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  “George,” she whispered. “George, where are you, darling? Come talk to us.”

  Sissy joined in. “George, we need to ask you some questions. Come on, George, Darlene’s here, waiting for you.”

  Nearly a minute went by. Darlene said, “Please, George. I miss you so much. The girls miss you so much. I need to tell you that I still love you and I always will. I need to hear you say that you still love me.”

  Sissy suddenly saw a distortion in the air, in front of the fireplace. She looked meaningfully at Molly and inclined her head toward the distortion, and Molly saw it, too. It looked as if the fluted pillar on one side of the fireplace was slowly rippling, as if it were under water.

  The mirror above the fireplace began to darken. Sissy touched Darlene on the arm and said, “Look.” The reflection of the living room grew gloomier and gloomier, and as it did so, a man’s face began to appear, pale and staring, like a face from a long-forgotten photograph. His eyes were smudged, and the rest of his features were blurred, but Darlene immediately rose to her feet and held out one hand toward the mirror, and her eyes filled up with tears.

  “George! It’s George! Oh my God, how did you do that? George!”

  Sissy stood up, too. Molly looked up at her in alarm, but Sissy said, “Don’t be frightened. It’s only his image. He’s using the mirror’s memory … the impressions that he left on its silver backing when he was alive.”

  All the same, Sissy could feel George’s presence as strongly as if he were standing right in front of her, although his personality was jumbled and bewildered, and he was still in state of shock. She approached the mirror and concentrated on calming him down.

  Steady, George, steady.

  “George, can you hear me?” she said. “My name is Sissy Sawyer. I’m a friend of Darlene’s.”

  George’s head moved jerkily, and his lips moved, but all Sissy could hear was a distant, strangled sound, like a loudspeaker announcement on a windy day.

  “George, I need to ask you some questions about how you were killed.”

  More strangled noises—but then, unexpectedly, and very clearly, the word sorry.

  Sissy laid her hand on Darlene’s shoulder. Darlene was weeping quite openly now, and she had to wipe her nose with the back of her hand.

  “George, can you hear me, George?” Sissy asked him. No matter how distressed Darlene was, she couldn’t allow George to fade away—not yet, anyhow, not until she had talked to him—because she might never be able to call him back. Like so many gone-beyonders, he could well find this contact with his past life so painful that he never wanted to repeat it.

  “George, darling,” said Darlene. “George, I miss you so much.”

  “—miss you too—and Kitty, and Amanda—”

  “Oh, George.”

  “What happened, George?” Sissy interrupted. “Can you remember the man who stabbed you?”

  George’s image suddenly shuddered, but then it came back into focus. “—it was all so—sudden—didn’t—”

  “The man who attacked you, George. Can you tell me what he looked like?”

  “—stabbed me and stabbed me—strange thing, though—I didn’t feel it—didn’t feel anything—”

  Molly stood up now. “George, my name’s Molly.”

  George stared at her as if he thought he ought to know who she was.

  “I’m an artist, George. If you tell me what the man looked like, I can make a drawing of him and help the police to catch him.”

  “—just started stabbing me—”

  “Was he white? Was he black? What kind of clothes was he wearing?”

  “—couldn’t see too clearly—all I saw was that knife—”

  “George, listen to me,” Molly insisted. “Was he taller than you? How would you describe his build?”

  George turned toward Darlene. His expression was one of infinite regret. “I’m so sorry, Darlene—how can you ever forgive me?”

  “George, it wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you.”

  “—if only I hadn’t—”

  “It wasn’t your fault, George. How were you to know that he was going to get onto that elevator with you?”

  “—not that—she—”

  George’s image in the mirror began to shudder. Darlene said, “No! No, George, don’t go!” and she went right up to the fireplace and pressed her hands and her forehead against the glass. “No!” she sobbed, as her own reflection grew clearer and brighter, and the living room reappeared behind her. “Please, George, we haven’t talked at all!”

