Proof of Life

by Sheila Lowe

  “He’s unscrewing the white light bulb,” Marlene whispered to Jessica.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “So it can’t be turned on accidentally.”

  Then the music started, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun blaring loud and raucous from the speakers. Everyone else laughed, but the unexpected noise made Jessica jump, despite the hands firmly holding hers on either side. Apologizing, Miguel adjusted the volume down.

  It felt wrong to be lighthearted at the same time she was seeking a missing child, but the Cyndi Lauper song got the group laughing and singing, and Jessica let the music loosen her up. The last thing she wanted was to be the person to drag down the energy and ruin the séance.

  Marlene was off-key but enthusiastic, pumping her hand up and down in time to the music. A clear tenor that Jessica recognized rang through the darkness, rising above the other voices. Sage could do better than carry a tune. The man had a multitude of talents, not the least of which he had shown her all through last night.

  Not the time or place, Jessica.

  They sang All You Need is Love, Good Vibrations, Don’t Stop Believing’, and Happy, for what seemed ages but was more like twelve or fourteen minutes. Jessica shifted her rear on the hard metal chair, trying to get comfortable. How many songs did it take to get the energy level right for the spirit visitations to start?

  You’ve Got a Friend in Me drew to a close and the room filled with silence and the sounds of their breathing.

  A minute or so passed. Somebody stifled a cough. Then, seeming to come from above them, a deep baritone voice spoke ponderously in a cultured accent that sounded like a 1940s British film actor. Graham had arrived.

  “Good evening, friends and visitors. I bring greetings of peace from the World Unseen. In these days of great fear and trouble, you may wonder whether you are alone on this earth, or whether there is a God who cares for you. You may wonder what will happen when you leave the earth plane, and whether life continues in another place or another plane. We wish you to know and believe that there is merely a thin veil between this world and the next. That you have nothing to fear. If you wish to know us and be close to us on this other side of life, you have only to call on us and ask for our help. A spiritual connection is not as difficult as some of you would make it. There is no need to wait for a grand display of angelic power for you to connect with us. You are so close, you have only to lift your minds and hearts and we will be here to meet you as we are now. Call upon us. We are only a whisper away. We are glad you ask us to come and work with you.”

  A dim red lightbulb came on in the room, providing just enough illumination to show that Russell was still bound in his chair. And as she watched, awestruck, a gauzy white film issued out of his mouth and spilled like a long scarf to the floor. Ectoplasm.

  Graham directly addressed several people in the room, answering questions, making jokes, and with permission, placing a hand on the shoulders of two of the sitters. They thanked him reverently, marveling at how large his materialized hand was, formed by the ectoplasm.

  The friendly way the sitters interacted with the spirit came as a great surprise to Jessica, who had expected a somber, sedate event.

  “Would you like me to put my hand on your shoulder, Jessica?” The unexpected question startled her. Graham must have known that her mind had been wandering through the esoteric dissertation he had been giving about the density of the physical world compared to the vibrational field of the spirit world, and decided to surprise her.

  “Y-yes, please,” she stammered. The feeling of a heavy hand molded itself around her shoulder and felt as real as any earthly hand. “Er, thank you, Graham. I can feel it. It’s very, uh, large.”

  “Do not worry, my dear. You are in the right place,” said Graham’s voice. “Be patient.”

  “I will, thank you.” The pressure of the hand left her shoulder and for ten seconds there was silence. Then a high cockney voice that sounded like a ventriloquist’s dummy called out, “’ello everyone.”

  The sitters all answered in unison, “Hi, Freddy.”

  “’ow’s everyone tonight, then?”

  For a while there was a lot of giggling and bantering with Freddy, who was something of a comedian. Jessica, who was still stunned by being singled out for Graham’s touch, was finding it hard to focus on Freddy’s chatter about his childhood and how things had changed over the years since his death. He joked and laughed and had the sitters sing another song. Then, when it seemed they must be getting near the end of the séance, he called for the trumpet.

