I moved toward Hannah. Kayla followed closely behind. We managed to filter through the crowd. Hannah looked up and saw me. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and rocked back and forth as if she were trying to hold herself together.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “I opened myself up to do some readings and I became so nauseous. This has never happened to me before.” Hannah continued to rock. “I had to shut down. It was too much.”
“He’s standing behind you,” Kayla said. “He’s smiling.”
Hannah’s eyes found Kayla’s face. “Who?” she asked.
“Leland Hayes.”
Hannah studied the younger woman for a few beats.
“You can see him?” she asked.
“Yes. Can’t you?”
“I don’t want to see him. It hurts too much.”
Hannah took a deep breath as she uncurled herself until she was sitting straight. She continued to study Kayla’s face as if searching for an answer to an unspoken question.
“What does he look like?” she asked.
“He has half a head.”
“How do you communicate?”
“Words and pictures.”
“Not feelings?”
“No.”
“You’re lucky.” Hannah began rubbing her temples. “That hurts. What’s he saying?”
“Nothing. He’s just smiling. Now he’s leaving. He’s … He’s gone.”
“I don’t think he came from the other side. I think he’s earthbound.”
“So do I.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Kayla Janas. I attended your lecture. I wish I could turn it on and off, like you do. I’ve never been able to.”
“I try to stay in normal mode most of the time, because mediumship is extremely draining and sometimes I get physically sick if I stay open all the time,” Hannah said. “I’ve learned how to set clear boundaries with the other side. You can, too.”
All the while the cameras rolled. The director whispered into the ear of the man holding his camera on Kayla, and he nodded and moved slightly to his right. Next he whispered to the man holding the boom mics over Hannah’s and Kayla’s heads, and he nodded, too. He pushed past me and found a folding chair that he set in front of Hannah, again without speaking a word. Kayla must have received the message, though, because she sat down. A cameraman moved to his knees so he could shoot up at the two women.
“I screwed up,” Kayla said.
“It was you who told Ryan Hayes about Leland’s message, wasn’t it?”
“It didn’t occur to me to withhold it at the time.”
“That’s something else you can learn.”
A look of concern crossed Esti Braaten’s face as she realized that the entire exchange between her daughter and Kayla was being filmed.
“You need to rest,” she said.
Hannah glanced at her. Apparently mother and daughter had a private language, because she nodded in recognition and slowly stood up. So did Kayla. The cameras followed them.
“I don’t understand this,” I said. “Leland shouldn’t be here, should he? You told me that there almost always needs to be a personal connection to draw a spirit out.”
“That’s usually true,” Hannah said. “On the other hand, I’ve had spirits contact me hours before I’m supposed to do a reading, especially gallery readings. That’s why I always have a driver. Some of the spirits, they’ll ride in the car with me.”
“Yes, but the spirits are connected to the people you’re going to read. Or am I mistaken?”
“No, you’re not mistaken.”
“So why is Leland here?” I asked.
Part of the answer came from a few booths down. The two male psychic mediums who were working together began to speak in loud voices.
“McKenzie,” they said. “Is there a McKenzie here?”
The female psychic medium who was blessed with insight of intuition, clairvoyant, clairsentient, and clairaudient abilities asked the same thing. “McKenzie?”
The psychic medium with five-star integrity gripped her head in the same way that Hannah had and called my name as if it caused her pain.
The woman whose reputation everyone was supposed to know said the same thing, except instead of sounding like someone in pain, she seemed to be attempting to locate the owner of a freshly brewed café mocha. “McKenzie, please.”
Not all of the mediums were chanting my name, however. Most of them seemed as puzzled as I was.
Festival-goers began talking to themselves, confused looks on their faces. Some of them repeated my name as if saying it out loud would bring clarity.
The director of the film crew spun in a circle, looking above the heads of the festival-goers as if the answer could be found in the distance.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
My name echoed through the ballroom.
“Who the hell is McKenzie?”
I found Esti’s terror-stricken face. I don’t know why I laughed, yet I did.
“This is nuts,” I said.
“Who’s McKenzie?” the director asked again.
I had no intention of answering. Unfortunately, Hannah, Kayla, and Esti were all focused on me, and the director took a chance.
“Are you McKenzie?” he asked.
“I’m going to take off,” I said.
The director grabbed my arm. “No, you’re not,” he said.
I looked down at his hands and then up at him. “Don’t do that,” I said.
He must have heard something in my voice that resonated, because he released me and took a step backward. The cameramen weren’t as easily intimidated, however. They continued to point their cameras at me.
“It’s possible that Leland has attached himself to you,” Hannah said. “I’ve seen it before.” Hannah glanced at Kayla.
Kayla shook her head. “I don’t see him,” she said.
The other psychic mediums continued to ask for me. The director sent a camera out onto the ballroom floor to record them asking for me. Another filmed a wide shot of all of us; the third camera stayed close on Hannah.
“It’s possible Leland’s in hiding,” Hannah said.
“Why would he be hiding?” I asked.
“This place is crawling with ghostbusters. Someone might decide to take him on.”
