Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(43)

“That sounds fun, Jeff, but I can’t. I have an appointment coming here.”

“This late?”

“Oh, I do appointments at all hours. I’ll be done by eight, but . . . maybe you and Ramona can play cards next door?”

“I don’t know . I spend so much time over there as it is, I thought a change of scenery would be good.”

Calla looks from her father to her grandmother to her father again, wondering what he’s up to.

Obviously, he hasn’t yet mentioned to Odelia that he’s figured out the truth about her. Calla hasn’t, either.

Maybe she should have, but she’s had much too much on her mind—particularly after the meeting with the detectives.

She told them the whole story.

When they left, she recapped it for Odelia.

Well, most of it.

She didn’t mention the baby. She was about to, but Dad showed up for dinner.

He asked about her meeting with the detectives, and she could tell her grandmother wanted her to give him the details, but she just couldn’t. Not yet.

Not while she was still feeling guilty for telling the police about her mother and Darrin’s secret baby.

She felt guilty bringing it up but told herself that it had happened a long time ago. Plus, what if there’s some connection between that and what Sharon Logan did to Mom and Darrin?

Is there?

A little voice inside her head— maybe not her own—has been asking that question ever since the detectives left, promising they’d be in touch again soon.

“Odelia, there’s something you should know . . . .”

Uh-oh. Calla’s attention jerks back to her father.

“What is it, Jeff?”

“I know what kinds of appointments you do.”

Odelia pauses before asking, “What kind?”

“I know you’re a psychic medium.”

Calla has never seen her grandmother’s dyed-red eyebrows shoot quite that close to her dyed-red hairline.

“So is Ramona,”Dad adds, and leans back in his chair to wait for the reaction.

It takes a moment to get one.

“Ramona didn’t tell me she told you.”

“She didn’t.”

Odelia looks at Calla.

“I didn’t tell him, Gammy. He figured it out.”

“Really.”She throws up her hands. “Well, Jeff, you can’t blame me for not wanting to tell you. I know how Stephanie always felt about what I do, and I knew she didn’t want you or Calla to know .”

“Obviously not.”

“Are you . . . okay with this?”

“I guess so. As long as I don’t have to—you know— witness it, or participate in anything like . . .”

“Like levitating?”Gammy asks, deadpan. “Spoon bending?”

Dad laughs. “Exactly.”

What he doesn’t know is that she isn’t kidding. During the summer season, there are workshops in Lily Dale on both those topics—and more.

No need for baptism by fire, though. Calla figures— or at least, she hopes— that by the time summer rolls around, her father will be as used to life in the Dale as she is.

“So Ramona knows that you know, Jeff?”

He shakes his head.

“Well, you might want to tell her so that she can hang her shingle again. Business is slow at this time of year as it is, and she’s losing walk-in traffic.”

Dad raises an eyebrow. “Walk-in traffic?”

“Right.”

“So . . . what does that mean? People just come here and wander around looking for someone to . . .”

“Do a reading,”Calla supplies. “That’s how it works.”

“But the official season is July and August,”Odelia amends, “so you won’t see crowds of visitors in the streets at this time of year, and there are no daily programs in the auditorium. In fact, most of the mediums live somewhere else the rest of the year.”

“Is that so.”Dad looks intrigued, absorbing the information with a lot less animosity than Calla ever imagined. “And it was like this when Stephanie lived here?”

“It’s been like this since the town was established as the birthplace of modern spiritualism back in the 1880s.”

“I just can’t believe she never told me,”Dad murmurs, shaking his head.

“She always kept herself separate from what went on around here, Jeff. She was a lot like her father. She even looked just like him.”

“That means I must look like him, too,”Calla speaks up. It’s not the first time she’s thought about that—but it’s the first time she’s dared to bring up the subject of her grandfather since Odelia told her about him the other day.

“Of course you do,”her grandmother says agreeably. “You look just like your mother.”

Calla dares to voice the question that has been in the back of her mind since their conversation. “Does he know, Gammy? About Mom?”

Odelia hesitates. “I didn’t tell him . . . if that’s what you’re asking.”

Dad’s eyes widen. “Are you talking about Jack? You’re in contact with Jack?”

“No,”Odelia says quickly. “I’m not in contact with him. But I know where he is.”