A Scrying Shame

by Donna White Glaser

  “You don’t say.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  O’Shea had a pensive look on his face as he and Arie left the fitness center. Hoping to take advantage of his distraction, Arie eased her way over to her car.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” O’Shea barked.

  “I, uh . . .”

  “Come with me.”

  The detective led Arie over to the sedan and held the passenger door open for her.

  “Oh, crap,” Arie said. “Look, I didn’t do anything.” She backed away from the car.

  O’Shea reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Relax. If I was going to arrest you, I’d have you in cuffs already. Get in. We need to talk.”

  Suddenly, being arrested seemed like the better option, and it wasn’t because of the glint in O’Shea’s eyes when he’d mentioned handcuffs, either. Well, not entirely.

  But Arie wasn’t looking forward to a chat with O’Shea and the questions that would come with it. She knew what it would sound like as soon as she started talking about her NDE and visions in blood. She’d be lucky if he didn’t cart her off to the psych ward instead of jail.

  Instead of joining her right away, O’Shea stood in front of the car, speaking into his cell phone. He turned once to look at Arie, but he didn’t return the little finger wave she gave him.

  After a few minutes, he slid in behind the steering wheel, and they twisted to face each other. The car was stifling in the summer heat. O’Shea started it, letting the air-conditioning run.

  “Look,” Arie said. “We don’t have time for this. Riann will be getting rid of the manuscript. She probably already has. And there was something else she might have been after.”

  “And what would that be, pray tell?”

  “Um, her diary. Riann’s, I mean. From when she was a kid. For some reason she gave it to Marissa to keep when they were younger and now Marissa was apparently refusing to it back. That’s why she and Riann were arguing the day Marissa was murdered. Riann told me. I can testify to that.”

  O’Shea pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead and made a sound somewhere between sobbing and laughter. “A diary? I seem to remember—”

  “I know, I know; you can yell at me later. But right now we have to hurry. Riann could be destroying everything right now.”

  “That’s very possible,” O’Shea said. “If so, there’s nothing I can do about it until we get a warrant. She’s had a pretty decent head start already, and I can’t just barge in to a private residence. I’ve got an officer expediting a search warrant, and I’m heading over there as soon as we’re done here. So the faster you tell me what I need to know, the better.”

  Arie sighed. “Like what?”

  “Let’s start with: tell me everything you know.”

  “What does that even mean?” Arie said. “Besides, you won’t believe it, anyway.”

  “Okay, I’ll start. Seven months ago, on December seventh, you were attacked outside Rack’s Bar over on North Venice Beach where you bartended part-time. Some Good Samaritan heard you screaming and called 9-1-1. By the time the EMTs got to you, you were unconscious and had lost a ton of blood. Shortly after arriving at Memorial Hospital, you were pronounced dead by Dr. Samuel Jasperson at 3:28 a.m. At approximately 3:47 a.m., you moaned, which frightened a nearby CNA so badly he wet himself and ran screaming from the cubicle. The treatment notes state that you claimed to have gone to heaven, and were so despondent at returning to life that they placed you on suicide watch. Soon after—”

  “Shut up! Please—”

  “Arie—”

  “Stop it.” She covered her face with her hands and tried to remember how to breathe.

  “I wish I could. I really do, but as you just pointed out, we’ve got a time issue here.”

  “But how did you find out? Hospital records are supposed to be confidential.”

  “I didn’t learn that from the hospital. But keep in mind, for almost twenty minutes, you were a homicide case. With something that freaky, word gets around.”

  Arie huffed. “You think that’s freaky? Wait.”

  “I can’t. That time thing.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Arie took a deep breath. He already knew she did psychic readings. How much weirder would visions in dead people’s blood be?

  On second thought . . .

  Arie told him anyway. The whole thing, not just the visions in blood. She made it quick, but she told him about the different colored fogs for different types of deaths, and the sounds and smells. Finally, she even told O’Shea about experiencing each dead person’s memories as if she were reliving them—murder and all.

