The South Beach Search

by Sharon Hartley

  For some bizarre reason, she liked telling him things, sharing things with him. She’d loved explaining yoga, and, oddest of all, had told him about her mom’s suicide, an event she’d never willingly mentioned to another human being.

  She sat up in the seat, realizing she’d just had another MCR. A really important one. One that could change her life. And, yes, she should have seen it before.

  Reese was her soul mate.

  Maybe she loved confiding in him, felt this incredible connection to him because only by joining with him could she achieve true happiness.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THEY ARRIVED IN Cassadaga with just minutes to spare, so Taki led Reese into the seventy-year-old hotel where Robin conducted her spiritual practice. The lobby contained a bookstore full of interesting titles—which she planned to browse during Reese’s reading—also a gift shop and comfortable chairs where he could wait if he didn’t want to shop.

  At 4:00 p.m., Taki ascended a narrow flight of pine stairs to the second floor and lightly knocked on the entrance to Robin’s reading room.

  “You may enter,” came a muffled voice.

  Taki pushed open the door and found her plump, white-haired spiritualist seated at a small wooden desk whose top was empty but for a red candle and her well-worn pack of Tarot cards. She wore her usual flowing blue robe. As the candle burned, it released the scent of cinnamon into the room.

  “How are you, my dear Taki?” Robin asked with a gentle smile.

  “I’m well,” Taki said.

  “Shall we begin?” Robin asked, lifting her tarot deck from the table.

  Taki nodded, hopeful about a clue to the location of her bowl. “Please.”

  After Robin shuffled the deck, Taki picked ten cards. Robin pushed a button to start a digital recorder, then placed two cards faceup on the oak desk between them. She didn’t speak for several moments as she studied the colorful images.

  “You’ve met someone,” Robin said, scrutinizing one card closely. “This man is important to you.” A note of disbelief hung in cinnamon-tinged air.

  Taki blinked when she saw the Lovers card. She usually interpreted the Lovers as a union of opposites, and opposites surely described her and Reese. But of course there were other ways to construe its meaning.

  Robin looked up and leveled her gaze at Taki. “I knew something was different about you today.” The flame from the candle flickered, and a thin ribbon of smoke snaked high into the room.

  “The Lovers can also signify trials overcome,” Taki said. “Or emotional growth.”

  “Just who is giving this reading?” Robin flipped another card, light from the candle shining in her amber eyes. The Nine of Swords.

  Taki quickly made her own interpretation of its meaning...a card for deception. But did it apply to her or to Reese? She remained quiet, deciding to analyze the reading later when she listened to the recording Robin always made of their sessions.

  “Someone is not telling the truth.” The sleeve of Robin’s robe swept across the desk when she revealed the next card. The High Priestess. “Ah. I believe we’ve seen this card before. Once again it is you, Taki, who is not the person she seems to be.”

  When the next card appeared, Taki swallowed hard. The dreaded Tower, with two screaming human figures falling from its flaming heights.

  “You know what this means as well as I do.” Robin tapped the card with her index finger, the sound echoing in the quiet room. “Unexpected changes are coming. You need to be careful. I see danger, trouble from a surprising source.” Robin frowned, her face tightening. “There is some connection here, but I can’t quite...”

  The psychic closed her eyes and touched Taki’s wrist, becoming still. While Robin concentrated on finding a psychic impulse, Taki’s mind wandered to Reese. What was he doing?

  When she’d come upstairs, he’d been in the gift shop examining a book on astral projection with his new glasses, a disbelieving frown on his handsome face. The turtleneck sweater displayed his broad, muscled shoulders to perfection, even if they were shaking with silent laughter. Of course he wouldn’t buy into what he called her New Age hocus-pocus. If only he—

  “Your mind is filled with nothing but images of this new man,” Robin said, opening her eyes. She waited, brows raised, apparently expecting a reply.

