The Spiritist Read online

  “What about Robin? Have you heard the name before?”

  Joan frowned. “Robin? Can’t say that I have. Maybe I can ask Cally? She was his girlfriend. They broke up a month before his…death. She might know. Do you think this Robin killed him?”

  “What did he mean that it all started with Simon?” Cole fingered the paper as he read and re-read the writing.

  Aerilyn shook her head. Her head pounded with exertion but it would be a while before she could rest. Calling a spirit took its toll on her body. Piercing the veil was not an activity she undertook lightly.

  “I’m sorry. This is all I got. Maybe he meant for us to focus on Simon,” she said.

  “Simon couldn’t have killed him unless his spirit came down to do the dirty deed.” He earned a withering glance from Joan. “Sorry, I am just a little confused by the randomness of the answers. Why can’t Thomas tell us who killed him? It seems to me that it would be the first thing he would want to share.”

  “I’ve already explained to Joan. He doesn’t know exactly what happened. Maybe someone drugged him and that’s why he has no recollection of the last few hours of his life.”

  Cole gazed at Joan warily as if weighing his words before speaking. “The coroner’s report did indicate the use of a drug…not enough to kill him, but enough to make him disoriented or even unconscious.”

  “The police told me that those committing suicide often took drugs to dull the pain,” Joan said. “It wasn’t enough to knock him out cold but…”

  “What if someone drugged him and staged the suicide?” Aerilyn suggested. “If he was drugged before the event, he wouldn’t have been aware of the subsequent activities.”

  Joan began to cry. Cole put his arm around her. He glared at Aerilyn as if it was her fault. And in a way, it was. She had been the one to initiate this investigation. Why the hell hadn’t she said no to Joan? This wasn’t leading anywhere. If anything, she was even more confused with the answers Thomas had given in this séance

  Joan pulled out a tissue and wiped her face. She straightened. “These are clues. That’s what he has given us. We need to work on them to find out what it all means. I’ll talk to Cally to see if she knew anything about Robin. I can even call the dean of administration and ask him to look into finding this person.”

  Cole raised his hand. “Joan, why don’t you leave this all to me? You just talk to Cally, see if she remembers meeting this person Robin, or hearing his or her name. I will get the rest of the information about this bar The Plazza and details regarding Simon’s death.”

  Joan folded her hands in her lap. “You’ve already done more than enough, Cole. I couldn’t possibly ask you to get involved in all this.”

  “Friends help each other.” He smiled at Joan, his expression warm and comforting. “And it seems Thomas is in tune with me. He asked me to look after you.”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears. “You’re a good soul, Cole. Thank you.” She stood and wiped the tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand. “No more crying! I am done with it. From now, until I find some answers, I am only going to think about how we can catch this murderer. When can we do another séance, Aerilyn?”

  Aerilyn stood, feeling weak. As if sensing her distress, Knight sidled out from under the table and wound himself around her feet. She picked him up and ran her fingers through his fur. “Why don’t we find some answers first? It would be pointless to call Thomas until we know more about Simon and Robin. We also need to locate the bar where Thomas said Robin could be found. In order to ask him new questions, we need more information.”

  Joan nodded, her face determined. “You’re right. I will call you when we know more.” She exited, closely followed by Cole who had his arm around her waist.

  After they departed, Aerilyn dropped down on the chair while Knight rested in her lap. Her body trembled with the effort it had taken to breach the veil. With each séance, it would get more difficult. Calling a spirit took effort, but every time she called the same spirit, it took a greater effort on her part. She rarely shared this with clients. What would be the point? No one would ever understood the toll it took on her to practice this craft.

  As was her norm, she ate a few cookies, sharing them with Knight who licked each crumb off her hand with eagerness. She remained seated until her pulse returned to normal. Finally feeling better, she stepped out of the room. The night outside the glass windows was dark and silent. After collecting her bag, and putting Knight in his carrier, she switched off all the lights. She stepped outside into the cold wind. Surprised to see Cole sitting on the steps of her entrance, she adjusted her grip on the carrier.

  What did he want? She just wasn’t in the mood for another confrontation. Her head pounded and a vile taste coated her throat. If he wanted a fight, he would have to find her at another time. “What are you doing here? Came to take another dig at the spiritist? Or perhaps issue an ultimatum?”

  He stood and thrust his hands deep inside his jeans pocket. “Actually you looked a little peeked. So after I dropped Joan off, I came back to make sure you were feeling ok.”

  Touched as she was by his concern, Aerilyn didn’t quite believe him. “I’m fine. Thank you for your concern. You can go now.” She strode off.

  Ignoring her rude behavior, he walked alongside her. “Mind if I walk you home or wherever you are going?”

  Two could play this game. “Sure. Come along.”

  “Here, let me carry this.” In a single, smooth move, he took the carrier away from her, carrying it as if it weighed nothing.

  This time of the night, the streets were nearly deserted. Most of the shops were closed. The rain earlier in the afternoon, and the continuous presence of dark, ominous clouds in the sky had sent most of the tourists’ home. Aerilyn loved her hometown. She enjoyed the buzz of the tourists during the weekends and during high season. But just as much, she enjoyed the empty roads, and the quiet, relative solitude that settled over the town at night.

