Her answer was almost indistinguishable. "No."

"Because if she had, you would have stopped her, right?"

"I would have tried."

"But you never had the chance?"

"I should have seen it coming. I knew her better than anyone in this world. The last time I saw her, I was busy, and she breezed in and out. I gave her the Natalie Merchant tape, we chatted about nothing, and that was it. I can't believe I didn't see it coming. I should have intervened."

"You couldn't."

"How can you know these things?" Her voice softened with despair. "You come up with all these easy answers, and you know nothing about my grief."

I spoke in a near whisper and lowered my head to the level of hers, but she wouldn't meet my gaze. "My brother, who lives alone, has a slew of disabilities, including epilepsy. Two weeks ago, I called to invite him to the movies. No answer. The next day, I tried again. Still no answer. I decided to stop by his apartment, but got busy and skipped it. The next night, my sister called to tell me he was in a coma at Denver Health. Paramedics found him after he'd had a ton of seizures."

Her eyes, full of angst, finally met mine.

"Do you have any idea how many times I've replayed those days?" I asked, voice cracking.

"Probably a thousand, especially when you close your eyes."

"Not to mention every time I open them again. I can't stop thinking about it. If I weren't busy looking into Lauren's suicide, I'd have gone crazy by now. Then," I said, beginning to tremble, "I hear they found thirty bottles of medicine under his bed. He started seizing because he hadn't taken any of it in weeks, and suddenly, I felt enraged, because there was nothing I could do about that either."

"Except sit by helplessly and watch him die, right?" she interrupted. "How do you get it to stop hurting?"

I exhaled. "I have no idea."

"It hurts all over. I have this lump in my throat that won't go away. People come in and ask for Laurena"customers, suppliersa"and it gets bigger and bigger. I relive the pain, as fresh as the moment I first knew she was gone, every time I hear her name. I can almost taste her.

"I wake up stiff from thrashing all night. My eyes are swollen from crying. I keep dreaming about her, the same dream. We're making love and I'm about to come when she disappears. Like that!" Cecelia snapped her fingers. "How could she do this to me? Can you answer that, Kris?"

I didn't try.

"There's so much I wanted to tell her. She might have been done with me, but I wasn't done with her. It was so sudden. How could she leave me?"

"You never stopped loving her, did you?"

"Never," she said fiercely, longing in her eyes.

I reached across the table to calm hands that had mutilated her napkin. "How did you two meet?"

"Years ago, we worked for the same catering company, Le Gourmet. When we were young," she added, smiling.

"What drew you to her?"

Cecelia's face lit up. "She had an energy I've never seen in anyone. If she smiled at you, you felt her happiness, as if it wrapped around you. Or if she cried, you felt the pain, as if it had sliced through you. She felt things deeply, and she made me feel them, too. Things I'd never felt beforea"good and bad. It's what brought us together and drove us apart."

"The intensity?"

She nodded. "Sometimes it came out in destructive ways."

"Was she violent?"

"A little."

"Against you?"

"Usually against herself, but I still couldn't handle it. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, but I left Lauren."

"How much did Lauren tell you about her childhood."

"Not a lot."

"Did she talk about her mother?"

"Never."

"How about her brother?"

"Not really. I know he died from SIDS, but that's about it," she said ruefully.

"Did you get that information from Lauren?"

Cecelia picked up on my astonishment. "It's not true? What did happen?"

"Lauren's mother hit him with an iron."

"Accidentally?"

"She hit him sixteen times."

She gasped. "Did Lauren know?"

"Yes. Read this." I fumbled in my backpack and retrieved a copy of the article Fran Green had found in the library.

Slowly, she pored over the words. As she read, the life drained from her ashen face, and her body tensed. By the time she came to the last line, her voice had changed.

Businesslike and abrupt, she said, "Lauren and I were lovers for four years and friends for twelve, and she never said anything." She tossed the pages across the table, narrowly missing the mustard sauce.

"She didn't tell anyone."

"Where did you get this? From Patrice?"

"No, she was too young to remember. My associate found it at the library, and I showed it to Patrice."

Cecelia retrieved the murder-suicide account and skimmed it again. "I can't believe this. The similarities are eerie. Lauren never had a chancea"as if she were destined to follow in her mother's footsteps."

"By killing herself on her thirty-fifth birthday?"

"That, too," she said under her breath. She realized I had heard her, and her eyes fluttered with alarm.

"What else, Cecelia?"

"Nothing," she said brusquely. "I have to leave now."

I made three more gracious attempts to extricate information, but Cecelia wouldn't budge.

18.

The next morning, after I picked up Fran Green, it didn't take long for the ex-nun to cuss.

"Hell's bells!" she said as she bent to extract a sticker from her white sweat pants. "A little gardening wouldn't kill these people, would it?" She shook her head with disdain at the sight of Noni Inlight's property.

The tattered siding, missing shingles, large-gapped picket fence, and unfinished paint job on the 1950s style ranch didn't escape her notice.

