Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 03 - The School for Psychics Read Online Free PDF Page B

Le Seigneur would not send you unless we honestly believed you were more than equal to the task.”
    Phoebe tried to smile, but failed. This was the big time. It was scary. They were counting on her for a gift that many people thought was at best imaginary, or at worst delusional. People had been locked up in mental institutions for less.
    “If you know your Bible, ” Caterina said, “you know that our Lord sent his disciples out to work in pairs. There is a very strong reason for this policy of using teams of two or more rather than individuals.
    “ I understand Le Seigneur sent Christophe with you last time. You liked him, did you not?” Caterina said, wiggling her eyebrows meaningfully.
    Who w ouldn’t? Six feet two of glorious lean muscle, the face of a serious and determined angel, and thick straight silky white blond hair to his waist. Christophe made Fabio look like an insecure teenager.
    “Is he coming this time, too?” Phoebe asked, hoping he was.
    “I am afraid not. He i s off in one of the stans right now, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, or maybe Kyrgyzstan. I can never keep them straight. This time you get to work with another of our best-loved members. You will meet him tomorrow. Arabella is making the arrangements.”
    “Who is it?” asked Phoebe.
    “ Jean-Jacques de Blackmere, a Professor of French Literature He is quite handsome and very charming.”
    * * *
    Arabella, as usual, was a model of efficiency and no-nonsense British decorum. “Professor de Blackmere resides in Hawaii,” she said. “I have you travelling commercial this time. Here are your membership cards for the various airport clubs so you will have access to their private facilities. I upgraded your cabin to first class whenever that was possible.”
    Phoebe looked at her typed itinerary and flipped through the tickets. She was leaving Knoxville, Tennessee, at 5:30 in the morning and flying to Dallas, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Maui’s Kahului Airport, taking a boat to the island of Lanai, then returning to the continental U.S. through Newark, which mercifully eliminated two stops, and continuing on to a final destination of Paris.
    Okay! This was the way things went in her new super-amazing life. She took a deep breath, conveyed her thanks, and tried to smile at Arabella. She was not entirely successful.
    * * *
    The whole situation had Phoebe so discombobulated that it didn’t occur to her until she got to Los Angeles to wonder what particular talents her new teammate would be bringing to the mix. She assumed from his name and his job that he spoke French fluently. Maybe that was all there was to it. He would be her translator. Phoebe’s French was limited to maybe fifty words max, almost all of which concerned items of food or locating the nearest restroom.
    D espite her newness at The School for Mysteries , she had enough experience with the Boss & Company to suspect there would be more to the Professor’s skill set than speaking French. But judging purely by her own previous six months of training she figured she’d never in a million years be able to predict what his particular talents would be.
    She tried to imagine what he would look like—a French professor who lived in Hawaii. She pictured a short, delicate, prissy man with a n aristocratic blade of a nose, a haughty demeanor, a French accent, and a great tan. In her mind’s eye the man was holding a ruler that he used to rap the knuckles of his students if they made the tiniest mistake. She pictured Poirot in an Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts.

Chapter 6.
    The boat bounced across the waves as it tore through the Pacific Ocean, heading for a little island that was a nothing more than a blue-gray smudge on the horizon west of Maui and south of Molokai. The salt spray that misted Phoebe’s face after every bone-jarring jolt was a welcome relief from the hot, bright sun that glinted off the water in a million merciless and blinding silver flashes.
    The engine noise made it hard