“Are you listening to yourself?”
Once again I was challenging Hannah, and she wasn’t happy about it. Neither was her mother. I expected some sort of retaliation, yet none came.
Esti continued to rub Hannah’s back.
“Why is this ghost contacting all of the other mediums?” the director asked. “What does he want?”
“Why don’t you go and ask them?” I said.
I was hoping the director would leave. Instead, he sent his producer, the young woman with the clipboard.
“I don’t think McKenzie is a negative person,” Kayla said. “He’s skeptical, that’s all.”
“I’ve noticed,” Hannah said.
“He wants to believe. He just can’t let himself do it.”
Hannah waved more or less at the entire festival and the psychic mediums chanting my name.
“Despite all the evidence right in front of him,” she said.
“You’ll notice I’m standing right here,” I said.
“I can’t help you if you don’t trust me.”
“What are you, Tinker Bell? I have to clap my hands to prove that I believe?”
Hannah glanced at the younger woman.
“I don’t know how to help him either,” Kayla said.
The producer returned and whispered into the director’s ear. The director repeated her words loudly enough for the festival-goers close to the booth to hear.
“A ghost is offering a reward to anyone who shoots McKenzie?” he said.
The crowd gasped.
“This is great,” the director said.
“I’m going home,” I said.
“No, no, no, no, no…” the director chanted.
“You know how to reach me if you need me,” Hannah said.
“Wait.” The director was clearly annoyed. “Let’s just wait a minute.”
Hannah turned toward Kayla. “Would you like to have lunch with my mother and me?”
“I don’t want to intrude,” Kayla said.
“We welcome your company. Don’t we, Mom?”
Esti didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
It was clear from Hannah’s tone that the invitation did not include the director and his crew.
“Ms. Braaten,” the director said, “we need to talk.”
I don’t know if he meant mother or daughter. It was mother who answered.
“Hannah needs to take a break,” Esti said. “We will return by one.”
“Wait a moment. We had an understanding.”
“One P.M.”
Hannah, Esti, and Kayla left the booth and moved toward the exit at the corner of the ballroom. I guessed that they would have lunch in the hotel’s restaurant.
I went toward the exit in the opposite direction while trying to ignore the gawking expressions of the festival-goers as I moved past them. I had no doubt they thought the entire scene was well worth the twelve dollars they paid at the door, ten in advance.
The director stood in the booth behind me, surrounded by his crew and their equipment.
“This is so unprofessional,” he said.
I moved through the ballroom, across the crowded lobby, and into the parking lot that wasn’t crowded at all. I headed for my car. Two young men and a woman followed me. I was nearly halfway to my car when I turned to challenge them. Probably that was a foolish thing to do; if it had been just the two men, I wouldn’t have done it. The girl, though, made me think they were more curious than confrontational.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
They halted about ten yards short of me. The hands of the two men were empty. One was wearing gloves; the other was not. The woman was carrying a large bag over her shoulder. She was holding the strap with one hand, but her other hand was inside the bag.
My inner voice said, When are you going to learn that women are just as dangerous as men?
“Are you McKenzie?” the taller of the two men asked.
“Yes.”
The woman removed her hand from her bag. She was holding a cell phone.
Lucky you.
“May I take your photograph?” she asked.
“No.”
“Please. I’m taking a sixteen-week class, Psychic Spiritual Development. Next week we’re doing a section on reading photographs.”
“What does that mean?”
“Energy is captured in a photograph, and this energy can reveal secrets about you to those people who know how to read it, and I thought, given what just happened in there, I would really like to try to read yours.”
“No,” I said.
The woman seemed disappointed by my response. Her two friends seemed like they were willing to make an issue of it.
“Are you sure that’s all you wanted?” I asked.
The two young men glanced at each other.
“I have a question for you,” I said. “Assuming you’re foolish enough to believe what those mediums were saying about me, how are you going to collect the money? Are you going to find a psychic to dial up the spirit of the dead man? And then what? Confess to committing murder and demand the dead man pay up? What if he doesn’t? What are you going to do? Threaten his life? Oh, wait.”
“We didn’t mean nothing,” the taller man said.
“The lady just wanted to take your pic,” the shorter man said.
I was paying so much attention to the two men that I didn’t notice the woman bring her cell up and snap my photo until I heard the metallic sound that her phone made.
“Thank you,” she said.
I shook my head at her audacity. Normally I would have admired it. Instead, I spun around and stomped off toward the Mustang. A quick glance over my shoulder told me that the trio was no longer following me.
When I reached the car, I popped the trunk, retrieved the SIG, and hung it on my belt behind my right hip even as my inner voice spoke to me.
Who are you planning to shoot? The girl with the cell phone? Her two friends? Leland Fucking Hayes? What you need is a crucifix. Some garlic. A mallet and a wooden stake.
I don’t know why I thought that was so funny, yet it made me laugh just the same—the idea that I would fight off Leland Hayes the way vampire hunters fought off Dracula, the way Peter Cushing went after Christopher Lee in all those great old Hammer movies.
“McKenzie,” I said aloud, “you need a plan.”