Heather Graham - The Séance

Christina found herself feeling strangely irritated, wishing she’d thought to stick the damn thing somewhere out of sight, or, that she’d gotten rid of it altogether.

She groaned aloud. “We had fun because we were kids who knew the answers we wanted to hear, so we pushed it around to get them,” she said.

“We’ve got to play with this sucker again,” Ana said, entranced, and obviously unaware that Christina was nowhere near as anxious as she was to dredge up past fun and games. “Don’t you remember? We had so much fun. Sometimes you’d wrap a towel around your head like a turban and call yourself Madame Zee, and we’d have a séance. It was so much fun. But this guy…” She patted the Ouija board affectionately. “We asked it so many questions. It was great. We have to play with it again.”

“Why? I know what I’m going to be when I grow up,” Christina said. “And we are all grown up, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Supposedly,” Mike threw in skeptically.

“Grown up—not dead,” Ana said with mock impatience. “Let’s ask it something.”

“I don’t want any answers to any questions—prophecies can be self-fulfilling,” Christina said.

“Maybe you don’t want any answers,” Dan said. “But I want to know if I’m going to have to be a fluffy all my life.”

“Fluffy?” Ana giggled. “Don’t you mean ‘fluffer’? And don’t you have to be a girl for that? Or maybe not, these days.”

“Cute, shorty, very cute,” Dan said dryly.

“A lot of the entertainers at the parks call playing a character being a ‘fluffy,’” Christina explained, unable to hide a smile. “Dan is in the running to play Zeus in a new show, but in the meantime…”

“In the meantime, I’m Raccoon Ralph,” Dan said.

“Raccoon Ralph?” Ana said, and burst into gales of laughter.

“If we were still kids, I’d be bopping you on the head right now,” Dan said.

“Thank God we’re not kids, then,” Ana said.

“Enough of that,” Mike said, suddenly serious. “You two need to be careful,” he said.

“We’re just teasing each other,” Ana told him, frowning.

Mike shook his head impatiently. “I wasn’t talking about you and Dan. I’m talking about you and Christie. I was watching the news earlier,” he said. “They were warning women to be careful. There’s been a murder.”

“A murder?” Christina asked.

“Are you talking about the woman they found along the highway?” Ana asked.

Mike nodded. “You must have heard about it, even down in Miami,” he said to Christina.

“I did. But it was just one woman, right?” Christina asked.

“Yeah, but it’s got a lot of people around here worried. The killer is a copycat of the Interstate Killer,” Mike told them.

“I saw it on the news earlier, too,” Ana said. “It sounded like they don’t know if they really got the right guy to begin with, right?”

“I don’t think anyone is admitting that yet,” Mike said.

“Can it be the same guy?” Christina asked. “I mean, I’m not an expert, but I always thought that a killer like that escalated until he was killed or caught and locked away. Would a serial killer take a break that long?” She felt vaguely uneasy. She knew that the so-called Interstate Killer had plagued the central part of the state a dozen years ago. She also knew that he had supposedly been killed.

And buried.

“Maybe he didn’t take a break,” Dan theorized aloud. “Maybe he was gone…traveling from state to state.”

“Possibly. They say that killers often keep on the move. Thank God for computers. They’ve made a big difference,” Mike said.

“Jed will know more about it,” Ana said confidently.

“That’s right. He wrote a book about the killings,” Dan said.

“Jed wrote a novel,” Ana said. “Based loosely on real events.”

Michael was quiet, frowning at Christina.

“What?” she demanded.

He shook his head, then pointed a finger at her. “Sherri Mason, the woman who was killed, was five feet eight inches tall, about one hundred and thirty pounds. She had blue eyes—and long red hair.”

They all stood in silence for a long moment.

“Wow. Thanks a lot for that,” Christina said at last.

Ana slipped a supportive arm around her friend’s waist. “We can handle ourselves. It’s the unwary who usually wind up in trouble.”

“That’s not the point,” Michael said, and took a deep breath. “Christie, you have to be careful. The last victims, twelve years ago…they were all tall. And all had light eyes and—”

“And long red hair,” Dan breathed softly.

“Just like Sherri Mason,” Mike said. “Who was killed just the same way. As if she’d been killed by…a ghost.”

Jed should have headed straight over to Christina’s house, and in fact he had meant to.

But he didn’t.

For some reason he found himself traveling down the road that led to one of the largest local cemeteries.

Beau Kidd had been laid to rest there. His parents and his sister, furious that Beau had been labeled a killer without a trial, grieving his death, had ordered a fine tombstone for him. A glorious angel in marble rested atop it, kneeling down in prayer.

It was dusk when he arrived, and the gates were closed, but the cemetery was one of the oldest in the area. Broken tombstones belonging to those who had served in the United States military as far back as the Seminole Wars could be found there. No one had ever spent the money for a high fence, so he was easily able to hop the low wall and enter. He knew this cemetery well. Too well, he thought.

Margaritte was buried here.

But he hadn’t come to mourn at her grave or feel sorry for himself. Not tonight.

He was losing it, he thought. Visiting a cemetery, as if Beau Kidd could talk to him from the grave and offer him help.

No, he told himself. He had simply decided to check on the monument, that was all. In the years after the killings and Kidd’s own death, the tombstone had been vandalized several times. Then Beau Kidd’s mother had appeared on television and made such a tearful plea to be let alone that the vandalism had stopped. No requests by law enforcement or even arrests could have put an end to the graffiti and damage the way her softly sobbed plea had done.

He could see the angel as he headed down the path. What surprised him was that he wasn’t the only one who had come to check on Beau Kidd’s grave tonight.

There was a young woman standing there. He frowned, for a moment thinking it might be Christina Hardy. This woman, too, had long red hair, and she was tall, slim and shapely, with elegantly straight posture.

But when she turned as Jed approached, he saw that though she was attractive, her features were quite different from Christina’s. For one thing, her eyes were a pale yellow-green color, not a brilliant blue.

He didn’t recognize her, but she obviously recognized him.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped.

“Do I know you?” he asked bluntly.

“Katherine Kidd, Beau’s sister,” she said.

“We’ve never met.”

“No? Sorry, but I know who you are. You’re an opportunist. You wrote a book about my brother. As if the events weren’t painful enough.”

“I wrote a work of fiction,” he said. Why defend himself? He should just let her lambaste him. That might work out better for both of them.

“Why are you here? Do you want to hammer a stake into my brother’s heart? Do you think he’s alive and killing again?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”

He turned to go.

“If you’re lost, your wife’s grave is nowhere near here,” she called after him.