He ignored the question. “Do you have it?”
If anything, she seemed amused by his refusal to reply to her seemingly innocent question. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” She took a step toward him and pulled a large manila envelope from inside her jacket, handing it across the space between them.
He took it but didn’t open it. Instead, looking at her, he said, “Any trouble getting this?”
“Other than risking everything, you mean?” Her smile was sardonic. “No, no trouble.”
“How long do I have?”
She shrugged again, patently unconcerned. “I would say that depends on the current…situation. If everything hits the fan right on schedule, you’ll have a week at the outside. From today. After that, you might as well burn it for all the good it’ll do you.”
“I need more time.” His tone was measured, his expression carefully neutral.
“Sorry. It isn’t my fault you’ve set things up this way.”
“I had no choice,” he reminded her.
“Maybe. Or maybe you just got too ambitious. In any case, it’s your problem. Not mine.”
Pleasantly, he said, “You really don’t like me very much, do you?”
“No,” she replied, equally pleasant. “I really don’t.”
She didn’t say good-bye. She just backed away until the shadows swallowed her.
Duran tapped the edge of the envelope against his hand for a moment, then sighed and slid it into his coat pocket, still without opening it. Then he turned and left the warehouse, not forgetting to lock the door behind him.
And went to join his people.
Hurry, Sarah.
No matter how far you run, we’ll find you. We’ll always find you.
Destiny. Meant to be.
“If it was them,” Tucker said as the Jeep sped along the interstate highway toward Syracuse, “what the hell are they up to?”
“Maybe they wanted to remind us—me—that it’s no use running,” Sarah offered quietly, shutting out the whispers in her head.
Tucker, who had taken a roundabout route from the hotel to the interstate and convinced himself they weren’t being followed, said, “The hotel must have sent the flowers.”
“They said not.”
“Yeah, but they couldn’t find any paperwork on the delivery. I bet somebody just screwed up.”
“And put the flowers in our room despite the DO NOT DISTURB sign? I’ve never heard of a hotel doing that.”
He sent her a quick look. “They couldn’t possibly have found us so quickly, not after we ditched the car in Chicago.”
“No. Logically, they couldn’t have. Unless they were much closer than we thought, saw us drive away in this Jeep, and followed us to Cleveland.”
“You believe that’s what they did?”
“I believe we’d better assume it’s what they did. That someone is following, and closely.”
Tucker was silent for some miles, then spoke abruptly. “What are your feelings telling you?”
Sarah half-turned in the seat to look at him. “Not much. Nothing, really. But…”
“But what?”
She hesitated, then said, “For days now, I’ve felt a…pressure building inside me. In my head. Behind my eyes, like a sinus headache. The whole time we were at the hotel, it really bothered me. As soon as we left, the pressure eased a bit. I can barely feel it now.”
“You think you were reacting to their nearness?”
“I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I felt.”
He frowned. “You said you didn’t sleep well. Because of the pressure?”
“I guess.”
“Do you remember your dreams?”
“No. But I kept waking up, and whenever I did, I felt restless and uneasy.”
“Not frightened?”
Being frightened was such a constant state that Sarah had to think about his question, had to ask herself whether she had awakened with more fear than usual. She thought about it and shook her head. “No, not especially frightened. Just uneasy. Anxious. The way you feel when—oh, when you hear a faint sound you can’t immediately identify. Tense, sort of listening. Then I’d relax and, eventually, go back to sleep. That happened over and over all night.”
Tucker was silent for a few more miles, then said, “If we suppose they were back there at the hotel, watching us, the question becomes—why didn’t they make a move? Maybe the answer is what I guessed before. Maybe you’re becoming aware of them on some level, even if it’s unconsciously. And maybe they know that.”
“How would they know, supposing it’s true?”
“Experience, maybe. Look, from what we’ve been able to find out, these people have been after psychics for years. Decades. Along the way, they must have…oh, hell, learned their trade, for want of a better phrase. Learned what worked for them. Suppose they found out through trial and error that they have only a relatively small window of opportunity during which they can move boldly to grab a psychic?”