“Katherine, I’m not a medium. I can’t communicate with people beyond the grave.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I don’t need you to do that. I just thought you might know who this person watching me might be.”
Georgie’s hands were growing very warm. She lifted them a fraction, and glanced at the crystal ball. Sure enough, the inside was cloudy, but there were no images. No voices.
Nothing but a feeling.
“Katherine,” she said, “are you saying that you…talk to your husband?”
“Not exactly. I don’t talk to him. I use a medium to ask questions and get messages through. She’s very good.”
The moment she spoke, Georgie realized two things.
One, that Katherine didn’t have a sister who had paid out thousands to a fake psychic. That was Katherine herself.
Two, she was in danger of being defrauded again. This time, with a charlatan who was pretending to convey messages from her husband.
Georgie brought the conversation around to the medium several times, but Katherine was evasive.
There was nothing else for it. Georgie needed to see Nick.
“Katherine,” she said towards the end of their session, “I think it might be useful if I came to see you at home. Perhaps I could pick up on it if someone is around, if they’re watching you. Would that be all right?”
Katherine was thrilled. “Really? That’s fantastic! Today?”
“If you like.” Might as well strike while the iron is hot, Georgie thought. Late afternoon might work. That should give Nick time to get home from school. “Say around four o’clock?”
Four, said Katherine, was perfect. Nick would have been and gone by then; he usually came home for a snack and then went off to the gym.
Perfect indeed, thought Georgie. She would get there an hour earlier to try to catch him.
A stakeout. Now she really felt like an investigator.
CHAPTER 6
Katherine’s house was, as she had said, small. Talk about the worst house in the best street…it bore signs of having no man around to take care of it, and no money to pay someone else to do it. Paint was peeling off the clapboard exterior and the railing on the front steps was cracked.
The front lawn wasn’t too bad—evidently Nick could push a mower around—but the shrubs needed cutting back.
Georgie consulted her watch. Two fifty-three. She pushed the driver’s seat back further and got comfortable.
Her intention was to keep an eye out for Nick, grab him before he went inside and ask him a few pointed questions to see if her suspicions were correct. The worst that could happen, she reflected, was that she could look like a real idiot if he didn’t turn up. Then she revised that. No, the worst that could happen would be if Nick caused a scene in the street.
She unscrewed the top on a bottle of water and took a long drink. This was a lot more nerve-wracking than just doing a reading.
Fifteen minutes later, she decided that stakeouts were actually more boring than nerve-wracking. She should have brought Mags’ gypsy fashion scrapbook.
Sighing, she Googled ‘fake psychics’ and read several websites outlining typical scams. Some scams were based on continuing consultations, with the fake psychic milking the victim for more and more money. Some relied more on volume: lots of people contacting them for short sessions.
Then a flash of movement in her side mirror made her glance up. Nick was slouching his way along the street towards her, his head down.
Georgie jumped out of the truck and moved around the front to block his way. “Nick?”
His head jerked up. When he realized who it was, he stopped short. His gaze whipped across to his house and he scowled ferociously. “Have you been to see my mother? You’re coming to the house now?”
“Not yet. I wanted to see you first.”
“You can’t talk me out of going to the cops,” he said aggressively. “Don’t even try.”
“Nick, please. Just five minutes?”
He hesitated, torn. “I’m not my mother. You can’t con me.”
“I appreciate what you’re doing for her, honestly. Just tell me one thing…do you have an aunt who lost thousands of dollars to a fake psychic?”
He stared at her as though she were crazy. “I don’t have an aunt. Who told you that?”
“Your mother,” Georgie said. “When she came to see me this morning. She said that’s why you were giving me such a hard time.”
He snorted. “What a joke. She’s the one who lost thousands of dollars. And now she’s ready to do it again, with you.”
“Not with me,” Georgie said, “but maybe with someone else.” She took a deep breath. “If you work with me, we can catch them. Let the police know.” Down by her side, she clenched her fingers into a fist. Go on, agree, dammit.
