Free The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James Page A

had thought about me?
    “What—what do you mean?” I managed.
    He leaned forward over his plate, and for a second I thought he was bringing his face closer to mine, that he would bring up the night at the bar. “The tests we did,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “The results we got. It doesn’t feel right to me. It never has.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “She shouldn’t have failed,” said James, still leaning forward. “Your mother. Every client we interviewed called her real. They told us stories that couldn’t be faked. And you, Ellie.” Still he stared at me, and I couldn’t look away. “Your clients don’t lie to me when they tell me what they’ve seen you do.”
    I sat up, my spoon clattering in my soup bowl. “My
clients
?”
    “Yes, of course.” He returned to his steak, cutting it gently. “They aren’t very hard to find, you know.”
    “My client list is—”
    “Private, I know. All I had to do was stand in a secluded spot across the street for three days, maybe four, and watch who came out the door. Those ones gave me the names of the rest. They refer each other. I don’t think you’re a candidate for MI5.”
    “You—you watched my house?”
    “Place of business,” James corrected, briefly holding up his fork. “There’s a sign on the door, after all.”
    “But why?”
    “I told you, I’ve been thinking about you since the day we did the tests on your mother. But when that journalist recently dragged up my old paper and put it in the newspaper, it brought all of it back. I have very good instincts. And I was curious.”
    You know how I get when I’m curious.
Everything spun. I reached for my handbag and patted it, looking for cigarettes so I’d have an excuse not to look at him. He’d been investigating me. “It was a shock,” I said, “that newspaper article. I thought it was over, that noone would ever read that paper again after my mother died. But there it was in the newspaper, all about how Gloria supposedly had proven psychic powers, and my mother did not. As for me, I escaped the reporter’s notice, but I believe the term used in the original report was ‘inconclusive and unproven.’”
    “We thought we were being objective, Paul and I,” James said. He was referring to Paul Golding, the head of the New Society.
    “Objective,” I said.
    “Yes.” He took a bite of steak. “That’s the scientific method—pure objectivity. That has always been Paul’s goal, to have the supernatural examined with the same objectivity brought to biology and chemistry and other forms of scientific study. We were certain, at the time, that we were being objective when we published those results. But now I’m not so sure.”
    “What in the world does that mean?”
    His gaze traveled over me as it had in Trafalgar Square, frank and assessing and almost rude, except for the fact that it made me blush like a schoolgirl. “The results Paul and I had from Gloria were unprecedented, and we were rather excited about it. It was heady. I think now that we got carried away, allowed ourselves to be influenced by her opinions. We looked for the results we expected, which is a scientific sin.” The half smile surfaced again, this time apologetic. “In short, Ellie, I think we underestimated you.”
    I stared at him. A rush of feeling came over me, gushing from some long-buried recess, and I struggled with it, suddenly blinking back tears.
    James’s smile faltered. “Is something wrong?”
    I swallowed and bit back the feeling, regaining control. “No one has ever said that to me,” I managed. “But at least you admit it. That you believed Gloria and not me.”
    He put his fork down. “I believed Gloria was a true psychic, yes. I still believe it. But Gloria never told the truth. Not completely. She hid what she didn’t feel like revealing, or she fudged around essentialfacts. But you, Ellie—” His voice lowered, grew almost quiet. “You don’t lie as easily. You