The Prophet Read online

  Clementine appeared in the doorway with a tray just then. “I see you two have already met. Come in to the parlor and have some tea. Grandmother sent over your favorite macaroons.”

  “Bless her heart,” Isabel murmured as we exited the room.

  I took one last look at the tarot cards, then followed the sisters into the next room where I perched on the edge of a black leather chair as they seated themselves side by side on the cream chenille sofa. Ursula came in and made herself at home on Isabel’s lap while Clementine poured out the tea and passed around the cups. “This is a brand-new blend,” she said. “It has the most luscious flavor.”

  “Oh, it’s peach,” I said, after sampling the tea. “You’re right. It’s delicious.”

  “The single origin makes all the difference,” she said. “That’s hard to find these days except in specialty shops like ours.”

  “I’ll have to pick up some next time I’m in.”

  Isabel grew weary of Ursula and our small talk. She shooed the cat away and picked up her cup, eyeing me over the rim. “Tell me again how you two met? You’re neighbors, you say?”

  “No, we’re not neighbors,” Clementine corrected. “I saw Amelia and Angus out walking one morning and invited them to breakfast.”

  “Angus is…?”

  “My dog.”

  Clementine turned to face her sister. “You have to meet him sometime, Isabel. He’s such a sweetheart and he has the most beautiful eyes.”

  “I’m sure he does, but you know I’m a cat person.” Was that the tiniest bit of reproach I heard in her tone? “No offense,” she added.

  “None taken. Ursula is a real beauty.”

  “She’s certainly the queen bee around here,” Isabel said. “She’s a very special cat.” She took another sip of her tea. “My sister tells me you’re a cemetery restorer. She’s quite impressed, aren’t you, Clem? She and Grandmother have always loved poking about in old graveyards. How did you come by that line of work?”

  Why did I have a feeling she already knew more about me than I would ever voluntarily reveal? “My father was a caretaker. I grew up in a house at the edge of a cemetery. I always loved playing there as a child. I thought it very peaceful and beautiful.”

  Clementine leaned forward. “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

  “Why, yes,” I said benignly. “Old graveyards are full of them.”

  She looked horrified. “Really?”

  “She’s pulling your leg, Clem.” Isabel laughed, a deep, throaty, sultry sound that made me think of her with Devlin. “I’m sure if you took a midnight foray into an abandoned cemetery, you’d be in far more danger from criminals and drug addicts than from ghouls.”

  “Crime in cemeteries can be a problem,” I agreed, my mind on Oak Grove. It was just a matter of time before I would be going back there, to the place where it had all begun. I pictured Devlin that first night, standing among the headstones, stoic and professional in the face of such a brutal discovery.

  I felt Isabel’s eyes on me and took another sip of my tea to suppress a shiver.

  “I don’t like to think that someone could come back from the dead,” Clementine said uneasily. “The very idea makes my blood run cold.”

  “Don’t worry,” Isabel murmured, placing her hand on her sister’s arm. “No one is coming back from the dead.”

  I had no idea why, but her words troubled me, and I thought again of Robert Fremont. Her scent is still on my clothes, he’d said. I can smell it even now.

  My gaze went from sister to sister. They made such an attractive pair, sitting there side by side on the sofa. Almost like bookends, with the same dark hair, the same hazel eyes. The same polite smiles.

  Maybe it was my own uneasiness with the circumstances or the specter of Devlin still hovering in the background, but I had a feeling there was more to the Perilloux sisters than met the eye. I couldn’t help remembering that fleeting hesitation when Clementine had mentioned buying her house and settling in Charleston. I’d sensed then some unpleasantness that had driven her decision. And now her references to ghosts…to her fear of someone coming back from the dead.

  It probably was my imagination, I decided. I’d been charmed by her that first day, and as far as I could tell, nothing had changed except my own attitude.

  I tried to bury my discomfort as I glanced at Isabel. “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but your perfume…it’s so haunting. Almost hypnotic.”

  Hypnotic indeed. What with the heat of the tea, my imagination and Isabel’s perfume, I was starting to feel a little woozy.

