City of Masks Read Free Page B

of file cabinets, a big bookcase, Joyce's desk, and a couch and coffee table. A small counter held cups, napkins, and a coffee brewer that filled the suite with a tempting smell.
    Joyce looked up. "Good-lookin' guy, huh? Clark Gable with a little more meat on his bones."
    "If you like the type." Cree handed her the check.
    "Which I take it you don't?" Joyce looked at the check and whistled.
    "Hallelujah. We'll get paid for at least another couple of weeks."
    "He wants us to provide the placebo effect," Cree said dryly. "For his sister."
    "A skeptic, huh?"
    "Also a model of probity and integrity, from a family without a smudge upon its name. But the site is historic, and the case has other interesting features. It might be a productive one for us to investigate. I was thinking I might try to get down there for a preliminary before - "
    "Cree." Joyce's face showed concern, and she reached out to take Cree's hand. "You're speaking with a Southern accent."
    "Shit."
    Cree shut her eyes and let Joyce rub her hand, feeling the stabilizing effect of physical human contact. Thank God for Joyce, who took seriously the job of keeping Cree anchored in herself, in her own body and identity, in the here and now.
    It was so easy to drift. Before she knew it, she was resonating with another person, the way an old piano will sing ghost notes from the vibration of your footsteps as you walk by. The tendency even had physical manifestations: She often took on clients' limps and gestures, felt their aches and itches. When her sister had delivered the twins, Cree had been doubled up with sympathetic labor pains.
    You had to keep the empathic connection manageable, or you'd lose yourself. In their work, it was a useful talent that allowed her to perceive things beyond the ordinarily inviolate walls of individual identity. But in daily life, it was more like a disability, some exotic disease. It required constant vigilance. If you weren't careful, the sheer mass of human presence in the world could crash over you, a tidal wave of emotion that would drown you in the hungers and hopes and fears that were all around, everywhere, always. Or, as had just started to happen, it could subtly, stealthily erode you. Without her even noticing it, her borders had blurred and she'd absorbed some of Ronald Beauforte, becoming him to a tiny degree, picking up his accent and who knew what else. And she didn't even like the guy!
    Cree hated imposing her penchant on her friends and colleagues. It made her feel fragile, dependent - a sickly child. And yet it was essential to their work.
    "Sorry. Thanks." Cree took a deep breath and blew herself a Bronx cheer, retrieved her hand, and briskly slapped her own cheeks as if putting on aftershave. One of Pop's gestures, she remembered. "'The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain.' Better?"
    "Much." Joyce's almond eyes checked her face critically and then looked back to her desk, apparently reassured. "Listen, Ed called while Clark Gable was here, I figured you didn't want to be disturbed. But he'd like you to call him back ASAP. Also your sister called, wants a return buzz." Joyce handed her the phone slips. "But don't forget there's Mrs. Wilson coming in ten minutes."
    Right. Cree had forgotten Mrs. Wilson. Ronald Beauforte's visit had put her off balance, and anyway it was seldom that two clients came to the office on the same day. She took the slips, gave Joyce a kiss of gratitude, headed back to the office.
    Joyce didn't get involved with the supernatural end of the work, but she kept Cree and Edgar on track, managed the business end of things, archived their files, and did the lion's share of historical and forensic detective work. Like Cree, she was an East Coast transplant to Seattle. Her accent gave away that she'd grown up on Long Island - talking to her on the phone, people assumed she was a New Yorker, probably Jewish, and, given her deep contralto, probably large. They were always surprised to come to the