He winked. “A little dead gal with a hole in the back of her head.”
Sable. My heart rate ticked up. “Do you know where she is? Have you seen her?”
“Not lately, but we had a pretty good chat. I have the feeling that if I wanted her to show up, she would.”
“We have to keep her away from Vince,” Roan said. “Can you warn her for us? Tell her to stay away?”
“Sure thing. I can do that.”
“Then we can call Zelda and my father,” I said. “We can use the helmet for both of them. Lucky, make sure that she stays away. We can’t risk my father gaining another soul, and I know that’s what he wants.”
“Sure thing, doll. I’ll make sure she knows to stay put and not come around.”
“Okay, great,” I said with a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Lucky. I owe you one. If everything goes as planned, we should be able to catch a killer and stop my dad within a couple of hours.” I narrowed my eyes and glanced at Roan, Alice and Ruth. “Now. It’s time to get some folks scared and ready for a séance.”
I stalkedinto the room with Roan, Alice and Ruth following. “We’re going to have a séance,” I announced.
Tex sat up, and Lemon, who had returned to her place on the couch, stared at me with bored eyes. Luis looked worried, and Traylor, who appeared smooth as silk, shot me a velvety, lawyerish smile.
“Haven’t we had enough of séances?” he asked.
“No,” Roan said. “We’re doing one final séance to speak to Zelda. Blissful knows how to call her with the helmet. We will lure her here and ask her once and for all who murdered her.”
Luis glanced around the room. “Are you sure that we should do that?”
“What? Are you worried?” Lemon snapped. “Afraid that my mother will reveal the truth of what happened to her?”
“No,” Luis said with bite. “I am not worried because I did not kill her, but there are…”
“There are what?” Lemon asked.
I knew what he was going to say—there were things that he didn’t need Zelda to know about or discuss. Worse, Luis was probably worried that Zelda knew his deep dark secret and hated him for it. She could out him then and there.
“We’ll all be able to see her,” Lemon said, “if Blissful uses the helmet.” Her lips twisted into a sneer. “If you have something that you need to tell us, Luis, why don’t you do it now, before my mother gets ahold of whatever little tidbit of information you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” he said in a steely voice. “Maybe it’s you who is hiding something.”
Tex mopped sweat from his brow. “Maybe we should all just take a moment, here. You know, think about what we’re doing. If we call Zelda back from the other side, she might be ticked at us.”
“Do you have something to hide?” Ruth asked him.
“Of course not,” Tex said. “All I’m saying is that this night has been tough enough on everyone. Is it a good idea for us to keep whittling away at it?”
“We have a couple more hours of being locked in here,” Roan said. “I, for one, would like to deliver the criminal to the police. Then this night can become nothing more than a distant memory. Now, the rest of you might disagree.”
“I do disagree,” Traylor countered. “Aren’t we just adding fuel to the fire? Helping Luis and Lemon hate each other more than they already do?”
Once again he was simply worried about his own skin. I’d never in my life met a roomful of more self-centered, childish people. They were all more concerned with saving themselves than the truth coming out.
It was despicable. But that’s how some folks were, I suppose—more concerned about themselves than discovering the truth.
Of course, who was I kidding? I wanted to drag a woman back from the other side just to find out who killed her. At the same time, I was risking her soul falling into the hands of my father. Was I being the most selfish in this room?
I glanced at Roan, who continued to tell everyone how this night would be for the next couple of hours. As I studied him, I thought of all my own fears that I’d faced in the past day.
Yes, I had wanted to marry him, but when I came right down to it, setting the date had been harder than I thought. But I’d promised to do it.
Then I pictured a sunny reunion with my father that had been anything but. All he desired was to use me. He would have let me lead lambs to him—lambs that he would suck dry just so he could be more powerful.
