The Prophet

Chapter Thirty-Four

“It’s just a draft,” Devlin said. “Someone probably opened the front door.”

I sat there shivering in the lamplight. It wasn’t just a draft. I could feel a death chill seeping down into my bones. Darius was coming. Or was it Mariama?

“Can’t you feel it?” I whispered.

“Feel what?”

“The cold. It’s like an icy breath.”

“I don’t feel anything.”

He was lying. I could see it in his eyes. He knew something was in that room with us. He just didn’t want to admit it.

I watched a large beetle crawl down the wall and disappear into a crack in the plaster.

“There are things in this world that can’t be explained,” I said. “You must know that. Why else would you have taken gray dust?”

He glanced away. “I already told you. I was desperate that night. Out of my mind with grief.”

“I think you’ve tried to convince yourself of that for a very long time. But when you lost Shani, you retreated back into your belief in the supernatural. You never would have gone to see Dr. Shaw or Darius unless there was some part of you that still believed you could contact the other side.”

He looked shattered for a moment, but the mask slipped quickly back into place. “Why are you doing this?”

“I have to make you open your eyes.”

“To what?”

I took the medallion from his hand. “You can’t fight Darius with this. The Order can’t help you. You have to accept what he’s capable of so you can be on guard. So you can find a way to protect yourself.”

“And just what do you think he’s capable of?”

“I have no idea,” I said with a shudder. “But I have a feeling we’re about to find out.”

Isabel drove me home a little while later. Clementine had already left, and Devlin was still of the mind that it would be best if we weren’t seen together. I could only shake my head at his stubbornness. Darius already knew about me. He’d come to me in a dream. He’d trapped that beetle in Gerrity’s office so that I would find it, and he’d been there tonight at Isabel’s. He would come to me again. Of that I was certain. I just didn’t know when or how. Or what he ultimately wanted.

So I had accepted Isabel’s offer of a ride because it seemed easier to acquiesce than to come up with a suitable excuse.

We rode in silence for a few minutes until I finally got up enough nerve to broach the subject of Devlin.

“How long have you known John?”

She gave me an enigmatic glance. “We go back a long way.”

“Really?” I wished that I could relax in her company, but she was so much more reserved than Clementine. I wondered if her cordial facade masked some resentment toward me, but she was probably a far better person than I. “He’s lucky he could come to you for help tonight.”

“I’m just glad all those years of med school could be put to some use.”

“Why did you leave medicine?”

She shrugged. “I like helping people, but being a doctor wasn’t for me. It may sound strange, but I found it limiting. So I decided to follow my grandmother into chiromancy.”

“That’s quite a leap.”

“It was the right decision for me. I would have been miserable otherwise, and I’m good at what I do.”

She turned back to the road, and I covertly studied her profile. She was a gorgeous woman, but hers was a cool, remote beauty whereas Mariama’s had been fiery and exotic. Comparatively speaking, I felt a bit of a mouse. I had always thought of myself as a quiet pretty. A blue-eyed blonde with a clear complexion and a nice smile. Thin and fit from my years of working in cemeteries, but there was nothing extraordinary about me at all. Except that I saw ghosts.

“How did you meet?” I asked.

She took a moment to answer. “I killed someone. John was assigned the case.”

I stared at her in astonishment, my mind conjuring an image. Her hands, covered in blood, clutching a dripping knife. I felt my own fingers curl around the armrest. “That’s…quite a meeting.”

“Hardly the stuff of fantasies,” she agreed. “It was a very difficult time for my family. John was a saint. I hate to think what would have happened if another detective had shown up at our house that night.”

“What did happen? Or should I not ask?”

“I don’t mind you knowing. I would be curious, too, if I were in your place.”

My place?

“The victim—if one could call him that—was Clementine’s husband. It was a matter of me killing him before he killed her.”

“He was abusive?”

“We didn’t know for a long time. She hid it well. She married young against all our wishes and when things got bad, she was ashamed to come to us. It finally escalated to the point where she had to leave him. But he wouldn’t let her go. They never do. At first it was phone calls and emails. Then he started showing up at her work and at home, leaving little notes for her to find, all scented with her perfume.”

“That’s why she doesn’t wear it anymore,” I said.

“Despite all the precautions we took, he was able to get inside the house, into her bedroom. The police were useless because he was very careful about not getting caught. He knew our habits, our schedules, how to deactivate the alarm system. The love notes turned into threats. We were all terrified that it would end badly. And, of course, it did.”

I was thinking about something else Clementine had said. She hated to think that anyone could come back from the dead. No wonder the notion of ghosts terrified her.

