She took his hand; it was icy. 'A vision?'
'Yeah,' Graham said.
'Of what?'
'Me. Getting shot.'
'That's not the least bit funny.'
'I'm not joking.'
'You've never had a personal vision before. You've always said the
clairvoyance works only when other people are involved.'
'Not this time.'
'Maybe you're wrong.'
'I doubt it. I felt as if I had been hit between the shoulders with a
sledgehammer. The wind was knocked out of me. I saw myself falling.'
His blue eyes grew wide. 'There was blood. A great deal of blood.'
She felt sick in her soul, in her heart. He had never been wrong, and
now he was predicting he would be shot.
He squeezed her hand tightly, as if he were trying to press strength
from her into him.
'Do you mean shot-and killed?'
'I don't know,' he said. 'Maybe killed or maybe just wounded.
Shot in the back. That much is clear.'
'Who did it-will do it?'
'The Butcher, I think.'
'You saw him?'
'No. just a strong impression.'
'Where did it happen?'
'Someplace I know well.'
'Here?'
'Maybe .
'At home?'
'Maybe.'
A fierce gust of wind boomed along the side of the highrise. The office
windows vibrated behind the drapes.
'When will it happen?' she asked.
'Soon.'
'Tonight? 'I can't be sure.'
'Tomorrow?'
'Possibly.'
'Sunday?'
'Not as late as that.'
'What are we going to do?'
The lift stopped at the sixteenth floor.
Bollinger used the key to shut off the elevator before he stepped out of
it. The cab would remain where it was, doors open, until he needed it
again.
For the most part, the sixteenth floor was shrouded in darkness.
An overhead fluorescent tube brightened the elevator alcove, but the
only light in the corridor came from two dim red emergency exit bulbs,
one at each end of the building.
Bollinger had anticipated the darkness. He took a pencil flashlight-