"Assuming I believe in spirits, which I don't, why would Lauren come to this dump? What would drive anyone to park on the front lawn?" She answered herself. "Maybe 'cause that carport's falling to the ground. For the life of me, I'll never understand why people leave trash cans on the porch."

"So they don't have to carry them as far to the curb?" I suggested, trying to be kind, a quality I'd perfected in response to Fran's incessant complaining during our thirty-minute commute to southeast Denver.

Fran shot me a sidelong glance.

"C'mon," I said, before she changed our minds. "The inside is bound to be better."

"Yeah, right! Who's ever heard of these voodoo notions: Doesn't charge for her gifts, doesn't want to turn it into a business, doesn't want to know who referred you." Fran's singsong voice trailed off when I gave her the bent eye. "Clearly she could use the cash," she added, unrepentant.

I rolled my eyes and rang the doorbell.

In seconds, Noni Inlight answered and invited us into a debris-laden foyer.

About the same age as her house, Noni didn't look anything like I expected. Her large black glasses and plump face without makeup reminded me more of a librarian than a psychic. Her attire did nothing to dispel the bookish image: light green dress, secured in the middle with a large white belt, tan nylons, clear nail polish, and a gold brooch in the shape of an aspen leaf. Her bun of bottle-black hair alluded to a bygone eraa"as if she'd chosen a hairstyle she liked in the '60s and never bothered to update. Her shoeless feet were her only visible concession to comfort.

I introduced everyone, and Noni shook Fran's hand, then mine, with her own clammy one.

As she and Fran exchanged preliminary pleasantries, I studied the dark surroundings. I judged the living room, decorated in reds and browns and stuffed with heavy, antique furniture, as the perfect place for a seance. Every window was covered with drawn, floor-length gold drapes, and the only illumination came from the flames of three chunky candles.

I started to walk into the room, but Noni caught my arm and led me and Fran down a hallway, through a kitchen reeking of garlic and suffocating from dishes. "The circle of energy is down here," she said, opening a door to the basement.

I followed her, careful not to trip on the dozen or so cats sprawled in the stairway. Fran walked a step behind and twice grabbed my back when a loud "Meow!" rang out.

At the bottom of the stairs, Noni instructed us to remove our shoes.

"Does that help with the transmissions?" I asked.

"No, I shampooed the carpet last week."

"Never know it," Fran said under her breath, noting massive stains on the off-white shag carpet, visible even in the limited light of a hundred candles. Intent on removing her sneakers, she missed my glare.

I tried to grasp why we were conducting a sacred ceremony in what appeared to be a rec room when Noni's booming voice startled me. "Here is where we will greet the one who has crossed over," she said, pointing to what I could swear was a ping-pong table, complete with net, covered in dingy white sheets.

Twelve folding chairs encircled it, and one stuffed arm chair rested at the head. An oak bar sat to the side of the table, above which hung an enormous pair of antlers, a dart board, and a neon Coors sign.

"Please, take a seat wherever you will be most comfortable," our hostess instructed.

She, of course, claimed the most plush chair, and Fran and I migrated to the opposite end. The seats we chose, despite their respective flowered and plaid pillows, were too low for the table. I sat on a crossed leg, and Fran improvised with ramrod posture.

On cue, the wandering felines settled in below the table. One stray chose Fran's lap over the ground, an unpopular idea. Fran picked up the cat as if it were a beaker of nitroglycerin and deposited it on the floor. The animal immediately returned to nap on her legs.

Fran let out an exasperated sigh.

"That is Shakra. She was sent here to heal people. Today, you are the chosen one."

Fran transferred the tabby to my lap. "Kris needs more healing than me."

No use. Shakra sprang back to the coveted spot.

"Let her stay," I said, to which Fran hissed, "I'll get you for this, Kris."

Oblivious to our bickering, Noni said, "I would like to welcome both of you to this blessed event. This afternoon, we will invite Lauren Fairchild to join us. However, before we begin, I would like to warm up my senses by starting with you two."

"Hey, that wasn't part of the bargain," Fran objected.

"Do not be afraid. The future is your frienda"born of the past, nurtured in the present. You can either ask questions, or I can tell you things about yourself, whichever you prefer."

"I have a question," Fran began in a combative tone. "What are your credentials?"

I poked her in the side as Noni calmly replied, "It would take an afternoon to list them all."

"How about forking over the highlights?"

"I knew the stock market would decline at the beginning of the millennium."

Fran didn't look impressed.

"I also predicted the Broncos' four Super Bowl defeats."

Fran guffawed. "Big deal! Any pretty face who's watched two minutes of football would have known that. The trick was to predict their two wins."

"Very well. My divine perceptions aided others in solving the kidnapping of a six-year-old child. Perhaps you heard of the Bailey case?"

I chimed in. "The one last summer? Didn't the police figure out it was the father who stole the girl?"

"Who do you think pointed them in that direction, thereby ensuring the safe return of the child?" Noni asked smugly.