  Sissy gently put her arm around her. “He’s gone, Darlene. For now, anyhow. It’s as much of a strain for the gone-beyonders to talk to us as it is for us to talk to them. But he won’t be far away, ever. So long as you go on thinking about him and remembering what he was like and how much he loved you, he’ll always be close to you, I promise.”

  Darlene turned away from the mirror, distraught. Her two palm prints remained for a moment, like ghosts, and then they faded, too.

  “He didn’t have to say he was sorry,” she said. “Why did he keep on saying he was sorry?”

  “Well … often a gone-beyonder will feel guilt for having died, leaving his family to fend for themselves. Just like his family will blame him for dying, even though it wasn’t his fault.”

  Darlene pulled a Kleenex out of a decorative box on the table and wiped her eyes. “Do you think I might be able to talk to him again?”

  “I hope so. Especially since he’s so regretful. But give him some time. If you like, I could come back in a week or so, and we could try again.”

  Darlene nodded. “I’d like that. Now—how about a drink? I could really use something to steady my nerves.”

  “A little too early for me,” said Sissy. “But coffee would be good.”

  Darlene went through to the kitchen, leaving Sissy and Molly still standing in front of the mirror.

  “That was incredible,” said Molly. “You actually made him appear. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.”

  “He was desperate to appear, that’s why. Absolutely desperate. He needed Darlene to see how sorry he was.”

  “If he’d committed suicide, maybe I could understand it. But sorry for being murdered?”

  “Well, you’re right, of course,” said Sissy. She held out her hand with the amethyst ring that used to belong to her mother. The stone was still shiny but it had turned black as a stag beetle. “Our friend behind the mirror was lying to us.”

  “Lying about what? He didn’t say very much.”

  “Well, let’s think about it. Number one, he said that the stabbing happened really quickly. Number two, he said that he didn’t feel any pain. And number three, he said that he didn’t have a chance to see the man’s face.”

  Molly frowned. “Jane Becker said that it happened really quickly, too. And she said that she didn’t feel any pain, not until afterward. But she did see Red Mask’s face, and very clearly.”

  “So maybe George saw his face, too, but for some reason of his own he doesn’t want to admit it. Maybe George recognized him. Maybe it wasn’t a random stabbing, after all. Maybe Red Mask killed George deliberately.”

  “But if that’s true—why did he go on to kill that young artist guy, and those three cleaners?”

  Sissy dropped her pouches of herbs back into her purse and blew out her candle. “I don’t have any idea,” she admitted. “And I don’t think the cards do either. We’re dealing with something really strange here—something that’s way beyond my experience.”

  Darlene came back into the living room carrying a tray with three cups of coffee on it. As she put it down, Sissy noticed that one of the cups already contained a large measure of amber liquid. She didn’t blame Darlene at all. For months after Frank had been killed, she herself had opened a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whenever her loneliness became unbearable.

  “I’m still shaking,” said Darlene, sitting down and filling up their cups with hot black
espresso.

  “George is probably shaking, too,” said Sissy. “Being dead, that doesn’t exempt us from feeling any emotion. Love, hate, pleasure—they don’t all stop because we die.”

  “Do you think he still loves me … as much as I love him?”

  “I think he bitterly regrets that he’s left you.”

  Sissy sipped her coffee. As she did so, she noticed that Darlene kept glancing up at the mirror, as if she half-expected George to reappear. Sissy wished that he would. She had so many more questions to ask him. In particular, What are you so darned sorry about, George?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Red Mask Panic

  On their way back home they stopped off at the Rook-wood Pavilion in Norwood so that Molly could buy some more crayons and paints from an artist’s supply store called Arts Of Gold and some purple beaded cushion covers from Stein Mart. Then they bought themselves strawberry ice-cream cones and walked through the mall, window-shopping.

  “So where do you think we go from here?” said Molly.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Sissy admitted. “But I do think that George told us something important. Or rather, he lied about something important.”