  She had to give the detective credit. He didn’t interrupt. In fact, he didn’t speak for at least five minutes after Arie finished.

  Finally he said, “And you didn’t have this whatever-you-call-it before the NDE?”

  “It’s called scrying. And no, I never had anything like this.”

  “Okay, so these visions, or whatever, have led you to start digging around in my case?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me—”

  “I’ll decide what I believe. I’m trying to understand what you’ve been up to and, more importantly, what other people might think you’ve been doing.”

  “You don’t believe Brant killed her, do you?” Arie couldn’t help smiling. “You wouldn’t be so worried about other people knowing what I’ve been doing if you did.”

  “I didn’t say that. The evidence still points in that direction, but I’m not going to get tripped up by some slick defense lawyer who’ll say I didn’t rule out every line of investigation. Like, for instance, whatever it was Riann took out of Marissa Mason’s locker.” He scrubbed his face with his hands.

  If he keeps that up his skin will be raw. Probably not the best time to suggest face moisturizer.

  “What was I supposed to do?” Arie asked. “Tell you I saw an old diary in a vision I channeled through Marissa’s blood? How would that have gone over?”

  “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”

  “That’s one of the things Marissa keeps showing me. At first, I thought it was hers. In the vision, I saw it on a bookshelf in her room when she was a kid. And by the way, both Riann and Kelli corroborated the things I saw in Marissa’s old bedroom. But the point is, I screwed up by thinking it was hers. I’d hear her say things like ‘keep it safe’ and something about rags. She had a Raggedy Ann doll on the shelf next to diary, so I thought she meant that. But now I don’t think so. Riann’s real name is just plain Annie, but I think her nickname back then was Rags. It was Riann’s diary Marissa was telling me about. Marissa was supposed to keep it safe for her. Not that that turned out so well.”

  “You expect me to believe someone killed Marissa because of a twelve-year-old’s angst-ridden journal?”

  “Maybe not just that,” Arie said. “She was also furious with Marissa for being what she called a hypocrite. Marissa had started making snide comments about Riann and Dick. She’d been making fun of Wyatt, too. He was another one who wasn’t adverse about marrying up. He’d even started sniffing around Kelli, although he made fun of her behind her back.”

  “I could see him doing that. He was an obvious man-slut.” O’Shea gave Arie a steady look that seemed fraught with meaning. She blushed.

  “Yeah, well . . . the thing is, Marissa was writing a kind of memoir, using her childhood, and therefore Riann’s, to explore how women might grow up to be gold diggers. The problem is, when she tells her story, she’s also telling Riann’s. And Riann isn’t too happy about that. Maybe she doesn’t want Dick to know about her past. He seems to think she was some kind of angel, but my friend knew her in college and she was quite the opposite. If Marissa was holding on to a diary for Riann, supposedly to keep it safe, then Riann would be justifiably pissed about her going public with it. I think Riann’s trying to find her diary and the manuscript. Or, rather, she probably already has.”

  O’She
a had already returned his face to its normal cop mode. He pulled out his cell, speed-dialed, and when the other party picked up, he said, “Add a diary or journal to the warrant. How soon will you be there?”

  After a few more back-and-forths, O’Shea hung up. He turned to Arie, and she braced herself for another round.

  “Time for you to go.” He nodded dismissively toward the door behind her. “Keep your cell phone handy. Some things may come up that I need to ask you about.”

  At Arie’s blank look, O’Shea nodded again. “Out you go now. I’ll call if I need anything.”

  He barely waited long enough for Arie to get clear of the car before speeding off.

  “You’re welcome!” Arie yelled at the shrinking taillights.

  At least he hadn’t arrested her. Yet.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Arie fully intended to go home after talking to O’Shea. She had no doubt that he would make good on his threat to toss her (cute) butt in jail if she got in the way any more than she already had. She was pulling into Grumpa’s driveway and trying to figure out what to make her roommate to eat since she hadn’t been grocery shopping in days, when her cell phone buzzed.

  It was her mother, and she wasn’t making a lot of sense.

