Page 7 of I'll Be Waiting

“There!” one of the women says. “Did you see that?”

“The candle flames wavered.” Shania’s hand tightens painfully hard on mine. “Nic, he’s here. Anton’s really here.”

I look at Shania’s shining face, and I want to smile at her and say that yes, Anton’s here. If he’s here, that’s proof of an afterlife, proof that her sister is somewhere and Shania can move on with her own life, confident in the knowledge that she will see her sister again.

Part of me wants to be the person who can do that.

The person who can lie to make others feel better.

The person who doesn’t have to face the truth. Always.

I extricate my hand from Shania’s. Then I stand and walk to where the candle flames had flickered. They’re on a small cabinet, nestled between two statuettes of Egyptian deities. I lift one statuette.

“What are you doing?” Leilani says, stumbling to her feet.

The statuette only moves a couple of inches. Enough to reveal the tube running into it. An air tube that runs out the side, right at the level to make the candles flicker. Then I bend, hiking my skirt past my knees to get low enough. Another tube runs along the bottom shelf of the cabinet. That’s where the blast of cold air came from.

I don’t say anything. I just look at Leilani, and she flinches before setting her jaw.

“I don’t know what you think you’ve found,” she says.

“Shall I say it out loud?”

I walk back to the table. Then I pause, remembering which direction the voice had come from. The one that called me Nic.

There’s another yard-sale-quality cabinet right behind the chairwhere I’d been sitting. Where I’d beentoldto sit. I find the speaker hidden in a picture frame. I turn the frame around so everyone can see the small speaker. I don’t say anything, and no one else does either.

The other voice, the one that called me Janica, came from my left, right at my ear. I look around that area, but I don’t see where a speaker would hide and, honestly, I don’t expect to. No one in this room knows me by that name. That voice, then, I must have imagined.

I tap the picture-frame speaker as my gaze meets Leilani’s. I still don’t say anything. I could sneer that I know my husband’s voice. I could roll my eyes at her for using tricks I’ve seen a half-dozen times. I could even rage at her for preying on my grief.

Instead, I just look at her and say, “I expect a refund.”

When I glance at Shania, I falter. The disappointment on her face stings, but the resignation is worse. She’s accompanied me to three séances, and she already knows this is what she can expect. The decent mediums admit they can’t make contact. The charlatans pull this shit. And most of them are charlatans.

I can feel bad for not letting Shania believe in this one, but that would be patronizing. She isn’t a child. She’d seen through the last one before I did. She might have been fooled here temporarily, but that would have passed, and she’d have been rightfully pissed off with me for playing along.

When I look over, she’s already on her feet, her glare fixed on Leilani.

“I trusted you,” Shania says to Leilani. “I let you convince me to bring Nicola. If you haven’t transferred back her money before we reach the door, you’ll have one-star reviews on every site by sundown.”

That’s my Shania. I smile at her, and she mouths an apology. I wave it off and put my hand against her back, guiding her from the room. No one tries to follow us. We walk through the tiny house… and make a wrong turn at the kitchen.

“Kinda ruins the whole storming-out thing when we can’t find the exit,” I whisper.

Shania gives a strained laugh. Then she whispers back, “I amsosorry, Nic. I know you were trying to quit, and I talked you into it.”

“I’m a grown-up, Shania, and part of being a grown-up is, sadly, that no one else gets the blame for my shitty choices. Oh, there’s the front door. Whew. What do you say to a midafternoon sugar splurge? I saw one of those fancy artisanal ice cream places on the drive in.”

I pull open the door. “My treat, but only if you promise not to apologize…”

I trail off. There’s a pickup parked in front of the small house. Parked illegally, which is why I didn’t take the spot. A blond woman in jeans and a pullover perches on the truck’s front bumper, while a dark-haired guy in a sport jacket leans against the front panel, arms crossed over his chest.

“Shit,” Shania whispers.

“Yep.”

Shania surges forward, boot heels clicking down the concrete steps. “Libby. Jin. I am so sorry. This is my fault. I talked her into it.”

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