“And where would you be if I hadn’t spent all that time courting Persephone and then scaring her to death with my ghost?”

“He’s right,” Anna said solemnly. “His ghost definitely earned a share.”

Everyone laughed at that, even Jake.

“But if you take half the score, we won’t have much left to return to the victims,” Elizabeth pointed out.

“Charity begins at home,” Jake said. “And those people wouldn’t have gotten anything at all back if it wasn’t for me dying.”

“Oh, oh,” Elizabeth cried dramatically, clutching her head.

Mother Bates and Zelda were the only ones she fooled, and they came rushing to her side.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Mother Bates asked.

“Are you all right? What’s happening?” Zelda asked.

“I see Jake,” Elizabeth said, closing her eyes and pressing her fingers to her temples. “And I see blood. So much blood. And . . . and Jake’s heart. He . . . he . . . he needs to grow a heart!”

Everyone thought that was hilarious except Jake, who finally said, after the laughter died away, “I didn’t say I’d take my whole share.”

“And once again,” Anna said, “Elizabeth’s prediction comes true.”

—

Do you have any more predictions to make?” Gideon asked her when everyone had gone home, and they were finally alone in their bedroom.

She pressed her fingers to her head again. “Yes, as a matter of fact. I predict that your mother and I are going to Washington City next week to demonstrate for the Woman Suffrage Amendment. Congress should be voting on it soon.”

“Didn’t you get in a lot of trouble the last time you were in Washington City?” he asked her with mock solemnity.

“A little bit, but I ended up meeting the most wonderful man and that made it all worthwhile.”

He couldn’t help smiling at that, but he said, “Just don’t get arrested this time.”

“Oh my, that’s advice you could give me almost every day,” she informed him.

“Remind me to do just that.”

“I’m sure I won’t have to. This is most certainly the last con I will ever need to run. From now on I’m going to be a perfectly respectable society matron who only has to lie when another woman asks me if I like her hat.”

“Oh, darling,” Gideon said, taking her in his arms, “I’m afraid that’s the biggest lie you’ve told yet.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I hope you enjoyed reading about Elizabeth’s exploits as much as I enjoyed writing about them. I researched mediums and séances several years ago for one of my Gaslight Mysteries, and when I learned that the loss of so many young people from World War I and the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918–19 had created a renewed interest in contacting the dead, I knew I had to use a medium in this story.