“I consult for people who find themselves in situations such as yours, Mr. Garfield.”
“So you’re what, some kind of psychic detective? Like that Medium woman on TV?”
“Actually, a bit, yes.”
“You have a nice day, Miss Cylon.”
“That’s Ceylon,” she said, and put a palm on the door as he started closing it. “Let me ask you one thing before you send me away.”
“What’s that?” he said.
“Are things going so well in the search for your wife that you’re willing to dismiss all other avenues?”
She could see the hesitation in his eyes. She said, “I’m not going to kid you, Mr. Garfield. What I do, it takes a leap of faith, I know that. And I’m not always right. It’s not an exact science. But what if there’s a chance, maybe just one chance in ten—a hundred, even—that I can help you find Mrs. Garfield, isn’t that a chance worth taking? If it isn’t, tell me, and I’ll leave here and never trouble you again.”
He held the door, frozen. It was wide enough that he could still see her, but not wide enough to allow her in.
After several seconds of hesitation, he opened it wider. “Fine, then.”
She stepped into the house. There was a small foyer, and a living room to the right with a couch and a couple of soft armchairs. A set of windows along the front, the blinds letting in very little light, and a second, smaller window, on the side wall, where the blinds had not been closed tight.
“Do you mind if I sit down?” she asked. It was always a lot harder for them to throw you out when you were sitting down.
He pointed to an armchair. Before she could sit, she had to move a ball of green yarn with two blue, foot-long knitting needles speared through it. She tucked the bundle over to the edge of the chair.
“Have you ever heard of me?” she asked as he took a seat across from her on the couch.
“No,” he said.
She nodded. “Well, it’s not as though I’m famous or anything. But I do have something of a reputation. Just last week I helped a couple find their son. He’d been depressed and they were worried he might do harm to himself. We found him just in time, too.”
“My wife was not depressed,” Garfield said.
Keisha nodded. “Of course. Every case is different.”
He eyed her as though she might already have had a chance to pocket the silverware. “Why don’t you tell me what it is, exactly, that you do.”
“As I said, I offer my services to people when they’re in crisis. When they desperately need to find someone. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions first before I start getting into how I do what I do?”
“I suppose not.”
“I saw you and your daughter—Melissa, is it?”
He nodded.
“I saw you on the news, making your appeal. Asking for information about Mrs. Garfield, asking her, if she was watching, to come home so you could stop worrying.”
“That’s right.”
“I was wondering, what sort of tips have the police received since then? I’m assuming they’ve been in touch.”
“There’s been nothing. At least nothing helpful. A couple of nuts called in.”
Keisha nodded sympathetically, as though this was about what she expected. “And aside from waiting for tips, what other efforts have the police been making to find Mrs. Garfield?”
“They’ve been trying to trace her movements since she left the house Thursday night. That’s the night she does the grocery shopping, but she never got to the store.”
“Yes, I knew that.”
“And her credit cards haven’t been used. I know they’ve been showing her picture around to all the places she usually goes, talking to her friends, talking to people she works with. All the things you might expect.”
Another sympathetic nod. “But as with the tips, nothing very helpful. Is that what you’re telling me, Mr. Garfield?”
“It would seem so,” he said.
Keisha Ceylon paused for what she thought was a dramatically appropriate period of time, then said, “I believe I can help you where the police cannot.”
“Is that right?”
“The police do what they do, but they are not trained to
what’s the phrase?— think outside the box. What I offer is something more unconventional.”
“I’m waiting.”
She looked him in the eye. “I see things, Mr. Garfield.”
His mouth opened, but he was briefly at a loss for words. Finally he said, “You see things.”
“That’s right, I see things. Let me make this as simple and as straightforward as I can, Mr. Garfield. I have visions.”
A small laugh erupted from him. “Visions?”
Keisha was very careful to maintain her cool. “Yes,” she said simply. Draw him out. Make him ask the questions.
“What, uh, what kind of visions?”
“I’ve had this gift—if you can call it that, I’m not really sure—since I was a child, Mr. Garfield. I have visions of people in distress.”
“Distress,” he said quietly. “Really.”
“Yes,” she said again.
“And you’ve had a vision of my wife? In distress?”