He stared at her, and then glanced across at his house. She saw the indecision on his face, and felt a pang of compassion. He was just a boy, trying to do the right thing…trying to protect his mother. It would have been hard, losing his father at a young age.
“I’m not the one, I promise you,” Georgie said. “Work with me and it won’t cost you a thing. We might even be able to get some of your mother’s money back.”
Hearing herself speak, she was appalled. How could she promise that? She was as bad as anyone else who made promises they couldn’t keep.
You can do it, said a strong voice in her mind.
“I can’t promise you anything,” she said, ignoring the voice. “But we can try.”
“I don’t know…”
“You can record everything I say to you,” Georgie said. “I’m not hiding anything. Really.” She paused. “Did your mother tell you that someone is watching the house?”
“What?” He started and glanced around him. “No. Who? Has she seen someone?”
“She’s probably keeping it from you so you won’t worry. This person she’s consulting is telling her that she’s in danger. That…” she swallowed. “That it’s a message from your father. That’s why she came to me, to see if I could tell her more.”
A spark of fury lit Nick’s eyes. “A message from my father?”
“I’m afraid so. She’s going to some medium.”
Another beat of silence, and then he finally nodded. “We can’t talk here. If she comes out to call Rusty in she’ll see the truck. It’s kind of distinctive, you know.”
Georgie glanced at the maroon canopy designed to tone with her gypsy caravan, and had to agree. “Then where?”
“There’s a strip mall a few minutes away, with a Starbucks.”
Relieved, Georgie nodded. “Get in. Let’s go.”
~~~
Away from his immediate neighborhood, Nick seemed to relax more and Georgie decided to be assertive right upfront. “I’ll tell you what I know, Nick, which isn’t much. We’ll see if we can pool our knowledge. But first, let me tell you about a couple of other people I’ve helped.” Without using anyone’s name, she gave him a quick summary of the con man that Kaylene had narrowly escaped, and about James West’s being framed for industrial espionage.
Nick listened intently, his eyes never leaving her face.
“That’s it,” she said. “I told you I’d been doing this only a few months, but I’ve managed to help a couple of people. So far, your mother has paid me twenty dollars a session. She’s been to see me three times.” She looked down at her latte, and played with the spoon. “I don’t want to insult you, but I’m guessing that your family can ill afford sixty dollars a week on fortune-telling sessions. Eighty dollars, if you count the twenty you gave me.”
His face tightened, but he nodded.
She cast around for a way to help him save face. “Nick, the charlatans in my field make my blood boil. A lot of what I do really is for pure entertainment. People come to have a fortune-telling session rather than see a movie or buy a book to read. But sometimes, I meet people in real need of help—like the ones I just told you about.�
�� She looked him in the eye. “If I can help people to get justice, to right a few wrongs, I don’t need payment. It seems the right way to use what small gift I have.” She slid her hand in her pocket and brought out four folded twenty-dollar bills, and held them out to him. “You and your mother fit into that category. It’s like pro bono work for a lawyer.”
His gaze dropped to the money, and she saw the battle he fought with his pride. Finally, he reached over and took it, and then tucked it into a worn brown leather wallet. “We have some bills that need paying.”
She watched him put the wallet back into his pocket. “That wallet was your dad’s.”
He grinned wryly. “Please, don’t tell me that he’s standing behind me telling you that.”
“If he is, I can’t see or hear him. But that’s an example of what I sometimes pick up,” Georgie said quietly. “I know that it’s his.” An image, somewhat hazy, came into her mind. “And somewhere in it, there’s a picture of him with your mother, in the snow. They’re both wearing red ski jackets.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I keep it behind my driver’s license.” His forehead creased in a frown. “You did that without your crystal ball. Do you really need it?”
