Contact

“Hey there!” He stood from the canvas camp-chair where he’d been sitting, sketching on heaven knew what, as he saw her. Evan had been raised an old-fashioned southern gentleman, by a Garden District family that expected him to become a doctor and marry a debutante. His decision against either option had caused something of a rift in his family, though they still invited him for holidays. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“They threw me out,” she admitted, sinking onto the cement base of the fence so that he’d feel comfortable sitting as well. “My boss is calling it bereavement leave, but what that really means is, they’re uncomfortable having me so close to the evidence.”

Evan’s eyes widened. “They don’t suspect you, do they?”

“I doubt it. But most murdered women are killed by someone they know. Since we knew Krystal, we might know her killer. So there’s always the chance I might try to cover something up, you know? Why take that risk? Although…”

Evan resumed his seat and turned the page in his sketchbook. “What?”

“Were you aware that Krys was seeing anybody? Even sleeping with them?” Usually, Faith could catch a whiff of other people off her roommates, if they’d gotten close. But not always. She tried to give them their privacy.

“Not that I know of.” Evan shrugged. “So are you going home now?”

“No. What I want to do… This may sound weird.”

Evan grinned. “No. Not that. Anything but weirdness.”

“You know the community better than I do. Are you aware of any readers who are good at finding things that are lost?”

“Like what?”

“Krystal’s murder weapon.”

Evan gulped, his hand slowing on the page of sketch paper. “Oh.”

“The bastard used some sort of cord or rope, and he didn’t leave it with her body. When you pull that hard on something, then some of your own tissue is rubbed off. So if I can find the cord, we might be that much closer to finding the killer. Assuming he didn’t take it with him, of course. Or wear gloves.”

Evan looked kind of green, but he forged on anyway. “I do know of one person who’s good at psychometry. She can touch something and tell you all kinds of things about it, like who held it last, and how they were feeling, and where they were. Nose like a bloodhound, too.”

Her recognition of his sarcasm had everything to do with the pitch of his voice and the slight change of his body temperature and scent, and nothing to do with paranormal abilities. “I’m not a psychic.”

“Sure you are. You’re just a different kind of psychic than most of us.”

“No! Moonsong’s a psychic—she can look at a person’s palm and tell all kinds of things that have nothing to do with how their heart’s beating or how they smell. And Absinthe, with her horoscopes. Even Krystal. She could shuffle those cards and lay them out and tell you things nobody could have guessed. She could predict—”

She stopped, tilted her head, met Evan’s eyes.

“She could predict the future,” he said softly, guessing or intuiting or maybe even reading what she’d just thought.

“So why couldn’t she predict hers?”

“Well, some readers believe they can’t see their own destiny, that they’re too subjective to have any clarity.”

“Or maybe she did predict it,” supposed Faith, “and just didn’t tell anyone.”

“Or maybe she predicted it, and just didn’t tell us.”

“Absinthe,” said Faith, standing.

“Absinthe,” agreed Evan. Neither of them imagined that a frightened Krystal would go to Moonsong. Moonsong, for all her innocence and kindness, was one of the protectees of their little group, not one of the protectors. But Absinthe took no prisoners. And if she’d known something…

It certainly would help explain some of the extra grief and guilt their usually implacable roommate was feeling.

“I’ll go see what she knows. And then I’ll try to find someone who can help me find that rope. Are you sure you don’t have any suggestions there?”

“Look, I’ve heard of some things my circle and I could try. Not psychic, but magic. Like maybe using a pendulum over a map to locate an item or a person, that sort of thing. But if it was my killer you were looking for, I’d put my faith in you. So to speak.” Evan turned his sketchbook. “Do you mind if I display this?”

He’d done a charcoal sketch of Faith, every line of her face a graceful curve, a stylish edge. Her reaction—surprise, pride, uncertainty—all of it mixed in her chest, and she took an uncertain step backward. “I—”

“I know it’s not that good,” Evan insisted.

“No! It’s—” Beautiful. But how could she say that? “My mom would have a cow,” she said instead, changing the subject. “Once I got my picture in the paper, when my sixth-grade class sang Christmas carols at a nursing home, and she called the paper to complain about not getting permission. She never liked…”

Never liked the idea of strangers seeing Faith. Never wanted the publicity.

“That’s okay,” said Evan, with a shrug. “If you want, I could—”

“No. Go ahead and hang it. It shows what a great artist you are. Mom won’t know about it, and if she finds out, she can lump it.” Or finally do me the favor of explaining what the hell she’s hiding. “I’ve got to go talk to Absinthe.”

“Between the lot of us, I bet we can find Krystal’s killer,” said Evan hopefully.

Faith said, “We can at least help.”

In more ways than one.

By that evening, she had enough with which to make a call. It was awfully soon after her interview with the detectives the other night. But for Krystal, Faith had to risk it.

The information she’d gotten from Absinthe was too weird—and too pressing—to ignore.

And forty-two hours had passed since Krystal’s murder.

It was time to revive Madame Cassandra.

Chapter 4

“T he dead woman,” Faith said, with the fake Virginia accent she’d adopted for these anonymous public-telephone contacts, “was having nightmares about vampires.”

“Vampires?” repeated Detective Sergeant Butch Jefferson, from his mobile.

In his background, Faith heard someone else—his partner, Roy Chopin. “She’s gotta be kidding you.”

“Y’all clearly don’t understand dream interpretation.” As soon as she’d decided to pass information from her psychic companions to the New Orleans Police Department months ago, Faith had known she must remain anonymous. For one thing, she’d been raised to keep a low profile, a habit difficult to shed. For another, explaining that she was merely speaking for the psychics, instead of as a psychic, would lessen her already shaky credibility.

Instead, when she made contact, she pretended to be a reader herself. She’d pulled the name Cassandra out of the blue, probably because she believed herself to be conveying the truth, as surely as the ancient Greek heroine had, and because, like that mythic Cassandra, Faith honestly doubted anyone in authority would believe her.

“Well then, Miss Cassie,” said Butch, his drawl far more real than hers. “Won’t you please enlighten us?”

“I would be delighted.” She readjusted the black receiver of the pay phone in the Aquarium of the Americas. She never used private numbers to call Butch. “Dreams can’t generally be taken at face value. They tend to be symbols.”