“They don’t. I’m retired. I used to work for Mickey. I came out of retirement a few days ago.”
“Because of the girls,” she said.
“Because of the girls,” he said. “Before we move forward, I think we should get an idea about your fees.”
“My fees are variable,” she said with a broad smile. “They vary between zero and zero. When it is a matter of life and death, I do not charge for my services.”
Mickey seemed embarrassed. “If we have good results, I will want to pay you.”
“You are a gentleman, Mikkel. I don’t need psychic abilities to see this. When someone wants my help to make money or find love, I will ask for a fee. But in a case such as yours, where your granddaughters were missing and where your son and his wife are still missing, I won’t take money. If you can simply cover my expenses, I will be more than happy.”
Marcus was half-expecting her to ask him about his own fees, but she sipped her coffee, adding more red to the stain on the rim.
“You are a gracious woman,” Mickey said.
Marcus wasn’t as convinced. She had to have an angle. Everybody had an angle. “How do you suggest we proceed?” he asked.
“Please take me to the girls,” she said.
“They’re not well,” Marcus said. “They’ve been through a lot and they need their rest. They’ve answered a lot of questions already.”
“I don’t need to ask them anything,” she said. “I simply need to be in their presence. Perhaps hold their hands.”
“And what happens?” Marcus asked testily. “You weren’t in their presence years ago when you wrote to Mickey about spaceships and gray men.”
“I don’t know the hows and whys of my visions,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ll tell you how it happened. During breakfast, I was watching a news show about the abductions—a short time after they occurred. Suddenly, I was no longer aware of the television. I was no longer aware of my kitchen, my flat, or any earthly space. I was floating above the dear girls. I remember how lovely and curly their hair looked. My mother used to keep my hair like their mother kept theirs. I saw them in a room that was as white and clean as a fresh snowstorm. I felt cold. Then I became very scared when two gray figures entered this white room. My mind told me that these were alien beings and that the girls were no longer on Earth, but in a spacecraft somewhere extremely far away. I couldn’t hear what the beings or the girls were saying but I saw the girls were frightened. The parents were not there. Then one of the aliens approached them with a long needle and the vision abruptly stopped. I had this vision only once. The next day I looked for Mikkel’s address online and wrote the letter. You never responded.”
Marcus continued drilling. “I don’t understand. If you had this vision by watching TV, why do you need to see them now?”
Her eagerness to answer suggested she wasn’t offended by his prickly tone. “Frankly, it’s quite unusual for me to have visions at a distance. Usually, my clients are in the same room. I feed off their energy and the visions come.”
Aliens, Marcus thought. More like bullshit. He didn’t know what the hell happened to Mickey’s family, but psychics going on about aliens wasn’t going to solve the mystery. He wanted to discredit—no, demolish her in front of Mickey and send her packing back to France.
“All right, let’s do a little test,” he said.
She responded with serenity. “I am completely at your service.”
Mickey fiddled with a small spoon, but didn’t intervene.
“Use your psychic powers to tell me about me,” Marcus said. “What do you see?”
She made no objection. She didn’t say she needed to be in a more private or quieter space. She simply nodded, slowly closed her eyes, and sat for an uncomfortably long time, gently rocking herself.
Finally, she opened her eyes and said to Marcus, “Now? In public?”
Marcus said, “I’m an open book.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But as you wish. An image came to me, very powerfully. You were standing at a place I couldn’t quite fathom. There was some sort of a ceremony. You were surrounded by many, many people who were crying. There was a deep hole in the ground and you were staring into it. You were wishing you were in that hole. That’s what I saw.”
Anger welled up. He knew that image. He had looked into that grave. He had wanted to fling himself into it. He said nothing. As the seconds passed, he was aware that Mickey was staring at him, waiting for some kind of response, so he said, “Was that parlor trick supposed to impress me?”
“It wasn’t a parlor trick,” she said, evenly.
“So what? I’ve been to funerals. Who hasn’t? Let’s talk about the girls, Miss Bobier.”
“Celeste,” she said, her lips pressed into a wry little smile.
“You can’t see them right away. Their doctors are getting them ready to be moved.”
“Moved? Where?”
“To Rome,” Mickey said. “I’m having them sent to a specialist hospital tomorrow morning.”
“They are very sick?” she asked. “What that journalist said at the press conference is true?”
“I’m afraid so,” Mickey said. “You’re welcome to come with us to Rome. I’ll have a hotel room reserved for you.”
“Then, please, take me to the house where they were abducted.”
“Why?” Marcus asked.
“You do want to find Mikkel’s son and daughter, don’t you?”
*
Marcus derided it as a field trip, but Mickey insisted that he take Celeste to Villa Shibui while he went to the hospital.
On the coastal road to Filarete, Marcus deflected her small talk and after a time, she gave up and looked to the sea. Arriving at the villa, he opened the gate and drove to the house. The housekeepers were there, doing their dusting and airing-out routine and Marcus explained to them that he would be giving this exotic woman a free rein to look
