The Emissary by Patricia Cori Page A

d’oeuvres and started to hand out menus, but Mat stopped him, and told him to bring another round of drinks.
    “Go on,” he said.
    “Well, that’s when I first got called in for consultation. Marty heard about some of my work at the Stanford Psychic Institute and he asked me to come down and give them a hand—sort of like Mat has done.”
    “Bingo,”
thought Mat.
“One major PR point scored for Jamie.”
    “That was sort of it, really. Once I held that black king in my hand, I saw the tattoo—The Black King, written across the killer’s chest—just as clear as day. That’s how we identified him. I saw the house, too, and … well … I just managed to lead the police right to him.” She took a drink, looking as if she wanted to forget the pictures that had surfaced in her mind, looking back at her from the bottom of her glass. “There, they found all the grisly evidence they needed to convict him and put him away for life.”
    “Give us a break,” Jeb said, openly defying her. “You can’t seriously be telling us that, after years of these unsolved murders, all you had to do was hold this piece of plastic in your hand and the murders were solved!”
    “I am
dead
serious,” she replied, dramatically.
    With all her other talents, Mat was discovering, Jamie was a master storyteller. She had the track record and the proof to back up everything she was saying, and she clearly did not feel she had to impress anyone. She spoke her truth, from the gut, and that truth was compelling and real. He didn’t speak or try to intervene. He knew that no matter how impossible it was to understand how or why, Jamie had these extraordinary abilities and such an incredible truth about her that even the most determined skeptics amongst them could not help but consider the possibility that she was for real.
    They had at least fifty-three reasons to believe her.
    The more his colleagues became absorbed in her story, the more belligerent Jeb became. He was in complete denial. Despite the facts, which, knowing Mat, had obviously been verified, Jeb refused to believe a word of anything she had to say. He did everything he could to deflect attention away from her and to disrupt her stories of specters and psychic visions.
    For some reason, he saw Jamie as his adversary. “So, the next thing we know, y’all are gonna start reading everybody’s palm or something, is that right?” He was smug and condescending, doing his best to discredit her.
    “I’m not a fortune teller,” she said.
    “Ah, you mean you’re not going to read my horoscope?”
    “No, but what I can do is to give you a chance to speak to Billy. He’s here.” Suddenly, she jolted. Jamie’s body became quite rigid. She sat bolt upright in her chair. Looking straight into his eyes, she reiterated, “Billy is here.”
    Jeb looked like he had been hit by lightning. He turned ghostlywhite, almost as if he were in shock. His only son, Billy, the only thing that had ever made sense in his life, had died in a car crash when he was only twelve years old. Jeb was behind the wheel, two sheets to the wind after too many Jack Daniels he’d downed at the bar before picking the boy up from basketball practice.
    Not a day went by that he didn’t think of that moment of impact, and when he watched, helplessly, as his son died in his arms. For all intents and purposes, he died too. Jeb Richardson sealed his heart that day; he closed his mind. He cursed god, gave up on his dreams, and turned away from love altogether.
    Enraged, he leaped out of his chair, staring at Mat. “What the hell kind of game is this?” he screamed. “My boy is dead and buried.”
    Mat just said, “You know me better than that, Jeb.” He, too, was having a hard time getting his head around what had just happened.
    “How the hell do you know about my Billy?” he yelled accusingly at Jamie.
    The men sat there, in disbelief, trying to understand what was happening, and waiting for what Jamie