Friends say the attention upset her.

Investigators suspect a careless cigarette for the fire.

“A house fire,” Sarah murmured, shivering as she thought of her own gutted home.

“One more body burned beyond recognition,” Tucker said.

She leaned a little away from him. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that either you psychics are peculiarly accident-prone, or else something very suspicious is going on. You’re dropping like flies.”

He reached out to the computer again, this time holding a key down so that Sarah could watch article after article scroll slowly past. She couldn’t read the individual articles, but words and phrases jumped out at her.

Car crash…accidental electrocution…lost while skiing…drowning…house fire…a fall from a ladder…robbery…plane crash…apparently struck by lightning…fell while mountain climbing…vanished while hiking…body burned beyond recognition…no body found…no body recovered…

The deaths and disappearances ranged back more than ten years and were spread over dozens of different cities in states from coast to coast. And there were so many of them.

“All psychic?” Sarah whispered.

“So they—or those closest to them—claimed.”

She looked at him mutely.

Tucker raised a hand as if he would have touched her, but let it fall and leaned back on the couch. “I wanted to see if it hit you the same way it did me. Obviously, it did.” His voice was dispassionate.

“All…accidents. Manufactured accidents?”

“I’d say it was a good bet.”

“Then someone is killing some psychics—and taking others.”

“I’m afraid so. They all look like accidents or simple disappearances, Sarah, nothing overtly suspicious about any of them—until you start tying them together. You saw a fraction of the number of articles I’ve found so far. In every major city I’ve checked, at least a dozen psychics have been killed or turned up missing in the last ten years. Now, I don’t know a lot about the law of averages, but assuming the psychic population of this country is as small as I think it is, there seem to be a disproportionate number of them dying or vanishing.”

“And nobody’s noticed?”

“Why would they? Like I said, the deaths all look accidental—or at least explainable. Nothing to alert law enforcement or catch anything more than the momentary attention of the public. And scattered over years. The way people always die in big cities, and with depressing regularity. Nothing to send up a flag or make anybody look closer, especially given the huge territory and sheer number of law enforcement jurisdictions involved. I was looking for a pattern, but I knew what that pattern was supposed to be. And I found it—no natural deaths. No heart attacks or strokes or cancer. Most of these psychics were young, under fifty, and all of the ones who died, died violently.”

Sarah drew a breath and got to her feet in a slightly jerky motion. Avoiding his intent gaze, she carried her cold coffee back to the kitchen area and poured it into the sink. Chilled, she refilled the cup with hot coffee. Still not looking at Tucker, she said, “What about the disappearances?”

“Well, bear in mind that I’m just getting started on this. Given a few days or, better yet, weeks, I bet I could really turn up something. So far, what I’m finding is that the psychics who’ve disappeared tend to be younger than the ones killed—I’m talking kids and teenagers in many cases. For those under eighteen, the police end up calling some of them runaways and most of the rest unsolved abductions. No witnesses, no good suspects…and no bodies ever found. And, let’s face it—those kinds of cases, unless the kid is famous, just don’t linger in the headlines. They’re too damned common these days, even with Amber Alerts keeping them in the news for a while.”

“I know. Pictures on milk cartons.”

He nodded soberly. “Exactly. Unsolved and, after a while, with no leads, little hope, and precious little manpower to devote to them, pretty much going cold. Most of the families try to keep the searches going, keep the public aware, but…other people move on. And those kids are just plain gone.”

Donny Grant was big for his age, which is why the other members of his Richmond neighborhood baseball team had elected him to be center fielder. He threw too wildly to be a pitcher, but his long legs could cover a remarkable amount of ground quickly, which, as any true baseball fan could tell you, counted for a lot.

Still, he didn’t really like to run, so maybe he didn’t move fast enough when his best bud, Gabe Matthews, hit a rocket to deadaway center field. The vacant lot wasn’t big enough to hold it.

“Go get it, Donny,” their pitcher Joe Singer yelled disgustedly as he watched Gabe happily kick the half-full cement bag that was second base as he passed. “I ain’t got another ball, you know!”

“I thought you had at least two,” Gabe shouted, and cackled at his own wit as he jumped on home plate with both feet.

“Fuck you!” Joe turned and put his hands on his hips as he watched Donny pick his way gingerly through the gap in the old board fence as he went after the home-run ball. “Shake a leg, Donny!”

Donny needed very little encouragement to move faster. He didn’t much like the adjoining vacant lot, overgrown with weeds and brambles and rumored to be the site of drug deals and the occasional gang brawl.

So he moved quickly, bent over as he swiped at the ground with his glove in a wide arcing motion. Where the hell was the thing? It couldn’t have gone much farther, surely—

“For Christ’s sake, Donny!” Joe yelled again.

Donny half turned in order to yell back a choice insult he’d just thought up, and promptly tripped and fell flat on his ass.

Jeez, this place has more roots and vines than a jungle. He put his ungloved hand down to boost himself up, and froze for an instant before instinctively jerking his hand up. That wasn’t a vine, and it sure as hell didn’t feel like a root.

He looked down and for a moment had no idea what he was looking at. Then he got it.

Oh. A woman’s hand.

He knew it was a woman’s hand because the nails were painted a pretty pink color. And there was a ring on one finger, a delicate little rose; it was caked with dirt now, of course, but still pretty.

She seemed to be almost pointing up at him, her pointer finger extended while the others were gently curled. Pointing at him, almost beckoning him to come closer. Without thinking, he bent closer.

That was when he realized that her wrist ended at the ground because the rest of her was under it. That was when he realized she was dead.

That was when Donny Grant wet his pants and began to scream.

SEVEN

Slowly, Sarah said, “Then…we are talking about a conspiracy.”

“I hate to admit it, and I can’t even begin to imagine why it’s happening, but I think so. It would take more than one person to cover up any murder or disappearance, and by definition that makes it a conspiracy. I can’t think of another explanation.”

“Who?”

Tucker let his breath out in a long sigh. “I don’t know. But if this is an organized effort, we’re talking something so big and complex that it almost defies belief. It does defy belief. Think of the cost. Think of the manpower. I mean, they have to be…monitoring the media, for one thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sarah, how do you think they found out about you? Six months ago, you were mugged, but there was no mention in the papers of psychic ability. It was just later, weeks ago, that the Richmond papers picked up the story. And what happens soon after? You realize you’re being watched. And your house burns down. And somebody comes in the night to kill you.”