One

February, 1975

Kansas City, Missouri

  

“You are surrounded by death.”

Oh dear Lord. Libba’s “medium” sat on one side of a small table. I sat on the other. I tugged against her vice-like grip on my hand.

When Libba had said “medium,” I’d imagined a woman in a turban (royal purple or turquoise) and long, flowing robes who was surrounded by the scent of patchouli. Someone who spoke with a foreign accent. The reality was an older woman with a surprisingly strong grip, wispy white hair, creped skin, liver spots, and fire engine red lipstick that had bled into the wrinkles surrounding her mouth. As for that accent—pure Brooklyn.

“You cannot fight your fate.” Madame Reyna stared at my trapped palm through rhinestone-speckled cat glasses as thick as Coke bottles. Those glasses made her eyes appear ten times larger than they actually were. Those eyes, dark and enormous, lent her an otherworldly air completely at odds with our surroundings—a gold brocade living room set covered with plastic slip covers, deep, recently raked shag carpet, macramé wall hangings, and a corduroy chair the size of Maryland. Dust motes waltzed through the half-hearted sunshine peeking through the curtains. The lingering scent of a late breakfast—bacon and fried eggs by the smell of it—hung in the air. Suburbia, not supernatural.

Again I pulled at my hand.

Madame Reyna held on. She leaned forward, peered more closely through her Coke-bottle glasses, and tsked. “So much death.”

I shot Libba a look that should have killed her.

It didn’t.

Instead, she perched on the edge of the plastic-covered couch like a curious robin, immune to my murderous glare.

Madame Reyna tsked again.

This was Libba’s fault. She’d dragged me here, not kicking and screaming but almost.

“Everyone is going to her,” she’d wheedled.

“No.”

“She’s the real deal, Ellison.”

“No.”

“She says Henry wants to communicate with you.” Henry was my late husband.

“I don’t want to communicate with him.” Then, in case I’d been unclear, I added, “I’m not going.”

Yet, here I sat.

Libba was nothing if not persuasive.

I shifted my gaze to Madame Reyna. Weren’t mediums supposed to commune with the dead? Why was this one reading my palm? Again, I tugged at my hand.

This time, she released me. “Your late husband has spoken to me.”

I offered up a sympathetic sigh. My life was much better now that Henry, a cheating, lying, barnacle-on-the-ass-of-humanity type of man, no longer spoke to me.

“Don’t you want to know what he said?”

“Not particularly.”

“I do,” Libba chirped.

Madame Reyna’s dark gaze traveled between Libba and me. I could almost see the cogs working in her medium’s brain. Libba was hooked. A true believer. A rich true believer.

“He says that Mrs. Russell will find death.”

“Poo,” said Libba, unimpressed. “For a while there, Ellison was finding death every week.”

Some people found pennies in parking lots. I found bodies. And not just in parking lots. I found bodies everywhere. But I’d made a New Year’s resolution. No more bodies. Eight weeks into the new year, my resolution held firm. Not a single body. Not one. I wrinkled my nose and stuck my tongue out at Libba.

No, I didn’t.

But I wanted to.

“He says she will find death again. Soon.”

I rolled my eyes with elegance and aplomb. Watching Grace, my sixteen-year-old daughter, roll her baby blues has made me an expert.

Madame Reyna reached across the table and re-trapped my hand. “He says your daughter will be in danger and that salvation is in the safe.”

My organs seized. Froze. No air in the lungs. No beat of the heart. No blink of the eyes. Grace in danger? Almost as worrisome, how could the woman across from me know anything about the contents of our safe?

“That’s not amusing.” There was a decided chill in Libba’s voice. “Not remotely.”

I didn’t believe in mediums or fortune-tellers or any such hokum. I remembered that and my organs resumed operations. “What are you talking about?”

Madame Reyna closed her eyes for ten, maybe twenty, infinitely long seconds. “The spirit has gone. I can give you no other answer today.”

Translation—I’d have to return to her ranch-style house and cross her palm with more silver if I wanted an answer.

I pushed away from the table.

“Wait!” she cried.

I paused.

“I saw something in your palm.”

“Oh, please.” My purse hung over the back of the chair. I picked it up and slung it over my shoulder.

“It’s important.”

I raised a brow. Slowly. The effect was one of mild disdain. I was an ace at that expression, too. A lifetime of watching Mother raise her brow in extreme disdain had made me an expert.

“There is a man.”

“Isn’t there always.” The way Libba said it, it wasn’t a question.

“You have met the One and let him go.”

“Just wait a few days, Ellison. Another One will come along before you know it.” That was how things worked for Libba.

Madame Reyna glared at Libba. With the size of her eyes multiplied by ten due to her glasses, it was an impressive glare. A glare she transferred to my blameless palm. “You’ve let the One go but Mr. Right is still coming.”

