The First Prophet Read Online Free PDF

here to
     do.”
    “Which is?”
    “I don’t know.”
    After a moment, Tucker drew a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m spending the night,” he said
     flatly.
    She looked back over her shoulder at him, her eyes flickering again. “To guard the
     door? To keep the monster out? Don’t bother. You can’t save me from him.”
    Her fatalistic attitude irritated Tucker. “At least I’mwilling to try, which is more than I can say for you. Where’s the phone? This is something
     Sergeant Lewis should know about.”
    “He can’t save me either,” she said softly, returning her attention to the stew.
    “Why the hell not? He’s a cop, isn’t he? It’s his job.”
    Sarah shook her head. “To protect and serve? No. There’s nothing he can do—even if
     he believed me. Even if he believed you. And he wouldn’t.”
    “You can’t know that.”
    She turned toward him again, leaning back against the counter and picking up her coffee
     cup. She was smiling. “Can’t I? Then you’ve wasted a trip, haven’t you, Tucker?”
    It silenced him, but only for a moment. “You’re not going to do anything about that
     guy out there? Not even report to the police?”
    “Not even report to the police. I’ve learned to accept what I can’t change.”
    “You accepted me awfully easily,” he said curiously. “Why? Was our meeting—meant to
     be?” The question wasn’t nearly as mocking as he had intended it to sound.
    “I recognized you,” she replied with yet another shrug.
    “Recognized me? From where?”
    “I had seen you.” There was an evasive note in her voice, something Tucker was quick
     to pick up on.
    “Where had you seen me, Sarah?”
    There was a moment of silence. She looked steadily down at her cup, a slight frown
     between her brows.Then, finally, softly, she said, “I had seen you in my dreams. My…waking nightmares.”
    “You mean you had a vision and I was in it?”
    Sarah almost flinched. “I hate that word.
Vision.
It makes me sound like some cheap carnival sideshow mystic. Pay your money and come
     into the tent, and Madam Sarah will look into her crystal ball and tell you your future.
     All filled with hope and dreams. Except that isn’t what I do. I don’t have a crystal
     ball. And I can’t get answers on demand.”
    Patient, Tucker brought her back to the point. “All right, then. You had seen me in
     your—waking nightmares. You had seen me in your future. So you knew you could trust
     me?”
    Her slight frown returned. “It has nothing to do with trust. I saw you. I knew you’d
     be there. When it happens. I knew you weren’t involved in it. At least—I don’t believe
     you are. But you’re there. When it happens.”
    The writer in Tucker was going crazy with her tenses, but he thought he understood
     her. At least up to a point. “When what happens, Sarah?”
    She looked at him, finally. Her gaze was steady and her voice matter-of-fact when
     she replied, “When they kill me.”

TWO

    “You bungled it,” Duran said.
    Varden stiffened, but there was no sign of anger in his voice when he said, “At the
     time, it seemed the best idea.”
    “A house fire? Guaranteed to draw law enforcement as well as numerous spectators?
     How did you expect to remove her from that situation without attracting further attention?”
    “Obviously, I intended to remove her before the fire was noticed.”
    “Then why didn’t you?”
    “The fire spread faster than I bargained for.”
    Duran turned his head and looked at the other man. Gently, he said, “It was an old
     house. They tend to burn quickly.”
    Accepting that rebuke with what grace he could muster, Varden merely nodded without
     further attempts to defend himself.
    Duran gazed at him a moment longer, then moved away from the window of the cramped
     hotel room and settled into a chair across from a long couch. “Sit down.” It wasn’t
     an invitation.
    Taking a place on the couch, Varden said in a carefully explanatory tone, “I