Free The Ruse by Jonas Saul Page A

still thinks she was to blame. After three suicide attempts and two years of therapy, I took her on to be my secretary out of pity. She makes mistakes, and screws up sometimes, but - at half the price of any other coffee maker - I get by.
     
    On my way out the door, I asked her to take messages, and then wait until tomorrow to give them to me because I was turning my cell phone off.
     
    There, problem solved. No more texts and no calls. The prophecy couldn’t come true. I would not see, or hear from, my bitch of a sister.
     
    On the way home, I decided I’d barbecue for dinner as I did on most Fridays. I pulled in and stopped at my favorite butcher shop. While selecting a T-bone, a woman walked up and stood beside me. I figured she was waiting to grab something from my side of the meat bin.
     
    I was wrong.
     
    I turned and looked into the eyes of my sister. I stumbled a little. Then I tried to not act surprised.
     
    She’d lost weight. She was very thin. Sickly thin. She wanted to talk, I didn’t. I’d gone to great lengths to avoid her, and yet, here she was, in living color. She was so thin, I assumed it was cancer eating her away from the inside.
     
    What, all the money from mom and dad’s estate run out? Can’t afford all the drugs and chemo for the cancer treatment? Don’t come crawling to me.
     
    It wasn’t my life anymore. These people I’d called “family” had ostracized me . It’s only DNA that connects us. I could be standing beside any other customer for all I cared.
     
    I bought my T-bone and left the butcher shop. On the way out, she said she had something to tell me. Something important. I shouted over my shoulder that she could tell me in two weeks. Book an appointment with my secretary. Before getting into my car, her voice weak with whatever cancer does to people, I heard her call out, saying she’d be dead by then.
     
    Deep down inside, I’m not a callous man. I think somewhere along the way I placed wealth at my core. People like me are money-centered, and I’m okay with that. You will lose people you care about in the process. Maybe that was why I was single in those days. I didn’t care about people that much, so why would they care about me?
     
    I looked at my phone a little differently after that. It seems my phone, or whoever sends those texts, knew something about my future. When a legitimate text came through, I always jumped. It was six months before I received my third prophecy. This one wasn’t a name. It was a message.
     
    To save a human life, be at the butcher shop at 3:00pm. Your last chance.
     
    That wasn’t going to be possible. I had a house showing at 3:00pm, one of the huge mansions on Garrison Hill. This house was shaping up to be the biggest sale our little town had ever heard of. My client had toured other houses with me for over three months, with only a few he liked. It was just last week that this house went on the market. We drove by it four days ago. The owner’s gardener was on the lawn, watering plants. My client, and his wife, toured the back yard, and peeked in windows. They said it looked perfect. The full walk-thru was for today, at the same time as the prophecy.
     
    I couldn’t miss the appointment with my client. But how would I feel if someone actually died today and I could’ve stopped it?
     
    Then I did something completely uncharacteristic. I lifted my home phone and called the office. Before I changed my mind, I told Jessica, who was giggling for some reason, that I couldn’t make my three o’clock. Get someone else to show my client the house and if it sells we’ll divvy up the commissions accordingly. I told her to hold all calls and wait until the next day to give me my messages.
     
    I couldn’t believe it. What was I doing?
     
    Everything was set. I had two shots of scotch whiskey, looked at my watch, and started getting ready for my date with destiny.
     
    I pulled into the parking lot of the butcher shop ten minutes