The First Prophet Read online

  She didn’t want to look.

  After a moment, Tucker said, “A long time. Then maybe you’re not the first psychic they’ve gone after.”

  She turned the possibility over in her mind. “Maybe. Maybe there are others. Or were.”

  Almost to himself, Tucker muttered, “That might explain a few things in my life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There have been a few psychics I heard about and went looking for, but was unable to find. They just seemed to have…dropped off the face of the earth. I always assumed they changed their names and ducked out of sight because one scam too many had brought the cops sniffing after them. Or disgruntled customers.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t that at all.”

  Tucker fell silent, frowning a little as he guided the car onto an exit ramp where signs promised several fast-food restaurants. He didn’t speak again until they had collected coffee, orange juice, and several sausage biscuits from a drive-through and were once again on the highway heading north.

  “So…what we know or think we know is that there’s someone after you. Possibly because you’re psychic, but we don’t really know that. We think they want to kill you—but we don’t really know that. And we think we should head north, maybe to look for somebody, but we don’t know who or why.”

  “We don’t know a hell of a lot, actually.” She bit into a second biscuit with more determination than appetite.

  “No, but it ought to be an interesting trip.” He laughed a little.

  She looked over at him, more wary than reassured by his humor. “Tucker’s excellent adventure.”

  He met her gaze briefly, then returned his to the road as he began unwrapping another biscuit. “Don’t run away with the idea that I think this is just a game, Sarah. In games, you don’t end up dead. In this…well, it’s a definite possibility.”

  But you don’t understand what that really means, I think. You don’t know just how brutal real bad guys can be. But all she said was, “Then why are you getting such a damned kick out of it?”

  “Not a kick—just a certain amount of…intellectual enjoyment. What can I say? I love puzzles. And I’m good at them.”

  Sarah finished her juice and then started on the coffee, brooding. She was too tired to think and she knew it, but it was impossible to turn off her mind. She felt curiously adrift, caught up in a current that was carrying her along in a direction she hadn’t chosen and didn’t want, and since it was not her nature to be so helpless, it bothered her.

  But this is my fate. My destiny.

  She was here with Tucker because she was supposed to be. Heading north because she was supposed to be, because there was someone waiting for her and because it would end in the north. Running for her life because that, too, was part of the plan. Letting Tucker set the pace and make decisions because she was supposed to.

  She wasn’t supposed to think. To question. She was just supposed to accept.

  Because it’s my destiny.

  Even as that litany echoed in her mind, Sarah frowned. Somewhere in the dim recesses of her consciousness, rebellion stirred, and resistance. Why did that statement rise in answer to so many of her questions? For the first time, she wondered whether that was simply another of the voices in her head, not a beckoning future she couldn’t escape but someone—or something—intent on shaping her destiny to suit some shadowy purpose.

  I’m being led somewhere. Pushed. Guided. And how do I know it isn’t them? How do I know they aren’t defining my fate, controlling my destiny? How can I trust even my own mind not to betray me?

  She couldn’t. That was the most terrifying thing of all.

  Near Arlington, Tucker turned off the highway toward the west, which made Sarah vaguely uneasy. She tried to pay attention, to listen to whatever was tugging at her, but the sensation was just tenuous and uncomfortable, impossible to define, and only faded some time later with another change of direction.

  They turned again off the main road and onto a winding secondary road and, quietly, Sarah said, “We’re heading north again.”

  He looked at her quickly. “Still not the wrong direction?”

  “I think…definitely the right one. I don’t know where we’re going, but it’s somewhere to the north.”

  Tucker turned onto an even more winding secondary road, and said, “Just a few more miles now. The cabin’s on a small lake, quite isolated. There isn’t much of a town nearby, but there is a small general store. Sort of.”

