by Polly Iyer
Diana could see the woman’s pain. “Because you love him.”
“I know everyone thinks I married him for his money, and I did. In the beginning. But I do love him.” She forced a laugh. “Silly, isn’t it?”
“Not at all.” Diana patted Francine’s hand. “Believe me, I couldn’t do what I do if I gave away the confessions of my clients. There has to be an unbreakable trust between us. What do you say we get back to our reading?”
“How about we have something a little stronger than this damn coffee. I know it’s early, but the situation calls for more of a pick-me-up.”
There was nothing Diana wanted more than a drink, but alcohol interfered with her concentration. “Go ahead. I’ll stay with the coffee to keep focused.”
Francine wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’ll be a minute. We both need to refresh.” She called for her servant to bring her a brandy, and after a few minutes, the two women resumed their positions and concentration. Diana took slow even breaths while reconnecting.
Now where was she when Francine pulled away? Sliding back into mediating mode, she tried to concentrate, but a prickly sensation leached into her body and everything spiraled out of control. Though the room was ice cold, she felt as if she’d descended into hell. Her heart pounded, and her hands clung to Francine’s as if they’d been soldered. Teetering between the real world and some ghoulish nightmare, she couldn’t extricate herself no matter how hard she tried. Covered in perspiration, eyes clenched, she heard Francine’s shrill voice shatter the silence.
“Are you all right, Diana? Please, let go.”
But nothing could break her hypnotic spell or the vice-like grip on her client’s hand. A telephone rang in the background, piercing the air. Sweat-soaked ringlets stuck to her neck, others hung in her eyes, quivering as her body trembled. Francine tried to pull her hands away, but Diana couldn’t let go.
A panicked warble echoed in the spinning room. “Diana, you’re hurting me. Stop.” Francine yanked her hands away, leaving the shaking woman in the same fixed position.
The maid knocked on the door of the study. “Not now, Ethel,” Francine said.
The door cracked open. “I’m sorry, Madam Marigny, but the phone call is for Ms. Racine. The man said it was urgent. I tried to tell him she was busy, but he insisted. I thought it might be a police matter.”
Diana could hear everything, but she couldn’t break out of her trancelike state.
“I don’t think Ms. Racine can take the call. Give me the phone and get a cold compress and some smelling salts, please. Hurry, Ethel.”
The patter of footsteps hurried out of the room. Diana felt Francine cradle her as she emerged from her spell.
“Can you hear me, Diana?”
Francine’s fingers massaged deep into her shoulders as the magnetic hold released.
“Are you all right, my dear? Do you want me to tell whoever’s on the phone to call back?”
The room steadied, sounds normalized, and Diana focused. “What?”
“Can you take this call? I can take a message if you’d like.”
She shook her head to clear her muddled mind. “Huh? Oh, yes.” The call must be from Ernie. “I’ll take it.” Francine released the hold button and handed her the phone. She lifted it to her ear. “This is Diana Racine.”
“I can get to you anytime, anywhere,” the voice that had burned into her brain said.
She dropped the phone and fell back in a dead faint.
Chapter Thirteen
No White Women Allowed
Diana awoke on the sofa with Detective Harris and Alain Marigny standing over her. Francine sat off on the side, chewing on a fingernail.
“Ms. Racine,” the policeman said, “do you want me to call a doctor?”
“No, no, Detective, I’ll be fine.”
“I’ve called Lieutenant Lucier. He’s on his way.”
She raised herself to a sitting position. “I’d like that brandy now, Francine, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, my dear.” Instead of calling her maid, Francine poured the liquor herself and put the glass in Diana’s shaky hand. The brandy burned its way down her throat and sharpened her senses. “I’m sorry, Francine. We’ll have to finish another time. I’m afraid I can’t continue.”
“What happened?” She moved closer and whispered in Diana’s ear. “I need to know. Did you see something bad happening to me? Is that what got you so upset? Am I the next victim? You must tell me. I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t know.”
Diana patted her client’s hand. “Poor Francine. Of course, that must have scared you to death. It was a crank call. I promise it had nothing to do with you.”
“Did it have something to do with the night of the ball?” Alain asked.
Diana didn’t want to go into what the phone call meant. Not until she talked to Ernie. “It was someone trying to scare me. If I weren’t overly tired and stressed, it wouldn’t have affected me at all. But I am, and it did. I’m sorry for causing such a commotion.”
“Think nothing of it,” Alain said. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
Within half an hour, Lucier arrived at Francine’s house he told B.D. Harris he’d take Diana back to her hotel. She sat in his car, still shaky. “What about my parents?”
“I have an officer with them. They wanted to know why, so I told them you insisted.”
“I don’t want to go back to the hotel yet. They’ll ask all kinds of questions I’m not sure I can answer. I’ll call them later.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know, just not there. And not the station either.” She looked over at him while he drove. “Can we go to your place? We need to talk.”
“I…I don’t know if―”
“No one’s there, right?”
Lucier kept his concentration on the road when he spoke. “What happened back there, Diana?”