  “What a gratifying description,” she said. “A fragrance should haunt, don’t you think? Like an elusive memory.”

  Did her scent haunt Devlin? I wondered. “I’ve been sitting here trying to identify the top notes. Tuberose? Freesia? Orange blossom?”

  “She’ll never tell.” Clementine gave her a sister a dark look. “I’ve been asking her to share for years.”

  “It’s an unsuitable scent for you,” Isabel scolded. “You know that.” To me, she said, “Our mother is a perfumer. She created signature fragrances for us on our eighteenth birthdays.”

  “What a lovely gift,” I said.

  “Yes, it was. But Clem never wears hers anymore.”

  “And you know why.”

  Another look flashed between them. It was evident that they were able to communicate volumes with just a glance or the brush of a hand. My mother and aunt Lynrose were like that. They often spoke in little riddles and sister shorthand, and as a child, I hadn’t understood much of their conversations. I’d only listened in because I was soothed by the sound of their voices, mesmerized by their lovely, Lowcountry drawls. It was only in looking back that I realized I had often been the subject of their hushed talks.

  I was feeling warmer and more uncomfortable by the moment. I wanted nothing more than to throw open a window and let a blast of fresh air dilute the effects of Isabel’s perfume. Where earlier I had thought it lush and dreamy, now I found it positively suffocating.

  Was that my feeling or was Fremont trying to communicate with me?

  I had no reason to think that either of the Perilloux sisters had even known Robert Fremont, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t wait to be away from their company. The urgency was almost overpowering.

  I set aside my cup. “Thank you so much for the tea, but I really should be going. I still have work to do this afternoon.” I turned to Isabel. “It was very nice meeting you.”

  “The pleasure was mine, I’m sure. As I said earlier, I’ve heard so much about you.” Her phone rang and she rose to answer it. “Will you excuse me?”

  “Of course.”

  Clementine stood, as well. “If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll get you that peach tea.”

  “Oh, no, that’s fine. I can pick some up in the shop. Please don’t bother.”

  “No bother at all. I can always bring Isabel another tin.”

  Despite my protests, she disappeared down the narrow hallway to the kitchen. I was left standing alone in the parlor. I could hear Isabel’s voice in the next room. She was speaking in a low tone, but the house was so quiet, her voice carried easily.

  “No, it’s fine. She’s just leaving.”

  A pause.

  “By the way, you were right.”

  She listened for a moment longer, then said, “Come over whenever you want. I’ll be waiting… .”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I hurried down the steps of Isabel’s house, happy enough to be out in the fresh air. The breeze revived me at once and cleared the vestiges of her rich—yes, cloying—perfume from my nostrils. But as I headed down the walkway, I had a notion the scent clung to my clothes. Shrugging out of my jacket, I tossed it onto the backseat of my car even as I recognized that my behavior was unreasonable and perhaps even childish.

  Clearly, the woman had made an impression, and I had enough self-awareness to recognize that my jealousy played some role in the case I had
begun to build against her. A case entirely without merit because there wasn’t a shred of evidence that connected her or Clementine to Robert Fremont. Unless one counted Devlin. And, honestly, wasn’t he at the root of my suspicion?

  All those meaningful glances and subtle inflections had probably been nothing more than the bond between two close sisters, like the one my mother and aunt shared. That I had read so much into a very brief conversation was surely a testament to my current frame of mind. As much as I liked putting together puzzles, maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a detective, after all. Obviously, I lacked the necessary objectivity when it came to matters involving John Devlin. And all the snooping, the paranoia, the jumping to conclusions, was exhausting. I’d even imagined that I was being followed before I had ever uttered a word about gray dust or Darius Goodwine to anyone but a ghost.

  None of this rationalization was at all a comfort to me. It wasn’t as if I could ring up Fremont and tell him I’d changed my mind, our arrangement just wasn’t working out for me. He’d promised to keep his distance so long as I helped him, but if I broke our agreement, I had no doubt he’d do whatever he deemed necessary to coerce my cooperation. He needed to move on and I needed to get a grip.

