“You also mentioned my wife’s missing pendant,” Jesse said. “Well I’m afraid we weren’t able to track that down. We did ask around, but nobody has seen it.” He grinned. “They all made a point of checking their garages. So I’m afraid that might be gone – unless you can give me more specific information today?” He reached over and tapped her folded hands, linked together in front of the crystal ball. It was just a light touch, but it made Georgie’s flesh creep.
Which was probably what he intended. Jesse Burns was a man who like to intimidate.
“That could well happen,” she said easily. “When I have successive readings with the same person, often the information I get builds up. Sometimes one of us will get further insights. If that happens, of course I’ll share them with you.”
“And cut,” said the cameraman. He straightened up pushed back his headphones. “That was a really good start. Maybe we can get picture of the plans of that strip mall, or the model – whatever you’ve got, Jesse. We can flash that up on the screen. And I don’t suppose you have a photo of the pendant you were talking about, do you?”
“I do,” Jesse said. “We have photographs of everything for the insurance company. I’ll get it to you later today.”
“Let’s keep going, then.” The cameraman gave them a nod. “Just follow it through, Georgie. Do your thing; we can cut it later.” He looked at his assistant. “After we’re done here, we’ll spend another hour or so wandering around, get Jesse’s opening speech, take a few shots of people having fun, then we can take it back and edit.”
He settled his headphones in place, bent over slightly to look at the screen and then gave a thumbs-up. “And we’re rolling.”
Georgie pulled the crystal ball towards her. Her mind was on what she intended to say to Jesse Burns after the film crew had gone, but she was also looking forward to seeing what she might pick up with him beside her.
Her wrist was still tingling from where he had touched her. She gave an inward smile. If he had known that touch could make a difference, could help her tap into the person, he no doubt would have thought twice about doing that.
27
Show Time
“Do you have a question in mind, Mr Burns?” Georgie sent him an non--threatening smile. “Or shall I just see what comes?”
Jesse pretended to consider her words, and then he said, “You’re a fortune teller, right? So let’s run with that. You can tell me my fortune.” He smiled back at her, but there was a definite challenge in his eyes.
Right, thought Georgie. If that’s how we’re going to play it. She just gave a nod, and then looked down at the crystal ball, smoothing her fingers over it before sitting with her hands cupped around the globe, her eyes closed. Perhaps it was because today was so important, or perhaps it was just that the universe thought the Jesse Burns might need to get his comeuppance, but things started happening very quickly.
Jesse Burns, fortune. She let her mind drift, encompassing all that those words might mean.
“You said you have a lot of business deals going on,” she said, speaking softly and not opening her eyes. “I sense that there are several that are going to be finalized very soon.”
“That’s right.” Jessie’s voice sounded faintly mocking. “But as you have pointed out, that’s always the case with me. You know what they say: ‘if you’re not growing, you’re dying’.”
It was time. Georgie moved her hands aside and let them rest on the table at the base of the stand on which the crystal ball stood, and looked to see what it had to tell her.
She saw what was in the crystal ball at the same time Jesse did. His eyes narrowed, and then he glanced up at her before focusing on the small figure that that appeared. He was looking at an image of himself, just standing there with his hands held out in front of him, palms up. Then, as if out of nowhere, piles of banknotes appeared, stacked up on his hands like a small mountain. The image in the crystal ball grew smaller and smaller and the stack of money grew higher and higher and then all at once there was a flurry of wind inside the crystal, and within seconds all the money had been carried away, spiraling away from the small Jesse Burns in the globe.
Then he disappeared, and the crystal ball was empty.
To Georgie, the message was clear, even if she hadn’t known that Jesse Burns was likely to be stripped of a lot of his assets. Money was flowing away from Jesse Burns, not towards him. In fact, you might say money was being ripped out of his hands.
She heard a slight gasp from the cameraman, but ignored it and looked Jesse in the eye. “It looks like you’re going to have to part with a large amount of money, Jesse. But I guess that’s par for the course when you invest in so many business activities, right?” This time, it was her turn to let him see that she wasn’t telling the whole story.
He managed to hide the flicker of unease in his eyes and forced a laugh. “That’s so right.” He met her eyes for a moment, and she knew he was able to interpret what he saw as well as she could. “I would have liked to have seen an image of some of it coming back to me, too. But maybe that will happen in the next reading.”
“Maybe.” Georgie passed her palms over the surface of the crystal ball, willing an image to appear. There must be more than this…
“That missing pendant,” Jesse said suddenly. “I don’t want to harp on it, but it meant a lot to my wife. Can you try again, see if there is anything else you can tell me about that?”
She glanced at him and thought of the blue house that she’d sensed the last time they’d had a reading. She was almost certain that the pendant was still somewhere on Chad Royston’s property, but she hadn’t planned to tell Jesse that. It could be useful as a bargaining chip for later.
Then, opposite her, Jesse made a sudden move, leaning forward to stare at the crystal ball, his mouth opening wide. “My God.”
Before she looked down, Georgie knew what she was going to see. Sure enough, there was the butterfly pendant, gleaming and winking from the depths of the crystal ball. It appeared to be resting in a nest of tissue paper.
