Ellie has vanished, leaving her husband Wendall and their daughter devastated. With the police at a dead end, Wendall is willing to listen when Keisha Ceylon appears at his door, claiming to be a psychic. But events unfold in ways neither of them expects. This is a novella, and its brevity shows. The opening is strong and intriguing, yet the story ultimately feels incomplete, as though a crucial part is missing. Perhaps this is a case where a longer novel would have allowed the idea to fully unfold.
“She believed her timing was about right. This was always the tricky part. Knowing when to move in. You couldn’t act too quickly, but you didn’t want to leave it too late, either. If you waited too long, the police might actually find a body, at which point no distressed relative was going to care what kind of visions Keisha Ceylon might be having that would lead them to it. Fat lot of good they’d do then. You had to get hold of these people while they still had hope. As long as they had hope, they were willing to try anything, throw their money at anything. This was especially true when all the conventional methods – door-to-door canvasses, sniffer dogs, aerial patrols, neighborhood searches – had turned up nothing. That’s when the relatives were open to something a bit unorthodox. Like a nice lady who showed up on their doorstep and said, “I have a gift, and I want to share it with you.”
For a price, of course.”