Free Scarlet Nights by Jude Deveraux Page A

and take—but Mitzi was more interesting. What she did took cunning and a total disregard for the quality of human life.
    Until a few years ago, Mitzi was living in upstate New Jersey and commuting into New York City, where she worked scams on rich women. She lured them to her through a tiny office in the center of Manhattan with PSYCHIC painted on the window. Women in trauma, in grief, whose lives were in chaos, thronged to her, hoping to find answers about what they should do to solve their problems. Mitzi took the ones who were so desperate for relief that they were willing to pay all they had to get out of the turmoil their lives had become.
    Mitzi’s code, refined through generations, was three part: trust, faith in The Work, and control. First, she spent months gaining the trust of the women. She was an expert at body language and could tell what someone wanted within minutes of meeting her. And she listened to them in a way they had never been listened to before. Mitzi heard what her victims said and remembered it. She understood; she championed the woman, was always on her side. Mitzi was the best friend anyone could imagine.
    When she’d gained her victim’s trust, Mitzi started on making her believe in “The Work” and that she, Mitzi, was only a vessel being used by spirits/angels/God, whatever appealed to the victim. Believing that she was doing everything for a Higher Power made a person feel that she’d at last found her purpose in life.
    Once the victim had faith, Mitzi would start working her way into controlling and completing the isolation that was necessary to pull off a major scam. She would meet the victim, looking red-eyed and haggard, telling her that she’d been up all night with The Work and had seen horrible things. By this time Mitzi knew what thewoman’s deepest fears were, so she could use them against her. If she was afraid of her ex-husband, then Mitzi said he was plotting with friends against her. It was best to get away from them.
    What Mitzi really gave her victims was hope. She promised love, children, fortunes—whatever was wanted—and the frightened women held on to it like a life raft. Hope became everything to them, what they lived and breathed for. And Mitzi made them believe that only she could give them what they needed—if she was given the money to create the energy to perform the task. But it was all right to pay because Mitzi swore that when The Work was completed, every penny would be returned.
    As in all abusive relationships, there came a time when the good ended. The listening disappeared, the feeling of deep friendship, when you were both dedicated to a purpose, stopped. The victim became so desperate for that time to return that she paid more and more money. By then she had no other friends, just Mitzi, so she worked hard to please her.
    But, eventually, the victim would run out of money, and that’s when Mitzi would instantly and abruptly stop the relationship. Suddenly, Mitzi’s phone would be disconnected, her office empty. If the frantic victim was able to contact Mitzi—sometimes after months of trying—her desperate pleas for help would meet Mitzi’s coldness. Crying, devastated, the victim would ask for her money to be returned, as she had been promised. That’s when Mitzi would tell her that every penny was “gone,” used up by The Work. Without the slightest bit of compassion, Mitzi would hang up.
    The victim would be left alone. She was usually nearly bankrupt, and under Mitzi’s tutelage, she’d cut herself off from everyone. She had no one to turn to for moral support as she tried to recover, and she was usually too embarrassed to go to the police and tell them how—as she saw it—stupid she’d been.
    If the woman did screw up her courage and go to the police, she was usually dismissed. According to them, she’d given the money away of her own free will, so there was no crime. But the Fort Lauderdale Police Department had listened to one