The First Prophet (3 page)

Problem was, he had no specifics to offer her. None he was willing to voice, at any
rate.
I’m after answers. I need to know if you really can predict the future. I need to
know if I can believe in you.

Before Tucker could figure out something close enough to specifics to satisfy her,
a plainclothes detective who had been talking to the fire marshal picked his way through
the puddles to stand before Sarah Gallagher. He was tall and thin and looked to have
dressed by guess in the dark, since his purplish tie definitely clashed with a shirt
the color of putty, and the khaki pants hardly matched a jacket with the suggestion
of a pinstripe. But
for all his sartorial chaos, there was something in his dark eyes that warned the
contents made a lot more sense than the package.

“I’m sorry, Miss Gallagher.” His voice was deep and abrupt. “The house is a total
loss. And since your car was in the garage, it’s gone too.”

“I can pretty much see that for myself, Sergeant Lewis.” Her smile was hardly worth
the effort.

He nodded. “There’ll have to be an investigation, you realize that. Before you can
put in an insurance claim. The fire marshal thinks—that is, evidence suggests this
might not have been an accident.”

It was her turn to nod. “I gathered that.”

The detective seemed uncomfortable beneath her direct stare and shifted just a bit
as though to escape it. “Yes. Well, I just wanted you to know that we’ll be keeping
an eye on the place. And since there’s nothing you can do here, maybe it’d be best
if you went to a hotel for the night. You’ve been standing out here for hours, and
anybody can see the weather’s taking a turn for the worse. I’m sure you could use
a hot meal and—privacy. Time to collect your thoughts and make a few decisions. I’d
be glad to drive you, explain things to the manager so there’s no trouble while you
wait until the banks open tomorrow and you can make arrangements…”

“I won’t need to stay at a hotel. There’s a small apartment above the shop. I can
stay there for a few days at least.”

He produced a notebook and consulted notes made
earlier. “That’d be the antiques shop? Two-oh-four Emerson?”

“Yes.”

“You said your partner—Margo James—is out of town?”

“On a buying trip, yes.”

He frowned slightly as he returned the notebook to his pocket. “Miss Gallagher, can
you think of anyone who might…wish you harm?”

“No.”

Lewis seemed dissatisfied with the terse response, and Tucker was surprised; why didn’t
she say something to the cop about being watched? If that was true, if someone was
watching her, then surely she must have realized that whoever it was might wish her
harm. But she didn’t mention that, just continued to look at Lewis without much expression.

The cop said, “Several of your neighbors saw a strange man hanging around here not
more than a few minutes before the flames were spotted. Does that surprise you?”

“That my neighbors watch my house? No.”

This time, Lewis scowled. “The man, Miss Gallagher. Did you see anyone hanging around
here today?”

“No. As I told you before, I was reading in the front room and didn’t see or hear
anything until I smelled smoke. None of the smoke alarms had gone off, so I had no
warning. By the time I smelled smoke, the fire was so bad I barely had time to call
911 and get out. I couldn’t even get to my car keys so I could move the car out of
the
garage.” She drew a little breath to steady a voice that had begun to wobble just
a bit, and finished evenly, “I wasn’t cooking anything. I didn’t have any candles
burning. No fire in the fireplace. And all the wiring was inspected just ten months
ago when I completed the renovation. It was no accident that my house burned. But
I don’t know of anyone who would want to hurt me by starting that fire.”

“All right.” Lewis lifted a hand as if he would have touched her, then let it awkwardly
fall. It was obvious that he was wary of touching her, and equally obvious that Sarah
Gallagher knew it.

How much of that sort of thing had she been forced to put up with? How many times
had she seen people draw back in fear, or look at her as though they believed she
wasn’t normal? Mysterious watching strangers notwithstanding, Tucker couldn’t help
wondering whether one of her wary neighbors had decided to burn out the local witch.

Avoiding her steady gaze, the cop turned his own to Tucker and scowled. “Who’re you?”

Rather surprised he hadn’t been asked before now, Tucker gave his name and no further
information, surprised again when Sarah Gallagher added a cool explanation.

“He’s a friend, Sergeant. If you’ve finished with me, he’s going to drive me to the
shop.”

“I’m finished—for now. But I might have more questions for you tomorrow, Miss Gallagher.”
Lewis sent Tucker another glowering look, then turned away.

