Conduit Read Free Page B

Beverly called Emily in any way
other than using the intercom.
    Emily frowned and turned back to Beverly. “Did you call out
my name a moment ago?”
    “I sure didn’t. I would have used the phone and saved my
voice. Maybe it was Cassie.”
    “You’re probably right. Thanks for getting those invoices
done, Beverly.”
    “No problem. I’ll get Mrs. Linder’s bill out today as well.”
    Emily smiled and strolled back through the door leading to their
offices. She veered left past the conference room and into Cassie’s office.
Loud typing greeted her before she walked through the door. The angry clicks of
the keys sounded like the product of a rage-filled email, but it signified
nothing more than Cassie’s usual method of typing. On the rare occasion when she
was upset, her mouse took more of a beating than her keyboard.
    Cassie had the larger of the two offices, part of the deal
they made when they started the business seven years earlier. Emily’s last name
went first in the company name and Cassie got the larger office with the
window. The deal meant nothing more than pacifying them by giving both women
something they wanted.
    Larger and livelier than the rest of the offices, Cassie’s
space did not resemble a typical workplace. Instead of Kinkade, Salvador Dali’s
art graced the office walls. Decked in contemporary furniture, vibrant orange walls,
and enough plants to start a small nursery, the office mirrored Cassie’s home
décor. Emily considered it a bit extravagant, but the decorating suited Cassie’s
boisterous personality.
    Emily pulled out one of the overstuffed chairs in front of Cassie’s
desk and plopped down into the plush cushions. “Did you call me a few minutes
ago?”
    Cassie paused in her typing and shot a sideways glance at
Emily. “I haven’t been on the phone for some time.”
    “No, I mean call me. Like yell out my name.”
    Cassie resumed punishing the keys with fast typing. “Why
wouldn’t I have used the phone?”
    Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. I heard my name. Or at least I
thought I did.”
    “Beverly always uses the intercom, but maybe it was her.”
    “I asked already. My ears must be playing tricks on me.”
    Cassie spun her chair to face Emily and folded her hands on
her desk. “How did it go with Mrs. Linder?”
    “I suspended her case.”
    “But she paid on time.”
    “But her husband isn’t cheating on her.”
    “Alright, you win the moral battle,” Cassie said. She
flipped her blonde hair behind her shoulders and settled back in her chair. “Mrs.
Linder kills me with her psychic stuff. I don’t know why you didn’t tell her
you’re a psychic and her psychic is full of it.”
    “Because she’s attached to her psychic and that’s not a bond
easily broken. She needs to believe in something she can cling to. If I told
her from the get-go that Madame Zelda is nothing more than a scam artist, she
wouldn’t have believed me and we wouldn’t have gotten her case.”
    Cassie choked on her laugh. “Madame Zelda?”
    “There was a psychic on the ten o’clock news last night.” Emily
picked up a pen off the desk and twirled it between her fingers. “The news ,” she repeated.
    “I know that drives you crazy,” Cassie said.
    “He claimed to be able to connect with the dead and made vague
assumptions. Asking if they knew someone who has cancer or died of cancer. Who
doesn’t know someone who has had cancer?”
    “What letters did he use?”
    Emily liked to keep track of the initials that entertainment
psychics, as she referred to them, used in readings. The psychic would throw
out a seemingly random letter, but one associated with the most popular names. The
person receiving the reading would connect that letter with the name of a
person they knew, erasing skepticism.
    “M and S were his favorites,” Emily said.
    “He played it safe. Without thinking about it, I can name
four people I know whose names begin with the letter M.” Cassie paused and