  That last wry comment was explained some ten minutes later, when Sarah found herself sitting in the car and staring bemusedly at a sign cheerfully proclaiming WANDA’S BAIT AND PARTY SHOPPE. It looked like the kind of small gas-station-cum-general-store found in many small towns, selling everything from gas to groceries. And, apparently, bait.

  Tucker went in alone to get the groceries, after telling Sarah it might be best if he appeared to be traveling alone. If anyone was searching for them—and they had to expect someone was—then they would be looking for and asking questions about a man and a woman, not a man alone. It was a logical caution.

  So Sarah sat in the car and waited. She didn’t have to wait long. Tucker returned in about fifteen minutes, carrying several small plastic bags, which he put in the backseat.

  When he slid into the driver’s seat, Sarah asked mildly, “Who’s Wanda?”

  “Beats me. Every time I’ve stopped by here—admittedly just a few times over several years—the only one inside has been an old man watching television while one of his relatives runs the cash register. Today it was a nephew.”

  His voice had been light, but Sarah heard something else and looked at him intently. “What is it?”

  He started the car but paused with his hand on the gearshift and looked at her with grim eyes. “There was a news program on. And a report about something that happened in Richmond.”

  “What?”

  “They found a man’s body early this morning near an abandoned building. Shot through the head. The city’s up in arms. He was a cop.”

  Sarah felt a chill. “Not…Lewis?”

  “Lewis. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything. There are no suspects, at least as far as the media knows. Just one very dead cop—who must have been killed not long at all after we saw him at the apartment.” He paused, then added, “Unlike the late sergeant, I don’t really believe in coincidence. So I’d say that, for Lewis, failure was not an acceptable option.”

  Sarah didn’t say a word.

  Inside Wanda’s Bait and Party Shoppe, the old man looked toward the front counter and spoke querulously. “You ain’t supposed to leave the desk!”

  “It’s all right, Uncle,” the younger man said, in the loud voice one used to speak to the hard of hearing. “No customers.”

  The old man grumbled but returned his attention to the television and a morning game show.

  The younger man moved to the front window and gazed out at the Mercedes only now pulling away. He watched it until it moved out of his sight, then returned to his place behind the counter. He glanced at the absorbed old man, then reached for the phone and punched in a long number.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he said when the call was answered. “They’re on their way to the lake.”

  It was nearly four that afternoon when Sarah came out of the cabin’s single bedroom. It was a rustic cabin only in the sense that it was constructed of logs and river rock; it had all the modern conveniences, including plenty of hot water Sarah had used in her shower, and a television connected to a small satellite dish on the roof.

  The television was on, turned down low and tuned to MSNBC. But Tucker was watching another screen. He had his laptop set up on the coffee table and was obviously working on something. But he immediately looked up when Sarah came into the room.

  “Working on the book you’re going to get out of this?”

  “No, something else. You look much better.”

  “A few hours’ sleep and a shower c
an do wonders,” she agreed. “Did you manage to get any rest?”

  “A little.” He didn’t elaborate. “You should eat something.”

  “You’re always trying to feed me,” she said, nevertheless heading for the corner of the great room devoted to the kitchen.

  “Well, aside from the fact that the fit of your clothes says you’ve lost some weight recently—weight you didn’t need to lose—it’s also a good idea for people on the run to follow the soldier’s maxim. Eat when you can, because you never know when you’ll get another chance. Goes for sleep too. Basic survival training.”

  Sarah didn’t reply to his comment about her weight; the too-loose fit of her clothing was obvious, and she knew it. Instead, she poured herself a cup of coffee and said, “I’m not really hungry, so I think I’ll wait awhile. If you got stuff for a salad we can have later, I’ll fix that.”

  “I did.” He smiled slightly. “Need to keep busy?”

  “Don’t you? What are you doing?” She came around the breakfast bar dividing the kitchen from the rest of the room and perched on the arm of an overstuffed chair at a right angle to the couch where he sat.

  “Sleuthing.”

  “Ah. And what are you sleuthing?”

