had a sleeper sofa (which Tucker matter-of-factly claimed for his bed), a couple of good chairs, a desk, and a comfortable bedroom with a king-sized bed.
Sarah barely noticed. Travel-weary and just plain tired, all she wanted was to take a long, hot shower and get ready for bed. Tucker told her to go ahead while he plugged his laptop in to charge the battery while his system continued gathering the information that might help them.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Yeah, but too wound up to sleep just yet. I need to wind down, and I’ll sleep better if I work on this for a while.” He looked at her searchingly. “It’s been hours since we stopped for supper; I think I’ll order some soup and sandwiches from room service. Okay?”
“Fine.” She was surprised to find herself a little hungry. Tucker had been feeding her at regular intervals, and she was beginning to get used to it.
Leaving him in the sitting room, she went and took a luxuriously long and hot shower. It felt wonderful. She washed her hair with shampoo thoughtfully provided by the hotel, and as she stood at the vanity drying it with the dryer also provided, she reflected with a bit of rueful humor that someone really should publish a self-help book on what to pack for an indeterminate journey on the run for one’s life.
Moisturizer, for example, should go into every woman’s survival kit. You couldn’t always count on a hotel to provide it, after all. When you could even stay at a hotel, of course. And a nice bottle of bubble bath for those rare occasions when a few precious minutes could be spent soothing a travel-weary body. And a small makeup bag and a bottle of pleasing perfume would certainly come in handy when you were traveling with a man. A nice man.
A sexy man.
Idiot. Get him out of your head.
The only sleepwear Sarah had brought with her was something styled like a man’s button-up, cuffed-sleeve shirt. It was fairly short, reaching just below the middle of her thighs, and rather sheer.
She looked at her reflection on the back of the bathroom door and sighed. Too pale and still too thin despite Tucker’s regular meals, she looked almost anemic. And the stark white sleep shirt didn’t help.
My kingdom for some blush and lipstick. A touch of foundation. Something.
The faint spurt of self-derisive humor faded. She leaned her forehead against the cool mirror for a moment and closed her eyes. Her head was hurting, throbbing. It was almost like a sinus headache, an aching pressure behind her eyes, but she knew it wasn’t sinus. It was this thing inside her, this thing that had been born in violence six months before.
It was growing.
Tucker hadn’t understood when she’d told him that; she knew he hadn’t. How could he? How could anyone know what it felt like to have something alien inside you, something that was part of you and yet not under your control? Not…normal.
“Go away,” she whispered.
For a moment, she could have sworn the pressure inside her head increased, as if in protest, and far back in her mind she thought she heard the echo of a whisper.
Sarah…
Fate. Destiny.
Sarah lifted her head away from the mirror and opened her eyes. They looked very bright and shiny, and felt hot. But she refused to let the tears fall. She locked them inside her and angrily wished they’d drown that thing that kept growing, that thing that wouldn’t go away and leave her in peace.
Then she squared her shoulders and left the bathroom. Reluctant to let Tucker see her looking so damned ghostlike and…insubstantial, Sarah put on one of the bulky terry-cloth robes also provided by the hotel. It was also white, which hardly lent her any color, but at least it made her look less in need of care and feeding.
Even so, he looked at her for an unnervingly long moment when Sarah went back into the sitting room just a couple of minutes after room service had arrived. But all he said, lightly, was, “Feeling better?”
“Much.”
“Good. Here, I had the waiter leave the cart in the room so we can use it as our table…”
The food occupied them for some time, but finally Sarah nodded toward the laptop set up on the desk and asked, “Find anything yet?”
“More of the same, so far.” He leaned back in his chair and frowned slightly. “I’m still sorting through all the information the computer gathered while we were at the lake. Every news item just seems to confirm what we believe—that someone is abducting young psychics and killing older ones. There are some exceptions, of course. I’ve read articles on at least a couple of very young psychics who seem to be doing fine, and a number of articles about older psychics who’ve been in the news more than once.”
“So what does that tell us?”
“I’m damned if I know. Unless it’s a question of genuine versus phony. Maybe all the ones still alive and kicking just didn’t satisfy whatever criteria the other side is using to determine the real from the fake.”
Sarah thought about it. “Can you set up your computer to look for a pattern? I mean, in case there’s something we’re just not seeing?”
Tucker nodded. “When we have more information, sure. I’ll probably have to write the program, but that won’t take too long. In the meantime, I’m also starting a list of psychics who don’t appear to be under any kind of threat. And I’ll narrow that list to those living in the northeast.”
“You still believe we should approach one?”
“I think we have to try, Sarah. We’ll be as careful as we can in choosing who to approach and how we approach them.”
