Diana Racine 02 - Goddess of the Moon

particular attraction to Jung.”
    Slater stood by his desk , clearly watching her every move . “Yes, he’s my favorite.”
    “Mine too , ” she said.
    “Really. His interests were very eclectic. Besides philosophy, he was into mytholo gy and religion. Mystical stuff as well . Alchemy and Kabala.”
    “ I came across his interest in mythology during my own studies .”
    “ A fascinating man.” Slater rubbed his chin. “He dreamt about the dead and interpreted it as representing the unconscious. Not the personal unconscious that defined Freud, but a new ‘collective unconscious . ’ ”
    “The kind of knowledge we’re all born with without being directly aware of it. The reservoir of our experiences,” she added.
    He pulled out a chair for her, but she remained standing. He edged around the desk and sat. “ W hen you have a vision, how do you feel? Do you think it’s part of your collective unconscious?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t intellectualize my gift. That part is out of my control.”
    “Hmm.” He trained an almost hypnotic stare on her. “Intriguing. I can only imagine what that’s like.”
    Diana forced a break from his visual intensity by momentarily focusing on the camera light. “It can be very scary and invasive to both me and my sitter.” She brushed her hand down the spine of the Jung book, feeling nothing but the heat of Slater ’s gaze . N othing from the book . Nothing from the room. His voice broke her concentration.
    “Sitter ― that’s the person you’re reading?”
    “Yes. Sometimes I see and feel things I don’t want to, like in the house on Parkside Avenue.”
    A smile curled Slater’s lips. “Is that the reason you came here? To connect me to whatever went on there?”
    Slater read her perfectly, but mentioning the house was a dead giveaway. No point in stopping now. “Those two women breastfed the babies there. Stolen babies, Mr. Slater.”
    “Both girls came here pregnant: Brigid first. She’s the older. H er baby was stillborn. Nona came after. She gave up her baby for adoption. The girls are sisters. Their father was the father of both those babies.”
    Diana gasped.
    “Frightening, isn’t it,” Slater said. “That those girls should suffer the sins of their parents. I say parents because apparently their mother knew and did nothing to stop her husband’s abuse .” He drew a deep breath , hissed it out. “After they had their babies, they were never pregnant again.” He kept his gaze riveted on Diana. “I’m not the most attentive man, but I’m sure I would have noticed that.”
    The thought going through Diana’s head was something she’d rather not think, but she brought it up anyway. “Because a woman loses a baby or gives one up for adoption doesn’t preclude her nursing aft er. That’s what wet nurses do.”
    “Are you implying those girls nursed stolen babies from the end of their pregnancies to the present?”
    “It’ s a possibility,” she answered.
    “That’s preposterous.”
    “Unless you’re holding back to protect them.”
    Slater frowned . “Why would I lie?”
    “To protect yourself.”
    His chair squeaked on its hinges as he leaned back. He steepled his fingers under his chin. “For what reason? Do you think I impregnated th em ?”
    Now it was her turn to stare him down. “The thought entered my mind.”
    Slater’s skin paled, and he didn’t flinch except for a small twitch in his cheek. “Would that I could.”
    The response stopped her. “What does that mean?”
    “I don’t have a penis, Ms. Racine.”

Chapter Fourteen
    The Descent into Hell

    D iana gasped for the second time in as many minutes. Shocked and confused, words failed her. No psychic revelation prepared he r for this. She slunk down in the chair , aware of Slater watching her reaction.
    “I was twenty-one ,” he said . ” One of the rarest forms of cancer, and even rarer in one so young. Almost unheard of, in fact. It started with a small lesion at the base of my penis when I was in divinity school. I wasn’t a virgin. Not that I was promiscuous, but I’d discovered sex and liked it ― a lot. I assumed I’d contracted herpes and bought some over-the-counter cream , b ut it didn’t clear up.”
    He stopped and gazed across the room, then back at Diana. She felt the heat on her face, saw the pain on his.
    “Finally, I went to a family practitioner. He prescribed a pill and more cream, but the sore still didn’t clear up; in fact,