A Deadly Arrangement by Denise Osborne

Author:Denise Osborne [Osborne, Denise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Fiction-Female Detective, Fiction-Mystery, Fiction-California, Fiction-Feng Shui
ISBN: 9780425181843
Google: 2si1AAAACAAJ
Amazon: B007WMHHJ6
Goodreads: 921791
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Madame Wu’s decision to open a school and feng shui store in San Diego instead of the Washington, D.C. area had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the Bagua and feng shui. Because of it’s long held position as gateway to the United States, practitioners considered New York as the door or “mouth of ch’i”. Since New York occupied the helpful people/travel gua, that put San Diego in the wealth sector—a good place for business.

Salome could hear soft Chinese music in the background when Madame Wu answered the phone.

For the next fifteen minutes Salome poured out her story—finding the body, the sensation of evil emanating from the Perfume, breaking the Kwan Yin, the canceled appointments in San Francisco and, her concerns about performing an exorcism.

After patiently listening, Madame Wu said, her accent distinctly British from years spent in Hong Kong, “Indeed, my dear, you couldn’t possibly sell or rent the property until an exorcism has been performed. You haven’t done one have you?”

“Not yet. I’ll need guidance.”

“Let me know when the police release the property. Next week I’m off to a conference in New Zealand but will leave numbers where you can reach me.

“In the meantime, there’s much you need to do to prepare. First, I can tell you’re keen to track down this killer—leave that to the police. Oh I know you probably consider yourself quite capable having worked on so many fiction books with your former husband but please, stay away from the murder investigation. I sense you’re already in danger.”

“I don’t see how.”

“On one level, when you found the body, you put yourself in an area of tremendous sha which manifested to your detriment when you fell and hurt your head and destroyed the Kwan Yin. On another level, maybe you saw something the killer overlooked. If this person doesn’t already know about your discovery of the body, they soon will.

“There are things we can do to protect you, but I’ll get to that in a minute. The house itself is your primary concern. Learn everything you can, including the day it was ready for occupancy. That will be the birth date.”

“Hold on a sec.”

Salome moved over to the drafting table and checked the blueprints. At the bottom right hand corner of the top sheet she found her grandfather’s name and a date.

“Now I don’t know if the date I found coincides with final construction or not but the date on the blueprints is September nine, nineteen-nineteen. That’s a lot of nines.”

Madame Wu sucked in a breath. “Very auspicious.”

There was a pause then she continued. “Find out all you can about who has lived there, particularly the first occupants. The impressions they left on the house will be the foundation of all that has subsequently occurred there. Also look for anything that has happened in the immediate vicinity. Because of what you said about sensing malignant energy, could be some terrible event occurred, if not on the property, then near it at some time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.