"We move a lot of property in the summer," Metcalf noted.

"Which is why the list isn't a short one."

Jaylene checked her watch, then listened to yet another rumble of thunder. "It won't be easy if the weather's against us, but I say we get started whether it storms or not. We don't have much day-light left either way-but I don't think we should wait for dawn."

The sheriff had brought in a large county map, which Lucas unrolled on the conference table, and all three bent over it. Within forty-five minutes, they had all the properties on their list marked in red on the map.

"All over Clayton County," Metcalf said with a sigh. "And some of these places are remote as hell. Even with all the luck we can muster, we'll be hard-pressed to check out every location by five o'clock tomorrow."

"Then we'd better get to it," Jaylene suggested. "Wyatt, if you want to call in the deputies you trust to help, Luke and I will start dividing up the list. Three teams, I think?"

He nodded and left the conference room.

Jaylene watched her partner as he frowned down at the map. "Getting anything?"

His eyes moved restlessly from red mark to red mark, and half under his breath he murmured, "Come on, Lindsay, talk to me."

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than Jaylene saw him go pale and suck in a sudden breath, his eyes taking on a curiously flat shine. It was something with which she was familiar, but it never failed to send a little chill down her spine.

"Luke?"

Still gazing at the map, he said slowly, "It's gone now. But for just an instant I think I connected. It was like… she felt a jolt of absolute, wordless terror."

"Where?" Jaylene asked.

"Here." He indicated a handsbreadth area in the western part of the county. "Somewhere here."

The area covered at least twenty square miles of the roughest terrain in the county and held nearly a dozen of their red marks.

"Okay," Jaylene said. "That's where you and I start looking."

I just want to know if he's going to ask me to the homecoming dance." Her voice was so nervous it wobbled, but it was determined as well, and her blue eyes were fixed on Samantha's face with desperate intensity.

Samantha tried to remember what it felt like to be sixteen and so desperate about so many things, but even so she knew she had nothing in common with this pretty teenage girl or her ordinary life. There had been no homecoming dance for Samantha, no high-school rituals or worries about the right dress or who the football team's star quarterback would ask out on Friday night.

At sixteen, Samantha's worries had included putting in long hours to earn enough money so she didn't starve, preferably without selling her body or soul in the process.

But she felt no resentment toward this girl, and her voice- lower and more formal than her usual speaking voice but with no fake accent-remained calm and soothing. "Then that is what I will tell you. Concentrate on this boy, close your eyes, and picture his face. And when you are sure you have his image in your mind, give me your hand."

She had been using her crystal ball earlier in the evening, but for some reason tonight it had bothered her eyes to stare into it, so she had abandoned that prop for the less dramatic but more direct and often more accurate palm reading.

The teenager sat with eyes closed and pretty face screwed into fierce concentration for a moment, then opened her eyes and thrust out her right hand.

Samantha held it gently in both of hers, bending forward over it to seemingly peer intently at the lines crisscrossing the palm. She traced the lifeline with a light finger, more for effect than because she was "reading" the actual line.

She knew a bit more about palmistry than the average person- but only a bit more.

Her own eyes half closed, she was seeing something far different from the girl's hand. "I see the boy in your mind," she murmured. "He is wearing a uniform. Baseball, not football. He is a pitcher."

The girl gasped audibly.

Samantha tilted her head to one side, and added, "He will ask you out, Megan, but not to the homecoming dance. Another boy will ask you to the homecoming dance."

"Oh, no!"

"You will not be disappointed, I promise you. This is the boy you are meant to be with at this time in your life."

"When?" Megan whispered. "When will he ask me?"

Samantha knew the exact day but also knew how to make her revelation sound more mysterious and dramatic. "On the next full moon," she said. She glanced up in time to see a baffled look cross the girl's face and was tempted to dryly advise her to look at a calendar. Or to look up at the sky, since the late-afternoon storms had passed and a bright nearly full moon shone hugely.

Samantha couldn't remember if it was a harvest moon or a hunter's moon, though the latter struck her as either an apt coincidence or a deliberate sense of timing by the kidnapper.

"Oh, Madam Zarina, thank you!"

As Samantha released the girl's hand, she couldn't help but add, "Choose the blue dress. Not the green one."

Again, Megan gasped, but before she could say anything, Ellis appeared from the draperies behind Samantha and swept the girl out of the booth.

Samantha rubbed her temples briefly and drew a breath, trying to keep focused. Then Ellis returned, alone.

"What, am I done?" Samantha demanded.

"Are you kidding? You've got at least a dozen people waiting in line, and Leo says another dozen tickets have been sold so far tonight."

"Well, then?"

"I told them you were taking a ten-minute break. Word's spreading about your accuracy tonight, so nobody's complaining." Ellis vanished behind the draperies again, then returned with a big mug. "I've brought you some tea."

She had known Ellis too long to waste time arguing, so Samantha merely accepted the tea and sipped it. "Sweet. I'm not in shock, you know."

"No, but you need fuel and I know damned well you won't eat anything until you're done tonight. You've been at this two hours nonstop, and it doesn't take another psychic to feel your energy draining away."

"I'm a little tired. It'll pass."

Sitting down in the client chair, Ellis said, "Judging by the reactions-yours as well as theirs-I'm guessing you've been getting hits all night. Psychic hits, I mean. Yes?"

"Yeah. It's sort of weird, really. Not full-blown visions, just these flashes of images. And knowledge. I've never been so… on… before."

"Why, do you think?"

"Dunno. That weird vision earlier today might have changed something. Maybe left me more plugged in than usual, for however long it lasts."

"You're not doing any cold reading at all?"

Samantha shook her head. It was something she had done in the past and would undoubtedly do in the future-and it was the sort of thing that made cops like Sheriff Metcalf suspicious. Because a really good "seer" could read the body language and "tells"-physical tics and gestures, usually unconscious-of her clients, weaving a subtle pattern of guesswork and half-truths into something that appeared to be genuine psychic ability.

Or magic.

She wasn't particularly proud of that but, as Ellis had noted, Samantha had a highly practical nature and she did what she had to do in order to make her way in the world. The sign outside her booth clearly stated that she read for entertainment purposes only, and she weighed her clients carefully before offering them anything more than a show, wary of those who were too desperate or too gullible.

Usually they were like young Megan, anxious to know about their love lives, or whether a promotion at work was forthcoming, or where they could find the strongbox full of cash supposedly buried somewhere in the backyard by Great-Uncle George.