Psychic for Hire Series Box Set

by Hermione Stark

  “Whatever keeps me interested,” he says. “What about you? Any plans for what to do next?”

  “I haven’t thought about that yet.”

  “Where will you stay after this? With friends?”

  I shrug. I don’t want to tell him I have no friends. What kind of person has no friends? I don’t want to tell him I have nowhere to go.

  “How are your sisters?” I ask. I sense this might be a touchy subject, but I cannot stop myself. Why did he not mention them to me yesterday? Is it because he isn’t close to them? It would make sense for a killer to not be close to his sisters.

  “They’re fine,” he says, his voice short. His eyes are hooded, and he is looking downwards when he says it. I sense there is more to this answer. That things are not fine. But instead of being suspicious, I feel sad. There was pain in that answer. I wonder how losing their parents like that must have impacted them. Maybe it made them closer. Maybe it pulled them apart.

  I hug him tentatively, wanting to let him know I care. He does not move when I wrap my arm around his waist, and I begin to feel awkward. But then he returns the hug, and lets me hold him close.

  I stay there, my cheek pressed against his chest, and let my eyes drift shut. The birds are singing. The sun is burning red against my eyelids. He is warm. If I hadn’t done my research last night, this would have been a moment of sheer bliss.

  He can’t be DCK. He simply cannot be.

  A tear tracks down my cheek. I don’t know why I feel so emotional. I have only known him a day. And yet, in my dreams it had felt like I had known him an eternity. An eternity is what it feels like I will be losing. Stupid sentimental feelings. I wipe the tear away very slowly so that he won’t see it.

  Storm’s torso jerks. Surprised, I look up. His face is white and strained. It contorts as he struggles for breath. An unrelenting arm is wrapped like a noose around his throat. Someone is strangling him!

  I want to scream but not a sound comes out of my mouth. I reach frantically to that noose-like arm but my hands meet nothing. It is gone.

  “Are you alright?”

  I look up at him, stunned. He is fine. Perfectly fine. No one is behind him.

  “I… What?” I whisper.

  “You look like you saw a ghost.”

  My hand is still touching his throat. I look at it. His neck is fine, unbruised. I quickly take my hand away.

  “Diana?”

  It had been so real, like someone had snuck up on us unawares. My heart is still pounding crazily from the shock. I realize what I saw was not real. It was just a vision. A vision like all my other visions.

  Someone is going to strangle him!

  My thoughts whirl. How can this be? It doesn’t make sense. It could mean anything. Are he and Xander going to go after each other? Or is someone else after them both? But who would want them both dead? The only person who comes to mind can’t possibly be DCK.

  “Diana, are you alright?” His hands are on my upper arms and he is shaking me gently. His eyes are so dark and impenetrable, but for that wedge of disconcerting green. I can’t read them. Does he know someone wants to kill him?

  “Do you like Caroline?” I ask abruptly.

  “What?” He looks at me like I am crazy.

  “Do you like her?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  Because he’s come to Caroline’s engagement party and now someone is going to strangle him. First I saw Xander’s murder, and now his. And Caroline is the only link.

  “I sensed something between you and her. I know I did.”

  “Are you saying you’re a psychic?” His eyebrows rise almost mockingly.

  “So what if I am? Are you going to answer the question or not?”

  His eyes narrow. “You mean it, don’t you? That you’re a psychic?”

  “So it is true? You dated Caroline? Did you come to the wedding to get her back?”

  “No, of course not. We dated a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now.”

  “It matters to me. How can I trust you if you never told me that?”

  “It was your aunt who taught you not to trust, wasn’t it? What did she do to you? Was it because you’re a psychic?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “It was, wasn’t it? Did she think you were otherkind? Did she use you?”

  I glance up at him sharply.

  “It’s not hard to guess,” he says. “People who hate our kind don’t seem to have any problems with using us for profit. And psychics are easy prey.”

  His words cut too close to home and I suddenly have an urge to hurt him. “Is that what your father did to your mother?” I snap. “They were in blockbuster movies together. She was getting more famous than him. Did he use her for profit, and then discard her?”

  His face goes white. He leans away from me, and instinctively I reach for him. I feel awful for what I’ve said. I feel the need to explain my anger.

  “I hated her,” I say, my voice raw and full of a venom I never knew I felt. “Mrs Colton. I never called her my aunt. She never wanted me to. I hated them all.”

  “Including your uncle?”

  “He wasn’t my uncle,” I snap.

  “Did he do something to you? Is that why you… left?”

  “They were going to lock me up! Like an animal. I did nothing wrong, but they didn’t care.” The words come spewing out in a rush, and make me sound crazy paranoid, like someone who does belong in a psych ward.

  He looks like he wants to know more, but I give him a searing furious look. I don’t want to talk about the Coltons anymore.

