“When it comes to the dead, I see things other people don’t.” He fiddled with his fingers on the table. Lara could also feel his leg shaking with energy, the little monkey bouncing. “It was like they were hidden behind my mama’s dirty curtain that had once been clean and sheer. So for a while, people gave me money to visit the places where people had died. Loved ones—you know, to see if I could feel their energy and talk to them.”

The kid was like a windup toy. He wouldn’t stop chattering. Lara thought he must be nervous filling in for Madame Fonseca. She was a fucking legend. He seemed not to have stopped for a breath.

“At first, my work was limited to local folks who knew about me—mothers who’d lost their kids. It’s always parents looking for answers.” He went back to her hand, turning it over then scrutinizing her fingers.

“Why, that first summer, I spent a lot of time standing along the bad dip in County Road 68 down in Alabama where those makeshift crosses were crafted at the hairpin turns, or out on Interstate 10, walking the brim of the highway while the big rigs blew by me.”

He looked up like Lara should know Interstate 10. “But then Madame Fonseca found me when they were in Montgomery and she helped me hone my ‘craft’ as she called it. She taught me the cards, too.”

Lara exhaled. The story was done. Shane turned Lara’s hand back around. The monkey reached over and touched the lines on her palm. With his expressive brown eyes and human face, he seemed to regard her gravely.

“I know, Mr. Tisdale,” Shane said, nodding. “I see it, too. It’s crazy, but this little guy can pick out exactly the thing about each reading.”

“My fiancé left me at the altar nine months ago,” blurted Lara sardonically. “Did he pick up on that?”

Shane Speer studied her face, squinting as though he was trying to bore holes in her. She could see an enormous zit forming on his adolescent nose, and she wondered if Mr. Tisdale would point that out, too.

Shane closed his eyes, more for show than anything, Lara was sure. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” It was the same thing Audrey had said the afternoon of her wedding.

“It happens,” he said, like he was apologizing for failing to get a boner. “Sometimes, they just aren’t there… this fiancé. He’s gone.”

“Well, hell, I know that,” snapped Lara. “Gone to where?”

“He’s nowhere.” Shane shrugged. “That boy is not your destiny.”

“What did you just say?” Lara leaned in, her voice rising. It was the same thing the man had said to her in the field all those years ago.

“He is not the point.”

Lara thought he was exactly the point and the reason she was spending money for this goddamned kid to fondle her hand. “Who are you?”