Cupid's Confederates by Jeanne Grant Page B

wryly.
    “Mmm.” Bett chewed on her lower lip, and moved out of his arms to reach for the brush again. Zach had no appreciation for hairstyles. He was a toucher. “That isn’t exactly why I thought you wouldn’t approve of the idea.”
    “What exactly is the part I’m supposed to object to?”
    “Nothing, really.” It was just the place they were going. Kind of a rural slum on the edge of nowhere, the tag end of a poor farming community about twenty miles away. Anyone with a suicide wish could wander around there at night without any problem. “I’m sure its reputation is vastly overrated. So it’s a poor area. Zach, that doesn’t necessarily mean—”
    “Oh, no. But I should have guessed where the local psychic would hang his shingle.”
    Unsmiling, Zach pulled off his sweatshirt and reached into the closet for a short-sleeved blue shirt.
    “Zach, you don’t have to go. Really.”
    Buttoning his shirt, he was inclined to take both women over his knee. The older one for a spanking. The other one to cuddle up.
    ***
     
    Pushing the gearshift into neutral, Zach leaned forward and peered through the windshield. The pitch-black gravel road had never seen a streetlamp. A single swaying lantern creaked back and forth over a peeling sign that read:
     
     
    Reverend Moody, Spiritualist
    Psychic Readings
    Séances Healings
    Appointment Only
     
     
    He and Bett exchanged a dry glance. There wasn’t much they could tell from the exterior of the ranch house; it was too overgrown by shrubbery and low-hanging trees to get a good look at it. Bett had relaxed from the time she knew Zach was coming along, but the mood was still rather eerie. A chill had touched the back of her neck and was more than ready to travel up and down her spine at a moment’s notice. Zach couldn’t have been less affected, as he matter-of-factly leaned over the back seat with a carefully serious expression on his face.
    “Listen, Liz. No need for all of us to go in, now is there? You two stay in the car; I’ll just pop in there and…um…talk to Chet, and then—”
    “Oh, no, Zach. I’ve talked to the Reverend Moody three times in the last two days, and I definitely have to be there. I thought you knew all about psychic spirits? When you said you were coming, you told me how interested you’d always been—”
    “Mmm,” Zach grumbled as he cut the engine and jerked out of the car. Opening the door for his mother-in-law, he watched Elizabeth dart out and start up the dark, winding path, as excited as a little kid, her hands firmly clasped in front of her. Exasperation warred with humor inside of him.
    Bett slipped an arm around Zach’s waist, glancing up at him as they strolled up the walk. “You’re really irritated, aren’t you?”
    He squeezed her shoulder. “Not at you.” A hiss and a snarl from the front porch made Bett stiffen in alarm. “A black cat,” he murmured under his breath. “Why am I not surprised?”
    Bett relaxed again. “Behave yourself,” she mouthed, her lips twitching with laughter.
    “Are you kidding? I am, ”   he mouthed back.
    Reverend Moody was already greeting Elizabeth at the door. He was a gray-haired man with a long face, soulful eyes and a black suit that was just a touch shiny in the seat. He chattered to Elizabeth as if he’d just found a long-lost friend, eyed Bett at length from head to toe and wasted a fleeting disappointed look as he registered Zach’s presence.
    By the time the “so glad you’re here” stuff was over with, the three of them were inside. “Perhaps a slight libation to relax all of us before we begin,” the reverend suggested soothingly as he led them through a carpetless hall, lit only faintly by a dangling lightbulb.
    “Thanks, but we’re not much into libations, Reverend,” Zach said pleasantly. “Before we go any further, though, I wonder if I could have a private word with you.”
    “Certainly, certainly.”
    First, Zach took a cursory look at the room