“No.”
I eyed the horse pendant she was clutching again. “None at all? Ever?”
“No.”
“Not even stepsisters? Half sisters? Adopted?”
She gave me a look that made it clear she thought I’d not only jumped aboard the train to Crazy Town, I was the engineer. “No. Why?”
This mediation might prove to be even tougher than the one that had ruined my boots. The problem with my job is that in reality—unlike on TV shows such as Ghost Mediator, which are completely scripted while purporting to be “reality”—if you simply come out and say, “Oh, hey, I’m in touch with the spirit world and your dead relative wants you to know such-and-such,” people do not really burst into tears of gratitude and thank you for setting their conscience at ease.
They run away, and then sometimes, if they’re of a litigious nature, they come back with a team of lawyers and sue you for causing them emotional distress.
“No reason. I notice you like horses—”
She instantly dropped the pendant, then tucked it away inside her shirt. “Not really.”
“Oh. I thought maybe you did because of that necklace. It’s pretty. Did someone important to you give it to you?”
She shrugged, looking away. “No. I saw it in a store in New York this one time. My mom moved there after . . . after she and my dad split up. I said I liked it, so she bought it for me.”
“That was nice of her.” One of the things they’re always drumming into our heads in class is when in doubt, look to the patient’s home life, especially the mother. It always goes back to the mother. Thanks, Freud. “Are you and your mom close?”
She shrugged again, looking out the office windows at the sunshine. “I guess.”
“Do you get to see her very much?”
Another shrug. “A few weeks in the summer. Holidays.”
I could tell there was something going on with the mother. Why else had she moved all the way to New York from the West Coast? It wasn’t unheard of for a father to get primary custody, but it wasn’t the most common thing, either, even in kooky California.
And what was with the horse thing? Who was Lucia to her? Her bond with Becca had to be a strongly emotional one. I hadn’t seen a reaction that violent from a spirit in a long, long time, not since . . . well, a certain spirit I’d laid to rest by putting it back in its living body, which wasn’t something I was ever, ever going to do again, thanks to apparently having stirred up the ire of some ancient Egyptian gods . . .
I really needed to get my computer back up and running, so I could look up the veracity of Paul’s threat. I never had much success looking things up on my phone.
I tried again, keeping my voice cheerfully neutral. “It must be hard not having your mom around. How long has she been gone?”
“It’s fine,” she said. Thank God she didn’t shrug again, or I might have knocked over a few file cabinets myself in frustration. “Why are you asking me all these questions? She left when I was little, okay, right after the accident—”
She broke off after the word accident as if she’d said something she shouldn’t have, then looked down at the bandage I’d put on her wrist. “How long will I have to wear this thing?” she whined. “It’s starting to itch.”
I ignored the question, pouncing on her previous statement. “Right after what accident, Becca?” This was it, I knew. In therapy, they called it the Breakthrough. In Non-Compliant Deceased Person mediation, we called it the Key. “What accident? Did something happen to your mother?”
But before Becca could reply, my cell phone rang once more. “Someone Saved My life Tonight.”
I couldn’t hit Ignore a second time. Jesse would abandon his patients, get in his car, drive over, and strangle me. Well, not literally, but metaphorically.
“I have to take this,” I said to Becca. “It’s important. But we’re going to get back to that accident you were talking about. Okay?”
“Whatever,” Becca said with another one of her infernal shrugs. “It’s no big deal. I don’t know why you’re asking me all this stuff. I said I’d never do it again, and I won’t, okay? God.” Then she dug out her own phone, slumping even further in her chair as she began to text someone.
So she had friends. Interesting.
“Hey, Jesse,” I said, swiveling around in my desk chair so my back was to the haunted girl. “How’s your day going?”
“How’s my day going?” He sounded incredulous. “What’s happening over there?”
“Here?” I asked casually. “Nothing. It’s work. You know. Boring. Why?”
“Don’t, Susannah.”
Susannah. Susannah. Susannah. I loved the way he said my name. The truth was, I loved everything about him.
“You know I can tell when you’re lying. Even over one of these things.”
Except the way he always knew when I was lying, and his impatience with modern technology. Those things I didn’t love so much.