Out of Body

by Stella Cameron

  “Did you call Marley at the shop where she works and make a date? That would have been after you left my office.”

  “No, I didn’t. I’ll tell you this much and you ought to feel like an ass. Sidney, the woman Amber Lee sings with—I found out she showed up at Scully’s last night. I went there looking for information. Marley was already there. We talked and Danny Summit was there, too. That’s it.”

  “Then you left with Marley?”

  “I left right after she did.”

  “You didn’t walk her home?”

  “Yes.” Why deny it? “She couldn’t get a cab so I went with her.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. Not a thing.” He wouldn’t voluntarily share that he hoped to see her again.

  “Do you know some of the stuff they say about her family—and her?”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Witches, wizards, voodoo,” Nat said, but he smiled a little.

  “That’s crap,” Gray said. “Maybe Marley thinks she sees things. And knows what’s going to happen before it happens.” Kind of like he was starting to do.

  “And she says she leaves her body and goes other places—that’s what she told us,” Nat said.

  Gray said, “Hmm.” She believed what she’d told them with enough conviction to pretty much convince Gray.

  “Pretty crazy in my book. And they’ve all got red hair,” Nat pointed out.

  “So what? Red hair runs in families.”

  “From what I’m told, every member of the family has red hair. They only marry redheads.”

  Gray spent a few moments on his food.

  “A call came in a couple of hours ago,” Nat said. He pulled an already knotted tie from beneath his jacket on the seat and slipped the noose over his head.

  Gray said nothing while he watched the man fasten the top button of his shirt, put up the collar, arrange his tie and smooth the collar down again.

  “So who called?” Gray decided to throw Nat a couple of bones just to help his day. “And what did they want?”

  “What did Danny Summit say to you?” Nat asked.

  Gray yawned and shook his head. “If there’s nothing else, I’m going back to bed. I’m betting you know just about every detail about the missing women’s lives, who their families or whatever are and a bunch of other details. That’s all more than I know. I’ll have to catch up.”

  “Why do you need to know anything? You can sit back and wait for us to sort this out.”

  “I could do that, but you know and I know that there’s something obvious about these women. I spoke to two of them and was about to talk to Pipes—I’m not counting the dead woman. I never heard of her. Wouldn’t you want to do what you could to help solve this…if you were me?”

  Nat frowned. “I—This isn’t about me. Gray, I want you to back off. Just tell me you’ll do that. Otherwise I’ll have to look for a way to…” He let the threat trail off.

  “Something’s happened,” Gray said. “Did someone else go missing?”

  “You’re messing with my case,” Nat told him.

  Denying it would be pointless and an obvious lie. “I’m going through some harmless motions.”

  “This Sidney. What did she talk to you about?”

  “Not a damn thing, Nat. She said she had to get home.”

  Nat didn’t look convinced. “So you backed right off and didn’t push her? That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “It isn’t. I asked if we could talk later and she said she’d think about it. At least, that was the impression she gave.”

  Massaging his temples, Nat stared into Gray’s eyes.

  Bucky Fist arrived and clapped Nat on the shoulder. “Hey, my man,” he said. Young, not more than thirty or thirty-one, stocky with a good-humored grin that showed square teeth with a big gap in the middle, Bucky wore a baseball cap turned back to front. Sandy hair showed at his sideburns and nape.

  “This is Gray Fisher,” Nat said.

  Gray had met the man before, but he said, “Bucky,” and offered his hand.

  Bucky pumped his fingers in a punishing grip and sat beside Nat.

  “Just heard Shirley Cooper was a maid, not a singer,” he said. “She was last seen leaving work at a club. I don’t know why the boyfriend didn’t tell us that right off. He may not be involved but I’ve told him not to leave town.”

  Nat grunted.

  “Not a singer, huh?” Gray said. “Are we relieved?” He was. So far he hadn’t interviewed maids for any article.

  “Ask me in a week if we still don’t have someone in custody,” Nat said. “The dead woman worked in a club. She could have been killed by someone who mistook her for a singer.”

