Sweet Fortune

this. I feel as though she's run off and abandoned me. Just like Harry did.”
    “Where, exactly, has Susan gone, Mrs. Attwood?” Jessie sat down beside the woman.
    “She's gone off and joined some sort of cult. It's operating here in the Northwest somewhere. At least, I think it is. Her last letter was postmarked from right here in Seattle. Dear God, I still can't believe it. How could Susan get caught up in something like that?” Mrs. Attwood reached for a fresh tissue.
    “Let me get this straight, Mrs. Attwood. You know where your daughter is?”
    “Not exactly. I just know she's dropped out of her studies at Butterfield College and joined DEL.”
    “DEL?”
    “In her letter she said it stands for Dawn's Early Light. I gather it's some sort of cult that thinks the rest of us are going to poison the environment so badly that we'll all be destroyed. But the DEL people claim they can save the planet.”
    “I've never heard of this particular cult.”
    “In her last letter Susan said she wasn't free to tell me too much yet because the DEL Foundation is trying to maintain a low profile, whatever that means.”
    “What is she doing for the foundation?”
    “I don't know,” Mrs. Attwood wailed. “They're using her, somehow. I'm sure of it. God knows what they have her doing. I can't even bear to think about it. Dear heaven, she was going to get a degree in computer science. She would have had a good job, a bright future, not the sort of life I had. I just can't believe this is happening. I came to you because I didn't know where else to turn. I can't afford a private detective, which is what I really need.”
    Jessie frowned thoughtfully as she absently patted the woman's hand. “Why did you call Mrs. Valentine if you don't believe in her psychic abilities?”
    Mrs. Attwood blew her nose again. “Because the leader of DEL, a man named Dr. Edwin Bright, is obviously some sort of charlatan. He must be. He's convinced innocent young people like my Susan that he has special powers to predict the future and that he can change it. I guess I had some vague notion that if Mrs. Valentine could find some way to expose the man, Susan might lose her faith in him.”
    “You're working on the theory that it takes one to know one?” Jessie asked dryly.
    Mrs. Attwood nodded, looking more miserable than ever. “It occurred to me that a…well, a professional like Mrs. Valentine would know all the tricks a man like Bright would use to convince others he had special powers. I mean, she must have been using such tricks, herself, for years.”
    Jessie bristled. “I think you should understand, Mrs. Attwood, that Mrs. Valentine has a genuine talent. She is not a fraud.”
    “It doesn't matter to me, don't you see?” Mrs. Attwood said hastily. “Either way, she'll recognize an impostor, won't she? Be able to expose him? And I'm sure Edwin Bright is an impostor.”
    “I'm really not sure we can help you, Mrs. Attwood.”
    Mrs. Attwood clutched at Jessie's arm. “Please. I don't know where else to turn. I'll pay her to help me prove Bright is a fake. Will you tell her that? I don't have a lot of money, but I'll find some way of paying the fees. Please .”
    Jessie felt her irritation dissolving swiftly in the face of the woman's obvious desperation. It was so hard to say no to someone who was clearly at the end of her rope. And besides, this was a potential client.
    “Let me see if I understand,” Jessie said carefully. “You don't actually want to buy the services of a true psychic. You simply want Valentine Consultations to prove that this man who runs the Dawn's Early Light Foundation is a fake, right?”
    “Yes. Exactly.”
    “Hmmm.” This was something she could handle on her own, Jessie told herself with gathering excitement. The client was not even looking for a genuine psychic. A successfully completed case such as this one could open up whole new realms of possibilities for Valentine Consultations. It was the perfect place to start her new marketing program. Valentine Consultations, Psychic Investigations .
    “Say you'll help me,” Mrs. Attwood pleaded.
    “You do realize that even when their leaders are exposed, people don't always lose faith in them, don't you?” Jessie felt obliged to point out. “People who need to follow a leader will make all sorts of excuses for that leader so that they can keep on following him. It's possible we could prove this Bright is a fraud but not be able to convince