  “I just wanted to forget them,” I whisper. “To wipe them away like they never existed.”

  “So you did,” he says.

  “So I did,” I agree.

  He nods, as if he knows some things are better off forgotten. We sit there awkwardly, and then, as if feeling sorry for me, he hugs me. For a long moment his hand soothingly pats my back, and we are silent. I feel like he understands. I feel it in the thudding beat of his heart.

  “Some birthday,” I mutter. “I thought I’d be free now that it’s over, but they’re still in my head.”

  I want him to tell me that I am safe now. That they can’t get me anymore. He doesn’t say anything.

  The Coltons are gone and I am here. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the fresh air. It smells clean and full of flowers and summer. I exhale the misery I feel whenever I think of the Coltons, letting it go.

  “Do you know what I could really do with?” I say, making my voice cheery with some effort. “Tea. Hot tea. And cake.”

  He reaches into the hamper. “That’s what the chef said. No breakfast is complete without tea.”

  He takes out a silver flask and pours steaming tea into two china cups. And then, from the bottom of the hamper, he takes out a small and exquisite cake with a single candle on top. It is frosted with delicate blooms. The sight of it brings a tear to my eye. He lights the candle. It is my first ever birthday cake. And he brought it for me, not knowing he might not live to see his next birthday.

  This is a sobering thought. I don’t want to ruin the moment, but I am tired of holding my visions in, of being too scared to speak them out loud.

  “Someone’s going to kill you,” I say quietly.

  He doesn’t even look startled. He contemplates me quite seriously for a long moment, as if trying to make sense of what I said.

  “Storm, did you hear me? Someone is going to strangle you!”

  His eyes are hooded, his thoughts gone deep inside again. “Are they really?”

  His reaction is not what I expected. I nod. “I saw it.”

  He holds up the little cake, its candle flame flickering in the breeze, ready for me to blow. “Then make a wish for them not to,” he says.

  I close my eyes and make the wish.

  Chapter 28

  DIANA

  After I blow out my candle, we eat the cake, both of us seeming glad t
o have an excuse to not talk. Storm seems not particularly worried that I have just warned him of his impending death.

  “You don’t believe me,” I say bleakly, feeling hurt.

  I had been so afraid of this. When I had told the cops about my vision of the girl hanging in the tree, their disbelief had made me feel pathetic. They had accused me of being an attention-seeking lunatic. This feels worse.

  Storm doesn't believe me that something awful is going to happen to him, and I have no proof with which to convince him. I saw no killer, no scene where it happened, no indication of when it will be. Nothing to make him believe me.

  And why should he? Not too long ago I had thought that he might be the killer.

  Storm is packing up the picnic, and he doesn’t respond. Either he is lost in his thoughts or he is doing a damn good job of pretending to be. I watch him dispose of the leftover cake, tossing it with little care back into the hamper.

  The earlier playful carefree mood between us is gone. Soon after accusing him of still liking Caroline I had told him he was going to be murdered. I probably sounded like some bitter and jealous crone. No doubt he is regretting bringing me here. No wonder he has nothing left to say.

  On the drive back to the castle both of us are quiet. I sit as far from him as possible, determinedly looking out of the window, feeling every inch of the empty space between us, and wishing I was snuggling in his arms like I had been on the drive over here. Back then I had thought it was a pretense on his part, but now I miss it.

  Somebody is going to murder him, and he doesn’t believe me.

  The car arrives at the castle, and the chauffeur opens the door for us. We get out, me first, him following. I brace myself to try again, and turn to look at him.

  “Storm?” I say tentatively.

  But when he looks inquiringly at me, words fail me. He already heard my words. I failed to convince him. I look at him helplessly. I want to take hold of his hand. Tell him to be careful. I want to hug him, and thank him for the picnic and the cake and the lovely idea of taking me out for my birthday. I want to ask him if I will see him tonight. But it feels too late for that. The things left unsaid hang heavy between us. I shake my head, and look away.

  He puts a finger under my chin, and tilts my head around to face him. “I didn’t come here for Caroline,” he tells me, his expression intent and serious.

  “Then what did you come here for?” I sound hurt.

  “You,” he says, his eyes almost accusing me.

  “And how did you know I’d be here?” I say. “Do you believe in psychics now?” The words sound like a taunt and I regret them immediately.

  “I believe in something more certain than that,” he says. Abruptly he turns away and strides into the castle without a backward glance, leaving me standing on my own like a fool.

  No kiss on the cheek. No goodbye. No nothing.

  I trudge back to my room, and throw myself down on the bed with a dull cry of frustration. I feel hollow inside. Hollow, and angry and hurting.