  Tucker smiled again. “The case of the missing psychics.”

  Sarah thought about that, her gaze on the laptop’s screen. “There’s wireless Internet out here?”

  “Via the satellite dish, so it’s not the fastest, unfortunately. But it gives us some access. You can find out almost anything if you know where and how to look, and I don’t mean just using Google. The real trick is having enough firewalls and other protection to ensure nobody else catches you looking.”

  “Which you have.” It wasn’t a question.

  “In these days of highly visible social networking, it pays to be at least a little paranoid, especially if you create intellectual property vulnerable to theft. I protect my work as best I can, and that includes whatever I happen to be researching.”

  “So, have you found out anything?”

  He leaned back on the couch and linked his hands together over his flat middle, frowning now. “So far, I have more questions than answers. I’ve been checking newspapers in major cities, looking for missing persons believed to have some kind of psychic ability. I’ve gone back more than ten years, so far, and checked half a dozen cities.”

  “And?”

  “Come see for yourself.”

  Sarah moved over to sit beside him on the couch, keeping a careful few inches of space between them. She held her coffee cup in both hands, and looked at the laptop’s screen. There was what looked like a brief newspaper article accompanied by a photo of a young woman. She had to lean forward to read the article. It was dated March 17, 2008.

  Carol Randolph, 16, vanished from her Phoenix home yesterday. She had apparently returned safely from school, since her backpack and other articles were found in her room, and the remains of her usual afternoon snack were in the kitchen. There were no signs of a disturbance, no indication that a stranger had forcibly entered the house. No ransom note has been found.

  Police are asking that anyone with any knowledge of Carol and her movements yesterday please come forward. Carol is five feet seven inches tall, with long blond hair usually worn tied at the nape of her neck. She was last seen wearing a blue sweater and jeans.

  Sarah looked at Tucker, very conscious of his nearness. “What makes you think she was psychic?”

  “The program I’ve set up cross-references missingperson and accident reports with available police reports. They had added her school records to their files, and in those records were comments from several teachers about the girl’s ‘unusual abilities.’ Also a few highlights from a psychological profile I shouldn’t have been able to access; her parents took her to a shrink just before she vanished because they were worried about her, and had been since she was small. She ‘knew things’ she wasn’t supposed to know. Sound familiar?”

  “Very.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, the shrink believed she was a genuine psychic, recommended the parents take her to be evaluated at Duke University or one of the other legitimate programs set up to study parapsychology. They never got the chance.”

  “Are you supposed to be able to access police reports?”

  He smiled. “No.”

  She decided not to ask. “I see. So—you did find a missing psychic.”

  “Not just one.” Tucker leaned forward, his shoulder brushing hers, and tapped a few keys, then leaned back again so that Sarah could see the screen. Another article appeared, this one dated September 12, 2009.

  Thomas Kipp, 30, has been missing from his Miami home since last Thursday. A popular teacher at Eastside High School, Kipp had been recently reprimanded by the school board for unconventional teaching methods after parents complained that he was spending too much time on New Age topics as well as such controversial subjects as parapsychology.

  His students claim that Kipp had a “knack” for predicting the future, though no evidence exists to support this.

  Police have no leads in the disappearance.

  Sarah nodded slowly. “Another missing psychic.”

  “There’s more,” Tucker said, and reached past her to tap a few keys briskly. On the screen appeared another newspaper article, this one dated August 12, 2006.

  A Nashville man was killed yesterday when his car went out of control and crashed into a concrete embankment. Due to the resulting fire, tentative identification was confirmed by dental records. The deceased was Simon Norville, 28, a part-time carpenter who claimed to be a psychic and frequently augmented his income by reading tarot cards for tourists.

  Alcohol is suspected as the cause of the accident.

  “But he was killed,” Sarah said. “He isn’t missing.”

  Silently, Tucker leaned forward and tapped keys again. This time, the article was dated April 24, 2007.