  “Marlene, luv,” Freddy said. “There’s a young lady sitting to your right—well, not all that young.” There was laughter at that. “But she’s not old, either. Someone over here on our side wants to talk to her. Is your name Jessica, luv?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right then, give us a minute. Graham’s helping me sort things out. We’ve got to get things connected.”

  There was a slight metallic rattle and from the toy box, the séance trumpet rose and flew high above their heads, its luminescent outline glowing in the dark. As Jessica twisted to watch, the trumpet made a full circuit of the room, stopping near her face.

  It hovered there, energy emanating from it like an energetic field, reaching out to touch her. From the cabinet came a loud sucking sound, which she supposed was the ectoplasm doing who knew what? Her grip tightened on the hands she was holding. Fawn and Marlene squeezed back reassuringly.

  A whispery voice spoke from the trumpet quite near her ear. “You will not find the person you’re looking for on the earth plane.”

  If Jessica’s nerves were strung any tighter, they would have snapped. What was she supposed to do? This was what they had come here for and she had no clue what the protocol was.

  Fawn said in a low voice, “It’s okay to ask questions.”

  “Is—is Ethan still alive?”

  The trumpet remained quiet, floating near her. She tried again, her voice just above a whisper. “Can you tell me where to find him?”

  The breathy sigh came again, then the whisper. “You’ll have to go to the mountain.”

  “What mountain? Where?”

  “To the east. There is house close to a lake. Another house. You will need to go there.” The hoarse words, barely more than a whisper, were hard to make out.

  “Another house? Do you mean a house owned by the people where we just came from?”

  “Yes, those people. Go to the lake. Now, there is someone here with us who has recently come to our side. He wants to say he’s sorry.”

  Jessica knew she was gripping the hands holding hers too tight, but if she let go, she would not be able to stop herself from reaching out and trying to grab hold of the entity speaking to her.

  “Trey,” she said. “Where is he? Where’s Ethan? How can we find him?”

  The trumpet dropped at her feet with a loud bang.

  “Wait, Trey!” Her voice echoed too loud in the quiet room. Whoever had materialized the voice in the trumpet was gone.

  “You mustn’t be upset, luv,” said Freddy’s childlike voice. “Just do what he said and you’ll get what you need. All right, then?”

  “But how do we know what mountain, what lake?”

  “You’ll know. All right?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” What else could she say? What good would it do to argue with the spirit that she needed to know more than just “lake and mountain”?

  Freddy went on to bring through someone for another sitter, but Jessica’s mind was churning over what the whispery voice had said. Would Abby know what it meant?

  There was a final prayer and the séance was over. The overhead lights came on. Jessica dropped the hands that had held hers for the last ninety minutes. As she rose from her chair, she heard a small object fall from her lap and hit the floor. She stooped to pick it up.

  Fawn had heard it, too. She stared at the little object with a look of awe. “Look, you guys. Jessica got an apport.�
��

  “I got a what?” said Jessica.

  “An apport,” Bob answered, coming to look. “It’s a gift from spirit.”

  “But how did it get on my lap?”

  “You were searched and wanded before we came into the room, weren’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “We all were, too. So, it didn’t come in with you or any of us, did it? Spirit produced it.”

  Tanya edged closer, the talon on her forefinger pointing. “Can we see what you got?”

  Bewildered, Jessica held out her hand for their inspection. Resting in her palm, right in the center of the faded X, was a gold cufflink she had never seen before.

  “Whose initials are those?” someone asked, as they all crowded around to get a look. Fawn and Tanya were practically jumping up and down with excitement.

  Jessica turned the cufflink to display the flat square surface. She read the three letters engraved there:

  “TBS.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “You know this person?” Miguel asked. “This ‘TBS’?”

  “Yes, I think so. I’ll verify it with his wife, but it makes sense.”