  “But he’s dead. Why should he lie about anything? What would be the point?”

  “People usually lie because they’ve done something that they’re ashamed of.”

  “Being murdered is nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Yes, but why was he murdered?”

  They were looking at summer dresses in T.J. Maxx when Molly’s cell phone warbled. She answered it and said, “Yes,” and then, “Yes,” and then, “Oh God, not again.”

  “What’s happened?” Sissy asked her.

  “Red Mask,” said Molly. “He’s killed seven more people in an elevator at the Giley Building. But it looks like there’s a copycat killer, too. Eleven people were stabbed in an elevator at the Four Days Mall, but at almost the same time.”

  “There are two Red Masks?” said Sissy. “That’s just terrible. How can there be two of them?”

  “Mike Kunzel says he has witnesses. Three people survived—one at the Giley Building and two at the Four Days Mall. He wants me to go to the hospital and talk to them. He says they all described a red-faced man with two knives.”

  “This is just awful. No wonder the cards predicted so much blood.”

  “Do you want to come with me?” asked Molly. “Maybe if you sit in while I’m drawing my composites, you might get some kind of insight.” “Sure, yes, I’ll come along.”

  They walked back to Molly’s car. The skies had cleared now, and a gilded sun was shining, but the morning was still steamy, and thousands of cicadas were chirruping in the trees that surrounded the parking lot. They drove out of the gates, splashing through the puddles, and headed toward Allison Street.

  Molly turned on the radio. On 700 AM, a reporter was talking to Lieutenant Colonel Whalen, the commander of the investigations bureau.

  Lieutenant Colonel Whalen sounded shaken. “It’s far too early for us to say exactly who we’re looking for. It could be a copycat killer, yes. But then again, it could be an organization of two or more terrorists. Whoever it is—and whatever perverted purpose they have in mind—they are obviously determined to cause as much panic and disruption as they can.”

  “But what would you say to the general public in Cincinnati?” asked the reporter. “What special precautions would you advise them to take?”

  “We all need to keep our eyes open. We all need to be aware of what these men look like, and to check out our fellow passengers whenever we step onto an elevator.”

  “But if we can’t be sure of our safety in a glass-paneled elevator that’s in full view of two crowded streets and a crowded shopping mall … where can we?”

  “Right now, I’d advise Cincinnatians to stay on a high level of personal alert no matter where they’re going or what they’re doing. Riding in elevators, walking in the park, going out shopping—even at home. So far, yes, these men have attacked people only on elevators. But we have no guarantee that they won’t diversify their assaults, and we have no idea when, or where, or even if they are planning to strike again.”

  “So you couldn’t even guess at a motive?”

  “Not yet. It’s perfectly possible that the perpetrators have an agenda that makes some kind of twisted sense to them. Last year, if you remember, James Kellman shot two innocent children on a bus because he thought they were laughing at his private thoughts. But—no—we have no idea at this time why any of these people were attacked.

  “All I can say on behalf of the CPD is that their loved ones have our deepest sympathy.”

  Chrissie had survived. Elaine had been stabbed in the face with both knives at once and had fallen backward, with Chrissie underneath her. Chrissie had been stabbed three times in the left arm, and once in the left leg, above the knee—but even though the knife blade had penetrated so deeply that the point had momentarily stuck in her thighbone, it had missed her femoral artery by a quarter of an inch.

  She was sedated and confused, and her eyes kept roaming around the room as if she was fearful that her attacker was suddenly going to reappear.

  But Molly kept on saying, “You’re safe now, Chrissie. He’s gone, and he won’t be coming back. I promise you.”

  “I was so scared. He kept shouting, ‘Wicked! Wicked!’ He was trying to kill all of us.”

  “I know. That’s why I need you to tell me what he looked like.”

  “His face. His face was so red. It was like he was burned.”

