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“Your aura is very bright.”
I glanced up at the woman sitting across from me. She looked normal enough, with short blond hair and sensible shoes, but most people who mentioned auras weren’t that normal.
“Thanks,” I said, going back to my game.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she continued, despite my super big hint that would suggest she not.
“Really? That’s weird.”
“Actually,” she said, “I know who you are. We’re a lot alike. I’m here to help them with a case, too.”
I nodded.
“What I mean to say is, I know you’re psychic.”
I finally paused the game and asked, “Are you punking me?”
“No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m psychic, too.”
“Is Pari punking me?”
She pulled her bag closer to her chest. “No.”
“Is Cookie punking me? It’s not in her nature to punk, but I find everyone has a little bit of punk buried deep down inside them.”
“No.”
“Is Swopes punking me?”
“No, I actually am a psychic.”
“Is—?”
“No!” she said, her voice echoing throughout the room A nice couple who looked like they’d done one too many hits of methamphetamines looked over at us. She lowered her voice to a hissy whisper. “Nobody’s punking you!”
“Gah, testy.”
She loosened her hold on her bag and smoothed her pants with one hand. “I just thought maybe we could work together sometime. We both provide a service for law enforcement. Like the case they called me in for. We could team up and solve it together.”
I decided to fess up, to give her a chance to come clean or suffer the consequences. “Look, I know who you are, too, Ms. Jakes. I’ve seen your show.” Wynona Jakes was getting very rich off her
abilities,
and it made my skin crawl every time I thought about it.
“You’ve seen my show?” she asked, brightening.
“Sure have. You’re what I like to call a con artist, a person with a natural talent for reading people coupled with some fairly good acting skills.”
“Well,” she said, straightening in her seat to show me how appalled she was, “I thought you of all people would understand what it’s like to be accused of deception when our gifts are very real.”
“I know exactly. And I’m certain you don’t. I’ve seen what happens when your ‘predictions’
—
” I added air quotes to emphasize the euphemism. “—don’t pan out. I saw a young couple lose their home because they believed you when you told them to invest everything they had in their crazy uncle’s pilot project.”
“That was hardly—”
“And I saw a mother praise you because you said her son, who’d been in a motorcycle accident and was in a coma at the hospital, was going to pull through.” I leaned forward and looked her square in the eye. “He died while she was at the studio listening to your garbage. Do you know what that did to her? The guilt she felt? The shame and devastation?”
She turned away from me, the remnants of her outrage rolling out of her like a summer heat.
“Look,” I said, trying not to feel guilty for calling her on what boiled down to fraud, “I get it. You’re looking for a book deal. To each his own. I’d be angrier if you were legit and using your gifts immorally, but in answer to your question, no, I won’t team— Wait. Did you say they called you in to help on a case?”
“Yes.” She raised her chin and smirked. “A Detective Davidson called me. He said he saw my show and wanted to consult with me on a missing persons case.”
“Detective Dav—?”
“Ms. Jakes?” the desk sergeant said before I could sputter out the rest of Uncle Bob’s title.
She rose. “Yes.”
“Detective Davidson will see you now.”
My jaw dropped to the floor. The desk clerk pointed the way to Ubie’s office just as my backstabbing uncle stepped out to wait for her. He shook her hand when she got to him, then placed his other hand at the small of her back and led her inside.
I was jealous for me and for Cookie. Mostly for Cookie. He was always too nervous or too reserved to do something like that to her. And he’d called this woman in on a case? A charlatan?
Not on my watch. I stood to go prove to Uncle Bob she was nothing more than a fraud when the captain stepped out of the conference room and saw me. He motioned me to his office. After a longing glance toward Ubie, I swallowed hard and followed the captain into his man cave. And what a manly man cave it was. Awards and certifications littered his walls and counterspace, along with files and stacks of paperwork.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked.
“Not so much.”
“That’s too bad.” He sat behind his desk. “Because you are about to feel a lot worse.”
He gestured for me to sit in the vinyl chair across from him. I didn’t. “I want to know why you are having me followed, who those people were, and what you plan to do with those pictures.”
A grimness thi
It was a candid shot of me making what looked like a drug deal outside my apartment building. The photographer made sure to capture the vagrant looking over his shoulder as though watching for a cop as he handed me over something unidentifiable. At the same time, I handed him a few bills, which was very identifiable.
“That’s Chris Levine, a known associate of a man they call Chewbacca, one of the biggest meth dealers in the city.” He tossed another picture down. In it, I was in Misery passing a homeless man a couple of dollars through the window. He was the one who’d handed me the old plastic flower, but that wasn’t in the shot. Naturally. “And that’s Oscar Fuentes. His arrest record is as long as my left leg and reads like a pulp fiction novel. He owed me a favor.” He tossed another one. In this one, I was just getting out of Misery and, once again, handing a man a few bills. I try to be nice, and look what happens. “That’s—”
“I get it,” I said, holding up my hand to stop the tour. “I’ve never bought drugs in my life, and you know it.”
“Sure you have.” A smile that reminded me of sloe gin spread across his face. “And I have the evidence to prove it. Who do you think they’ll believe?”
“All they have to do is test me. I’ll test Pine-Sol clean, bitch.” I was being backed into a corner and did not like it there.
The edges of his mouth twitched. “Oh, I’m very aware of your drug-free existence. I just need insurance.”
“For what?”
“Your silence.”
“You couldn’t just ask? You have to blackmail me?”
“For this I do.”
“That’s so very wrong.”
“True, but just remember what I have on you when I explain my … situation. If I go to prison, you go to prison. I’m just making sure we both have a very good reason to keep quiet.”
“You have my complete attention, Captain,” I said, a cautious anger simmering beneath the surface. “What do you want?”
“I’m not a good person,” he said, seeming to regret that fact.
“Ya think?”
“When I was a kid, my oldest sister was raped by a boy from her school. She was intellectually challenged and he took advantage of that. He was a popular kid, very well liked, from an affluent family. All the things that would allow him to get away scot-free.”
“So he got away with it.”
“For a while. But I’ll get to that. After she accused him of sexually assaulting her, it became a big thing in my hometown. I was from a small suburb near Chicago. Nobody believed her, because why would a kid like that need to rape a handicapped girl? When he could have anyone? The town turned against us. The school turned against her, and what was a little teasing here and there became full-on everyday bullying.”