Chapter 19

I felt a tingling down my spine as Wilson and I entered the sunroom. Eli and Christina were seated as they had been before, in front of the window with their hair perfectly coiffed and faces painted like porcelain dolls. I reminded myself that while they had requested I come to them, these were luminaries, anything and everything they said and did would be for their own self-interests. Not Amy’s, and certainly not mine.

“Misty, dear, what a shame you missed all the excitement this morning.” Eli’s sing-song voice belied her sincerity. “A real row, if you will. When Amy heard the police had arrested Billy, she fell apart, right there on the kitchen floor. Like a rag doll.” Eli pointed a long, manicured finger in the direction of the kitchen counter. “And when the doctor found her, he tried to give her some pills, but she threw them in the sink and started screaming it was all her fault.”

Christina leaned forward. “And then, Dr. Conroy went berserk. Something snapped inside him, and he started to yell back.” Christina touched her head like the memory was too much for her. “Ugh. The things he said to that poor girl. He accused her of conspiring with Billy to kill Jared.”

Eli explained that Amy ran from the room, and the doctor chased after her. “It was such a racket. She slammed the door to the guest bedroom, and it echoed throughout the whole house. Heard it all the way down here. The doctor pounded on the door like a madman, begged her to let him in. When she wouldn’t answer, he started to sob like a child.” Eli clapped her hands together, the glee of the doctor’s tantrum written all over her rouged face.

“He told her he knew she was friends with Carlita.” Christina’s eyes widened and met mine. For a second, I could see Carlene in her mother’s expression. Her dark eyes and high-brow; the mother-daughter connection was undeniable.

“Which is true, isn’t it? Matthew told him. I heard him tell the doctor he saw Carlita with Amy at the Starbucks where Amy worked.”

My jaw dropped. Luminaries were usually so caught up with their own missions that they seldom concerned themselves with things that have happened since their passing. As a result, I didn’t think Christina had a clue about her daughter since she had left for college or even cared.

“Didn’t think I knew, did you?” Christina smiled. “Oh, come now, don’t deny it. I know you know Carlene’s my daughter, and that she changed her name and used to live here. I can read your mind.”

I should have known. Spirits have an advantage over mortals. They can read our minds, while we, on the other side of the veil, even psychics like myself, can’t begin to guess what they’re thinking.

I took a deep breath. “What about the doctor’s mind, have you read him as well?”

Eli rested her elbow on her knee and put her hand beneath her chin. “We could if the man was sound, but the doctor’s not a well man. His mind’s too addled for either of us to read. I suspect dementia.”

“Or perhaps he’s just riddled with guilt,” Christina giggled.

“Whatever.” Eli unfolded her arms and brushed her long fingers across her skirt. “He was once such a brilliant mind. Top of his field. Although, I suspect the cost of getting there was a little self-experimentation. Some of which might have caused his madness. However, he never was particularly well balanced to start with, but then I suppose most geniuses aren’t.”

Eli’s words were of no comfort to me. If she couldn’t read the doctor, there was no way I would be able to. Even if the doctor were to allow me to, it’s not possible for a psychic to read someone who was mentally unbalanced or suffering from dementia. Any hope I had of learning anything more about the doctor’s relationship with his son or about Jared’s murder wasn’t going to come from the doctor. I would have to find it on my own.

“However,” Eli said, “what you may find of interest, and one of the reasons we wanted to see you today, is that the doctor revised his will. Which, in the end, could be a very good thing.”

“For Amy?” I asked.

“For us all,” Eli said. “The doctor’s made special arrangements to transfer Jared’s trust and future inheritance to the baby, naming himself as the executor should anything unfortunate happen to Amy.”

I blinked, had I heard her correctly? Should anything unfortunate happen to Amy? Suddenly, Carlene’s fears, which up until now had felt more like paranoia, were starting to feel very real to me.

“Certainly, you’re not suggesting the doctor would do anything to hurt her?”

“More likely he intends to claim she would be an unfit mother,” Christina said. “That way he can leave whatever needs to be done to the courts. No reason for him to get his hands dirty.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “What proof would he have?”

“He wouldn’t need any if he could convince the court Amy had something to do with Jared’s death,” Eli added.

“But why would Amy murder Jared? She was about to be his wife. If she waited until after the wedding, she’d inherit everything.”

“Ahh, that’s where you’re wrong,” Eli said. “Jared had a trust, and as long as Amy was married to Jared, she was entitled to the proceeds of the trust, but nothing more. If she divorced Jared or he died, she’d get nothing.”

“And you think the doctor, in his very addled state, actually believes Amy might have killed his son?”

“Who knows what that man believes, he’s mental.” Christina took a nail file from within her robe and began to file her nails. “Knowing the doctor, he’ll try to convince the police Amy and Billy colluded—perhaps with Carlene—to have Amy marry Jared, and then cash in on Jared’s trust fund. But that at some point, Jared found out what they were up to and threatened to expose them. No doubt they killed Jared to shut him up and settled for the price of what that lovely engagement ring Jared gave Amy would bring.” Christina stopped filing her nails. “Whether it’s the truth or some variation of it, it feels close enough, don’t you think?”