  “How long have you been doing this?” he asked as he walked by her side, his shoulders hunched against the cold, bitter wind that blew down from the mountains.

  “My gift is hereditary. It’s not something you start doing. It’s a part of me, as much as my arms or legs,” she said brusquely.

  “So you started communicating with the spirits at a young age?”

  For a moment, Aerilyn was thrown off kilter. A sharp ache echoed in her heart. His question evoked painful memories. “At eight years of age, I called my first spirit. Until then, my mother and grandmother thought that perhaps I didn’t have the gift,” she said.

  “So you’re a hereditary witch?”

  She brushed back her hair from her face. ““Look, I know you don’t believe me. You think I am a fraud. Fine. Whatever. I’ve spent my life dealing with people like you. You think you have all the answers. You know everything, and there is no other reality except for that which you understand. So let’s not pretend that you are actually interested in what I do and why I do it.”

  He grabbed her arm and brought her to an abrupt halt. “I’m new at this, ok? I am trying to keep an open mind, which is the least you could do about me. I want to understand this…and you.”

  Aerilyn pulled her arm free. “Threatening or manhandling is not going to help me keep an open mind about you.”

  He dragged his hand through his rumpled, black hair. For the first time, Aerilyn noticed that his eyes were the same hue of black as the night sky. His face, cut sharply at the jaw, was almost handsome, if not downright gorgeous. Plagued as she was by worries about Thomas and the discoveries she’d made, she wasn’t dead. Cole Hudson was a good-looking man – and a dangerous one. Damn it! Why did he have be so hot? She ignored the lust that stirred deep inside her.

  “Give me a break. Help me understand what you do,” he said.

  She started to walk, eager to get these new thoughts out of her head. Getting sidetracked would do more harm than good. She had a job to do, and she meant to
do it to the best of her ability. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “How does the magic work?”

  “Would you ask an artist how his art works? Or a writer how her imagination works?” She shrugged. Despite her feigned indifference, his question startled her. Not many people bothered to ask her this. Most just assumed that she was a hoax. Others were intimidated. At least he seemed to be genuinely interested. “Just like an artist is born with an appreciation of art, an innate talent, there are a few who are born with the gift of magic. Magic, like all of God’s gifts, stems from nature. There are five elements; earth, air, water, fire, and spirits. Each witch or wizard has one or more sources of power.”

  “So you source of power is spirits?”

  Both a curse and a gift, it defined her in every way possible. But she couldn’t tell him that. “Yes.”

  “Your whole family is like that?”

  “My mother is an air witch and my grandmother’s element is earth. I am the only spiritist in the family. In fact, I am the only one on this continent.”

  Almost shivering, as the bitter cold drove itself into her bones, she took a sharp turn and began to march up a gently inclined alley. The wind had picked up, a good indication that it would rain again tonight. Not wishing to be caught outside when it did so, she picked up her pace. The houses and shops were nestled close together. There were no street lights, but light filtered in through the narrow, curtainless windows and illuminated the path ahead. For a while, they both walked in silence as he processed the information.

  “So even among witches and wizards, you are an oddity?”

  “Yes. There is another spiritist in Europe, and we have heard rumors of another in Asia, but none of us have ever met her. No one knows for sure if she exists. It’s difficult to separate the genuine ones from frauds.”

  “You don’t say?” He smiled ruefully. “Have you ever had a case in which a spirit confessed to being a murder victim?”

  His sudden change of topic surprised her. “It has happened once before.”

  “Did you catch the murderer?”

  A pang hit her heart. She took another turn and climbed a series of steps. They came across a narrow alley, which she crossed. She continued walking until she reached a neat row of cabins. A man stood at the far corner, in front of the last cabin. Aerilyn walked in the opposite direction until she reached her cabin.

  “No. I had no evidence against him, and that made the police…not so eager to open an investigation,” she replied.

  “Why did you ask me to join you today?”

  “You’ve an entire investigating team at your disposal. Your people are the best at what they do. Who better than you to ascertain my claim? I intend to use you and your considerable resources to prove that Thomas was indeed murdered.”

  “Ah!” He didn’t appear offended. “Well, at least we agree that I am the expert in such matters. I’ve asked my investigation team to look into the identity of Robin,” he said, looking up at the cabin as she came to a halt at its entrance. A single light hung from the ceiling, illuminating the entry.

  She dug through her purse to look for the keys. “So have you suddenly changed your mind about me?”

  “I promised Joan that I will help her with this as much as I can. As long as she believes that you’re telling her the truth, I will support her. But the moment she realizes that you’re a fraud, I am going to come down hard on you.” He smiled as she looked up, the keys forgotten in her hand. Taking the keys from her hand, he handed over the carrier and opened the door for her. “Nothing personal. And, of course, you could always drop this charade and either tell her the truth or simply back off by making an excuse.”

