The First Prophet Read online

  Other minor predictions she had made could—with some ingenuity—also be linked to her stay in the hospital. Tucker had utilized quite a bit of ingenuity, so he knew it could be done. He hadn’t yet been able to explain away her apparent foreknowledge of several murders apparently committed by a serial killer in California, but he was half-convinced he could, given enough time.

  All of which, of course, raised the question of why he had bothered to seek out Sarah Gallagher at all.

  “You want so badly to believe.” Her voice was quiet, her gaze direct as she turned to look at him.

  “Do I?” He wasn’t quite as unsettled, this time, by her perception—extrasensory or otherwise.

  Instead of directly answering that question, Sarah said, “I can’t perform for you, Tucker. I can’t go down that list of questions you have in your mind and answer them one by one as if it’s some final exam. I can’t convince you of something you need irrefutable proof to believe. That’s not the way this works.”

  “You mean it’s like believing in God?” His voice was carefully neutral. “It requires faith?”

  “What it requires is admitting the possible. Believing the evidence of your eyes and ears without trying to explain it all away. Accepting that you’ll never be able to cross every t and dot every i. And most of all, it requires a willingness to believe that science isn’t the ultimate authority. Just because something can’t be rationally explained on the basis of today’s science doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

  “That sounds like the party line,” Tucker said dryly, having heard the same sort of “answers” for years.

  She shook her head. “Look, I never believed in the paranormal, in psychics, myself. When I thought about it, which wasn’t often, I just assumed it was either a con of some kind or else coincidence—anything that could somehow be explained away. Not only was I a skeptic, I simply didn’t care; I had no interest in anything paranormal. It didn’t matter to me.”

  “Until you found yourself looking into the future.”

  Sarah tilted her head a bit to one side as she considered him and his flat statement. Then, with a touch of wry humor, she said, “Well, when you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s a bit difficult to pretend you aren’t involved in the situation.”

  Tucker appreciated the humor, but what interested him most was a glint of something he thought he saw in her eyes. Slowly, he said, “So, are you involved in this? Or just along for the ride?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” She turned abruptly back to the stove to check the stew and bread, then busied herself getting plates and bowls out of the cabinets above the counter and silverware from a drawer.

  “You know exactly what I mean, Sarah. Are you resigned to dying next month because you believe that’s your fate? Because you believe your destiny is—literally—written in stone? Or do you have the guts to use what you’ve seen to change your fate, to take control of your destiny?”

  She didn’t answer right away, and when she did, her voice was almost inaudible. “Strange questions from a man who doesn’t believe I could have seen my future—or anybody else’s.”

  Tucker didn’t hesitate. “I’m willing to suspend my disbelief—if you’re willing to accept the possibility that what you saw—or at least the outcome—can be changed.”

  Again, Sarah took her time responding. She sliced bread and ladled out stew, setting his meal before him and then placing her own so that she was sitting at a right angle to him. She tasted her stew almost idly, then said, “I saw a hotel fire that killed people, and I couldn’t stop it. I saw the man I loved killed by a train, and I couldn’t stop it. I saw a serial killer commit horrible acts, and I couldn’t stop him. A week ago, I saw my house burn to the ground, and today it burned.”

  Tucker began eating to give himself time to marshal his arguments, and in the meantime asked a question he was curious about. “Why didn’t you call the police when you saw your house burn?”

  “Oh, right. Officer, somebody’s going to burn down my house. How do I know? Well, I saw it in a nightmare. A nightmare I had while I was wide awake, not under the influence of drugs, and cold sober.” She gave Tucker a twisted smile. “Been there, done that. And I’d really rather not become the poster child for the Psychic Early Warning Society.”

  Tucker shook his head. “Okay, so maybe nobody takes you seriously—at first. But sooner or later, that’s bound to change.”

  “Is it?” She shrugged. “Maybe. But in my case, that’s hardly relevant, is it? I have this…rendezvous with destiny next month.”