  Gray grunted.

  “So what d’you think?” Bucky asked, looking from Gray to Nat. “I guess it could be true. But the kid could also be making the whole thing up.”

  “What kid?” Gray said.

  “I haven’t told him about that yet,” Nat said.

  Bucky nodded. “A kid called down at the big house for Nat. A boy. I talked to him. He said he’d been told to let us know they didn’t like you interfering at Scully’s, Gray. The kid sounded scared.”

  “Any idea who ‘they’ are?” Gray asked. This was coming from nowhere.

  “Nope. He didn’t say it straight out, but he could be in danger. Someone doesn’t want you poking around in this case.”

  That didn’t make Gray feel bad. “I’m getting under their skin so I must be doing something right. Are you sure it was a kid who called?”

  “He more or less said you could get him hurt if you don’t quit meddling in this case,” Nat said. “He said he’s called Alan and he’s Amber Lee’s boy. We checked. Amber may have a son, but no one seems to know where we’d find him.”

  Gray thought he saw a trap, or at least got a whiff of one. Amber hadn’t mentioned a kid to him and he thought she would have. But he hadn’t finished interviewing her yet.

  His cell hummed in his pocket and he leaned away to work it out of a jeans pocket.

  Any way he looked at it, Danny was behind contacting Nat and trying to pull Gray away from the case.

  “Who’s that?” Nat said.

  While the phone buzzed a second time, Gray stared at his old friend. “Do I ask you about your telephone calls?”

  Nat shrugged. “Always worth a try. I could catch you off guard.”

  Gray didn’t recognize the incoming number. When he clicked on and answered, the line went dead.

  12

  “Marley,” Sykes hissed into her ear. “Pretend you’re with us, will you?”

  With Winnie on her lap and still in her nightie and robe with a work smock over the top, she sat in one of Uncle Pascal’s green suede wing chairs. Sykes crouched beside her, wickedly handsome as ever in a white poet’s shirt, dark jeans and with his feet bare. “Yeah,” she muttered, but her mind wandered just the same.

  Uncle Pascal had convened this meeting of all Millets present in New Orleans. Ten a.m. sharp. Marley was there in body, but whichever way her thoughts strayed, they found their way to Gray Fisher, Amber Lee and Liza Soaper.

  And why hadn’t she, Marley, been able to stay and rescue the woman she had seen earlier that morning? A new twist occurred to her; there could be a limit on how long she could be away from her body.

  This time the decision to terminate the trip had been made for her.

  Frantic to reach the woman again, as soon as Marley had reentered her body, she attempted to travel back through the funnel. With her energy sapped, she had been powerless and the tunnel disappeared. She could not summon it up again.

  “A discussion about the Mentor is overdue,” Uncle Pascal said. “You’ve all lulled me into thinking I didn’t need to remind you. I was wrong.”

  Marley looked hard at Sykes, who rolled his eyes, then at Willow who sank deeper into another of Uncle’s green chairs and wouldn’t meet anyone’s glance. She wore a green Mean ’n Green Maids T-shirt—standa
rd issue to all those who worked for her maid service—over white crop pants. Her white tennis shoes had thick green soles and green laces.

  “Before we get into reminders about our family pledges,” Uncle said, “I must tell you how disappointed you’ve made me, Marley. I don’t know everything you got up to last night, but I will. Sykes will help me make sure of that.”

  Marley met Sykes’s blue eyes again and sent him a secret message. “Talk to me before you talk to him.”

  Sykes turned on his impassive face and just as she thought he would ignore her, she got the response. “Don’t forget the Tally Book. Be thinking about what you’ll do to repay me for keeping my mouth shut.” The Tally Book was imaginary, a childhood threat they had against each other.

  “What have you already told him?”

  “Nothing important,” Sykes said.