“The strangest thing, and if I say that, you know I’m not exaggerating.” Lucier didn’t press; Diana took her time. “I need a drink. Funny, I usually don’t drink this much, but these are unusual times. Maybe a Valium would be better.”
“I don’t have any, but I do have a good bottle of scotch.”
“That’ll do.”
“We’re almost at my place.”
She wondered if he had driven there subconsciously or if he’d planned to all along, because after a few minutes he pulled into the driveway of a well-kept brick ranch situated on a quiet middle class street lined with trees. The people driving by or walking with their children were a cultural cross-section: Black, White, Asian, Hispanic. Lucier parked in front of a closed garage, circled around to the passenger side, and ushered Diana to the front door.
A small foyer divided a formal living room on the left from a dining area seating six on the other side. Both rooms were neat and organized, as if they hadn’t entertained company in some time. She followed him into a large vaulted-ceiling family room. Unpretentious but comfortable seating surrounded a flagstone fireplace. The interior showed no clutter or signs of family other than a mantle full of photographs similar to the two in his office. The sterile tableau portrayed an eerie emptiness.
“Make yourself at home. I’ll fix you a drink.” He went into the kitchen and returned with a tumbler of scotch over ice.
“Thanks.” Diana felt awkward standing in the center of the room, her handbag slung over her shoulder. She sipped her drink. “You’re right, good scotch. Aren’t you having any?”
“A little early for me. Besides, I’m on duty. Please, have a seat.”
He couldn’t have been more formal as he gestured to the sofa and sat erect in the armchair across from her. Diana smiled as he focused on everything in the room except her. She noticed a faint blush rising on his caramel-colored skin.
“Now, do you want to tell me what happened this morning?
This was a cop speaking. Okay, if that’s the way you want it. “I was in the middle of Francine�
�s reading—a very revealing and invasive reading, not the kind I usually give. I was almost mean and couldn’t help myself. What I exposed upset her and she drew back. We had a few words but later settled the misunderstanding. When I resumed the reading, I received strange vibrations from her. Physical vibrations, not mental ones, almost as if another force had entered my body through her.”
“Did you visualize anything while this was happening?”
“No, not like the other night. My reaction was so intense I clenched Francine’s hand and couldn’t let go. I heard the phone ringing, loud, like it was right next to me, even though the sound came from the other room, through a closed door. Instead of breaking the spell, the ringing drove me deeper.” Diana leaned back into the oversized cushion. “God, this sounds crazy. I’m having a hard time verbalizing it.”
Lucier leaned forward. “Go on.”
The drink was working, and Diana felt her shaky insides settle. “You know how when you’re caught in a bad dream and you want to wake up but you can’t? That’s how this was. I was locked into it. Francine was terrified, and in a sliver of reality, so was I. I felt powerless and didn’t know what was happening to me.”
“Did you find out?”
“Oh, yes. I had every reason to be scared.”
“What do you mean?”
“No mistaking the voice on the other end of the phone line. Cyrano.”
That got him, and all his stiffness vanished. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. Remember I told you he had an unusual voice. The minute I heard it I knew.”
“Jesus, how did he find you? What did he say?”
“No one knew I was there except my parents, the Marignys, Harris, and you. He said, ‘I can find you anytime, anywhere.’ Ernie, he knows me. Sometime in the past we had a connection. What’s worse is he can get into my head through another person, like he did the other night with the Hartwell girl and again this morning through Francine.”
“Diana, are you saying he’s psychic?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Now she took more than a sip of her drink. Felt a comforting warmth slide down her throat. “He killed those women to get to me.”
“But if he wanted you, why not go after you in the first place?”
“That’s the million-dollar question. That night at the party, when he touched me, he said he was testing me. Maybe this is a game to him, but I don’t know what part I’m supposed to play.”
“This is preposterous,” Lucier said. “There can’t be half a dozen people in the world who can do what you do. You would have heard about him.”
“You’d be surprised how many people claim to have psychic powers, and many of them do, if not exceptional gifts, at least special ones. Some pin their reputations on a good guess and hype themselves to the press. Others make inflated claims or predictions, get their fifteen minutes of fame, and come up with excuses when they’re wrong. After a while, they slither into obscurity. The only reason I’m famous is because I was a little girl doing extraordinary things with an astonishing track record.”
“But your gifts are legitimate. I’ve seen for myself, read about them. I’ll admit, at first I thought you were a phony, but you’ve made me a believer.”
“I’m not going to tell you the secrets of my success. What I have is real enough.”
“Say you’re right and Cyrano is another psychic. What does he want with you?”
“That’s what we have to figure out before he kills someone else. Or me.”
“You seem to be taking this calmly.”
“Believe me, I’m not. But there’s good news and bad news.”
“What’s the good news?”
“He’s someone from my past.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the bad news?”
“I’ve enjoyed a long career. He could be any one of a thousand people.”
“Right.” Lucier dragged out the word. “Can you think of any other psychics with whom you’ve worked in the past? Exhibitions or performances, maybe collaboration with the police. Anyone who might harbor a grudge for being outmaneuvered.”
