“Psychic powers have nothing to do with magic,” Amy said, scorn radiating from her narrowed eyes. “I won’t do it if you don’t believe.”
“Amy, no one in this room believes—” Cecelia began.
“Silence!” Amy approached Jack. She walked around him slowly, separating him from Cecelia. “Ordinary love is born of convenience, familiarity, comfort. But True Love draws from the deepest yearnings of the heart—”
“I can cut those out if you like,” Lance called.
The crowd laughed but Amy ignored everyone but Jack. “Yearnings that might go against society, against your own best interest, against the interests of the people you think you love.” She stopped circling Jack. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “You believe.”
Jack nodded. “Sure. I believe. I love your sister. I’m going to marry her.” He moved to Cecelia and put his arm around her. Cecelia was aware of the striking couple they made—both thin, dark, tall, elegant.
“What if she isn’t your One True Love?” Amy leaned close to him, her nose just inches from his.
Jack’s eyes went wide, but without hesitation he said, “She is. I know she is.”
The crowd erupted in applause. Julie Stone, a meek nurse practitioner, blew her nose. Cecelia let her lips curl into a gentle, serene smile. But she wished, just for a moment, that she still carried the Smith & Wesson Hammerless .38 Special that she had in her purse the last time she’d seen Amy ten years ago.
Chapter 2
They don’t really believe, Cecelia reminded herself. They think it’s a game, so play along. Amy was like a tiny clot of blood flowing through Cecelia’s life, ready to become stuck and cause a paralyzing stroke at any moment. Cecelia had to take control, to remind Amy that Cecelia was the older sister, that she led the show. “Don’t read him,” Cecelia said, stepping between Jack and Amy before Amy had a chance to touch him. “Read me.”
Cheers went up from the doctors in the crowd, but Amy’s face hardened. “I won’t,” she said. “You no longer believe. I see—” Amy shut her eyes and put her red-nailed fingers to her forehead. “I see doubt, skepticism—”
Cecelia rolled her eyes at Amy’s fakery. Sure, Amy had the power to hear the name of anyone’s True Love. But that was it. She didn’t have a single psychic talent beyond that, no matter how hard she tried. “Your audience awaits, madam,” Cecelia challenged. “You can’t let these good people down. You wouldn’t want to break a promise.”
Amy and Cecelia locked eyes. The promise Cecelia was referring to—Amy’s childhood promise never to tell Cecelia her True Love—had been sworn in blood.
Amy narrowed her eyes. “There are times when there is good reason to break a promise.”
Cecelia leaned forward and smoothed a twice-repaired rip on Amy’s sleeve. Amy needed her. Cecelia didn’t know why, but she was sure of it. “Watch yourself,” she whispered.
Amy ignored her. “So be it. I will read Cecelia’s Name. Everyone, sit!” she commanded. People found seats on the couches, the folding chairs. Some gamely sat on the carpets, tucking their expensive clothes under them carefully. A line of tuxedoed waiters formed in the back, looking like the next act in the show. Jack drifted back and leaned against a wall.
“I need silence! Bring Cecelia a chair!”
The guests handed a delicate blond-maple Eames chair head over head until it reached the front. Cecelia sat regally and the eyes of the men in the crowd roamed over her poised body. Amy might be the consummate show-woman, but no one upstaged Cecelia in sleeveless Armani.
Amy stood behind her, put her hands roughly on Cecelia’s shoulders, and closed her eyes. “O Great Spirit, come to me. I need your guidance. Cecelia Arabella Burns calls on a higher power to answer life’s most important question: who is her One True Love?” Amy’s voice was slow and trancelike, her hands heavy and hot.
Cecelia’s guests looked like children, eyes wide with excitement. They were too ignorant of anything psychic to know that this was all an act. Amy already knew the Name, had known it all her life.
Cecelia prayed that her diagnosis was right: Amy needed a shower and a change of clothes and a place to sleep as clearly as Cecelia had all those things to offer. Amy would have no choice but to say Jack was her True Love.
