"Good-bye, Joe."
Joe motioned toward the attendants, and they came and lifted Monica onto the plane. He wasn"t close enough to hear, but he thought she was giving them an impromptu reading as they helped her aboard. He chuckled to himself. The lady definitely had spirit.
He stayed and watched as her jet taxied to the end of the runway and took off into the cloudless sky.
Epilogue.
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA.
Is there something wrong, Daddy?" Joe stood on the riverbank, taking in the bright red-yellow leaves and breathing the crisp morning air. He turned toward Nikki. "Nothing"s wrong, honey."
"So can we go now? I don"t want to miss the parade."
"We won"t."
Joe looked up at the path that overlooked the riverbank. His father was pushing Carla in her wheelchair, talking a mile a minute about all the plans he had for them. Not only was Carla expected to make a full recovery, she"d emerged from her coma with an engagement ring on her finger. She planned to move to Savannah by Christmas and join the local police department.
Joe, Suzanne, and Nikki had driven Carla from Atlanta the night before, and they"d all risen early to see the town"s Veterans"Day parade.
Joe gently pushed back Nikki"s hair."You"re getting to be so grown-up, you know that?"
"I don"t feel grown-up."
"Well, you are. You really handled yourself well these last couple of weeks. Barry Roth tried to hurt us in the cruelest way imaginable, and you held it together. I"m proud of you."
Nikki hugged him."Suzanne helped me. She"s awesome."
"I think so too."
Nikki pulled away."I knew it wasn"t Mommy doing and saying those things. I thought it was at first, but later I knew."
"Suzanne explained it to you really well, huh?"
"Not just Suzanne."
"Who else?"
She didn"t answer.
"Nikki?"
She looked away from him. "I knew it wasn"t Mommy because ...Mommy told toldme it wasn"t."
Joe felt as if he"d been kicked in the stomach. "What?"
"Suzanne came over that day, and after Grandpa left, she helped me talk to Mommy."
"How?"
"Please don"t be mad. Suzanne said you"d be mad if you knew."
"I"m not mad. Just tell me what Suzanne said."
"Suzanne talked to her friend, the one who died when she was a little girl. Her name is Daphne. Daphne talked to Mommy."
"You believed her?"
Nikki nodded. "Mommy told me not to be scared.
She said that you"d take care of me. She knows that I still sing "Breakout"in my head when I get scared. I"ve never told anybody that, not even you." Her gaze searched his face. "I knew you wouldn"t believe me, but it"s true ...it"s true, Daddy."
"Are you ...sure?"
"Yes. Mommy misses you. She"s happy, but she still remembers us and the things we did. And she knows about Lillian."
Joe stopped breathing."What?"
"There"s a statue you like to look at. It"s in the window of an antiques store. It"s a statue of a pretty lady named Lillian. It reminds you of the way Mommy looked one summer when she got her hair cut short. You"ve thought about buying it, but it"s expensive and you"re afraid it will make you sad. Mommy doesn"t want you to be sad."
Joe felt light-headed. He"d been looking at that statue for months, but he"d never breathed a word about it to anyone.
No one could possibly know this. Unless ...
"Joe?"
He turned and saw Suzanne standing on the path above them.
He and Nikki climbed the embankment and stopped a few feet away from her. Suzanne studied his expression."She told you, didn"t she?"
He nodded.
"I knew I should have asked your permission, but I had to keep Nikki from hurting. I"m not sorry I did it. Do you want me to leave?"
He shook his head.
"What do you want to do?"
Joe"s eyes stung, but for once he didn"t care if Nikki noticed. He wanted to say something, but the words wouldn"t come.
That"s okay, he thought. He had a lifetime to find the words.
He took Suzanne"s hand and kissed it. "Let"s go watch a parade."
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As with my previous Joe Bailey mystery, I owe a debt of grat.i.tude to the skeptics-past and present-who have influenced me through the years. Many of history"s most effective debunkers have been magicians-from Harry Houdini to James Randi to Penn& Teller-and, at their best, they"ve shown that skepticism is not synonymous with cynicism.Thanks are also in order to Dr. Jennifer Li, who educated me on the sound transmission properties of Terfenol-D and its use in upcoming personal audio devices. One such device, the Soundbug, is already available from Olympia International.I also owe much grat.i.tude to:My wife, Lisa, who keeps the magic and wonder alive.My agent, Andrea Cirillo, who is the best guide to the publishing world that I could ever hope for.And finally, my editor, Bill Ma.s.sey, who became a husband, father, and New York City resident during one of the most traumatic times in the city"s history. And through it all, he helped me shape this story with unerring taste, understanding, and intelligence. That That"sa good trick!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ROY JOHANSEN"S first screenplay, Murder 101, Murder 101,written while he was in college, was produced for cable TV and won an Edgar Award as well as a Focus Award, which is sponsored by Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese. He has written for Disney, MGM, United Artists, Universal, and Warner Bros. He lives in southern California with his wife, Lisa.