“And he was killed two weeks later. At a railroad crossing.” She turned her head to look forward, adding, “The light’s green.”
Tucker tried to pay attention to his driving, but it wasn’t easy. He got the car rolling forward and fixed his gaze on the car ahead of him. “Let me make sure I understand this. You told your lover that railroad crossings were dangerous to him, that he’d be killed at one? Because you’d seen it in his future?”
Softly, she said, “I hadn’t yet learned that warnings were useless, that what I saw would happen no matter what. I thought I could save him. But I couldn’t, of course. I couldn’t change his destiny.”
“Don’t you believe in free will?”
“Not anymore.”
Tucker digested that for several blocks in silence. “According to what I’ve read, even the best psychics don’t claim to get a hundred percent right; haven’t you ever been wrong?”
“No.”
He sent her a quick look. “So what makes you so special?”
“I don’t know.” She took the question seriously, obviously thinking about it. “Maybe it’s because I never go looking for the future. What I see comes to me without any desire on my part.”
“You can’t control it?”
“No.”
“Can’t block it out?”
“No.”
“And you truly believe that what you see is the absolute truth, actual events that haven’t yet taken place. You truly believe that you can see the future before it happens.”
She was silent for a moment, then replied simply, “I truly believe that.”
Tucker made two turns without comment, but then curiosity made him say, “But that isn’t all, is it? I mean, you knew the fire marshal suspected arson. Did his face give away his thoughts, or can you also—pick up information from the people around you?”
He didn’t think she was going to answer at first, but finally she did.
“Sometimes I know things. I look at a person’s face…and I know things.”
“Oh? Do you know anything about me?” He didn’t mean to sound so challenging, but knew he did even as the words emerged. He started to take back the question, knowing from experience that nobody liked being backed into a corner and ordered to perform, particularly a self-proclaimed psychic. But she surprised him.
She really surprised him.
Without looking at him, and in a tone that was almost idle, she said quietly, “I know why you came to see me today, if that’s what you mean. It was for the same reason you’ve spent your adult life chasing after anyone who claimed to have psychic abilities. Shall I tell you why, Tucker?”
“No.” The refusal emerged harshly before he thought about it, but given a couple of minutes of silence to consider it, he wasn’t tempted to change his response. If she did know the truth, there was time enough to find out later; if she was only guessing, there was time enough to find that out as well. Either way, he wasn’t quite ready to put it—or her—to the test just yet.
Still, he couldn’t quite let it go. “You asked me back there why I came to see you. If you already knew the answer—”
“I just wondered if you’d tell me the truth. Most don’t. As if it’s some kind of test. That was your reason. You’ve been waiting for a…real psychic. Someone who’ll know without any hint from you. Someone you can really believe in.”
Tucker was more shaken than he cared to admit, even to himself.
“Turn left here,” she said in the same detached tone. “The shop’s up ahead a couple of blocks.”
He obeyed, telling himself silently that she was only making shrewd guesses and nothing more. She had not, after all, told him anything remarkable. She’d said herself that people came to her because they were looking for something they hoped she could help them find. And he didn’t doubt that many of those seekers came to her with a chip on their shoulders, waiting for her to “see” them clearly and know without being told what they wanted.
Sarah didn’t seem disturbed by his silence. “You can let me off at the front,” she said.
Instead of doing that, Tucker pulled his car into one of the parking places at one side of the neat, two-story building that had once been a residential home but now joined others on the street as a small business. “If you don’t mind,” he said pleasantly, “I’d like to go in with you. I could use a cup of coffee, for one thing.”
She turned her head and looked at him as he shut off the engine. “I don’t need you to look in the closets for monsters. I don’t mind being alone.”
For the first time, Tucker felt he was getting a sense of her, and he thought she was lying. She did mind being alone. She minded it very much. Ignoring her protest, he said, “If there’s no way to make coffee here, I can get some at that restaurant down the street and bring it back for us.”
After a moment, Sarah nodded and reached for the door handle. “I can make coffee here.”
He couldn’t tell whether she wanted his company or was merely resigned to it, and didn’t ask. He was very good at getting his foot in the door, and for now that was all he wanted.
Sarah led the way around to the rear of the building, where a flight of stairs provided access to the second-floor apartment. They were greeted at the top by a large cat who was sitting on the railing. A large black cat.
Of course, it would have to be a black cat. Tucker reached out and scratched the cat under his lifted chin while Sarah got the door key from under a flowerpot also on the railing. “Yours?” he asked, reading the cat’s name tag in surprise and with a vague sense of familiarity.
“He seems to think so. He showed up a few days ago, and so far no owner’s come forward to claim him, so I’ve been feeding him.” She unlocked and opened the door, stepping just over the threshold to reach inside and deactivate a security system using a keypad by the door. Then she looked back at the cat. “You want in, Pendragon?”
Pendragon did. He jumped down from the railing and preceded them into the apartment.
The place had the slightly stale smell of infrequent use, but it was cheerfully decorated and bright enough. The main room was a combination kitchen/dining area/living room, with low bookshelves separating the dining and sitting areas and a breakfast bar partitioning the kitchen from the rest. There were area rugs in muted colors on the polished hardwood floor, light and airy curtains hanging at the few windows, and overstuffed furniture chosen for comfort in light neutral shades, with plenty of colorful pillows scattered about. There was even a gas-log fireplace and compact entertainment center.
A doorway led to a short hallway, off which Tucker assumed was a bathroom and one or two bedrooms.
Sarah went first to the thermostat on the wall near the hallway and adjusted the temperature so that warm air began to chase away the slight chill of the room. Then she went into the kitchen and got coffee out of one cabinet and a small coffeemaker out of an appliance garage to one side of the refrigerator.
“I stocked the place with groceries just the other day,” she said conversationally as she measured coffee. “And I have spare clothes here. When either Margo or me is out of town, the other one usually spends at least a few nights here. It gives us a chance to catch up on paperwork while we’re keeping an eye on the place.”
Tucker wondered whether she was talking just to fill the silence, or whether it was her way of keeping reality at bay. The numbness couldn’t last forever; sooner or later, she would have to face the loss of her home and belongings, with all the shock and grief that would entail. But if her choice was later, it was, after all, her choice.
He sat down on one of the tall bar stools at the breakfast bar, watching her. “Have you had break-ins here?”
“No. Most burglars are looking for valuables they can put in a sack, or at least carry by themselves; our stock is made up mostly of furniture, with very few easily portable valuables. But Margo is paranoid about theft, which is why we have an excellent security system. And I don’t mind spending time here when she’s out of town.”