A section of a city map, brilliantly colored, met her intent gaze. She studied it for a long moment, frowning, then tapped a few keys to produce a close-up of the section. Her index finger traced the distance from a square representing the hotel across the street to a quieter street where former residences had been turned into small businesses.
“Too close. Dammit, they have to know where she is.” Murphy wasn’t even conscious of speaking aloud, so accustomed to working alone that talking to herself had become a habit.
The words had barely left her mouth when the very faint sound of a key in the lock of the apartment’s front door brought her head up alertly, and this time the curse that left her lips was a mere whisper.
Just my luck that Ms. Bank Vice President went off this morning and left her damned lunch on the kitchen counter!
Swiftly, unwilling to wait and find out whether the apartment’s legal occupant would choose to come into the bedroom for some reason, she closed the laptop and dropped it into the pouch hanging against her hip. Without a wasted motion, she backed out onto the balcony and slid the door closed.
There was a fire escape, which was good, but leaving the shelter of the greenery meant she was too visible, even in the shadows, for her peace of mind. Still, being seen by the wrong person was infinitely preferable to being arrested for breaking and entering, which was what likely would happen if she remained on the balcony.
She moved quickly and quietly down to street level and, once there, paused only long enough to stow the binoculars in their pocket of the pouch containing the computer.
The pouch was not conspicuous, resembling nothing so much as a large, if bulky, shoulder bag, but someone might well have taken notice of the binoculars.
A quick glance around told her that none of the few people about seemed interested in her. She was just about to relax when a carefully casual glance up at the window across the street brought her to a dead stop just two steps away from the fire escape.
Duran was at the window, and he saw her.
He was too far away for her to recognize his face, but she knew it was him. She knew he was looking at her. And she knew he recognized her. She could feel it. Like some night animal caught unexpectedly in the light, she stood frozen, not breathing, a panicky sensation stirring deep inside her. It was not a feeling she was willing to define to herself, though if asked she would have said angrily that it was hatred. Pure hatred.
If asked, Duran would have said the same thing.
The moment seemed to last forever, and if a car horn had not rudely shattered the quiet of the morning, there was no telling how long she would have stood there staring up at the man in the window. But the horn brought her to her senses, and with a soft little sound more violent than a curse, she hurried to the corner and around it, taking herself out of his field of vision.
He turned away from the window and looked across the room at the other man.
“What is it?” Varden asked, instantly alert.
“We’ve run out of time,” Duran said.
Sarah?
She was struggling up out of the depths of an exhausted sleep, frantic to wake up and get control, to be able to shut out the whisper in her mind.
Sarah, you must—
Her eyes snapped open, and Sarah was awake. Her heart was pounding, and she could hear her own shuddery breathing. As always, once she was awake and aware, the voice fell silent.
That voice. God, that voice.
It had begun only a few days before, creeping into her awareness during both waking and sleeping dreams, during vulnerable or unguarded moments. A whisper without identity, eerily insistent. She didn’t even know whether it came from inside her…or somewhere else. It felt alien to her, yet she couldn’t be sure it was—because all of this felt alien. The dreams. These frightening new abilities. The feelings she couldn’t explain even to herself.
All she really knew was that all of it terrified her.
She pulled herself out of bed and went to take a shower, heavy-eyed after lying awake for most of the night. It wasn’t until she came back into her bedroom and began dressing that she heard a loud laugh and the cheerful notes of Margo’s voice.
Margo. Dear God.
Sarah knew she should have called her, of course. Last night. She should have called her and reassured her that it was okay, that she didn’t have to come charging back home to support her partner and friend. Anything to keep Margo safely away from here. But Sarah’s thoughts last night had been fixed on her own troubles—and on Tucker Mackenzie.
Real. He was real. Not a figment of her imagination. Not a face in a half-remembered nightmare, probably formed out of random features drifting like flotsam in her subconscious. Real. One more indication to her that the prediction of her own future was going to come true. One more sign that it was useless to fight what had to be.
That was what she would have said—had, in fact, said—yesterday. But Tucker hadn’t merely presented himself as a sign or a symbol or an indication. He was a real man, and being a real man, he had his own thoughts and opinions and his own agenda. He wanted to believe.