“Do you see that?” she asked Jesse, knowing already that he could, but wanting the cameras to catch it. “I’m assuming that what we can see in the crystal ball is your wife’s pendant?”
“That’s it.” Jesse leaned forward and his fingers clenched on the edge of the table. He tried to keep his voice controlled, but she could hear the mix of anger and hope in it. “But where is it?” He looked up at her. “You said if we keep a question in our minds, that that might help to find the answers we want. So that’s the question I have: where is my wife’s pendant?”
Georgie almost ended it there, closing her eyes while she pretended to consider the question — but just as she was about to tell him that it seemed the answer was not going to be revealed today, she heard a soft voice in her mind. Let the crystal ball decide.
She relaxed. Fine. Who was she, after all, to control this? She opened her mind to the question in Jessie’s mind.
Where is the butterfly pendant?
If the universe wanted Jesse Burns to know, it could show him.
Together, she and Jesse stared into the depths of the crystal. For a moment, the butterfly pendant winked back at them, and then things changed. The perspective altered, as though a camera was drawing back away from the pendant. It became evident that the pendant was in a box. She could see the glint of other jewelry around it, peeking out from the folds of tissue paper.
The imaginary camera drew back further and for a fraction of a second, they saw a shoebox with the lid half off, revealing the contents. In the blink of an eye, it was gone.
Georgie raised her eyes. In the split second before the image disappeared, she’d seen a black and white drawing outline of a jogging shoe on the side of the box, along with printed information about sizing. The question was, had Jesse noticed that, too?
“There’s your answer,” she said “Well, part of it, anyway. It looks as though the pendant is being kept in a b
ox, but as to where that box is…?” She shrugged.
Jesse looked at her. “ Last time, you said you saw it in someone’s garage. Now it’s in a box. Does that mean that it’s being stored in a shoebox in a garage?”
Georgie considered his question. In her own mind, she was quite certain that the box was still in Chad Royston’s barrage, but again, she was reluctant to release that information. “You saw the box?” she asked cautiously.
“I saw it.”
“I don’t know if the pendant has been moved, and put in that box, or whether it still where I first sensed it was,” Georgie said. “Find the owner of the shoes that came in that box, and that might help you find out where it is.”
Chest Jesse let out a frustrated laugh. “Yeah, right. That’s going to be easy, I don’t think. How many thousands of people have bought a pair of jogging shoes?”
Thousands, Georgie mentally agreed. But cross trainers, size 10? She wouldn’t mind betting that those shoes would be on Chad Royston’s feet, or in his closet.
“Okay. We’ll let that go for now.” Jesse no longer looked the smug man who had strolled into the tent. “Can you see anything else you’d like to tell me today?” Again, he reached over and touched her hand. Jesse hated him doing that, with the type of man Jesse Burns was, it felt like an invasion of privacy. To shake him off, she moved her hands back to touch the crystal ball, rubbing it softly.
Images crashed into her mind, one after another. Harrison, curled up on a bed somewhere, tossing restlessly. Jessie’s wife Jenna, the woman she had seen on his arm earlier, her face twisted and angry, accusing. And then flicking from one image to another so quickly she could barely absorb it, she saw a courtroom, a judge, and Jesse sitting there, his shoulders bowed.
She took a panicked look at the crystal ball, and then let out a silent sigh of relief. There was nothing there for him to see. The images were in her mind only.
Clearly, Jesse was not going to be the man of influence he was now for much longer. By the end of the year he would be in a very different place.
She looked at him. “I do have one or two pieces of information for you, Jesse – but they are of a more private nature. Perhaps I could see you for a few minutes before you open the markets?”
He stared at her, and then down at the crystal ball, which was showing nothing but the swirling white mist.
“What, right now?”
“If you don’t mind,” Georgie said. “I think that would be best, before you get caught up in the rest of the day. I know you’ve got lots happening. These markets are real credit to you and the committee.” She sent him another sunny smile, which seemed to ease his tense expression marginally.
He managed to smile, and then gave a slow hand clap. “Well, I must say that you have managed to change my mind about crystal balls and fortune tellers. You won’t be offended if I tell you that I was not convinced before this – but you have certainly given me something to think about.” His eyes fell on the crystal ball again, and again she saw him suppress an expression of unease.
“Thank you, Jesse.” She picked up the cloth that she used to cover the crystal ball and gently let it drift down over the top of it. “I hope we can have lots of satisfied people walking away from this stall today.”
As one, they turn to the cameraman.
He stopped the recording and gave them an enthusiastic thumbs up. “Great stuff. Great stuff.”
Jesse got up and went over to stand behind the tripod, looking at the playback screen. “Can you run it back to where we saw the box that the jewelry is in?”
Georgie watched him, anticipating what would happen, because she’d been through it before.
Sure enough, when the camera panned back to the scene where she and Jesse were talking about the butterfly pendant, and the box it was in, the cameraman let out a sound of frustration. “Nothing.” He hit a few buttons, and then adjusted the zoom. The image of the crystal ball filled the screen, but there was nothing to be seen. To the viewer, it would be just an innocent-looking glass ball.
