Page 107 of It takes a Psychic

“You read it?” Leona asked. “I’m on chapter six. I admit I had my doubts about the positive-thinking theory, but—”

“It’s all a fucking lie. That crap about thinking positive is a cruel joke. I tried it. Look what happened to me. Someone should sue the author.”

“I’m not sure you can blame the author for your own screwup. That was just poor planning.”

“I did not screw up,” Melody cried.

“Your big mistake was stealing Pandora’s box from the Rancourt Museum. That got Oliver Rancourt’s attention.”

“I had no choice.” Melody managed to regain some self-control. “I had to have a suitable artifact to submit to the Society. I needed an object of power that the board would not be able to resist. When it comes to AUPs, no museum has a finer collection than the Rancourt. I had no wayof knowing that Oliver Rancourt would be able to track down the missing artifact.”

“People tend to underestimate Oliver,” Leona said. “He was certainly right about you. You’re obsessed with the intricacies of your own plans. You make them so complicated that you can’t adapt them to unexpected twists.”

“That’s a lie.” Melody raised the flamer again. “I have Vincent Lee Vance’s talent for strategy.”

“He failed, remember?”

“Because the Guilds ambushed him,”Melody shrieked.

“And he had no backup plan. Right. Okay, you’ve got a talent for strategy and one for hypnosis. I’m assuming your third talent is your ability to rez some Alien artifacts.”

“Yes,” Melody said. “Like you.”

Baxter Richey appeared in the doorway behind her. His expressionless face and blank eyes made it clear he was still in a trance.

“Where’s Roxy?” Leona asked. “What did you do to her?”

Baxter did not react to the question.

“I had to put him in a very heavy trance,” Melody explained. “He can only respond to direct demands or questions from me.” She raised her voice slightly. “Baxter, what happened to the dust bunny?”

“Lost,” Baxter said in his flat voice.

“What the fuck?” Melody began. Then she gave Leona an amused smile. “I believe my exact instructions were,Lose the dust bunny. People in a trance take commands very literally.”

Leona knew a rush of hope. Maybe Baxter actually had lost Roxy and not murdered her. She glanced at the pendant around his neck. The stone in it glowed.

“You used those pendants to transmit hypnotic commands to the members of your Vance return cult,” she said.

“It was the same technique Vance used to control his Guardians.”

“Why did you murder the waiter, Astrid Todd, at the reception?”

“Turns out not everyone can be hypnotized. Todd had some serious talent herself. She actually tried to scamme. She pretended to be a true believer, but she figured out what was going on and just played along.”

“What happened at the reception?”

“I arranged for her to get the job on the catering staff that night because I thought it might be useful to have someone I could trust to handle the unpleasant stuff in the event I ran into a problem. I knew the Society would have a lot of security for the event.”

“You wanted someone to take the fall if things went wrong.”

“But the stupid woman turned on me. Tried to blackmail me—right there in the mansion. I couldn’t believe it. That’s when I realized she was not under the control of the Voice. She threatened to tell the head of the Society that I was a thief who was there to steal some of the artifacts. She demanded that I transfer a fortune into her bank account.”

“You panicked, grabbed the nearest weapon—a kitchen knife—and killed her.”

“I did not panic. I did the only thing I could under the circumstances. I had to kill her. She gave me no choice.”

“Nope, you definitely panicked.” Leona tut-tutted. “Oliver is right. You’re an overplanner. A juggler. One little spinning plate falls off a pole and you lose control.”

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