  Forget about the Perilloux sisters, I told myself. They weren’t a part of this. I needed to forget about Devlin, too, for the moment and concentrate on what I’d learned from Dr. Shaw. He’d been a fount of information, and now I was anxious to get home to my computer to follow up. But first I needed to retrieve the book he’d loaned me from his office. I’d laid it aside when I rose to help him to his chair, and I’d left without it.

  As I hurried up the drive to the side entrance, I resisted the urge to glance over my shoulder at Isabel’s house. My curiosity had been assuaged, and that was the end of it. My path need never cross hers again. Clementine might be harder to avoid since she lived so near me, and I felt a momentary guilt at my willingness to discard her so easily. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for friendship, either. Being a loner was too deeply ingrained.

  Layla was away from her desk, but I decided not to wait for her. Instead, I went straight back to Dr. Shaw’s office and knocked. The doors were slid back, and I hovered on the threshold, searching for him.

  He wasn’t at his desk or atop the ladder. I didn’t think he’d gone far, though, because the French doors were open, and I could hear voices in the garden. I went over to let him know I’d come back for the book.

  Just as I started to step through onto the terrace, his voice lifted. “You have some nerve!”

  I withdrew immediately, startled by his anger. He didn’t appear to notice me, nor did his companion, the man from the blue Buick. He’d removed his sunglasses, and for the first time, I caught a glimpse of his face. It finally came to me who he was, and my heart thudded anxiously. Tom Gerrity. The private detective who had once been a cop. I’d met him months ago when I’d gone to his office. Of course, at that time, Robert Fremont had posed as Gerrity. His ghost had deliberately deceived me so that I would still think him human. But in Gerrity’s office, I’d seen a picture of the three men—Gerrity, Devlin and Fremont—on the day they’d graduated from the police academy. Only one of them remained a cop, but I believed them to still be connected by circumstances revolving around Fremont’s death.

  “I told you never to come here,” Dr. Shaw said coldly.

  “That’s what happens when you don’t return my phone calls,” Gerrity said. “Or show up for our meeting.”

  “Something came up.”

  “Too bad. You don’t keep your end of the bargain, I don’t keep mine. Simple as that.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re the one who reneged. This was over a long time ago. Why did you have to come back?”

  “Times are hard, doc. In a downturn like this, fat gets trimmed. People in my line of work become expendable.”

  “Your line of work? You mean dealing in filth?”

  Gerrity laughed. “I’ve heard worse. At least no one can accuse me of murder.”

  Murder? I shivered as his implication sank in. Dr. Shaw?

  He withdrew an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Gerrity. “This is the last of it. Do you understand me? Don’t ever come back here again.”

  Gerrity took the envelope, glanced inside, then tucked it away. “Pleasure doing business with you, as always.”

  He gave a mock salute as he turned toward the gate and disappeared.

  Dr. Shaw sat down heavily on a nearby chair and buried his face in his hands.

  I didn’t know what to do. I backed away from the door as quietly as I could. The book I’d come back for had fallen to the floor beside the chair I’d vacated a little while ago. As I bent to retrieve it, I noticed a small iron bolt on the floor beneath Dr. Shaw’s desk. I started to reach for it when a hand fell on my shoulder.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I turned to find Layla standing behind me, and I wondered how long she’d been there and whether she, too, had overheard the argument between Dr. Shaw and Gerrity.

  “May I help you?” she asked coolly.

  “I just came back for a book Dr. Shaw loaned me.” I held it up, but she barely glanced at the cover. “Would you mind telling him that I was here?”

  “Perhaps you should tell him yourself,” she said and nodded toward the garden.

  Dr. Shaw stood silhouetted in the doorway, staring into the office as if he’d seen a ghost. His face was pale, his eyes glazed and riveted on something just beyond my shoulder. It was all I could do not to look back.

  “Sylvia…” he muttered and put out his hand.

