“I agree. I’m so scared. It’s a low, constant buzz of terror.” Her breathing quickened, and her eyes shifted from side to side as if sensing danger in the shadows. “I see shadows in my peripheral vision, I hear noises that aren’t real and when I close my eyes, I want to scream. I want to scream. But I can’t, and the anxiety is slowing my mind at a time when I need to be alert.”

Adam wanted to reassure her. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. But what words to use?

Rune said, “That’s the other cause of amnesia—emotional trauma. I’d have to say being dragged out of the ocean half-dead—”

“She was fully dead,” Adam interrupted.

Rune looked up in interest.

“I flung her body over my shoulder, and she vomited and came to life.”

Rune nodded, laughed a little and said, “Lost souls back from the dead.”

“Shut up,” Adam said.

Rune waggled her index finger at Elle. “A murder attempt, a battle with a Pacific storm, long moments of oxygen deprivation followed by an abrupt and shocking return to life... That easily equals amnesia.”

Adam hadn’t thought about it like that. “I guess so. Sure.”

Rune said, “Even if Elle decides she doesn’t want to be hypnotized—”

“Hypnotized?” Adam was shocked. “I didn’t say you could do that.”

“No, you didn’t. Because I didn’t ask you. Whether I do or don’t isn’t up to you.” With a wave, Rune dismissed Adam and turned to Elle. “You can choose the more conventional question-and-answer method. We will possibly get some knowledge of your past, but it will take longer. Hypnosis is the swifter route.”

“I don’t think we should do that today.” Elle reached across the space between them and rested her hand on Rune’s arm. “You are looking quite ill. Are you? Is there something we can do for you?”

Adam found himself asking, “What happened to you?” Today, he meant.

Rune didn’t take it that way. “That’s the story, isn’t it? How did a Hollywood psychiatrist become a successful psychic? Do you want hear it?”

Elle was surprised. “Of course I want to know.”

Adam suspected it was going to involve more wild emotions. In the last twenty-four hours, one trauma had piled on top of another until it felt contagious.

Rune reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a battered deck of cards. She placed them on a table beside her and pointed to the chair adjoining. “Sit there, Elle. Shuffle the deck. Shuffle it three times.”

Elle laboriously changed seats, picked up the cards and looked them over. “Tarot!”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Adam sighed.

Elle and Rune grinned at him, identical smirks of undiluted delight.

Elle shuffled the first time.