“Your aura is very bright, my dear,” Madame said in a low, husky whisper. “I’m feeling a very strong psychic connection.” Without breaking eye contact, Madame reached into an ornately carved wooden box and pulled out a deck of cards. “For you, I will use these cards. For a special reading. One that will offer deep insight.”

Lacey pulled her gaze away from Madame’s and looked at the deck. It looked like a regular deck of playing cards to her. She watched Madame fan the cards, facedown, on the table.

“Please choose seven cards, using your left hand, then pass them to me.”

Lacey followed the instructions, then repeated the task twice more at Madame’s bidding. After turning up the cards into three rows, Madame pointed to the first group. “These represent your past.” She studied the cards in silence for nearly a minute, then said, “I see two women with you. Your mother and sister. There was a man, your father, but his presence was dim and then gone.” She looked up and her gaze locked with Lacey’s. “He is dead, yes?”

Lacey blinked in surprise at the accuracy of Madame’s words, then a lump tightened her throat. “Yes,” she whispered.

“He died young,” Madame continued, studying the cards. “From trouble with his heart.”

An eerie chill swept through Lacey. How could Madame Karma have known something so personal? An image of her father, always so serious, always so consumed with his career, flashed through Lacey’s mind. She had to swallow to locate her voice. “A heart attack,” she concurred. “When I was fourteen.”

Madame nodded. “I see the sadness from his death. The hardships it caused your family. But I also see your love of life. Your determination to succeed, yet not at the expense of your health, as was the case with your father. Your resolution not to make the same mistakes you feel your mother and sister made.”