“How do we know we’re being careful?”
“Good question,” he said ruefully. “The only answer I have is—we do the best we can. Maybe the computer will provide us with something useful. Maybe your senses and instincts will kick in. Or maybe, in the end, we’ll just have to wing it.”
Sarah sipped her decaf for a moment, then said slowly, “We can only gather information about those people who’ve been in the news or some kind of official report. Tucker…don’t you think there are probably people out there who’ve successfully hidden their abilities? I mean, I would have, if it hadn’t hit me so suddenly and so hard at first that I blurted things out without caring who was listening. If I’d had my druthers, nobody would ever have found out about me.”
“I’m sure there are others out there who think that way,” he agreed. “And maybe they’ve escaped notice. But it means the same thing to us as it does to the other side: those psychics will be virtually impossible to find.”
“Unless the other side has ways of finding them besides the media and official reports.”
“Right.”
She nodded. “I can’t help wondering about them, though. The ones that might be hiding out there. What if they’re so quiet because they know what’s going on?”
“That could be.”
She felt a little chill and unconsciously drew the lapels of the robe more closely together. The throbbing behind her eyes intensified. “I just…I just have this unsettling feeling that there are people moving all around us, and that they know what the hell’s going on. That if we only knew who to ask, it would all start to make some kind of sense.”
Tucker smiled slightly, his gaze intent on her face. “I have a lot of faith in your feelings. Maybe…” He hesitated, then said, “Sarah, maybe if you concentrate on those feelings, if you…open yourself to them…you’ll be able to sense some information the computer could never provide.”
Sarah set her cup down on the table and stared at it. Lovely pattern. Roses. Unusual, since most hotels stuck with utilitarian white…
“Sarah?”
“I don’t know how to do that.” Her head throbbed.
“I think you do. Now, I think you do.”
Softly, starkly, she said, “I’m afraid to do that.”
“I know.”
Her gaze lifted to meet his, and she realized that he did know. But he didn’t understand, not really. He still didn’t understand. She managed a faint smile. “Can’t help being a coward, you know. It’s the way I’m made.”
“You aren’t a coward.”
“Sure I am. Do you think I’d be doing all this if you weren’t with me? I’m leaning on your strength, Tucker. And your confidence. And your belief that, somehow, we can change a future burned into my mind. Left alone, I’d still be back in Richmond. Waiting to die.”
Tucker shook his head. “You are not a coward, Sarah. You were blindsided by all this and it shook you off your balance, but there’s nothing fainthearted in you. A coward would never have left Richmond, with me or anyone else. A coward wouldn’t have survived—with astonishing calm, by the way—seeing men come to kill her on two separate occasions.”
She didn’t believe him but shrugged slightly. “If you say so. But I know what’s inside me, and right now there’s little but fear.”
“Fear can help you. Every soldier knows that, Sarah. It can keep your instincts and your senses sharp, keep you alert to danger. And it doesn’t make you a coward.”
“It does if it keeps you from acting. I’m afraid to open myself up, to deliberately try to look into dark places I’d rather not see.” She got up abruptly and went over to the window. The curtains were partially drawn, but through the narrow opening, she looked out on city lights. It looked very cold out there, and she felt very alone.
Softly, she added, “I’m really afraid to do that.”
“Sarah…”
He was behind her, too close, but there was nowhere she could go. She was trapped. Trapped. The hot throbbing behind her eyes was like an alien heartbeat. In a voice that was suddenly harsh and angry, she said, “You have no idea how it feels, none at all. I told you once, at the lake, but you didn’t listen. There’s something inside me, Tucker, something alien. And it’s growing. It whispers to me, telling me what I should do and how I should feel—and I don’t trust it.”
“Sarah—”
“You think it’s just another tool, like your laptop, something you can use to get information. Push the right button and get what you want.” She did turn and look at him then, through hot eyes, and her voice was low and strained. “But it’s not that easy. It’s like claws inside me, do you understand that? Something alive and struggling—and hurting me. Every bit of information I manage to tear free leaves bloody wounds behind it. How long do you think it’ll be before I bleed to death?”
“Sarah.”
“Leave me alone.” She avoided his intent gaze and tried to move around him, but he was too close.
“You’ve been alone too damned long.” He put his hands on her shoulders to keep her still. “Sarah, you’re right, I can’t even imagine what it’s like—and I make my living imagining things.” His voice was low, steady. “But I can understand fear. And the only thing I know for sure about fear is that we have to face what frightens us. We have to. Otherwise it can cripple us.”
“Then I’m crippled.”