But Amy was as unpredictable as, well, as a psychic gypsy annoying little sister who’d disappeared for ten years. When had Amy ever acted in her own best interest? A flutter of terror ruffled every cell in Cecelia’s body followed closely by an aftershock of excitement—her One True Love.
No, she did not want Amy to ruin her engagement. Her life. She forced her traitorous body into calmness.
“I feel a presence!” Amy moaned. She let her head fall back. Suddenly the air filled with the smell of sulfur. Couples shivered into each other. Disbelievers met each other’s eyes and shrugged. Cecelia sat stone-still, like a model in a drawing class. Images from her past flew through her brain, and she focused her mind against them. “The spirit is here!” Amy proclaimed, and everyone, from trial lawyers to neurosurgeons, looked around, as if expecting to see a sheeted ghost floating out of the marble fireplace. “I’m hearing a name. I’m getting the first sounds.” Amy swayed, pretending to let the spirit overtake her.
How a room full of educated people could fall for this sideshow hoopla was beyond Cecelia.
“Cecelia Arabella Burns, your One True Love is—”
Every breath was held. Jack straightened. Cecelia saw worry in the slight wrinkling of his brow. His worry pierced her with its tenderness. Did he think she didn’t love him?
“Lance Williams Crane the III!”
Everyone gasped, stunned.
Amy dropped her hands and let a huge smile take over her face.
There was a moment of silence, then Lance broke out in raucous laughter. The crowd, realizing they’d been duped, began to laugh too. Cecelia willed her face to compose itself into a good-natured smile. Jack strode through the crowd and clapped one hand on Amy’s back. He grasped her hand in his and shook it vigorously. “Man, did you have us going!”
Amy, his hand in hers, stared intensely into his face. She squinted, closed her eyes, then relaxed.
Cecelia watched the interaction with dismay. Amy shot her a meaningful glance and shook her head. The indication was clear—Jack wasn’t her One True Love. Cecelia’s stomach did a sudden free fall, but she braced herself to withstand the emotion. Of course he wasn’t her One True Love—dangerous, destructive love was not what she wanted. She was not living her life to Amy’s specifications.
Amy dropped Jack’s hand and beamed at the crowd. “Thank you, everyone!” Amy curtsied again and again. Cecelia prayed she wouldn’t produce a hat to collect coins. “Happy engagement, Jack and Cecelia!” Amy cried. “May you have a long and happy life together! A life joined in True Love!” She bent over Cecelia and delivered a bear hug that Cecelia accepted coldly. “We have to talk,” Amy whispered in Cecelia’s ear. “Before it’s too late.”
“You gotta dump this guy,” Amy said, plopping happily into the luxury of Cecelia’s bed. She pulled a small diamond bracelet from her pocket and studied it.
Cecelia slammed and locked the bedroom door behind them. “That was insane. I almost had a heart attack. How did you know Lance’s full name?”
“The little nurse in the back is his True Love. I had a chance to read her while Lance was being an idiot. She brushed up against me.”
“Lance is Julie Stone’s True Love? No way. He’s such an ass and she’s sweet as pie.”
“Well, I read them both and there it is. I don’t explain them, I just read them. This place is nice.”
“Yeah, well stop reading them. At least, stop doing it on my turf. We had a deal.” Cecelia noticed the bracelet. “Oh, hell. Who’d you lift that from?”
“A woman in red. Gray hair. Beady eyes.”
Jack’s mother. Cecelia repressed a tiny drop of happiness over the theft and held out her hand. Amy shrugged and returned the
jewels.
“The rest.”
“That’s it.”
“All of it.”
Amy shrugged again and pulled out a silver cigar cutter. “From that Lance guy. So is this place yours or Jack’s?”
“Okay, keep that one.” Cecelia felt another flutter of pleasure and swallowed it. She was not going back over to the dark side. “Neither. Jack and I rent from an investment banker who was transferred to Hong Kong. But he’s going to sell it to us. We just have to pass the co-op board.”
Amy wasn’t listening. She fingered the cutter thoughtfully. “You looked great up there, Cel. Oh, Cel. We’re such a good team. We should be a team again. I feel like I just had the most amazing sex! Don’t you feel great?”
