A Scrying Shame (12 page)

Despite its no-nonsense functionality, hardly anybody liked to use it. Evelyn kept the white porcelain clean, of course, but since the room was barely used, it gathered a slight layer of dust. It didn’t appear to have spiders, but with the chill, dank basement air, it
felt
spidery. Potential spiders were almost worse than ones you could see and therefore avoid. Still, it came in handy at the family Christmas parties or when some—always unidentified—person stunk up the upstairs one.

Arie approached the mirror with care. She’d had trouble looking into any mirror since the death vision at Marissa’s. She stood in front of the sink with her eyes squinched shut, quickly opened them, peeked into the mirror, and immediately squeezed them shut.

Nothing.

She opened them again and risked a longer look. Still nothing. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Were the visions over?

Backtracking, she realized the pressure had lightened the moment she’d pocketed the key in Marissa’s bedroom. The moment, in fact, when she’d unconsciously committed herself to uncovering Marissa’s murderer.

Arie leaned on the counter and considered this new idea. What did it mean? Did she have to choose between being haunted by a murder victim’s memories or putting herself at risk by trying to track down a killer?
That was a choice?

And what would happen if she couldn’t figure it out?

Arie straightened up and decided to pull a Scarlett O’Hara. She’d “think about it tomorrow.” Maybe.

Still shaken, she went back to the box of Brant’s stuff and picked up the day planner. As she did, a thick white square slid out from between the pages.

A Polaroid picture. Only Brant would still be using a Polaroid.

Arie flipped it over and realized she’d found what she’d been looking for. A much younger version of her brother—although he couldn’t have been, really; it had only been two years ago—sat on a blanket with a beautiful blonde curled in his lap. Marissa Mason, of course. A bottle of wine, glasses, and a Tupperware container filled with red strawberries completed the picnic. Arie couldn’t tell for sure, but she guessed they were at an outdoor concert. She thought she could see a stage in the background.

She could hardly take her eyes off Brant. She’d never seen him so relaxed. Or happy. No wonder she barely recognized him. Suddenly, Arie felt herself grieving for the brother she never knew.

And it was certainly Marissa sprawled across her brother’s legs. She seemed happy, too. They matched. They belonged.

Arie wondered what had happened to take the smiles off those two young, joyous faces.

Arie waited until after she’d gotten home, fed Grumpa a healthy meal of lean pork chops, brown rice, and broccoli—whereupon he accused her of trying to kill him—and took a long hot shower before she tried calling Brant. She’d had to look up his number in her mother’s address book. That said something about their relationship.

When Brant’s phone clicked directly to voice mail, Arie hung up. There was no way she could leave any sort of message that would make sense.

Instead, Arie called Chandra to fill her in on Detective O’Shea’s visit.

“Holy cats,” Chandra said. “Is he going to arrest both of you?”

“I think if he was going to bring me in, he would have. Besides, he can’t arrest me. I didn’t do anything.”

A dubious silence hung on the line. Chandra said, “It sure looks bad, though.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“What are you going to do now? I mean, you don’t really believe Brant would . . .”

“No. Of course not.” Another long pause. “Do you?”

“Not really,” Chandra said. “He’s so blah. It’s . . .”

“What? Just say it.”

“Well, it’s always the quiet, boring guy who turns out to be the serial killer. I mean, I really don’t think Brant’s a killer, but . . . I mean, if he did do it, it’s probably because he, you know, snapped.”

“Brant doesn’t snap,” Arie said. “That’s exactly what Brant doesn’t do. He’s the most un-snappy person on earth.”

“Then why does O’Shea think he’s involved?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. That’s what I need to figure out.”

“Can’t you just ask Brant?”

“I tried calling him, but it’s not that easy.” Arie sighed. “He’d never trust me with this kind of thing. The only reason he told me about his engagement in the first place was because I accidentally ran into them. From the look on Marissa’s face, she didn’t know he had a sister. And you saw how he acted at the funeral. Besides, he’s going to want to know why I’m involved. What am I going to tell him? I stared into a pool of his ex-fiancée’s blood and had a vision of her murder? How is that going to go over? He doesn’t even believe I had a near-death experience. In fact, he told Dad I was making it up to get attention.”

