The Unquiet - J. D. Robb [77]
“Sure. Of course. Although . . .”
“No,” she agreed. He and Charlie weren’t all that close.
“And I’m a . . .”
“I know,” she said. Busy man.
“But I could . . .”
“Yes,” she said. Try harder.
“Would you stop doing that?”
“Doing what, Oliver?”
He heard the smile in her voice again. Extraordinary voice. Not so much sexy as sensual, and so caring, it was practically maternal. “What, uh, if I may ask, what is your accent? I can’t quite place it.”
“Does it matter?”
“No, of course not, I just—”
“It’s only that I prefer to keep the focus on my clients, not myself.”
“I can see that. Then again, I’m not a client.”
“That’s true,” she said consideringly. “Well, I grew up in many places, Oliver, mostly around Budapest. But many places.”
Budapesht, she pronounced it. “A Hungarian Gypsy,” he said with a laugh he couldn’t help. He cut it off quickly. Could any of that be true?
“No, not I. My mother, my grandmother, they were Gypsies.”
“But you inherited the gift.”
“The gift?”
“Of fortune-telling.”
She made a low, humming sound, full of amusement and sly accusation. “With my deep clairvoyant powers, I detect a tiny trace of skepticism, Oliver.”
“Tell me something about myself,” he challenged on a whim. “My sign, my favorite color. My shoe size.”
“Ah, you want to play games.”
“No, seriously.” He almost was serious. This almost mattered. “Tell me something you couldn’t know. Something you could only intuit.”
A long silence.
“You there?” he prompted.
“I am thinking, dear one. I am receiving.”
He grinned and put his feet up on the coffee table, getting comfortable. This was how the dollars added up so fast. And yet he felt nothing but relaxed and patient, anticipatory. Not much like a chump at all.
“Something keeps you from contentment. Something is blocking you. Something stands between you and happiness.”
His smile faded. “Isn’t that a home run for just about everybody ? ‘Something.’ I don’t suppose you could be more specific.”
Another thoughtful pause, after which she said, “Guilt?” so softly he barely heard. “Guilt for no reason.”
He stood up, knocking over a stack of magazines. He controlled his temper by gripping the phone and squeezing. Beep. He must’ve hit a number—
“Oliver ? Hello?”
“How do you do it when you don’t have an inside source? Keep it vague, I guess, stick with ‘something.’ ”
“ An inside—Do you mean Charlie? He’s told me nothing. Oliver, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”
“Just stay away from my grandfather. Do we agree on that?”
“Yes, I’ve told you—”
“Because he can’t afford you.” He hung up quickly, before he could add, “Neither can I.”
THREE
“You’re having a bad day.”
“Oh, hi, Aunt Kit. Hang on a sec.” Molly McDougal stuck her cell phone under her chin and shifted a stack of books and notebooks to one arm so she could reach across with the other to retrieve the ticket on her windshield. It said her student parking permit had expired. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t divine it. Must’ve been something about the way you took my head off with ‘Hello.’ ”
“Sorry. I’m fine, really.” Especially now that, after a minimum of coughing and gasping, the Pontiac had fired up. Molly pulled out onto Nebraska Avenue and headed for home. “It’s just a medium-bad day. How are you? What’s new in Hoboken ?”
“Everything’s peachy, now back to you. What’s wrong?”
Molly believed in empathy, not psychic power, and certainly not in mind-reading, but sometimes her great-aunt could be scarily acute. Don’t think about the foreclosure notice in the paper this morning, Molly told herself—which was like a camper telling herself, Don’t think about that bear snuffling around the sleeping bag. She thought instead of the second worst thing that had happened to her in the last two days. “I just lost my favorite caller.”
“Who? Not Charlie. Oh no! Did he—”
“No, no, he didn’t die.”
“Thank goodness. I love that guy.”
“But I’m not allowed to talk to him anymore.” She told Aunt Kit about the call from Oliver Worth, how she’d agreed not to take his grandfather’s calls anymore.
“I think you should anyway.”