“Do you mind?” Sarah was watching Lewis stalk toward the fire marshal; her voice was
distant.

“Of course not. I’ll be glad to drive you to your shop.” Deliberately, Tucker reached
out and took her arm in a light grip. “Why don’t we go now, before it gets any colder.
You must be frozen.”

She looked down at his hand on her arm, then raised her gaze to his face. For a moment,
her expression was…peculiar. To Tucker, she seemed both disturbed and resigned, as
though she had no choice but to accept something she knew would bring only trouble.
Bad trouble. He didn’t like it.

“You can trust me,” he said.

Matter-of-factly, she said, “It has nothing to do with trust.”

He didn’t know how to respond, either to that or to her oddly fatalistic smile. Opting
to let it go for now, Tucker led her to his car and saw her in the passenger side,
then went around and got in himself. As soon as he started the engine, he turned the
heater on high, not because she was shivering but because she should have been.

“The shop’s on Emerson?”

She nodded. “It’s called Old Things.”

“I think I know where it is.” Tucker put the car in gear and pulled away from the
curb, and as he did so he caught a glimpse of a tall man in a black leather jacket
slipping around behind a wooden fence two houses down from the smoking remains of
Sarah’s house. His foot touched the brake, and Tucker tensed. He didn’t
know why, but every sense was instantly alert; he could feel the hairs on the back
of his neck stirring. When he looked quickly at Sarah, he found her looking after
the man, her face still.

“Did you see him?”

She nodded. “Probably just a curious neighbor embarrassed at being caught gawking.”

The car was barely moving now, and Tucker hesitated either to stop completely or go
on. “You don’t really believe that.”

“It’s what the police would say.” She shrugged.

She was probably right, he thought, especially since the man had seemingly vanished;
when the car drew abreast of the wooden fence, there was no sign of him. Tucker took
his foot off the brake and continued down the quiet residential street. But the hairs
on his nape were still quivering a warning. “You asked me earlier if I was the one
who’d been watching you. What makes you think somebody has been?”

“I know somebody has. For a week, maybe a little longer. I’ve caught a glimpse of
him several times.”

“That man back there? The one in the black jacket?”

“Maybe. I’ve never been close enough to get a good look at him. There could be more
than one, for all I know. But always at least one.”

“Why didn’t you mention that to Lewis when he asked if you knew of anyone who might
want to hurt you?”

Sarah shrugged again. “He never made a threatening move. Never came close. He just
watched me.”

“Stalkers
just watch
, Sarah, at least in the beginning.”

“He isn’t a stalker.” She didn’t react at all to Tucker’s use of her first name. “He
isn’t obsessed. There’s something very…businesslike about him. Something coldly methodical.”

“As if watching you is his job? A private investigator, maybe?”

“Maybe. But I don’t know who would have hired him, or why.”

“You said you’d been getting a lot of unwanted attention lately. People who came to
you for help.”

“Yes. So?”

“So maybe you gave somebody the wrong advice and somehow made an enemy. An investigator
could have been hired to look for something that could be used against you in court.”

“Like what? That I use imported tea leaves instead of domestic?” Without waiting for
a response to that dry question, she went on in the same tone. “I don’t offer advice.
I don’t give readings. I don’t take money from anybody unless they’re buying a Regency
table or a Colonial chair. I’ve never owned a crystal ball or a deck of tarot cards.
I don’t claim to be able to solve problems, or I would have started with my own. So
I don’t see how anyone could claim I’d wronged them.”

“All right. But if you’re being watched, and if he’s a pro, then somebody had to hire
him. There must be a reason.”

“I suppose.”

As he stopped the car to wait at a traffic light, Tucker
turned his head and looked at her. “Any trouble with an ex-husband or lover?”

She seemed almost to flinch, but her answer was steady enough. “No.”

“You’re sure?” he probed.

Sarah looked at him. “I’ve never been married. As for lovers, since you ask, I’ve
had only two in my life. One was back in college; we broke up amicably and still send
each other Christmas and birthday cards. The other decided back in April, a few weeks
after I got out of the hospital, that he didn’t want to live with a woman who freaked
out every time he got near a railroad crossing. So he requested a transfer to the
West Coast.”

“And?” Tucker kept his gaze on her face, his attention caught by the thread of pain
in her otherwise expressionless voice.

“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.”