  I’ve wrecked it. I should have picked the right moment to tell him, not blurted it out like that. He’ll probably avoid me from now on. Just because I said something he didn’t like doesn’t give him the right to go so suddenly cold and distant! He should have listened. It would serve him right if he got strangled!

  This angry thought lasts me through lunchtime, which I skip because I don’t want to risk bumping into him. Not that he’s likely to be in the castle. He’s probably headed to the lakeside for lunch, to watch the last of the boat racing. No doubt he is not short of women for company, given the way they were eyeing him up yesterday. I hope he is enjoying life while he damn well can!

  I pace near my window, fuming and waiting for them to all come back again. But when they do in the late afternoon, the distant sound of their excited chatter drifts up to my open window and sends me scurrying away from it. I don’t want to look out and see him undoubtedly arm in arm with a pretty and sophisticated woman. Or worse, risk him looking up and seeing me, all lonely and pathetic at my window.

  I return to my bed to sulk. By the time dinnertime approaches, I am famished. I am too ashamed to go down to dinner so I wallow in bed. Storm will probably be there with his other woman, and if I go I will be all alone. He might even be sitting with Caroline. Maybe he has told her all about my so-called vision. My crazy psychic outburst. Maybe they laughed about it.

  Worse, I will have to resume my role as one of the entertainment. I’ll be forced to eat with one of the lechers that Lila warned me against. Storm had not made me feel like I was the entertainment. He had made me feel like he was with me because he wanted me. Not just any woman. I never gave it much thought before, but it is mortifying to realize that in his eyes I was probably just some escort.

  I bury my head in my pillow, trying not to give in to tears. Tears are for cowards, and I no longer want to be a coward.

  Feeling angry at myself, I get up from bed and leave my room. I knock on Lila’s door, wanting to speak to her, wanting to ask her everything about being a succubus. Right now I’d love to be one. How wonderful it would be to belong somewhere, to be part of a group, to have a community to call my own. If I was a succubus I could probably have lured him in and seduced him into believing me. It might have been worth it to save his life.

  Lila does not answer my knock. She must already be at dinner, enjoying herself, being the worldly confident woman that I wish I was. It hurts a little that she didn’t come to find me so that we could go down to dinner together. I tell myself that she must’ve thought I was still out, or maybe still feeling ill.

  I head back down the corridor to my room, and am surprised to see Nurse Remi waiting outside it. She has brought me a tray of food. I feel embarrassed at the thought that Storm might have sent her here. Did he want me to eat alone in my room, so that he didn’t have to see me at dinner? Is he partying downstairs right now without me? I feel a clawing in the pit of my belly. I want to tell Remi to go the heck away, but when I get close to her one sniff of the delicious aromas of the meal makes my stomach growl loudly.

  “I saw that you didn’t come down,” she says cheerily, “so I brought you something to eat.”

  “Did Storm tell you to?” I ask, half angrily.

  She raises her eyebrows. “Why would he do that? It’s my job to look after you, even if you don’t like it.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I tell her. “I have no intention of perishing in a fit of feminine vapors.”

  I let her into my room, and she deposits her tray on the table.

  She scrutinizes me and seems to see everything. “If I were you, I would finish this dinner and then put on my best dress and go down to the ball tonight. And I would have as much fun as I wanted to have.”

  “What would you know about it?” I mutter sullenly.

  “I know you’re damn lucky to be here, and it won’t last forever.” With those words, she leaves.

  I am annoyed with her, but I eat the meal that she brought me anyway. It was kind. I should have thanked her. And as I eat, I realize that she was right. Sitting up here, I might as well be still trapped up in the Coltons’ attic. I need to stop waiting for life to happen to me. I want to happen to it. I am tired of being secluded away, too afraid to face the world.

  Maybe bravery is something you do, not something you are. So what if he didn’t believe me? I should try again. So what if opening my heart to him means he might reject it? I never had him anyway.

  Chapter 29

  DIANA

  I should be brave like Lila. Even she must have felt this uncertain once, before she met her first love, the kind man who still makes her eyes glow when she talks about him. Storm and I may not last, but the least I can do is make sure he has a future. Maybe one day my eyes will glow when I talk about him too.

  I push my tray of half-eaten food away, and I go to the bathroom to shower the memory of this morning away. I want to be clean and fresh and fragrant. I take my time
applying a shimmering body lotion all over. I dry my hair, and put a little product in it to define loose curls, just like Lila had showed me. And then I force myself to stand in my underwear in front of my full-length mirror.

  It is hard to do after a lifetime of never looking for fear of seeing the demon Mrs Colton saw in me. Maybe I am not the Angel of Death. Maybe it was always just words in my head. These past couple of days the little voice has hardly spoken to me at all. I stare at myself, and I shiver. It is hard to see anything but the stone in my navel that should not be there.