Georgie had been filmed many times, but the camera had never managed to capture the secrets that lay in the depths of the crystal ball. That was for her and her alone – and sometimes, her customers, although not even all of them were able to see what was in the crystal ball.
She got up and walked across to them. “Sorry, guys – I’m afraid that happens whenever I’m being filmed. I can see what’s in the crystal ball, and often people with me can – like Jesse did, today. But for some reason, it doesn’t translate to film.”
The cameraman’s assistant let out a grunt of frustration. “I can’t believe we didn’t get it on camera! I saw it.”
Jesse turned to him eagerly. “You saw it too?”
“Not clearly, because I was over here. But I saw something in there, yes.”
Jesse shook his head, and then glanced at his watch and at the camera crew. “Do you guys mind waiting outside for a minute? It seems like Georgie has more to tell me. I’ll be out in a moment.”
“Sure thing,” said the cameraman. “But first, can we shoot a few noddies? Won’t take long.”
No newcomer to filming, Georgie knew what he meant. “Come on,” she said to Jesse. “They just want to shoot a few of your reactions.”
It took only a minute for the camera crew to get close-up shots of her saying things to Jesse, his face looking intent and impressed as he nodded, listening to her, and then they packed up and were out of there. The cameraman looked back at her, and gave a nod. She knew he would love to hear what else she had to say.
Jesse turned to her, his body tense. “All right, what is it? You saw something that you don’t want on camera?”
“Quite a bit, Mr Burns.” Georgie went to the door of the tent, and said to Scott, who was sitting at the table outside, “Scott, can you make sure we’re not disturbed for a moment?”
Scott winked. “Sure thing.”
Georgie reached up and unhooked the opaque curtain that offered complete privacy to whoever was in the tent, let it swish into place, and then turned back to Jesse, bathed in the cozy warm glow afforded by the silky red fabric.
Cozy was absolutely the wrong word for what Jesse was going to be feeling in a moment.
28
More Revelations
Jesse was looking at her suspiciously. She returned his gaze thoughtfully, and he seemed to understand that he was not going to like what he was going to hear. “You have more news for me?”
“Yes.” Georgie glanced outside and saw the camera crew still there, standing a little too close. She nodded towards the table, which had been placed at a confidential distance from the doorway. “Come over here, Jesse.”
She sat in one of the deckchairs, and leaned back. Jesse’s eyes went to the crystal ball, now covered by the worn black velvet cloth that had accompanied it through the years.
“Jesse.” Georgie considered how to start, but before she could get another word out, he took charge again. “How reliable is what you see?”
Georgie allowed a small smile to creep onto her face. “I’m not going to defend or justify what I do to you, Jesse. You’ve seen it for yourself. Do you honestly think that I am using some sort of remote control; some wireless device to create the images you see?” On impulse, she bent forward, tweaked off the black cloth and carefully picked up the globe from its embellished stand. “Hold out your hands, and cup them.”
Slowly, Jesse did what she asked. As the weight of the crystal ball settled into his hands, Georgie took hers away. “Be careful,” she said. “That crystal ball has survived many generations, from my grand great-grandmother’s grandmother and probably beyond. It’s very precious.”
“Ha.” He held the ball up and squinted at it, the crimson silk walls lending at a rosy glow. Carefully, he turned it around in his hands, examining it.
“You can see through it, right?” Georgie asked. “You can see that there are no wires, nothing. It is exactly what it appears to
be: a crystal ball. I have no control over what appears in it, just as I have no control over whether you can see anything or not.”
“Well, I did see something.” He handed her back the crystal ball, and Georgie polished it lightly with the cloth before sitting it back in its stand and covering it again. “And so did the camera crew. But it didn’t turn up on the video.”
“No,” said Georgie. “And if I’d somehow been projecting it into the crystal ball, they should have picked it up, right?”
Jesse threw up his hands and sat back in the chair looking at her challengingly. “All right. Let’s assume that this is for real, and you have seen things –”
“Things that you have seen yourself,” Georgie pointed out. “I didn’t force you to see anything.”
Jesse wave that away. “Yet you saw something else – something I didn’t see.”
Georgie nodded. “That’s the way it works. To me, the crystal ball is a medium – it’s just a way that I can access whatever knowledge is out there that I can pick up. And it’s not just images I see in the crystal ball. Sometimes in my mind I hear words: sometimes I see words. At other times I just have…” She shrugged. “It sounds dramatic to say I have a vision, or I see a revelation, but that’s what it is. Sometimes I just know.”
Deliberately, Jesse looked at his watch. “I really do have to to keep moving. So if you wouldn’t mind…”
Georgie took a deep breath and set up a little straighter in her chair. “Does the name Meteor mean anything to you?”
Opposite her, Jesse froze. His eyes narrowed. “Meteor? You’re telling me that you heard this word? Or saw it in your mind?”
“I can see by your face that you do know what I’m talking about,” Georgie said. She swallowed, trying not to let Jesse see her nervousness. To her relief, her voice was steady as she went on. “I have some names, too. Martin Carrick. Annabel Pawley. Bruno Schmidt.”
No Good Reason Page 15