  Taki shifted in her seat and shrugged. “I guess so.” What else could she say? She knew only too well that she couldn’t stop thinking about Reese. Mostly about his body.

  “You said it was important to find your bowl. Do you ever think of it?”

  “Of course. And I brought a picture.” Taki dug in her bag and handed Robin a photograph.

  Once more Robin closed her eyes and wrapped her fingers around Taki’s wrist. Taki inhaled the cloying fragrance of cinnamon and tried to focus on the bowl. Holding its image in her thoughts, she closed her own eyes, but soon drifted again.

  What was the danger Robin referred to? Her father? Reese?

  Of course, the cards never lied, and they had revealed her deception. She felt a twinge of guilt about hiding her identity from Reese. The more time she spent with him, the more she liked him in spite of his show-me-the-proof, how-can-you-believe-this-utter-nonsense attitude. The more she wanted to tell him the truth. She hoped Robin found his briefcase. That would show him her beliefs weren’t all hocus-pocus.

  Taki sighed as she became aware of her thoughts. Reese again. Her psychic was right. She thought about him way too much.

  Robin released her wrist. “I’m sorry, Taki. I can’t see the bowl.”

  Taki sighed. “I know you tried.”

  “Yes, and I can tell you this,” Robin continued. “Your bowl has some connection to this new man, but not in the way you think. The situation is muddled, difficult.” She shook her head. “That’s all I can get for you.”

  “Can I trust this man?”

  “Trust. Ah, now that’s something you don’t normally ask me.” Robin turned over two more cards. After studying them, she focused in the distance over Taki’s shoulder, making Taki want to turn and look.

  “He will never intentionally harm you,” Robin said finally. “Of this I am certain.”

  Never intentionally, but he could hurt me. Taki nodded, disappointed not to learn more. But the time had come to ask her number one question.

  “Do you sense that the monster’s people are close to finding me?”

  Robin nodded. “I was waiting for that one.”

  Taki leaned forward. “Tell me. What do you see?”

  As long as she’d been running from her father’s legal vultures, no matter what city she was in, Taki always asked a psychic the same question: Are they about to find me?

  Robin flipped the remainder of the cards Taki had selected and nodded definitively. “I’m sorry, but, yes. I sense his people are very close.”

  “So maybe that’s the danger you see in the cards,” Taki suggested hopefully. She didn’t want to believe the Tower referred to Reese.

  “No.” Robin covered the cards with her palm, looking more worried than usual. “This is new danger, something quite different. Something unexpected.”

  Robin met her gaze with an intensity that startled Taki, and a chill ran down her spine. “Please, Taki. I want you to be very careful.”

  * * *

  WAITING ON AN antique sofa in the lobby, Reese watched Taki slowly descend the narrow flight of stairs with her usual fluid grace. Her gaze remained fixed on the steps, one hand on a railing, lost in thought and looking so dejected he wanted to give her a hug. He’d never seen her this discouraged.

  He stood when she trudged into the lobby. “How’d it go?”

  “No luck.” She shrugged, her blue eyes catching light from the ancient crystal chandelier overhead. “Robin couldn’t find any cl
ue to the bowl’s location. She believes you have some connection to the bowl, but she can’t find the link.”

  Thinking anyone could have made that observation, Reese patted Taki’s arm. Of course he had a connection to the bowl. He traveled with Taki, and she wanted the damn thing desperately.

  “Maybe she’ll have better luck with my briefcase.”

  Taki brightened. “Maybe. She’s waiting for you. Second room on the right at the top of the stairs.”

  He glanced up the staircase.

  “Just keep your mind open, Reese,” Taki said softly.

  And my wallet closed, he wanted to say, but didn’t. He hurried up the steps and knocked on the door.

  “I’m Robin,” the spiritualist said as he sat across from her at a wooden desk.

  “Reese Beauchamps.” He thought she looked rather like a ghost...round and pale. Hopefully she was friendly.

