"That's what I've been told. The problem for the psychic is knowing whether her interference will alter the prophecy – or bring it about just as she saw it."

"How can she know that?"

"According to some, she can't. I'd lean that way myself. Interpreting what you see is difficult enough. Trying to figure out if your own warning or interference is the catalyst that will bring about the very outcome you're trying to avoid… I just don't see how it's possible to do anything but guess. And if the stakes are high enough, a wrong guess could have a very costly price tag."

"Yes." Abby dropped her gaze to her coffee. "Yes, I see that."

Cassie hesitated, then said, "If you don't mind my asking, what did Aunt Alex tell you? A prediction of your destiny? Or a prophecy?"

Abby drew a breath and met Cassie's gaze, a little smile wavering on her lips. "A prophecy. She said – she told me I would die at the hands of a madman."

After he dropped off Cassie at the garage, Ben had a brief meeting at his office with the public defender about an upcoming case, then fielded several calls from concerned citizens regarding the murders.

Or, more specifically, what he was going to do about them.

His job demanded tact and patience, and he used both. But as he hung up the phone after the third call, he was uneasily aware that the mood of the town was already beginning to shift from panic to anger.

And there were too damned many guns in too many angry hands.

Knowing that Eric Stephens would be calling him soon to find out what he should print in the newspaper in response to citizen demands for official advice on how to be safer, he began jotting down a list on a legal pad. Matt would be asked first, of course, and he would offer these same practical suggestions before getting impatient and telling Eric to "ask Ben" so he could get back to his investigation.

Matt usually knew the right answers but seldom trusted his own instincts. Sometimes it worried Ben.

Janice buzzed from her office. "A call, Judge. It's your mother."

"Thanks, Janice." He picked up the receiver. "Hi, Mary. What's up?" He had called his mother by her name – at her request – from the time he was a boy. The habit was so ingrained now, he seldom even thought about it.

"Ben, these awful murders…" The little-girl, breathless voice that his father had at first found charming and then, as the years passed, utterly exasperating, was filled with worry and horror. "And Jill! The poor, poor thing!"

"I know, Mary. We'll catch him, don't worry."

"Is it true Ivy Jameson was killed in her own kitchen?"

"I'm afraid so."

"And Jill in her shop! Ben, what kind of monster could be doing this?"

Avoiding the obvious retort that if they knew that, the monster would be more easily captured, Ben said patiently, "I don't want you to upset yourself, Mary. You've got a good security system and the dogs – keep them with you when you're out in the garden."

"It's just that I'm so far from town," she said.

Ben started to repeat that she would be fine, but then remembered his missed opportunity to warn Jill. Could he live with himself if something like that happened again? "I'll tell you what. I should be finished here by five at the latest. I'll come out to the house and check all the locks, make sure the security system is working properly, all right?"

"And stay to supper? I'll fix that chicken dish you like so much."

He thought fleetingly of his half-formed intention to call Cassie and offer to bring Chinese takeout to her place that evening, and bit back a sigh. "Sure. That sounds great, Mary. I should be there between five-thirty and six."

"Bring some wine," she chirped merrily. "See you then."

"Right." Ben hung up the phone and rubbed the back of his neck wearily. He didn't feel a bit disloyal to his father in wishing his mother would find a kind widower and remarry. She needed a man around, and failing a romantic interest, she naturally turned to her son. For everything.

It wasn't a role Ben enjoyed.

Growing up the only child of a young, emotionally volatile mother and a much older, coldly distant, manipulative father, he had, more often than not, felt like a punching bag. It hadn't helped that his own personality was an uneasy mixture of his genetic heritage; every bit as emotionally sensitive and impulsive as his mother, he had also inherited his father's intellectual detachment, innate wariness, and ability to cloak his feelings behind either charm or coldness.

The mix made him a good lawyer.

He wasn't at all sure it made him a good man.

He was certain it made him a lousy lover.

Jill had deserved better. All she had wanted from him had been emotional closeness, an intimacy beyond the physical, and since they had been seeing each other for several months by that point, she had certainly been entitled to ask.

In response, he had only grown cooler and more distant, burying himself in work and offering her less and less of his time, his attention. Himself.

Even then Ben had realized what he was doing, yet he'd been powerless to do anything else. He had valued her love, but her conspicuous need of him had made him feel obligated. Not obligated to commit himself to her, but to open himself to her, and it was something he was simply unable to do.

He didn't know why that was true. But he did know that Jill had not been the only woman in his life whose attempts to get closer to him had been rebuffed, only the most recent.

After weeks of distancing himself he had coolly suggested that their relationship was simply not working. Jill hadn't been very surprised, and she hadn't subjected him to an emotional scene, but her unhappiness had been obvious.

She had deserved better.

Ben felt that he'd abandoned her twice. First because he hadn't been able to love her, and then before her death, when a warning from him might have made a difference.

"Judge?"

He looked up with a start to find his secretary standing in the open doorway. "Yes, Janice?"

"The sheriff called while you were on with your mother. He wants you to come by his office before six if you can. Says he's found out something interesting about a piece of evidence in these murders."

"Tell Sheriff Dunbar," Cassie said immediately. A prediction about dying at the hands of a madman would be terrifying enough to live with normally, she thought, but with a serial killer stalking the town, it became more than imperative that Abby take some steps to protect herself. And even though they had just met, Cassie had seen too many scenes of violence recently not to feel a chill of fear for Abby.

Abby's smile wavered even more. "What makes you think I haven't already?"

"A hunch."

"Pretty good one."

"Why haven't you told him?"

"Because he wouldn't believe it. He's an atheist, did you know that?"

Cassie shook her head.

"Yes. He goes to church because it's politically expedient, but he considers religion nothing more than myth and superstition." She paused, then added, "In other words, on a par with psychic ability."

"If there is no God, there can be no magic," Cassie murmured.

"Something like that."

Cassie sighed. "It's so difficult for most people to believe that it's just another sense, like sight or hearing. That they don't have it because nothing in their genetic makeup or experience triggered that part of their brain to begin working instead of lying dormant. I have black hair and gray eyes and psychic ability. All perfectly normal for me, all handed down in my family for generations. If they could just understand there's nothing magical about it."

"Matt will probably never understand," Abby said. "It's just too alien to him. He wouldn't be listening to you at all if it weren't for Ben. But even when they were kids, Ben was always the one trying new things and Matt always followed Ben's lead." She lowered her voice. "Plus, you knew we were seeing each other, and that shook him up more than he'll admit. But he's not at all inclined to put any faith in psychic ability."