“No! I don’t feel great. I’m furious, Ames. You can’t just march into my engagement party after ten years and pull a stunt like that. And don’t you dare tell Julie about Lance. Or Lance about Julie.”
“But why not?” Amy pulled out a handkerchief embroidered with the initials E. W. Cecelia’s boss, Elliot Williams.
Cecelia snatched the handkerchief. “Because it’s none of your business.”
“Love is my business.”
“Cons are your business. Don’t do it. And no more sulfur capsules in my apartment!”
“Your party was dull as church. Those people needed to be shook up. Did you see how quick they bit? They were bored to tears until I came along.”
“This party is supposed to be dull. My life is supposed to be dull. I want dull. I love dull.”
Amy shook her head sadly. She jumped off the bed and walked around the palatial master bedroom, picking up everything, sniffing it, putting it back. “So, about Jack,” Amy said. “He’s sexy and hot and rich, but you can’t marry the guy. You know that.”
“Don’t start with me, Ames. We had an agreement.”
“I know. But—” She paused. Then sighed. “You’re not going to like this.”
“I already don’t like this.” Cecelia closed her eyes and recited the words she repeated by heart at least twice a day: Amy suffers from auditory hallucinations in the form of a woman’s voice at uncontrollable intervals. Recommend EEG to rule out possible neurological disorder and pursue likelihood of psychiatric disorder . . .
“It’s about your Named—”
“No!” Cecelia jumped up. Her fingers were tingling again. “I’m engaged.” She waved her left hand with its enormous diamond ring in front of Amy—a cross in front of a vampire.
The problem was, as much as Cecelia wanted to believe that Amy’s psychic powers weren’t real, her two months as a neurosurgery resident had convinced her more than ever that even the world’s foremost authorities didn’t know a fraction of what there was to know about the human brain. The best cerebral angiography in the world couldn’t explain Amy’s abilities. Although Cecelia still wanted Amy to get her brain imaged by Dr. Malhassa if she could talk her into it.
“He’s the wrong guy,” Amy insisted.
“He’s the right guy. Jack is kind and successful, and we are very, very happy together.” An image of Jack’s benevolent, helpful face filled her with conviction.
“I have to tell you—”
“You promised never to tell me.” Cecelia tried to control her voice, but it squeaked in desperation.
“I know, but—” Amy looked into Cecelia’s eyes in the peculiar, too deep way she had.
“Don’t do this. I can see you don’t want to.”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Your True Love is dying.”
Cecelia laughed, but it came out strained. “Oh, please. I’m the doctor here. What do you know about dying?”
“I’d say he’s got three months to live.”
“And on what clinical evidence do you base your diagnosis, Doctor?”
“Celia, his name is fading!” Amy spread her arms before her. Every finger had a ring. Some had two or three. None of them were diamonds.
Cecelia cracked her knuckles, an old habit from childhood. She hadn’t cracked her knuckles in ten years. “Okay. So I suppose I should march out there and make an announcement?” Cecelia stood up and mimed clinking on a glass with a spoon. “Excuse, me, ladies and gentlemen, Jack. I’m so sorry, but I’m calling off my engagement. I’m ditching my life and going off to look for some random dying guy. Thanks so much for coming! Enjoy the canapés!”
“Exactly!” Amy headed for the door.
“No! Stop! For crying out loud I was kidding!”
Amy frowned. “But why not? I’m telling you, I can barely hear his name anymore. Last time that happened, I was doing a reading for a Siamese cat breeder in Omaha, and her Named was dead in thirteen days! You don’t have much time, Cel. If you don’t go after him now, you will never, ever experience your One True Love of a lifetime.”
“Good. I don’t want to.”
“How can you say that?”
Cecelia sank down on the bed next to her sister. She put her hand on Amy’s leg. “Ames, I’m sorry we’ve been out of touch. I needed time to get my head on straight after—” She paused. “After everything that happened. But I don’t want to have anything to do with my One True Love. You know how I feel about that. That True Love stuff ruined our childhood. I’ve built a nice life without it. Look at me. Look at this place. Look at all those people out there.”
Amy shrugged her shoulders. “You don’t have to give all this up.”