“I’ve been in the company of others with psychic gifts many times. Television talk shows, forums, college campuses, plus those years with the police when I was a kid. The list is endless.”
“Think back over your career. Write down everyone you’ve ever worked with, everyone you’ve ever known who does what you do. Go back as far as you can remember. Try to place the voice. Anything that might give us a lead. If you’re right, and this guy knows you, we have to find out from where.”
“That’s twenty-five years of contacts. That could take weeks, and I’m only here a few more days.”
“Well then, you’d better get thinking.” He slapped his thigh. “Oh, to hell with it, I need a beer.”
He called Beecher on the way to the kitchen to make a list of every known psychic, clairvoyant, fortuneteller—anyone who ever claimed to have any kind of psychic abilities. “Find out where they are and what they’re doing. Then make a list of anyone ever convicted of psychic fraud. Call me if you come up with something.”
Before they hung up some cryptic message passed between them. Lucier said he understood. Diana listened and knew the conversation concerned her. Nothing she psychically sensed other than the darting eyes of Ernie Lucier and his uncomfortable expression.
“I should call my parents to make sure everything’s all right.” When she reached Galen, she skirted the incident at Francine Marigny’s and omitted any reference of imminent danger. When she mentioned Lucier’s presence, she detected Galen’s hesitation and gave her father credit for dropping the subject.
“Seems everyone has advice,” she said when she punched off her phone.
“You mean, beware?” He took her glass to refresh it.
“Just a little,” she called after him. “I’ve probably drunk too much already.” She walked over to the bookcase and studied the photos.
Lucier came from the kitchen with a beer and handed her the drink. “Your father has a problem with blacks, doesn’t he?”
She didn’t answer right away, surprised Lucier came right out and spoke his mind. “Galen grew up in a different time. It’s not easy for him to let go of the prejudices drummed into him.” She sipped from the glass. “Besides, he’s afraid of you.”
Lucier wrinkled his brow. “Afraid? Why?”
“I told you before, he thinks I’m interested in you.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Of course, we’re working a case. That’s all.”
“Is that all it is?” She moved into him, parked her drink on the mantel. “Is it?” She got on her tippy-toes and gently drew his face toward hers. His skin was soft, and so were his lips. He returned the kiss, and then he didn’t.
He moved away. “That was a mistake. You’re so far out of my league this isn’t even open to discussion. I’m just a cop doing my job.”
“Tell me that kiss didn’t mean anything.”
“I’m a man, Diana. Men are weak, and I had a weak moment. It won’t happen again.”
“Tell me it didn’t mean anything.” She moved toward him and looked up into his eyes.
“It was nice, but it didn’t mean anything more than returning a kiss.”
“You’re lying.”
“You know, I’m not going there.” He slid away from her. “This is the kind of thing that causes problems.” He turned. “I don’t date white women. In fact, I haven’t been with any woman, white or black, in eight years. And for right now, that’s the way it’s going to stay.”
The words hit her like a punch in the gut. “I…I don’t understand. What was all that talk about showing me your New Orleans? Weren’t you proposing a date, or did I read that wrong too?”
“Taking someone out to a restaurant or jazz club when she’s going to be here for a few days is different from being interested. I can handle the first one, but the latter is
more than I want to handle. That might lead to a relationship, and I saw firsthand what interracial relationships do to a family.
“I saw my mother on her deathbed waiting for her parents to visit, to say they loved her and forgave her, although I don’t know for what. She was paralyzed, almost blind and on a ventilator, and all she wanted was to know she existed in their eyes. And you know what? It didn’t happen.”
Diana could see the intervening years hadn’t erased the pain and disappointment of that moment long ago.
“I ached for her; so did my father. His guilt overwhelmed him. I think he would have given everything he owned if those two people had walked through that door to kiss her goodbye. I swore then I’d never put myself in the position of dividing a family.” Lucier focused on her, his jaw clenched and resolute. “So no matter what you think you’re reading in my mind, no matter what you feel is in my heart, don’t come on to me, Diana, because I won’t reciprocate. I can’t.”
She stood slapped-in-the-face speechless. “I’m…I’m sorry, Ernie. If I thought you didn’t feel like I did, I wouldn’t have pushed.” She turned away. “Wow. I feel like a fool. I read you all wrong.” She tried to smile, knew it was forced and crooked. “See, I told you I’m not always a hundred percent psychically on the money. I’d never intentionally put anyone in such an awkward position, especially you; I respect you too much.” She swallowed the rest of her drink, put the glass on the coffee table, and grabbed her purse. “I think I’d better get back to the hotel. I’ll call a cab.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll drive you.” He followed her to the door, turned to her. “Listen, Diana―”
“No problem, Ernie. I was way out of line. Really. Looks like I have my work cut out resurrecting everyone from my past.” She reached to touch his arm but drew back. “Thanks for the drink.”
They drove to her hotel in silence. When he parked, he faced her. “It came out all wrong.”
“Hey, you said what you felt. That’s never wrong.” She got out of the car. “I’ll call you when I have my list. Preparing it will take some time. I’ll get in touch when I’m finished.”