  “I’ll be recording our session, then I’ll give you a CD to study later.”

  While she inserted a disc into a small recorder, Reese surveyed the room. No crystal balls. He wondered if there were special effects for floating heads. Maybe he’d have to settle for the plume of smoke wafting toward the ceiling from the red candle near her elbow.

  With a click, she pressed the start button on the recorder and looked up, focusing somewhere in the distance. He found the effect disconcerting.

  “Have you had a reading before?” she asked.

  “Never.”

  “Well, I’m no fortune-teller. You may not like some of the things I say, but there’s a message for you if you listen carefully. Life contains many meanings extending beyond our familiar concepts.”

  Reese thought the speech sounded canned, like a disclaimer she issued to avoid getting sued.

  “Taki tells me you’ve come with a specific question,” Robin said.

  “I had a briefcase stolen out of my car. I need to find it.”

  “Did you bring a picture? I do photo readings.”

  “No,” Reese said, wondering who the hell took pictures of their briefcase.

  Robin closed her eyes.

  Yeah, Reese thought, try to catch that good vibration. Maybe Claudia’s location will be on it. His gaze strayed around the room. Posters of women with glowing auras enveloping their heads hung on cracked plaster walls.

  “Does the name Marie mean anything to you?” Robin muttered, startling him.

  He refocused on the spiritualist. “Yes,” he admitted. “Marie is my sister. Also, my grandmother’s name was Marie.”

  Robin clasped her hands before her and nodded. “Your grandmother is with us spiritually. She is pleased you came. You were very close.”

  He quickly scanned the room, almost expecting to see that floating head he’d just scoffed at. Truthfully, he wouldn’t mind seeing his gran, but the idea was preposterous. Sure, they’d been close, but that wasn’t unusual. The psychic had made a lucky guess.

  With her eyes still shut, Robin clasped her hands together on the desk before her. “Describe the briefcase.”

  “Black leather, about a foot high, two feet long, six inches wide.” It has my name embossed on it, he thought during the ensuing silence. Should be easy to identify among the briefcases in the spirit world.

  Thankfully focusing on his face this time, Robin sighed and settled back in her chair. “Ah, a skeptic. Why did you come for a reading when you are a nonbeliever?”

  “How do you know I’m skeptical?”

  “I don’t need to be psychic. Look at the way you’re sitting, with your arms folded across your chest and your legs crossed in front of you. You’re not going to accept a word I say.”

  Reese checked his body language and leaned forward, placing his arms on the desk. “Let’s forget the briefcase for now. I have another question for you.”

  Robin looked at him expectantly.

  “I need to locate a woman, a missing witness. Do you know where she is? Is she in trouble?”

  “A missing woman. Ah. Yes.” A strange light entered the spiritualist’s gaze, and she nodded. Closing her eyes again, she continued to nod and began to mumble.

  Reese gaped at her. What the hell was this?

  Suddenly, Robin’s eyes popped open. “Your gran says the woman is safe, that you don’t need to know where she is, that she will contact you when the time is right.”

  He resisted the urge to laugh. “You’re saying my grandmother knows where my witness is?”

  “Your grandmother is in a place where she can know many things.”

  He shook his head. Oh, just great. Very specific. “How about this—Taki believes we knew each other in another life. What do you think?”

  Robin frowned. “Taki did not mention that to me.”

  “Well, since she believes you’re psychic, she probably thought you already knew.”

  With a sad smile, Robin retrieved a deck of cards from her desk drawer. As she shuffled, she said, “Seven shuffles will remove any existing pattern.” She spread the deck out before him. “Pick ten cards. We shall proceed with your reading.”

  He did as she asked and placed the cards facedown in a pile. One by one Robin turned the cards over, obviously anxious to earn her fee and get rid of him. Of course she didn’t know Claudia’s location. He’d only asked to see what ludicrous answer he got. This so-called psychic knew nothing about any past lives he’d spent with Taki. The whole concept was beyond fantastic.