  A corner of Willow’s mouth hooked upward, but flattened out quickly. Not quickly enough for Marley to have missed it. Who knew how powerful Willow might or might not be? She adhered so tightly to her story about not believing the Millets were different from any other family that she had almost convinced the rest of them she was nothing more—or less—than human. To various degrees, the Millets were in contact with several other psychic families. These people were also “normal” according to Willow.

  Marley was almost sure her younger sister was picking up at least hints of the channels opening and closing between Marley and Sykes. If so, little Willow was a good deal more than human, even though it wouldn’t be possible for her to actually intercept conversation unless invited.

  The biggest puzzle for Willow’s relatives was the reason for her apparent determination not to accept who and what she was—or probably was. There had been a relationship with Benedict Fortune, the eldest son of one of those families with whom they shared similarities and it had ended badly. Marley had never been quite sure why, and Willow wouldn’t discuss Ben. There was no doubt that she and Ben had appeared very much in love.

  From the closed expression on Willow’s face, nothing was about to change her attitude soon.

  Today had dawned with the promise of heat, and that promise had been kept. The overhead fans in Uncle’s clubby quarters above the shop did little more than move hot air around. Tired, desperate to be on her way, Marley had groaned when Uncle Pascal’s summons arrived. For her it had come while she was in her workroom and barely conscious after her unceremonious reentry from her travels.

  Sometimes Uncle Pascal’s dark moods were immovable. This morning his frown was formidable and he kept sinking into long silences.

  His shaved head shone. Marley knew the family story about how he had cut off his mahogany red curls. At that time he told his brother Antoine—her father—that he chose to have “no hair color at all if it means you’re going to stick me with your offspring and the care of this impossible family.” That had been when the final decision about Sykes had been made; a dark-haired male could not be entrusted with the Millets’ fate, not when he might well bring disaster on the family.

  Sykes, so the story went, had laughed too much when he insisted he didn’t care that he was being cast out of his family position. He had said he wouldn’t have anything to do with such responsibilities anyway. Sykes, still a teenager at the time, had announced that he would spend his life honing skills none of the rest of them could hope to share. He’d been right. In addition to being an impressive psychic power, he sculpted figures from lumps of stone and rarely finished a piece without more than one buyer demanding to be the owner.

  But although they made light of their parents’ decision to leave New Orleans (and Papa’s rightful place as head of the family) and search for answers about the family curse, Marley, Sykes and their sisters doubted just how hard Antoine and Leandra Millet were looking—and they were quietly saddened by the willing defection of the older Millets.

  “Willow,” Uncle Pascal said, “you will have to put in more work improving yourself. It’s time you got over this silly business nonsense. You know you have special gifts and ignoring them won’t make them go away. It will make them sag a bit. Think of them as flabby and unreliable. A quick-minded, quick-moving, fit young thing like you shouldn’t want to be associated with anything flabby and unreliable.” His voice didn’t rise, but he emphasized each word.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Willow said. “No, I don’t know at all and don’t want to.”

  “Then you can sit there and I’ll tell you.”

  Willow’s beeper went off. She unhooked it from her waist and took a look. “Time’s up,” she said. “I’ve got a business to run.”

  “Business?” Uncle Pascal echoed ominously.

  Willow got up, yawned and stretched, then let her arms fall heavily. “You’re all an embarrassment with your gifts and powers garbage. I don’t know why you hauled me in here to watch you play games. G’bye.”

  “Willow,” Uncle Pascal said, and the warning was implicit.

  She smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss his chin. Her hair, currently the reddest in the clan, bounced.

  “Let her go,” Sykes said although Willow had already opened the door to the flat.

  The door closed again and Uncle Pascal threw up his hands. “She’s living a lie. Eventually something will happen and she’ll have to face up to what she really is. What a terrible shock that could be.”

  “I know,” Marley said. “When I’m not feeling wobbly I worry about her.” She let her eyes close and knew it was useless to hope Uncle Pascal and Sykes hadn’t noticed what she’d just said.

  “Wobbly?” Uncle said on cue. “Yes, yes, of course that’s how you feel and it’s because you’ve strayed from the Mentor. You must correct yourself at once.”