Libba lowered her chin and regarded Madame Reyna with frank disbelief. “A second soul mate? You mean marriage?”

Sean Connery could show up at Libba’s door with a three-carat diamond, a marriage license, and deeds to his condo in Vail, house in Lyford Quay, and villa in Tuscany, and Libba would tell him she wasn’t ready for a commitment. She had too much fun being single.

I too would send Sean Connery packing. But not because I enjoyed being single. I would send the Scotsman away because the mere thought of a commitment turned my toes to popsicles. “I’m not interested.”

Madame Reyna’s crimson lips thinned. “You are foolish.”

Well! Insulting her customers was hardly the way to win repeat business.

“This relationship has the power to transform your life.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted my life transformed. What’s more, the man who might have transformed said life had walked out of my house (and life) eight weeks ago without looking back. “Not interested.” Nor was I interested in a new Mr. Right.

The medium rolled her eyes.

Was there a Mr. Reyna? If so, did his wife complain about her clients over cocktails? Two society women came in today. One didn’t believe in me at all. The other mocked the idea of soul mates. I charged them double.

“Ellison, we should be going.” Libba stared pointedly at her watch.

I wasn’t about to argue.

“You’ll be back.” Madame Reyna looked almost smug.

Not likely. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

Libba and I stepped out into late February chill. The sun played hide and seek with scudding clouds and lost. Both of us pulled the collars of our coats tighter around our necks.

“I’m sorry about that.” Libba jerked her chin toward the little ranch house and the medium inside.

“Don’t worry about it. You had no idea she’d make up stuff about Grace being in danger.”

“Still, I’m sorry.” She actually sounded contrite.

“Grace is fine.” I would not worry based on the warning of a bogus medium.

We walked toward our cars with our shoulders hunched against the cold, our hands jammed in our pockets, and our heads down spotting the slick spots on the sidewalk.

“You could call him.” Libba’s voice was soft, quiet, almost tentative.

Him. Detective Anarchy Jones. The One. “When pigs fly.”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be this stubborn.”

Just because I gave in on things like visiting mediums or extending curfews didn’t mean I couldn’t dig my heels in. “Pfft.”

“Seriously.” Libba laid a gloved hand on my arm, stopping me. “You’ve changed.”

Finding your husband murdered then finding umpteen other bodies will do that to a woman. “I had to.”

“He’s a good man.”

“I know.”

“He cares about you.”

“You know why he’s mad at me?”

“I do.”

Of course she did, I’d told her at least fifty times. Some of those tellings blurred by wine, some sharpened by coffee.

“You know what I did?”

“I do.” Libba let go of my arm and resumed walking.

I followed her. “If I had to do it all again—”

Libba held up her hands halting my words. “I know, I know. You’d still do almost exactly the same thing.”

Perhaps I’d been a little boring on the subject. “You’ve been a good friend to listen to the same story so many times.” Maybe I’d been a lot boring. “Never again. I promise. You won’t hear me even mention the name Anarchy Jones.” I traced an X over my heart.

Libba pulled her keys out of her handbag and shivered as a gust of wind buffeted against us. “Don’t be silly. I’m happy to listen.”

“I mean it Libba.”

“If you say so.” Was that a lilt in her voice? She glanced again at Madame Reyna’s snug little house. “I’m not one to give advice, but—”

I refrained from comment. Barely.

“Either let this go—him, the anger, and all the other feelings—or fix it.” She circled her car and opened the driver’s side door. “I’ll talk to you later. Toodles.”

“Toodles.” My voice lacked her verve. Mainly because she was right. Retelling (and retelling) my falling out with Anarchy was a way of holding on.

With a sigh, I settled into my car and started the engine. I sat for a moment, letting the engine warm and replaying Madame Reyna’s words—you have met the One and let him go. The time had come to do just that—let Anarchy Jones go.

I drove toward home, my mind not on the road. Barry Manilow crooned “Mandy.” I turned up the radio over the sound of the heat blasting. I touched my lips, remembering Anarchy’s kiss. I dug in my purse for a tissue. Maybe that’s why I didn’t see her. Then again, she dashed out from between two parked cars. I slammed on the brakes. The tires screeched. The car slowed. Not fast enough.

The sickening thud of my front bumper meeting a human being reverberated through me. I threw the car into park and leapt out of my seat. “Are you all right?”

Of course she wasn’t. I’d hit her.

The girl sat on the cold pavement looking dazed.

“Where are you hurt?” I demanded. And what was she doing outside without a coat? And why wasn’t she in school?

She shook her head. “I’m not hurt. You weren’t going very fast.”

I’d hit her. With a car. Granted the car was a TR6 and not a Cadillac Fleetwood, but I’d still hit her. “Did you hit your head?”