  Like most writers, Tucker had a head stuffed full of words, and a very apt quote sprang readily to mind. “‘I have a rendezvous with Death at some disputed barricade,’” he murmured.

  “Who said that?” she wondered.

  “Alan Seeger. It’s always stayed with me.”

  Sarah nodded. “Appropriate.”

  “I think so. Think of the phrase he chose, Sarah…some disputed barricade. Maybe there’s always room for argument about where and when we die, even if there is such a thing as fate. Maybe we change our fate, minute by minute, with every decision we make. Maybe destiny becomes the sum of our choices.”

  She frowned. “Maybe.”

  “But you aren’t convinced?”

  “That I can choose to avoid the fate I know is in store for me?” She shook her head. “No.”

  “Sarah, you didn’t see your death. You saw an image, a symbol of death. And symbols can’t be interpreted literally.”

  “A grave is pretty hard to interpret any other way.”

  He shook his head. “In tarot, the death card can mean many things. A transition of some kind. The death of an idea or a way of life, for instance. A turning point. The grave you saw could mean something like that. A change in your life that you’re thrown bodily into, maybe against your will—which would explain your fear. You never saw yourself dead, did you? You never saw your death occur literally, an accomplished fact.”

  “I never saw David’s death as an accomplished fact either.” Her voice was quiet. “But I knew he was going to die at that railroad crossing. And he did.”

  That stopped Tucker for only a moment. “But you saw the means of his death clearly. In your—nightmare—about your own fate, there’s no weapon, no method by which you could be killed. So it could have been a symbolic grave, a symbolic death. At least it’s possible.”

  Sarah pushed her plate away and leaned an elbow on the bar, looking at him for the first time with her certainty wavering. “I suppose so. Possible, at least that I saw something other than a literal death for myself.”

  Tucker didn’t make the mistake of hammering his point home. Instead, he said musingly, “I’ve always thought that if it was possible to see into the future, it would have to be with the understanding that what a psychic is actually seeing is only a possible future. Moment by moment, we make decisions and choices that change our path through infinite possibilities. And once a psychic ‘sees’ an event, that psychic becomes in some way involved in the event and so affects the outcome—which causes the ‘future’ event that he or she saw to change in unexpected and unpredicted ways.”

  She was frowning slightly, her gaze fixed on his face with what seemed an unconscious intensity. “Or—to actually happen. How do I know that if I hadn’t warned David, if I hadn’t been so insistent that he avoid railroad crossings, he might not have been killed since he wouldn’t have gone to California to get away from me? How do I know that my—my prediction didn’t cause that nurse to go into premature labor out of stress and worry? How do I know that any of it would have happened if I hadn’t…interfered?”

  Coolly, Tucker said, “You don’t. If, as you believe, our fates are set, our destinies planned for us at birth, then every step you’ve taken, every action you thought was yours by choice was all just part of the pattern you had to follow.”

  “I…don’t much like the sound of that.”

  “Then consider ano
ther possibility,” he advised. “Maybe you aren’t going to die next month after all. Maybe you can master your own fate. If you want to, that is.”

  Since they were both finished eating, he got up and began clearing up in the kitchen. It wasn’t until then that he realized the big black cat had remained on the stool beside his during the meal and conversation without once calling attention to himself. It struck Tucker as odd and curiously uncatlike, though he couldn’t have said why; he didn’t know a great deal about cats.

  Even as that thought occurred to him, Pendragon quite suddenly lifted a hind leg high in the air and began washing himself in a definitely catlike manner, and Tucker almost laughed aloud. His imagination was working overtime, as usual. Not that it was surprising; whether Sarah Gallagher was a genuine psychic or not, she was obviously in trouble, threatened by person or persons unknown, and his awareness of that had heightened all of Tucker’s senses. Which explained why he got that creepy-crawly sensation near his spine each time he’d caught a glimpse of the watcher in the black leather jacket.

