Shadowlight by Lynn Viehl

measuring look. “You knew, and I’ll bet you’re the one who called and reported her to the feds.”
    No one knew what Jessa could do, and as much as she liked people who worked for her, neither could they.
    “Sit down, Cal.” She waited until he did. “I’m aware Angela and some of the younger staff believe that I’m some sort of psychic. It’s flattering, I suppose, but I’m not and this has to stop now. I’ve built Phoenix on solid, ethical investigative work. If people spread rumors that I can see the future or the past or whatever, it will get around, and soon every quack in Atlanta will flood through our doors.”
    “Would it be so bad?” he asked. “To let people know just how good you are at spotting fakes?”
    “If they think mystical mental powers are involved? Yes,” she said. “It would be very bad for business. That kind of thing chases away the legitimate clients. Once the quacks find out that I can’t actually tell them which stocks to buy or investments to make, they’ll go, too. Things like this—Farley getting arrested the day after I flag her—are merely coincidences.”
    “Is that right.” He stroked his jaw with his thumb and forefinger. “I wonder how many of the people Phoenix has investigated have—by coincidence—been arrested a short time after for crimes they thought they’d gotten away with.”
    He was too damn smart. Jessa had known that from the moment she’d met him. “I couldn’t say. But you and Angela and the rest of the staff work for me. I can’t have this kind of talk going around about me, Cal. Not even in fun.”
    “Then you’d better make some changes from here on out,” he told her. “Delegate. Use me to initiate some of the searches. If you have to report something to the authorities, wait a week or two before you make the call.”
    He didn’t believe her, and she was running out of lies and patience. “Maybe I should just fire you.”
    “You could,” he agreed. “But I’m on your side, and I don’t have to know everything. You’re the best goddamn boss I’ve ever worked for, and that includes my father when he gave me a summer job teaching tennis to the nubile young rich things at the country club he managed.”
    “Caleb.” She rested her cheek against her palm. “You’re not helping.”
    “You know how we feel about you,” he continued. “You hired me after I’d been blackballed by every decent company in this town. You persuaded the girls in accounting to leave that bookie they worked for only a week before he got busted.”
    She made a dismissive gesture. “A friend told me about them. I just gave them a chance to get legal jobs.”
    “Karen told me you cornered her in a grocery store and offered her a job she had no training for, and then you gave her an advance on her first paycheck. She said it’s as if God knew she’d gone there to steal some food for her kids and sent you like a guardian angel to stop her. And then there’s poor Angie.” He leaned forward. “After her mom died, which roof was she planning to jump from downtown? Bank of America?”
    She straightened. “Angela didn’t tell you that.”
    “Someone made a joke about that gorgeous twenty-year-old supermodel who jumped in New York last year,” he said. “Angie blew a fuse. Later I asked her about it, and she said no one can understand how miserable and desperate that girl must have been. Ange made it pretty obvious that she does know.”
    “I like to help people, especially when someone is in trouble,” she said in her firmest tone. “That doesn’t make me a psychic.”
    “Then why hire me? No one believed that female sales director who accused me of groping her was actually the one harassing me.” He spread his hands. “No one but you.”
    “You’re an attractive young man with good taste. She was a desperate older woman with bad teeth.” She smiled a little. “Workplace sexual predators don’t happen spontaneously. You had no history of