four

Some theaters have box seats that Jaime reserves for friends and investors. This one didn’t, which meant mingling with masses. There are always a few extra seats in a “sold-out” show, and she managed to find us a pair together. The single beside Adam stayed empty until five minutes before the curtain, when a woman barreled down the aisle, and into our row, not giving anyone a chance to stand and make more room.

People come to Jaime’s show for two reasons: entertainment and reassurance. In the latter case, they’ve lost a loved one, and they’re hoping for proof that their dearly departed still lives, in some form, somewhere. So 95 percent of the audience is happy to be there. The laughter and excited whispers that night were so contagious, they even made me feel better.

But part of the audience has been dragged in by a friend or spouse. Glance around and you can see them, slouching in their seats, like sullen children in church, determined not to enjoy themselves, no matter how entertaining the show might be.

The woman coming down the aisle had that same look on her face. But she was alone, meaning no companion had forced her here. That could mean only one thing. She had been forced. By an assignment.

Local media? Member of the theater board? Consumer watchdog?

Any of the above fit. She was in her late twenties. Chanel jacket. Gucci shoes. Prada bag. None of it matched and none of it suited her, the choices of someone who knows labels but not fashion.

When the woman finally reached her seat, she double-checked the number. Then she noticed Adam sitting in the next seat beside hers, and her scowl evaporated in a smile.

“Is this D-22?” she asked him, though it was clearly engraved on the arm.

“Looks like it,” he said.

She smiled wider. Then she turned and shrugged off her jacket, shaking her booty just a little too close to Adam’s face.

“It’s going to be late when we get out of here,” I said. “We should probably grab a hotel room for the night.”

The woman looked at me, like she was really hoping I was some stranger making conversation with her cute seatmate. Her gaze barely touched me before returning to Adam.

“Have you been to one of these before?” she asked him, smiling. “Or, I should say, have you been dragged to one before?” She leaned over to look at me. “Little sister, I’m guessing?”

Adam bit back a laugh as I glowered. Physically there was no way we could be mistaken for siblings.

“No, she isn’t. And I’m the one doing the dragging.” He whispered conspiratorially, “I love this stuff.”

Her expression fluttered between dismay and denial. Finally, she gave him one last regretful look, and fished a notepad and pen from her Prada bag.

I took out my cell to text Jaime and warn her there was a reporter in the audience—one who definitely didn’t seem inclined to give a fair assessment. Then the lights dimmed and I swore. If the lights were out, she was backstage and cell-phone free.

Adam leaned over and whispered, “She can handle it.”

True. But that didn’t mean I liked seeing it happen. Jaime didn’t deserve that.

Jaime Vegas was a con artist, like every spiritualist I’d ever met. Unlike the others, though, she actually could talk to the dead. Yet even if an audience member’s father was right at Jaime’s shoulder, telling her what to say, she’d usually make up the message.

Why? Because that audience member doesn’t want to hear Daddy give her shit for marrying that louse, Bobby, and letting him bulldoze Mommy’s rose garden. She wants to hear that Daddy loves her very much, and he misses her, but he’s happy. So that’s what Jaime tells her. On some level, it’s true—he almost certainly does love her and is happy in the afterlife—but ghosts are still people, wrapped up in petty grievances and concerns.

The theater went pitch black. Then tiny lights flicked on, earning the inevitable “ooh” from the audience as Jaime’s recorded whisper talked about crossing the veil and reaching out to the other side. It reminded me of when I was fourteen and Elena took me to Phantom of the Opera. Even as I rolled my eyes at the corny dialogue and over-the-top special effects, I had to admit it worked.

The lights went up and another collective “ooh” snaked down the aisles as Jaime appeared on the center-aisle catwalk. Her goldenbrown dress shimmered as she walked in heels so high they’d even make me nervous. Her red hair was piled on her head, tendrils curling down. She had on her nonprescription glasses. If they were supposed to make her look less glamorous, they didn’t work. Every guy who’d been dragged along by his wife now perked up, and started thinking maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

The reporter beside Adam snorted. “Notice they don’t bring the lights up full? At her age, she needs all the shadows she can get.”

“I think she’s hot,” Adam said.

“Anyone can be hot if they can afford to get work done.”

I leaned over and dropped my gaze to her overinflated breasts. “And anyone who can’t afford to get the work done right, shouldn’t.”

She scowled at me, then looked at Jaime—who I should point out, has never had plastic surgery—but owes it all to good genes and hard work.

Jaime launched into her show. It’s typical spiritualism shtick. There’s a ghost who is trying to break through. His name is . . . It starts with an R. Ronald. Roger. No, Robert. I have a Robert. Is someone looking for a Robert? Going once, going twice . . .

She always had a taker. Let’s face it, what’s the chance that among five hundred people, no one knows a dead guy named Robert? Once Jaime has her mark, she spits out rapid-fire, open-ended guesses and reads her target’s body language until she can say, with certainty, that this is her target’s nephew, Robert, who died in a car accident three years ago.

After that, Jaime moved onto a couple of specific audience members . . . ones her trusted staff had reported overhearing in the lobby, hoping to contact Aunt Frieda or Cousin Al. Those were easy and satisfied most naysayers. Then she moved back to the guesswork.

“It’s a woman this time,” Jaime said. “I’m not getting a name. She’s having trouble communicating. I think it might be Joan or Jan or Jane. I can see her, though. She’s average height, dark hair, a few extra pounds”—she stopped, then hurried on—“in all the right places.” The audience tittered.