A few moments later, the flirty waitress came back to the ice man’s table, bewildered by his absence but clearly pleased by the size of the tip left on the table. Even so, she glanced at the man in the next booth and said rather mildly, “Sir, there’s no smoking inside.”

He pulled his ID from his pocket and laid it on the table, open long enough for her to see the badge.

She left without another word.

When Sergeant Lewis lifted his cigarette to his lips, he saw that his hand was shaking.

FIVE

Sarah drew a breath of relief when Tucker returned to Margo’s house, not realizing until that moment how tense she had been while waiting for him. As for Tucker, he too seemed on edge and a bit preoccupied, and she wondered whether he was having second thoughts about even temporarily hitching his fate to hers.

Not that she blamed him for that. No man in his right mind would want to be saddled with her.

“Every light in the house is on,” he said mildly as he came in.

She blinked and looked around, surprised to find it true. She had been restless, and she had wandered from room to room, her skin crawling with that now-familiar creepy sense of being watched. Her subconscious had obviously felt at least a bit safer with lots of light.

She had very carefully not thought about the voice in her head.

“He was outside,” she said.

Tucker stood in the small entrance hall, ignoring her automatic gesture indicating they could go into the living room. He didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. “When did you see him?”

“Right after Margo left. Across the street, moving between two houses. I didn’t see him again after that, even though I looked.” But he’s still there. Still watching. Still waiting.

“I didn’t see him when I pulled up, but it’s getting dark.” Tucker frowned.

She tried to think of something reassuring. “Maybe he’s just watching. Maybe he didn’t have anything to do with the fire. Or with the wardrobe falling.”

“I hope you’re wrong about that.”

“Why?”

“Bad enough to be looking back over our shoulders for a guy in a black leather jacket; if he isn’t the only one watching you—if he isn’t the only threat—then we have no idea what the other threat looks like.”

Sarah half-consciously wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to ward off the chill.

Tucker reached out and touched her shoulder lightly, but said only, “I’m going to go turn off some of these lights, okay?”

She nodded and wandered into the living room to wait for him. The plan, agreed upon earlier in a hasty discussion in the restaurant after Margo had excused herself, was to return to the apartment over the shop tonight—and to leave Richmond in the morning.

Sarah wasn’t sure how she felt about that. There was a small, almost distant part of her that was alarmed by the hurried decision and bewildered by her willingness to just up and leave everything she had known, yet a larger part of her consciousness was convinced it was the right thing to do.

Yes. Walk away from your friends, your business, and the ashes of your home, because you’re afraid. Put your trust in a man you met yesterday because he says he thinks you can change fate…even though he doesn’t believe you can see the future…

As wrong as it sounded, it felt right. This was what she was supposed to do. This was her fate. A fate Tucker was somehow part of; she knew that too. And that was what frightened her the most, because she knew it meant she was already walking the path that led to her destiny.

Toward the death she had seen.

“I already checked all the doors and windows,” she told him when he joined her in the living room. “That is what you were doing, isn’t it?”

He didn’t try to deny it. “All locked. Drapes are drawn.” He paused, then added, “There were automatic timers on a couple of the upstairs lamps.”

“Yes, Margo always sets them when she goes out of town. The living room lamps have timers as well.”

Tucker didn’t say why the subject interested him, but he seemed even more preoccupied after they locked up Margo’s house and drove back to the apartment over the shop.

“Why don’t you go ahead and pack tonight,” he suggested, almost as soon as they arrived. “We might decide to leave pretty early.”

Sarah might have asked him why, but she was actually relieved to have something to do. It was very quiet in the apartment, neither she nor Tucker seemed inclined toward conversation, and her nerves were very much on edge. Something was going to happen. Soon. And she didn’t want to think about what it might be. So she packed.

It didn’t take long. Both she and Margo kept a few extra things in the apartment, including a packed overnight bag in case either had to go out of town for an unexpected estate auction or something like that, so it was a simple matter to take the bag from the closet and add in the rest of the clothing she had here. All the clothing she had left, as a matter of fact.

All the anything she had left.

That realization, late in coming but devastating, made her sit on the bed and cry. Gone. It was all gone. All her things, from the furniture she had lovingly collected over the years to the strand of pearls that had been all she had left of her mother. The few family pictures she had. The pictures of David. The few gifts he’d given her. Gone.

And the work, all that hard work to restore the house, it was all gone. The hours spent covered in sawdust and plaster dust and paint spatters, wasted. The bruised knuckles and fingers sore from using unfamiliar tools, wasted. The shopping for just the right moldings, the right wallpaper, the right curtains and rugs and fixtures, wasted.

Her life wasted.

She didn’t make a sound, unable even in that moment of intense grief to forget the man waiting for her in the next room. She didn’t want him to hear her and come in here. Whether he offered comfort or bracing common sense (losing a house wasn’t so much when compared to one’s life, after all), she didn’t think she’d be able to accept either. And she didn’t want him to see her crumpled on the bed, red-eyed and weepy, because…

She just didn’t want him to see her like that.

It wasn’t a very satisfying bout of tears and left her weary rather than relieved, but it did seem to take the edge off her nerves at least.

And it seemed to leave her mind clearer than it had been in days. She sat there on the bed and stared at the packed bag and suddenly couldn’t believe what she was doing. What was she doing? Running off to God knew where with a man she didn’t know, abandoning her business and just bolting without a word to her partner and best friend, when what she ought to be doing was locking her doors and pulling up the drawbridge, guarding her own life as she had always done…

She started to rise, bent on going out into the other room and telling Tucker she couldn’t go with him—and that was when it happened.

The room around her vanished. There was nothing but darkness, so black and impenetrable it was a solid mass around her. She couldn’t feel her legs beneath her. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t hear anything. And all she knew was cold fear.

Out of the black silence, gradually, the sound and sensation of air rushing past filled her senses. She was moving, she knew that, moving through space…and time. Moving into the future. She didn’t want to go, struggled against it, but she was given no choice. She had to go.

Had to see.

At first, the vivid images exploded out of the darkness with such bright intensity that she was blinded and couldn’t see them, in a confusion of sound so loud and garbled it hurt her ears. But slowly, her eyes and ears or her mind adjusted until what she saw and heard began to make sense. Or at least, as much sense as a waking nightmare ever made.