PROLOGUE

FROM: catburd@connectone.com

SUBJ: you don’t fool me

DATE: 01.19

great show tonight, ari. you did it all, sweetheart. you threw out bait and reeled in fish like the pro we both know you aren’t. you even got that bald fool to cry over his dead cousin. fucking amazing, that’s what you are. all sparkles and smiles, TV’s darling. you might get a raise. then you can move out of that little house and get a big mansion like all the other phony deadtalkers who hit the big time. oh, yeah, i know where your house is, ari. i’ve been there. 9302 hillside avenue. right above the place where john belushi died. but you know that. you probably talk to him all the time, don’t you? ha ha.

it’s only a matter of time until the truth is out, ari. you’re a fake. how long can you fool everyone? not much longer. your days are numbered. then the truth will be out and you will be finished.

CHAPTER ONE

HOW COME SCIENTISTS could build a fully functioning laboratory eighty miles above the earth, but couldn’t figure out a way to fix the L.A. freeway system? Chase Ryker had been on both, and the space station ran smoother than the 405—whose bumper-to-bumper congestion extended onto another freeway and all the way into Burbank.

He finally whipped the Porsche into the studio lot and announced himself to the guard, though he wasn’t scheduled to arrive until the next day.

You’re on the list, the young man said. Tomorrow’s list.

I’ll wait at Ms. Killian’s trailer, Chase said with the authoritative tone he’d perfected in the military.

The guard looked dubious, checking Chase’s ID a second time as if this had never occurred at his gate before. Listen, I can’t let you go to her trailer, but this’ll get you into sound stage four and you can sit in the audience. He held out a bright red pass.

Good man. He shouldn’t let anyone go to Arianna Killian’s dressing trailer, especially after dark. Security like this made his job easier. But could he push the kid? I’m not that interested in the show, and I have an appointment.

For tomorrow, the guard said. Anyway, her show is great. People wait eighteen months to get tickets. You won’t believe it.

No, he wouldn’t—that was certain. All right. Thanks. He took the map of the lot the guard offered and waited for the mesh gate to open.

Chase slid the map behind the visor, not needing it. He’d memorized the layout of the MetroNet studios, along with the roads in and out of the hillside neighborhood where Arianna Killian lived, the gym where she did Jnana Yoga, the natural-food restaurants she frequented, and the Santa Monica home of her widowed father that she visited almost every week. There wasn’t much he didn’t know logistically about the TV psychic, and he’d learned all of it on the plane down from San Francisco that morning. A photographic memory helped a lot in his job.

Another guard let him into the sound stage where the black and red logo for the show Closure hung over the door. Chase declined to sign a taping release, which the guard noted but didn’t question. Good thing. He had no intention of being on camera.

When a perky college-aged page took him to the audience seating area, he made a mental note that there was no metal detector to spot the Glock 19 that rested on his hip, hidden by a sports jacket. How many other people in this room packed? He scouted the crowd as the young lady escorted him to an empty seat at the end of the third row.

There’s nothing in the back? he asked.

Oh, you’ll like it up here, she assured him. You have a better chance of getting her attention. Who are you here to talk to?

The host.

I mean, who have you lost? Who do you want Arianna to talk to?

No one.

That earned him a surprised look. When she walked away, he covertly checked out the audience. These weren’t the celebrity-starved tourists who waited to see Jay Leno down the road. All around him, the audience wore expressions that ranged from expectation to raw pain. Many held hands, a few mumbled prayers.

All of them were there because they actually believed in the chance to have that final chat with someone on the other side. They all wanted closure. Talk about exploiting a ripe market.

Suddenly the stage blackened and a lonesome piano hit a few slow notes. When the lights came back up and the New Age music died down, the sound stage had two occupants—one, he had to admit, quite riveting.

No doubt about it, the woo-woo girl was pretty.

Not stunning by the extreme standards of Los Angeles, where even the garbage collectors harbored dreams of stardom. But she had an earthy, wild beauty that came as much from the playful glimmer in her emerald green eyes as the cascades of copper waves that fell over her shoulders.

David, she said, leaning toward the young man sitting across from her. Don’t look so serious. This is supposed to be totally fun. She trilled the totally and added a saucy wink. I promise.

David damn near melted.

She wore a wireless mic clipped to the V-neck of a buttercream-colored sweater that amplified her soft, feminine voice, and soft, feminine cleavage. All part of the carefully crafted package that had made her a media favorite. Charming, witty, adorable Arianna the TV psychic. But underneath the clingy clothes and sweet curves, despite the whimsical curls and the musical laugh, he’d bet there was a very shrewd businesswoman who knew exactly how to exploit human frailty.

The male guest on the set nodded, leaving his handprint impressions on the leather armrest when he released his grip and wiped his palms on his trousers.

Are you ready, David?

Oh, I’m ready, he said. I’ve been ready for two years.

Okay, then. Arianna closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Let’s talk to Mary Jo. A long moment of silence passed before she opened her eyes, a hint of a smile so sweet and subtle it had to be practiced a zillion times in front of a mirror. A smile that could sell anything. Even the idea of talking to the dead.

She wants you to know that she appreciates what you’ve done for her dog.

Oh, brother. For this, he left the side of a Nobel scientist doing top-secret research on particle physics? But that was the nature of his job. And he’d do this one exactly like he’d done every other assignment: thoroughly.

She clasped her hands, twirling a ring on the left middle finger, her face serene and trancelike. I’m getting something . . . with food. In the kitchen. Did Mary Jo like to cook?

God, yes. She was an amazing cook.

Arianna held up her hand as though to silence him, but of course that just made it look like she was getting all her info from poor dead Mary Jo, when all she was doing was playing an elaborate game of Twenty Questions that would lead her exactly where she wanted to go.

Did Mary Jo like to cook? That basically covered half the female population. Talking to the dead, according to the quick research he’d done this morning, was little more than a sophisticated form of Q&A and black magic.

He’d also learned that Closure had been running on MetroNet for eight months, and judging by the cost of a minute’s worth of advertising, plenty of people were tuning in to witness strangers have those last few words with the dearly departed. Of course, who wouldn’t pay big bucks for that last conversation? Even he could think of a few things he’d like to say to someone now gone.

The thought hit him hard, and he forced himself to concentrate on the woman he’d come to watch.

Mary Jo wants you to know that . . . She tilted her head up, no doubt to look like she was hearing voices from the grave, but it gave the camera a nice view of her face, oval and symmetrical, with a slightly upturned nose and a little cleft in her chin. A television face, smoothed by the hand of a makeup artist. She wore the creamy color from head to designer toe, no doubt to give her an angelic, ethereal look. It worked.

There’s definitely something about the dog . . .

Skippy. Our spaniel. She adored him.

Skippy. She cooed the name, as if the animal were right there begging for a treat. Then her expression turned compassionate and she leaned closer to David. "Was