“Does he think you mugged yourself, too?”

“No, but he probably thinks I was irresponsible and placed myself in harm’s way.”

Chandra laughed.

“But you were just walking to your car after work. How is that irresponsible?”

“Because it was a stupid job in a risky part of town.”

“You know, about that. I wanted to ask you something.”

“About . . . that night?” Arie’s stomach muscles cramped. “What about it?”

“Well, I was just wondering, if you’ve tried this vision stuff on yourself. I mean, that’s only natural, right? Maybe you could—”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“I tried, okay.” Arie sighed and confessed to having pricked her own finger with a needle to get a sample of blood.

“Holy buckets! What did you see?”

“Blood. That’s it. And listen, Chan, I know you’re trying to help but I don’t want to—”

“You can’t avoid it forever.”

“I can for now. So forget that. Didn’t you say you knew that friend of hers—Diane?”

Chandra sighed, but capitulated. “Riann. From college. But it’s not like we—”

“Can you figure out some way to introduce me to her?”

“Oh, boy. What are you—”

“Can you?”

Chandra didn’t answer right away. Arie waited. If there was anything she had faith in, it was her friend’s complete inability to resist poking her nose into other people’s business.

“I’m not promising anything,” Chandra finally said. “I have an idea. What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Why does that question scare me?”

“I’ll pick you up at six. This is gonna be great.”

Arie shivered. She and Chandra had vastly different definitions of the word “great.”

Chandra’s eyes were bright with excitement as she gripped the steering wheel. “I’ve been going to her for months now. She’s a remarkable woman. I’ve been wanting you to come see her for ages. Remember, I told you about her?”

Arie groaned. “Please tell me you aren’t taking me to your psychic lady. You know I don’t—”

“For someone who died and visited heaven and then came back with her very own psychic gift, you sure are close-minded.”

Okay, she had a point. So many weird things had happened to Arie recently, and aside from Chandra, she really didn’t have anyone to talk to.

Her mother cringed at any discussion of “the incident.” In fact, Evelyn still seemed unconvinced that her daughter had actually been dead for four minutes, despite the doctor’s affirmation and the medical records. Evelyn didn’t even like talking about the events leading up to Arie’s death, as if her daughter having been mugged in a parking lot was unseemly.

Arie gently rubbed the puckered, starfish-shaped scar just over her collarbone. The doctors had stated that blood loss was the primary cause of death. Maybe, Arie mused, the blood they’d used to refill her had come from someone with a gift, as Chandra called it.

It didn’t feel like a gift. It might be too soon to call whatever she had a curse, but it was certainly a burden and scary as hell. And because of it, Arie didn’t feel comfortable opening up to her usual confidants.

Her father had always been there for her. Although she might have kept some of her boneheaded decisions from him initially, she almost always fessed up eventually. And although there might have been times Edward Stiles was disappointed in his daughter, he always forgave her, and he always helped her see the best in herself.

They had been able to talk about her visit to the OS. As a pastor, Ed had no trouble believing in heaven or even rejoicing in it.

But talking about it set him at odds with his wife, and Arie didn’t like being the cause of conflict between them. Besides, death visions were a whole ‘nother level of freaky.

Chandra pulled the car to the curb in front of a well-kept trailer home, interrupting Arie’s train of thought.

The bathroom is filthy, of course. The tub loaded with dirty . . .

Arie felt dizzy and braced herself against the dash of Chandra’s car.

“Are you okay?” Chandra’s eyebrows furrowed, and she patted her friend on her back. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is too soon. I thought it might be good for you to talk to somebody who’s comfortable with this stuff. I already told Walynda about your NDE.”

“I’m okay. I just needed a minute. I think it was seeing the trailer . . .”

“What’s the big deal about a trailer?”

“I’m not sure. Marissa grew up in a trailer. Maybe she . . . I dunno . . . got upset?”

Another wave of dizziness flowed through Arie. She’d never really thought of it that way. A dead person was sending her thoughts, her memories, her
life
straight into Arie’s head.

Arie sucked in a deep breath.

Wait
. . .
Walynda? Who named their kid Walynda?