  “Stress surrounds you,” Robin said, staring at the cards. “You are cautious about career changes, but I see you going in a new direction.”

  He nodded. Loosely interpreted, that could apply to 95 percent of the people in this country.

  She turned another card and grimaced. “Just as I suspected, there is a wedding in your future.”

  Oh, really. Nothing but bland generalities. But maybe she’d misjudged his relationship with Taki. Just what had she told this woman?

  Robin turned over the remaining cards and sucked in her breath when she revealed the final one. Leaning forward, the psychic grasped his wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and searched his eyes. “You must keep very careful watch over the one you love. She is in terrible danger.”

  Startled by the woman’s intensity, Reese stared at the card. A bolt of lightning had ignited a tower and two terrified figures tumbled to the earth.

  “What kind of danger?” he asked. Did the psychic consider Taki to be the woman in danger?

  Robin shook her head. “Just like with Taki, I can’t see the trouble. But it exists.”

  He examined the colorful spread of cards. Trouble exists? Oh, how very insightful.

  “Yes,” Robin said slowly.

  His gaze connected with the psychic’s.

  “You have known Taki in many lives.” Robin turned her head, holding it to one side as if trying to hear something in the distance.

  “Nothing else,” she said finally. “You are too closed.” The woman eyed him with a speculative gaze. “If you’d like to come back, we could try a past-life regression to explore your previous journeys.”

  “We’ve got twenty minutes left now,” he suggested.

  “A regression takes much longer than that,” Robin said.

  Past-life regression? Reese shook his head, wondering what the hell that involved.

  “I’ll need to hypnotize you,” Robin said in answer to his unspoken question.

  “No, thanks. You’re sure you don’t...‘see’ anything about my briefcase?” he asked.

  Robin gazed into the steady flame of the candle for a long moment, then focused on him again, offering a smile that seemed full of sorrow.

  “Stay close to the one you love. She’ll lead you to what you want,” she said after a moment. Then she added, “Remember sometimes fri
ends turn out to be false.”

  “Well, thanks. I guess.” When Reese stood, Robin stopped her recorder and handed him a disc.

  As he descended the stairs, Reese shoved Robin’s CD in his pocket and forgot about it. In his opinion, that reading was nothing but a con hybridized with a game of chance. Robin had told him nothing he didn’t already know, certainly nothing he could confirm.

  As if he would pay good money for a bogus past-life regression to find out about his previous lives. What made Taki buy into this garbage?

  He paused on the bottom step when he spotted her. Balanced on one foot, the other propped against her thigh, Taki stood by the old-fashioned reception desk that featured wooden slots for guest messages behind it. She and the clerk were folding some sort of brochure. He recognized a familiar rhythm in her soft voice, but couldn’t make out her words. An inexplicable surge of well-being washed over him as he watched her lean into the counter and laugh.

  Now what to tell her about his aborted reading?

  “That was quick!” Taki said when he joined her by the counter.

  “I wasn’t on the same wavelength with your psychic,” Reese said, hoping to make her smile.

  Her mouth turned up in a knowing grin. “What happened?”

  He arranged his features to look properly solemn. “I’m afraid I was closed.”

  “Closed?” She shook her head. “Reese, you’re locked up tighter than a bank vault.”

  He wondered why her words pleased him. He didn’t particularly want her to think of him as the proverbial stuffed shirt, but her teasing indicated that she’d grown more comfortable with him during the trip.

  “I warned you to keep an open mind,” she continued. “So nothing at all on the briefcase?”

  “Nothing.” Time to put this nonsense behind them and look forward to the rest of the evening.

  “Do you mind if we stop by the bookstore?” she asked. “There’s a book I’ve been wanting.”

  Reese held open the door for her. “Sure.”

  “And can we eat in the hotel’s dining room? I love their vegetable lasagna.”