“Not yet. You’re only crippled if you let yourself be.”
She looked up at him, feeling so nakedly vulnerable that it actually hurt. “Everything I’ve seen has been…darkness. Violence. Death. I don’t want to see that anymore, Tucker.”
His hands tightened. “Then don’t look for death or violence. Try to control it, Sarah. Ask yourself a specific mental question and concentrate on finding the answer to only that. I don’t know if it’ll work—I’m not psychic, so I can’t know that. But I know the mind is an incredible instrument, one that can be focused and fine-tuned. One that can be controlled. I believe you can do that. If you try.”
Sarah didn’t know if she could try. What she did know was that she didn’t want to. And she knew she was too weary to be standing here this close to Tucker. She knew that tonight it would be all too easy to make a mistake. She wanted him to put his arms around her and hold her. She wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted him to hold the darkness at bay.
She wanted him.
But Tucker had made it clear to her that he considered their brief kiss at the lake a mistake. He had avoided even the most casual touch since then, and he had withdrawn so completely from her that Sarah found it difficult to gauge even his mood, much less his thoughts. Even now, with his hands on her, all she sensed from him was wariness and reserve.
And even knowing that, even being painfully sure that he didn’t want her, she still wanted him.
Before she started clinging to him like an idiot and made a total fool of herself, she carefully drew back away from him until his hands released her. “I’m really tired,” she said. “I think I’ll turn in.”
She was at the door of the sitting room before it occurred to her that he would have to go through the bedroom in order to get to the bathroom. She paused and looked back at him. “Don’t worry about disturbing me when you need to use the bathroom. I always…I sleep like the dead.”
Still standing at the window, Tucker merely nodded. “Good night, Sarah.”
“Good night.”
Sarah tried not to think very much after that. She pushed the bedroom door to but didn’t completely close it. She thoughtfully left a light on in the bathroom when she was finished in there so that Tucker would be able to see his way. Then she shed the robe, climbed into the huge bed, and turned off the lamp.
She wanted to sleep, to just close her eyes and let everything stop for a while. She needed that. But when she closed her eyes, the worries and questions and thoughts refused to stop.
Who are they?
Try to control the thing inside you. Try to see something to help us.
Why are psychics so important—or such a threat—to them?
There isn’t much time left. I feel that.
Why did this have to happen to me?
All I see is death.
Tucker needs to find Lydia.
Am I going to die?
Am I going mad?
Finally, even though she knew she was too tired and afraid to make the attempt, Sarah concentrated on closing out everything except one single, vitally important question. Who are they? She fixed it in her mind until it was so clear she could see the letters of each word.
Then, hesitantly and very afraid, she tried to open up her mind, her senses, and invite the answer to come.
At first, all Sarah saw was the question, bright as neon. Gradually, though, the question dimmed and all around it the blackness lightened. She saw a large, featureless building very briefly, just the flash of the image, but it made her skin crawl, as if she stood briefly at the mouth of a dark cave where something unspeakably brutish dwelled. Then she heard the low murmur of many voices, what they were saying indistinguishable but rousing in her another powerful primitive response as the hairs on the back of her neck stirred a warning.
Wrong. It was all wrong, worse than bad…
Then she saw the shadows. They were many, all shapes and sizes, tall and thin, short and squat, manlike and bestial. Nightmare shapes. They moved rapidly, flitting across her inner field of vision with an energy and purpose that was chilling. Arms reaching out. Hands grasping…something. She couldn’t see what they were doing. Couldn’t see what it was they caught and held so avidly. She couldn’t see their faces.
She couldn’t see their faces.
Panicked, Sarah wrenched herself out of it without even realizing she was going to. When her eyes opened, she found herself sitting up in bed, her heart pounding and breathing rapid and shallow, as if she had awakened from a nightmare. Was that it? Had her psychic abilities actually shown her something that was real, or had her fears and worries simply been given frightening shape by her anxious mind?
She didn’t have the same sense that a vision left her with, that what she had seen was real. There was no feeling in her of inevitability. Instead, what she felt was a profound but wordless and nameless uneasiness. A fear that was purely instinctive, like the primal response to snakes and spiders and noises in the night.
Sarah wanted badly to get out of bed and go into the sitting room. To Tucker. She wanted to tell him what she thought she had seen and how it made her feel. She wanted to hear him tell her that there was nothing to be afraid of, and everything would be all right.
But she didn’t, of course. Instead, she lay back on the pillow and tried to reassure herself. You’re a grown-up and hardly as weak as you’ve been acting. You’ve got to stop leaning on him—even if you survive this, he won’t always be around. Think about it. Figure it out.
