The Seance Read Free

too.”
    And she had put a rose on his coffin.
    Later, when she was alone with her grandmother, she was told again to stop talking about seeing her grandfather.
    â€œYou loved him, my girl. I know that. But you must stop saying you’ve seen him, though I know you are only trying to ease my heart.”
    â€œAm I hurting you, Gran?” she asked.
    â€œNo, it’s not that.”
    â€œThen what?”
    Gran looked at her very seriously. “It’s dangerous. Very dangerous. So today you’ve said goodbye. Never, ever think of him as speaking to you…being near you…again.”
    â€œGranda would never hurt me.”
    â€œNot Granda.”
    â€œBut—”
    Gran was suddenly intense. “To see Granda…you have opened a door. And God alone knows who else might pass through that door.”
    Gran’s words chilled her.
    â€œGran, was Ana telling me the truth? No one thinks twelve is old enough to understand anything, but it is. Tell me, please, was a murderer buried today?”
    Her grandmother’s face went white. “Never speak of it, never speak that name in connection with your grandfather!”
    â€œWhat name?”
    â€œNever you mind. It’s over. An awful time is over. And your grandfather…well, he’s in God’s arms now. Where monsters go, I do not know.”
    Gran kissed her then, and held her. “’Tis all right, my girl, ’tis all right. We have love. I have you, and I have your Mom, and my dear son and his lads…. ’Tis all right.”
    Christie looked at her. She wanted to scream, because it wasn’t all right. They were always trying to shelter her from the world, but surely it was better to understand the world than hide from it.
    But here in her grandparents’—her grandmother’s now—house, everyone was too upset.
    Too lost.
    She didn’t know why, and it made her afraid. Not afraid of Granda, but just…
    Afraid.
    Afraid of the dead.
    That night, she didn’t sleep. She lay awake, praying silently in her soul that he wouldn’t come.
    And he didn’t.
    She had probably just been so upset that she was imagining things.
    Granda, don’t come again. Don’t ever come again. If you love me at all, please, don’t ever come again.
    She told herself that all she felt was the whisper of a breeze, though there was none. A gentle touch, as if…
    As if she had been heard and understood.
    Her grandfather didn’t appear.
    In fact, she never saw him again, not even in dreams.
    And as the years passed by, slowly, certainly, she forgot.
    It had only been a dream, just as her mother had said.
    She was able to believe that for nearly twelve years. And then one day she learned that her grandmother’s words were true.
    Seeing the dead…
    Was dangerous.

1
    A n autopsy room always smelled like death, no matter how sterile it was.
    And it was never dark, the way it was in so many movies. If anything, it was too bright. Everything about it rendered death matter-of-fact.
    Facts, yes. It was the facts they were after. The victim’s voice was forever silenced, and only the eloquent, hushed cry of the body was left to help those who sought to catch a killer.
    Jed Braden could never figure out how the medical examiner and the cops got so blasé about the place that they managed not only to eat but to wolf down their food in the autopsy room.
    Not that he wasn’t familiar enough with autopsy rooms himself. He was, in fact, far more acquainted with his current surroundings than he had ever wanted to be. But eating here? Not him.
    This morning, it was doughnuts for the rest of them, but he’d even refused coffee. He’d never passed out at an autopsy, even when he’d been a rookie in Homicide, and he didn’t feel like starting now.
    Even a fresh corpse smelled. The body—any body—released gases with death. And if it had taken a while for someone to