  “We are very happy you came tonight,” Miguel said. “To have this happen, it is a great honor.” He told her the item belonged to her. “This is a rare thing. Spirit move an object from one place to another, it means a big gift. Someone is trying to give some help.”

  He photographed the cufflink from every angle and texted the pictures to her phone.

  Russell, who stayed in the chair, was looking the worse for wear. Miguel explained that the sessions zapped his energy. He would show him the photos later.

  In a daze, Jessica thanked them. She had come to the séance to make contact with Trey Starkey. She had achieved that goal.

  They sat in the Tesla, rehashing what they had experienced.

  “Well, that wasn’t at all what I expected,” she said. “Trumpets and raspy voices. All that singing and joking around. If it wasn’t for this—” She unclenched the hand where the cufflink had left an imprint in her palm. She kept expecting it to disappear, to dissolve back into thin air or wherever it had come from. “I can’t get over the way it just appeared. Was that for real?”

  “What else could it have come from?”

  “I didn’t feel it fall on my lap, yet it was just there. and now there’s a monogrammed cufflink here in my hand. How can it be?”

  “What’s your guess about how it happened to be on your lap?”

  “I don’t have any guesses. Russell said Bella didn’t tell him anything. But what if she did?”

  Sage snorted derisively. “You think Bella called him a half-hour before we got here and told him to go get an engraved cufflink complete with a middle initial, which, by the way, we don’t even know is Trey’s? Maybe Russell keeps a boxful of blanks, in case they’re needed? Maybe she arranged the séance, too? Even if there was any way that might be true—and it’s not—Bella doesn’t operate that way. She’s the real deal. She wouldn’t have sent us here if she hadn’t been guided.”

  He was right, of course. There was no disputing the reality of the cufflink; she was holding it in her hand. Everyone in the circle had been holding hands. None of them had an opportunity to place it there. The red light had been on at that time. She would have known if Miguel, or anyone else, had been walking around the room. Miguel had never once left the chair at Russell’s side.

  “Okay, okay, I believe you. It all seemed above-board and transparent. And everyone was so nice. It’s just—”

  “Easier to believe when it’s you channeling the spirits?”

  “Exactly,” said Jessica, shamefaced. “Now I know how Jenna felt when I told her about my so-called ‘gift’.”

  “There’s one easy way to settle it. Text the picture to Abby and see if she recognizes it.”

  A car drove past, looking for a place to park. Sage started the engine and pulled away from the curb, leaving an opening for the driver. “I was thinking about what the spirit said. You know―about the lake and mountains? Next to that log cabin you made, remember the mirror? It looked like water.”

  Sage was right. She had been so intent on looking for a second little figure that everything else had faded into insignificance. “I was so freaked out by the body in the cabin, I forgot about the mirror.” She nodded, warming to the idea. “It could definitely represent a lake. In fact, it makes perfect sense with what the spirit said.”

  “Abby should be able to find any other properties this family owns,” said Sage. “She said she’s got Trey’s files.”

  “Good idea.” Jessica texted a photograph of the cufflink to Abby with the message: Does this look familiar?

  To Sage, she said, “If Trey killed himself—and if that was Trey coming through at the séance, he is dead—then where is that poor kid?”

  “Jess, let’s face it, Trey may have killed him, too.”

  “Oh, please don’t say that. There was only one figure in the cabin miniature.”

  “Yes, but that spirit was apologizing. Maybe they weren’t in the cabin when he did it. Maybe he did something to Ethan somewhere else. Maybe he went back to the cabin afterwards and shot himself.”

  “Let’s not think that—” Jessica’s phone chirped. She broke off and answered, putting Abby on the speaker.

  Abby’s voice was high and tense. “Where did you get that cufflink? Have you found my baby?”

  “No, Abby, I’m sorry. We haven’t found Ethan yet. But the cufflink, it is Trey’s?”