A gypsy caravan had vomited across the whole of the interior. Yards and yards of royal-blue fabric decorated with tiny silver stars, ivory crescent moons, and golden suns draped the windows and the back wall. A round table dominated the middle of the room, and candles, crystals, and incense holders lay scattered across every available flat surface. A maroon wingback chair had been pulled up to the table. Walynda’s chair, Arie assumed. The other three chairs ringing the table looked like ordinary dining room chairs with scarves thrown over them.

Walynda arrived.

The decor immediately ceased to be the main attraction because a six-foot-two woman with brilliant purple hair and long burgundy fingernails had her own attention-gaining abilities. The long, flowing white satin choir robe helped.

A pastor’s kid, Arie knew her choir robes.

“Welcome. I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

Walynda’s voice had a soft, otherworldly lilt. She floated to Arie’s side and held her by the shoulders. Peering into her eyes, the psychic smiled widely. “Welcome, indeed.”

“Thank you,” Arie mumbled.

Walynda released Arie and turned to Chandra, adding a cheek kiss to the shoulder-grabbing thing.

Chandra’s eyes sparkled. “You did your hair.”

Walynda patted her purple tresses self-consciously. “Oh. Yes. I like to go to Becky’s Institution of Beauty Art to get my hair done. It’s very economical, and it’s nice to see all the young girls as they’re starting out on their life’s journeys.” She blushed and patted her hair again. “There are drawbacks, of course.”

Leading the way to the table, the psychic offered Arie a seat. Chandra perched on the edge of another chair and pulled a pen and notebook out of her purse. Instead of joining them, Walynda circled the interior of the room, lighting candles. Then she picked up one of the incense holders, a thin stream of fragrant, sandalwood-scented smoke already wafting from the opening, and circled again. This time, she fluttered her hand through the smoke, dispersing it throughout the room.

Arie coughed.

“Oh, dear, are you allergic?”

Without waiting for Arie’s answer, Walynda set the incense aside, gathered her skirts, and folded herself into the burgundy chair. She reached across the table and grabbed Arie’s hands in her own. Walynda’s fingers had so many rings on them they clicked and clattered whenever she used them, which was a lot. Walynda was a hand-talker.

They were still clicking as Walynda opened an intricately carved wooden box and pulled out a deck of tarot cards. Walynda held them lovingly to her chest, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. After a few moments, she began shuffling them.

“Think of a question while I shuffle, and keep thinking of it as I lay out the spread.”

A question? How about ten?
Arie tried to narrow it down, but she was nervous, and it was hard to prioritize from the multitude of questions swirling in her mind.

Walynda set out five cards: three side by side in a line, then one above and one below the middle card. The images were brightly colored, a jumbled mix of yellows and blues and reds. She placed a sixth card crosswise over the center card.

“Don’t stop thinking of your question,” she trilled. To the left of the arrangement, she added another row—vertical this time—of four.

“All right now. Here we go.”

Walynda took a moment to study the cards, then suddenly stiffened and swept them up With a phony laugh, she said, “Whoops. You’re supposed to shuffle, not me.” As she handed the deck across the table to Arie, her hands shook so hard her rings sounded like castanets.

Arie accepted them warily and shuffled them a few times. They were bigger than usual playing cards and kept slipping through her fingers. The pictures were both interesting and a little frightening, so she turned them face down.

“Do you want me to lay them out?”

“Yes, dear. Just the way I showed you.”

Arie laid them out exactly as Walynda had. Not only was the layout the same, as far as Arie could tell, so were the cards. Exactly the same.

“Holy crap,” Walynda said in a very nonlilty voice. Out of the corner of her eye, Arie saw Chandra taking frantic notes.

“Is that supposed to happen?” Arie asked. The other two exchanged glances that fully answered Arie’s question.

Swallowing hard, she gathered the cards again, carefully shuffled for several minutes, spread them out.

Exact. Same. Cards.

The same reaction, too, as all three women gasped and pulled back from the table. Walynda swept her hand across the cards, blurring their order, then picked them up and stuffed them back in the wooden box. She stood so abruptly her chair rocked back and almost fell over.