With a jolt, Georgie realized he was right. The knowledge about his wallet, the photo…she had picked it up without even thinking about it. She had read about this online. Some people with the Sight could get the same results with cards, or tealeaves, or a crystal ball. Or, if they let themselves open up to possibilities, to nothing.
She looked up to find him watching her, his eyes still curious. “I thought I did. Apparently, I don’t—not all the time. So…will you help me, Nick?”
“Yes. What do you want me to do?”
Georgie breathed a sigh of relief. Waiting for him in the truck, she’d had time to come up with a brief plan. She could fine-tune it with the others back at the RV park later, but it was a start.
She began to outline her idea.
CHAPTER 7
Georgie wasn’t sure whether her plan would work, but it was worth a try. She had two main goals for her visit to Katherine, after giving Nick time to pick up his gym things and leave the house again. The first was to probe gently to see if she could find out more about the mysterious medium. The second was to plant a few suggestions about Nick.
Katherine was thrilled to see her, but was evasive when it came to sharing information about the medium she was seeing. “She doesn’t see a lot of clients, and she insists on confidentiality,” she said. “You know what it’s like, I’m sure. You saw how Nick was with you. She gets that kind of thing all the time.” She went on with vague details about how the woman had been ridiculed and hounded and now took clients by referral only… and had only agreed to give Katherine extra sessions because a message from ‘beyond the veil’ warned of danger.
Georgie didn’t push. She moved on to the next item, smoothly leading into it by referring to the supposed ‘stalker’, as Katherine called the person who was allegedly watching her.
“This person watching the house, Katherine,” she said. “Has Nick noticed anything?”
Katherine’s face closed up. “I haven’t told him.”
Georgie already knew that, but it served to bring Nick into the conversation. “Forgive me for asking, but was Nick close to his dad?”
“Very, when he was little. He was a good footballer himself. Had Nick out there with a football from the time he was old enough to toddle.” Katherine’s face grew sad at the memory. “I really hope he gets a scholarship.”
“He will,” Georgie assured her, with complete confidence.
She brightened. “He really will?”
“He really will. His dad would have been proud. It’s a pity he couldn’t tell him that, isn’t it?” Inwardly, Georgie felt bad for saying it, but she couldn’t think of any other way to persuade Katherine to take him with her when she next went to see the medium. “Do you think Nick will go along with you one day, and try to make contact himself?”
“B—” Katherine stumbled, catching herself before she gave away a name. “My medium wouldn’t allow it. Not after what I’ve told her about Nick.”
“You told her that he’s upset about his aunt?”
“His aunt…?” Belatedly, Katherine remembered that her son was supposed to have an aunt. “Um, yes. She knows he hates all psychics. I haven’t told her about the trick he pulled with you.”
“Did you tell her that you’ve been to see me?” Georgie asked idly, appearing to focus on the crystal ball.
“No. She’s warned me about going to see anyone else. She says there are a lot of frauds out there, and she doesn’t want to see me fall victim to them again.” She added swiftly, “I’m not including you in that number, of course.”
“Again? You mean you’ve been caught before?”
“Not really, no,” Katherine said. “There was one who couldn’t tell me much, but I wised up to her pretty quickly.”
Georgie was getting nowhere fast here. Katherine would lie as much as she needed to protect this medium of hers.
What was she going to do? Wait around and follow Katherine herself? Get Nick to do it? Get Scott to do it?
If she could only find out who it was, and where she was, she could pose as a client herself.
Come on, she urged the crystal ball. Come on.
Nothing.
This was like being back at the beginning, when she hadn’t had a single clue about what to expect.
Katherine’s hesitant voice brought her back to reality. “Can you tell who it is stalking me?”
“Sorry, no.” Georgie sat back, and looked at her watch. “It’ll be time for me to head off soon. Didn’t you say that Nick usually gets home at around five?”