  “Wait, slow down.” Arie tried to slow the force of Evelyn’s panicked flood of words. “He what?”

  “He’s going over there,” Evelyn said. “Right now. And your father’s at the church in a meeting. I can’t interrupt him. It’s the Elder Board. If this gets out . . . you have to go get him.”

  “Dad?”

  “No! Pay attention, damn it. Brant. You have to get Brant before he gets in trouble.”

  Arie was stunned into silence at the cuss word, mild though it was. She’d never heard her mother swear before.

  Evelyn huffed into the phone. “Are you listening? You need to get over there.”

  “Over where? I don’t—”

  “He’s going over to talk to that dead girl’s sister! He kept saying something about a ring, and that she lied or stole it or something. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I told him to stay away from the whole thing. He’s going to make everything worse. What if they take him back to jail? He sounded . . . he’s been drinking, Arie.”

  “Brant? Mr. Perfect is drunk?”

  “Arie, I don’t have time for your nonsense. You go get your brother right now, and you bring him home.”

  “Okay, okay. Where is he?”

  “I already told you. At that girl’s house.”

  “Ma, I have no idea where Kelli lives! How am I supposed to find Brant if I don’t know her address?”

  “You said you knew all about that girl. The one he was engaged to. Why can’t—”

  “I have an idea, Ma,” Arie said. “I think I know somebody who can tell me where she lives. I have to go now.”

  Arie hung up and swung the car back toward Lac La Belle Road. If O’Shea had taken Riann in for questioning, she might be able to convince Dick that she had work she had to finish up for his fiancée. If the police were already there with the search warrant, Arie knew she wouldn’t stand a chance of getting in. In that case, she didn’t know what she’d do. Would O’Shea help her, or would it serve to pound another nail in her brother’s legal coffin?

  Ten minutes later, Arie parked in front of Riann’s—well, really, her sugar daddy’s—beautiful home. Arie’s heart thudded against her tonsils when she pressed the buzzer on the Boyette-Foster’s door.

  For several long moments, nothing happened. She pressed again, then jabbed at it several times in frustration.

  If she turned Brant into O’Shea, her mother would kill her, but if he’d been drinking and ended up at Kelli’s, acting stupid, Arie didn’t know what—

  The door swept open and almost scared Arie back to death.

  Dick stood in the doorway, looking shriveled and frightened. Given that Arie had just screamed in his face, that wasn’t unreasonable, but it seemed more than that. In fact, he acted as if he hadn’t noticed Arie’s rather unconventional greeting.

  “Oh, gosh, Dick, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “They took my baby away.” His voice sounded thin and reedy.

  “Riann?”

  “For questioning, he said. That Irish detective. I called Hinsdale, my lawyer. He’s meeting them.”

  Arie edged her way past the elderly man. At the moment, he seemed like a lost little boy. “They should have been back by now,” Dick said. “I told Hinsdale to get her home to me as soon as possible. She must be having an awful time.”

  He made it sound like Riann was attending some boring but obligatory social event.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Arie said. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. When did they take her . . . I mean, how long since they left?”

  “I don’t know.” Dick turned abruptly and shuffled toward the kitchen. “But she should be back by now.”

  “Dick? I’m sorry to bother you with this now, but Riann wanted me to pick up something from her office.”

  Dick spun around. “You heard from her? She called you?”

  “Oh, no. This is from before. From this afternoon.” Arie sidled toward the hall leading to Riann’s office. “If you don’t mind?”

  A phone rang.

  “That must be her.” Dick turned and headed for his own office. Over his shoulder, he said, “Wait. I’ll be right back.”

  Arie pretended she didn’t hear him and slipped into the room Riann had designated as her workspace. The first thing she spied was the orange Prada bag left in the corner. The second thing? Riann’s address book beckoned from the desk.

  Look for the diary and manuscript, or find Kelli’s address?

  Arie stood frozen in indecision until she noticed a stack of papers about a quarter-inch thick on the edge of Riann’s desk. A squat black machine sat under the desk, waiting.