  Marley sighed at the imperious tone of voice. Whether Uncle Pascal liked it or not, he had possessed the qualities needed to head the family after what was now referred to as Papa’s “abdication.”

  In addition to having a strong mind, Uncle Pascal lifted weights and it showed. Even in the green robe—he favored green a good deal—he wore over workout gear, his muscles were impressive.

  All the Millets were good-looking, or so Marley had been told often enough, and her uncle was no exception. Anyone who didn’t know he dealt in obscure objets d’art would never associate him with anything other than a very physical occupation.

  “I’ve heard from Antoine and Leandra,” he said abruptly. The grim set of his mouth warned that he had not learned anything that pleased him. “Apparently Alex and Riley are enjoying their stay in London.”

  Sykes stood. “What does that mean?”

  “Just what I said. My brother and his wife—your parents whom you only see if you follow them around the world—are having a charming visit with your sisters.”

  Marley got to her feet, as well, tipping Winnie to the floor, but quickly sat again. She was light-headed.

  “Look at you,” Uncle Pascal said to her. “You’re worn out. You’ve been experimenting with something again and it’s against the rules unless you make sure I’m informed.”

  That was only partly true. She had a right to use her powers without telling anyone, Uncle Pascal included, unless she was certain she needed help. As long as Marley thought she could manage alone, she would do so.

  “The Mentor means for us to rely on one another,” Uncle Pascal said.

  “Am I the only one who’s been wondering about the Mentor lately?” Sykes said. “Seems a long time since anyone has pointed out that we’re no closer to finding out if there ever was an actual Mentor.”

  “The Millet family Mentor is a fact,” Uncle Pascal said flatly. “What we don’t know is whether the term refers only to the code of honor we live by, or if there was once a being the family referred to by that name.”

  “And our parents have contacted you to say they’re still no closer to finding out the truth?” Sykes said. “You didn’t have to bring us here to say that.”

  Uncle paused and they lis
tened to the ticking of a rare French industrial clock in the form of a fishing boat. Uncle Pascal spared a smile for the shimmering gilt piece before he responded. “Eighteen-eighty,” he said of the clock. He made a habit of stating details of the treasures that filled his flat. “You’re right, Sykes. I have more on my mind but I choose to start with just how little progress your parents have made.”

  “Are we surprised?” Sykes said. Apparently he didn’t care how disrespectful he was. “I’ve got a thought for you. What if this Mentor of ours still is? What if he or she—or it—is still lurking around the planet and the parents do dig it up one day? That would be by accident, of course, but it might happen.”

  “I hope it does exist,” Marley said. She needed chocolate. “I’ve got questions that need answers and so do you.”

  “So do I,” Uncle Pascal added. “When I agreed to take over the reins for Antoine, I didn’t expect it to be for twenty years! He was supposed to come back with answers and help figure out where we go from here. Someone has to carry on after my generation.”

  “Yes,” Marley said, looking pointedly at Sykes. “We’ve got to get over our hang-ups. This old tale about a curse is crazy. A dark-haired male Millet can’t take his place as head of the family? Good grief, we still say head of the family, as if we were in the middle ages.”

  “Our problem was around then, too,” Uncle Pascal said. “Do you question your powers, Marley?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Of course not.”

  “That’s what I thought. So why question the curse unless you have some proof? It’s dangerous.”

  “Let’s move on,” Marley said. “Someone has to run the business. Let’s talk in twenty-first-century terms. And since the Millets remain stuck on a male heir, and you don’t want to keep doing the job, Uncle, then either Papa should come back or Sykes must take over.”

  “Your father can’t return to his former position,” Uncle Pascal said, his mouth pursed. “Once he stepped down that was it for him. I’m a sort of stand-in till we come up with the next in line.”

  “You may be standing-in till your legs fall off, then,” Sykes said with a smirk. “As Marley points out, according to the curse, a dark-haired Millet running things means disaster, and we wouldn’t want that.”