Hunter's Quest

Chapter Seven

He stared at her in shock, glanced at the two sheriff's deputies approaching, wrenched open the door of her car, and jumped in.

She hit the gas hard and shot past the startled deputies rushing around the bend, hoping they didn't have time to notice her license tag number.

"Déjà vu all over again," Jason commented. "What are you doing here?"

"You won't believe me when I tell you."

The headache disappeared just as suddenly as it had come on. She sighed. How could she explain it in any way that made sense, when she didn't understand it herself, wasn't even sure she believed it herself?

"Kristie?" he prompted. "Are you all right? What won't I believe?"

"The reason I came back."

He threw a look out the back window, probably to see if anyone was following. "Try me," he insisted, lips pressed into a frown. The way he cradled his arm made her wonder if he'd re-injured it getting into the car. His words were hard, almost harsh. He had suspicions of his own about why she'd come back.

"This is going to sound...well, crazy," she said. "I'm not, really. At least I don't think I am. But I know how it plays. If it weren't for the way things have worked out before, I wouldn't believe it either, but... I can't ignore it. However much I'd like to."

He didn't respond, just watched her, a puzzled frown tightening his face, giving it the hard, dangerous cast she'd noticed before.

"Okay, so here it is: weird things happen to me. Sometimes I get messages—not like written or telephone messages. These come from a voice in my head. They warn me about things. So far the messages have always been right, and if I'd ignored them, I wouldn't be alive today."

'"Messages about what?" He turned to look back again.

"Warnings." Kristie checked the rearview mirror herself. She didn't see anything, but the sheriff's deputies might still be catching up. She pressed down on the accelerator. "Once when I was in school, about to pass a note to another kid, the Voice said 'don't.' The teacher walked down the aisle just as I would have been handing it off. Another time someone tried to convince my mother to join in some get-rich-quick scheme. The Voice told me not to let her do it. The guy absconded with the life savings of a couple of her friends."

Jason sighed. "Common sense would have told you—"

"Wait. There were some more dramatic and less obvious things. When I was in high school, I went to a dance with this guy. The Voice came during the dance and told me not to get in the car with him to go home. There was no obvious reason. He hadn't been drinking or anything, and he wasn't a bad driver. It was embarrassing to tell him to go on without me, but I called a cab." She drew a deep breath. "Half a mile from the school, a truck crossed the median and crashed into his car. He was badly injured but recovered. If I'd been in the passenger seat of that car, there's no way I'd have survived."

"You're sure you didn't just sense something about him?"

A car was coming up behind her. It was dark gray, with no light bar, but she still worried. "He was a nice kid, and the accident wasn't his fault. It wasn't anything he could have avoided or prevented. I've always felt bad about the way I treated him. Anyway, I got another message just yesterday. By the way there's someone behind us."

He glanced out the back. "Doesn't look like a cop. Slow down a bit."

She took her foot off the gas. The other car got closer. "Now what?" she asked.

"Slow down some more."

She did as he directed. The driver behind followed them for a mile or so, then suddenly accelerated and passed her when they hit a straighter, open section of road. Kristie breathed a sigh of relief.