“You mean they’ve got people just…reading the papers looking for mention of psychics?”

He nodded toward his computer. “The high-tech version. Using computers and keywords, you can search through a hell of a lot of newspapers, blogs, and other social media even in a single day. Could be an automated system. But even so, you need people to monitor, to weigh and consider what they find—and do something about it. A lot of people, assuming they don’t go after one psychic at a time. It would have to represent a huge investment.”

“So what’s the payoff?” she realized.

“Exactly. Why are they taking some psychics—and killing others? What are they doing with the ones they take? What is the threat, or the reward, that makes these actions necessary? In other words—what the bloody hell is going on?”

To Sarah, the possibilities were terrifying. It was one thing to believe that an anonymous someone was after her, but to suspect that her enemy was organized on a national scale, ruthless and frighteningly efficient, and had been taking and killing psychics for more than a decade, was the most chilling thing she had ever even imagined.

She avoided his steady gaze and looked into her coffee cup instead, and said the first thing that came into her head. “Lewis was a cop. If even cops are involved in this…if even cops are expendable…then how can we begin to fight them?”

“We begin with information,” he answered promptly. “We gather the pieces and put them together until we have a complete picture, until we understand what’s going on.”

“While we’re on the run from them?”

Tucker shrugged. “We may be running from them—or running toward something that might help us understand who they are and what they’re doing. We won’t know until we get there.”

“I still think…I’m still afraid that the end of this journey for me will be death.”

“I know,” he said. “I think that’s why you can’t see where it is we’re supposed to end up. You don’t want to see, because you’re afraid you’ll die there. But you won’t, Sarah. Margo’s fate as you saw it was changed. Your own fate as you saw it will not happen the way you saw it. We’re going to change it.”

“You’re so sure of that.”

“Positive.”

But I’m not. I think this is all part of the plan. We’re like rats in a maze, pleased we’re finding our way and unaware that at the center there’s a trap instead of cheese…

Melissa Scanlan picked up the phone before it rang, and said absently, “Hi, Sue. What’s up?”

“Don’t do that!” Susan Devries ordered in a harassed voice. “I hate it when you do that. Let the phone ring at least once before you pick it up, dammit!”

“Sorry,” Melissa said ruefully. “I usually remember, but…never mind. We can’t go to the dance tonight, Sue. There’s weather moving in, and we have a cow out and ready to calve. Joe wants me to help him look for her. It’ll probably take us hours to find her.”

“You might at least wait for me to ask,” Sue said, mild now. “Bad weather?”

“Snow. I think.”

“You’re usually right about that. Okay, I’ll tell Tom. Be careful out there, Melissa.”

“Always. Bye.” Melissa glanced out the kitchen window as she pulled on her gloves. It was still calm out there. Too calm. The weather service said it’d stay that way, but she knew better. It was one of the things she could predict with near-one-hundred-percent accuracy—the Wyoming weather.

She went outside in the cold late-September air and joined her husband in the main barn, where he already had their horses saddled.

“Still sure?” he asked, always a man of few words.

Melissa nodded. “Should start about dark. We only have a couple of hours to find her, Joe.”

“Then let’s move.”

She swung herself into the saddle, reflecting with pleasure that Joe never disbelieved her. And he never made her feel like a freak. His grandmother had had the Sight, and Joe considered himself fortunate to have married a woman who also had it.

They split up not far from the house, with Joe heading off to the east and Melissa going west. With bad weather coming, they couldn’t spare any of the hands to help in the search; the men were already working hard to get the other stock into safer areas. Unfortunately, the particular cow that was about to calve had a habit of hiding herself away for the duration, and she was both very valuable and a favorite of Melissa’s.

It took Melissa half an hour to work her way out to the place where the cow had hidden last time. It was a low-lying area, thick with brush, and the worst kind of place for a cow and calf to be during a snowstorm. It was also an extremely difficult area for a horse to pick its way through.

At first, that was why Melissa thought her horse was edgy. Because this was a bad place to be stuck with a storm coming, and animals often seemed to know when trouble loomed in their simple lives. So when her gelding shied nervously when the increasing wind rustled bushes nearby, she didn’t worry too much about it. Especially since she heard a cow bleat mournfully at about the same moment.

It took her ten more minutes to home in on the cow, and when she reached her she was relieved that no calf was present yet. She reached for her rope and dismounted, and in a soothing voice said, “You idiot cow, what’s the matter with you? You should be close to the house, not way out here with a calf and snow coming—”

Belatedly, she realized two things. That the gelding was backing away nervously, trailing the reins that should have made him stand still as per his rigid and reliable training, and that the cow was tied.

“What the hell?” Melissa took a hesitant step toward the cow, staring at the thick rope that bound her to a tree. She very obviously was not about to calve, and the scuffed ground all around her testified to her restless attempts to move away from the tree.

Bait. Bait for you.

She didn’t know where that inner voice came from, but Melissa instantly dropped her rope and turned back toward her horse, one hand reaching for her rifle and the other for the walkie-talkie hanging from the saddle horn.

She never touched either one.

Her horse came back to his stable just minutes before the storm hit, wild-eyed and lathered. The missing cow also returned.

But Melissa Scanlan didn’t.

When Tucker woke abruptly, his internal clock told him it was still well before dawn, probably three or fourA.M. He had been asleep since just after midnight and had no idea what had awakened him. He listened intently for several minutes, one hand under his pillow grasping the .45 just in case, but heard nothing to alarm him.

He finally relaxed a bit—though not completely. He had the idea he’d never be able to relax completely again. What he had discovered so far about the seeming conspiracy to kill and kidnap psychics had shaken him far more than he had allowed Sarah to see. At least, he hoped she hadn’t seen. Or sensed. She needed him to be sure of himself, he thought. Her belief in fate was so strong that he had to be equally strong in insisting they could avert the future she had seen for herself.

Even if he wasn’t sure.

How in hell were they supposed to fight an enemy that was organized on a national scale? An enemy with resources they couldn’t begin to match, with more manpower and undoubtedly some kind of uber-efficient communications network. An enemy ruthless enough to murder a cop—and smart enough to get away with it. How could that enemy be fought? How?

The fire he’d built the night before was no more than glowing embers in the rock fireplace, and he lay there on the couch watching them dim and brighten. Once awake, his mind refused to shut itself off again.