  I did glance back then, but there was no ghost. Not even the chill of an invisible presence. Whatever he’d seen must have been inside his own mind.

  “Dr. Shaw, are you okay?”

  “You didn’t see her?”

  “See who?” I asked anxiously.

  His gaze moved to his assistant, and I could have sworn I saw a flash of fear. Then his knees buckled, and both of us dashed across the room to catch him. “It was her…I swear it was her… .”

  “No one else is here,” Layla said. “You’re imagining things again. You’ve been working much too hard. You really must listen to me when I tell you it’s time for a break.”

  Her stern voice seemed to raise his ire. “Don’t treat me like a child. It was her, I tell you.”

  We helped him to his chair. “Just relax,” Layla soothed. “I’ll go make you some tea.”

  “I think we should call a doctor,” I said.

  “No, no doctor.” He laid a weak hand on my arm. “It’s good of you to be concerned, but I’m just feeling a little under the weather. It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

  “At least let me call Ethan,” I said.

  “No, please…” His grip tightened on my arm. “I don’t want to worry him.”

  “But he’d want to know if you’re not feeling well.”

  “It’s nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure,” Layla said firmly.

  “Yes, quite right,” Dr. Shaw murmured. “I’ll have that tea now, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course.” Her gaze met mine. “May I show you out, Miss Gray?”

  I glanced down at Dr. Shaw. He was still clinging to my arm. “Are you sure I can’t be of some help?”

  I could feel the tremble of his hand, but his eyes were clear now as he turned and lowered his voice. “Just remember what I said earlier. Don’t repeat what we spoke of in this office. Tell no one what you heard here today.”

  * * *

  The blue Buick was in front of me as I turned on Rutledge.

  I certainly had no intention of following Tom Gerrity. Earlier, I’d come to the conclusion that I’d had enough of all this snooping and sleuthing and jumping to conclusions, but then I’d overheard yet another conversation, and here I was back in the thick of things.

  It didn’t take a genius to deduce that Gerrity was blackmailing Dr. Shaw, but why? And had he really implied
that Dr. Shaw could be involved in murder? Or had I misinterpreted what might have been nothing more than a snide comment?

  Evidently their association went back a long way. I racked my exhausted brain trying to recall everything that Devlin and Temple Lee had told me about Rupert Shaw before I knew him. He used to be a professor at Emerson University, but he’d been dismissed when concerns for his stability and unfounded rumors began to circulate. Rumors about recruiting his students to participate in midnight séances and his overall preoccupation with death. Some of the students had talked, and the powers-that-be had let him go. That’s when he’d opened the Charleston Institute for Parapsychology Studies.

  I’d always found Dr. Shaw to be of sound mind if a bit distracted at times. But today he’d seemed genuinely confused by something—or someone—he thought he’d seen in his office. I was pretty sure he’d only imagined it, though. I would have known if there’d been a ghost, but hallucinations were an entirely different matter.

  The Buick made a turn onto Canon, and, rather than continuing toward home, I followed Gerrity to the city’s east side. Dipping down King Street to Mary, we cut back up America, which had once been considered the most dangerous street in Charleston. Gentrification had curtailed some of the crime, at least by day, but come nightfall, a seamier element came calling.

  It was not yet dusk, so the streets were still teeming. Old men in lawn chairs gossiped in front of the corner grocery, while mothers kept watchful eyes on their children from shady front porches. The air was filled with the usual traffic noises—gunning motors, blaring music and the occasional screech of brakes. Despite the din, there was a homey camaraderie about the neighborhood that belied a recent rash of midnight shootings.

  I made sure my doors were locked as I pulled into a parking place a few spaces back from Gerrity. He climbed out of his car and crossed the street to a sagging, three-story Victorian. The house had once been glorious, but the blue paint was faded and peeling, and much of the spindle work and gingerbread trim had long since rotted away. Two young men in baggy jeans and Panthers jerseys reclining on the porch steps tried to hassle him. He brushed off their taunts with barely a glance, and I heard their guffaws even through my closed windows as he disappeared inside the house.