He waited, watching her.
Sarah was a bit slow getting it, maybe because of her pounding head or because her mind was filled with fears for Margo. But, slowly, the possibility he offered came into focus. “You mean, me? Somebody could be trying to kill me, and got—gets—Margo by mistake?”
“She’s a redhead too. Hard to mistake one of you for the other close up, but at a distance it wouldn’t be so unlikely. Especially if you’re likely to be down in the shop and Margo is supposed to be out of town. Maybe that bizarre accident you saw was a deliberate act intended to look accidental.”
Sarah didn’t bother to ask him whether he actually believed she had seen the future; he was, as he’d said, suspending his disbelief, but only time and proof would convince Tucker that she could predict events that had not yet occurred. In any case, she was thinking more painful thoughts.
“I told you—there’s no reason anybody would want to hurt me.”
“And yet you predict your own death—at the hands of some mysterious them you can’t identify.” His voice was not in the least sarcastic.
It had not occurred to Sarah either to connect Margo’s death with her own future or to consider her shadowy enemies apart from the ending she felt sure they planned for her. But now, thinking about it, she had to admit that Tucker had made a number of points. Looked at objectively, as he clearly could, it was obvious that Sarah was the target of whatever was happening.
“But why?” Like any human being, she found it extremely difficult to even imagine that someone else might want to put a period to her existence, despite her own predictions. “I don’t understand why anyone would want me dead.”
“The reasons people kill are usually simple,” Tucker offered. “Desperation. Greed. Jealousy. Rage. Fear.”
Sarah shook her head, unable to connect any of those powerful emotions to her life. “I’m not…I’m not even close enough to anyone to inspire anything like that. My friends are casual—except for Margo; I have no family to speak of, just cousins who aren’t even a part of my life. How could I have roused those kinds of emotions in someone without knowing it?”
“Even fear?” He looked at her steadily. “Sarah, your life changed dramatically six months ago. You became psychic. And as you said yourself, there are people out there who are terrified of the very idea of precognition. People very afraid of psychics—maybe even to the point of trying to start a witch hunt.”
They burned my house. Witches were burned.
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone perceived as different became a target of intimidation tactics,” he reminded her, and echoed her own thoughts when he added, “Suspected witches were burned; nearly the first thing you said to me was that you were the neighborhood witch.”
“But there would have been warnings, wouldn’t there? Nasty phone calls, notes—or something worse—left in my mailbox. Isn’t that how it works? They wouldn’t have started by setting my house on fire. Would they?”
Tucker shrugged. “I wouldn’t have said so. But in these days of stalkers and serial killers, the extreme gets more common every day.”
Sarah accepted that reluctantly. “So it’s possible somebody wants me dead because I’m psychic.” She shied away from anyone hating and fearing that much to focus on her friend’s safety. “Then…then if I’m the target, Margo should be out of danger if I send her away. Right? If she’s nowhere near me, she won’t be an accidental target.”
“That seems reasonable to suppose,” Tucker agreed.
Sarah looked at her watch. “It’s after ten. I should go downstairs and try to talk her into leaving Richmond before lunch. Will…will you help me convince her?”
“I’ll try.” He hesitated, then added, “If you’ll take my advice, I think you should tell her the truth. She knows you’ve seen something, Sarah. It’s worrying her.”
“Yes, I know.” Sarah turned the coffeepot off, then looked around in sudden awareness. “Where’s Pendragon?”
“Margo fed him his breakfast and let him out, she said.” He hesitated, then said, “I never did let him out last night; he disappeared on me. Was he with you?”
“No, not unless he decided to sleep under the bed.” She shrugged. “Which he might have done. This is the first time I’ve spent the night here over the shop since he showed up, so I’m not sure about his nighttime habits.”
“He’s been altered, right? So not as likely to want to wander at night like intact toms do.”
Absently, Sarah said, “I thought you didn’t know much about cats.”