“Yes. I guess you’d better leave. He’s just not prepared to listen to reason about this. But he won’t go to the police about you, I promise.” Katherine stood, and slid a twenty-dollar bill out from under a vase on a dresser. “Is twenty enough? You’ve been here for twice as long.”
Georgie waved the money away. “It’s fine. You get a bulk discount. You don’t pay for any more than three readings in one week.”
“Really? I’ve never had that happen before.”
Georgie just smiled, and packed up to go. “Katherine?”
Katherine looked at her, still clutching the money.
“Do me a favor? If you’re worried about anything, come and see me. I’ll be around Santa Monica for another week yet. No further charges.”
“Thank you. I will.”
When Georgie left, Katherine stood at the door gazing after her while she climbed inside the truck, and then waved with a smile as Georgie drove past.
It isn’t fair, Georgie thought in anger. It just isn’t fair.
There was no way this self-styled medium was going to get away with it.
CHAPTER 8
When Georgie drove into the RV park the first thing she saw was Scott, disappearing into his camper. Perfect, just the person she needed to talk to. She parked and made a beeline for his place.
The door was open, and as she approached she could see him inside, standing at the sink cutting up vegetables.
“Hellooo,” she called, heading up the steps.
“C’mon in.” He kept chopping, pausing to wave at the dinette as she came through the door. “Take a seat. How’d it go?”
“Not great.” Georgie had filled the others in on her plans before she left, so he was pretty much up to speed. “Nick finally seems to believe maybe I’m not a fake after all, but Katherine’s staying tight-lipped about this medium of hers.” She watched him cut the bushy leaves off baby carrots, leaving just a green tuft on top, and put them in a dish. There was a roast in the oven, and the smell made her mouth water and her stomach rumble.
Scott heard and laughed. “Stay for dinner?”
“I was hoping you’d ask.” She grinned. “Hope it’s not too long. I’m starving.”
“Around an h
our. We’ll stave off the hunger pangs with a drink and a snack.”
Scott sliced a cucumber, arranged the slices on a plate, and added a small tub of cheese dip. Then he poured two glasses of wine. “Here. You sound as though you need this.” He put a glass in front of her, along with the dip, and slid into the seat opposite.
She checked out the label of the bottle on the kitchen bench. “My favorite white again. Do you have an endless supply?”
“I bought a few extra bottles when I realized how much you like it.”
She nodded, and then scooped some of the dip with a slice of cucumber and ate it. Finally, she looked up at him. He was just waiting patiently, his face calm. His lips naturally turned up at the corners, just a little, which lent him an expression of permanent good humor.
“You’re so calm,” she said. “It’s restful.”
“So my mother always said.”
“Does that mean you were an angelic child?”
He made a face. “Pretty much. My brother gave me a hard time because of it. Made him look bad, even when he was just being a normal kid.” He shot her a look. “I didn’t try to be the good boy. Just happened that way.”
“What’s your brother’s name?”
“Jeff. But we call him Bluey, most of the time.”
“Bluey?”
“He’s a redhead.”
Georgie shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s irony.”
She pondered that for a moment, and then nodded and drank another mouthful of wine. “I’m out of my depth with this Nick thing.” It felt good to admit it. Sometimes she felt that being able to read a crystal ball made her feel that she should be able to figure out anything. She couldn’t.
“And it’s eating at you because Nick came to you for help.”
“Well, he didn’t actually. He came to prove that I was a fraud so that he could have me arrested.”
“A minor hiccup.”
That earned a smile, but she said: “Don’t make me laugh. It’s serious. We were right; it was Katherine who lost all the money to some fake psychic online. Nick doesn’t have an aunt.” She went on to tell him how the afternoon had played out. “If we could just get a name from Katherine, we could do an online search to see if I can get an appointment. If she’s a fake, I should be able to spot it. But Katherine’s staying quiet. Now what?”
Good Riddance: Book 3 Georgie B. Goode Gypsy Caravan Cozy Mystery Page 4