  “Of course it’s Trey’s. He got it for being salesman of the year in his office. I’ve waited for hours to hear from you. You promised—”

  “We had to make an unexpected detour. It was important.”

  “Was the cufflink at Benedict Canyon?” Abby asked, giving up on her complaints. “Zach didn’t find anything there, so that means they were there after he checked.”

  “There wasn’t any sign of Trey and Ethan at the house, but—”

  “He forgot his cufflink? I don’t understand. Why would he even take them with him when they were going to Disneyland?”

  “Would you please check and see whether the other one is there?”

  “Why would it be here? If he took them—”

  “Please, Abby, humor me.”

  “Okay. I’m heading upstairs to our bedroom. It would be in his valet box. Did you pick up any vibes, or whatever you call it, at the house?”

  “Enough that I’m positive that they were there.”

  “But that’s obvious if he dropped a cufflink there,” said Abby, frustration building in her voice.

  Was there any benefit in sharing the details of how Trey’s dark energy had affected Jessica in the house, or about the séance? Why get Abby more worried and upset than she already was?

  They listened to the sounds of her rooting around in Trey’s valet box. She came back on the line. “One of the pair is missing. The mate must have dropped into his suitcase without him realizing it. How the hell?”

  It was unimaginable that Trey’s spirit had somehow removed the cufflink from the valet box in his bedroom, apported it through time and space, and dropped it on Jessica’s lap in Russell Levine’s house. Yet, if the experience was not real, the only other reasonable explanation was that the entire séance had been a fraud. With all evidence pointing in the opposite direction, Jessica knew she had to accept the easiest explanation.

  The séance room had too many safeguards. Besides, if Sage trusted Bella Bingham, so did she. The piece of gold jewelry winked up at her in the light of her phone’s screen.

  “I have a more important question for you,” said Jessica, interrupting Abby before she got more wound up. “Is there a way for you to find out whether the Benedict Canyon client owns any other properties?”

  “Why are you asking that?”

  “Just trust me, please? Would Trey’s file include that kind of information? Can you look?”

  “I’ll loo
k, but it wouldn’t be in the file unless they were wanting to list it for sale. Are you thinking Trey’s taken Ethan to some other place these people own? What makes you think that?”

  “It’s just a feeling I got; something it might be worth looking into. Maybe the client talked to Trey about a vacation home. A lake house; a cabin in the mountains.”

  Abby hesitated. “Should I tell Zach about Benedict Canyon?”

  No, don’t say anything to Zach. He’ll shut us down. She did not say it out loud, but she was shaking her head even though Abby could not see her. Aloud, she said calmly, “You can if you want, but there’s nothing for him to see there.”

  “Except the cufflink proves they were there.”

  The quaver in Abby’s voice gave Jessica a pang, but not enough to make her back off. If Zach started interfering now, they would never find Ethan. He would not be as accepting as she and Sage were of apported jewelry, and she could imagine his reaction if she told him she had received it, not at the Benedict Canyon house, but at a séance.

  “Trey and Ethan aren’t there now,” said Jessica. “And he’ll be pissed if he hears I’m involved after he told me to stay out of it.”

  There was a long, exhausted sigh. “I guess you’re right. I just thought—”

  “I promise, you’ll be the first to hear if we find anything for Zach to investigate—physical evidence. Then you can tell him. Meanwhile, please check the file?”

  “Okay, sure. I’ll go look. Anything that might help find Ethan. If there’s nothing in the file, I’ll check online. They might own a place and not have it up for sale.”

  “Great. We’re in Hollywood right now. We’ll hang out here until you call. No point in us heading back right now. We’d just have to turn around if you find anything useful.”

  When Abby went silent, Jessica regretted that she’d revealed their location. The lawyer’s brain was already creating a mental map, figuring out where they might be, she could feel it. Abby’s next words confirmed her feeling.

  “If you had to turn around, you’d be going east. You mentioned a mountain cabin or a lake house. What are you thinking, Big Bear?”