I had to admit it was a story the doctor could easily spin to the police. While the facts were twisted, it was a little too close to the story Carlene had originally shared with me, and what I knew to be the truth.

Eli continued. “The reason we wanted to see you is we believe the doctor’s planning to take Amy’s baby and start over again. It’s all he’s been talking about ever since he learned Amy was pregnant. And now, with Jared out of the picture and Matthew as VP of Conroy Cosmetics, Elliott has both the time and the opportunity to do just that. Start over.”

“With Amy’s baby?” The idea that an old man, particularly an old man like the doctor, might think he could begin again was incredulous. Not only was he old and frail, he was insane.

“All he has to do is convince the police that the story I just told you is true,” Christina dropped her wrist and pointed the nail file at me.

“And he’s very good at convincing people,” Eli added.

I worried she was right.

“Where are Amy and the doctor now?” I asked.

“They’ve gone to visit Amy’s OB/GYN,” Eli said.

I jerked my head. I hadn’t expected that bit of news.

“What, did they kiss and makeup?”

“One might think so,” Eli said. “When the doctor collapsed outside Amy’s door, he changed his tune and pleaded with her to talk to him. He said that losing Jared had destroyed him, and he was a broken man. And Amy, being the sweet naïve young thing she is, opened the door and tried to comfort him.”

“Which is more than I would have done.” Christina started to file her nails again. “Stupid girl. She cuddled him in her arms and told him it would be all right. That she understood what he was going through. That they were both going through it.”

I could visualize the scene. Amy was a soft touch, no match for someone as sophisticated and duplicitous as the doctor.

“She asked if the doctor wanted to come with her to her OB appointment. Can you imagine? Amy comforting him, after what she’s been through? She told him she had called her OB after Jared died, and her OB told her to come by to do an ultrasound. She thought the doctor might like to go with her to hear the heartbeat.”

I glanced about the room. I could still feel the static energy from their argument that morning. It layered the air like the smell of something burnt, and with it, the subtle flow of dark energy. The luminaries were trying to telegraph me an idea.

“And what is it you want me to do?” I asked.

“What do you think?” With one hand, Eli circled her thin fingers in front of her, as though she might mix the air with her thoughts. “Certainly you must have some ideas of your own? Something that might, shall we say, save Amy from a fate worse than death?”

The luminaries chuckled.

I knew what Eli wanted. She had planted the thought in my head, and I couldn’t believe the words about to come out of my mouth.

“You want me to kill the doctor?”

Christina shrugged. “If not you, then I suppose we could ask Wilson.”

“No.” I stretched my arm out in front of Wilson, like a mother driving a car who had stopped too fast at a light. He wasn’t going anywhere, and he wasn’t going to kill the doctor. If Wilson were engaged in such an act, his fate would be sealed, and all my work to help convince the powers of the universe that he was more than just a lost soul would be for naught.

“You have to understand, Amy and the idea of the baby have become too much of a distraction.” Eli looked to Christina for verification, and her husband’s former paramour nodded dutifully. “Oh, it was fine before Jared passed. Amy wasn’t here, not in this house anyway, and certainly not full time. But now that the doctor’s insisted she move in, her presence is interfering with our plans.”

“I can’t believe you would ask such a thing. You’ve no idea who killed Jared, and you’ve no proof it was the doctor. None at all. What if it’s not?”

“Oh, please. Does it really matter?” Eli asked. “If Jared had been killed here, we’d know who killed him. But he wasn’t. As luminaries, our knowledge of the world is sealed to the confines of this house, and since we’re unable to leave until we’ve completed our mission here, we may never know. But the fact of the matter is, if the doctor did kill Jared, it wouldn’t be his first.”

Christina waved her hand. “Not at all. Believe me, I never accidentally fell off a ladder while stringing Christmas lights.”

“And I never overdosed on sleeping pills. Elliott mixed up my medications with a little something he said would help with my beauty sleep. Little did I know it was a sleep I’d never wake up from. So you see, if the doctor were to die now, it would all be very justifiable. Best of all, the will the doctor signed would transfer the house and everything in it to the baby with Amy as the baby’s executrix. We’d be gone with the doctor, and the house would be Amy’s. As a result, Amy and the baby would be taken care of as beneficiaries of the company for the rest of their lives. Kind of what people today call a win-win.” Eli smiled. “But if you wait—”

“I’m sorry.” I backed away, my hands in front of my face. “I can’t murder the doctor. It’s not what I do.”

“If it’s because you think you might be caught, there’s no reason anyone ever need to know. You could call the doctor, and suggest he come by for tea and a casual conversation about Amy. I happen to know he likes tea almost as much as you do.” Christina giggled, the idea of the doctor and me sitting down to tea appeared to tickle her.

“What Christina’s trying to say is, the doctor has a heart problem. You could slip a little something into his tea. There’s a prescription bottle of digitalis in his bathroom cabinet.”

“Or,” Christina volunteered, “if you’re into something a little more organic, the doctor grows foxglove out behind the garage. It’s a natural form of digitalis. Quite deadly and very difficult to detect. In fact, I believe it’s what the doctor may have given me.”

“No!” I said.