  A paper shredder.

  Arie darted to the desk and grabbed the top sheet. It looked like a page from the middle of a chapter, and it had “From Rags to Bitches” in the header. Before she could think what to do, she heard Dick hang up the phone in the next room. She folded the page and shoved it in her bra seconds before he walked in.

  “What are you doing in here? I thought I told you to wait.” Dick’s eyes scanned the room.

  “Did you? I thought you said for me to go ahead because you might be late.” Arie picked up Riann’s address book. “I just need Kelli’s—”

  “I told you. You have to wait for Riann to get back. She doesn’t even like me in here.” Dick’s voice was firm and left no room for argument. Then he brightened.

  “I tell you what. Let’s have a drink. You can keep me company until Riann gets home.”

  He waited until she slid the book back on the desk, then stood back and let her pass through the door and down the hall in front of him. Arie had no choice but to comply.

  “I’m sorry, but I really can’t stop for a drink,” Arie said. “I’m going to be driving. I need a couple seconds to get Kelli’s address, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Dick blushed and ran a trembling hand over the remaining wisps of hair unsuccessfully camouflaging his bald pate.

  Damn it. Arie wanted to swallow her tongue. “I mean, I don’t want to intrude on your—”

  “You’re not intruding. Not at all. In fact, I’m sure Riann would want you to wait with me.”

  They had reached the kitchen. Like the rest of the lake house, the decor was modern, although in here, the stainless steel dominated over the white. She took a seat at the glass table. Although the chair was all metal rods and white leather, it was surprisingly comfortable.

  Dick shuffled to a cabinet and took out a bottle filled with amber liquid. Whiskey. She schooled her face to not say “ick.” Instead of the usual tumblers, he pulled out what looked like wine glasses and set them on the white marble counter.

  As he poured, Arie saw she was right. It was whiskey. Balvenie Scotch
, to be exact. Despite being a bartender for a short time, Arie had never heard of anything more expensive than Johnnie Walker Black. The whiskey she was being offered was in another solar system from her little moon. Maybe even an alternate reality.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t like Scotch, no matter the cost.

  And she had to get to Brant. She wished Dick would let her get the address and go, but he was used to having his way. Arie didn’t know whether that was because he was male, rich, or old. Or because he was a rich old man. At any rate, she wasn’t going anywhere quite yet.

  Dick set her glass down in front of her. She eyed the strangely shaped glass warily.

  “It’s a nosing glass,” her host said with a smile. “It funnels the aroma of the Scotch.”

  “Oh.” He was watching her, so Arie pretended to take a sip. “Mmm. Good.”

  “Well, it’s not the fifty-year-old Balvenie, but it’ll do in a pinch.” Dick chuckled.

  Arie did, too, just to keep him company. After chuckling, they seemed to run out of things to talk about. Finally, Arie thought of something to say.

  “Was that Riann?” she asked.

  He blinked in confusion.

  “On the phone.”

  “I certainly wish it had been. It was a business call.”

  “I thought you were retired.”

  “If a man loves his work, he never completely retires. Besides, if I’m not making money, I’m losing money. There’s a certain lifestyle I need to maintain.”

  Gold diggers could be spendy, Arie guessed. But she supposed Dick hadn’t figured criminal defense teams into the original estimate.

  “I love her, you know.”

  As if to mock all the money, energy, and time spent trying to arrest the effects of aging on the human body, Dick looked old and worn again. He fidgeted with his glass a moment, then took a large slug.

  “She’s excited about the wedding.” Arie skirted the issue of whether Riann cared for Dick or not.

  He raised rheumy hazel eyes to hers and smiled ruefully.

  “I waited a lifetime for her. All the other women, and believe me, there were plenty, none of them are worth one of her. She thinks I don’t know where she’s come from, but I had a PI dig all that up before I got in too deep. But if she wants to keep that quiet, fine. She’s come through so much. Why not let her have a little secret? She’s looking for security, a safe place where she won’t be hurt anymore. And I’m going to give her that place. Just as soon as . . .”