That certainty that he was still alive quieted some of the panic racing through her. Not much of it, but some. She slid out of bed, dragging the top sheet with her instead of pausing to find something to put on, and wrapped it around her. She went into the sitting room and stood looking slowly around. All her senses flared, but carefully now, reaching out warily.
It was one of the still-strange, new senses that sent her to the desk where the laptop lay open. She glanced once at the pistol lying in its holster beside it, but her attention was on the computer’s screen. The machine had been off earlier, she remembered, so obviously Tucker had gotten up sometime in the last hour or so and decided to do some work. The open program on the screen, she saw, appeared to be sifting through information already acquired, so apparently he had judged it too dangerous to leave his computer tethered in any way to the Internet when he was not present to monitor it. He was being as cautious as possible in how he went about gathering more information.
So why had he left so abruptly and without a word to her? She couldn’t believe he could have been taken from this room without her awareness, so he must have left on his own. But to go where? And why?
She frowned down at the laptop. As she watched, the program running appeared to pause, and then the screen went dark. No working program visible, no screen saver. Just a black screen.
And then, slowly, words began to appear, brilliantly white against the darkness.
If you want him,
Come get him.
Sarah sank down in the desk chair and stared at the screen until the words burned themselves into her brain.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
The first psychic on the list was one of them; this time, Sarah knew it even without getting out of the Jeep. The second psychic was not one of them, but she was also not a genuine psychic—though it took Sarah a good ten minutes of intense concentration to be sure of that.
Fifteen minutes later, she pulled the Jeep into the driveway of a small, neat house set back from the road among tall trees. She kept the vehicle in gear and the engine running as she stared at the house and tilted her head to one side to listen intently.
Hello, Sarah.
She caught her breath, and her hand on the gearshift tightened. Friend or foe? This time, she couldn’t tell. But a genuine psychic, definitely, and there was something hauntingly familiar about that voice…
I can help you, Sarah.
She was trying very hard to keep her own mind quiet and still and closed, unwilling to give anything away when she was unsure who was trying to get inside her head. Except that this voice wasn’t probing or pushing or trying to break through her guards. It was just there, gentle and calm.
And it had been there before.
Please, Sarah. Come in.
She hesitated but finally put the Jeep in park and turned off the engine. This could be the biggest mistake she’d made yet, but she wasn’t willing to run away without trying to find out who the placid, compassionate inner voice belonged to.
She was aware of no particular sense of danger as she went up the walkway to the front door. Wind chimes hung beside it, tinkling softly in the slight breeze, and hanging baskets and pots of flowers decorated the porch—an awful lot of flowers for the end of September, Sarah thought.
Before she could knock on the door, it swung open. A woman stood there smiling at her. She was about Sarah’s height or a little less, very slender, with delicate bone structure and long black hair, and looked about sixteen years old. Except in her eyes. They were dark and fathoms deep and old as time.
“Hello, Sarah. I’m Leigh.”
Sarah drew a breath. “You’ve been…trying to talk to me for a long time now.”
“Yes. I have.”
Leigh Munroe led the way into a comfortable living room filled with overstuffed furniture and glowing lamps, where a fire burned and hot coffee waited, and this time Sarah didn’t hesitate to accept a cup. The need to find Tucker was clawing at her, but she forced herself to be patient. She had to do this first.
Her sense of the other woman was mostly positive—but oddly…incomplete. She knew she was in the presence of power, yet the power was muted and controlled and curiously distant. There was no strong impression of a personality as she felt with Tucker, of emotions and thoughts shifting like quicksilver beneath the surface; there was just a peaceful surface and what seemed to be utter calm underneath. There was goodness, but also the feeling of something dark lurking, and it made Sarah wary.
“You haven’t eaten anything today,” Leigh said gently, pushing a small plate of cheese and crackers across the coffee table to her guest. “You have to eat, Sarah. The more you use your abilities, the more energy you’ll need.”