“No.” She glanced down at the cold pavement. “I landed on my bottom. I’m fine.” She offered me a smile as if the curve of her lips could prove that all was well.

“Let me help you up.” I extended a hand.

She stared at the navy leather of my glove for a few seconds before she accepted.

I pulled her to standing.

She was tiny with dark hair and a pixie face. Maybe fourteen. Possibly fifteen. A gamine.

“Shall we try and find a phone?” I asked.

“A phone?”

“To call the police. We need to file a report.”

“No!” Her hands—no gloves—flew to her cheeks. “There’s no need to file a report.” Her words tumbled over each other in their hurry. “I told you, I’m fine. Let’s just pretend this never happened.”

“It did happen.”

“But I’m fine. See?” She danced a little jig on the pavement. “Fine.”

I remained unconvinced. “What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you in school?”

She glanced over her shoulder as if she expected to find a truant officer lurking behind her. “I skipped.”

Obviously. I waited. Silence was one of the tools Mother used on me in my youth. In turn, I’ve used it with Grace. People—especially teenage people—didn’t like silence. They felt the need to fill it. And sometimes, they said more than they should.

The silence stretched.

“I skipped school and went to my boyfriend’s house.”

That didn’t explain why she was wandering the streets in nothing but a pair of jeans and a sweater. “And?”

“And we had a fight.” She glanced at the cold pavement and shifted her feet. “I ran away.”

“Did he hurt you?”

Her face shuttered. I’d asked a question she didn’t like. “Of course not.”

I didn’t believe her. I lived with a teenager. I could spot a lie at ten paces. “Get in the car, I’ll take you home.”

“No. I don’t know you.”

I raised a brow.

“My mother told me never to get in the car with a stranger.”

“I’m Ellison Russell. What’s your name?”

“Leslie.” No last name.

“Leslie?”

“Smith.” She’d told me another lie.

“Well, Leslie Smith, we’re not strangers anymore.”

That earned me an eye roll.

“I can’t leave you out here in the cold with no coat. Besides, the car is warm.”

Leslie shivered and glanced longingly at the car. “I live close by. I can walk.”

“Where does your boyfriend live? Let’s get your coat.”

“No!” Dogs started barking at the pitch of her voice. “We had a fight.” She rubbed her cheek. “I’m not going back there.”

She looked away. Her sullen expression told me silence wouldn’t work this time.

“I’ll go with you,” I offered.

“I’m not going back there.”

“Then let me take you home.”

“I’m fine.”

She wasn’t fine. She was freezing. And probably bruised from my bumper. And definitely bruised from whatever had transpired at her boyfriend’s house. “Please, Leslie. Let me take you home.”

“No.” She crossed her arms and shivered.

Too bad I couldn’t force her into the car. “Take my coat.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

I shrugged out of my pea coat; I’d had it for years and it had seen better days but it was warm. “Put this on.”

“I couldn’t.” Her teeth chattered.

“You can. You’re freezing.” Now that I was without a coat, I understood just how cold she was. The wind cut through my heavy sweater as if I was wearing gauze and not four-ply cashmere. “I’m not leaving you here unless you take it.”

“But—”

I held out the wool jacket and shook it until its sleeves danced. “No buts. Take the coat.”

She took the coat. She slipped her arms in the sleeves and wrapped the front tight across her body. “Thank you.”

“Gloves, too.” I peeled my gloves off my hands and thrust them at her.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I have a daughter a little bit older than you. If she was wandering the streets without a coat, I’d want someone to help her.”

Leslie wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and accepted the gloves. “I’ll return them. I promise. Where do you live?”

“I’ll give you my address.” I reached into the car, grabbed my purse, found an old Swanson’s receipt, and jotted my name and address on the back.

She took the slip of paper and thrust it deep into the coat pocket. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You’re sure I can’t take you home?”

An expression—sadness mixed with longing—flitted across her face. “I’m sure.”

“I can take you someplace else.”

“You’re still a stranger.”

True.

“You’re positive you’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine.” She sounded almost exasperated and glanced over her shoulder as if she was still expecting the truant officer.

The wind cut through my sweater and the warmth of the car beckoned.

“Thank you for lending me your coat.”

“Keep it.”

“You’re very kind.” She sounded surprised, as if kindness was foreign to her. “Your daughter is lucky.” Then Leslie turned her back on me and walked away. The opposite direction from which my car was pointed.

I watched her for a few seconds then hurried into the warmth of the car.

I drove three blocks. Was she really okay? Maybe I should follow her home. I reversed directions and backtracked. I drove past the spot where I’d hit her. She was nowhere in sight. I cruised the next few blocks but didn’t spot her. Leslie Smith had disappeared.