  And why he was very conscious of Sarah sitting at the breakfast bar in silence, her gaze occasionally following him but more often turned inward.

  He wished his awareness weren’t quite so heightened where she was concerned. He was too aware of her physically, too conscious of her quiet breathing, her faint movements—even the oddly compelling scent that was her perfume overlaid by the acrid odor of smoke that clung to her hair.

  Keep your mind on the subject at hand, Mackenzie.

  “I wouldn’t know where to start,” she said finally as Tucker turned on the dishwasher and poured fresh coffee for them both.

  Tucker felt a surge of triumph, but it was short-lived. He didn’t know where to start either. But he was unwilling to allow her to slip back into her earlier numb resignation. “We can find a place to start.”

  “We?” She looked at him steadily.

  “I never could resist a mystery.” He kept his tone light. “Or a challenge. And, as you said—I want to believe. Maybe the mistake I made in the past was in not getting to know the…psychics…I met. Maybe it’s not so much a question of faith as it is a question of trust. I have to trust you before I can believe in you, and trust demands knowledge.”

  “Quid pro quo? You’ll help me try to change my fate in exchange for the opportunity to convince yourself I’m a genuine psychic?”

  “It sounds workable to me.”

  “Tucker, that man watching outside is dangerous. I don’t know if he burned down my house. I don’t know if he came here to kill me. But I know that he’s very, very dangerous.”

  “I can take care of myself. And I can help you, Sarah.”

  She shook her head, her eyes going momentarily un-focused in that inward-turned gaze. “No. You don’t understand. Sometimes, when I know he’s out there, I can sense things about him. There’s something…wrong with him. Something that isn’t normal.”

  “In what way?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes cleared. “It’s like when I try to see who wants to kill me. All I see are shadows. Shadows all around me.”

  He couldn’t deny the reality of that man who was probably still outside somewhere, probably still watching, but Tucker wasn’t about to lose the ground he felt he had gained in the last couple of hours. “He’s just another piece of the puzzle, Sarah, that’s all. We can solve it.”

  “How?”

  At the moment, it was an unanswerable question, so Tucker merely shrugged and said, “By putting the pieces together. But not tonight. You’ve had a long and tough day, and I’m a little tired myself. I know it’s early, but why don’t we turn in?”

  Her expression was unreadable. “There’s only one bedroom.”

  “That couch looks comfortable. I’ll be fine out here, Sarah.”

  Without further comment, she left the breakfast bar and went to get a blanket and pillow from the storage closet across from the bedroom. She piled them on one end of the couch. “There are clean towels in the bathroom, and some men’s toiletries in the linen cabinet; Margo has an occasional male guest stay up here, and she believes in being prepared. Help yourself to whatever you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  She didn’t seem eager to leave. “Pendragon should be put out before you settle down to sleep; otherwise he’ll wake you up at dawn.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t move away from his position near the bar. “Good night, Sarah.”

  “Good night.” She turned abruptly toward the bedroom, pausing only when she reached the hallway. She stood there for a moment, as if in indecision, then looked back over her shoulder at him. Quietly, her expression quizzical, she said, “I’m sorry. She never wanted to be found, you know. That’s why you couldn’t.” Then she went on into her bedroom and closed the door softly behind her.

  Tucker wasn’t sure he was breathing. He forced himself to draw air into his lungs, and it made him briefly dizzy. Or something did. He stood there staring after her, conscious of his heart thudding heavily inside his chest and cold sweat popping out of every pore.

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

  The witching hour, Brodie thought, studying the deserted street in front of his parked car. At three A.M. on this Thursday morning, the day after Sarah Gallagher’s house had burned to the ground, the only lights were streetlights; in this part of Richmond, at least, all was quiet.

