Without Warning Read Online Free PDF Page B

releasing the pressure lock and started taking out items and putting them on the table, next to the capsule. The ones that contained the predictions were small boxes, each one maybe nine by twelve inches, and only a few inches deep. The artifacts were of varying sizes, but none very large. Everything seemed dry.
    I’ve always had a weird habit of counting things; it’s my substitute for letting my mind wander. So I counted as she took things out of the capsule, and when she removed the last box, I turned and looked toward Katie at the other end of the table.
    She nodded; she’d noticed it also. “Nineteen,” she said, meaning that it was one more than the number of boxes that were said to be in the capsule.
    I stood up and looked down at the boxes. Each one was labeled with the name of the person or organization that provided the predictions inside.
    “This one has no label,” Sheila said, but I had already noticed that fact.
    “Open it please,” I said, as everyone else seemed to crane their necks to look.
    Sheila opened the box, which was identical to all of the others in all respects except for the label. She did so carefully, so as to contaminate it as little as possible. The sheets of paper were about half the size of the box itself, and she took one out and handed it to me. The words on it were in red ink, slightly faded. No one else could see it, as I read this first prediction, fortunately not out loud.
    It was typewritten, and it said M RS. C HIEF WILL DIE … AT THE HANDS OF HER LOVER ?
    I tried not to react, just as I tried to continue to breathe, but both of those goals were very difficult to achieve. All I could manage were two words.
    “Everybody out.”

 
     
    No one knew quite what to make of my reaction, and they just basically sat where they were, not understanding what I was saying.
    But Hank Mickelson could read me well enough that he didn’t ask questions, he just quickly took over and ushered everyone out of the room. Katie started to argue, pointing out that our deal was that she could be present when the capsule was opened. She walked toward me as she was talking, and I could tell that she was trying to get a look at the piece of paper still in my hand.
    I had actually lived up to our deal, since in fact she was there when the capsule was opened, but that didn’t matter, because I was not about to engage in a technical debate. The situation had changed dramatically. That much I understood, even in my bewildered state.
    Hank intercepted her and led her and everyone else out the door, but before he could follow, I signaled him to stay. “What the hell happened?” he asked, when we were alone.
    I handed him the paper with the prediction on it. It only took him a second to react. “Holy shit,” he said, and I couldn’t have put it better myself. Then, “When…”
    I knew where he was going. “Jenny was murdered about eight months after the capsule was buried.”
    “So Hagel did both killings.”
    I nodded. “He must have. But why would he have known that far in advance that he was going to kill her? I always thought it was because she broke it off.”
    “So maybe we had a serial on our hands and didn’t know it.”
    I had been shaken by what I read, and hadn’t focused on the key fact. Hank was right, and if Hagel had killed two people, maybe there were others. And there were more “predictions” in the capsule. “Let’s see what else is in there.”
    “You want Danny and Sheila to come in?”
    I shook my head. “No, we can handle this ourselves, at least for now.”
    Hank and I went over to the already opened prediction box nineteen, and he put on the gloves that Sheila had left on the table. They were comically small for his hand, barely covering his fingers. But he kept them on, as he gently took the next sheet off the top.
    It read 23 RD STREET BURNS BRIGHTLY IN OUR MEMORY.
    Neither Hank nor I had to remind the other that there had been an apartment house fire on