“We were both living with Grandmother at the time,” Isabel said. “I came home one night to find him in the house. He’d cornered my sister with a knife, still insisting that he loved her, that he would do anything to win her back. All he wanted was another chance. On and on like that. When I saw how helpless she was—how helpless she’d been during that whole relationship—something snapped. I could have called 911 or even a neighbor for help. But I knew that, even if we managed to stop him that time, he would be back. He would keep coming back until one or both of them ended up dead. So I got my grandfather’s gun and I shot him.”

“But surely that would be considered justifiable homicide,” I said.

“I wasn’t the only one who shot him, you see.”

“What do you mean?”

“Clementine took the gun from my hand and emptied the chamber in him. I believe the term is overkill,” Isabel murmured.

I couldn’t quite reconcile that harsh description with the soft loveliness of Clementine Perilloux. “I thought you said you killed him.”

“I guess that depends on whether or not he died from the first bullet,” she said.

I was still gripping the armrest. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because there’s a bond between John and my family…between John and me that is never going away.”

“I…see.”

Her glance, I thought, was defiant. “He took care of us. He made everything go away, and my sister was able to get the help she needed. It took years of therapy and confinement, but she’s finally ready to move on with her life.”

“Confinement?”

“In a psychiatric hospital.”

“I see.” I remembered my breakfast with Clementine—the trembling hands, those odd hesitations, her determination to stand on her own two feet. It all made sense now. “How did John make everything go away?”

“The D.A. never brought charges even though he was under considerable pressure to do so. That was John’s doing.”

I was shivering a little because I didn’t like where this conversation had been or where it was likely headed.

“It’s important for you to understand how close we are,” she said, and I wondered if there might not be a hint of madness in her eyes. “I would do anything for him. If anyone ever tried to hurt him, I don’t know what I would do.”

I said nothing, lest I set her off.

She sent me another bold look, and then her expression softened unexpectedly. “But it is just friendship. Nothing more. And that’s what I wanted you to know.”

I wasn’t sure I believed her entirely, but I also thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie. “Did you know Mariama?”

She inhaled sharply. “She was a very powerful, very beautiful woman, but she was evil through and through.”

“Evil is a strong word.”

“I don’t use it lightly. She could be utterly charming when she wanted or needed to be, but she wasn’t above using a young woman’s mental frailty to her advantage.”

“What do you mean?”

“She drew Clementine into her mind games. My sister was very vulnerable as you can imagine and she adored Shani. She had no idea she was being used. I don’t want to go into detail, but suffice to say, Mariama made John’s life a living hell.”

“Because of her affair with Robert Fremont?”

She turned in surprise. “You know about that?”

“John told me.”

She shrugged. “By then, I don’t think he even cared. He would have been well rid of her. What he did care about was his daughter. He lived in fear that Mariama would run off to Africa with her again and disappear for good. Or worse.”

“Worse?”

“Why do you think he didn’t leave her?” Isabel’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “He was afraid she would take her revenge out on Shani.”

I stared incredulously. “Her own daughter?”

“No one was sacred to Mariama.”

But her own child. I could hardly comprehend it.

I thought about that night at Devlin’s house when Shani had appeared at my side. The moment Mariama put out her arms, the little ghost had vanished, as if she was afraid of her mother’s spirit.

“John cares about you,” Isabel said. “I think he may be falling in love with you. If Mariama was still around, I’d be worried for your safety. So I’m glad she’s gone. I’m glad she can’t hurt you or anyone else from the grave.”

If only that were true. But I had a terrible feeling that Mariama was more dangerous to me dead than she ever would have been alive.

The moment I walked into my house, I felt the cold. The bone-frost of an otherworldly visitor.

I walked slowly down the hall, calling to Angus. He came at once, and when I reached down to give him a pat, I noticed that his fur was icy and bristled.

I’d left the kitchen light on, and it spilled into my office where the chill seemed to be concentrated. I moved to the door, hovering there for the longest time before I gathered the courage to enter.

Shani sat cross-legged on the floor inside my office—inside my sanctuary—surrounded by a shimmering aura that cast her in the palest glow.

As I stepped into the room, she looked up, dark eyes shining in that strange light.

“Will you help me?”

She spoke aloud this time. I was certain of it. Or maybe I could no longer distinguish between reality and the world that existed only in my head.

My teeth chattered from the cold. I pulled my jacket tightly around me as I stared down at her. “Yes, I’ll help you.”

She held out her hand, and I saw the glitter of a tiny garnet ring on her finger. It was the same ring she’d once left in my backyard. I’d taken it to her grave because Papa had told me I should get rid of it. It was the only way to get rid of her.

Obviously, Papa had been wrong.

I knelt in front of her. “What should I do?”

Already, she was starting to fade. “Come find me,” she said, her words echoing as though spoken from the bottom of a very deep well. “Come find me, Amelia.”

I put out a hand to her. She slipped off the ring and placed it gently in my palm. And then she vanished.