The Prophet by Amanda Stevens Page A

from the other ghosts.”
    “Then how do you know about the drowning?”
    “Someone must have told me.”
    I was silent for a moment. “You say you have no recollection of the shooting or of the time preceding it. You don’t even know why you were in the cemetery or the identity of the woman you met sometime earlier, the one whose perfume you still wear. Yet you know about a death that occurred just hours before yours. The accident happened at around twilight. The car Shani was riding in went through a guardrail into a river, and she and her mother were trapped inside. You were shot sometime between two and four in the morning. In the hours in between, you somehow learned about Shani’s death. This could be important because it would help establish a timeline. Did someone call to tell you about the accident?”
    “I remember nothing,” he said.
    “Not true. You remembered she drowned. That must mean something.”
    “I was a cop, remember? It wasn’t unusual to hear about accidents, especially one involving another detective’s kid.”
    A man sidled up to the railing to admire the bloodred sunrise. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, lovely,” I murmured.
    “I’ve watched sunrises all over the world,” he said. “Nothing beats the one over Charleston Harbor.”
    I smiled noncommittally as I watched one of the pelicans break formation and dive, emerging from the sea a moment later with a flash of quicksilver in its beak.
    “Have a nice day,” the stranger murmured and sauntered away.
    I glanced over to make certain Fremont was still beside me. He was.
    “Something about that girl’s death,” he muttered.
    “What?” I asked anxiously.
    “I don’t know. Tell me more about her ghost. You say she’s latched onto you?”
    “Like you, she can’t move on. She wants my help, but I’m not sure what it is I’m supposed to do.”
    He said, very softly, “You still don’t know who you are, do you? You still don’t understand why we come to you.”
    His ghostly voice swept over me. “You come because I can see you.” And because I broke Papa’s rules.
    He nodded vaguely as he turned back to the harbor. “Why can’t the child move on?”
    I took a deep breath, trying to quell a rising foreboding. “I can’t say for sure. She was only four years old when she died. She doesn’t converse with me the way you do, but she can communicate.”
    “You mean the heart?”
    “And sometimes I hear her in my head. I think she can’t move on because her father won’t let her go.”
    “That makes sense. I saw them together a few times. They were very close.”
    “Her mother was trapped in the car, too, but I doubt she’s ready to move on. She has John right where she wants him.”
    “That sounds like Mariama,” he said, his gaze still on the horizon.
    The sound of her name startled me, and I turned to stare at his profile. “You knew her?”
    “We grew up together,” he said, in that strangely hollow voice.
    “Were you friends?”
    “Friends? Hardly… .”
    “Lovers?”
    “Every man who crossed Mariama’s path loved her.”
    “Including you?”
    “For a time. Then I moved to Charleston and discovered that the world didn’t revolve around Mariama Goodwine.”
    “How did she take that revelation?”
    “Not well.”
    “Are you the reason she came to Charleston?”
    “She came because she saw an opportunity and seized it. A man named Rupert Shaw offered to finance her education.”
    “I know Dr. Shaw. He’s a friend of mine.” Fremont paused and I could feel a facture in the air as if something unseen had moved between us. “He used to spend a lot of time in Beaufort County.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Research,” he said. “He was particularly interested in Essie Goodwine, Mariama’s grandmother. She was the most prominent root doctor in the area. He wanted to learn about medicinal conjure, but knowing Essie, she only taught him a few harmless incantations and spells. She wouldn’t cotton