  Philip Landers, 34, was killed Saturday when a friend’s twin-engine Cessna he was piloting crashed moments after takeoff near Kansas City. Landers, a struggling artist, earned extra income in carnival work, proclaiming himself to be a mind reader.

  Alcohol is suspected as the cause of the crash.

  “They’re eerily similar,” Sarah admitted, “but—”

  Still silent, Tucker keyed up yet another article, this one dated July 2, 2010.

  Beverly Duffy, 40, was killed yesterday when her Los Angeles home caught fire and burned to the ground. Ms. Duffy, locally famous for reading tea leaves and selling “love potions,” had recently and correctly predicted the San Jose earthquake, which had garnered her considerable media attention.

  Friends say the attention upset her.

  Investigators suspect a careless cigarette for the fire.

  “A house fire,” Sarah murmured, shivering as she thought of her own gutted home.

  “One more body burned beyond recognition,” Tucker said.

  She leaned a little away from him. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that either you psychics are peculiarly accident-prone, or else something very suspicious is going on. You’re dropping like flies.”

  He reached out to the computer again, this time holding a key down so that Sarah could watch article after article scroll slowly past. She couldn’t read the individual articles, but words and phrases jumped out at her.

  Car crash…accidental electrocution…lost while skiing…drowning…house fire…a fall from a ladder…robbery…plane crash…apparently struck by lightning…fell while mountain climbing…vanished while hiking…body burned beyond recognition…no body found…no body recovered…

  The deaths and disappearances ranged back more than ten years and were spread over dozens of different cities in states from coast to coast. And there were so many of them.

  “All psychic?” Sarah whispered.

  “So they—or those closest to them—claimed.”

  She looked at him mutely.


  Tucker raised a hand as if he would have touched her, but let it fall and leaned back on the couch. “I wanted to see if it hit you the same way it did me. Obviously, it did.” His voice was dispassionate.

  “All…accidents. Manufactured accidents?”

  “I’d say it was a good bet.”

  “Then someone is killing some psychics—and taking others.”

  “I’m afraid so. They all look like accidents or simple disappearances, Sarah, nothing overtly suspicious about any of them—until you start tying them together. You saw a fraction of the number of articles I’ve found so far. In every major city I’ve checked, at least a dozen psychics have been killed or turned up missing in the last ten years. Now, I don’t know a lot about the law of averages, but assuming the psychic population of this country is as small as I think it is, there seem to be a disproportionate number of them dying or vanishing.”

  “And nobody’s noticed?”

  “Why would they? Like I said, the deaths all look accidental—or at least explainable. Nothing to alert law enforcement or catch anything more than the momentary attention of the public. And scattered over years. The way people always die in big cities, and with depressing regularity. Nothing to send up a flag or make anybody look closer, especially given the huge territory and sheer number of law enforcement jurisdictions involved. I was looking for a pattern, but I knew what that pattern was supposed to be. And I found it—no natural deaths. No heart attacks or strokes or cancer. Most of these psychics were young, under fifty, and all of the ones who died, died violently.”

  Sarah drew a breath and got to her feet in a slightly jerky motion. Avoiding his intent gaze, she carried her cold coffee back to the kitchen area and poured it into the sink. Chilled, she refilled the cup with hot coffee. Still not looking at Tucker, she said, “What about the disappearances?”

  “Well, bear in mind that I’m just getting started on this. Given a few days or, better yet, weeks, I bet I could really turn up something. So far, what I’m finding is that the psychics who’ve disappeared tend to be younger than the ones killed—I’m talking kids and teenagers in many cases. For those under eighteen, the police end up calling some of them runaways and most of the rest unsolved abductions. No witnesses, no good suspects…and no bodies ever found. And, let’s face it—those kinds of cases, unless the kid is famous, just don’t linger in the headlines. They’re too damned common these days, even with Amber Alerts keeping them in the news for a while.”