Excerpt One:
“My apologies,” Letitia said, hopeful she could put him off with an excuse, “I’ll need a preliminary appointment and then a secondary one for the actual session, and I’m unavailable for another three weeks―”
“I can’t wait that long,” he said, reaching into his suit pocket to pluck out a brown envelope. “If you require a provisional report to better assess the situation, you can come by my office in the morning, where I will have legal paperwork for matters of confidentiality. I believe most of your consultations are in the afternoon, so it should not interfere with your appointment book.”
Letitia snapped the ledger shut. “I have other errands I must attend to tomorrow.”
“I wasn’t asking you, Ms. Hawking.”
She had guessed he’d spoken to one of her patrons, which would explain his presence on her doorstep, but now she was certain. Only during private consultations did she give her name, and only to those who treated what she gave them with due dignity. Each client had to meet her conditions, and each made a substantial payment for her service. It varied on the time passed and the trauma of death, but each one carried a price—for them and for her. Letitia always finished her sessions by asking patrons for their discretion and giving out a card with a telephone number and times to call. She was happy for a client to refer her to others, but rather than call he was here in person, making demands. He was not the kind of clientele she sought, especially one connected to a patron who had broken her request for privacy.
“I don’t appreciate your tone of voice,” she retorted, “or opening my door without invitation like a common thief, never mind you haven’t even bothered to introduce yourself.”
“I believe I’ve already apologized for my error,” he said, and Letitia would have responded in kind, but he was instructing her again. “And under the circumstances of your profession, I’m being more than reasonable in my request as well as reimbursement for your time.”
He attempted to hand her the envelope, and when she didn’t accept, he dropped it where she still held the ledger. It brushed her bare fingers, and a shadow grew behind the stranger.
The captivating dark absorbing her being, Letitia fumbled for the mental defenses against a true apparition, stunned as she was by its vivid form.
A cloud of darkness without face or features hovered over the man’s shoulder, but deep inside it she sensed it staring at her. Broad arms that could have grasped her in its embrace lay still by its side. Letitia couldn’t draw breath to scream at the darkness within the figure, the soul-sucking despair rendering her voiceless at the shadow’s presence.
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