Free The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James

playbill. CLAIRVOYANT EXTRAVAGANZA , it declared. COMMUNICATION WITH T HE DEAD ! FORTUNES TOL D FROM THE AUDIENCE ! AMAZING PSYCHIC FEAT S ! And across the bottom: CONTACT YOUR LOST LOVED ONES ! SEE THE TRUTH FOR YOURSELF !
    On the bill for the evening were Ramona and another psychic. Next to Ramona’s name was an ink drawing of a dark-eyed woman with black hair slicked down into a bob. The venue was the Gild Theatre, Streatham.
    “I’ve never heard of this theater,” I said.
    “It’s not far from here.” James stirred his tea. “I’ve used some of my contacts to request an invitation to the private sitting she’ll do after the show. If she hasn’t fled the country and she actually appears, we’ll get a chance to interview her.”
    “We?”
    “You’re solving this for George Sutter, are you not? Besides, you’re an expert.”
    I gulped my tea, which was hot, thinking. For showgirls like Ramona, the theater performance was an opportunity to show off in front of an audience, but it wasn’t particularly profitable. The theater would take the lion’s share of the sales. The real money would come from the private sitting offered afterward, for which she would hopefully get takers impressed by what they had seen. This was the showgirl way of working, used when you didn’t have a repeat client list. “I thought you were the expert,” I said. “Is she one of your subjects?”
    “If you mean did we test her, the answer is no,” James said. “I think it’s rather obvious she’s a fraud, as is the other psychic on this bill.”
    The waiter came, and we ordered our luncheon. I managed to speak my order past the bitterness that had risen in my throat. When he had gone, I said, “That’s still what you do, then, is it? Expose frauds like my mother and me?”
    He went very still, and for a moment even the quiet noise of the café seemed to disappear.
    “I don’t suppose I ever apologized to you for that day?” he said softly.
    I gaped at him, my bitterness stealing my speech. “No,” I managed. “Never.”
    “Of course not.” He ran a hand through his cropped hair again, his eyes dark and serious. “I always meant to. I certainly felt sorry enough. I suppose I just never got up the courage to do it.” He looked at me, taking in the incredulous expression that must have been on my face. “I realize it’s hard for you to believe, Ellie, but I do try to have some semblance of honor. And something about that day felt dishonorable, at least to me.”
    “It’s very simple,” I said. “The New Society did tests on my mother, and on me. To assess our psychic ability. We failed.”
    “No,” said James. “I don’t believe it was that simple. Not anymore. Though I’m damned if I know why.”
    Our luncheons came, and for a moment he cut his steak while I stirred my soup. Outside the window, the busy London crowd moved by—shoppers, nannies with children, workingmen, newsboys. I saw none of it. I could feel the disappointment of that day like a fresh wound—disappointment that we had failed the tests, yes, but also the piercing sense of failure that James Hawley thought me a skimmer, a fraud. Just like all the others. That particular sense of failure had dogged me for more long, sleepless nights alone than I wanted to admit.
    I raised my gaze from my soup to see him looking at me again. “You know,” he said, as if he’d read my mind, “I’ve thought about you quite a lot since that day.”
    My throat went dry. He was looking at me steadily, his face perfectly half lit in the light from the window, his eyes on mine. We’d never spoken since the day of the tests. He’d never contacted me; he had no reason to. I’d told myself a thousand times that it didn’t matter to me how James Hawley had looked at me the first night we met, or that he now had the lowest opinion of me. But now somethingshifted in my chest, squeezed my blood in my veins. I looked at the firm, well-shaped line of his mouth. He