  He caught the flicker of light in the rearview mirror and tensed just a bit, his hand sliding inside his jacket and closing over the reassuringly solid grip of the .45 ready in its holster. Even when the light flickered half a dozen more times in a definite signal, he didn’t entirely relax, though his foot tapped the brake lightly in the expected response.

  It wasn’t until the passenger door of his car opened and a man slid in that Brodie relaxed and left his gun holstered. The dome light had not come on (since he had earlier removed the bulbs), but a faint whiff of a very expensive and even more exclusive men’s cologne confirmed the identity of his companion for Brodie.

  “You didn’t have to come yourself,” he said, surprised.

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  Brodie made a rude but soft sound of disbelief. “Yesterday, you were in Canada, at a board meeting still going on today. You’re elusive as hell, Josh, but I’m very good at what I do.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that.” Josh Long, world-renowned financier, philanthropist, and a dozen other things that made him very famous indeed, reached into his casual jacket and pulled out a large manila envelope. “This is a verbatim copy of the police report concerning Sarah Gallagher’s house fire, including all notes made at the scene by the investigating officer. Also a copy of the fire marshal’s report.”

  “What, you didn’t get a fingerprint and ID of the culprit as well?” Brodie asked dryly.

  “You’ll have to forgive me—there was so little time.”

  Brodie let out a brief laugh, honestly amused, as he accepted the envelope. “Yeah, sorry about that. But we’re in a hurry, as usual. As I told you, we’ve lost track of Gallagher. She left the ruins of her house after the fire yesterday with a man—”

  “Tucker Mackenzie.”

  After a moment of silence, Brodie said thoughtfully, “The novelist?”

  “According to my source inside the police department, yes. The investigating officer had no idea who he was at the time; he’s apparently no reader and Miss Gallagher introduced Mackenzie only as a friend.”

  “And is he one?”

  Josh shrugged. “Hers? No evidence they’d met before Wednesday. Ours? Your guess is as good as mine. We managed to scare up a bit of data on Mackenzie; it’s in the envelope with the rest. Based on that, I’d have to say he looks like a possible ally, but there’s no way to know that for sure. In going to her he obviously has some agenda of his own, though what that might be I couldn’t find out. In any case, he appears to have elected himself her watchdog, at least for the moment.
”

  “He’s still with her?”

  “He was as of midnight tonight. In the apartment above the antiques shop owned by Gallagher and her partner.”

  Brodie didn’t ask the address, knowing that it would be included in the envelope of information. He wasn’t someone who trusted easily, but he had learned to trust in the man beside him—and in his information-gathering capabilities. He had also learned to respect the strength and fighting instincts apparent in the visitor’s next restless words.

  “I can take a more public role, you know. Make some noise. Get more people on our side. Be more of a help to you. Just providing information and equipment when you need it is nothing at all.”

  “You do more than enough.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way.”

  Brodie tucked the envelope away inside his jacket and half turned to look at the other man, who was, in the darkness, virtually invisible to anyone who didn’t have eyes like a cat. Brodie did.

  “Josh, we don’t have many advantages in this thing. They’re bigger than we are, faster to react to a situation. They’re better organized and they may even be smarter than we are. They’re sure as hell more ruthless. So we need every edge we can get. Being able to call on you for assistance and information has been invaluable, so never think you aren’t helping.”

  After a moment, Josh sighed and settled his shoulders in the gesture of a man resigned. “I don’t much care for fighting in the dark, John.”

  “We need you in the dark. We need someone with your resources, your power, and your abilities—and we need you hidden in the dark, where they can’t see you.”

  “I know the value of an ace in the hole. But I don’t have to like it.”

  “We’re grateful, Josh. We’re all grateful.”

  Josh turned away the gratitude with a slight gesture, then fished inside his jacket for a cigarette and lighter. “Don’t worry about anybody seeing this,” he said absently as the lighter’s flame illuminated his lean, aristocratic features and lent his rather hard eyes a fierce glitter. “Zach is watching.”