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When the camera pulled back, I saw that she was walking through an audience with a mike clipped to her blouse, and revised my assessment. An infomercial. No one smiled that much unless they were selling something. From the way she was working the crowd, it almost looked like a religious revival. I caught a few sentences and realized she was selling a different kind of spiritual reassurance.
"I'm getting an older male," the woman said. "Like a father figure, but not your father. An uncle, maybe a family friend."
"Oh, please," I said. "How can you watch this crap?"
"It's not crap," Savannah said. "This is Jaime Vegas. She's the best."
"It's a con, Savannah. A trick."
"No, it's not. She can really talk to the dead. There's this other guy who does it, but Jaime's way better."
A commercial came on. Savannah picked up the remote and fast-forwarded.
"You have it on tape?" I said.
"Sure. Jaime doesn't have her own TV show. She says she prefers traveling around, meeting people, but The Keni Bales Show has her on every month and I tape it."
"How long have you been doing this?"
She shrugged.
"Oh, hon," I said, walking into the room. "It's a con job, don't you see that? Listen to her. She's making guesses so fast that no one notices when she's wrong. The questions are so open--did you hear that last one? She said she has a message from someone who had a brother die in the past few years. What's the chance that nobody in the audience has recently lost a brother?"
"You don't get it."
"Only a necromancer can contact the afterworld, Savannah."
"I bet we could do it if we tried." She turned to look at me. "Haven't you ever thought of it? Contacting your mother?"
"Necromancy doesn't work like that. You can't just dial up the dead."
I walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone. Lucas Cortez's visit had one positive outcome, in that it reminded me about my Cabal questions, which reminded me that Robert hadn't returned my call.
It wasn't like Robert not to call back, so when I made the rounds again--phoning his house, phoning his office, checking my E-mail--and got no response, I began to worry. It was now nearly four, so I phoned Adam's work again, though I doubted the campus bar would be open in the afternoon. Silly me. Of course it was.
When I spoke to one of the servers, I learned that Adam was away for the week. At some conference, she said. Which sparked a memory flash and a big, mental "duh!" I returned to my computer and checked my recent E-mail, finding one from two weeks ago in which Adam mentioned going with his parents to a conference on the role of glossolalia in the Charismatic movement. Not that Adam gave a damn about Charismatics or glossolalia (A.K.A. "speaking in tongues"), but the conference was being held in Maui, which had more than its share of attractions for a twenty-four-year-old guy. The dates of the conference: June 12 to 18. Today was June 16.
I thought about tracking them down in Maui. Neither Robert nor Adam carried a cell phone--Robert didn't believe in them and Adam's service had been disconnected after he'd failed to pay yet another whopping bill. To contact them, I'd need to phone the conference in Hawaii and leave a message. The more I thought about this, the more foolish I felt. Robert would be home in two days. I'd hate to sound like I was panicking. This wasn't critical information, only background. It could wait.
Lucas Cortez's visit had, in fact, prompted me to remember two things I needed to do. Besides contacting Robert, I needed to line up a lawyer. Though I hadn't heard back from the police, and doubted I would, I really should have a lawyer's name at hand, in case the need arose.
I called the Boston lawyer who handled my business legal matters. Though she did only commercial work, she should be able to provide me with the names of other lawyers who could handle either a custody or criminal case. Since it was Saturday, there was no one in the office, so I left a detailed message, asking if she could call me Monday with a recommendation.
Then I headed to the kitchen, grabbed a cookbook, and looked for something interesting to make for dinner. As I pored over the possibilities, Savannah walked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass from the cupboard, and poured some milk. The cupboard creaked open. A bag rustled.
"No cookies this late," I said. "Dinner's in thirty minutes."
"Thirty minutes? I can't wait--" She stopped. "Uh, Paige?"
"Hmmm?" I glanced up from my book to see her peering out the kitchen door, through to the living room window.
"Are there supposed to be people camped out on our front lawn?"
I leaned over to look through the window, then slammed the cookbook closed and strode to the front door.
CHAPTER 10
HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A
