Page 51

51

Blake is losing his mind.

It’s been over two months since he lost his job after I tipped off his boss about the files that were sold to their competitor. It worked even better than I expected. Wayne Vincent didn’t even bother to listen to Blake’s side of things and made sure his name was mud around town. Now he can’t find another job. He is obsessively exercising all day, and when he’s not working out, he’s playing games on his computer. And he’s awake all night.

I have also been on his laptop, and I know exactly how little money he has left. When I brought up the idea of taking in a tenant, I knew he would have to agree.

As for Amanda, the bitch who stole my identity, she has been evicted from her apartment. It was actually very easy. I just sent Elijah over to her apartment building looking disheveled and had him knock on a few doors, trying to find “that girl Whitney who sells crack.” They threw her out, and now she is sleeping on a friend’s couch. A day after I posted the advertisement at Cosmo’s for the cheap room, she gave me a call.

I’ve had to take steps to make sure she is the only candidate we are seriously considering. For that reason, I have used some of the money I earned selling the contents of Blake’s flash drive to hire a few more actors from that performance college to pose as truly horrible prospective roommates. Elijah even did his part as well—Blake was close to throwing up his hands after Elijah got out that drill and tried to make a hole in the wall.

Amanda will be coming to look at the room tomorrow, and I’m sure her pretty face and clean-cut appearance will be all it takes to persuade Blake to let her move in. Yet I’m not entirely sure. I’d like one more piece of insurance.

While I’m walking home from work, I pass a flickering neon sign that says Psychic Readings . A light bulb goes on in my head. There is nothing that Blake thumbs his nose at more than stuff like that. On one of our early dates, I jokingly suggested to him that we should get readings done, and he looked at me like I had said the moon was made of green cheese and I was melting it onto a sandwich.

This will be perfect.

I push through the small glass door to get into the storefront. The entire store is very tiny and reeks of incense. It’s even smaller than that place on Seventy-Sixth Street with the really good tacos. The primary lighting comes from a purple lamp hanging from the ceiling, which illuminates a small table in the center of the room. The table is covered in a night-sky-blue tablecloth with drawings of stars, the sun, and the moon.

A woman is sitting at the table, sorting through a large deck of cards. The table is otherwise bare except for what looks like a crystal ball in the center. She appears to be in her sixties, with long silver hair that seems almost glittery in the light of the room. She looks up at me, and her face cracks into a smile.

“Hello, my dear,” she says. “My name is Quillizabeth. What is your name?”

Quillizabeth? Wow, this is even more perfect than I imagined. “Krista.”

“Krista.” There is a note of skepticism in her voice. “You don’t look like a Krista.”

She’s right, and that’s part of why I need to take care of the situation with Amanda. I am Whitney Cross, and someday I will be myself again. But I’m not going to get into all that right now. “Well, I am a Krista.”

She seems to reluctantly accept this. “So how can I help you…Krista?”

“Well,” I say, “this might sound a little weird, but…”

“Please, sit.” Quillizabeth gestures at the chair across from her. “Have you ever had a psychic reading before?”

I settle down into the chair across from her. “No, I haven’t.”

“I recommend a palm reading to start,” she says. “It’s the best thing to ease you into the experience. But next time, I can do a deeper reading.”

I am interested in none of that. I share Blake’s skepticism about otherworldly things, although it’s good for a laugh.

“Actually,” I say, “I need your help with something else. I’ll pay you, of course. Whatever you want.”

The older woman raises her eyebrows. I recognize now that she is wearing multiple robes. Oh Lord, Blake is going to hate this.

“I need you to pretend to be interested in a room my boyfriend and I are renting out,” I explain. “Just, like, come see the room, then say a bunch of scary psychic things.”

Quillizabeth’s lips set into a straight line so that they nearly disappear into her mouth. “I cannot just say a bunch of ‘psychic things’ if I don’t feel them. This is not a game .”

“No, of course not,” I say quickly. Boy, this woman is something else. “I just think it would be good for my boyfriend to hear a psychic’s perspective on the room, you know? So we can know in advance if there are any…like, spiritual issues before we rent it out.”

She takes a moment to consider this. “You want me to lie to your boyfriend.”

“Not lie, exactly. But I definitely think it’s important for the house to be spiritually clear, and he won’t go for it unless we say you are looking to rent the room.”

I watch her face, wondering if she’ll buy it. Whatever else I can say about this woman, she takes her trade very seriously.

“I do not approve of deception,” she says. “But I sympathize with your desire to neutralize your house spiritually. I will come. And when I come, I will give you my recommendations.”

“That would be wonderful,” I say. “Thank you so much.”

I had a whole script in my head for this woman to say, but now I think whatever she comes up with on her own will be so much better. I can’t wait.