“Oh, please. You always have to give everything up.”
“His name—”
“Don’t tell me!” Cecelia warned.
“His name—”
“You promised never to tell me! We had a deal!” She put her hands over her ears like a child.
“His name is Finn Franklin Concord and he’s dying,” Amy said. “You have to find him, Cel. And you have to find him now.”
“Daddy, can we go to Baltimore?”
Finn watched as Maya threw every ounce of her eight-year-old charm at him. The trouble was, since her mom died and Finn had sworn off women, it was hard for her to know how to charm. Mostly, the two of them were just straight with each other. But now, Maya threw out a tiny, chubby hip.
Finn stopped hammering the new board on the front step and blinked at his daughter. Damn, where had she gotten that move? She was an odd kid, which he supposed was mostly his fault, as the two of them spent just about all their time hanging out together in their tiny bungalow. Especially now that school was out for the summer. “What’s in Baltimore?”
She didn’t answer right away so he went back to hammering and wondering. He knew she wanted to get out of going to camp this summer. Her arguments ranged from “summer’s for sleeping” to “I’ll hold my breath and turn blue if you make me go.” He was sympathetic to both lines of reasoning. But with Sally gone and him at work, she had to go. They struck a deal, sealed with a complicated handshake only they knew, that they’d both stay home for two weeks, but then it was camp time. It had been four days. Maybe she was bored already.
“My granny’s in Baltimore.”
“Shi-i-ips!” He slammed the hammerhead into his thumb and began a spirited pain dance, trying desperately not to swear. She watched him with big eyes, suppressing a smile. When he calmed down enough to speak, he chose his words slowly. This was dangerous ground. “Maya, you don’t have a granny.”
“I do. Her name’s Granny Trudy and she’s in Baltimore and she invited us to come and visit—”
“Granny Trudy?” Finn straightened his six-foot-two frame to its full height. He had the long, lean body of a carpenter, which is what he was most of the time when he wasn’t playing hooky with his daughter.
He wiped his hands on his jeans and then wiped his face with his T-shirt. Damn, Florida was hot in the summer. “Do you know how far away Baltimore is?”
“We can drive.” Maya pulled a map from behind her back and Finn’s jaw dropped. She had charted their course with a yellow highlighter. Where had she gott
en a yellow highlighter? A map? She didn’t make any distinction between roads or highways, or even rivers. Some of her tracings went up the state lines as if they were express elevators to the next colored square. Around D.C. they would have to rent a boat to follow Maya’s line into the Atlantic Ocean.
“You don’t have a granny,” he repeated softly.
“Or a mommy.” Maya plunked down on the step he was fixing and ran her finger along the new board. The damn board looked so pure and hopeful next to the old, paint-peeling boards around it. Guess that pretty much described Maya too. She was ruddy and fresh and just-right-pudgy and pure through-and-through.
Just missing a mom.
He stared at his daughter and her cockeyed ponytail. He had no clue how to fix her hair after his wife, Sally, died, no idea that such straight, straw blonde hair would snarl and knot like it did. There were a million things like perfect little ponytails that he had taken for granted. Maya had taught him how to do it, braving his clumsy hands without crying. But he never managed as well as Sally. After a year, Maya took over, excusing him, to both their relief. Now her ponytail was eight-year-old crooked, with escaped wisps that hung over her enormous blue eyes. His stomach tightened in regret. Can’t bring back her mom, but maybe she could have a granny . . .
“She’s a rent-a-granny,” Maya said softly.
Oh, boy. Finn sat down next to her on the front steps. He put his forearms on his knees and stared straight ahead. “A rent-a-granny?” He tried to keep his voice calm.
Maya jumped up and ran into the house. In an instant, she was back with a four-inch stack of letters secured with a decaying rubber band. Maya pulled the top letter off the pile and handed it to Finn.
He opened the already-ripped envelope and pulled out a piece of stationery decorated with a purple hydrangea border. It smelled like old lady—dusty rose and foot powder. The writing was tiny and cramped, like whoever wrote it had arthritis and was struggling through. The ink was purple too, running dark to light as if it came from a fountain pen.
Make Me a Match Page 2