  Molly held up one of her Caran d’Ache crayons. “Was it red like this?”

  “No. It was redder than that.”

  Molly held up another crayon, torch red. “How about this?”

  Chrissie nodded. “That’s how red he was. And his eyes. It was like he had no eyes at all.”

  Sissy sat on the opposite side of the hospital bed, a little way back. She could feel Chrissie’s fear, as tight as an overwound clock. But, oddly, she had no sense of Red Mask himself, only emptiness. It was just as if Chrissie were describing a figure that she had seen in a nightmare, rather than a real person.

  Usually, when she talked to women who were being intimidated or beaten, she could pick up a distinct sense of the people who were frightening them so much. Bullies and abusing husbands lived inside their victims’ consciousness, possessing them like malevolent spirits. But Chrissie’s description of Red Mask evoked nothing at all. Blackness. Coldness. No more soul than a cicada.

  She moved her chair closer to the bed and reached out for Chrissie’s hand.

  “Do you mind?” she asked her.

  “Of course not,” said Chrissie.

  Sissy turned Chrissie’s hand over and examined her palm. She had a long, double life line, which meant that she had an outstanding resistance to negative events in her life and would live to a very old age—even though there were two significant breaks in it. The first of those breaks was probably an indication of the knife attack that she had just suffered. The other showed that she had another life-threatening incident in store for her when she was very much older, but she would survive that, too. Maybe an accident, maybe an illness.

  Her line of Venus was perforated, which revealed sensitivity and a willingness to listen to other people’s problems. But her line of Apollo was short and broken, meaning that she was a dreamer and a procrastinator, who lacked concentration.

  Her fate line, though, was highly unusual. It had a complicated whorl in it that Sissy had only seen once before, on a woman who had claimed that a statue in the ornamental gardens in Darien, Connecticut, had spoken to her and given her a warning that her daughter was about to die.

  The whorl meant that Chrissie had witnessed a highly potent psychic phenomenon—something that most people would never witness even if they lived a hundred lifetimes. A miracle.

  Molly was quickly sketching the face of Chrissie’s assailant. His head looked slightly narrower than
her previous two drawings of Red Mask, and his cheeks were more chiseled, but there was no question that it was the same man.

  When she had finished, she lifted up her sketch pad and turned it around so that Chrissie could tell her how accurate it was. Chrissie immediately turned her head away. “That’s him. Please, I don’t want to look at it. That’s exactly him.”

  Sissy held Chrissie’s hand between hers, and said, “Don’t worry. You’re never going to see him again. Your palm tells me that you’re going to be happy and healthy and live for a very long time. Oh—and apart from that—you’re going to have at least five children.”

  Chrissie opened her mouth in disbelief. “Five children! But I’m not married yet! I don’t even have a boyfriend.”

  “You will. You see your mount of Venus here, just below your thumb? It’s very high and rounded, which means that you’re going to have a passionate love life and a very satisfying marriage. And five children, one for each finger.”

  Molly stood up. “My mother-in-law is never wrong, believe me. Madame Blavatsky had nothing on her.”

  Chrissie said, “Thank you. And I really hope you catch this psycho.”

  Sissy and Molly glanced at each other. Chrissie hadn’t yet been told that there had been two almost simultaneous attacks in the city center that morning, and that both of them had been carried out by a red-faced man.

  “We’ll catch him,” Molly reassured her. “You just worry about getting yourself better.”

  They were about to leave the room when Chrissie said, “Oh! There’s one more thing that I remember. The man—he had a piece missing from his ear.”

  Molly stopped. “A piece missing from his ear? What do you mean?”

  “It was his right ear, like a triangular piece missing from his earlobe.”

  “You want to show me on this drawing?”

  “Okay.”

  Molly kept most of the man’s face covered while Chrissie penciled in a V-shaped nick.

  “That’s good,” Molly told her. “That’s very distinctive. That should help the police a lot.”