The Jeep was parked across the street and half a block down, where they could look at the house without attracting undue attention. The neighborhood was quiet on this Wednesday morning, and so far they had seen no sign of life at Neil Mason’s house.

“Anything?” Tucker asked, even more wary after their tense standoff of the night before.

Sarah wanted to snap at him to stop pushing her, but she was all too aware that this time he was right to do so. She studied the rather plain but pleasant two-story house, and hesitantly tried to “listen” to what her senses might attempt to tell her.

She felt…odd. The pressure she had been so conscious of was all but gone, only a whisper of it remaining. And what she heard was only a whisper, so quiet and distant that focusing on it was like straining to hear someone breathing on the other side of a vast room.

…he knows…he knows…he knows you’re coming. He knows what they want of you. He has the answers you need. He knows…

“He knows.” Sarah was hardly aware of speaking aloud.

“Knows what?”

The whisper faded to silence, and Sarah turned her head to meet Tucker’s guarded gaze. “He knows we’re coming.”

“Is he on our side? Or with them?”

“I don’t know.”

After a moment, Tucker nodded. He opened the storage compartment between the Jeep’s bucket seats, took out his automatic, and leaned forward to place it inside his belt at the small of his back. His jacket covered the gun so that its presence was hidden.

“Okay. Let’s go find out.”

Sarah was reluctant to leave the vehicle, where there was at least the illusion of safety, but she knew they had no choice. She got out and walked with Tucker across the street. All the way across and up the walkway, she tried to listen, but heard nothing. She was dimly surprised, when they reached the porch, that Tucker had to ring the bell. It bothered her somehow, though the feeling was no more than vague disturbance.

The man who opened the door was big. That was the first impression. Easily six and a half feet tall with shoulders to match, he had the appearance of a man of immense physical strength, even though approaching middle age had given him a belly that his belt rode beneath and the fleshy look of indulgence around the once-clean jawline of his rugged face.

The second impression Sarah got was that he wasn’t nearly as happy to see them as his smile indicated.

“Hello.” His eyes tracked past Tucker and fixed on Sarah. They were blue and very bright. “Hello, Sarah.”

“Hello, Neil.” Sarah drew a breath, and added, “I recognize you.”

“Yes, of course you do,” he said matter-of-factly. He stepped back and opened the door wider. “Come in, come in.”

Tucker caught Sarah’s arm when she would have moved forward. “Recognize him?”

She nodded. “Bits and pieces of my vision keep coming back to me. There were faces. His is one of the faces I saw.”

Without letting go of her arm, Tucker looked narrow-eyed at Mason, who stood patiently, smiling, waiting for them to come in. “Do you trust him, Sarah?”

Her smile reminded him oddly of Mason’s—the tolerant amusement of a parent for a child. He didn’t like it.

“Of course not, Tucker.”

“Then we’ll find someone else.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “We’re safe here. For now.”

Tucker released her arm when she started forward again. He didn’t like this—all his instincts were screaming at him—but he followed her into the house nevertheless. In this situation, he felt he had to defer to Sarah, to accept her lead. She was the psychic, not him.

Still, he was uneasily aware that her belief in fate was strong enough to place them both in danger; Sarah was, he thought, perfectly capable of walking into a house she knew was dangerous only because she was utterly sure fate intended her to be there. That was one reason he continued to try to convince her that her choices could determine her own future—though he didn’t flatter himself that he’d made much headway.

Sarah’s blind spot was her belief in destiny, and until she could see past that, she was so vulnerable it was terrifying.

So Tucker walked into Neil Mason’s house with all his senses wide open, as alert to possible danger as he’d ever been in his life. Even so, the first few minutes seemed to be designed to put him at his ease. Mason showed them into a pleasant living room and invited them to sit down, then went away briskly to fetch coffee. Music played softly in the background, unobtrusive but soothing. A fire crackled brightly in the rock fireplace, dispelling the chill of the morning here at the end of September.

It was all very…pleasant. Very ordinary.

It made Tucker extremely wary.

“If you don’t trust him,” he said to Sarah, “then why are we here? There are other psychics we can try, including two more right here in Syracuse.” He stood near the leather couch watching her move restlessly around the room.

Sarah paused to scan the titles of some books on shelves near the fireplace and answered him in an absent tone. “It’s important that we talk to him.”

“Why?”

“Because he knows.”

Tucker drew a breath and held on to his patience. He thought that Sarah was being deliberately vague and uninformative, and it bothered him. She claimed that trust was not an issue with them, yet ever since the lake he’d had the feeling that she knew more about this situation than she was willing to say; if it wasn’t a lack of trust that kept her silent, then what?

“Knows what, Sarah? You said he knew we were coming here. Is that all?”

“No.” She moved back to the fireplace and looked at the flames for a moment, then lifted her gaze to meet his. “He knows why they’re after me.”

Tucker refused to get too excited. “Will he tell us?”

She tilted her head a little as though listening to a distant voice. “I don’t know. Probably not.” Her reply was matter-of-fact.

“And you still don’t know if he’s with the other side?”

“No. But leave this to me, Tucker. I have to handle him my own way. It’s important.”

Before Tucker could say anything else, Mason returned with a tray and the opportunity was lost. But Sarah had told him nothing to reassure him, so Tucker refused coffee and remained on his feet when Sarah came over to sit on a chair across from the couch. He moved to where she had been standing at the fireplace and turned his back to the flames so he could keep an eye on Mason as well as have a clear view of the door and windows.

“He’s very cautious,” Mason said to Sarah, handing her a cup of coffee and sitting down on the couch.

“He has reason to be. We both do.”

“I imagine so. But I’m harmless. You might reassure him of that.”

Sarah smiled. “Today, he’s a guard. And a guard should always be wary.”

Tucker elected to remain silent, as much as he disliked being discussed as though he’d left the room. He leaned his shoulders back against the mantel, crossed his arms, and watched them. And within a very few minutes, it occurred to him that what he was seeing was a performance where each word and gesture was both meticulous and deliberate. A dance where each knew the steps and the music, and where only one would remain standing when it was all over.

“How did you choose me?” Mason sipped his coffee.

Sarah set her cup on the coffee table untasted. “We have a list of surviving psychics in this general area. You were at the top.”

Mason smiled at her, that curiously tolerant smile of a parent for a child, a master for a neophyte. “Ah. Then you didn’t hear me calling to you?”

“No.” Sarah appeared undisturbed by this. “Was I supposed to?”

“Well…if your abilities are genuine, I would have thought…However, it’s no matter. You’re here. Where you were supposed to be.”

This time, Tucker had to bite his tongue to remain silent.

“Was I supposed to be here?” Sarah was innocently surprised.