Adina Starlight gazed deep into her crystal ball.

She could see the couple sitting on the other side of the table, wringing their hands; they were anxious for news. Adina could see nothing but their distorted image in the crystal, so she would have to wing it.

As usual.

“I see…” She lowered her voice. “I see…” Shit. What did she see? They had been waiting for ten minutes for her to “contact” the spirit world. She was drawing a blank. Normally she had several meetings with clients before a reading so that she could milk them for all the personal information she would need to be convincing.

But these two had been walk-ins. She hated walk-ins; she was never able to prepare properly and always felt like she was grabbing at straws.

They were a husband and wife. The husband’s mother had died without disclosing the location of her will and the husband was desperate for money. Adina sighed. So was she when it came right down to it.

Well, she thought. Nothing for it. I’m going to have bluff my way through this. “I see an old room,” she said, making sure to keep her voice mysterious. “A dark room; there is lots of furniture, a large desk, there are shadows.” Shit, she thought again. What the hell did an attic look like? “I see a red light coming from inside that desk, a red light that pulses.”

The woman let out a gasp. Thank god, Adina thought. She had hit pay dirt. “What’s wrong dear?”

The woman was visibly excited. “That desk, Gerald’s mother had a desk. It’s in our attic!” She clapped her hands. “Do you see anything else? Can you see inside the desk?”

Adina scrunched up her face so it looked as if she was concentrating. “I see…I see….nothing else. It has gone black. I could hear your mother very faintly, whispering to me.” She saw the look of hope on both their faces and hated herself, just a little. “It sounded like she was encouraging, like she was happy.”

When a tear of happiness ran down the woman’s cheek, Adina despised herself a little more. Shaking her head to clear those thoughts, she asked the couple how they would pay for their “talk with the other side.”

There had to be more to life than this. There had to be more than pretending to be something she wasn’t and faking something to pay the rent. I’m no better than a high paid call girl, she thought. She grimaced. At least call girls get to have sex. I haven’t had a man in my bed for months.

“Thank you so much Miss Starlight.” The woman said. “I can’t tell you how much this mean to us. How much this means to my husband. Our family has been fighting over her money for so long and now we can finally end all the bitterness.”

The husband, Gerald, nodded. “This will keep our family from splitting apart over money. You’ve saved our family, Miss Starlight.”

Adina grimaced again and put a fake smile on her face. “Think nothing of it.” She said. “It’s my pleasure.”

God, I need a drink, she thought.