It had, likely, only been the frightened musings of her mind. And even if it hadn’t been, even if she had actually been able to tap into some kind of psychic awareness, what had she seen? Nothing really. A building. Some shadows, distorted as shadows always were, without a clear shape or texture and scaring her because…She didn’t know why. Because shadows scared her. Because her world had been turned upside down, and everything seemed to scare her these days.
Her head was throbbing, the pressure behind her eyes building.
That alien thing in her head was growing.
Tucker pushed the room service cart out into the hallway, then settled down at the desk with coffee and his laptop. But he didn’t turn his attention to the computer immediately. Instead, he brooded.
Here he was in a hotel suite with a woman he hadn’t known a week, on the run possibly for his life and hers, grappling with a puzzle the enormity of which was the stuff of paranoid fantasies…and he had hardly bothered to stop a moment and ask himself why.
The simple answer, of course, was that he wanted her to tell him about Lydia. And that was certainly the reason he had first sought her out. But from the moment he had elected to spend the night on the couch outside her bedroom because a watcher with unknown motives lurked in the dark night, he had turned a corner, and from that point there had really been no going back.
None of his friends, he thought, would be surprised to find him involved in something so bizarre. He had a reputation for getting hip-deep in things purely out of intellectual curiosity and the love of challenge, which was undoubtedly one of his motivations in this case. It was a puzzle to end all puzzles, that was for sure.
But it was more than that. Much more. During the past days, he had realized that he was with Sarah because he wanted to protect her and knew that he could. He had been certain of that.
What he hadn’t known was whether he could save her.
Now, especially, he was conscious of doubts he’d never felt before. This thing was so big, so bizarre—and so clearly deadly. Sarah was already in more pain than he had bargained for, pain that promised to get worse before it got better. If it got better.
And there was an added complication now. No matter how wary her abilities made him, the undeniable fact was that Tucker was having a tough time keeping his distance. He was so aware of her all the time, so conscious of her every movement, of the sound of her voice and the fleeting expressions that crossed her face. He wanted to touch her.
He wanted to wake up next to her.
But he couldn’t deny that he hadn’t come to terms with her abilities; after so many years of charlatans, the real thing had definitely thrown him off balance. And he also couldn’t deny that even if Sarah felt something for him—and he had no idea whether she did—she was in no shape physically or emotionally to take a lover.
He didn’t think she was quite so fragile as she had been days ago, but at times, especially when she was tired, she still seemed to him too frail and shut in herself to be able to go on much longer. When he looked at her, he had the sense of something almost ethereal. Unreal. As if some delicate creature of myth and legend had drifted out of the mist and into his life.
That’s the Celt in me.
Or maybe just the writer, steeped in mythology and legend, shaping daydreams in the mind and giving them form on paper. That man could easily imagine Sarah as an elf or faerie, native to some dreamy betweenworld and just visiting this one, vulnerable to danger, terrifyingly fragile and lovely. Enchanting him because, in ancient times, the current of love between humans and faeries had run deep and strong, even though the price demanded for such joy had all too often been death…
Definitely the Celt in me.
Her abilities might make her seem otherworldly, but Sarah was all too human, Tucker knew. Human enough to be very afraid of what she could see and the fact that she could see it. Human enough to be in pain, to want to withdraw even more when she was afraid, to push him further away.
Especially when he pushed her.
He didn’t want to push her. He didn’t want to hurt her. Didn’t want to see her fear and dread at the thought of deliberately trying to open doors she would much rather keep closed. And he definitely didn’t like seeing her draw even further away from him when he suggested she try. But Tucker was all too aware of time passing, and even more conscious of how damnably little they knew.
They needed to—had to—use their only real ace, and that was Sarah.
If the other side was after her with such grim determination because they either feared her or valued her, then Tucker thought the chances were very good that Sarah could use whatever it was they feared or desired against them. The question, of course, was whether she could do it. Whether she could even try to do it.
As much as he had learned over the years about psychic abilities and the paranormal, Tucker still felt very unsure about what to tell Sarah, about how to advise her. He was not psychic, and as he’d told her, he couldn’t begin to feel what she felt. Not even his vivid writer’s imagination could help him to help her.
Until he had met her, he had seen in the world of the paranormal very little he’d believed to be genuine. And even the few psychics who had impressed him with their abilities had been erratic not only in what they had been able to do but in their interpretations of what they had seen and sensed. That was why he had, in the beginning at least, questioned Sarah’s interpretations. But she seemed—so far—less erratic than those psychics had been, and far, far less likely to try to “fill in the blanks” of what she saw with hunches and outright guesses.
