reaching for the handle of the screen door. “Are you all right?”
“Am I all right?” Phoebe continued coughing up a lung. “Weren’t you just in jail on a murder charge? How do you even know where I live?”
He held up her business card. “I promise I’m not stalking you, Ms. Carlisle. Your sister gave it to me.”
Right. Ione. The jerk. The rain was coming down in sheets and Diamante was soaked to the skin.
“Sorry to show up unannounced. I called first, but your phone kept going straight to voice mail.”
Phoebe unlocked the screen door and held it open. “Better come in before you drown.”
Mr. Charm stepped in, wiping his boots on the welcome mat to avoid tracking red desert mud inside. “Before you go calling the cops to report a fugitive, they can’t officially charge me with murder until the coroner’s report comes back. My lawyer challenged the police on holding me without cause.”
“Right. That serious lawyer.” Phoebe took another sip, trying not to stare at Diamante’s pecs through the white tee plastered to them. Beneath the shirt, some kind of dark, patterned tattoo swirled over his heart beside the pentacle. She mimicked the motion of the art with her wine. “Can I get you a glass?” She took his shrug for ascent and headed to the kitchen.
When he remained standing, Phoebe waved the bottle at the rustic wood-frame couch in the living room. “Have a seat.”
He cast a doubtful glance at the couch. “It’s leather. I’m soaking wet.”
Phoebe snorted as she came around the bar with his glass. “It’s pleather. Don’t worry about it. I can’t afford anything real on my salary.” She took the matching chair kitty-corner to the couch while Diamante sat on the edge of a cushion. “My sister said you needed my help with the step-ins. Why did you call me from county? Why not call your family? You can’t really have wanted my representation.”
“I wanted to deal with this myself. Without my father or the Covent using their influence to sweep things under the rug.”
“What would there be to sweep under the rug?” Phoebe’s eyebrows drew together. “You didn’t actually kill Barbara Fisher?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I’m...fuzzy on what actually happened. I remember driving to her house for the appointment last night, and I have a vague idea we argued. I can’t remember what about. She gave me a cup of tea and I guess it must have been drugged. The next thing I can recall clearly is waking up feeling sluggish, like I’d been in a trance—with Barbara dead on the floor beside me and the cops breaking down the door.”
“A trance. So you think maybe one of the shades...?”
“Stepped in and took over? I don’t know. It’s possible.” His expression was pained. “I find it difficult to believe I could do something so completely against my nature under the influence of a step-in, but it’s what the Covent has always argued. And someone had been controlling the shades—using them to control their hosts. So it could have been me they used this time.”
“Do the police have any evidence? Besides circumstantial, I mean. Were there any prints on the body? Your hair?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can find out for you. I mean, your lawyer can.”
“There were leather gloves lying on the floor next to her.” Diamante’s expression was grim. “They fit.”
A shiver rippled along her spine. Gloves. Like the ones she’d felt closing around her throat when the shade possessed her.
She shrugged off the unpleasant memory with a flippant comment before she could stop herself. “So they won’t acquit.” Phoebe stared wide-eyed into her glass at her stupidity as she finished her wine. “Sorry. Sometimes I have an infantile urge to say whatever pops into my head.” She set the glass on the coffee table and tried to act more like a normal person. “I’m still not quite sure how you expect me to help you, Mr. Diamante.”
“Please—call me Rafe.”
Phoebe returned his smile despite herself. “Rafe.” Crap. He was charming. “I’m not a medium. I can’t just call on a shade. They come to me on their own.” It occurred to her she ought to disclose that one shade in particular had come to her this afternoon. But perhaps it would be better to keep that to herself. The shade hadn’t stayed long enough to confirm it was Barbara Fisher or to give any indication of her killer’s identity, but if Diamante—Rafe—had done it under the control of a step-in, Barbara could identify him. Which could make things awkward for Phoebe if he knew.
“But they trust you. The ones you’ve dealt with. As I understand it, you have something of a reputation with them.”
“If you mean they know to come to me, I suppose they do. Or maybe they try several people until they find someone who’s receptive. I don’t really know. I’ve never asked.”
“But the point is, they might come to you. The ones I was communicating with.”
“I suppose so.”
“And if they did, would I be able to talk to them? I mean, would you be able to talk to me—as the shade?”
Phoebe sat back. “They don’t usually communicate with anyone else through me, just to me.” Though that was more Phoebe’s choice than the will of the shades. “Usually they come to me because they’re confused and don’t understand what’s happened to them. Or because they want my help finding someone or something. I’m sort of like an afterlife private detective.” She grimaced and added, “Except my clients are all pro bono.”
“Well, I could pay you.” Rafe finally took a sip of his wine. “I’ll give you the same hourly rate you charge for legal consultation. And as you probably know from your sister, there are spells that can summon a shade.”
Just as her inner accountant was getting excited, anger flared inside her. “You mean entrapment spells. So you can force them to cross.”
Rafe had the grace to look embarrassed. “That’s what the Covent uses them for, yes. But the spell can be cast merely to bring them here. It doesn’t hurt the shade.”
“Here. As in now.” Phoebe narrowed her gaze. “That’s why you’re here.”
He nodded and took another sip. “Time is of the essence if I’m going to stop him and clear my name.”
“Stop whom?”
“Whoever it is that’s manipulating them. Whoever wanted to retain that power over them so desperately he was willing to silence Barbara Fisher.”
Phoebe studied his dark, intense eyes. Whether or not someone in Sedona was manipulating shades for nefarious purposes, Rafe Diamante obviously believed they were. And he seemed sincere in his respect for the shades’ autonomy. Unless the summoning spell wasn’t as harmless as he claimed.
“If you summon a shade and I find out it doesn’t want to be here—if any