  Aerilyn noticed that even though his tone remained smooth and calm, his eyes burned with temper. He was a man who knew when to unleash his anger, and when to let it simmer until the right moment arrived. It would be interesting to see if she ever became the subject of his wrath. “You’re not the first person who has threatened me. And, probably, you’re not the last. It would be amusing to see you come down from your high pedestal of righteous anger. I will relish that moment when it comes.”

  “Until later, then.” He nodded, a half-smile flickering across his lips. “I’m going to Portland tomorrow and will leave for Chicago from there. If my investigating team comes up with something, I will let you know.”

  “Until later, then,” Aerilyn echoed his words. As he stood out in the blistering cold, his hair blown by gusts of stray wind, Aerilyn felt a strange connection with him. Was it attraction? Almost afraid to admit the truth even in the privacy of her own mind, she mentally cursed herself. She simply couldn’t afford to get distracted at this critical moment.

  “I believe you will prove to be a worthy player. I look forward to our next round.” He waved and turned to leave.

  Aerilyn watched until he reached the steps and began to descend. She closed the door, put the carrier up on the counter and opened it. Knight strolled out, stretched its body and leapt off the counter, heading straight for his bowl.

  As Aerilyn took out a packet of prepared meat from the fridge and poured it in his bowl, she mused over her meeting with Cole Hudson. An interesting adversary, he was also a dangerous one. If she never found a shred of evidence to confirm the claim made by Thomas, he might fulfill his promise and make her regret ever getting involved with Joan.

  Aerilyn wanted to prove him wrong. She wanted to do her best this time and see to it that she found the evidence to match her claims.

  Only time would tell if she would succeed.

  Chapter Four

  Cole closed the folder he’d been reviewing. “This is not acceptable,” he said in a voice that invited no argument.

  Michael Sands, his chief of IT security, seated to the right of Cole, let out the breath he was holding. For the past two months, he had been advising against this contract and now appeared only too glad to hear Cole’s final call. “Good,” he muttered under his breath.

  Jerry Fold, the owner of the company, seated opposite Cole at the other end of the long, mahogany conference table, leaned forward. Although the blinds were drawn on the windows, a few stray rays of light filtered through to highlight his heavy jowl. “What we’re willing to offer is well above the market price. You will earn a good profit.”

  “That is true, but as I said before, we need access to all your personnel, databases, and equipment if we are to fully protect every inch of your company. We can’t offer half-hearted security.”

  Jerry ran a hand over his left cheek. “Prime Verve is willing to give you complete access to our databases, but there are two key projects that are highly protected by our own team. They are also confidential. We can’t share any information regarding those projects.”

  Cole’s research team had submitted findings that indicated the depth of Prime Verve’s trouble. The pharmaceutical company had quite a few successful drugs in the market. Two of them were heavily used for cancer patients and another remained popular for asthma treatment. And yet, over the past three years, the company had heavily lost money on new project research and development. No matter which new drug they invested in, someone always beat them to the production line. The company was being targeted for corporate espionage. Research information about their new projects was consistently leaked to competitors in a highly secretive manner.

  If this espionage was not stopped, it would lead to the end of Prime Verve.

  “Prime Verve has been losing money for the past three years. You’re on the verge of bankruptcy,” said Michael. “You can’t afford for anything else to go wrong at this critical juncture.”

  “All the more reason for us not to trade secrets about our new projects with anyone.”

  “If we’re to be responsible for protecting your assets and research projects, we need all the information.”

  “If anything goes wrong with these two projects on which we are not willing to share information, we will not hold you accountable.”<
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  It wouldn’t work, Cole knew. He could not protect them without complete access; going in like this meant being partially blind to the possible threats and dangers. And if anything went wrong under Hudson Security’s watch, it would harm the reputation of his firm. He couldn’t risk something like that.

  Jerry put his hand on top of the folder that sat before him. “These two projects are highly classified and they are housed in a separate building. We have taken drastic measures to ensure that no information regarding them falls into the wrong hands. They are as safe as they can be.”

  Michael steepled his fingers together. “Don’t fool yourself, Jerry. Despite being in a separate building, you share key personnel on all projects.”

  “Only at the highest level, and the people who have access to information about these projects are handpicked by me. They are all extremely trustworthy.”

  Since Jerry’s lack of judgment had been the reason for the company’s current critical situation, Cole didn’t quite believe him. Jerry invariably trusted the wrong people. “At this point, no one can be trusted,” said Cole. “We will need to investigate each individual from the lowest to the highest level,” Cole said. “You’ve a great team of people but there is someone in your firm who is betraying you. If you want to catch that person, or persons, you need to allow us to do our job. And we can’t do that unless we have complete access.”

  Jerry scowled. “If it became known that you are investigating my core team, I would lose their faith. Some of them may even decide to leave me. How about if I tell you that I will personally look at the security of these two projects? I will make sure that no one about whom I have the slightest doubt will be given access to anything of value.”

  Not appeased by these promises, Cole drummed his fingers on the folder. “We need absolute control, or else we can’t do our job.”

  Jerry tapped his fingers on the table. He shared a glance with one of his advisors. “I can’t approve this. It sends the wrong signal to my people.”